KILGOROUND

HERE'S A LITTLE bit of marriage weirdness:

MORE folks divorce in January than in any other month. The thinking is that mom and dad don't want to mess up Junior's Christmas so they wait until the holidays are over and the kid's back in school.

IN England, in fact, Jan. 12 is known as "divorce day" because more people file for divorce on that date than any other. In the U.S., it seems to be the day immediately following Martin Luther King Day; kids are back into the rhythm of classes and their friends are around to help prop them up.

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BE STILL, my heart. The sidewalkification project downtown is actually underway.

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YOUR Kilgore News Herald is about to get narrow.

BEGINNING next week, this newspaper's pages

will be the same width as those of Tyler, Longview, Marshall, Dallas, Gladewater…

THE reason, as you'd expect, is one of economics. In 2008, the price of paper went up by about 40 percent — $240 per ton over the course of the year. We buy paper by the truck load.

EACH roll of newsprint is 40 inches in diameter. Until next week, it was 25 inches wide. The paper on which we print next week will be 23 inches wide.

SO we should consume 8 percent fewer tons this year than last, which means our cost will only be up 32 percent… assuming the paper mills don't raise their prices again.

+++ THE WEEK'S unemployment number got a lot of attention this week because, at 7.2 percent, it's bigger than it has been in a long time.

BUT it's a bogus number.

TO start with, it involves only a survey of 60,000 U.S. households. The government asks how many adults in each of those few households are working. Then it asks how many are not working but have looked for a job in the last four weeks.

IT does not count how many are not working but have decided (a) they like sitting at home or (b) it's not worth the trouble to look.

SO it doesn't really count how many are unemployed. It only counts those who are unemployed but would rather be employed.

+++ Happy birthday today (Sunday) to Helen Anderson, Kim Brager, Cathy Copeland, Sharon Denise Sibley, Todd Watson, Patience Jeanene Brooks, Anna N. Brown, Edna Frazier, Lindsay Owens, Kim Barnes, Layna Rose Martin, Jon Berryhill, Joshua Drinning.

Blowing out the birthday candles on Monday are David Stanley, Roger Patterson, Margaret Griffin, John Burton, J. Robert Floyd, Billie Alexander, Robin Dorney, Tammy Pickens, Rebekah Chico, Michael James Moore, Gore Kemp, Pauline Quinn, Lee Ware, Mrs. Diana Myers, Gwynda Gee, Michael W. Williams, Patricia Wheat, Kurton Rossum, Dakota Jackson, Button Sands.

Happy anniversary on Monday to Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Rucker