9 January—Mature Monitor readers may remember Bob Miller’s byline from the good old days when he was an on-the-spot reporter for real newspapers. He’s retired from the quotidian hurly-burly now but keeps his heart and hand in journalism by writing an informative and delightful column called Earth Matters about what used to be called nature—generally flora and fauna—and now tends to be called the environment.

Earth Matters is one of the few things—news, features, you name ’em—worth reading in the Hearst RepublicanAmerican and some other Hearst Connecticut rags. Evidently whoever puts together the HRA also thinks highly of Bob Miller’s column. Because the one on “How poison ivy keeps Connecticut’s birds alive” that ran in the 29 December (2025) number ran again in yesterday’s, cedar waxwing picture and all. Of course, it was well worth reading again. And it’ll be well worth reading a third time.

While saying nice things about Hearst Connecticut Media, it also appears that the Hearst bean counters have a rollicking sense of humor. Try not to laugh when you read the subscription offers highlighted in pink in the panel below. The 28-percent increase to $32-a-week was in fact a Christmas present, superseding the $25-a-week bargain that had obtained most of last year.

Hearst Connecticut’s other dailies carry the same joke, obviously necessitated by Trump’s tariffs. Even with the new $32 weekly rate, the cover price of the daily Hearst RepublicanAmerican remains $1.50 and the Hearst Sunday Republican’s cover price is still $2.50, which works out to $11.50 a week and $598 a year. $32 a week works out to $1,664 a year and averages just over $4.50 a day, which some nasty people would say is too much for a week.

Of course, even though there are people who for whatever reasons actually pay cover prices for newspapers and magazines, it’s safe to say that cover prices of all paper publications—as well, these days, as per-hit prices for online publications—tend to be meaningless. Some publications, in fact, don’t even have cover prices.

And since circulation-based advertising is their primary revenue source, what paper and digital periodicals—ego trips excepted—don’t have some sort of bargain promotion going on at all times to boost (or even maintain) circulation?

Still, you can’t help laughing heartily at $32 a week for the Hearst RepublicanAmerican . . .