Just took a look at the mildly-hyped new site saclights.com.

There was nothing to see there and I moved on.

For starters, it appears to be attempting to pander to the much-solicited 18-to-25 demographic. I’m way past that age, but even in my 20s there’s no way that I would have found anything even remotely valid on this site. For example, I would still walk to the corner and pick up a copy of the Sacramento News&Review and look at the music listing grid if I wanted to see what was happening where this weekend.

Anyone who actually does meet the targeted age demographic should feel insulted when they see this garish, hastily assembled cyber-slop and realize that THIS is considered content that would attract them to get involved in visiting and contributing to saclights.com. I have a little more faith in the younger generation than to assume that this is where the future of American culture is headed. But then again, when I see that the number one most visited item on Newsweek.com is entitled “What’s Wrong With Britney?” that faith is severely tested.

And I can’t forget, of course, that there is a groundswell of youth support for Senator Obama’s presidential run at the moment, “because, like, Obama wants change and generates hope, and like, all the other candidates look old and probably have old people’s smell and stuff. Like, my parents voted for Hillary’s husband- how uncool would that be to vote for HER? Except maybe that John Edwards guy but he’s, like a bummer and uses big words and stuff, and even though black people like, scare us when we see them on the street it’s still cool to be voting for somebody like Barack.”

But I digress. Things could be worse. If Ron Paul was in his late 30s or early 40s it would be a whole new ballgame, and THAT would be kinda fucked.

Anyway. Supposedly, the Sacramento Bee is putting a tremendous amount of support and funding into this online dog saclights.com in order to cut into the weekly News&Review’s audience, but I can’t see how or why that’s going to happen at this point. Of course, the Internet is infested with enough self- made self-promoters, and also plenty of shallow attention whores with insecurity issues, to populate saclight.com’s photo and blog sections. But the question still lingers: What the fuck is the Bee/McClatchy trying to prove with this?