The New York Times Sunday Review section invites professional editorial cartoonists to draw cartoons for free and submit them to the paper; one will be selected to run each week. The winning cartoonist will be paid $250. Everyone else gets nothing.

The Way We Live Now: Like cheap, cheap bastards. Let's be honest. We can't afford to waste words. If we had to sum up "the new consumer" in three words, those words would be: cheap, cheap bastards.

Kenneth Cole is not just a middling designer and outspoken advocate for responsible journalism; he's also, for reasons we can't fathom (narcissism), his own advertising copywriter. A bad advertising copywriter. It's not every CEO of a massive fashion brand that's too cheap to hire someone to write his own billboard taglines. But in Kenneth Cole's case, coming up with them only robs him of mere seconds of thought. That's how his poor clothing line ends up with billboards like this one on Houston St.—presumably the balls are there to distract you from the slogan itself:

How did borderline crazy restaurant mogul Jeffrey Chodorow accumulate so much cash? And why are the lights kept so low at Kobe Club? Both questions can be answered in one fell swoop: he's cheap! The Choad was brunching at Sarabeth's recently, where he was overheard discussing Kobe Club, his much-maligned midtown steakhouse whose ceiling is covered in dangling swords. He was with some sort of interior design woman—and from what could be overheard, apparently Kobe Club is not at all holding up well. Among the complaints, the banquettes are threadbare and there's an "area of concern" near the raw bar. In what manner should all this be fixed? Said Chodorow: "Just do it as cheaply as possible. I don't care, just make it happen cheap."

"Very shortly after Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post (the real New York Post), I was offered a job by the NY Daily News. My sports editor at the Post, Jerry Lisker, told Murdoch that he wanted to keep me. One quiet night at home the phone rang and it was Murdoch, letting me know that he had great plans for the Post and wanted to keep me on board. I mentioned that the News was offering me more money, and Murdoch kept saying he wanted to keep me on board. There was no hint of a few more dollars coming my way. I wonder if the WSJ staffers who picked up the phone heard the same line and did any better wallet-wise..." [Romenesko]