Honestly, would it be so bad to see small town newspapers disappear? Every week I only skim certain sections of ours—such as the movies that are playing or the events that are happening at the library—and avoid the rest like the plague. Why, you might ask? Mostly because much of it is mindless drivel—and because I always get pissed off.

Small town papers often feature a lot of small-mindedness. From churchy news and views to “Let’s blame the liberals!” to feuds over fences, neighborhood dogs, and other things I could care less about, it’s always something that’s useful for our paper mache projects, and that’s pretty much it.

Look, I don’t really mind the human interest stories so much; it’s cool to see kids giving hair to Locks of Love, people raising money for cancer victims, and definitely to see kids coming home safe from Iraq and Afghanistan. (What’s hard to see is the ones who don’t.)

But the exact same opinions and complaints are routinely run over and over again—not to mention the misleading ads about abortion and other issues that are routinely in my hometown paper—and make it pretty hard to stomach. Why read this, then, when I can read what I want online? I can get my news, read about new opinions and issues from both sides of the fence, and not worry about some stupid comment about how some person’s cherry tree is dropping fruit into another’s yard.

Small towns could do well to start publishing their stories on the Internet as well—especially if they want to garner the interest of the younger crowd. More and more people are online now (though I know plenty of over-50 folks who still haven’t even touched a computer), and making this news accessible—not to mention scan-able enough to where you wouldn’t have to dodge the pages that make your eyes bleed—would serve everyone well—not to mention, of course, save paper. And imagine the press the papers would get once they could connect with social networks (which is becoming a joke, of course; I can’t get my toilet fixed without my plumber saying, “Find us on Facebook!”).

I know everyone loves to read things they can hold; so do I. I have yet to read a book on a Kindle (though I have read a few online via my computer) and prefer it to remain so. But some things—particularly things that make up a majority of landfill mass—might be better off dead—or, at least, alive only in the virtual world.