The L.A. Times newsroom has taken on a ship-of-the-damned air lately, my old colleagues are telling me.

With corporate vandal Sam Zell threatening to lay off even more reporters and sell Times Mirror Square in a bid to save tiny cash in all the wrong places, the smart money says to jump before you’re pushed.

Luckily, the InkStained Retch ^[1] makes it all easy to say goodbye by offering the Hackinator ^[2] – a handy wizard for Times employees who want to write Zell the perfect f@ck-you resignation letter …

Sure, it’s kind of inside baseball, but funny as hell. Or … it would be funny if it weren’t so true.

Memo to Sam – here’s a modest proposal: Have you considered that you’d probably save more money faster and preserve the Times’ core value – its news and cultural coverage – if you just killed the print product and spend the resulting millions in savings on beefing up, marketing and inviting more public participation in LATimes.com ^[3]? Go online? Go big? Grab and own L.A.’s online news space before someone else tries it first?

Naw, that would probably require far more courage and intelligence than simply firing the people whose work brings the Times its only real marketplace value.

As you were, sir, as you were.

Related posts:

1. LA Times marches on ^[4]
2. Would you pay $13 a month for LA Times online subscription? ^[5]
3. The L.A. Times lets you try your hand at balancing the budget ^[6]
4. LA Times Gets a New Blog-esque Look ^[7]
5. Will Sam Zell be increasing the cost of newspaper home delivery? ^[8]