Not long after I told the Northern Kentucky Tribune that I could no longer write for the site, the publisher deleted all of the 32 stories that I wrote between Jan. 5 and March 4, 2026. I had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I was relieved that the blog had erased my affiliation with it. On the other, I worried about the ethical implications of deleting news stories in a community that lacks reliable news sources.

Because the internet makes everything evergreen, there’s really no such thing as complete erasure. The site’s curious editing and content management will survive as long as Google and the Internet Archive, I suppose.

The embarrassment is something I can embrace, though, like my look back on the stint I had in graduate school as a columnist for the Atlantic City Press. Casino lounge acts comprised my beat and my stories were published in the “Loungin’ Around” column. Yes readers, I was a paid lounge lizard.