The Union-Tribune printed only a cursory story about the fact that hourly-rental Flexcar has disappeared from Southern California when ZipCar, spouting glowing predictions of future plans and green promises, removed all cars except for a few on college campuses. ZipCar described this as “transitioning” the Flexcar fleet into the ZipCar inventory. How about a follow-up on the impact for businesses and government agencies that had depended on Flexcar to supplement or replace their car-pools? How about the impact on people who moved downtown and even sold their cars on the promise that a fleet of environment-friendly vehicles would be available?

But we have acquired a new euphemism that should start showing up in news stories. How about: “The convicted serial killer’s final appeal was rejected and he was transitioned by lethal injection at midnight” Or maybe, “The grizzly bear continued to menace tourists at the mountain resort so park officers had no choice but to transition him.”