Educated white woman fight! Watch your loafers.
Today, Salon scribe Megan Hustad's new piece, "You Are Not Your Bookcase," argues that "fave lists" — a person's "Heroes" on MySpace or "Favorite Books" on Facebook, for instance — are silly, juvenile forays into bullshit people need to abandon. To make her point, Hustad calls on the succincter, better Virginia Postrel, who says particular segments of society's eagerness to compartmentalize themselves "has turned us into self-handicapping snobs: Since we've taken so much care to craft our own perfect list, we feel more entitled to shrug off anyone whose list doesn't similarly impress." It's right on, but it's also a slap in the face of a New York Times piece smug masturbators from Brooklyn to Manhattan slavered over a month ago.
Remember Rachel Donadio's "It’s Not You, It’s Your Books"? If no, it was this sad, widely read essay about arrogant jerks who break up with people not because they are stupid, but because their books are, and it encapsulated in less than 5,000 words what's wrong with this city (this industry, this country, our friends, etc). Among others, the article contained this irksome wonder:
CONTINUED »
Barack Obama is an exciting candidate. Americans love the idea of a black president who believes in the power of the possibility of the audacity of hope.
But remember the last time there was a popular black reformer or an incredibly well-liked senator running for President? That didn’t end so well for Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
The New York Times asks the tough questions, namely is Barack Obama afraid of assassination?
I made a decision to get into this race. I think anybody who decides to run for president recognizes that there are some risks involved, just like there are risks in anything.
And in this way, running for president is a lot like bungee jumping.
• The children of Nicaragua celebrate the victory of the children Boston missed out on.
• Just another reminder of our media bubble: The number one emailed article on the New York Times is still about golf.
• Both being black females, Vivica A. Fox and Raven Symone are easily confused.
• Apparently there is such a thing as too much Facebook.
• More lesbian hands, this time with less jokes about why lesbian hands are wrinkly.
• The class acts at CJR are also tired of Forbes lists.
We spent all day yesterday waiting for The New Republic’s article on the Times’s article on John McCain.
And today we spent all day waiting for the New York Times to defend itself on the article.
If it weren’t for John McCain and the New York Times, we would just be thinking of the meaningless of life. If God exists, surely he’s behind this entertaining mini-scandal.
The Times answers are exactly what you’d expect. In short, they’re happy with the piece.
• Bill Keller goes first. The basic question was “What the fuck were you thinking publishing the story?” Keller’s response: Hey, it’s a legitimate story! It’s part of our Long Series! Jack Shafer agreed! Case closed. CONTINUED »
Sick of all the analysis of the New York Times article on John McCain yesterday? Sick of the analysis of that analysis? Hey, maybe we're projecting.
Either way, the New York Times will answer your questions directly today:
A recent New York Times article examined a number of decisions by Senator John McCain that raised questions about his judgment over potential conflicts of interest. The article included reporting on Mr. McCain’s relationship with a female lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee led by Mr. McCain. Since publication of the article, The Times has received over 2,000 comments, many of them criticizing the handling of the article. Editors and reporters who worked on the article will be answering questions on Friday. Please send yours to askthetimes@nytimes.com.
And if you want to look at our belly button, we'll be analyzing their answers later on.
• The winner of Mollygood's Someone Haiku:
Pride in being a
Family, not just for cats-
For pinnapeds (sic) too.
• Duke Lacrosse players get their litigious revenge. Maybe Duke can hold a wrongly accused charity ball.
• The gays behind, or in front, depending on their mood, of Obama talk to Queerty.
• Bubble watch: We wrote about the John McCain story four times today. Currently, the most emailed New York Times story is "More Americans Are Giving Up Golf." Really makes you think.
• Bonnie Fuller realizes her kids aren't like famous people's kids. Looks like stars aren't just like us. That one also really makes you think.
• The adoption of Pax is finalized. After all that thinking, now you can finally rest easy.
Writing for Slate is easy. As we've said before, just follow these three simple steps:
1. Take conventional wisdom.
2. Prove why it’s wrong.
3. Add a dash of pop culture references for good measure.
And as excepted, Slate media critic Jack Shafer doesn't object to the Times story on John McCain:
That the imperfect Times article doesn't expose a raging blaze isn't sufficient cause for condemning it. The evidence the paper provides more than adequately establishes that McCain remains a better preacher about ethics, standards, appearances, and special interest conflicts than he is a practitioner, something voters should consider before punching the ballot for him.
The only thing missing is a pop-culture reference. But to be far to Shafer, he only had a day to write it.
It's a sign of our times that a 3,000 word article in the New York Times merits a 2,200 word post in the New Republic. But so it is.
The long of the short of it is that the Times had been chasing the story for months. Along with Marc Santora, who left the McCain beat due to the story, Marilyn Thompson, who is bylined on piece, left the Times altogether because of it.
As Drudge posts tend to do, news that the Times was working on this piece in December added more pressure to the story. Yet Bill Keller and other Times staffers insist they decided to run the story last night only because it was ready, and had no political motives. Considering this story will have no effect on the Republican nomination and just makes the Times look likes it stereotype–check out any of the 1764 comments on the piece–it's a legitimate defense.
And really, who cares why the Times ran the piece now? As Bill Keller wrote in an email to Gabe Sherman, the author of the piece, current Portfolio scribe and ex-Observer writer:
This sounds like a pointless exercise to me–speculating about reporting that may or may not result in an article. But if that's what Special Correspondents of The New Republic do, speculate away. When we have something to say, we'll say it in the paper.
Maybe the Times was wrong to run the piece. But here, Keller has a point.
Clark Hoyt found his story for next week.
Today, the New York Times ran a lengthy article on John McCain that has already inspired late night talk show debate and merits a column from the public editor.
Part of its “Long Run” series, the Times questions McCain’s history of pretending to be above the Washington lobbying scene.
The piece has a lot of legitimate reporting on McCain’s hypocritical relationship with corporations. But this reporting will probably get lost in the rumors that McCain had an inappropriate relationship with a lady lobbyist.
But this obfuscation is the Times’s own fault. They lead with the smut: CONTINUED »
• Matthew McConaughey doesn't wear deodorant, but can sell cologne for D&G.
• "Hillary Clinton Thinks Shakespeare was Francis Bacon," and other reasons to vote for Obama.
• Tyra Banks hugs fierce. Like you're surprised.
• This worst weekend in New York proves that the Times are snobs, but you love them for it.
• What passes for gossip in other countries: Real Madrid soccer star might be gay.
• Lindsay Lohan, real or fake debate continues in earnest.
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SPEAKING OF BITCHES … Did anyone read the State the Unions column in Sunday Styles and think that the marriage was doomed and their kids were in trouble? And as long as we're on the topic of Vows, the New York Times seems desperate for couples for their video feature. The couple this week met on Craigslist.
While we were working off our hangover, intern Anastasia was reading the Sunday Times. That girl is ambitious. And she noticed a small coincidence: Namely, that Alex Williams seems to have plagiarized himself.
His article about environmentalism in the suburbs, “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You” was eerily similar to a piece he wrote two years ago, “Greening Up With the Joneses.”
They both start with anecdotal leads about regular folks from the suburbs of Washington, D.C. They both detail how suburban life is not so environmentally friendly (have you heard of these “S.U.V.s”?). Then they tell you how those regular old suburbanites are greening it up status symbols like hybrid cars and retro techniques like clotheslines. CONTINUED »
FACEBOOK NEWS, SORT OF Did you know that it's nearly impossible to completely cancel your Facebook account? You should, since this information has been around since at least September. But the Times "breaks" that actually getting all your Facebook records deleted is next to impossible. Facebook is like heroin: Once it's in your system, it's there forever. And like heroin, why would anyone ever want to give up Facebook? It's the best thing that ever happened to the internet. Yes, better than democratization of information. [NYT]
• Chris Rock is probably the only man in America who can get away with crying about his family's history on national TV.
• Kanye West played the Museum of Natural History. Don't we feel like assholes for watching Jericho instead of going out. CONTINUED »
TEASES After a lot of flirting, the Wall Street Journal won’t make its online content free. Apparently advertising yachting clothes to college kids isn't a model that works for Rupert Murdoch. And so the Wall Street Journal continues to be the New York Times for richer people. [NYT]
Note to self: when writing a headline about storing books in ceiling rafters, name drop a relatively obscure J.D. Salinger short story collection.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his GF Carla Bruni were the subject of a fawning profile in the Sunday Styles this weekend. But it turns out, the two might also be worthy of a vows video feature. French papers are reporting that the two may have married at Elysee palace last week.
Some may say the fact that the French paparazzi care about the possible marriage of their president while our paparazzi care about the very real mental deterioration of a former teen idol makes them better than us. But we think we're just more honest.
The story of Public Editors at The New York Times has been a little like Goldie Locks and the Three Bears. The first one, Daniel Okrent, had too much fun with the column. His succeesor, Byron Calame had too little. The current Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, is just right.
This week he writes about the “scandal” du jour: The New York Times giving Bill Kristol a one-year contract to be an op-ed columnist. In the two weeks in between the Times announcement and Kristol’s actual first column, blogger mayhem ensued, with everyone being outraged for no real reason. CONTINUED »
Hey, remember being 8 and loving The Little Mermaid? We do!
But apparently, not all beloved cartoons do as well when actors take over for the animators, according to Ben Brantley:
The motto of this production, the latest and least of the Disney musicals to besiege Broadway since “Beauty and the Beast” opened in 1994, could be, “You can never go broke underestimating the taste of preschoolers.” In 1989 the film of “The Little Mermaid,” which signaled a renaissance in Disney animation and featured songs by the composer Alan Menken and the lyricist Howard Ashman that were regularly described as “Broadway-caliber,” was heralded as that rare fairy-tale cartoon that could be enjoyed just as much by grown-ups as by children. (Hey, I saw it three times.)
But in a perverse process of devolution “The Little Mermaid” arrives on Broadway stripped of the movie’s generation-crossing appeal. Coherence of plot, endearing quirks of character, even the melodious wit of the original score (supplemented by new, substandard songs by Mr. Menken and the lyricist Glenn Slater) have been swallowed by an unfocused spectacle, more parade than narrative, that achieves the dubious miracle of translating an animated cartoon into something that feels like less than two dimensions.
Looks like Disney could have saved everyone a lot of time off with a re-release of a limited edition DVD.
From the Metro Section of today New York Times:
Two men were arrested on Tuesday after pushing a corpse, seated in an office chair, along the sidewalk to a check-cashing store to cash the dead man’s Social Security check, the police said.
When Virgilio Cintron, 66, died at his apartment at 436 West 52nd Street recently, his roommate and a friend saw an opportunity to cash his $355 check, the police said.They did not go about it the easy way, the police said, choosing a ruse that resembled the plot of “Weekend at Bernie’s,” a film about two young men who prop up their dead employer to pretend that he is alive.
Okay, we'll give you this one. Well done.
Editorial Director
