Sunday Times, July 8, 2018
An occasional rundown of selected items in the Sunday NYT. Completely objective and sweepingly authoritative.
Today at 4:30am, our dog Groucho, who almost never barks, barked, waking me up, and ran downstairs. I popped open the upstairs bathroom window to look down at our front steps, and spied the culprit: that blue brick known as the Sunday New York Times.
So, having demolished a good portion of the paper this morning — I’m going to roll this rock up the hill again. Hope it’s useful.
Also — I’m going to add an element to the 1-to-5 scale: writing and editing.
Sports Sunday
Clock Strikes Midnight On Russia’s Bid (page 1)
This is a beautifully-written piece by Rory Smith on the end of Russia’s improbably/inevitably deep run into its own World Cup.
1-to-5:
- This-Is-My-Life: 3
- Inspirational: 4
- Global Awareness: 5
- Useful: 0
- Writing/Editing: 5
Smith manages to bestow credit and compassion on the Russia-the-team and its fans while arching an eyebrow at Russia-the-state’s approach to sports — including a mention of Grigory Rodchenkov, the architect of (and whistleblower on) Russia’s doping program, who’s now hiding out in the FBI witness protection program.
Sunday Review
Trump Should Just Give People Money (page 1)
An opinion piece laying out the administration’s stentorian approach to poverty and [eventually] positioning basic income as the best possible approach. In my opinion, the author should just give readers what the headline promises. The piece is in dire need of what writers and editors at Wired used to call a “Bob edit,” after Bob Cohn, who had a habit of finding or distilling the actual point of a story, often buried deep beneath a colorful multi-paragraph lede, and nailing it firmly to a position just under the first or second graf.
- This-Is-My-Life: 2
- Inspirational: 2
- Global Awareness: 2
- Useful: 3
- Writing/Editing: 1
Annie Lowrey spends four paragraphs on the Trump administration’s hard-hearted blueprint for ratcheting up requirements and red tape on people living at the poverty line before making her first, glancing reference to basic income. Eight more paragraphs of policy criticism ensue before a flicker of hope appears — but no, it’s just a primer on the earned income tax credit.
Finally, in the 18th paragraph, we are blessed with entrance to the promised land:
The most radical and potentially transformative idea would be to grant all Americans a monthly cash payment, a policy commonly known as a universal basic income. In the past few years — with the middle class being squeezed, trust in government eroding, technological change hastening, and the economy getting Uberized — the idea has vaulted to a surprising prominence, even moving from airy hypothetical to near-reality in some places. Mark Zuckerberg, Hillary Clinton, the Black Lives Matter movement, Bill Gates and Elon Musk are just a few of the policy proposal’s flirts, converts and supporters.
At least the piece has a proper kicker:
Perhaps the biggest and most important change would be to stop judging the poor for their poverty, and to seek to repair the pernicious trauma of having too little money by just giving people money — nothing more and nothing less.
Why Siblings Fight (page 6)
Advice and even consolation from KJ Dell’Antonia for parents concerned about their children’s incessant squabbling.
- This-Is-My-Life: 4
- Inspirational: 4
- Global Awareness: 1
- Useful: 5
- Writing/Editing: 4
If you have more than one kid, and you’re occasionally or frequently mortified by their sibling battles, read this. I give this one extra points for an anecdote, cited from my colleague Po Bronson’s book with Ashley Merriman, Nurture Shock, in which a well-intentioned initiative to help siblings coexist peacefully instead provided the kids with novel ways to torment each other.
