The Sunday Paper: Chapter 50
So, check it out! I’ve done 50 of these things. Which just goes to show that if you stick with something long enough, you’ll eventually end up with 50 of them!
Well, okay then. Let’s get to it!
A-Section
This is kind of like Forrest Gump Does Mexico.
Starbucks union was more than coffee talk for barista.
Who knew Roots had its roots in Reader’s Digest?
100 years ago, a vote to evict Mississippi’s Black residents from the country. Um, WT-living-F?
Here’s the first paragraph:
One hundred years ago, the Mississippi state Senate voted to evict the state’s Black residents — the majority of its total population — not just out of Mississippi, but out of the country.
And here’s the second paragraph:
The Senate voted 25 to 9 on Feb. 20, 1922, to ask the federal government to trade some of the World War I debts owed by European countries for a piece of colonial Africa — any part would do — where the government would then ship Mississippi’s Black residents, creating “a final home for the American negro.”
And it ends with a quote from Muddy Waters, who was feeling fine about not being in Mississippi.
The Outlook section was so depressing, I nearly skipped it, until I saw …
Book World
What’s the right process for changing the world? My final gift link for February, with help from the ever-awesome Jeff “Crazy Eddie” Bezos.
How Thomas Mann escaped to America and waged a moral battle against Hitler. I assume it’s okay for me write the word “Hitler” in this context? Hmm …? 🙂
Metro
Saturday was windy. Try to imagine the following being read by … oh, I don’t know. Alec Guinness? James Earl Jones? Kim Kardashian? Betty White? Liz Lemon? Take your pick. Or come up with your own.
On Saturday the wind in our area seemed even stronger than Friday, as gusts reached more than 50 mph, trees toppled, and the dark waters of the Potomac River were whipped into waves and whitecaps.
Can’t you just picture it?
Under a bright sun, and beneath a blue sky that betrayed no sign of storminess, the winds of the afternoon had their way with us, impeding the progress of pedestrians who tried to plot a course to the northwest.
Pretty amazing, huh?
Data to be wiped from controversial police surveillance plane program following lawsuit. The print headline is an interesting contrast to the online headline, which reads: “In Baltimore, the police and a private company are running surveillance flights like never before.”
Obits
Valerie Boyd, who wrote a well regarded biography of Zora Neale Hurston and editor of an upcoming collection of author Alice Walker’s journals, has died at age 58.
Publisher Simon & Schuster announced that she had died Saturday, while declining to cite a cause. (Boyd had been battling cancer). She was an associate professor and writer in residence at the Grady College of Journalism at the University of Georgia.
Boyd was a former arts editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution whose “Wrapped in Rainbow: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston” was published in 2003 and praised by The New York Times for its “painstaking and thorough” research. It was also named a notable book by the American Library Association.
Martin Tolchin, a veteran political journalist who covered Congress for the New York Times, served as the founding publisher and editor of the Hill and came out of retirement to advise an upstart publication called Politico, died Feb. 17 at his home in Alexandria, Va. He was 93.
The cause was cancer, said his partner, Barbara Rosenfeld.
In a four-decade career at the Times, Mr. Tolchin worked his way up from a job as a copy boy — he made $41.50 a week in the 1950s, based out of a smoke-filled newsroom where many reporters kept liquor bottles at their desks — to become a city hall bureau chief and congressional correspondent, scrutinizing power plays and backroom machinations on Capitol Hill.
(I’d say that constitutes fair use. If Jeff or the Post has a problem with that, they can let me know. We’ll talk. Whatever.)
Sports
Just as I was counting the days to Spring Training.
You gotta give Sydney Crosby credit.
Business
Oh, you want workers? How about offering a four-day work week?
Arts & Style
I still haven’t gotten around to watching The White Lotus. Seems like I really should.
I had no idea Christopher Walken was from Queens, NY. But it explains so much! And it’s awesome, of course.
Travel
There were loads of cool articles, but I had to pick this one!
Why you should pack physical fricking books when you travel.
Magazine
How a treaty signed in Marrakesh made the Library of Congress more accessible.
George Takei: “America, to a large extent, doesn’t know its American history.”
How the hell do you host television in 2022? Seriously, I’d like to know.
Looks like Damon Young is our new Gene Weingarten! Congrats, Damon. No pressure, right? 🙂
(I trust you won’t leave a snarky comment on my blog like your predecessor (assuming it was he who left the comment and not some sad hater asshole pretending to be him) did once upon a time.)
Finally, the Funnies!
Copyright. It’s a thing, ain’t it, Wiley? An interactive comic strip. You’re a genius, Pastis!
Again, sad, but true, Rickard.
Perfect way to spend the holiday, Stantis! 🙂
It’s President’s Day here in the US of A (well, it’s President’s Week now, I guess), so here’s a song I think about every time we have an election. 🙂
PS: Here’s the world’s best relaxation video. With thanks to Paul Downie at Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar!
PPS: And after I finished writing this post, I went out for a ride, and actually drove the vehicle, too. Then, I came home and finished this short story by Toni Morrison called “Recitatif”. With thanks to Sisters in Crime.
The story reminded me of something that happened when I lived in Queens. Perhaps I’ll blog about it someday. Or save it for my memoirs.
PPPS: How large publishers make print books, presented in digital form.
Originally published at http://randomandsundrythings.wordpress.com on February 21, 2022.
