Two Three stories in today’s Times grated on me like fingernails on a whiteboard (updated allusion).
The first chronicles a so-what tale of a two-bit criminal who stole a mean and then whines about spending a day washing dishes. Why the hell should be care? She broke the law. She served a sentence. She barely gives a damn. Go read the story and tell me what is in the least bit newsworthy about this?
The second is Anita Gates’ review of an American Girl movie that tries to make support for World War II look like a politically incorrect subversive attempt to support the Iraq War, one that requires parental instruction:
Then there’s the war. Granted, this is World War II, the one that even protesters in the Vietnam era could see as “the good war,” totally justified and noble. But it may seem to some viewers that Molly’s lessons in the necessity of the ultimate sacrifice are meant to persuade young viewers to see the current war in Iraq as equally noble.
Parents can talk to their children about that issue and then safely allow them to enjoy “Molly” for what it mostly is, a heartwarming, dreamlike vision of American small-town life six decades ago, with universal lessons around every corner.
Well, thank you very much for the permission.
And then I just saw Clyde Haberman’s column (behind the barbed wire) trying to tie Christmas shopping, 9/11, and Iraq together in a construction even more contorted than the White House’s.
No day is better for this display of patriotism than Black Friday, so named because retailers pray for ledgers written in ink of that color. Many signs suggest that New Yorkers are ready to do their part.
Few of them may have turned out on Nov. 11 to watch the Veterans Day parade in the city. The crowds lining the parade route on Fifth Avenue were sparser than Knicks victories.
But New Yorkers more than held their own a few days later by gathering in vast herds outside stores selling the Sony PlayStation 3.
This may be one time when you should be glad you can’t get behind the TimesSelect wall.
Were the editors all off having turkey yesterday? Apparently so. And the paper got the stuffing.
