Andrew McLaughlin, senior policy counsel at Google, has made a surprisingly frank posting on the Official Google Blog. It’s well reasoned and appropriately critical of China. I am impressed by how open Google is willing to make their decision making process. I think they made the correct decision given the alternatives.
I’m assuming that the New York Times will fix this problem quickly, but it was amusing to read the following paragraph in the middle of an article on stifling discussion on climate change:
Normally, Ms. McCarthy would not be free to describe such conversations to the news media, but she agreed to an interview after Mr. Acosta, at NASA headquarters, told The Times that she would not face any retribution for doing soI said I’d indicate this to help inoculate her against later tsuris. – andy.
The article was written by Andrew Revkin; the last sentence is almost certainly supposed to be a non-printing editorial note from the author to the editor. The error is especially interesting to me as part of my job at Sports Illustrated and Time Inc. is to make sure that technical problems are never the cause of such a mistake. Good use of the word “tsuris,” though.
[Update: A new version has been posted without the editorial note less than 30 minutes after I sent the New York Times a note regarding this error.]
“Lease Dispute With Landlord Closes Second Avenue Deli”: The Second Avenue Deli, a neighborhood institution in the East Village since 1954, has shut down and may have to close permanently. This is really frustrating. I really enjoy the Second Avenue Deli and was planning to go there on Saturday afternoon (my birthday) for lunch. Stupid increasing New York City rents. They had the best corned beef and pastrami in town, not to mention tongue sandwiches. (Tongue, the meat that tastes you back.*)
*Thank you for the joke, James.
I sent the following letter to the editor of the New York Times this evening. I thought both columns and the referenced essay were very interesting and thought-provoking. You have to be registered to read the New York Times; in addition, you have to be a member of Times Select to read David Brooks’ columns. If you are a subscriber, you are a member of Times Select. Even if you don’t read Brooks’ column, I recommend reading both Terry Martin Hekker’s column and Linda Hirshman’s essay.
“The Year of Domesticity” versus “Paradise Lost (Domestic Division)”
To the Editor:
I found David Brooks’ column, “The Year of Domesticity” (Jan. 1), very interesting, especially as I had just finished reading “Paradise Lost (Domestic Division)” by Terry Martin Hekker (Modern Love column, Sunday Styles section, Jan. 1). While Mr. Brooks dismisses an essay by Linda Hirshman that exhorts women not to comprise their careers as “1975 time-warp feminism,” Ms. Hekker writes of the difficulty of being divorced and single after a life of raising children and being a housewife without a career. In addition, Ms. Hekker discussed how the column she wrote for the New York Times in 1977 regarding her fulfilling life as a housewife now makes her “cringe.” If anyone should be accused of having a view from the 1970s, it’s Mr. Brooks. Ms. Hekker needed 25 years and a divorce to realize that women need to have skills and experience beyond keeping a household and raising a family; how long will it take Mr. Brooks?
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I read in a column by Peter Thomas Fornatale in the City section in today’s New York Times that the Blink Tiger Ale House has closed. This makes me sad. I had been to this bar several times. While I often thought it was a bit too crowded late at night, I always enjoyed the beers there and have many fond memories of the place. I hope it reopens elsewhere in the city.