For the past two days, the New York Times has run editorials, one from Maureen Dowd and this morning’s, from David Brooks, that read like fodder from a ladies’ magazine.
By the old-fashioned term “ladies’ magazine”, I mean the kind you see at the grocery check-out, which fill their pages with recipes, weight loss tips, fashion advice, and opinion pieces about the virtues (or challenges) of the suburban/exurban nuclear family.
There was nothing in either NYT editorial that was factually incorrect or quoted imaginary sources, for which I award both columnists a point. Both are well-written by people with reputations for wit and/or clear articulation of a social/political point of view.
Dowd’s column was about the challenges she in particular faces at the holidays, being a left-leaning black sheep in a Republican family.
Brooks’ column was an encomium to red state couples who have moved to places like Douglas County, Colorado, because New England and California are no places to raise a family.
I like David Brooks, but was so upset by his column that I almost passed out in my swivel chair. Not only is it insulting to a majority of parents in the US, it is yet another slap in the face to every American adult who isn’t married or who chooses to have a small family that they can afford.
Maureen Dowd’s comments about the holiday season were spot-on. But it was published in the New York Times. It seems to me that the editorial pages of the New York Times, especially now, have more important things to focus on than the twisted “family values” that we’ve been pummelled with, ad nauseum, for the past several political campaigns.
In other words, if the New York Times wants to talk about family values, let its columnists do so in a manner that is based on facts. For example, prove your point that people who don’t live near an ocean are somehow better parents than those who do by reporting on TV viewership habits, child abuse statistics, quality of public schools, public health measurements, and not just weekly church attendance.
A much brighter spot was economist/writer Paul Krugman’s splendid article from today’s Times that debunks the Bush Administration Big Lie about Social Security insolvency. It was, if not a pleasure to read only because of the subject, everything a column should be: helpful, well-reasoned and convincing.
Thank goodness he came back from sabbatical (he’s writing an economics textbook that no doubt will become a classic) to serve as the voice of reason at a time when reason seems to be (perhaps temporarily) in absentia