First day with the NYTs as my sole source of news. I don’t feel any ill effects so far. Started off the morning reconfiguring the web browser. I deleted all my bookmarks – replaced by only three: my web e-mail account (no news updates enabled), Vivisimo search engine for when I need to find non-news items on-line (like the calorie counter I used for breakfast), and Wikipedia for work-related searches. Put Vivisimo up as my homepage, replacing the Booman Tribune. The Internet now looks very Spartan from my view. But, I do miss the frog.
My morning routine, which used to include a minimum of one hour’s worth of browsing for the latest news, felt roomy. Had time to kill. Walked dogs. Didn’t think about all the news I was missing. Read the NYTs in the mid-morning – because my morning work was done.
Most of the stories were stuff that has already been covered on dKos and BMT. I am going through the little time warp where the NYTs is lagging. Much longer than the seven-second delay on some radio broadcasts. The news was all from Sunday. Some of it dating to Wednesday. Felt very stale.
But, the breadth of coverage didn’t seem to suffer. There were articles all over the spectrum. And, they were long. My attention deficit disorder was no longer assuaged by simply clicking on another link. I physically had to lift my eyes from the very long, very boring explanations that didn’t interest me. Could this lead to weight loss. ???.
The NYTs had Rovegate on page one. Which is certainly not news to any of you who are actually reading the blogs. Long story about Cooper’s recap of his Wednesday testimony. It is apparently fit to print, if a little on the stale side. Also, front page – Iraqis stunned by really, really big bombing. Seventy-one dead and 156 wounded when a bomber lit himself (or herself) under the super tanker. Apparently the Iraqis are not overly concerned about bombings where the body count is in the single digits, or so the NYTs seems to imply.
Krugman examines the faultiness of the current unemployment figures (old news – I read it at the blogs days ago). Herbert looks critically at Mehlman’s remarks to the NAACP. Again, good and old. But, after the time lag thing kicks in, I should probably be well-informed, right? What have I missed today? (I’m not reading comments until after the experiment – to avoid news contamination – so I am not not responding because I’m an asshole – although that point is also debatable). Off to fill day with non-news/blog related events.
