BREAKING: Word-for-word from the New York Times!

MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2018

The end of the road for the West:
As you may have heard, it's all anthropology now.

For at least thirty years, our society has been descending into the war of the all against all. It has also been descending into the inviting realm of the utterly foppish, silly, ridiculous, dimwitted, loony and dumb.

No modern org is as silly and foppish as the New York Times. The famous newspaper proved it again, in spades, with its revealingly ludicrous "Here to Help" feature on Thursday, June 14.

"Here to Help" is a daily, hard-copy feature on the Times' "reimagined" page A3. The Times redesigned this utterly silly, jaw-dropping page more than a year ago. The entire page seems designed to let us see one of two things—

How dumb the New York Times thinks we are. Or how dumb the Times itself is.

On June 14, the Here to Help feature tackled a difficult modern problem. How can a subscriber get to sleep if his or her bedroom is too warm, even with the AC on?

You probably think we're misstating that day's "Here to Help" objective. If you have air conditioning, and you know how to turn it on, what are the odds that your bedroom will be so warm that you'll need further help?

Who could actually have that problem? Your question makes perfect sense. But, this being the New York Times, the feature started like this:
Here to Help
4 WAYS TO KEEP YOUR BEDROOM COMFORTABLY COOL THIS SUMMER

When the temperature rises, it doesn't matter if you have air conditioning or get a great breeze through the open windows; it's tough to get cool enough to fall and stay asleep. If you can't (or won't) buy a bunch of stuff to keep your bedroom cool, there are a lot of things you can do without spending money at all. ALAN HENRY
"It doesn't matter if you have air conditioning; it's tough to get cool enough to fall and stay asleep?"

Obviously, that sounds untrue. But that's the way the June 14 Here to Help feature started.

At that point, The Crazy took charge. Alan Henry listed four ways to get cool enough to nod off. This first technique was, by far, the least crazy of the bunch:
Build a homemade "air-conditioner." Fill a bowl with ice and place it in front of a room fan. The breeze over the slowly melting ice will send chilled water vapor into the air in front of the fan. Combined with the fast-moving air, it will give you a nice, chilly breeze.
Now you have your AC on—and you have a fan blowing air over a bowl filled with ice.

Henry wasn't certifiable yet. But as we said, this was page A3! So our second tip went like this:
Put your sheets in the freezer. This one’s low-tech, but it works surprisingly well if you’re willing to make your bed before you settle in for the night. Pop your sheets—or even just your fitted sheet or top sheet—into a resealable plastic bag and into the freezer. When it's bedtime, you'll be rewarded with a cool set of sheets you can put on the bed and enjoy—at least until the sheets warm up from your body heat, of course.
Just pop your sheets in the freezer! Now you have the AC on, and you get to snuggle in between two ice-cold sheets!

Has anyone ever done that? Everything's possible, of course. As if to prove that very point, Henry proceeded to this:
Sleep "Egyptian style." It works by ditching a blanket or comforter for a top sheet alone, and then dousing that top sheet in cold water before bed. Wring out the sheet until it’s just slightly damp, but still cool. Then curl up under it and enjoy the cool sheet against your skin while you fall asleep.
Interesting! For starters, it sounds like, if you're hot, you should ditch your blanket or comforter!

Who else would ever have thought of that? But Henry didn't stop there!

If you've followed this third instruction, you have your AC blasting away and you're on your frozen bottom sheet. Making it even easier to nod off, you've curled up under a top sheet which you've doused in cold water!

(On-line, Henry adds a note of caution: "If waking up to clammy sheets bothers you, this may not be for you.")

For some people, the top-and-bottom wet/frozen sheets, mixed with the air conditioning, still may not be enough. This was Henry's fourth tip:
Fill a water bottle with ice water and take it to bed. Grab a hot water bottle (the silicone kind that you’d normally fill with hot water) and fill it with a combination of cold water and ice. Wrap it in a towel or other absorbent cloth, and keep it near your feet while you sleep. Like the other methods on this list, as the ice melts and the water warms up, it will lose effectiveness, but it will keep you cool enough to fall asleep, and hopefully to fall asleep.
At this point, you have your AC on; you're on a frozen top sheet. You doused your top sheet with cold water—and you have an ice-cold "hot water bottle" cooling off your feet.

We haven't changed a single word from the June 14 hard-copy Times. We've reproduced its text word-for-word, from the top to the bottom.

Our assessment:

A newspaper which publishes matter like this is plainly involved with The Crazy. In some significant, puzzling way, that newspaper has perhaps unknowingly made a pact with pluperfect foppish inanity.

This Hamptons-based newspaper lost its way a very long time ago. It's very hard for liberals to see this, partly due to the newspaper's powerful brand, partly because we ourselves aren't overwhelmingly sharp.

That said, this foppish inanity runs all through this ludicrous upper-class newspaper. Katherine Boo tried to warn us, but we were too dumb to understand, and the Dowdism kept creeping on.

Source material: We've shown you every single word of the June 14 hard-copy feature.

Online, the feature is more detailed. Before the A3 editor cleaned it up, it was a very tiny bit less completely nuts.

For more on Stone-Cold Alan Henry, you can just click here. This is our modern upper-end press corps. Are you surprised Trump's in charge?

18 comments:

  1. Thanks for the laughs, Bob.

    "For starters, it sounds like, if you're hot, you should ditch your blanket or comforter!"

    Alas, they forgot to tell their zombie reader to switch off his heating system. For all we know, he's running his AC, while his thermostat is set to 80.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Some people are actually pregnant during summer.

    Yeah. Hello?...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't have access to the print version of the paper, but the following statement does not exist in the online version:

    "When the temperature rises, it doesn't matter if you have air conditioning or get a great breeze through the open windows"

    Online, the author is clearly suggesting these creative ways in lieu of AC. There are many hot places, both here and abroad, where people live without AC. India is a case in point. In 2017, only 5 percent of households had AC. Alternative ways of keeping cool are obviously important.

    AC was not common in homes in the Southern US until the 1960's. Some of the methods outlined here were regularly used. I lived in one of those homes.

    There are still places in northern areas without AC, such as Chicago, which can experience occasional serious heat waves, in which people have been known to die from the heat.

    So, yeah, thanks for the laughs, Bob.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, Bob! There’s people all over the world dead from heat waves!...





      Delete
    2. "There are still places ... in which people have been known to die from the heat."

      Good to know that now these people can purchase a digital subscription to the Times, learn about freezing their sheets and live to see another day!

      Live to go through all the "Eggplant Recipes You Really Ought to Try." and so, so, so much more as a not-dead-from-the-heat Times reader.

      Delete
    3. Anyone can read the NY Times for free at any public library.

      And yes, there are people who die from the heat each year. It may seem silly to those who manage to stay cool, but preventing unnecessary deaths is not silly. And if they sound chatty or silly while suggesting ways to stay cool, that is better than sounding condescending or lecturing people or worse, boring them. This is a thinly disguised public service article.

      Somerby shouldn't be complaining about such things. He should be doing more to help others, not hinder the efforts of people who are trying to improve and save lives.

      Delete
    4. Absolutely! Now thanks the the Times, people on the verge of heat stroke can up leave their old.folks home, shimmy down to the PL, log on to the Times digital edition and prevent their deaths by learning how to freeze the super breathable linen sheets that the Time's affiliate site nobly.recommemds. And voila, the Times has prevented yet another unnecessary death and make a nice kickback on the sheets!

      Delete
    5. In CA, where we have chronic high temps all summer long, the public libraries are designated as cooling centers. These are refuges where people can go if they own homes are too hot. Malls serve the same function, unofficially. You mock this, but it is a real problem. In Europe, you have dozens of people dying during their heat waves. We are better prepared because more homes have AC here, but it is going to get worse.

      You guys sound like the people who have hurricane parties instead of evacuating. It is all a big joke to you. Another example of the lack of empathy endemic on the right, and especially among trolls (remember that dark triad of narcissism, psychopathy and Machivellianism that characterizes trolls -- all three include lack of empathy as a diagnostic criterion). Lack of imagination kills people and you guys seem to be missing the ability to visualize a different reality.

      Delete
  4. The defect of the writing, is that they are trying to reminisce about the "entertaining" ways that poor people have struggled to keep sane in blazing, stinking, humid, Manhattan Island, when poor people lived there. But because it does not matter in the very wealthy air conditioned town, its just dishonest and perverse.

    I remember the delight that would fill our block, when someone opened up the fire hydrant on some dog day afternoon, and everything felt fine again. But nobody in our neighborhood had air conditioners or enough room in their tiny freezers (which had to be defrosted from the huge blocks of ice they became every other week) for their sheets, which were not linen. In Little Italy I remember lots of my Chinese neighbors in pajamas on their fire escapes, where it was no cooler, and all of us had our own special bits of nonsensical wisdom for surviving. So the Times pathetically tried to resurrect what was once an entertaining, if grim, folkloric past time. Amazing this passed through an editor. The traditional time for truly awful awful pieces like this in New York, doesn't start until August, when anyone with the means to get to some beach, is gone, and interns have free reign to embarrass themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks a lot for sharing and I have some special things for you. If you are finding something to relax, zombie shooting games for kids; stickman army games will be my best recommendation for you. Let’s play and get more deep relaxation!
    Beside, you can try lego marvel superheroes game , it is an addictive game which receives much love from players over the world. Now, you can completely play this addicting fun game on your mobile. Have fun!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. News flash to the Times: Iturn on my air conditioner and have an oscillating fan help circulate it around my apartment. I am fine.

    ReplyDelete
  7. With global warming, NYC may experience heat waves with temps as high as 112-115. Ordinary AC may bring that down to 105 or so, but that is still hot enough to kill people. Further, those on limited incomes may not be able to afford to run AC 24/7 during a heat wave. It doesn't hurt to provide people with alternatives to combat heat that the city isn't prepared to endure. If NYC were Phoenix AZ, it would be different, but it isn't. Running AC during a heat wave can triple your electric bill. In CA where I live, my bills are over $300/month for AC and I don't overuse it. It is why so many people are choosing solar. The East Coast isn't used to this, so people may need help.

    Why the ridicule when the article is just trying to help people?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just like the Times was trying to help people when they examined email irregularities.
      https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/uploader/image/2016/10/30/nytsat.png

      Delete
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