The New York Tabs

I’ve had some tough words for the New York Times in this newsletter over the years, and how do they respond? With an incredibly thoughtful and generous #longread about me in Styles today. It’s actually pretty passive-aggressive, if you think about it? Just what you’d expect from the Times. I am glad that someone finally wrote that I’m “something of a Zelig-like figure in internet history.” That’s not for me to say, of course, but it’s true and Steven Kurutz is right to say it. Should someone update my Wikipedia page with that information? Again, that’s not really for me to decide.

The story is great, the photos are great, but the comments section is, as of press time, spectacular. It’s divided about equally between:

• People complaining that Peaks is a commuter island full of wealthy retirees cosplaying as “flinty Mainers,” which is true.

• People going “who’s THIS fucking guy?” which is also true.

• Tabs discord members gleefully dropping references to centaurs and lentils, which is lol.

• And whatever this is:

  

  Few have ever been so German.

As the profile points out, I am not totally free of blame for the idiotic idea that newspaper articles should be followed by random observations from just whoever so this is all exactly what I deserve.

But enough about me,¹ because outside the peaceful rustic confines of Styles, the Times is buzzing with concern for the state of NPR. About a week ago, NPR business editor Uri Berliner posted a long complaint to Bari Weiss’s newsletter Weiss Grievance which was so poorly written and edited that it managed to get read to filth by Steve Inskeep:

Wow, more like scorning edition. But according to The Times, NPR was:

In Turmoil After It Is Accused of Liberal Bias 

Sensing an opening, bad-faith book banner, racist, and transphobe Chris Rufo (with an assist from Elon, because that’s who he is now) jumped in to promote some tweets that NPR’s chief executive posted in 2018 which demonstrate that she has a basic grasp of the bare minimum facts of consensus reality, like: “Donald Trump is a racist.” In other words,

NPR C.E.O. Faces Criticism Over Tweets Supporting Progressive Causes 

Faces criticism from whoms’t isn’t addressed until the fifteenth paragraph, and who Chris Rufo is or why anyone should care about his opinion of Katherine Maher’s old tweets is never mentioned at all, but maybe none of that even matters. Rufo has been announcing “I’m gonna make up some bullshit to be mad at,” then making up some bullshit to be mad at, then taking a postmortem victory lap like “here’s how I made up some bullshit to be mad at and suckered those dumb assholes at the New York Times again” repeatedly for a while now, and it keeps working. I guess he’s just something of a Zelig-like figure in the history of bad faith right wing nonsense.

Anyway, NPR suspended Berliner and today Ben Mullin reports that “about fifty NPR employees” called for “a public rebuke” (a rebuke? gaspé!) but Berliner announced “you can’t suspend me because I quit” and now his glorious, well-paid new life as an anti-woke grievance peddler begins. I hope he is very happy with the ideological diversity of the crowd who’ll attend his University of Austin lectures and Trump rally warm-up gigs.

The dog bites man story that L.A. Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong allegedly lost editor in chief Kevin Merida over finally dropped. It’s a pretty good local drama story, including two intact “service dogs” eying each other warily from opposite sides of the Venice Gold’s Gym, but was it worth blowing up his newspaper for? Who can say.

“A Bronx tax preparer known as "the Magician" was arrested by IRS Criminal Investigations agents in an alleged $100 million dollar tax rip-off scheme.” The magic was 🪄🎩 𝐹𝓇𝒶𝓊𝒹 !

“We Need To Rewild The Internet” by Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon. Regrettably I had to spend all morning talking about myself, so I haven’t read this yet. No spoilers please.

404’s Joseph Cox reports that for “a minimum payment of around $5 in cryptocurrency” you can search through posts by individuals across thousands of different Discord servers. If they actually made a Discord search that works, maybe Discord should just buy them?

Sam Altman doesn’t appear to think he’s joking here:

@marcusjcarterai

Sam Altman telling a room full of VCs with a straight face that he will take billions of their money, build AGI, and then ask it how to ge... See more

And Finally: Monday’s Indignity, “Which Time Gets Killed When the Phone Kills Time?” was extremely good. I regret that I forgot to include it yesterday.

Today’s Song: “I Was on the News” by The Pom-Poms. Very funny, Music Intern Sam Gavin.

Sorry this is late, I spent the morning grappling with the agony of being perceived. If you’re new here, welcome. The newsletter usually goes out closer to 5pm eastern, although that is totally at the mercy of whatever else is going on for me that day. I just write it and then send it when I’m done. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1  For now.