Republican National Corruption

Thanks to the NY Daily News for pointing me toward the Shut it Down website. I urge everyone, especially my friends scattered about New York City, to check it out.

Six months after leaving New York, I have not kicked my habit of reading the NY Daily News each day, nor do I ever fail to pick up the Sunday NY Times (though the experience of reading it 3,000 miels away is considerably different). I can't say I'm more interested in what's happening in New York than in the world immediately around me, but hell, our daily local paper typically maxes out at 10-12 pages, not counting the Sports section, which goes unread by me 99% of the time. I'd not attempt to deny my unceasing interest in news coming out of the city I still consider home, whatever longing it may inspire.

By the same token, I continued reading the Los Angeles Times regularly for at least a year after returning to New York in 1998. Part of the semi-nomadic lifestyle, I suppose, is the desire to remain abreast of the local news for more than one region, a habit even more widely practiced by immigrants seen constantly on the subway or about town reading El Diario , Ha'aretz or any number of foreign periodicals. Such continuing connection with one's former home does not necessarily supercede interest in one's current state of residence, I have found through experience.

Alas, there are no foreign papers to be found in my little, liberal coastal enclave. I'm fortunate to find the Sunday NY Times each week at the local co-op market. And, thankfully, there's no shortage of places to snap up the excellent San Francisco Chronicle, when Internet news just isn't enough. There's just nothing that compares to having that newspaper in my hands, that musty smell, the charcoal stains on my fingertips. I only wish I could still read it on the subway.

Posted by ayelet at August 17, 2004 09:31 AM