RUTHFULLY YOURS

You could find yourself asking that question about the pile of newsprint that resembles the New York Times more or less any day; but the rag with the New York Times banner on top that got delivered to me yesterday really leaves me scratching my head. Is this real, or did someone swipe the actual paper out of my mail slot early in the morning and substitute the parody edition? Judging from the physical item before me, I would go with parody. But then I discover that all of the dubious articles can be found on the nytimes.com website. Could the devious parodists have hacked the website as well?

Let’s consider first the section of the paper headed “New York.” A lot can go on in a city of almost 9 million people, and there are many pressing issues here in our City with important developments happening every day. A few examples of developing local issues include: recent criminal law reforms, including reforms of the bail system, and an associated spike in crime; exploding Medicaid spending; the results of recent tightening of the rent regulation system; the success (or failure) of government “affordable housing” initiatives; the City and State government budgets; and many, many more. Perhaps we can educate ourselves a little on some of these issues?

But in fact the Times has almost completely withdrawn from coverage of any such issues. On most days the “New York” section consists of only three or four articles. On this day it is only three. The majority of the space is given to one piece with the headline “To Turn the Tide, Long Island Tribe Turns to Nature” (different headline online). It’s a piece designed to stoke your sympathies for a small tribe of Indians called the Shinnecocks, who live on a reservation in the town of Southampton, Long Island. Supposedly, the Shinnecocks are losing their land to rising seas caused by global warming:

A maritime people who once spanned a large swath of the eastern Long Island shore, the Shinnecock Indians have been hemmed into a 1.5-square-mile patch of land on the edge of a brackish bay. Now, because of climate change, they’re battling to hold on to what they have left. Rising seas are threatening to eat away at the Shinnecock lands. 

That’s right, the Shinnecocks — all 500 or so of them — control 1.5 square miles of waterfront land in Southampton, the very priciest town in all of New York. The sea- and bay-side town of Southampton is home (or at least, second home) to a who’s who of the New York cognoscenti — for example George Soros, Howard Stern, Kelly Ripa, Arthur Ochs “Pinch” Sulzberger (wait a minute — he’s the publisher of the New York Times!), Chad Koch (son of David), Theodore Forstmann, and I’m just getting started. In a town barely above sea level, aren’t the estates of these people just as subject as the Shinnecock Reservation to the rising seas? Yes, but the smart money knows that this whole imminent sea level rise thing is bunkum. Meanwhile, the Shinnecocks could take their 1.5 square miles, which is 960 acres, and divide it up among the tribe members, getting almost 2 acres each. They would all be instant millionaires. Do you still feel sorry for them?

The other two articles? One is about a deaf and blind guy who got a part as lead actor in a short film about a deaf and blind guy. Apparently, the producer of the film felt it would not be OK to hire someone who was not deaf and blind for such a part. The other is about multiple additional accusers whose stories are now being considered for the sentencing of Harvey Weinstein. In short, the entirety of the local news is now given over to climate change hysteria, marginalized peoples, the #MeToo movement, and other such progressive narratives of the moment.

But if you think that’s crazy, you haven’t yet made it to the Opinion pages. Here is what they offer up:

• The lead editorial has the headline “Quarantine as Class Warfare.” But then, isn’t everything today class warfare conducted by evil oppressors? I’ll let you figure out how that could possibly be.

• Then there’s the lead op-ed, “Our ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ Is Killing the Planet.” It’s exactly what you have long known was coming, the demand for impoverishment of the people, supposedly to “save the planet”: “We need to strike a new balance between our private pleasures and our collective survival.” Does this mean that progressive billionaires and presidential candidates are supposed to give up private air travel?

• And, now that Joe Biden has emerged as the leading contender for the Democratic nomination, has he somehow forgotten to sign on to any one of the dozens of government programs that a good progressive must now offer to the people? Find the answer by reading “Where’s Joe Biden’s Universal Child Care Plan?” Something tells me that Sleepy Joe will come out with that plan within a few days or weeks.

There was a time when, if you were willing to discount some endless liberal spin, you could at least find out from the Times what important things were going on in the world. Those days are long gone.