Thoughts about what being addicted to the paper of reference implies.

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I've always sensed that there was something special about people who read the NYT, other than the fact that they consider themselves to be well-educated and serious about the responsibilities of citizenship. But today, glancing at the couple next to me in my favorite neighborhood restaurant, each scrutinizing his half of "The Times" over one of those leisurely week-end breakfasts that seem to have been designed to accompany the reading of the newspaper of reference, identical images contemplated over decades, whenever I was living in the United States, suddenly reappeared accompanied with a subtext: "The information herein comes with a guarantee of credibility, hence by reading this newspaper, I am perfectly informed about all that matters in the world, and can enjoy my Saturday or Sunday coffee knowing that my country has matters in hand."[tag]

When newscasts tell otherwise: marshall law in Thailand, Boko Haram readying 280 Nigerian schoolgirls for forced marriage, Ukrainians preparing to vote for a new president - or not - under the guns of thugs avenging the defeat of the Third Reich, two killed in Brussels' Jewish museum shooting, unprecedented floods in the former Yugoslavia as Europe's national socialist parties prepare to condemn the welfare state in European Union elections tomorrow, protesters around the world vowing death to Monsanto while demanding living wages to serve in MacDonald's, etc. etc., the image of America's well-meaning "liberals" eyes glued to "The Times" as they reach for their coffee has never seemed so ludicrous.

Authors Website: http://www.otherjonesii.blogspot.com

Authors Bio:

Born in Phila, I spent most of my adolescent and adult years in
Europe, resulting over time in several unique books, my latest being Russia's Americans.

CUBA: Diary of a
Revolution, Inside the Cuban Revolution with Fidel, Raul, Che, and Celia
Sanchez

Lunch with Fellini,
Dinner with Fidel: An Illustrated Personal Journey from the Cold War to the
Arab Spring

America Revealed to a
Honey-Colored World

A Taoist Politics: The
Case For Sacredness

I began my journalistic career at the French News Agency in Rome,
spent two years in Cuba finding out whether the Barbados were Communists before
they made the revolution ('Cuba 1964: When the Revolution was Young'). After
spending half a decade in Eastern Europe, and a decade in the U.S., studying
Global Survival and writing speeches in the Carter State Department, I wrote
the only book that foresaw the fall of the Berlin Wall AND the dissolution of
the Soviet Union ("Une autre Europe, un autre Monde'). My memoir, 'Lunch
with Fellini, Dinner with Fidel', tells it all. 'A Taoist Politics: The Case
for Sacredness', which examines the similarities between ancient wisdom and
modern science and what this implies for political activism; and 'America Revealed
to a Honey-Colored World" is a pamphlet about how the U.S. came down from
the City on a Hill'.