The Sunday New York Times

How did I not understand this simple fact much earlier in my life? How could I spend so much of my adult life without a proper appreciation of the Sunday Times?

I have always been a reader of a newspaper. My family owned a paper route and, in sixth grade I inherited it from my brother who inherited from our oldest brother. By the time I gave it up and departed for college, an Edwards had walked that route for fifteen years. And ever since I could read, I digested the funnies, sports, local news, state news, national news. and op ed – in that order, adding a layer of reading as my reading level advanced.

But, the Times is a different animal. I read the digital version each morning with my coffee. But Sunday, the Sunday Times is more of a journey that lasts till mid-week.

The truth is, I don’t even read the front section, as that has been digitally sent to me on Saturday. By the time I took the rubber band off the print edition, I had already read about Trump eroding the role of science, the error attack in Mogadishu, the ICE raids on chicken plants & China’s “re-educating” of Muslim children. No, the Sunday reading isn’t about power or politics, but rather it is a documentary that delves into life.

I skim the travel, book reviews, real estate, arts, and style section. Maybe something there strikes me, but usually I am just amazed by the pictures. Unlike regular news journalism, the photos here are art. These are hors d’oeuvres, nice but not a meal.

Then on to the main course. Sports Sunday As always, the stories are not about games and scores, but rather about the nature of the sport and the people who play. This week, two colleges’ philosophy on sport. Imagine, a discussion of philosophy in the sports section.

Next up, business. Not the stock market, but rather a feature on training inmates to be baristas, a small family business, and how small farmers in the Philippines end up murdered (truly worthy of a movie plot).

The Sunday Review takes a look at the role of technology in screwing us up as a people, stories of how Google informs us and Facebook and Twitter misinforms us, discusses the growth of influencers, lab meat, IPO’s, cyberterror, and distrust, and laments the end of normalcy.

Now, onto the Times’ equivalent of a Hallmark Movie, “Modern Love” and “Vows”. Modern Love is a weekly essay that tells a beautiful story written in autobiographical form. These were the inspiration for the Prime series and podcasts by the same name. Vows is the weekly “How Harry Met Sally”, a true story of how a couple met and events leading up to the proposal.

Finally, The Magazine. You never know what you will get here. This is the end of the year, so notable deaths are marked here. Page after page of “the life they live’ includes obits of Elijah Cummings, Luke Perry, Toni Morrison, & Peggy Lipton. But the most notable, I believe, is the story of the passing of Opportunity, the Mars rover. I was saddened as I read about its heroic work and death, and amazed that I am living in an age when I read the obituary of a robot in the New York Times.