quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

I hope that dude is a bear.

I hope that dude isgets eaten by a bear.

― kind-hearted, sensitive keytar player (Abbott), Thursday, July 2, 2009 6:25 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

foyers with benches is a good thing for anybody. I hate walking into my apartment and standing in the door way struggling to take off my shoes, my jacket, my bag, put down my umbrella, all without walking 2 more steps into the apartment where I'd inevitably get everything wet.

and it's not even raining out is the worst part

meme roth might be insane but the points in that article (about the food at the school) seem pretty valid to me; but I live in Berkeley so what do I know.

Meme Roth : Food : Morbs : Politics

Even when you agree with them they make you wish you didn't.

sad times ;_;
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/business/08nantucket.html?em

The RopeWalk, a restaurant owned by Joe Pantorno, is serving breakfast for the first time to try to lure more customers

!!

FUCK THAT

NEVER

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/Picture6.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/fashion/09baby.html

No longer is it necessary to buy a thousand-dollar changing table in order to prove your parental savvy and breadth of love; if anything, the opposite is true.

this article makes me want to vomit

many readers are rethinking vomiting and forgoing food digestion

has this sort of thing always been a feature of the NYT, or is it getting worse?

yes and yes

the style section is relatively new; has become markedly more appalling in the last 10 years - to the point where it's such easy pickins it's almost not fair

it's so stupid i get the feeling they're doing it deliberately

i hate to say it but when a news organization requires you to have a master's degree just to work the coffee machine and make copies, this is what you get

hahahah

"observers of baby consumerism" are quick to point out that babies, as a demographic, are not very discriminating shoppers and will likely choose the product that most easily fits in their mouth

seriously what is an "observer of baby consumerism" and is the pay any good

i used to read the nyt more regularly and would wonder all the time, "don't they know?" but maybe they don't! it's like they think this stuff is real life

that's now i choose products too lol

*how

how do you make money by blogging about your baby?

why do first-time parents write books about becoming parents?

i am generally suspicious of ppl whose whole identity is subsumed by their role as parents but i guess having baby-brain 94/7 affords certain niche marketing advantages

"your baby changed your life? your baby is the most important thing and your concern for your baby consumes your every waking thought? omg me too! you should really buy my book."

ugh sorry, apparently that article has driven me crazy

No srsly it's okay. I spent last week w a baby and baby people and it's a little overwhelming even totally outside the issue of Style Section Retardedness.

My mother is 100% okay with spending her day entertaining the baby, talking in a high voice to him, and keeping him occupied and doing stuff. It's exhausting even to watch her. And she's GREAT at it -- I can't imagine having to be around someone who was not only obsessed w their baby but also bad at being natural doing it.

has this sort of thing always been a feature of the NYT, or is it getting worse?

― caek, Thursday, July 9, 2009 6:15 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it was kind of tolerable pre-recession when it was just stories about rich people being rich (even tho it was pretty ridiculous that they expanded it to two sections a week instead of just one) but know that its stories about rich people being poor its like taking a cheese grater to your eyeballs

No longer is it necessary to buy a thousand-dollar changing table in order to prove your parental savvy and breadth of love; if anything, the opposite is true.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 9 July 2009 10:00 (3 hours ago)

"No longer"

whew.

i love babies btw

without defending the style section ... in terms of whether the massive increase in spending on all manner of baby stuff is "real life," the answer is definitely YES. and not just among people who can afford thousand-dollar changing tables. go into any babies r us or buy buy baby. so however obnoxious some of the rhetoric might be, i think the article's talking about an actual mass phenomenon. i mean, even just the widespread existence of big-box baby retailers tells you that. and of course they're the kind of places getting hammered by the recession. if the story'd been written by the business section it might read differently (i.e. better), but i don't think what it's saying is exactly omg-how-silly.

What's the statute of limitations on that? 'cause I didn't do it when it was necessary.

i understand that babies are expensive, that's not what i meant by "real life." i meant the 'agonies of the ruling class' phenomenon in general

er i meant increase in baby spending is real life

xpost, maybe you're right about that. I guess not enough of my friends have babies for me to be aware of this (although one person I know went a little nuts with the cloth-diaper equipment and accessories). I guess I still assume that most people will get secondhand stuff for their babies and not spend absurd amounts on designer strollers because that's how I grew up. I still think most people probably don't, although maybe a large percentage of the demographic that reads the Times don't.

People spend at varying levels depending on resources, but the percentage of $$ going toward baby items, and the number of toys and amount of stuff that's considered appropriate for babies, have probably both been slid up the scale quite a ways.

yeah. the designer-stroller phenomenon specifically is a primarily urban thing -- suburbanites don't have sidewalks to show them off on. but any middle-class baby shower of the past 10 years would show you all kinds of baby goods and services of dubious necessity.

Not only are children named after their grandparents these days, but all those Rubys, Sadies and Harrys at the playgrounds may end up thinking like them as well.

A second-hand Bugaboo Cameleon will do that.

laurel i just feel that the parents interviewed are totally into framing their personal opinions with the preface "as a parent" and are giddy about having crossed the threshhold of being able to judge other parents because no one can challenge them with "well you don't have kids" anymore

the economic piece is just superfluous and weird -- 2nd hand shit costs less money, consumerism is culturally pervasive, yes, but the fact that we're talking ant babies doesn't / shouldn't really contribute any moral conscience re: these issues

abt babies. not ant babies.

laurel i just feel that the parents interviewed are totally into framing their personal opinions with the preface "as a parent"

haha, spend some time on mommyblogs.

or, don't.

Nearly all of Chase’s belongings are hand-me-downs or were bought secondhand, from the onesies to the fully tricked-out Bugaboo Cameleon — the top of the line Dutch stroller that the Hildenbrands bought on a listserv for a fraction of its $900 price tag. Mrs. Hildenbrand said that a good salary wasn’t reason enough to spend money that might not always be there.

“We want to hedge in case something does happen,” she said.

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing about this article -- this anecdote shows not one iota of "reflection" or anti-consumerist sentiment. The Hildenbrands probably paid more for their used top-of-the-line status stroller than many people pay for new ones. They're just trying to save money in case of a depression.

I still assume that most people will get secondhand stuff for their babies and not spend absurd amounts on designer strollers because that

Yeah this is the basic assumption I've always had as well, so the article reads very strange and otherworldly to me. I guess if you plan on having lots of kids it makes sense to buy nice strollers since you'll reuse them, but at a core level isn't the basic groundrule that everything you buy your baby will be useless in a year or two anyway cause that's how babies work?

need more articles about talking ant babies imo

laurel i just feel that the parents interviewed are totally into framing their personal opinions with the preface "as a parent" and are giddy about having crossed the threshhold of being able to judge other parents because no one can challenge them with "well you don't have kids" anymore

Sorry, yeah, I didn't explain myself but yr comment above is what I was thinking of as "unnatural" behavior around babies -- ie self-conscious, motivated by being heard or seen to be the parent of a baby, and so on.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_EYMAdo4Ms84/ScMz91hEFdI/AAAAAAAADdY/TJKp1LtKR8M/s400/BabyCostumeAnt1x.jpg

Style section:NYT::funnies:your local paper::editorial page:WSJ

this article = "rose is rose" ???

The first friend of mine w/child to whip out 'as a parent' will be made to wear a sandwich board saying I AM NEEDY, CONGRATULATE ME FOR BREEDING PLEASE.

It's just as annoying to me as having to whip out 'as a Christian', 'as a woman' or anything similar - a form of emotional manipulation that really has no place in whether or not their argument or point is valid.

i only really like the thursday styles section for the critical shopper and the pictorials like the one about ivey leaugers in the 60s but i cherish its existence. i mean how else would we know what $400 shoes are the best?????