Slate's Bizbox
the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Daphne Merkin and Christopher Caldwell

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Daphne Merkin

Too Much Information

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 1999, at 6:57 PM ET

Chris,

Your descriptions of New York vs. Washington heterosexual mating-game styles made me laugh, especially the $3.95 for the guy's duds. I'm not particularly drawn to "cocky, peppy, snappy terrier-like males," as you so cracklingly put it, but I'm not particularly drawn to subdued and soapy men, either. There must be a city where men are men and women are women, the way they used to be, doncha think? Speaking of the New Woman, what do you make of that poor stranded female on the South Pole who has to inject her own breast with anti-cancer medication, since it turns out that she is the sole physician on the research team? I'm not sure I quite see how this item merits the front page, and I find the privacy issue--once again--astonishingly double-forked. We can be informed of every detail, down to the fact that the ultrasound machine probably didn't survive the plane drop and that the woman is 47 and discovered the lump in her breast in June, but her wish for her name not to be disclosed is respected. The greater violations of daily journalism always overshadow the smaller chivalries, if you ask me. Do we really need all this news? But there I go again, sounding churlish and alienated in the best W.C. Fields manner.

The other subject that caught my interest--as it usually does, being a dissipated Jew but fairly ardent Zionist--is the immediate rush to judgement on Barak on the Op-Ed page. The guy is three minutes into elective office and he's already being scolded for his insufficiently pacific instincts: "In these dealings, it is President Clinton's job and that of his diplomatic team to save Ehud Barak from himself. It will not be an easy task." So says Milton Viorst, recently returned from the Middle East. I suppose he knows of what he speaks, but considering that Barak squeaked in despite his reputation for being too much of an accommodationist, it seems odd to demand that he immediately take a soft line on everything. And why compare him to Milosevic for using a patriotic phrase, such as "the cradle of our history?" I find this all the more perplexing, given that one has only to go to the bottom of Page 3 of the same paper to discover that Barak has dramatically pulled back on funding for the West Bank and Gaza Strip settlements--suspending approval of $90 million worth of investments for new factories. I immediately think of my nephew, a cerebral and well-informed type who studies history at Hebrew University and has been living in Israel since my sister moved there almost 20 years ago: I can just hear him sputtering about know-it-all Americans who visit Israel for two weeks and think they've assessed the situation.

Tomorrow, in honor of our breakfast chatting, I will go and buy the Observer, to add to my journalistic sources. I must be the only writer at the fringes of the red-hot center who steadfastly endures without reading its mélange of gossip-parading-as-news and endless opinionmongering on issues small and smaller. Meanwhile, I trust you are brooding usefully on the meaning of girls' soccer.

Best,
Daphne

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Daphne Merkin

Too Much Information

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 1999, at 6:57 PM ET
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Daphne Merkin is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she writes "Reckonings," a column on personal and cultural life. She is the author of Dreaming of Hitler, a collection of essays (click hereto buy the book). Christopher Caldwell is a senior writer at the Weekly Standard and a columnist for the New York Press.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
The Great Debate
Marcus | Forget Biden. I'd like to see McCain face off against Palin.
Toles: Another McCain SurpriseStumped: Where's Palin's Baby?