On the morning of Monday, July 17, we opened our copy of the New York Times, as we do most weekday mornings. Now, we’re aware that Mondays aren’t the best day for newspaper reading, because rarely is Sunday a big news day. But then again, you never know what you’re going to miss, especially in the age of Trump.
So we opened the Times, and one of the first headlines we noticed was this: “China Is Preparing for New Top Leaders, Few of Them Women.” It’s a worthy story, even if the whole piece follows from the headline. (Though one does wonder: Are we to believe that antidemocratic Communist party rule would be somehow more palatable if a few more of the antidemocratic Communist party rulers were distaffian?)
Then there was this, from the obituary section: “Maryam Mirzakhani, 40, Only Woman to Win the ‘Nobel Prize of Mathematics.’ ”
And this: “Hootie Johnson, 86; Fought Admission of Women at Masters Site.”
Then, turning to the opinion page, we read an unsigned editorial, “Smoking Marijuana While Black,” about how “black and Latino New Yorkers are far more likely to be arrested for smoking in public than whites, who are just as likely to use marijuana.” It put us in mind of the old joke about a New York Times headline: “World Ends: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.”
But leave aside the merits or demerits of any of these stories. The Scrapbook simply wonders: On an ordinary day, when readers of the Times look out on the world, do they see anything but sociological categories? Or is it just on Mondays?
