Reading the News Backwards

This doesn't mean reading it right to left. Or, starting at the back of the newspaper and working my way forward. Although as a kid, I became aware of an uncle whose approach to New York City tabloids, The News, The Post, or Daily Mirror was to place the front page face down and start with the back page and go forward from there.  This of course allowed faster access to the race results. And in fact, although I don't need the paper for race results, (HRTV, Internet suffice) I have adopted this approach whenever I pick up one the remaining tabloids.  Sports is at the back.

No, reading the news backwards refers to the habit I've seen myself take up of saving whatever paper I didn't fully get to, and at some point when it's rainy, or too cold to work in the garage, or whenever, and pick it up and go through it as thoroughly as I'd like to.  This generally doesn't take long, and you might imagine why.

There's no reason to read an October 2011 story about Herman Cain in January 2012.  The Euro? They settled that. Now they're onto debt downgrades. Romney in Iowa? Hey, we're headed to South Carolina now.  It's actually a great way to take the news in.  See what you didn't read in the first place, and now see there's still no good reason to read it.  It's a great time-saver.

I'm quite up on the news. I just don't always get the chance to absorb it with the attention I'd like to. Thus, the snow drifts of newspaper in the living room that drive my wife nuts, and the eventual shrinkage of the pile as tasks alternate and I devote some time to "catching up."

And while I do occasionally realize I missed a concert or something I might have considered going to, the arrangement works well.  Catching up is fun.

Take learning that Lenny Dykstra and Jose Canseco were going to box each other in early November in a celebrity boxing match in Hollywood. Lenny talking trash about how Canseco "ruined my career by spreading lies." No idea of the outcome, and no idea if the bout was for charity. Considering Dykstra's career also involved investment fraud and grand theft auto, the bout might have been for his legal bills.

And the post office. An 'A-Hed' piece in the WSJ never really gets too dated, and in one in early November we learn about the lengths the postal service goes to decipher bad handwriting and get the mail delivered despite the obstacles the sender has placed in their way with hieroglyphics, and bad spelling.

We learn a new word, at least to me. 'Nixie,' a piece of mail that can't be delivered because of being poorly addressed. What we don't learn is what the postal service does with the envelopes that appear to have cash in them and can't be delivered. It's assumed if there is a legible return address the mail will make its way back to the sender that way.  And thank goodness for those return addresses that do-gooders keep sending in the hopes of raising a few bucks.  Jimmy Carter's Habitat for Humanity project has kept me from seriously dipping into my own supply of self-produced Avery return address labels. Thanks, Jimmy.

Letting the news "steep" on the floor also allows attention to stories that might have been overlooked if the approach were more frantic.  Take the Q&A interview in the NYT in a section called Small Business.

This piece is fairly recent, but without an aging process, would have completely escaped me. I usually don't read anything about chefs, or the preparation of truffles, or "drizzles of olive oil," but this one caught my eye.

'After South Boston, A Restaurant was Easy,' is the business story of Barbara Lynch, who by all accounts operates a string of very successful restaurants in the Boston area. Her training was not formal, but nearly reform school. She stole an MBTA bus at 13, didn't get caught, took bets from teachers and dealt drugs in high school. She's 47 now, attractive, married, and no longer steals buses.

What I would have missed if I had thrown that paper out.

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