- Today in Tabs
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- Goodbye Everybody
Everybody’s leaving! Not me, though.
Paul Krugman is leaving the New York Times, according to an interview with Charles Kaiser in CJR, because Times opinion editor (derogatory) Kathleen Kingsbury tried to cancel his newsletter and cut his column down to once a week. “Well, well, well,” said former Times opinion editor (derogatory) James Bennet from the New York Times cleaning supply closet where he lives now, “not so easy to find an opinion editor that doesn’t suck shit, huh?” An unleashed and untamed Krugman wrote a “Why I Left New York” post in also newly former Washington Post opinion columnist J. Rubin Blogger’s The Contrarian explaining that he is leaving the Times because it sucks to work there now, and he can do better on his own. Krugman has moved his column to Substack, where he writes approximately six posts a day, and plans to add three podcasts and eight hours of daily livestreaming video soon. Congrats on a great first week, Paul! Hopefully you can ramp up your editorial output at some point.
After CNN head Mark Thompson offered Jim Acosta the option of moving his show from 10am to midnight and renaming it “The Jim Acosta Sucks Fake News Hour (Do Not Watch),” the star anchor and Trump enemy chose to resign instead, reported Oliver Darcy in Status Dot News. Announcing his departure on air, Acosta said “One final message: don’t give in to the lies. Don’t give in to the fear. Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses. Uhhh.” Since departing cable, Acosta has reportedly been seen grandstanding at a local dog park and shouting pointed questions at the raw milk guy at the farmer’s market.
Rebecca Jennings is leaving Vox. Rumor has it she’s going to Vox’s stepsister publication New York Magazine,1 where she’ll probably be going on strike immediately. Speaking of Vox, Jaya pointed out that it’s weird that Vox keeps laying off reporters but somehow found $20 million to pay Kara Swisher this year. I’m trying to think of one worthwhile thing that Kara Swisher has ever reported, and coming up blank. She talked to Mark Zuckerberg and he got weirdly sweaty once, fourteen years ago? I’m not sure coasting on that is still worth $20 million a year. Vox used to be good at this.
And welcome to the L.A. Times and we’ll miss you Eric Reinhart, who is furious about L.A. Times owner and huge RFK Jr. fanboy Patrick Soon-Shiong (derogatory) gutting his first and last opinion column for the paper. Reinhart’s version ends by comparing RFK Jr. unfavorably to Luigi Mangione:
Although RFK Jr. and Luigi Mangione are both responses to the same underlying problem of US healthcare corruption, there is a major difference between them: one operated outside the law to kill one person in defense of millions, whereas the other––via his egomaniacal disregard for scientific evidence––seeks to use law itself to inflict preventable death on those millions.
But as published, the column somehow fails to criticize RFK Jr. at all. Tabs sources are reportedly aghast to realize that at this point, the least corrupt national newspaper left in America is somehow USA Today.
And finally adios to humans writing anything at Quartz, which is apparently all AI slop now, Maggie Harrison Dupré reports in Futurism. Brought to you by NORDIISK STIAPLAME.
Also Today in Media: Paramount+ considers bribery. Jenny G. Zhang admits to being ambitious. FT Alphaville’s London Review of Deutsche Bank AI Memes. 404’s Jason Koebler: “'Everything I Say Leaks,' Zuckerberg Says in Leaked Meeting Audio.” Lmao. The Verge’s Alex Heath followed up with “Meta warns that it will fire leakers in leaked memo.” Kara Swisher’s probably gonna have a big scoop about this any minute.
Today in Horny: Good news, everyone is horny now! In Dazed, Emma Garland announces the end of our long national “Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny” nightmare. And if you need a refresher on what horny was, Anna Merlan remembered the Horny Profile for Flaming Hydra.
Today in Zombie: Zombie cave spiders in Ireland. One line in this story, “Behavioural-changing metabolites, such as dopamine, have since been identified in cultures of zombie-ant fungi of the genus Ophiocordyceps,” raises the discomforting prospect that being a zombie might feel good. I guess that explains the MAGA movement anyway.
Today in Nerdy: Mummy tattoos, secret passages, quantum cat states, and non-quantum cat head-butt robots: “Seven cool science stories we almost missed this month,” by Jennifer Ouellette in Ars Technica. And Erin Kissane on Ursula Franklin:
There’s always a kind of sleight-of-hand at work in authoritarian power-grabs: They employ overblown and obviously dishonest surface attacks on the most laughably inadequate institutional performances of justice (and on the newest little flowerings of social change) as cover for much deeper attacks on the heart of democratic and just societies: real equality of opportunity and liberty—including the ability to participate equally in governance—protected by genuine curbs on the arbitrary exercise of power. Those principles are the actual targets.
Today in Creepy: The Hoka Speed Loafer. Yeah, I don’t know either.
I know a lot of politics also happened since Tuesday but let’s pace ourselves. If you’d like to engage with any of that, Garbage Ryan has the latest. But my advice is don’t! For example I spent quite a long time this morning watching Jenny Nicholson’s four hour long YouTube review of the now-closed Disney Star Wars themed hotel from back in May, and I’m gonna go watch the rest of it right now. No ragrets!
Today’s Song: The Avalanches, “Frontier Psychiatrist”
That boy needs therapy. Help pay for it by becoming a subscriber? It’s me or Paul Krugman, I guess. How many emails a day can you read?
1 I know what you’re thinking and stop it.
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