Thursday, June 25, 2015
Is Readers Digest back to its old standards?
Picked up and read the latest RD while waiting in dentist office yesterday. I was impressed. Some extremely sane articles, useful household hints, heartwarming squishy stuff, and moderately funny humor. I can find the heartwarm on the web, and I can synthesize my own chuckles. But sanity and household hints are nutrients that can't be found elsewhere. Only Vitamin RD provides them. I didn't realize the depth of my deficiency until it was filled!
So I subscribed to the print edition just now. I love to pay for value.
RD has gone through a lot of strange stuff in the last few decades. It nearly failed, then got taken over by Arnaud de Borchgrave who turned it into a specific right-wing publication. I liked the politics but it wasn't RD any more. Then it was apparently taken by lefties who turned it into another Nation. I didn't like the politics, and it still wasn't RD.
The current editorial staff are fairly anonymous and concretely non-political. The latter is valuable in itself. Mainly, though, it's the real RD again, and it's lively and substantial.
Coupld months later: Well, poop. Apparently the issue at the dentist office was atypical in its neutrality. RD turns out to be just another outlet for Establishment orthodoxy on culture and "science". Not worth canceling subscription, but also not worth opening the mag. Straight into the trash.
RD has gone through a lot of strange stuff in the last few decades. It nearly failed, then got taken over by Arnaud de Borchgrave who turned it into a specific right-wing publication. I liked the politics but it wasn't RD any more. Then it was apparently taken by lefties who turned it into another Nation. I didn't like the politics, and it still wasn't RD.
The current editorial staff are fairly anonymous and concretely non-political. The latter is valuable in itself. Mainly, though, it's the real RD again, and it's lively and substantial.
Coupld months later: Well, poop. Apparently the issue at the dentist office was atypical in its neutrality. RD turns out to be just another outlet for Establishment orthodoxy on culture and "science". Not worth canceling subscription, but also not worth opening the mag. Straight into the trash.Labels: Zero Problems
¶ 5:25 PM
