Rock, Paper, Scissors

"Rock, Paper, Scissors" by Jill Lepore in last week's issue of "The New Yorker" is an entertaining history of how elections have been conducted in this country. It's a fine, medium objective story, until you get to the last paragraph and then her true colors come out, or the publishers colors. Hard to say how much influence publishers have on what writers write, but that's an argument for another time. I think the story is fairly objective. I say "medium objective" because the partisans can always find a phrase or a group of words in a speech or document that they can use to hang their accusations on, whatever they are. Man, I am sick of these people.

But let's not impugne Ms. Lepore's integrity, I'll assume that last paragraph accurately reflects her views, which are unsurprising being as she is writing in "The New Yorker". It's kind of weird. You could easily cut that last paragraph off and be left with a fine story, and a fine story it is.