Dear Type-A Parent

I recognize that the Economist is the ultimate source of weekly international affairs, but I just couldn't take it anymore. I had paid its ungodly subscription fee for over a year (part of my larger Economist subscription pattern, which was subscribe for a year, get fed up and don't for the next year, repeat pattern), I was exasperated from the never ending 9pt font of political minutia and couldn't bear the thought of another 4-page spread on Burma's indefinitely tumultuous state of affairs. I just don't need to know the details anymore. Life is too short for me to read a fourth article on the straw that broke the Icelandic economy's back (in a publication who endorsed Barack Obama, no less).

So I took a stand for my weekly publication rights. I swapped out my Economist subscription for the New Yorker (which came highly recommended from a reliable source). While, as a result, some may classify me as an intellectual lightweight ("some" including my former self who did subscribe to the Economist), they may be right: it turns out my tastes are much more suited for a weekly publication which minimizes its political dabbles and maximizes its content regarding random, useless information such as the availability of human cryogenics services in Michigan or a cross-cultural comparison of how the press treats Roman Polanski. Mix this with a briefing of NYC cultural goings-on (I lied, the information is useful) and a consistently clever parody of some class of people (see discussion below), and I can honestly say I haven't looked back.

The reason for this post is the class of people parodied a few weeks back: the "type-A parent," providing a bolstering argument against my reproducing because (1) I can't stand these people, much less the thought of integrating them into my social circle; and (2) my offspring would inevitably be subject to some of the pitfalls caricatured in the following as I am, without any doubt, a type A personality: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2010/02/08/100208sh_shouts_mccall