On Paying for the Newspaper (In Light of National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius)

Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of the Affordable Healthcare Act in the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius case. Last night I read everything I could get my iPad’s hands on via the Web site of the world’s best source for news, the New York Times.

But that wasn’t enough. I went to bed last night knowing that there was going to be a six-column headline this morning. I love six-column headlines. Here it is:

Justices, By 5 – 4, Uphold Health Care Law;
Roberts in Majority; Victory for Obama

That doesn’t appear anywhere in an online search at this time except in a summary of news coverage on Politico. It is a uniquely physical object— a double-decker set of text delivered to millions of homes and stacked nears thousands of sticks of gum on streets and in stores all over the world. A comma- and semicolon-separated statement of facts that define, forever, what happened yesterday.

When I went out to walk the dog this morning, the paper wasn’t quite here yet. While I was out, I saw the delivery person walking by with her stacks. I chased her down and gave her all of the money in my pocket (eight dollars). Because she delivers me something worth paying for, every morning.

We really do live in a wonderful country.


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