An Upsetting Magazine Cover

I was shocked! Shocked! When I received my copy of the December 29, 2025 & January 5, 2026 issue of The New Yorker (see illustration). For as long as I can remember, New Yorker covers sported a narrow rectangle that served as the left border of the cover illustration. That rectangle was usually a solid color, though, on rare occasions, it included some sort of design.

I don’t know why that border exists, but I have always appreciated it. New Yorker covers are always attractive and interesting, and the border insures that the full cover illustration can be enjoyed by readers. In college, I took advantage of this fact to create a large collage of New Yorker covers from which I had excised the colored borders. I was upset when the magazine began pasting mailing labels on the cover, labels not easily removed and that detracted from the value of the cover as a decorative artifact.

I wrote to the magazine that another subscription of mine, Trains, mailed magazines using removable labels. I suggested that The New Yorker do the same. Only years later did the magazine begin employing such labels. My letter likely was not responsible for the change.

On the cover of the December 29, 2025 & January 5, 2026 issue, the illustration impinges on that ever-present border. Lorenzo Mattotti’s graphic “Goodbye to All That” would be damaged by cutting off the border. Rarely, and never recently—certainly not in my memory anyway—has the cover illustration impinged on that sacred border as it does on the cover of the current issue. For the benefit of future collage-makers in dorm rooms, I hope the current cover is an aberration. On the other hand, we live in a disorienting era, and one more innovation can contribute but a little to our already disturbed mental state.

Democratic Strategy for the Future

NPR, which has been interviewing Democrats about the future of their party, featured Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen today on Morning Edition. Val Hollen said the obvious, namely that Democrats need to take back the House and Senate to advance a Democratic program. We need not only to say what (or who) we are against but also articulate what we are fighting for, he asserted. Democrats “will take on powerful, special interests in order to advance the public interest,” he explained. That’s all well and good, of course, but when asked about specific ideas, he spoke of a tax cut for lower- and middle-income taxpayers.

A tax cut! Is that the best idea Democrats can come up with? Republicans might even be persuaded to vote for such an idea. But what about those “powerful, special interests”?

The biggest threat to our nation—well, other than Donald Trump, of course—is wealth inequality. Too much money is in the hands of too few who yield too much power both within government and in society at large. Is the idea of raising taxes, even on those who would hardly notice the increase, a new third rail of American politics? Does no one see that perpetually lowering taxes eventually leaves the government with no money at all and therefore unable to do anything to “advance the public interest.”

Democrats need to tackle the wealth gap head-on. They need to assert that the rich own too much and the rest of us too little. Giving peanuts to the non-wealthy, as Van Hollen suggests, will neither excite voters nor effectively ameliorate the wealth gap problem. A more radical and effective taxation scheme such is the one I suggested a few years ago is needed, a plan to raise more revenue from those most able to supply it. 

Trump was elected because he was perceived as being different. Democrats should use the same strategy of offering something different—something that will benefit citizens generally, rather that Trump and his superrich friends.

Three Kitchen Tips

I do a fair amount of cooking and lots of baking. Naturally, I have built up a repertoire of useful kitchen skills. I do make mistakes, however, and I would like to share a few rules I’ve learned from those mistakes. Here are three useful rules in order of increasing importance:

Don’t leave a drawer open below your work surface. My large teak cutting board, on which I do much of my prep work, sits on a counter above my silverware drawer. I have a bad habit of removing a spoon or grater from the drawer and leaving the drawer open. This is an invitation for food to fall into the drawer. It’s difficult to clean flour or other material from a silverware drawer. 

Don’t pick up and carry glass jars by their lids. It’s hard to clean up the mess created by dropping a jar of pickles on the floor. Enough said!

Don’t touch metal pans recently removed from the oven. We all learned as children not to touch hot objects, but the high temperature of a particular object may not immediately register in your brain. Although I always use oven mitts or potholders to remove a fry pan or cookie sheet from the oven, such an object sitting atop my range is indistinguishable from the same cold object sitting there. I have been known to touch the handle of a fry pan or cookie sheet I just took out of the oven. Try not to do that!

Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

The Trump administration has claimed that its cuts to the federal government are eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. If this is true, where are the prosecutions for fraud? Where are the reports exposing abuses?

In fact, the cuts are all being made to activities deemed wasteful. Whereas determining fraud or abuse requires investigation and analysis if done conscientiously, waste is largely in the eye of the beholder. If Donald Trump dislikes an activity, it is, ipso facto, wasteful and subject to summary elimination. This is how monarchs operate under the divine-right theory of kingship.

But Americans do not elect kings!