Where Page One Meets Page Six

It's a gloomy late winter afternoon, when I turned back to the newspaper to see what was developing.

It was strange to see an Oscars story in the Science Section, and stranger to see it extolling Natalie Portman's high school science achievements: She was a semifinalist in the Intel science competition. Now in terms of high school parents ambitious for their children's future, victories in what the kids call the "science circuit" are a big deal. But in the grand scheme of things, I say, Big Deal. Portman became famous as an actress, starting her movie career in her preteen years. She also attended Harvard. It's a little unclear what she studied, or studies, and whether she graduated, but that's not important either. She's a very fine actress, and it's clear that's what she's chosen to do. And we're told, she's "gorgeously pregnant," which may be a little more than I needed to know.

But the story surges forward, not sure whether it's talking about actors with brains, or just about Hollywood. The standout scientific mind in Hollywood was Hedy Lamarr, who actually invented something, as the story mentions. It also a couple of lesser Hollywood figures, and finally getting around to Leonard Nimoy, who wasn't a scientist but played Mr. Spock on Star Trek.

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Moving on to the Dining section, there's a story about junk food, with pictures of a 75-year-old man eating barbecue and a 92-year-old woman eating fried chicken.

But the Times's idea of junk food turns out to be peculiar: "We eat everything we like. Any kinds of eggs, blini, any good red or beluga caviar with crème fraîche, cheesecake, chocolate soufflé with whipped cream, crème brûlée, filet mignon, pasta with pesto. Aileen drinks Lillet, and I’m vodka and tonic. We drink as much as we can." The speaker is one Nancy Cardozo who shares a house with Aileen, and both are in their 90s.

The dubious assumption on which this story stands is that somehow one whiff of rich food can strike a person dead, while at the same time the existence of some individuals who eat, drink and smoke anything they want into old age negates the standard spartan medical advice.

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Lastly, one story that clung to the front page of the web Times was the piece about the firing of John Galliano. I skipped this in my first read of the paper because I didn't know who he was, other than he had something to do with fashion since Dior had done the firing. Everybody had the story; most didn't give it this kind of attention.

The firing was about a drunken argument the designer had with a couple in a bar in Paris last year. Someone, of course, pulled out one of those odious cameras, probably in a phone, and recorded the scene, and later gave to the British tabloid, the Sun, dooming Galliano, who apparently tosses off anti-Semitic remarks with some regularity, most recently last week, which the Times and everyone else reported then.

In the video, Galliano says, "I love Hitler ... Your mother, your forefathers would be fucking gassed and fucking dead." (That's a composite quote -- the Times didn't have dirty words.)

What distresses me about this, in addition to the Times's fascination, is the absence of history in our culture today. This is not exactly the Times's fault, but it shows up in the serious stories, as well as stuff like this. Although it may well be the bottle talking, Galliano, who is gay in a business with many other gay men, perhaps should pick a different hero in view of the fact that the German Nazis killed the homosexuals first in their campaign for the master race.

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