The New York Times has sure changed since Marcia Brady was hired on as Editor in Chief.

First, the weekly food column has been co-opted at least once a month by some idiot with a kid. And you know what idiots with kids are like. Talk about your boyfriend and you hear about little Oscar's crush on Captain Crunch. Mention that you lost your job and learn that little Sarah wants to be a Hanukkah bush when she grows up. Tell them you totalled your 2009 Lexus and discover that little Wally flipped his Big Wheel.

Cooking with Dexter is some forty-two paragraphs about precocious, peanut-allergic Dexter and one paragraph that's actually about food. Here are some memorable quotes from recent works:
So one morning a few months ago, I cooked Dexter's first slice of French toast.

Last fall, like a squirrel hiding acorns, he would bring his favorite vegetables to bed with him, or deposit them in his toy chest.

Swiftly and mercilessly, I swooped down and hauled him away, scolding him: ''The stove is not for babies!''
Clearly the Times has its fingers on the pulse of America. We have the finest restaurants in America here, but we don't want to read any culinary news unless someone wearing diapers is involved.

It pisses me off. It's insulting. Their articles about internal medicine don't toss in little stories about how little Roland stuck a cherry Sucrets up his nose. Their pieces on international politics don't include notes like, "Daniel, my ten-year-old, still giggles when Katie Couric calls Cheney 'Dick.'" Their columns on the theater don't casually throw in asides like, "Halfway through the production, my prescient little Heather declared that she was sure Godot wasn't going to show up."

So why are articles about food filtered through the moronic eyes of a four-year-old?

Sadly, one other section of the paper is following Dexter's lead. The Home and Garden section has paved over anything useful and dug up The Puppy Diaries, a weekly column about -- news flash -- raising a puppy. Change the pronouns and this could be about Dexter too:
The other night, we thought she was chewing happily and permissibly on a rawhide bone. She was actually chewing on the leg of a nearby telephone table.

[O]ne night she began barking like crazy while Henry was eating a bowl of strawberries with whipped cream.

During the vet visit for her second round of shots, everyone commented on her big paws.
In case these columns prove too deep for you, they spell out exactly why you'd want to read any of this:That soft fur, those floppy ears, that quizzical look that draws an "awww" from the most hardened cynic. Yes, puppies are cute.
And now, desperate to move up to the 21st century, the Times is begging readers to get involved. They're going Interactive! they chirp. What can you do? They're the "Newspaper of Record" with "All the News That's Fit to Print." Do they want stories about your neighborhood, or your thoughts on local politicians?

Nope. Send them pictures of your dog.


Just to stave off future requests, might as well tell them about your favorite Thomas Kinkade painting, and how those Love Is. . . cartoons changed your life.