V-NYT Day

So for the past 2 years, I've waged a silent war against The New York Times online because they started charging for access to articles. I've read Maureen Dowd's columns since high school and the prospect of suddenly paying $2 per column was, to me, absolutely ridiculous. It's bad enough they charge $5 for the Sunday Times, there was no way in hell I was going to pay some ridiculous TimesSelect fee. However, I still needed my Maureen Dowd-Paul Krugman fix so I basically bribed people for their Lexis-Nexis passwords and then emailed myself the articles I wanted.

Well, today the New York Times has officially ended TimesSelect. Op-Ed, News, and all the other columns are now available as they should be - free of charge. This is also good for sports fans because Harvey Araton's columns are now available as well. We can finally read the columns Henry links to in full. Incidentally, today's Harvey Araton column is about the role Bill Russell plays as mentor to incoming rookies. Joakim Noah gets the conversation rolling by asking straight up if "[Russell] felt underappreciated while accomplishing all that he did in racially polarized Boston — 11 N.B.A. championships in 13 remarkable years — at the dawn of and during the civil rights era." An interesting read, as most everything involving Bill Russell is.

So yay! Release your inner nerd and enjoy V-NYT Day.