I was waiting at a bus stop on Friday night, and didn’t notice when the bus I was waiting for went by because I was absorbed in the Utne Reader, which I didn’t think was possible. Getting absorbed in the Utne Reader, I mean (rowrrr - catty!).

Here is why I’m prone to be catty about the Utne Reader:
I dropped my subscription in 1997, after one too many yuppie rendered articles about how fulfilling it was to abandon a materially gratifying but spiritually stultifying corporate job in favor of a trek and prolonged stay at a Tibetan monastery-cum-B&B, apparently particularly after socking away sufficient material to buy plane tickets to Nepal. This was not the kind of thing I wanted to read as I ate my grad school ramen.

I received many solicitations to renew my subscription, all of which I ignored. Eventually they subsided, only to pour in again when they ran an "Under Old Management" campaign (back in Utne hands! back to the progressive mission!) . The whole thing read like the effort of a contrite child who had been soundly spanked by Mother Jones. It was good news, but not good enough to get me reading it again.

Except for Friday night, when, for the record, I had it at the bus stop because someone recommended the feature about student loans, and not at all because there are cartoon nipples on the cover this month.