The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal’s “Best of the Web” at WSJ written by the editor, James Taranto.
Out on a Limb
“Dear ESPN, You’re Wrong ‘Sound of Music’ Is Not a Guy Movie”—headline, LidBlog .com, Oct. 13
Other Than That, the Story Was Accurate
‘An earlier version of a picture caption with this obituary misidentified the album cover on the bottom left. It is Thelonious Monk’s ‘Underground,’ not ‘George Szell Conducts Beethoven.’ ”—New York Times, Oct. 12
Question and Answer—II
- “How to Throw the Worst Dinner Party of All Time—or Not!”—headline, BonAppetit .com, April 29, 2014
- “It’s Healthier to Eat a Bug Than It Is to Eat a Steak”—headline, Huffington Post, Oct. 13, 2015
The McOne Percent
Roberto Ferdman of the Washington Post’s Wonkblog weighs in with a new income-inequality grievance: Rich people eat more expensive sandwiches than those of more modest means.
Ferdman is troubled by the opening earlier this year of a new New York restaurant called BEC—“short for Bacon Egg and Cheese,” he helpfully explains. This “trendy new spot” is selling “fancy pants egg sandwiches at four times the normal price. That is, for as much as $11.50”:
The role that convenience has played in the rise of breakfast sandwiches rubs up against their gourmet counterparts. Many of the fancier versions, including those sold at BEC, are better eaten with both hands, a seat and a handful of napkins. They’re sit-down breakfast sandwiches and run contrary to the very nature of the food. They have created a sort of bizarre form of food inequality.
This same duality, of course, is true of many foods—of hamburgers, for instance. But other sandwiches aren’t as much a staple of people’s weeks as those eaten at breakfast.
The awkward juxtaposition is particularly acute in a city like New York, where bodegas can be found on almost any block. At these convenience stores, people linger just outside, unwrapping freshly bought $3 egg sandwiches. Meanwhile, next door, or just across the street, others now wipe away stray breakfast sandwich egg yolk with cloth napkins. They’re paying more for that bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, and they’re taking their time with it, too.
Perhaps this is a rude question, but if nobody’s going hungry, who cares? That rich people can afford to buy nicer things isn’t a scandal, it’s a tautology. Why not celebrate a culture in which a clever entrepreneur can make a buck by selling overpriced sandwiches to the swells?
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
