Great Moments in Journalism: High Yellow
Great Moments in Journalism beats on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. Believe in the green light here.
Well, the polls have closed, and your winner concerns the Times' lack of facility with the Spanish tongue. We're going to send a copy of Spanish for Dummies over to 43rd Street, but it's been our experience that these titles generally get returned, so if you see a Gawker contest with an ill-defined prize in the next couple of weeks, don't be surprised if that's the eventual premium.
Today's moment comes from a Washington Post about the late Damu Smith, an activist whose final cause was warning black men to take better care of their health, specifically scheduling examinations for the colorectal cancer that killed him. Here's the opening:
Damu Smith looked handsome in his coffin.
His face, with its high cheekbones and sharp jaw, seemed full again. His hair had a soft sheen, having been freshly oiled and woven into small, braidlike twists by his beautician at the funeral home the night before. His unblemished skin was the brown of a honey graham cracker.
