Slate’s Press Box columnist, Jack Shafer, took a break from beating up on Judith Miller to Matt Miller for a proposal in his new book, The Two Percent Solution. (No relation between the Miller’s, far as I know: what is it with Shafer and that name, anyway?)
Matt Miller, the able and patient host of KCRW’s Left Right and Center (he must be patient, he puts up with Bob Scheer every week), argues in his book for, among other things, newspapers to run a feature he calls ‘Still True Today’. (As I enjoy Miller’s work on KCRW, I must admit with embarassment that I haven’t read his book yet, hence I’m relying on Shafer’s quotations here). Shafer describes Miller’s idea as follows:
Setting aside the wisdom of Miller’s $200 billion proposal [the main thrust of his book; I leave this to another post – NZB], he believes newspapers should raise awareness of America’s unmet health, education, and income needs with a daily feature called “Still True Today.” Bannered across the bottom inch of Page One (just 2 percent of a standard broadsheet!), “Still True Today” would “institutionalize regular attention for things that are important even though there’s not ‘news’ in them,” Miller writes. One day the feature would explain, “42 million Americans are uninsured