An Unfilled Quest for 'The Gray Lady'

November 07, 2008 9:58 PM

ABC News On Campus reporter Dominick Tao blogs:

The morning after the election, after brushing my teeth and making some tea, my first priority was to grab a copy of The New York Times. I figured a copy of printed history would look great framed on my wall, and perhaps on the wall of one of my grandkids years from now.

The first place I went to acquire a copy was one of the many free newspaper bins on campus. The path of least resistance -- and least amount of money. The University of Florida's student government pays for a few thousand copies of the Times, as well as USA Today, for students daily. Problem is, the student ID-activated bins around campus are first-come, first-served. Since I'd been up until the wee hours of the morning reporting, I didn't rise until 10 a.m.

Click here to view Tao's search for a historical edition.

By the time I rode my bike the half-mile to campus, every bin had been completely depleted. Guess I'd be forking over $1.25 at a supermarket.

Wrong.

After class, I continued my search by traveling to two Publix Supermarkets, the main grocery chain in Florida. Both were completely sold out of every newspaper -- even the student newspaper, which is free. The racks were bare.

Where else could I get an NYT? "Aha!" I thought. What better place than the Gray Lady's bosom buddy of liberal stereotypes: Starbucks Coffee. I traveled to two of them. The racks next to the registers in both locations were empty.

After the second Starbucks, I climbed back into my SUV and begrudgingly fired up its gas-guzzling engine. This quest was beginning to get out of hand. It was becoming more of a sick mission to prove to myself that I could find a copy rather than actually getting a copy.

I visited a Target. Nope. A Barnes and Noble. Sold out. Three gas stations. No, nada, nuh-uh.

By this time, darkness was beginning to fall over the city, and with each passing minute, I could feel my chances of getting an Obama victory copy of America's newspaper of record slipping away.

So I called my mom. She lives in Lakeland, Fla. The Lakeland Ledger, a New York Times Co. paper, prints copies of the NYT for the entire region. Could they have extra copies? She called them up, but it was too late. There were no more for the general public at the regular price.

Yes, we had entered gouging territory. Newspapers across the country were upping the price for reprints. And whoever said Barack Obama was bad for the free market should really check out eBay. On the evening of Nov. 5, copies of the New York Times were on sale for more than $200 each. And people were actually buying!

The next day, I knew my chances had all but slipped away. But I still had one more idea. Since I am a poor student and couldn't afford online auction prices, I decided to turn slightly to the dark side; I went into one of UF's libraries with the intention of snatching a copy from the periodicals section.

I failed at that too. Someone had already beaten me to it.

Maybe someday, when I have grandkids, I'll just tell them a good story. Who needs a framed newspaper anyway?

Dejected, I updated my Facebook status: "Copies of the New York Times are completely sold out in Gainesville..."

One of the responses reminded me, though, that my Nov.5 NYT tragedy was just one of many.

My friend Liz posted to my profile: "Ditto here...P***ed me off too. Besides the cover story, every Wednesday is the special Food and Wine section!"

Eat, Drink, Be Wealthy

There was a banner above the cash registers. Its narrative line was like a laser beam, punching a message straight from Ronald McDonald's french-fried command bunker and into the brains of those waiting citizens wanting in line.

Eat, Drink, Be Wealthy. Monopoly.

How unfortunate to have been literate and human at that intersection of text and time.

I tried to avert my eyes, but the back-lit sign penetrated my consciousness like God's all-seeing eye. Its message was simply too powerful. Like sex on a string, it reeled me in. The extent of my free will stretched only so far as the choice between combos one through nine, and whether to supersize my order of fried potato pulp and reprocessed ground beef.

I was a walking gullet on a conveyor belt, shuffling forward with each passing order, drawn irresistibly toward that credit card swipe at the fast food counter.

Then I arrived. The girl wearing the Mcbranded visor and too-big polyester shirt said not a thing. She just looked at me, expecting me to know exactly what to do. And I did.

Number three, the QPC. I resisted the urge to supersize, to get the biggest of the Big Macs and double my chances of becoming a McMillionaire in that peel-off game that's been fueling dreams of no-work wealth since I was just starting to wean off the Happy Meal. But I still faltered. I got a coffee, too. Large. Despite the free refills, the larger cup would maximize my earning potential.

What a voodoo investment, my brain was telling me. But to think -- how $0.35 in extra pennies now could change my life! Just like the banner told me, straight and simple, all I've got to do is eat more, slurp more Coke, and I'd be everything I've ever wanted to be. And Monopoly, with McDonald's help, by God, is the way to do it!

Writing history: the student reaction to the '08 election

Joy and Celebration Over Obama Victory

November 05, 2008 1:18 AM

ABC News On Campus reporter Dominick Tao blogs:

There were moments when Bequita Gaines couldn't speak. She saw the words on the screen, she heard the crowd roar behind her, but the 21-year-old University of Florida senior said she couldn't believe what she was watching.

Surrounded by hundreds of cheering students under the vaulted ceiling of UF's Grand Ballroom on campus, the Barack Obama supporter had just seen her months of hoping and praying reach a resounding end. She began to cry.

The election had just been called, the marquee on the giant projector towering above her was displaying history.

President-Elect: Barack Obama.

"Words can't even express how I feel right now," Gaines said. "It's simply so amazing to be alive."

Shortly after that moment, students across America erupted in emotional celebrations on campuses and in barrooms, in living rooms and countless election-watch parties.

For many, this was the first political event in their lives for which they've felt any passion. And for others, this election day was the first where they've even been old enough to vote.

At the University of North Carolina and other universities around the country, students rushed the streets after the election was called by major newspapers and TV networks. Horns honked. Crowds chanted.

Whether their state was red or blue, students described the election in words that transcend state lines and party rhetoric: Monumental. Historic. Special.

From Gainesville, Fla. to Syracuse, N.Y., students have compared their excitement to being a kid again on Christmas Eve. Only there are no wrapped presents on Nov. 4, just the satisfaction of knowing that they put the candidate most favored by young people, Obama, into the White House.

From watering holes around the University of North Carolina campus to the University of Texas, screams of excited students echoed into the night, some comparing their experiences more to a post-football game revelry than an election return.

The lead-up to the celebration was a cross-section of revelry and civic duty.

"Students are starting for the first time in their lives to care seriously about an election," said David Lopez, a University of Florida political science major, who watched the election results from the corner of Brophy's Irish Pub in downtown Gainesville with fellow members of his political science honor society.

And even as the DJ sets up his equipment, and the Guinness continued flowing behind the bar, Lopez and his classmates remained glued to the big screen TV.

"Today is not an excuse to party, but to participate," he said.

Students across America settled in to couches and bar stools, theater seats and ballroom floors. Their eyes were fixed to massive projector screens and laptop monitors. They were tuned in
to dozens of networks and Web sites, but they were all watching the same thing: The 2008 presidential election, the election where many of them feel they've made a difference.

"This is a monumental moment that I'm glad I'm alive for," said University of Texas senior Shafayet Faraizi as he watched election results with the University Democrats. "In a hundred years, people will remember this."

For some of these college students, watching history unfold is more important than even college -- if only for the night.

After dark at Top of The Hill, a popular restaurant near the UNC campus, ear-piercing sounds of joy shot from a corner of the outdoor patio. A table of young women were ecstatic. Obama had just taken Ohio.

Shortly after, UNC freshman Katie Musgrove hugged friends and said, "I'm gonna fail my French test tomorrow, but I don't care! I'm so exhilarated!"

While the majority of college students had reason to celebrate, students backing John McCain were largely absent from even the large non-partisan celebrations.

At the UNC Young Republicans election watch party, held in a classroom on campus, there was no beer, and fewer than 30 students filled just a few rows in the large lecture hall.

As the viewers saw on the projector screen that North Carolina may help elect Obama for president and Democrats for Governor and a Senate seat, a student said, "What happened to our state?"

North Carolina hasn't elected a Democrat to the office of president since Jimmy Carter in 1977.

Back at the Top O', voices from rooftops cheer when a state turns blue on the network election maps. When a state turns red, the din evokes the stadium rumble of a bad call against the home team during homecoming.

Even UNC Senior William Humphries, a Republican taking in the election among hundreds of Democrats at the restaurant, said being with friends was more important than party affiliation. "There is no other place to be in Chapel Hill," he said.

Then, the election was called.

Back at the University of Florida in the Reitz Student Union Grand Ballroom, hundreds of students reacted to history in a way more heartfelt than any celebration the school has seen in recent semesters, even after three national championships in as many years.

Kristian Fong, a UF sophomore, saw the words on the screen: President-Elect Barack Obama.

She shot up from her chair. Her voice already gone from hours of cheering, the 19-year-old first-time voter sqeaked out nonsensical, joyous nothings toward the cavernous ballroom ceiling. Her hands waved in the air, she jumped, she danced. Tears came to her eyes, and all around her, a chest-rattling din of cheers and wild flailing of celebrating bodies welcomed the next president of the United States.

Walter Storholt, Carly Swain, Wilson Andrews, Andrew Egan and Sabina Kuriakose contributed to this blog.