The following is satirical.
Blithering Prevarication the Third, the editor-in-chief of The New York Times, a former newspaper, has traced the origins of a poorly cooked steak he had recently back to the institution of American slavery. Mr. Third’s comments were part of the Times’ “1619 Project,” which “aims to reframe American history by tracing everything we don’t like back to slavery.”
After dining at the elite midtown steakhouse American Cut, Mr. Third unleashed a tirade against the restaurant, saying, “When I pay over $120 for a steak I distinctly ordered medium rare, I do not expect to see it brought to my table medium-rare shading over toward medium. I knew the moment I experienced this travesty that its origins must lie in America’s history of slavery.”
Mr. Third went on to pen a 25-thousand word essay for the Times Sunday magazine entitled, “Why Can’t I Get My Rib Eye Cooked the Way I Want It? Slavery is to Blame.” The essay reads in part, “Perhaps you believe this is a great country founded on the highest ideals, but that’s because you were not forced to suffer the outlandishly overcooked steak that fell to my lot last Thursday evening which, as I’m sure you know, is the maid’s day off.”
In a speech before the Association of People Who Are Really Virtuous Despite Having Had Every Possible Advantage, Mr. Third said, “The fact that the center of my steak was maroon instead of bright pink can only be seen as a result of the sloppy workmanship and low values that arise from a nation conceived on the gnatty cotton fields we all witnessed in that great movie ‘Gone With the Wind.’ I look forward to the day everyone can have the kind of great steak I’m sure they have in Sweden or someplace like that.”
Mr. Third then headed out for a late dinner at Peter Luger and said he better not see any traces of slavery there or there’d be hell to pay.