And why is Times Select free this week?

Mark Evanier--who subscribed the first year but let it lapse recently--hazards a guess: "And you can wonder if the reason they're doing this is because it's now been around thirteen months since they started this deal and I'm probably not the only charter subscriber who disappeared on them when Year One was up. What kind of drop-off did they experience? I'll bet it was formidable."

I used to subscribe to the weekend NYT just to get to the columns, but after a while it wasn't worth it. I wish they'd give up on this elitist exercise!