Note that Web designers are utilizing whitespace because they can – there are larger screens to design for.

And as for blue. Blue is the well known color of hyperlinks, but for the Web designer, blue is calming and it also allows for three colors for call to action elements: blue/yellow, blue/orange and blue/red.

What I mean is that after years of teaching media studies and newspaper history, I finally decided that the allegedly tactile pleasures of holding newsprint were highly overrated. The new white space/oxygen look was so readable on a laptop that I reached for the phone to cancel my Times subscription. This transition had been a long time coming, but new look sealed the deal.

Alas, a problem: If I didn’t subscribe, I’d lose Times Select with its archive privileges. So I still get the Sunday Times which — you guessed it — I still read on line.

Now here’s the problem.

One hour ago I came downstairs to find that yesterday’s copy of the newsprint NY Times was being put to the use that for years I had reserved for The New York Daily News – sopping up dog piss on the kitchen floor. (Why the Daily News? Long story. But for years they mercilessly bashed my place of employment, and did it without any of the verve or loony wit of The NY Post.)

So I looked down at the yellow-stained newsprint and saw that my wife had chosen the travel section for piss-duty. Now I never read the travel section, despite the fact that I love to travel. It’s just too precious and privileged self-consciously literate. But yesterday’s travel section had a stunning feature about a place I once lived that is one of my 2 – 3 favorite places on earth. And I am now reading through the yellow stain, enjoying the lovely layout, and crying – not because of nostalgia – but because of the fumes from canine urine.

The point: My new paper-free reading style has a downside. It simply is harder to make the occasional serendipitous discovery of a great story when it is hidden underneath web links rather than being laid out on my kitchen floor.