On second thought, I agree wholeheartedly with Jared. Brown would be a desolate nightmare without the beacon of hope that is the opinions section, but based on his points, I think the current situation is not tenable either. What we really need is for The Herald to get rid of all of its normal content and make the newspaper a larger and more interactive editorial rag.
Think of it: We could have six opinions a day and 60 staff opinions writers. We could have a "Taking Sides" every day - this is, of course, the most entertaining segment we run, because they allow our columnists to argue about things that have always interested them so you can read them and feel like you really gained some new insight. We could integrate Facebook with the newspaper too, so your new insights could fill our hearts with joy - in real time, of course.
Because the opinions section is more than just a club. Its writers are hand-selected by the opinions editors themselves, and they are experts in the fields of study upon which they write - just like Paul Krugman - which is why their opinions are worth getting worked up about.
Brown is so small that with more opinions writers - or geniuses, as I like to call them - writing even more often than they do now, we, as a community, could delve deeper into the minutiae of life here, like particle physicists discovering the Higgs boson. It seems clear that we haven't yet learned to take advantage of the core curriculum. We haven't yet learned that athletes are people, too. Most importantly, we haven't yet learned that corporations are bad, especially the Brown one. These are things that we need more opinions about, to serve our part in humanity's unending quest for truth.
Dutiful reader, I ask you: How could we have ever even dreamt about getting rid of the opinions section? It seems to me that without writers telling us each day what we should care about, our lives would be nothing but shameful lies.
