A solved problem creates two new problems, and the best prescription for happy living is not to solve any more problems than you have to. 
"The Big Problem Binge," The New York Times (1965-03-18)
In America, it is sport that is the opiate of the masses.
"The Muscular Opiate," The New York Times (1967-10-03)
People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure.
"The Sport of Counting Each Other Out" The New York Times (1967-11-02)
It seems to be a law of American life that whatever enriches us anywhere except in the wallet inevitably becomes uneconomic.
Letter to the editor [untitled], The New York Times (1968-03-24)
Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.
"The Fact About Progress," The New York Times (1970-02-24)
A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for not going to church on Sunday.
"The Morals Charge," The New York Times (1974-05-14)
A railroad station? That was sort of a primitive airport, only you didn't have to take a cab 20 miles out of town to reach it.
"Inside the Suit, a Man!," The New York Times (1986-11-05)
In America nothing dies easier than tradition.
"A Little Bones Trouble," The New York Times (1991-05-14)
St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-92782-7. This is a collection of newspaper and magazine columns from 1973-1980
Russell Wayne Baker is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning writer known for his satirical commentary and self-critical prose, as well as for his
autobiographyAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
,
Growing Up.
His career
Baker was the eldest of three children born to Benny and Lucy Elizabeth Baker in
Morrisonville, VirginiaMorrisonville is an unincorporated community in northern Loudoun County, Virginia, USA. It is located on Morrisonville Road . It is notable as being the birthplace of the Pulitzer Prize winning author Russell Baker....
. His first sister, Doris, was born in 1927, and after three years his second sister Audrey was born. Unfortunately, due to being desperately poor during the great depression, his mother had to make a heartbreaking decision and gave Audrey up for adoption to her brother-in-law and his wife. When Baker was five years old his father died of diabetes, so his mother had to move the family to
Belleville, New JerseyBelleville is a Township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 35,926.-History:...
to live with her brother and sister-in-law. Later they moved to urban
BaltimoreBaltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
where he graduated from the
Baltimore City CollegeThe Baltimore City College , also referred to as The Castle on the Hill, historically as The College, and most commonly City, is a public high school in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. The City College curriculum includes the International Baccalaureate Programme and emphasizes study in the classics...
high school in 1943 and received his
B.A.A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
from the School of Arts & Sciences at
Johns Hopkins UniversityThe Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
in 1947. At the age of eleven as a self-professed bump on a log, he made the decision to become a writer since he figured "what writers did couldn't even be classified as work". He went on to become an essayist,
journalistA journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, and biographer, as well as the host of the PBS show
Masterpiece TheatreMasterpiece is a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH Boston. It premiered on Public Broadcasting Service on January 10, 1971, making it America's longest-running weekly prime time drama series. The series has presented numerous acclaimed British productions...
from 1992 to 2004. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Russell Baker, was the author of the nationally syndicated "Observer" column for the New York Times from 1962 to 1998. He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
in 1993. In addition, the noted journalist, humorist, essayist, and biographer has written or edited seventeen books. Baker's first Pulitzer was for distinguished commentary for his "Observer" columns (1979) and the second one was for his autobiography,
Growing Up (1982). He wrote a sequel to his autobiography in 1989, called
The Good Times.
In addition to his regular column and numerous books, Baker has also edited the anthologies
The Norton Book of Light Verse (1986) and
Russell Baker's Book of American Humor (1993). In 1993, he replaced
Alistair CookeAlfred Alistair Cooke KBE was a British/American journalist, television personality and broadcaster. Outside his journalistic output, which included Letter from America and Alistair Cooke's America, he was well known in the United States as the host of PBS Masterpiece Theater from 1971 to 1992...
to become the regular host of the PBS television series, Masterpiece Theatre until his own retirement in 2004. During his long career, Baker was a regular contributor to national periodicals such as The New York Times Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Saturday Evening Post, and McCalls. While still hosting Masterpiece Theatre, he moved to
Leesburg, VirginiaLeesburg is a historic town in, and county seat of, Loudoun County, Virginia, United States of America. Leesburg is located west-northwest of Washington, D.C. along the base of the Catoctin Mountain and adjacent to the Potomac River. Its population according the 2010 Census is 42,616...
(not far from his birthplace) where he remains.
Description
Neil PostmanNeil Postman was an American author, media theorist and cultural critic, who is best known by the general public for his 1985 book about television, Amusing Ourselves to Death. For more than forty years, he was associated with New York University...
, in the preface to
Conscientious Objections, describes Baker as "...like some fourth century citizen of Rome who is amused and intrigued by the Empire's collapse but who still cares enough to mock the stupidities that are hastening its end. He is, in my opinion, a precious national resource, and as long as he does not get his own television show, America will remain stronger than Russia." (1991, xii)
Notable quotations
- "The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately defeat him." A contribution to the philosophy of Resistentialism
Resistentialism is a jocular theory to describe "seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects." For example, objects that cause problems exhibit a high degree of malice toward humans and lend support to resistentialist beliefs...
.
- "The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist."
- "Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things."
- "Reporters thrive on the world's misfortune. For this reason they often take an indecent pleasure in events that dismay the rest of humanity."
- "I gave up on new poetry myself thirty years ago, when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens on a hostile world."
- "One of the many burdens of the person professing Christianity has always been the odium likely to be heaped upon him by fellow Christians quick to smell out, denounce and punish fraud, hypocrisy and general unworthiness among those who assert the faith. In ruder days, disputes about what constituted a fully qualified Christian often led to sordid quarrels in which the disputants tortured, burned and hanged each other in the conviction that torture, burning, and hanging were Christian things to do..."
- "The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any."
- "Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy League schools rarely make fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard. All they know is that both are full of rich, fancy, stuck-up and possibly dangerous intellectuals who never sit down to supper in their undershirt no matter how hot the weather gets."
External links
- Baker author page from The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
- Baker article archive from The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...