All the Newsprint that fits the fingers

After a wonderful lunch with long-time friends and a subsequent visit with them to the American Museum of Natural History, I returned home to catch up with the Sunday Times and today's Times.

Does the newsprint come off on your fingers as quickly as it does mine? As you turn the pages, do you sneeze when your nostrils sense the ink-drying substance imposed on the paper as it goes through the presses? I love reading a newspaper. But I just realized that reading the same newspaper on line is a lot cleaner and healthier.

My fingers may get tired clicking through the pages but my nose is clear and the news is the same. They say competition from the Net is causing havoc with print journalism. Maybe so, but a slicker, cleaner paper might help.

Or not.