Supplementary > July 6, 2005

A Start-Up Socialist Tabloid

By Jim Rinnert

I met Jim in October 1976, 28 years ago, a time of national amnesia after the divisive years of Vietnam and Watergate. In the midst of a general political malaise (we were facing a tepid presidential election that offered a choice between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter), I felt a deep yearning for a positive, progressive direction in American politics, but had no idea where to look for signs of it. The search led me to answer a help-wanted ad for a typesetter with a start-up socialist tabloid to be called In These Times. I got the job, and by the time we’d finished the prototype issue and were preparing the first edition, I knew I’d found something—and someone—with a mission and a vision I could believe in and wanted to be part of.

The value of In These Times and Jimmy in my life—as mentor, guide, historian, educator, great cook and storyteller, friend and boss—is inestimable. I’ll miss his humor, his charm and his wisdom, his friendship. I’ll always be grateful to have known him and to have been part of his ambitious undertaking, In These Times.

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