Most news stories depict sixth graders as violent criminals, sex addicts, drug abusers, computer hackers or fashion-conscious shopaholics. But this morning's New York Times, after conducting "round-table discussions over the past six months with 221 sixth graders" at 21 schools in 11 states and the District of Columbia, brings in the front-page news that what these children really are is, well, nerds. "As a Muslim school in Atlanta, just as at a Jewish school in Las Vegas, preteenage overachievers sweat even fractional fluctuations in grade-point average," the story says. One student, in Las Vegas, "has been using the Web to compare Brigham Young University in Utah with a college in Hawaii." Another, in Atlanta, logs onto a web site "several days a week" to answer practice SAT questions. Where did the Times find these children? And was there any discounting for the usual sixth-grader practice of telling adults what the sixth-grader thinks the adults want to hear? We haven't interviewed 221 sixth graders, and we may be overly cynical. But we'd bet that for each 12-year old sweating over "fractional fluctuations in grade-point average" and running home after school to practice for the SAT, there are at least a few others who are spending their time experimenting with tobacco and using their computers not for SAT practice but for playing video games.
Late: Under the headline "Iraqis ask U.S. to Do More to Oust Saddam," a story in the international section reports on a meeting last Monday between Vice President Gore and Iraqi opponents to Saddam Hussein. The story also reported on a hearing about Iraq policy that was held last Wednesday before a congressional subcommittee headed by Senator Brownback. Why did it take the Times until today, Monday, to report news that happened last Monday and Wednesday? Other papers had no such delay; The Wall Street Journal last week devoted a full column to the news.
Batty: For some unfathomable reason, the Times seems to find the bottom of its editorial column an appropriate place to publish the random ruminations of someone who lives in the boondocks. The regular feature appears under the heading "The Rural Life." Today it is about bats and slugs.