In a front page dispatch from Los Angeles, this morning's New York Times comes in with the news that "At some unknown moment between now and July 1, 2001, if demographers are right, California will become the first big state in which non-Hispanic whites are officially no longer a majority. Or, to put it another way, California will become by far the largest proving ground for what it may eventually be like to live in a United States in which no one racial or ethnic group predominates."
This is old news to readers of Commentary magazine. In a cover story in its November, 1999 issue, Commentary reported, "At some unknown date during the late 1980's, and with no attention paid whatsoever, whites became a minority in California. . . . As the first major state to face the political reality of a shrinking white minority, California has become the laboratory of America's ethnic future." The Times story doesn't mention the existence of the Commentary article, leading unsuspecting readers to think that they are actually getting some new news, when in fact what they are getting is news that, if they had been reading Commentary, they would have known about seven months ago.
Double Standard on Capital Punishment: Buried in the third-to-last paragraph of a story in the international section about whether the Palestine Liberation Organization will unilaterally declare statehood is the news that a Palestinian Arab man had been sentenced to death by hanging after "a summary trial early this morning." The crime the man allegedly committed happened on Saturday. Considering the acres of space in its editorials and news columns that the Times has devoted lately to the supposed injustices of the death penalty in Texas, you might expect this death sentence in the Palestinian Authority territory to get some more attention from the Times. After all, the Texas death penalty was carried out in a system with an independent judiciary that allows lengthy jury trials and extensive appeals and allows defendants , at least in theory, the right to counsel and the freedom from being convicted on the basis of self-incriminating statements. The Palestinian death sentence, on the other hand, was handed down in a "summary" early-morning trial just days after the arrest. Some might suggest that the reason for the Times' double standard on the death penalty is that the Texas governor, George W. Bush, is running for president as a Republican and the Times is hoping he will lose, while the PLO chairman, Yasser Arafat, is trying to create a Palestinian Arab state with Jerusalem as its capital out of land now controlled by Israel, and the Times is hoping he will succeed. But we here at smartertimes.com would never make such an accusation of bias against the Times.
Double Standard on Immigration: Also in the international section, the Times prints a story about economic sanctions imposed by the European Union against Austria. The sanctions were triggered by the inclusion in Austria's governing coalition of Joerg Haider's Freedom Party. "The party opposes immigration, and some charge that it is racist and xenophobic.," the Times article says. Alongside the article about Austria is an article that runs under the headline "U.S Seeks China's Help in Slowing the Flood of Illegal Immigrants." That article reports a visit by President Clinton's commissioner of immigration and naturalization, Doris Meissner, to Beijing, in which the commissioner was "hoping to get a commitment for more help in stemming the huge flow of illegal Chinese immigrants into the United States." Ms. Meissner is quoted in the article as estimating that the American government "would send back 4,000 Chinese arriving illegally at American airports this year." But the Times dispatch from Beijing doesn't consider the possibility, or even quote anyone who considers the possibility, that it is racist or xenophobic or anti-immigrant or just plain shortsighted, un-American and morally wrong for America to turn away Chinese immigrants who come here seeking freedom and a better life. The editor of the Wall Street Journal comprehends this issue, to judge by his wonderful column in yesterday's Journal endorsing a five-word constitutional amendment, "There shall be open borders." The editors of the Times, however, do not, judging by their treatment of what, to smartertimes.com, looks like it has all the makings of a fabulous story: The Clinton administration dispatching an American government official to the Chinese Communist capital on the eve of the 4th of July to lecture the Communists on how they ought to crack down on their own people's freedom of movement -- while the same Clinton administration is busy lecturing Austria's Freedom Party about how it's anti-immigrant. Unbelievable. The Times story from Beijing seems attuned to none of these ironies, delivering the story instead in the official American government vocabulary of "smuggling" and the "illegal human trade."