A lengthy obituary of Soviet spy Ruth Werner in this morning's New York Times displays a curious unwillingness to come to grips with the moral implications of spying for the Soviet Communist regime. It's similar to the flattering treatment the Times gave last month to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who also spied for the Soviets. Today's story is headlined "Ruth Werner, Colorful and Daring Soviet Spy, Dies at 93." The article describes her not only as colorful but also as "successful" -- suggesting the Times considers handing nuclear secrets over to the Soviets to constitute success. The rest of the article is pretty much a straightforward account of her exploits as a spy, including the fact of her being awarded a Red Banner, "the highest Soviet military decoration," in 1969. A sentence or two in this obituary of context about what the Soviet Union was doing internationally and to its own citizens during the period in which Werner was active would have gone a long way toward making clear that what this woman did was not only "colorful," "daring" and "successful," but that it was wrong.
Blunder in Brooklyn: Just days after misplacing the neighborhood of South Brooklyn, the Times is at it again, massacring the name of another place in the county of Kings. An article on page 23 of New York editions (I'm operating off the bulldog edition, which hits the streets Saturday night) refers to "Bayridge, Brooklyn." As Brooklynites know, that's Bay Ridge, two words, with the Ridge capitalized, please.
That's Lexis: This passage appears in an article on page 9 of the real estate section: "But he likens it to the way lawyers at his old firm of Baker & Botts reacted to the installation of Lexus terminals giving access to legal data. 'At first they were seen as a back-up to the books in the law library,' he said. 'Five years later it was reversed. I consulted the Lexus terminal while I was on the telephone with clients.'" The name of the online legal research service is Lexis; a Lexus has leather seats and is what the lawyers buy to drive around in with the profits they make from billing clients for the time spent in the office using Lexis.