What is it with the New York Times that it can't spell names correctly? Today's error comes in a story on the front of the metro section about an effort to develop part of the Queens waterfront. The Times refers to the chief executive of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center as "Harold Varmis." The correct spelling of the name is "Varmus," and it's hardly obscure -- the man has a Nobel Prize and was director of the National Institutes of Health before coming to Sloan-Kettering.
The Death Tax in Action: Another article on the front of the metro section in today's Times reports on the impending sale of a house in Hyde Park, N.Y, that once belonged to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Times seems upset at the prospect that the house may be demolished, but you have to read down to the 24th paragraph of the article to figure out why the house is suddenly for sale. The current owner, the Times reports, "said he had to sell the mansion to settle his late brother's estate." Sure looks like a case of the death tax in action, but the Times skips over any details that would shed more light on the policy underlying the threat to the Roosevelt house. Of course, the Times in its editorials and news coverage about the death tax has stood athwart genuine relief.