The metro section of today's New York Times features a profile of Herman Badillo, a likely candidate for mayor of New York. The article identifies Mr. Badillo as Puerto Rican, refers to Mr. Badillo's "childhood home" in Caguas, Puerto Rico, and says he lived there when he was 5 years old. Then the Times reports, "He came to America with an aunt when he was 12, settled in Harlem, worked as a dishwasher and a pin boy at a bowling alley, and graduated at the top of his class at City College."
Puerto Rico has been part of America since the Treaty of Paris in 1898. A more careful and accurate wording would say that Mr. Badillo "came to the mainland with an aunt when he was 12" or "came to New York with an aunt when he was 12."
Late Again: The New York Times carries today on its front page, above the fold, an article under the headline, "Blacks and Hispanics in House Balk on Campaign Finance Bill." That's old news to readers of USA Today, which yesterday carried a story on its front page reporting essentially the same thing. The first quote in yesterday's article by USA Today's Tom Squitieri came from Rep. Albert Wynn of Maryland; the first quote in today's New York Times article comes from, you guessed it, Mr. Wynn. The Times gives no credit to the USA Today article.
Air Fleischer: The lead, front-page news article in today's New York Times, about U.N. dues, identifies White House spokesman Ari Fleischer as "Air Fleischer." Sounds like a new line of sneakers from Nike.
Freedom Time: A dispatch from Hong Kong in the international section of today's New York Times includes the following gem of a sentence: "The editors of Time have been concerned about issues of freedom since early March, when the magazine stopped being available on newsstands in mainland China (it continues to be sold here)." Why write "issues of freedom" and not just "freedom"? Haven't the editors of Time been interested in freedom -- or, if you must, "issues of freedom" -- since Henry Luce started publishing it in the 1920s? Anyway, "issues of freedom" seems a pretty flossy way of describing what the Time honchos are concerned about, which is that their magazine isn't sold in mainland China. It seems like that would also involve some issues of lost revenue.