A sentence in the last paragraph of the "Lives" column in today's New York Times magazine reads, "After the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the F.A.A. tightened security as it did after the bombing of T.W.A. Flight 800."
As one astute Smartertimes.com reader e-mailed this morning, "'The bombing of T.W.A. Flight 800'? If the Times has evidence T.W.A. Flight 800 was bombed, one would think they would put in on the front page of the news section, not the last page of the magazine."
Enough Already: Today's New York Times magazine prints a letter to the editor that is almost identical to one that appeared in the newspaper on December 11. The December 11 letter asserted that national service "benefits the volunteer as well." Today's letter says, "service benefits the volunteer as well." The December 11 letter said that "Both military and non-military opportunities. . . provide young Americans with new skills (including other languages), the chance to make a genuine contribution, and the opportunity to pay one's dues for the duty-free gift of citizenship in this country." Today's letter says "Both military and non-military opportunities in this country and abroad provide young Americans with new skills (including other languages), the chance to make a genuine contribution and the opportunity to pay our dues for the currently duty-free gift of citizenship in this country." Both the December 11 letter and today's go on to refer to the letter-writer's service in the Peace Corps in Senegal in 1967-1969, which the writer says "shaped my life." The letters are signed by the same person -- "M. Burch Tracy Ford," who is identified as the head of school at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Conn. Given all the letters the New York Times must receive, it's hard to see why the newspaper would choose to run essentially the same one, from the same person, twice in one week.
Behind the News: Maureen Dowd's column in today's New York Times refers to "the Saudi sheik" in the newly released tape of Osama Bin Laden. Thomas Friedman's column refers to "the unidentified Saudi sheik sitting next to him." Neither Ms. Dowd nor Mr. Friedman apparently were aware of the news dispatch from Riyadh in today's New York Times, which reports that the man in question was not a cleric but a warrior. That news dispatch runs under the headline "Dinner Guest of bin Laden Identified as Saudi Fighter; Had Mistakenly Been Called Religious Scholar."
Some People: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports that the Giuliani administration is spending $2.5 million to pay for 50,000 tickets to Broadway shows. The Times article says, "Although some people have criticized the move, Ms. Nicholas and Mr. Bernstein both defended it on economic grounds, with Ms. Nicholas saying that for retailers, 'January was going to be very bleak, so this is a way of generating some spending.'" The critics get stuck in a subordinate clause. The critics are not named. The critics' arguments are not described. The proponents of the idea, on the other hand, are named and get plenty of space for their detailed defense of the proposal. It's a strangely one-sided dispatch, given that the idea of taking tax dollars from struggling entrepreneurs and wage-earners and using them to subsidize the rich investors in Broadway shows is such a flaky one.
Specialist: The New York Times Book Review today reviews a book by "the noted Asia specialist Ian Buruma." In fact Mr. Buruma has written a lot about Europe, too, so it's not quite accurate to pigeonhole him as an Asia specialist.