A column in the arts section of today's New York Times is devoted to the rap performer Eminem. "I would like to rescind any apology I ever offered for liking the album," a Times music critic writes. "At heart this is honest art." What's more, the music has "a fundamentally Christian message," the critic writes. It's also "very funny."
Well, New York Times op-ed page columnist Bob Herbert weighed in on this topic back on January 29, 2001: "What is the artistic value here? Trust me, it's not the music," Mr. Herbert wrote. "Album of the year? Only a lunatic could think this was the finest album of the year."
No matter how "funny," "Christian," and "honest" Eminem's lyrics may be, the Times is constrained against excerpting them at any length because they violate virtually all of the newspaper's guidelines on obscenity, vulgarity and profanity. The Times's own stylebook explains these guidelines by saying, "The Times differentiates itself by taking a stand for civility in public discourse."
Apparently the "stand for civility in public discourse" taken by the Times doesn't extend to the paper's music criticism. Or it extends to it only to the extent that it prevents the paper from printing the very lyrics it is praising.
War: An editorial in today's New York Times asserts, "A war between India and Pakistan would be ruinous to both nations, and devastating to American efforts to sustain an international coalition against terrorism."
Well, let's be clear. Pakistan is the one harboring and sponsoring the terrorists. India is the one being attacked by the terrorists. Worrying about the effects on a "coalition" of a war against terrorists lets the tactics dictate the strategy. The point of the coalition is to win the war. If the "coalition against terrorism" prevents America and India from fighting the terrorists -- if the "coalition against terrorism" in fact includes terrorists -- it isn't a coalition that is much worth preserving. Besides, the effect of winning a war would likely be to reinforce the coalition rather than to devastate it. Nothing succeeds like success.
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