Lead, front-page New York Times headline today: "Huge Decline Seen in Budget Surplus Over Next Decade."

Item from business-section column from today by same writer who wrote today's front-page, lead news article: "Budget projections are bunk."

If budget projections are "bunk," why are they the lead news article in today's New York Times?

Lost in New York: An article in the city section of today's New York Times asserts, "When drivers are frustrated, as they often are when trying to get on the Manhattan Bridge at Essex and Delancey Streets, they can behave dangerously." Indeed, a driver trying to get on the Manhattan Bridge at Essex and Delancey Streets would be frustrated, since those streets are near the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge, not the Manhattan Bridge. This probably wouldn't happen very "often," however, because anyone familiar with New York City or a map of it would know that it would be a silly thing to try "to get on the Manhattan Bridge at Essex and Delancey Streets."

Partisan Motives: A news article in today's New York Times reports on a dispute over passages borrowed by the author and historian Stephen Ambrose. "Sean Wilentz, a history professor at Princeton who has criticized the methods of some popular historians in an essay in The New Republic, said: 'Haste makes waste. History is a demanding muse, and so the quicker you write the more vulnerable you are.' Mr. Wilentz also suggested, however, that Mr. Barnes, a conservative journalist, may have had partisan motives in unearthing the mistake, since 'The Wild Blue' also documents the valor of the liberal Senator George McGovern."

The Times doesn't give Mr. Barnes a chance to defend himself against Mr. Wilentz's smear of his motives. So let Smartertimes.com just note that Mr. Ambrose and his works have been widely appreciated and celebrated by conservatives, and that Mr. Wilentz, one of Bill Clinton's most ardent defenders and George W. Bush's most loud detractors, isn't exactly beyond being accused of partisan motives himself.

Fireworks: An editorial in today's New York Times argues against a New York state bill that would legalize some fireworks. "Anything that gets minors playing with matches and flammable materials is a bad idea, and sparklers, while benign at a backyard barbecue, can be a serious fire hazard if crowds of people decide to start waving them around at once," the Times says. By this reasoning, the Times ought to favor a statewide ban on campfires, the Boy Scouts, rock-skipping and marshmallow roasting.

A New York Times sports columnist today recalls a 1991 football game in which Miami players engaged in "obscene gestures and taunts" and "received three consecutive penalties -- all for variations of unsportsmanlike conduct." They were "raucous," "boisterous and rowdy."

"Miami's performance that day was evidence of the Faustian pact entered into by big-time football programs when they began bringing black athletes -- not students or professors -- to campus by the truckload. They wanted black muscle, but not the attendant style and sensibilities that often accompanied muscle," the Times columnist writes.

The suggestion seems to be that "obscene gestures and taunts" and "unsportsmanlike conduct" are part of the "style and sensibilities" that accompany "black muscle."

Smartertimes.com would argue that there are plenty of non-black athletes who have over the years engaged in plenty of "obscene gestures and taunts" and "unsportsmanlike conduct." The Times columnist's effort to depict such behavior as some kind of racial trait is odd, and he doesn't give much evidence to back it up.

A front-page article in today's New York Times about Senator Torricelli reports that a former friend of the senator "met a number of times with President Clinton, whose best friend, Terry McAuliffe, now the Democratic National Committee chairman, he hired as a consultant."

It's probably an excessively categorical statement to refer to Terry McAuliffe as Bill Clinton's "best friend." The Times itself reported on December 26, 2000, that "One of Mr. Clinton's best friends, Vernon E. Jordan, is black and the two are frequently photographed together playing golf and taking vacations." The wording in today's article suggests that Mr. Clinton has only one best friend and that and it is Mr. McAuliffe, not Mr. Jordan.

News Article: An original, non-Times-related news article follows: Roll Out the Fire Barrels -- After 9/11, Old-Fashioned Heating Elements Warm Streetcorner Guardposts
By BENJAMIN SMITH
Smartertimes.com Staff

NEW YORK -- Even as the war-zone feeling fades from most of lower Manhattan, New Yorkers can still stop by Broadway just below Lispenard Street to see a group of armed men huddled around a smoking steel drum.

The police officers, state troopers, and National Guardsmen watching at makeshift guardposts for suspicious vehicles have faced cold days and colder nights, and have responded with a traditional solution: open wood fires. The fires are fed by scrap donated by passing truckers, and some of the ash appears to be dumped into a subway grate. That's not exactly everyday behavior in a city whose ordinances include a six-part section regulating the design of candles at public events.

The fires are among the many rough traditions that have sprung from a downtown that still feels itself under siege. The American Lung Association warns that wood fires are a major source of pollutants, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency has regulated wood stoves since 1988. Those concerns seem minor in comparison with the smoke generated by the fires that burned for months at the site of the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. But if nothing else, the flame-filled barrels are signs that the heightened law-enforcement presence following the attack has brought with it a certain more relaxed attitude toward, well, enforcement of some of the laws.

"You would normally need a permit" for fires like those the police and National Guard are lighting, fire department spokesman Brian Dixon said. But he said that the department was unaware of the police fires and has no plans to shut them down. A spokesman for the police department referred Smartertimes.com to the nearby Fifth Precinct, where a policeman who identified himself as Officer Henderson said of the open fires, "I don't see anything illegal about that."

"This does look like a double standard," a spokesman for an advocacy group for New York's homeless, the Coalition for the Homeless, said. The police routinely roust vagrants and douse their fires, the spokesman, Patrick Markee, said.

In New York, even barbecues are strictly regulated: the Parks Department issues permits for summer cook-outs in the city's green areas, while the Web site of the New York Fire Department warns that "parties looking to barbecue in commercial establishments, street festivals, or in other nonresidential areas must make specific applications to the FDNY."

But the bureaucracy and its permits appeared far from the minds of the two young members of the New York Army National Guard's 101st Cavalry, who were helping police officers on vigil for suspicious trucks on Broadway and Lispenard. A police officer was occupying the checkpoint's wooden hut, so the guardsmen, dressed in camouflage and black knit caps, warmed themselves next to the flickering fire. Asked where the ash goes, one soldier laughed. "We dump it down there," he said, indicating a nearby subway grate crusted with ash.

At another checkpoint Wednesday afternoon, just south of Canal Street, Officer Greg Leavey was jamming a wooden plank into one of two gently flaming fires in rusted drums. One of four officers checking trucks on Varick Street near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, he was standing near an American flag and amid several rough heaps of wooden pallets.

"The truckers see that you have a fire and they want to get rid of these things," he said.

Officer Leavey, like two members of the 101st Cavalry at Lispenard Street, said he didn't know when the fire had been started and didn't think it had a permit. But he felt obliged to keep it burning for the shift that would replace him in the evening.

"Clothes only do so much" against the cold, he said. "We don't really need it during the day, but overnight it gets down into the teens."

An article on the front page of the House & Home section of today's New York Times reports on parents "raising a daughter . . . in a household that has been shaped by the adults' experiences with psychedelic drugs." The Times reports that "The couple started dating in 1976, after sharing a bottle of Kahlua and LSD, and the drug has remained an important part of their lives and their art." The article quotes one parent who "said they take LSD about twice a year, never around their daughter." The couple "belong to a synagogue and a Buddhist community, attend pagan festivals and add a keen interest in Hinduism and the shamanic religions of the Americas, some of which use psychedelic plants." It's a pity some Times editor didn't feel a twinge of restraint before parading photographs of this 13-year-old girl before newspaper readers. Never mind that there are still some Times readers who open up the paper expecting articles with a tone that reflects the New York Times and not High Times, the Village Voice or Rolling Stone. The real sin here isn't against the newspaper's readers but against the 13-year-old. She is named in the article and photographed, but the article doesn't really probe how she might feel about being paraded along with her parents in an article about LSD use. It's utterly exploitative and tacky and invasive of the child's privacy.

Only: A news article in today's New York Times runs under the headline, "Jewish Groups Endorse Tough Security Laws." The article reports, "Several Jewish leaders said their groups were still studying the administration's antiterrorism initiative. Some said they might press for changes behind the scenes. But so far, only the liberal Reform movement has publicly raised objections."

It is not true that "so far, only the liberal Reform movement has publicly raised objections." In fact another Jewish group, the Workmen's Circle, issued a November 2001 press release in which the group's executive director, Robert Kestenbaum, said, "we have grown increasingly alarmed by the proposals of the Bush Administration and members of Congress to combat terrorism . . .These proposals trample on many of our traditional civil liberties." The Workmen's Circle hosted and sponsored a December 2, 2001, public forum in Manhattan at which Rep. Jerrold Nadler denounced the new antiterrorism laws as "much too restrictive of civil liberties," and at which several other speakers denounced the administration's antiterrorist initiatives in strong terms. None of the invited panelists at the Workmen's Circle event expressed support for the administration's domestic antiterrorist initiatives.

Warlord: A dispatch from Kabul in today's New York Times refers to an "anti-Taliban commander" as a "leader" and an "Afghan official." Fair enough. A headline and a photo cutline that accompany the article persist in referring to him, however, as a "warlord," a word that is laden with negative connotations and that the Times seems to enjoy using to refer to any armed man who is swarthy and whose first language is not English.

The lead news article in the national section of today's New York Times runs under the headline, "Wheelchair Users Fly More, And Airlines Try to Adapt; Balancing Aging Boomers and New Security."

Interest piqued, Smartertimes.com scoured the article for an example of a single "aging boomer" who uses a wheelchair on an airplane. But there are only two wheelchair users whose ages are given in the article. One is 63 and another is 72. That makes them too old to be part of the baby-boom generation.

The Times's own stylebook has an entry on "baby boom" that states, "as allusions to the population surge after World War II -- between 1946 and 1964 -- 'baby boom' and 'baby boomer' are overused; ration them." Using that Times stylebook definition, baby boomers are now between 56 and 38 years old. That makes them a bit young to be "aging" enough to be using wheelchairs, unless it is for a knee injury sustained while playing squash or while downhill skiing. It also makes them a bit young to have retired to Miami, where the Times news article is datelined.

The only reference to baby boomers in the article is one that says, "the airlines say they expect an even greater demand for services geared toward passengers with limited mobility as more graying boomers begin to request wheelchairs at airports." Again, the article doesn't cite a single specific example of a "graying boomer" who is beginning to request a wheelchair at an airport. If there are such examples, the boomers are likely to be requesting the wheelchairs for the use of their elderly, non-boomer parents. And in any case, the headline does not refer to an expected surge but to one that already exists: "Wheelchair Users Fly More." It would be reasonable for a reader to expect from the headline that these "wheelchair users" who "fly more" are the same "aging boomers" mentioned elsewhere in the headline; in that sense, the headline is misleading.

Snubbing Moynihan? A front-page news article in today's New York Times reports, "While many of those who landed in the coveted seats on the steps of City Hall were familiar to any New Yorker -- two current New York senators and one famous former one, two former mayors, the departing City Council speaker, Peter F. Vallone, and former Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi, to name but a few -- there was also a fresh bevy of faces." So, the Times noticed "one famous former" U.S. senator from New York on the City Hall steps. The text of the article runs alongside a photograph that clearly shows both Senator D'Amato and Senator Moynihan on the steps of City Hall. Is the Times trying to suggest that Mr. Moynihan is not famous? Or is it a snub of Mr. D'Amato? In any event, with Mr. D'Amato and Mr. Moynihan both sitting on the City Hall steps, the reference to the presence of "one famous former" senator, without specifying which former senator is the one the Times is referring to, is the kind of coy mischief that doesn't belong in a front-page news article.

Today's New York Times carries a Reuters dispatch from Muscat, Oman, which reports that the secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council "criticized Baghdad for continuing antagonism toward its pro-Western neighbors Saudi Arabia and Kuwait."

It's inaccurate to call Saudi Arabia "pro-Western." Consider that the Saudi government daily Al-Watan on December 9, 2001, published an article titled "The Jewish organizations are implementing their strategic hellish plan to take over the world." The article reported, "At the end of the last century, the Jewish organizations consolidated a hellish plan to take over the world by sparking revolutions or taking control of the keys to governments in various countries, first and foremost the US and Russia."

The article went on, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute, "In conclusion, the reader is likely to wonder about the extent of the Jews' control . . . So as to prove our words, we will not address Jewish control of the media in Western countries, primarily in the US. . . but we will give an example of the Jews' infiltration and control of the top positions in the American administration. This control aroused astonishment in the days of the Clinton administration. . . .: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, FBI chief George Tenet, Defense Secretary William Cohen, Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger -- all Jews. Through this infiltration of the various American administrations, and through controlling the media and money, the Jews impose their agenda on the other peoples, and the Jewish sense of superiority, whose aim is to recruit the peoples and their resources for the good of Jewish interests and their racist state Israel, remain unchanged."

It's not just Jews the Saudis have a problem with. They don't like Christians, either. As the U.S. State Department put it in a report on religious freedom in Saudi Arabia: "Freedom of religion does not exist. Islam is the official religion, and all citizens must be Muslims. . . . Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is considered apostasy. Public apostasy is a crime under Shari'a (Islamic law) and punishable by death."

In addition, there's the fact that Saudi Arabia spawned Osama Bin Laden and more than a dozen of the terrorists who hijacked planes and flew them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

It's a mystery how, in light of all this, the Times can pass along to its readers a news article describing Saudi Arabia as "pro-Western."

Surprisingly: A front-page article in today's New York Times reports that President Bush "announced the American withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, with surprisingly little backlash from Russia or the allies." The lack of backlash was "surprising" only to those, like the Times, who had overestimated the amount of backlash. There were plenty of people who had a more clear-eyed view of the matter and who weren't particularly surprised.

Can't Spell: An item in the "boldface names" column of the metro section of today's New York Times refers to "Rabbi Arthur Schneider." A news article on the front page of today's Times, which mentions the same event, spells it correctly as "Rabbi Arthur Schneier."

Can't Spell: A dispatch from Crawford, Texas, in today's New York Times reports, "The White House announced today that Valmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-American on the staff of the National Security Council, would be the special presidential envoy to Afghanistan." In fact Mr. Khalilzad's first name is "Zalmay," with a "Z," or "Zal," for short.

Two front-page articles in today's New York Times portray Mayor Giuliani as "extreme." The main news article reports, "he consciously took extreme positions on seemingly intractable issues so that the resulting compromise would further his agenda." The accompanying news analysis says, "When he took what were, by New York terms, novel or extreme stands, he said he was acting tactically, to stir movement in an intellectually stagnant political culture dominated by the Democratic Party. For example, this approach, he said, was behind his proposals to finance scholarships at private schools to give poor children an exit from failing public schools."

It's unclear from the Times whether the term "extreme" is the mayor's or the Times's. If it's the Times's, it sure is illuminating. What one article terms "extreme" is defined in the other article as extreme "by New York terms." Maybe the real definition should be extreme by New York Times terms. After all, the only example the Times cites of an "extreme" position by the mayor is "his proposals to finance scholarships at private schools to give poor children an exit from failing public schools." That's a proposal that tests at about 50% in national polls, depending on how the question is asked. It was part of the Republican platform that President Bush was elected on. The fact that the Times would define it as "extreme" by New York terms only proves the mayor's point about an "intellectually stagnant political culture dominated by the Democratic Party."

A front-page "political memo" in today's New York Times reports that New York's Mayor-elect, Michael Bloomberg, is winning favorable reviews but "has yet to take the kind of steps that could be politically problematic, be they budget cuts, rousting homeless people who are sleeping on city streets or setting the tone for Police Department conduct."

It's an interesting assumption that cutting the city's bloated budget -- recent expenditures include more than $80 million to redo the Boss Tweed Courthouse and $2.5 million for tickets to Broadway shows -- is "politically problematic." It is also an interesting assumption that helping homeless people find safe and secure shelter and making sure the sidewalks and streets are passable -- the Times calls this "rousting homeless people" -- is "politically problematic." It sure shows where the New York Times is coming from that it sees budget cutting and homeless "rousting" as political problems rather than political opportunities. Same with setting the tone for Police Department conduct. If done correctly there is nothing politically problematic about that. If there is a political problem it lies not with the steps themselves but with the interest groups that react to the steps with gripes that the Times can be counted on to trumpet and echo.

Right-Wing: An article in the Week in Review section of today's New York Times reports, "In Israel, where the United States has always in the past urged restraint in the wake of suicide attacks, Washington now found no choice but to tell Israel it was free to take whatever measures it saw fit. That, in turn, freed the right-wing government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to do what he had long wanted to do, declaring Mr. Arafat unfit to negotiate with unless he eliminated Hamas."

Mr. Sharon's government is not "right-wing"; it is a national unity government that includes Israel's Labor Party. The foreign minister is the Labor Party dove Shimon Peres. What's more, Mr. Sharon's desires are mischaracterized. Eliminating Hamas would be nice but it is not necessary or sufficient. What Mr. Sharon wants is an end to attacks on Israel and on Israelis. If Hamas were eliminated and the attacks on Israel and on Israelis were continued by Islamic Jihad and by the Tanzim militia of Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Mr. Arafat would still be unfit to negotiate with. Similarly, if all the attacks on Israel and Israelis ended and Hamas endured strictly as a religious and social service organization, Mr. Sharon probably would be willing to negotiate with Mr. Arafat.

Indian Ships: A dispatch from Islamabad, Pakistan, in the international section of today's New York Times quotes "senior military intelligence officers" there who said "that a naval task force consisting of India's only aircraft carrier, the Vikrant, six other ships and two submarines had moved toward Pakistani waters in the Arabian Sea, placing Indian naval aircraft within easy striking distance of Karachi." There doesn't seem to be much intelligence among these intelligence officers, never mind the Times staffers who pass this news along. The Vikrant was decommissioned in 1997 and there are plans for turning it into a museum. India's aircraft carrier is called the Viraat, which is a different ship from the Vikrant.

Take Your Pick: An article in the "A Nation Challenged" section of today's New York Times refers to "Brother Joel Magallan Reyes" of "Asociacion Tepeyac." An article in today's New York Times magazine refers to "Brother Joel Magallan" of "Asociacion Tepayac."

Excessive Attribution: A dispatch from Crawford, Texas, in today's New York Times reports, "Mr. Bush, in remarks delivered from his 1,600-acre ranch here, said he was 'disappointed' by what he said was the failure of the Senate to act on an economic stimulus package." It seems pretty much undeniable that the Senate failed to act on what Mr. Bush is calling an economic stimulus package. It's not just Mr. Bush saying the Senate failed to act; the Senate failed to act. It's a checkable fact that, so far as Smartertimes.com can tell, is not under dispute. If the Times wants to make perfectly clear that it isn't taking sides on the question of whether the package would stimulate the economy, the "he said" could go before the "economic stimulus package" part.

An article in the business section of today's New York Times reports, "The latest figures on home sales, consumer confidence, orders for durable goods and claims for unemployment benefits all came in better than anticipated. Despite the pleasant surprises, economists still warned of a feeble recovery next year."

Maybe the Times reader is a bankruptcy lawyer, an investor who shorts stocks, or a radical environmentalist who opposes new housing construction and economic growth. For those people, the news might not be "pleasant" or "better." It would pleasant if the Times would just report the news and let readers decide for themselves whether it is "pleasant" or not.

'Imaginary Enemy': An article in the Arts and Ideas section of today's New York Times reports on a dispute over an artwork at the Memphis Central Library that includes the phrase, "Workers of the world, unite!" Anticommunists have protested the inclusion of the quote. The Times article includes a comment from a New York historian who says, "Politicians jousting over an imaginary enemy is not very productive." The problem is that for the people of China, Cuba and North Korea, who still live under oppressive Communist regimes, this enemy isn't "imaginary." If you are about to be shot in China for the "crime" of trying to organize an alternative political party or an independent labor union, the enemy isn't "imaginary." The enemy is right there about to shoot you.

One can't fault the Times for including comments that are foolish -- part of the job of newspapers is to report when people say foolish things. But the notion that the Communists are an "imaginary" enemy is so outlandish that when the Times passes it along without even a raised eyebrow, the newspaper's own credibility suffers a bit of a dent.

The Times article refers to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as the source of the "Workers of the world, unite!" quote, but in fact what Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto was, "Working men of all countries, unite!"

Can't Spell: A front-page article in today's New York Times refers to "General Musharaff" of Pakistan. Elsewhere in the article the name is spelled as "Musharraf."

An item in the national briefing column in today's New York Times reports, "Milwaukee's homeless shelters its only operating overflow shelter have exceeded their capacity, the chairman of the Milwaukee Emergency Shelter Task Force, Joseph Volk, said." Never mind the mangled English that makes that sentence incomprehensible. The Times is late again. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on December 26, 2001: "The overflow facility that helps ease the population crunch at Milwaukee's homeless shelters now seems to need a rescue. For the first time it, too, is full." The Wall Street Journal's online Best of the Web Today column linked to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article yesterday.

Two days behind the local paper, a day behind the Wall Street Journal, and in mangled English, at that. And today's Times gives no credit to the local paper. Not exactly the New York Times at its best.

What About China?: An editorial in today's New York Times runs through a list of countries that are using the American war against terrorism as an excuse to justify internal repression. The Times names Russia, Egypt, Guatemala and Zimbabwe as examples of such countries. Mysteriously omitted is China, which, as the Times news department reported in a compelling front-page dispatch on December 16, 2001, is engaged in a harsh crackdown against Uighur Muslims. In a September 14, 2001, editorial, the Times wrote, "China fears a spillover of Islamic terrorism into its own western province of Xinjiang, where Muslims make up about half the population." The Times editorialists seem to suggest that the Chinese repression and fears are warranted, while the repression and fears of the leaders of Russia, Egypt, Guatemala and Zimbabwe are not warranted. If there's a reason the Chinese case is different, the Times should say so. Otherwise it just looks like the paper is going easy on the Communists.

Today's New York Times features a front-page photograph of shoppers taking advantage of post-Christmas sales. Given the number of shoppers and stores in New York City, and given the Times's ample staff of New York-based photographers, you'd think the Times might have been able to find a front-page photo of shoppers in New York. Nope. Today's front-page photo cutline says "Chicago shoppers took advantage of big price cuts the day after Christmas, as retailers cleared out inventory." It's another example of the way the Times's business strategy of being a national newspaper is affecting the content of the newspaper. There is a sidebar in today's Times business section about shopping in New York, but it is buried inside the business section beneath yet another picture from Illinois. The national shopping story gets front-page placement, while the New York story gets shunted inside the business section. If the Times is going to cover retailing with two photos from Illinois and one photo from New York, the newspaper should change its name to the Illinois Times.

New?: A dispatch from Brussels in the international section of today's New York Times reports on human rights cases in the Belgian courts. "Three new complaints involve Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon," the Times reports in the second paragraph of today's article. Just how "new" are these court complaints? Way down in the article, there is a reference to "In June, when the first of three lawsuits against Mr. Sharon and several military officers was filed in Brussels." Only by the slow-moving standards of the Times news department is a lawsuit filed in June still "new" on December 27.

Offenses: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times describes Mayor-elect Bloomberg's intention "to roll back such offenses as prostitution and panhandling." A pull-quote in the article reads "Following in Giuliani's steps to confront crimes like panhandling." Well, as readers familiar with the First Amendment know, panhandling is not a crime. What is an offense, and a crime, is aggressive panhandling. This is defined carefully and specifically in New York City Local Law 80 of 1996, which also including the findings: "The council recognizes a constitutional right to beg or solicit in a peaceful and non-threatening manner. The council finds, however, that an increase in aggressive solicitation throughout the city has become extremely disturbing and disruptive to residents and businesses, and has contributed not only to the loss of access to and enjoyment of public places, but also to an enhanced sense of fear, intimidation and disorder. Aggressive panhandling usually includes approaching or following pedestrians, the use of abusive language, unwanted physical contact, or the intentional blocking of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The council further finds that the presence of individuals who solicit money from persons at or near banks or automated teller machines is especially troublesome."

To speak of "crimes like panhandling" makes no more sense than speaking of "crimes like driving." Drunk driving is a crime; aggressive panhandling is a crime. Driving is legal. Panhandling is legal (except in certain places like subways and airports where some courts have found that First Amendment rights are subject to greater restriction than on the sidewalks.) Blurring the distinction between criminal behavior and constitutionally protected free speech does a disservice to panhandlers, to politicians, to police and to the public.

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.

Note: The "Letters About Smartertimes.com" page was updated last night with, among other things, comments on Posh Spice's breasts, police destruction of firearms, the Hebrew letter lamed, and letters accusing Smartertimes.com of being "Israel obsessed" and of "brown-nosing William Safire."

An editorial in today's New York Times runs under the headline "A New Day at the City Council." It contrasts the freshman council class, "so full of ideas and promise," with "the city's outdated political power structure."

Well, if it were up to the Times editorialists, those council freshmen "so full of ideas and promise" would still be on the outside looking in, and the city's "outdated political power structure" would still be in place.

Consider the October 21, 1996, New York Times editorial that ran under the headline "Change the Term Limits Law." That editorial noted, "This page has opposed term limits as an infringement on the voters' right to choose." And that editorial urged city voters to back a weakening of the term limits law so that many incumbents would have been thrown out in 2005 instead of 2001: "A 12-year limit would make it easier to maintain a good proportion of veteran legislators," the Times said then. "A 12-year limit is more reasonable than an 8-year one," the Times said then.

If the freshmen are "so full of ideas and promise," and the city's political power structure was so "outdated," why were the Times editorialists back in 1996 so eager to keep that outdated power structure in place -- and to keep the ideas and promise out of City Hall -- for an extra four years?

Hometown Paper: An article in the business section of today's New York Times reports on the retail industry's holiday shopping season. The first quote in the article comes from someone "Bargain hunting along Chicago's Miracle Mile on Sunday." Another quote comes from the manager of a Target store in Charlotte, North Carolina. There is one person quoted near the end of the article who was shopping on New York's Fifth Avenue. This article is an example of the way the New York Times's effort to be a national newspaper is affecting the paper's news coverage. Open up the business sections of most other metropolitan broadsheet newspapers this morning, and you'd probably see an article about how local businesses fared during the holiday shopping rush. Maybe there'd be a paragraph or two of national context somewhere in that story. But New Yorkers who rely on the Times as their main local news source are stuck this morning reading about the foot traffic at the Target in Charlotte, North Carolina.

An article in today's New York Times runs under the headline, "Among the Poor, Sympathy for the Families of Sept. 11." The article reports, "People at the Momentum AIDS lunch program, which had to close two Monday meal programs last week because of city budget cuts and a decline in donations, also wondered about the distribution of government money. They said that AIDS has become almost invisible, particularly in contrast to terrorism. The media virtually ignored World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, said Dawn Bryan, the group's executive director."

If these people think AIDS has become "almost invisible," they must be living in isolation. The New York Times, for instance, last month ran an enormous series on AIDS in South Africa. The articles appeared on November 25, 26 and 27. At least one of the stories started on the front page, and one of them was 2700 words long. The lead article in the national section of today's New York Times runs under the headline, "San Francisco AIDS Debate Leads to Criminal Charges." And between November 27 and today, the Times ran dozens of other articles about AIDS.

One could say it is not the Times's fault for passing along the complaints of the AIDS lunch-program people, no matter how unfounded the complaints are. But there comes a point at which complaints are so unfounded that when a newspaper passes them along without noting how unfounded they are, the newspaper's own credibility takes a little dent in the process.

The 'On Language' column in today's New York Times magazine carries a column that refers to "Wooster, Mass." The columnist is trying to make a point about how the city's name is pronounced, but he gets the spelling wrong -- it's Worcester, Mass. The New York Times Company ought to know -- it paid $295 million for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette in January 2000. The New York Times spelled the city's name wrong in its November 6, 2001, issue, as well, making this the second time in two months that the New York Times has mangled the name of the city where it spent $295 million to buy the daily newspaper. There is a city called Wooster, Ohio, but that is different from Worcester, Massachusetts.

Six Nations: Today's New York Times Book Review carries an arrogantly disdainful review of a new book by Allan Gerson and Jerry Adler, "The Price of Terror." Never mind the nasty tone of the review; it contains a factual error. The reviewer writes, "Under the 1996 law, however, cases against Afghanistan face serious obstacles, because Afghanistan was not one of the six nations on the State Department's list of sponsors of terrorism that year." In fact the State Department's "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report for 1996 said, "The Secretary of State has designated seven countries as state sponsors of terrorism: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria." In other words, it was a seven-nation list, not, as the Times reviewer would have readers believe, a six-nation list. You could look it up: http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1996Report/overview.html.