A front-page article in today's New York Times reports on the objections of some police chiefs to a Justice Department plan to interview thousands of Middle Eastern men.

The Times says "the plan has prompted a kind of role reversal, with the police now the guardians of civil liberties, instead of being criticized for violating them."

It's not a "role reversal" for the police to be guarding civil liberties. Police are constantly put in the position of protecting demonstrators advocating unpopular causes -- a classic civil liberty. Expand the definition of civil liberties a bit further to include property rights and, as Webster's Second puts it, "acting as one likes without interference or restraint except in the interests of the public welfare," and the police are constantly protecting civil liberties by preventing theft and assault.

It's not even clear that the police who are opposing the Justice Department plan are in fact, as the Times would have it, emerging as "guardians of civil liberties." It's a pretty grave infringement on an innocent person's liberty for that person to be killed in a terrorist attack. If the Justice Department plan helps to prevent such terrorist attacks, it may in the end have a positive effect on civil liberties, and it may be the police who are undermining liberty by opposing the Justice Department plan.

What's going on here is the weighing of some liberties against others, not the police siding with liberty and the Justice Department against it. The Times's claim of a "role reversal" is an oversimplification rooted in negative stereotypes about police and in the Times's own preference for some liberties over others.

Cannabis Cafe: An article in the international section of today's New York Times runs under the headline "English Pot Smokers' Pub May Prove a Model." The article reports that the marijuana outlet is "highly popular with its neighbors," who "much prefer happy, peaceful druggies to aggressive, unpleasant drunks." This seems a rather constricted view of the alternatives. Rather than smoking pot, however happily, or getting drunk, however aggressively, isn't it possible that this joint's customers would be just as happy and peaceful at home reading to their children, or working, or volunteering to help some worthy cause, or even exercising? Smartertimes.com has no objection to the Times airing the argument for decriminalizing marijuana, but it seems like in the interests of fairness and balance the newspaper could at least find one or two sources to voice objections. After all, this is a newspaper that so objects to tobacco use that it refuses to accept advertisements for cigarettes. The Phoenix House web site reports about marijuana that "persistent use will damage lungs and airways and raise the risk of cancer. There is just as much exposure to cancer-causing chemicals from smoking one marijuana joint as smoking five tobacco cigarettes." So why does the Times treat Philip Morris and the other American tobacco firms as villains to be demonized, while it depicts the proprietor of the English cannabis cafe as the creator of some sort of utopia?

Two articles in the international section of today's New York Times appear at first glance to be passing along unquestioned the anti-American, anti-Israel bias that prevails at the United Nations. The U.N. is a place where corrupt dictatorial regimes have as much say as free ones do, notwithstanding the fact that American taxpayers pay much of the bill to operate the U.N.

One Times article, from Geneva, reports on an appearance by Israeli officials at a meeting of the United Nations Committee Against Torture.

Another Times article, in the World Briefing column, reports, "An Iraqi explosive that landed in Kuwait this month may have been an antiaircraft round fired in self-defense rather than a mortar shell, the United Nations said."

One could complain that, rather than passing along this U.N. tripe unchallenged, the Times could have instead probed why, among all the world's countries, Israel is being singled out by the U.N. for investigation. Or one could ask what the U.N. possibly had in mind when it uses the term "self-defense" to describe an Iraqi attack against American planes that are enforcing a no-fly zone designed to protect Kuwaiti and Iraqi civilians from the aggression of Saddam Hussein.

But in this case, the bias is not apparently the U.N.'s, but the New York Times's.

Check the wires, and it turns out that the Associated Press and Reuters both reported yesterday on the same statement by the U.N. Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission about the Iraqi explosive. Neither the AP report nor the Reuters report uses the term "self-defense" to describe the Iraqi action. Smartertimes.com was unable to locate this morning the actual U.N. statement, but, given the AP and Reuters articles, it seems quite possible that the phrase "self-defense" is a delusion of the New York Times, not the U.N.

The U.N. press releases on the torture committee hearings are available on the Web. The press releases indicate that there is a steady flow of countries that appear before the committee. A November 19 release, for instance, is headlined, "Committee Against Torture Continues Examination of Report of Indonesia." Another November 19 release was headlined, "Committee Against Torture Begins Review of Report of Zambia." A November 15 release was headlined, "Committee Against Torture Concludes Review of Report of Ukraine." None of those hearings made the New York Times.

Instead the Times chooses to report only on the situation in Israel. The U.N. press release reports, "Serving as Rapporteur on the situation in Israel was Committee Expert and Chairman PETER THOMAS BURNS, who termed the report 'admirably focused' and noted that the country was an open democracy, somewhat isolated in its region, and that there was a great flow of information to the Committee as a result from a number of sources." But the Times article makes no mention of that reasonable statement from the United Nations official.

Note: Smartertimes.com is this month introducing some original, non-Times-related material, mostly about New York City. Today's article focuses on a "living wage" campaign.

By Benjamin Smith
Smartertimes.com Staff
NEW YORK -- The September 11 terrorist attack appears to have claimed another casualty: the effort to pass a "living wage" ordinance in New York City. Living-wage proponents hope to rescue a portion of their agenda by linking their cause to the reconstruction of lower Manhattan. But the revised campaign would leave out about 80,000 workers who would have been covered by the earlier proposal.

The change in focus may be a sign that the some of the city's labor and anti-poverty groups are adjusting their agenda to fit the city's new budget crunch. But even the limited plan raises some of the same basic questions: will legislating a higher wage for some workers carry the rest of the city's poor along with them, or will the living wage end up harming some of those it is intended to help?

"The living wage is a minimum wage ordinance with better advertising," said an economist at Cleveland State University, Edward Hill. "The problem is that you just can't do it locally. The smaller the unit of geography, the easier it is [for employers] to jump borders. . . . You're increasing the competitive disadvantage of cities with left-of-center majorities."

Before September 11, the campaign for an $11.50 an hour "living wage" in New York had gained momentum. A majority in the current City Council had expressed support for the living-wage bill, and so had many candidates who were running for the council. Similar legislation has passed in Boston, Los Angeles, Detroit and other US cities. The New York legislation would have more than doubled the $5.15 per hour federal minimum wage. It would have applied to the employees of city service contractors and of private companies benefiting from tax breaks and subsidies.

At a meeting planned for early next month, the campaign's organizers and supporters -- spearheaded by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) and the labor-backed Working Families Party -- are likely to change the proposal. The focus on contractors "will probably need to be revised or dropped," said a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, Paul Sonn, who drafted the original New York bill.

The new plan is to impose the living wage on employers who benefit from any rebuilding-related grants or tax breaks that pass through City Hall. Campaigners will also demand the living wage for the service employees in whatever complex is built to replace the World Trade Center.

"This is a moral issue," said the executive director of Acorn's New York chapter, Bertha Lewis. "The projects which are connected to city money or taxpayer dollars have to pay a living wage."

The argument over the living wage largely mirrors the national minimum wage debate. Supporters say it will lift workers out of poverty; critics warn that a higher minimum means fewer jobs to go around.

The plan's backers say that a local minimum wage can work without causing job flight. "Most city firms that pay low wages are location-specific," said Robert Pollin, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. "Hotels aren't going out of New York City because of a 2% increase in costs." Instead, he said, the wage hikes would be passed on to businesses, consumers, and taxpayers.

In the good economic times of the late 1990s, the plan for a modest spending hike was easier to push. The estimated $65 million that the original proposal would have tacked on to the New York City budget seemed affordable, and companies were fighting for Manhattan real estate. But with a multi-billion dollar city budget shortfall looming and companies moving to New Jersey, any new costs are likely to be faced with skepticism.

"I would expect the city officials to be combing through every area of the budget to look for ways to save money. That makes it very difficult to talk about spending more money," said the president of the Citizens Budget Commission, Diana Fortuna.

The living wage campaigners cast their project as an antidote for recession. Echoing national Democratic leaders, they say that the best way to restart the economy is to put money in workers' hands.

"The logic of public policy should be to set a floor on wages and increase the number of jobs at decent wages," says Mr. Pollin, who is a leading voice of the nationwide living wage campaign. "That's the kind of counter-cyclical policy that stimulates demand."

Some of those who agree on the need to get cash to poor workers argue that a better method is the Earned Income Tax Credit, which would shift the burden of higher wages from employers to the federal government. The credit grants tax breaks and, in some cases, subsidies to people who work for low wages.

"At the end of the day a low income person doesn't care how much their employer pays," says Cleveland's Mr. Hill. "What they really care about is how much money they take home in their paycheck."

Others argue that rather than incentivizing low-wage work with wage regulations or tax credits, government spending should focus on education and training that lifts workers to jobs where they can earn higher wages in the free market.

New York's living wage campaigners will face far tougher odds than they had expected before September 11. Congress and the Bush administration, which have already resisted some of the Empire State's more extravagant post-attack aid requests, are likely to balk at appropriating money to pay above-market wages. Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg took no position on the original New York living wage bill, unlike his rival, Mark Green, who supported it. Real estate developers, business groups and even non-profit social service agencies that rely on low-wage workers have fought living wage legislation around the country. And the question of how much say the New York City government will have in the use of the rebuilding money remains in doubt.

But living wage campaigners will ask their allies in the City Council to introduce the legislation in February, said Acorn's Ms. Lewis. "We can't let them weasel out of [the living wage] and use 9/11 as an excuse," she said.

An article in the metro section of today's New York Times runs under the headline "Advocacy Group Says Homeless Are Breaking Shelter Records."

The article reports on a study that claims "the number of people sleeping in municipal shelters and welfare hotels exceeds 29,000 nightly -- the highest number in the city's history."

The Times reports that this "has prompted advocates for the homeless to sound the alarm" and it quotes a spokesman for Mayor-Elect Bloomberg saying Mr. Bloomberg "was aware of the increasing number of homeless people."

There's a huge leap of illogic going on here. These homeless advocates who are sounding the "alarm" at the large numbers of people who are being sheltered are the same ones who sound the alarm whenever there are homeless people on the streets who are not immediately sheltered. Rather than indicating an "increasing number of homeless people," the statistic could quite possibly indicate that the Giuliani administration is making progress in increasing security in the city's homeless shelters and in improving the efficiency of the intake system that puts people in shelters.

In other words, for all the Times article tells us, eight years ago there could have been 40,000 homeless people in New York -- 39,000 sleeping on park benches and in the subway, and 1,000 in the city's municipal shelters and welfare hotels. If today there is no one sleeping on park benches or in the subway, and if today there are 29,000 people in municipal shelters and welfare hotels, some might consider that an improvement. The 29,000 statistic, on its own, is not necessarily enough to justify sounding "the alarm" or speaking of "the increasing number of homeless people."

The metro section article could also benefit from some perspective. A brief item in the national section of today's New York Times reports on homelessness in San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday that a city count found 4,169 homeless persons in that city's shelters, hospitals, jails and treatment programs and 3,136 on the street. How does New York's shelter system stack up against that of other cities? The Times doesn't say.

War and Science: An article in the Science Times section reports that "A new sense of urgency about terrorism has prompted the Bush administration to try to repair federal relations with the nation's scientific elite -- ties forged during the cold war." The article goes on to report, "In a sense, the administration is taking small steps toward conditions that prevailed during the cold war, when the government financed much of the nation's basic scientific work."

The ties between the government and the scientific elite were forged not during the Cold War but during World War II, when, for the first time, the government awarded research contracts to universities on a massive scale. It was FDR who in May of 1941 -- before the cold war -- created the Office of Scientific Research and Development, headed by Vannevar Bush. That was the office that awarded massive contracts to MIT for radar research and to Harvard for research on radar countermeasures and that was closely involved in building the nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago. G. Pascal Zachary tells the story in his 1997 book "Endless Frontier," and some of the story is also told in James Hershberg's 1993 biography of James Bryant Conant.

Finally, the Times makes it sound like the government no longer finances much of the nation's basic scientific work. That's not true.

Difficult to Win: An article in the business section of today's Times gives a one-sided account of "disability-related bias cases." The Times article portrays a world in which disabled people are constantly being harassed by evil managers who accuse them of faking their injuries. Not once does the Times contemplate the possibility that there actually are people who fake injuries and that the cost of such behavior to American businesses is enormous. The Times article reports, "lawsuits under the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act have proved extremely difficult to win, according to legal experts." As evidence the Times cites research that says, "Employers prevailed in more than 93 percent of cases reaching the trial court level from 1992 through mid-1998 and 84 percent of the time on appeal." Those statistics don't necessarily show that lawsuits brought under the act are difficult to win. They may show that there are a lot of really weak claims being brought under the act. Or they may show that claims with any merit -- and even many claims without merit -- are likely to be settled before trial to avoid the expense of litigation. Anyway, the Times doesn't have to take the view that employees sometimes fake injuries and that much of ADA litigation is frivolous. But it would be nice if such a point of view were at least included in the article. Some editor could have told the reporter to call Walter Olson of Overlawyered.com.

An article in today's New York Times reports on the reaction of American feminists to the Bush administration's decision to take up the banner of women's rights in Afghanistan. The Times reports: "Gloria Steinem still was not having it, and, unlike the politicians in Washington, had no qualms about saying so. 'I can't think of any motive other than the gender gap,' she said last week. 'But they should understand that the gender gap is smart, and can tell the difference between rhetoric and reality.' Women might also remember back 20 years, she said, when the United States was supplying arms to the mujahedeen, or the 'freedom fighters' trying to rid Afghanistan of their Soviet invaders. The Soviets built schools and educated women, actions that the fundamentalist mujahedeen despised. Many of those mujahedeen now make up large parts of the Northern Alliance, America's current ally, and the Taliban."

Well, this sure is an interesting rewrite of history, in which the benevolent Soviets occupiers of Afghanistan built schools and educated women. The suggestion seems somehow to be that women were better off because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

That's preposterous. Not that the Taliban were any picnic. But neither were the Soviet Communists. The Journal of the American Medical Association published an August 5, 1998, article on "Women's Health and Human Rights in Afghanistan" in which 160 Afghan women were interviewed. The article reported, "Following the invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union in 1979, more than 6 million Afghans fled to the neighboring countries of Pakistan and Iran, among others. It is estimated that more than 1 million people were killed in Afghanistan before the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the change in government in April 1992." The article reported, "the majority of study participants were long-term residents of Kabul and were likely affected by the violence and abuses that had occurred during the Soviet occupation followed by subsequent factional armed conflicts."

Or maybe Gloria Steinem should check out the Planned Parenthood Web site, which reports that "Among the many dramatic changes in the former Soviet Union is increased access to family planning: the abortion rate plummeted as a result."

Even that great cold warrior Jimmy Carter said in his 1980 State of the Union address: "now the Soviet Union has taken a radical and an aggressive new step. It's using its great military power against a relatively defenseless nation. The implications of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan could pose the most serious threat to the peace since the Second World War. The vast majority of nations on Earth have condemned this latest Soviet attempt to extend its colonial domination of others and have demanded the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops. The Moslem world is especially and justifiably outraged by this aggression against an Islamic people. No action of a world power has ever been so quickly and so overwhelmingly condemned. But verbal condemnation is not enough. The Soviet Union must pay a concrete price for their aggression. While this invasion continues, we and the other nations of the world cannot conduct business as usual with the Soviet Union. That's why the United States has imposed stiff economic penalties on the Soviet Union. I will not issue any permits for Soviet ships to fish in the coastal waters of the United States. I've cut Soviet access to high-technology equipment and to agricultural products. I've limited other commerce with the Soviet Union, and I've asked our allies and friends to join with us in restraining their own trade with the Soviets and not to replace our own embargoed items. And I have notified the Olympic Committee that with Soviet invading forces in Afghanistan, neither the American people nor I will support sending an Olympic team to Moscow."

If Ms. Steinem had only gotten word to President Carter that all the Soviets were doing in Afghanistan was expanding educational opportunities for women, Mr. Carter surely would have realized he had it all wrong, and American athletes could have competed in the 1980 Olympics. What a missed opportunity.

Nuclear Terror: The lead editorial in today's New York Times says, "For most Americans there is no more frightening threat than terrorists with nuclear weapons. Assuming Osama bin Laden does not already have them -- the assumption most experts make -- everything possible must be done to prevent him or other terrorists from obtaining them."

The Times definition of "everything possible" seems to extend to lavishing more American taxpayer dollars on Russia. It doesn't extend to bombing the Iranian nuclear reactor under construction at Bushehr. In fact, the $800 million reactor construction effort by Iran, a terrorist state that doesn't exactly lack for non-nuclear energy resources, doesn't even rate a mention in the Times editorial. When Israel took out an Iraqi nuclear reactor, the New York Times wrote a June 9, 1981, editorial headlined "Israel's Illusion" that said, "Israel's sneak attack on a French-built nuclear reactor near Baghdad was an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression."

So it's pretty rich to see the Times now claiming that "everything possible" must be done to prevent terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The "Reckonings" column on the op-ed page of today's New York Times asks, "what's not to like about cheap oil?"

The column answers, "For one thing, it may undermine some of our shakier allies. Everyone now realizes that Saudi Arabia, with its growing debt and soaring population, is an Afghanistan waiting to happen; a falling oil price brings the day of reckoning that much closer."

Well, it seems to Smartertimes.com that the day of reckoning for Saudi Arabia arrived on September 11, 2001, when 15 of its nationals hijacked planes and flew them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Since then the country's government has refused to cooperate in going after terrorist bank accounts; criticized the American bombing of Afghanistan; and refused to allow the use of its airfields for strikes on Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia is not an Afghanistan waiting to happen; it's an Afghanistan that has already happened. Even before September 11, the Saudis had refused to cooperate in the American investigation into the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 Americans. The notion that it is Saudi Arabia's "soaring population" that has anything to do with the matter is silly; the populations of Israel, the United States and Hong Kong have both soared dramatically during certain periods without producing an "Afghanistan." The problem in Saudi Arabia is not the population level, it is the lack of freedom and democracy combined with Islamic fanaticism.

The "Reckonings" column calls for Americans to conserve energy to assure a "stable" Saudi Arabia. Why should Americans risk their lives driving around in smaller cars so that corrupt Saudi princes can continue living in luxury while winking at terrorism so long as it is directed at Israel and America and not at Saudi Arabia?

Leahy's Ends: A front-page article in today's New York Times reports, "And even some members of Congress who are deeply sympathetic to the administration's ends are beginning to rebel at its means. 'I don't know when, in the last 20 years, I've heard so many members of both parties come up and say, what the heck is going on?' said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee."

Senator Leahy may be deeply sympathetic to the administration's war against terrorism, but to describe him generally as "deeply sympathetic to the administration's ends" is a bit of a stretch.

How Many Dominicans: An article in the city section of today's New York Times refers to "New York's 600,000 Dominicans." In fact the 2000 census recorded 406,806 New York City residents of Dominican origin.

Palestine: An article in the Week in Review section of today's New York Times claims that Saudi Arabia "hopes American intervention will solve the Gordian knot that prevents peace between Israel and Palestine." The article goes on to say that "Yasir Arafat hopes a link to the coalition will give him a stronger hand in the Israel-Palestine peace process, which Mr. Bush seems to have delivered in a speech last week in which he referred to Palestine as a potentially independent state. Israel, for its part, is putting a lid on responses to attacks on its citizens to preserve crucial American support for its negotiations toward a peace."

If "Palestine" is only a potentially independent state, why is the Times news department referring to it as if it already exists? Palestinian Arabs exist; the Palestinian Authority exists; the Palestine Liberation Organization exists. But "Palestine" at the moment is merely theoretical -- to speak of it as being involved in a "peace process" or a Gordian knot is inaccurate.

An article in today's New York Times reports on a military commander of Northern Alliance forces hostile to the Taliban. The Times headline, article and photo cutline describe him as a "warlord." The article reports that "By today he had been 'elected' governor general by thousands of supporters who gathered at a mosque."

Contrast that with how a front-page article in today's New York Times refers to "The Taliban's top leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar." The headline describes him as "Leader." No illuminating references to how Mullah Omar was or was not "elected."

Checking Webster's Second, "war lord" is defined first as "a high military officer in a war-like nation," then as "an aggressive tyrant," then as "in China, a local ruler or bandit leader with some sort of military following in a district where the established government is weak." Webster's New World makes "warlord" one word and modifies definition three to read "as formerly in China."

By those definitions, Mullah Omar certainly qualifies as a war lord. So it is interesting to see the Times use the word to describe an anti-Taliban military commander, but not to describe Mullah Omar.

An article in today's New York Times reports on a visit to Washington by Mayor-Elect Bloomberg. "Mr. Bloomberg began his day in the first seat of the New York-to- Washington shuttle," the Times reports. This is so vague it is not clear what the Times means. There are two New York-to-Washington shuttles: the US Airways shuttle and the Delta shuttle. To speak of the "first seat" in either of them does not make much sense. The pilots sit in the seats that are the first in the plane if you count from the front. If you are just counting passenger seats, then there is a whole first row of seats, not a single "first seat." If the Times wanted to be precise it could say, "Mr. Bloomberg began his day in the front row of the 6:15 departure on the US Airways shuttle" or "Mr. Bloomberg began his day in the front row of the 6:30 departure on the Delta shuttle." Even that would be a little imprecise for a careful editor. Mr. Bloomberg's day "began" when he rolled out of bed, or when he walked out of his house and got into the car that took him to the airport.

Whitewash: An article in today's New York Times about the resignation of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York makes no mention of her handling of a high-profile case involving the Teamsters union and the AFL-CIO.

Note: Smartertimes.com begins this month introducing some original material, mainly about New York City, that is not related to the New York Times. Today's installments focus on Al Sharpton and Jonathan Franzen.

Sharpton Splits Israelis, New York Jews
Smartertimes.com Staff
NEW YORK -- The Rev. Al Sharpton, the week after he helped divide the city's Democratic party in a close mayoral election, is now driving a wedge between New York City Jews and the Foreign Ministry of Israel.

The feud opened after a Harlem breakfast yesterday orchestrated by the Consulate General of Israel in New York. The breakfast, held at the headquarters of Rev. Sharpton's National Action Network, was billed as a demonstration of solidarity between African-American and Israeli victims of terror. But some New York Jewish leaders accused the Israelis of ignoring their strained relations with Rev. Sharpton.

"It's ridiculous that the Foreign Ministry is giving legitimacy to someone like Al Sharpton, knowing full well how people feel about him," said New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who said he declined an invitation to the breakfast. Mr. Hikind and many other New York Jews remain skeptical of Rev. Sharpton because of his railing against "diamond merchants" in the aftermath of the 1991 Crown Heights riots and because of his role denouncing "white interlopers" -- Jews -- who owned a record store in Harlem that was later burned to the ground in a fire that killed eight.

That history did not deter the Israeli government from working closely with the Rev. Sharpton to coordinate yesterday's event. The Israeli consulate called the National Action Network to suggest the meeting, representatives of the consulate and the National Action Network said. The Israelis invited members of the press, who were among about a dozen guests at the event, and the consulate supplied news organizations with photographs of Mr. Sharpton and Israeli terror victims.

"When such a high political figure in the United States in one of the important communities is expressing a desire to go to Israel and to express solidarity with Israel, from our perspective it is most welcome," said Israeli diplomat Yahel Vilan.

Another spokesman for the Israeli consulate, Jonathan Schienberg, called the event "apolitical." But a top aide to Mr. Sharpton told Smartertimes he hoped the meeting would improve Mr. Sharpton's shaky standing with American Jews.

"This is clearly a sign of progress," said Michael Hardy, general counsel to the National Action Network. He said the Israelis "will provide leadership to the entire Jewish community."

The Israeli Foreign Ministry also helped coordinate a visit to Israel last month by the Rev. Sharpton. That effort was considered by some journalists to have backfired when Rev. Sharpton held a friendly meeting with Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Michael Nussbaum, president of the American Jewish Congress for the New York region, praised Rev. Sharpton for going to Israel -- but he said it wouldn't do Rev. Sharpton any good at home.

"If the Reverend Sharpton feels that the support of the Israeli foreign minister is going to help him have a better relationship with the New York Jewish community, he has to realize that Israeli citizens do not vote in New York City, state, or American elections," he said.

Novelist Franzen Irks Another One -- Not Oprah This Time, But Lithuania
Smartertimes.com Staff
NEW YORK -- Fresh from his public spat with Oprah Winfrey, novelist Jonathan Franzen has now got another angry audience to confront -- the entire country of Lithuania.

Mr. Franzen's new book, "The Corrections," on Wednesday night won the National Book Award . On Thursday, Lithuania's ambassador to America fired off a letter to Mr. Franzen and his publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. "I was saddened by your portrayal of Lithuania," Ambassador Vygaudas Usackas wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Smartertimes.com. "Even though this is a work of fiction, it has unintended harmful consequences in the perceptions your readers will take away from the book."

Ambassador Usackas is no Oprah Winfrey. Indeed, Ms. Winfrey's net worth -- estimated by Forbes Magazine at $800 million -- is equivalent to half of the Lithuanian government's entire annual budget. But the dispute with Lithuania just might add some more marketing heat in America to a novel that already got a big boost from the Oprah-related publicity. The book has yet to be translated into Lithuanian, so the dispute won't have much effect on sales in that overseas market.

A passage in "The Corrections" caricatures the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, with a description of criminal warlords, "chronic coal and electricity shortages, freezing drizzles, drive-by shootings, and heavy dietary reliance on horsemeat."

The president of the Lithuanian Community of New York, Giedre Kumpikas, responded with horror. "That's nonsense," she said. "I've never heard of anybody eating horsemeat in Lithuania. . . . I don't know where this gentleman is getting his facts or if it's just hearsay or scandalous rumor."

For the record, Lithuania is actually something of a success story. The criminal warlords and anarchy described in the novel "bear no relation to reality," the International Monetary Fund representative in Lithuania, Mark Horton, said in response to quotes from Mr. Franzen's book.

A publicist, Peter Miller, for Farrar Straus and Giroux, said earlier this week that he had not yet heard from the Lithuanians. "I can see that there are things that they may take issue with, but there are other people that might take issue with certain things in the book as well. The pharmaceutical industry for instance. And Middle America -- (Mr. Franzen) is much more relentless about that part," Mr. Miller said.

Mr. Franzen composed the novel in a studio in East Harlem. As for the details of Lithuanian life, "Jonathan picked an Eastern European country at random," Mr. Miller said. "He created a Lithuania that I assume was largely in his imagination."

If Ambassador Usackas has anything to say about it, though, Mr. Franzen will soon have a non-imaginary encounter with Lithuanian reality. While Ms. Winfrey responded to Mr. Franzen's disparagement by canceling his scheduled appearance on her television talk show, the Lithuanians have responded more generously.

Mr. Usackas wrote to Mr. Franzen, "I would like to invite you to visit Lithuania and discover the beauty, the vitality of our people and shared sense of values my country has with yours."

The New York Times metro section on October 24 featured a front-page article on a Cuban government-sponsored propaganda tour by a group of Cuban musicians. Smartertimes.com commented back then (http://www.smartertimes.com/archive/2001/10/011024.html) that the article showed how the Times' nearly slavish devotion to the Communist dictatorship on Cuba can descend to the point of self-parody.

Well, there's an interesting epilogue to that story. The Miami Herald reported on Tuesday that one of the Cuban rappers has defected from the New York propaganda tour and showed up in Miami instead of returning to Cuba. Funny how while the Times had plenty of room for the lengthy and puffy pro-Castro feature on the propaganda tour, complete with complaints about the American record industry and the lack of gun control here, it has not found any space in the paper to report the defection.

Unpublicized: A dispatch from London in today's New York Times reports that Prime Minister Blair "told the House of Commons that an unpublicized videotape of Mr. bin Laden showed him not only claiming responsibility for the terror attacks but preening over their success." It's not clear whether the description of the videotape as "unpublicized" is by the New York Times or by Mr. Blair, but it is inaccurate. The videotape was publicized by the Sunday Telegraph, which reported on November 11, "Osama Bin Laden has for the first time admitted that his al-Qa'eda group carried out the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Telegraph can reveal. In a previously undisclosed video which has been circulating for 14 days among his supporters, he confesses that 'history should be a witness that we are terrorists. Yes, we kill their innocents.'"

Can't Spell: An article in today's New York Times refers to the president of the University of Oklahoma as "David L. Boron." The former senator spells his name Boren, with an "e."

A brief item in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on a study released by the Sierra Club. "A study released yesterday by the Sierra Club showed that New York City produces less smog per person than any other major city in the United States," the Times reports. "A principle reason: New York is the only state that spends more money on mass transit systems than on new roads, the report found . . . . Increasing levels of smog nationwide in the past decade have been linked to numerous respiratory problems, including pneumonia and asthma, the group said."

Never mind the misuse of the word "principle" (the Times should be sent to the principal.) Never mind even the fact that the Times writes about the Sierra Club study without seeking comment from or including a response from sources that may take a different view of spending on roads, such as the auto makers or the American Automobile Association.

What's really stunning here is the Times reference to "Increasing levels of smog nationwide in the past decade."

In fact, while there may be a few local exceptions, the nationwide levels of every major airborne pollutant measured by the Environmental Protection Agency have decreased in the past decade. The Sierra Club study the Times is talking about is available online at http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/report01/summary.asp. That study cites in its footnotes an EPA study, which is also available online in PDF format at http://www.epa.gov/oar/aqtrnd99/PDF%20Files/Chapter1.pdf . The EPA reports that from 1990 to 1999, the national air quality concentration of carbon monoxide was down 36 percent. Lead was down 60 percent. Nitrogen dioxide was down 10 percent. Ozone was down 4 percent. Particulate matter was down 18 percent. Sulfur dioxide was down 36 percent.

If you look at the period 1980 to 1999, the decline in airborne pollutants is even more dramatic. Carbon monoxide is down 57 percent over that period. Lead is down 94 percent. Nitrogen dioxide is down 25 percent. Ozone is down 20 percent. Sulfur dioxode is down 50 percent.

Given this data, it's misleading to speak of "increasing levels of smog nationwide in the past decade."

Needs a Janitor: The metro section of today's New York Times reports on an agreement between commercial landlords and a union, Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, that represents janitors in New York. The Times reports, "In addition, the real estate industry agreed to increase its health insurance contribution by more than $1,000 per worker per year by the end of the agreement. The industry, which currently pays $105.51 per worker year for insurance, will increase its weekly payment to $129.51 per worker, meaning an annual contribution per worker of $6,735." This doesn't make much sense. Maybe instead of "per worker year" the Times meant to say, "per worker per week." The Times article dwells on how concerns related to the September 11 terrorist attacks helped the sides reach an agreement before the contract deadline, but there is no mention at all of another factor that probably had at least something to do with it -- this three-year contract was the first in 20 years negotiated without the involvement of Local 32BJ President Gus Bevona.

An editorial in today's New York Times calls on the mayor-elect to confer with the governor and "examine the possibility of city and state tax increases, or at least deferral of previously enacted tax cuts."

Raising taxes in an economic downturn is a sure way to worsen it. And given that New York already has one of the highest tax burdens of any American city, it's amazing that the Times would call for increases. If an increase were enacted, no doubt even more businesses and residents would flee to the suburbs. Actually, the Times doesn't even have the kishkes to call for a tax increase -- it calls on the mayor and governor to "examine the possibility." What are the odds that if the mayor and governor "examine the possibility" and then reject it, the Times will be duly satisfied? Not great. This is the same newspaper that just called a few weeks ago for a federal per-employee tax credit for businesses in downtown New York, as proposed by Senator Clinton and Senator Schumer. If the Times, by the logic of that editorial, thinks tax credits attract businesses, then why at the same time would it be arguing for tax increases that would scare jobs away from the city?

Olive Branch: A dispatch from the West Bank in the international section of today's New York Times reports on olive trees. The story concludes, "When asked why the tree was also regarded as a symbol of peace, he was, well, stumped. 'This is an old expression,' he said. 'I don't know why.'"

The Times leaves the matter hanging. In fact the symbol of peace is not so much the olive tree but an olive branch. One source of that is Genesis 8:11, in which a dove sent by Noah to check on the status of the flood returns to the ark: "The dove came back to him toward evening, and there in its mouth was a plucked-off olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the waters had decreased on the earth."

Frappuccino: A dispatch from North Platte, Nebraska, in the national section of today's New York Times reports on an independent coffee shop there that serves "a chocolate-covered espresso bean atop every frappuccino." Frappuccino is a registered trademark of Starbucks Coffee Company, and if this Nebraska company is using the term without permission, there may be a follow-up story for the Times. If the Times is just using the term to refer to any non-Frappuccino frozen coffee drink, it's being a bit careless. Not every frozen coffee drink is a Frappuccino.

Note: Smartertimes.com begins this month introducing some original material, mainly about New York City, that is not related to the New York Times. Today's installment focuses on New York's Dominican community.

By Benjamin Smith
Smartertimes Staff
NEW YORK -- The crash of American Airlines flight 587 Monday severed one of New York's lowest profile, and tightest, international links. Dominicans "are the most recently arrived immigrants, so the connection [with the Dominican Republic] is really strong," City Councilman Guillermo Linares told Smartertimes.com.

Eight daily flights connect New York area airports to the Dominican Republic, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The flights have helped keep members of one of New York's newest and largest immigrant groups in constant touch with family members, business partners, and elections in their Caribbean homeland.

Monday's crash took the lives of 251 passengers and nine crew members, the Associated Press reported.

"Most Dominicans have been on flight 587," said a shaken Oscar Herasme, a lawyer for the non-profit Alianza Dominicana, as mourning families made their way into the Alianza's headquarters.

They came to mourn people like Tito Bautista, a 37-year-old who worked days in a factory and nights in a corner store, according to his older brother Salvador. He was flying home to see his children. "My brother, my brother," the surviving Mr. Bautista repeated, slumped in a chair at the Alianza.

The Dominican community is centered on the Upper Manhattan neighborhood long known as Washington Heights, but informally renamed Quisqueya Heights after the island, also known as Hispaniola, which contains both the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Dominicans began making their way to New York after the fall of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1961. The 2000 census recorded 406,806 New York City residents of Dominican origin, although city officials and community leaders say confusing census questions and thousands of illegal immigrants put the figure far higher. A 1996 study by the New York City Department of Planning found that between 1990 and 1996, an average of 21,330 Dominicans a year moved to New York, making the Dominican Republic the most common "sending country" for new New Yorkers.

The controversy over New York's Dominicans isn't just about the numbers. City officials denounced a 1997 City College-Columbia University study that claimed that Dominicans, among the city's poorest groups, lost out in the 1990s. In particular, the study found that more than a quarter of Dominicans -- like the late Mr. Bautista -- worked in the city's manufacturing sector, and had been hurt by its contraction. Forty-five percent of Dominicans lived in poverty in 1996 -- twice the national average -- and the unemployment among Dominicans was more than twice the city average.

"I think that the report somewhat exaggerates the problem," Mayor Giuliani told Newsday in 1997. "For people in the second generation, there's actually a great deal of success."

Dominican New Yorkers have struggled for a profile in New York Hispanic politics, which is still dominated by more numerous Puerto Ricans who include mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer. But they have been more successful in influencing elections at home, where dollars and New York voters played a crucial role in the election of Dominican President Hipolito Mejia in 2000.

Monday's crash injects an element of fear into what had been a routine trip. Juan Vicioso, a Dominican-born US citizen, stopped by the Alianza to offer his help and worry about his daughter. "She has business back home and she's planning to travel," he explained. "I'm going to talk to her about that."

The New York Times today unleashes the results of its much-anticipated re-re-recount of some ballots in the Florida election and concludes that "Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots."

"Might" is a pretty important word there. Mr. Bush "might" have won, too. The bottom line is that after spending $900,000 on this project, the Times and its partner news organizations are not much closer to finding out what they set out to find than they were when they started.

The key information in the Times package of information on this story comes at the end of a sidebar on how the ballot review was conducted.

The Times reports: "In many places, supervisors found it difficult to find all the ballots that were uncounted on election night, even by running them through the machines. The problem was worst in punch-card counties, as chads dislodged and undervotes suddenly disappeared. Even in optical-scan counties, though, supervisors were often unable to exactly replicate the undervotes and overvotes from the election. In all, the research center reviewed 175,010 ballots, more than 99 percent of the approximately 176,446 that were considered overvoted or undervoted in the certified vote total."

This confirms the Republican contention that running the ballots through the machines again and again degrades them and alters the result. And the discrepancy between the 175,010 ballots counted by the consortium and the 176,446 ballots that were rejected by election officials is 1,436. That is a significant variation between what happened on election night and what happened in the media recount, especially considering that under even the most favorable standard to Mr. Gore, he "might" have won the election by only 424 votes.

The Times editorial compounds the error by asserting, "It appears Al Gore might have carried Florida if he had successfully pursued a statewide manual recount of all 175,010 rejected ballots -- a strategy he never tried." But the "all 175,010" number refers only to the number of rejected ballots the New York Times and its partners in the press were able to reconstruct or find -- not the number on election night. Note the careful use, again, of the word "might." Mr. Bush "might" have won, too, given the uncertain and disorderly nature of any such re-re-recount operation.

Tax Law: Today's New York Times carries a news article under the headline "Victims' Funds May Violate U.S. Tax Law." It reports that "tax-exempt charities are generally required by law to respond to specific needs, not to heroism," and it refers to "rules that specifically bar tax-exempt charities from giving money to individuals who are not in demonstrable financial distress."

Smartertimes.com is not a tax lawyer, but common-sense experience shows that tax-exempt charities are all the time giving money to individuals who are not in demonstrable financial distress. Columbia University, which is tax-exempt, regularly gives $7,500 awards called Pulitzer Prizes to journalists -- including those at the New York Times -- who are "not in demonstrable financial distress." The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which is also tax-exempt but which is under slightly different rules because it is a foundation rather than a public charity, awards grants of $500,000 in "no strings attached" support to "fellows." The MacArthur Foundation's Web site reports that "The Foundation neither requires nor expects specific projects from the Fellows, nor does it ask for reports on how the money is used." Financial need is not a criterion in the selection of the MacArthur grant recipients. The Times runs a news article each year on the awarding of these MacArthur fellowships, popularly known as "genius awards." There may be some reason that the MacArthur Foundation can award no-strings attached $500,000 awards to "fellows" but that the Twin Towers Fund can't, according to the Times, award similar grants to the families of police officers and firefighters who died in the September 11 attack. But the Times news article doesn't give the reason, or even acknowledge the existence of the many charities that give money to individuals who are not in demonstrable financial distress.

Housing Crunch: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times offers advice to the mayor-elect on "Easing the Housing Crunch." The article goes on for 10 paragraphs but never once mentions the effect of rent control and rent stabilization laws on the city's housing prices. The Times bothers to talk to only a single "expert." There's got to be more than one opinion on how to ease the housing crunch. And, whether one agrees or disagrees that rent control is partially to blame for the high cost of housing in New York, it seems at least worth mentioning the issue in a discussion of "easing the housing crunch."

Not Surprisingly: An article in the "Giving" section of today's New York Times begins with the phrase "Not surprisingly." This is almost a fail-safe method of making sure that a reader will skip the rest of the article.

An article in the Week in Review section of today's New York Times reports that "in New York City, with four daily newspapers, weekly magazines, local TV affiliates and a television news station all its own, free media trumps paid."

"Four daily newspapers"? This from the same newspaper whose publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said in a February 22, 2001, speech, "let me remind you that in 1896 there were seventeen English language daily newspapers in New York City. Today there are 2 and a half." Smartertimes.com noted back then that among the city's English-language dailies are the Wall Street Journal, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, the Staten Island Advance, the New York Law Journal, the Brooklyn Eagle and the Columbia Daily Spectator. That's seven, not counting the New York Times. And that's not even mentioning the city's Spanish-language and Chinese-language dailies, nor Newsday, which sells more copies than the Times does in Queens, but which is based outside of New York City, on Long Island. Nor trade publications like Womenswear Daily, the Daily Deal or American Banker.

It's hard to figure out what exactly to make of this "four daily newspapers" claim. Is the Times admitting that its publisher was wrong in February when he claimed the city has only two and a half newspapers? Which four dailies is the Times counting?

Brooklyn Bridge: An article in the City section in today's New York Times begins, "Just south of the onramp to the Brooklyn Bridge, on a patch of green, there is a small cluster of trees." It doesn't make much sense to speak of "the" onramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. The bridge has several onramps. Some are on the Brooklyn side. Others are on the Manhattan side. One is the Ari Halberstam Memorial Ramp. There's a reference above another article on the same page of the paper to "Lower Manhattan," which could give readers the idea that the onramp in question is on the Manhattan side of the bridge. But beyond that, the Times article is not much help in explaining where this cluster of trees is.

A news article in today's New York Times reports that in an interview with a Pakistani newspaper on November 7, Osama Bin Laden "asked Americans to rise up against their government as they did during 'their government's war in Vietnam.'"

Today's New York Times seems to be swinging into action in following Mr. Bin Laden's advice, harping incessantly on the supposed similarities between the American intervention in Afghanistan and the war in Vietnam.

The front page of the Times metro section carries an article on the dedication of a Vietnam War memorial in New York. The article reports that the ceremony "became a reminder of the cost of a war in Afghanistan," and the article says, "A further parallel -- between Vietnam and the current war in Afghanistan -- was a powerful theme of the day."

The Times metro section also carries a "Beliefs" column about Christian attitudes about the American intervention in Afghanistan. That column says, "In the United States, disillusionment with World War I combined with the Gospel renunciations of violence to produce a quasi pacifism among many Protestant leaders in the 1920's and 30's, often married to a belief that the world could be reformed without conflict. As an advocate of intervention against Hitler, Reinhold Niebuhr, the most prominent American theologian of the 20th century, rejected that view. What he called 'Christian realism' held sway through World War II and the first dozen years of the cold war, only to give way again to antimilitary sentiments during the Vietnam War."

Finally, there is the "Journal" column on the Times op-ed page, in which the Times columnist asserts, "It's easy to make the case that one similarity between Vietnam and the war on terrorism is already nailed down: the light-at-the-end-of-the tunnel syndrome."

Three separate articles in one day's New York Times making the link between Afghanistan and Vietnam -- not even counting the article reporting on Osama Bin Laden's remark. Not bad work, given that Osama Bin Laden's remark was published in Pakistan only today. The Times can move pretty quickly when it wants to.

Hel-lo!: The "Journal" column on the Times op-ed page today is egregious in at least two other aspects. The columnist asserts that secretary of transportation, Norman Mineta, "is so overmatched by events that he makes Tommy Thompson look like Patton. In a letter to The Times 10 days ago the transportation secretary argued that private security companies should be kept on the job in airports in part because the State Department uses them to protect our embassies abroad. Hel-lo! It was private guards who were presiding when Osama bin Laden's operatives bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing 224 and injuring more than 5,000."

Hel-lo! The columnist's sneering at the private security guards protecting the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania stands in utter ignorance of what actually happened.

For one thing, the private guards were not "presiding," but were actually operating under the supervision of the U.S. Marine guards who secure our embassies. If the Times columnist doubts that Marine guards are responsible for protecting the embassies, he could check with the family of Sgt. Jesse Nathan Aliganga, a U.S. Marine guard who was killed Aug. 7, 1998, during the terrorist bombing of the embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Or with the family of Marine Corporal Robert V. McMaugh, an embassy guard who was killed in the bombing of the American embassy in Lebanon on April 18, 1983.

For another thing, the Kenyan and Tanzanian guards who were at the embassies performed heroically, at great risk to their own safety and at the cost in some cases of their own lives. Their actions saved the lives of others. Here is how CNN reported what happened in Nairobi, Kenya: "In the Nairobi bombing, sources told CNN that authorities now believe a truck -- possibly a Mitsubishi -- pulled up to the U.S. embassy's front entrance but guards told the driver that it could not enter there. The truck then reportedly drove to the embassy's rear entrance where the driver again met resistance. There are reports that shots were fired and someone in the truck allegedly threw a grenade. 'Someone either waved or threw hand grenades at (a guard). He refused to open the gate. When hand grenades came, of course, he ran away to save himself. The blast went off, knocked him down, and he survived,' said Thomas Pickering, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. The Kenyan guards 'did a heroic job in preventing the truck that approached the rear gate of the embassy in gaining access to the embassy,' Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice for African Affairs said. 'Clearly, according to our reports, (they) had every intention of getting inside the compound, and had they gotten inside, particularly underneath the garage, the damage to our facility and to our people would have been even greater,' Rice said."

Here is how the New York Times itself reported on what happened in Tanzania: "In some respects, American officials said, the embassy security system worked as it was supposed to because the bomb went off outside the embassy compound rather than inside. . . . No American was killed here; one temporary American employee was evacuated to London on Friday for medical treatment. The United States Marine guards, who are posted at all American embassies, operate from inside the front door of the building. They do not typically inspect individual visitors or cars, officials here said." That job was apparently left to the Tanzanian security guards, and the Times reports that "five Tanzanian security guards at the gate were all killed."

If the Times columnist wants to argue that Americans rather than Tanzanians should be the ones standing at embassy guardposts as truck-bomb fodder, he'd probably get a lot of support in Tanzania. There may be an argument that could also convince Americans. But "Hel-lo!" doesn't quite cut it.

The same "Journal" column on the Times op-ed page sneers at the opposition to the Taliban. "We're also repeatedly told that the vastly outnumbered Northern Alliance -- poorly equipped warriors 'who farm or do odd jobs when not at the front,' as The Los Angeles Times put it -- is an able proxy with or without shoes." Hel-lo! The kind of smug sneering at an army without shoes rings false to anyone with an elementary knowledge of American history. As Robert Middlekauff put it in his history "The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789, "The bloody tracks at Valley Forge made by men without shoes appeared in later campaigns as well." As for farmer-soldiers, Mr. Middlekauff writes, "Elsewhere, especially in the thinly settled southern colonies, companies were usually composed of men -- farmers, farmers' sons, farm laborers, artisans and new immigrants." Mr. Middlekauff writes that "Almost every senior American general commented on the propensity of the militia to desert -- and if they were not deserting they seemed perpetually in transit between home and camp, usually without authorization."

Smartertimes.com isn't asserting that the Northern Alliance leaders are the present day equivalents of George Washington. But given the propensity of the New York Times to dwell on the war in Vietnam, it would be nice if the newspaper's editors remembered some of America's other wars and the conditions under which they were fought.

An item in the national briefing column of today's New York Times reports, "The Federal Election Commission has recognized the Green Party as a national committee, a step that will allow it to collect larger campaign contributions -- up to $20,000 a year per donor -- and send money to state and local party committees. But party rules cap such donations at $10,000 a year, officials said, and the party's candidates refuse contributions from corporations."

It's a bit misleading to say that "the party's candidates refuse contributions from corporations." After all, as the Web site of the Green Party of New Jersey points out, "Federal law prohibits contributions to a political committee from the general treasury funds of corporations, labor organizations or national banks (including corporate credit cards)."

Now, there are ways around this -- the corporation can create a political action committee, or can donate amounts that are meant for general party-building activities and not for the express advocacy of the election or defeat of a particular candidate. Local laws vary. But the sentence in the Times makes it sound like the Green candidates are somehow holier than thou, when in fact they are simply doing what the law requires. (Smartertimes.com considers the law an abridgement of the First Amendment, but that is another story.) Where did the Times get this language? Here's how the Green Party press release issued yesterday put it: "National Committee status will permit the Green Party to accept contributions up to $20,000 per year from individuals, but internal Green Party rules cap such donations at $10,000 per year. The party and its candidates also refuse contributions from corporations." There's an eerie similarity between the Green Party press release and the Times news item.

It may be that what the Green Party and the Times are trying to convey is that the party and its candidates do not accept contributions from political action committees. If so, that is interesting, not only because it does go beyond what the law requires, but because it runs counter to a strain of Naderite-good government thought which actually sees political action committees as a positive force in increasing grassroots political involvement, giving groups of small donors that band together some influence to balance that of the big contributors. But the Times news brief sheds no light on this question.

The question of who is funding the Green Party would actually be pretty fertile ground for an enterprising news organization. It would be interesting to know, for instance, how much of the party's funding comes directly or indirectly from trial lawyers and labor unions.

SPECIAL CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENT: Editors, reporters, page designers, photojournalists -- Smartertimes.com was founded June 19, 2000, "dedicated to assembling a community of readers to support a new newspaper that would offer an alternative to the dominant daily." That effort has now advanced to the point where searches are underway for certain staff. Editors, reporters, page designers and photojournalists willing to work long hours in an entrepreneurial, start-up environment are invited to apply. Positions are available in New York City, Albany and Washington, D.C., and in features and culture as well as "hard" news. Successful applicants will be sagacious scoop-getters, who can write smooth fast, who don't mind working hard and who are excited about covering New York. For all positions, a premium will be placed on versatility. Interested candidates should contact [email protected] with a letter and resume. This is an equal opportunity employer.

An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on fears by "four of the city's largest contractors" that they may be tossed off the job at Ground Zero when the city brings in the Bechtel Group from San Francisco to manage the project.

The Times reports in the last paragraph of the article, "Truth be told, of the four companies at the site, only Tully Construction is a New York-owned-and-operated company. Turner is based in Dallas. Bovis is owned by an Australian company and Amec is a New York company that was bought by a British company, although these three are all far more active in New York than Bechtel."

It's hard to believe that all three of those companies are "far more active in New York than Bechtel." The Times article doesn't mention at all the fact that Bechtel is managing the $1.5 billion contract to build a light rail link to John F. Kennedy Airport. Those other companies do a lot of work in New York, but they'd have to be doing an awful lot of work to be "far" more active than a company with a $1.5 billion ongoing project.

A more interesting angle than how much work Bechtel does in New York would be how much work it does in the Persian Gulf.

Can't Spell: A dispatch from Athens in the international section of today's New York Times refers to "L. Paul Bremmer, a former diplomat who headed a Congressional inquiry into fighting terrorism." Ambassador Bremer spells his last name with one "m," not two.

SPECIAL CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENT: Editors, reporters, page designers, photojournalists -- Smartertimes.com was founded June 19, 2000, "dedicated to assembling a community of readers to support a new newspaper that would offer an alternative to the dominant daily." That effort has now advanced to the point where searches are underway for certain staff. Editors, reporters, page designers and photojournalists willing to work long hours in an entrepreneurial, start-up environment are invited to apply. Positions are available in New York City, Albany and Washington, D.C., and in features and culture as well as "hard" news. Successful applicants will be sagacious scoop-getters, who can write smooth fast, who don't mind working hard and who are excited about covering New York. For all positions, a premium will be placed on versatility. Interested candidates should contact [email protected] with a letter and resume. This is an equal opportunity employer.