A dispatch from Jerusalem in today's New York Times runs with two locator maps that depict Jerusalem. On both maps, the city is divided by a heavy black line. On one side of the line is the label "Jerusalem"; on the other side is the label "East Jerusalem." There is no key with the map to explain what the black line represents, but it looks like an attempt to show the border that divided Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967. That was a sad period in Jerusalem's history, and now it has passed. That is, it has passed as a matter of reality, but not, apparently, as a matter for the New York Times. The city has been knit together since 1967 with new buildings and parks. A tourist could walk the streets of today's Jerusalem and not notice when crossing the heavy black line from what the Times labels Jerusalem to what the Times labels East Jerusalem. The state of Israel, which controls the area, has annexed the entire city and considers it its undivided capital. The government of the United States is guided on the matter by the Jerusalem Embassy Act. The 1995 act stated as the "policy of the United States" that "Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected" and that "Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the state of Israel." It makes no more sense for a New York Times map in 2001 to show "East Jerusalem" and "Jerusalem" than it would for the paper to show "East Berlin" and "West Berlin." In either case, if the news article had a historic angle, and the anachronistic nature of the labels were explained, then the labels might make sense. But in the absence of any such explanation, the map makes it look like the Times is nostalgic for the 1948-1967 period during which Jerusalem was divided, Jews had no access to the Western Wall, and the Jordanians used the gravestones from Jewish cemeteries to build army latrines. The Times labeling contradicts both the situation on the ground and the laws of Israel and the United States.

'But': An article in today's New York Times reports of the Middle East Media Research Institute: "The group is pro-Israel, but its translations of Arabic news media have proved reliable." What's with the "but"? Is it ordinarily the case that the translations of Arabic media provided by pro-Israel groups are unreliable? Or that pro-Israel groups would be expected to distort facts to advance their case?

The New York Times finally waddles in today with an article reporting that Salam Al-Marayati, the executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, said, "I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list" for the September 11 attacks on America. It's about time; the Los Angeles Times reported on the comments on September 22; Smartertimes.com mentioned them on September 28. The New York Times describes Mr. Al-Marayati as "a frequently quoted Muslim leader," without noting that one of the places he is frequently quoted is the news columns of the New York Times.

What's really breathtaking about today's New York Times report on the despicable comments of Mr. Al-Marayati and on the anti-American and anti-Jewish comments of other American Muslim leaders and organizations, however, is not its tardiness but the context in which it is placed by the New York Times. You would think that the fact that there are prominent American Muslim leaders going around calling for the death of the Jews, blaming Israel for the attack on the World Trade Center, and distributing calls to "attack anything and everything American" would be newsworthy in its own right. No. To the Times, this seems to be newsworthy only to the degree that it is hampering interfaith dialogue.

The front-page "refer" about this article says, "Religious Gulf Widens; Since the terror attacks a wide gulf has opened between many Jewish and Muslim leaders in the United States, endangering relationships that took years to build." This is just silly. What are primarily endangered here are not the "relationships" between Jewish and Muslim leaders but the lives of innocent people like the ones that died in the World Trade Center attack. More people will die if the virulent anti-American and anti-Jewish incitement of American Islamic and Arab leaders is not treated as a genuine security threat rather than an obstacle to interfaith dialogue.

Inside the paper, the Times article is illustrated by photos of two rabbis. The headline says, "For Some Jewish Leaders, Partnership With Muslims Is a Casualty of Sept. 11 Attacks." A pullout quote says, "Arguments about the definition of terrorism hamper in interfaith dialogues." Again, this is a failure of news judgement. The news here is the rabidly anti-Israel and anti-American statements by the American Muslims, not the effect on interfaith dialogues oron the consciences of rabbis. If the Times feels compelled to bring Jews into the story, the appropriate question for the rabbis is what on earth they were doing in a "partnership" with these American Muslim troublemakers before September 11.

A dispatch from Cairo in today's New York Times runs under the headline, "Moderate Muslims Fear Their Message Is Being Ignored."

The "moderate" Muslims in question are at Al Azhar, which the Times describes as "the revered mosque, the distinguished university, the leading voice of the Sunni Muslim establishment." The Times reports that Al Azhar "has sought to advise Muslims around the world that those who kill in the name of Islam are nothing more than heretics." The Times refers to Al Azhar's leaders as "mainstream," and characterizes the mosque's grand imam, Sheik Muhammad Sayed al-Tantawi, as being "unready to stand up to Israel" and "pliant to American demands." It says the clerics there have cast themselves as "the guides to a gentle Islam." The article concludes by quoting one cleric who says "Al Azhar is the only institution in the world that has learned the moderate Islam and taught it in a moderate way without fanaticism, and without abiding by the teachings of a school that promotes rigidity or violence."

"Moderate"? "Gentle"? Nonviolent?

Here are some facts about Al Azhar and its leader, Sheik Tantawi, that have been widely reported elsewhere, yet are entirely absent from today's Times article:

In August 2001, Sheik Tantawi told students that the claim that Solomon's Temple was on Temple Mount in Jerusalem was "false." "The temple of our lord Solomon is not to be found underneath Al Aqsa mosque as the Jews claim," Sheik Tantawi said, according to Egypt's state MENA news agency, in a report that was picked up by Agence France-Presse. "The Israeli claims are false and aim at misleading world public opinion," he said.

On November 16, 1999, according to the Palestinian Authority newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sheik Tantawi called on the Arabs and the Muslims "to acquire nuclear weapons as an answer to the Israeli threat." Sheik Tantawi continued, "The instruction that our master Khalifa [Caliph] Abu Bakr [the first successor to the prophet Muhammad] gave to Khaled Ton Al-Waleed [one of the first Muslim commanders] when he called upon him to fight the enemy was: 'if they fight you with a sword fight them with a sword; if they fight you with a spear fight them with a spear.' If Abu Bakr had lived today he would have said, 'if they fight you with an atomic bomb you must fight them with an atomic bomb.'" (Translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute.)

In comments to an Israeli Islamic weekly, Al-'Ahd wa Al-Mithaq, on December 12, 1998, Sheik Tantawi said, "My animosity towards the normalization of relations [with Israel] is greater than that of others. I've been fighting normalization for over thirty years. This is proved by the dissertation that I wrote in 1966 entitled 'The Israelites in the Koran and Suna [Following the way of the Prophet]'. In this dissertation I discussed their dark history, their ways of deceiving Islam and Muslims, their atrocities as depicted by the Koran, their false claims and the ways in which they were answered by the Koran, the punishments Allah imposed on them, and the stages of the Zionist invasion into Palestine. . . There is not a single Egyptian that maintains the normalization and whoever does so is a traitor to his religion and his nation." (Translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute.)

Sheik Tantawi told the newspaper Al-Hayat on August 4, 1997, in response to a question on whether he condemned the suicide bombing attack on Jerusalem's Mahneh Yahuda market, that he had no option but to urge the Palestinians to "defend yourselves, your rights, your land and the honor of your women -- with all the means sanctioned by Islam and good morals." While Islam did not permit the killing of women, children and the elderly, those who had carried out the Jerusalem operations had done so in "lawful self-defense against aggressors incapable of feeling pity for children, women and the elderly," he added. Asked specifically to state the position of the Shari'ah, Islamic law, on someone who kills himself in an explosion, Sheik Tantawi said: 'Those who say such action is haram [forbidden] must first ask themselves: what is the reason behind it? Why do youths feel compelled to sacrifice themselves? What do we expect the Palestinians to do when the Israeli prime minister repeats everyday that al-Quds [Jerusalem] is Israel's permanent capital -- a statement no mind, religion or law can accept?. . . Injustice leads to explosion, and when human beings are confronted with excessive injustice, they tend to sacrifice themselves," he said adding that "honorable people prefer death to life in dishonor."

The Israeli foreign ministry has compiled a series of other statements by Sheik Tantawi defending suicide bombings. In the Egyptian newspaper Alwafd, April 27, 1996, Sheik Tantawi said, "One who blows himself up among enemies, in order to defend his land, is considered a martyr." According to the newspaper Al Hayat, June 11, 1996, Sheik Tantawi says, "Since the Jews cause us evil, we must fight them courageously. If I die in defense of my religion, my land and my property, I am a martyr." On April 4, 1996, according to the Egyptian paper Al Sha'ab, Sheik Tantawi said, "the youth of the Islamic resistance who blow themselves up in order to cause casualties, are considered the greatest of those who die, because they die as martyrs."

This Sheik Tantawi isn't just some isolated crazy -- he's the Egyptian-government-appointed leader of Al Azhar, what the Times calls the "revered mosque, the distinguished university, the leading voice of the Sunni Muslim establishment." The New York Times would have its readers believe he is "moderate" and "gentle" and "has sought to advise Muslims around the world that those who kill in the name of Islam are nothing more than heretics." The Times may feel that calling for Egypt to acquire the atom bomb, denying the siting of the Temple on the Temple Mount, opposing the normalization of relations between Israel and Egypt, and endorsing suicide bombings as martyrdom constitutes moderation. There are indeed some Islamic clerics and institutions even more violent and anti-Western than Sheik Tantawi and Al Azhar. But there are lot of Times readers who would probably disagree with the proposition that Sheik Tantawi is a "moderate Muslim."

Duane Reade: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on the sale of a typewriter repair shop. The article quotes one customer as saying, "The irony of all ironies is she is now across the street from a Duane Reade, which is the epitome of non-service and customer abuse." The New York Times doesn't bother to include any comments from representatives of the Duane Reade drugstore chain defending its service.

A front-page article in today's New York Times reports on a "rigid," "austere," "puritanical" version of Islam called Wahhabism. Smartertimes.com certainly carries no brief for Wahhabism, but the Times take on it seems a bit skewed.

The Times tells us that Wahhabism "denies equal rights to women." Well, so, too, do Orthodox Judaism, in which a woman can't be ordained as a rabbi, and Roman Catholicism -- when was the last woman pope? Not exactly dispositive.

The Times tells us that the beliefs of Wahhabism "reject aspects of Western culture that they see as deviating from fundamental teachings of the Koran. Mingling of the sexes, living in a community where alcohol is consumed, eating pork and interacting very closely with non-Muslim society are forbidden." This seems to assert that "eating pork" is an aspect of "Western culture." That's an odd claim, considering that pork is a staple of Chinese cuisine -- Eastern culture. And also considering that Judaism, a cornerstone of Western culture, also forbids eating pork.

The same Times article refers to "the estimated six million to seven million Muslims in this country." The Times does not say who is doing the estimating or what the estimate is based on. But serious surveys indicate a much lower number. As adherents.com reports, "The largest, most comprehensive survey on religious identification was done in 1990: the National Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI), conducted by the Graduate School of the City University of New York (led by Barry A. Kosmin and Seymour P. Lachman). This scientific nationwide survey of 113,000 Americans asked about religious preference, along with other questions." That survey estimated that Islam had 527,000 adult adherents in America.

Adherents.com goes on to report: "Muslim leaders in the United States optimistically estimate that there are approximately 6.5 million Muslims in the country (Aly Abuzaakouk, American Muslim Council, 1999). More recent newspaper accounts (2001) frequently refer to an estimated 8 million American Muslims. This would equate to 3% of the population, or roughly 1 in every 33 people in the country. No comparable figure has been confirmed by independent research similar to the Kosmin or Glenmary studies, or the Gallup, Harris, Barna. polls. Currently, surveys consistently report less than 1% of people surveyed identify themselves as Muslims. Muslim community leaders point out that many American Muslims are relatively recent immigrants who either do not have telephone service, or do not participate in surveys. Researchers generally agree that the estimate of 300,000 Muslims in the Kosmin study (1990) and Kosmin's adjusted estimate (to 500,000) are too small to reflect current (year 2000) numbers of American Muslims. The latest edition (2000) of the annual Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches estimates 3,950,000 Muslims in America."

Loony: An article in the Arts & Ideas section of today's New York Times refers to "False e-mail rumors -- ranging from the loony ('Images of the World Trade Center fire reveal the face of Satan!') to the portentous." The photograph of the World Trade Center fire with what appeared to be demonic features was taken by a reputable news photographer, was neither false nor loony, and shows no evidence of being doctored. Smartertimes.com isn't suggesting it was the face of Satan, any more than the features of the lunar landscape are those of the Man in the Moon. But it wrongly tars a reputable photographer to call his image "false" and "loony." At least the Times could bother to call the photographer for comment.

Senior: A dispatch from Bethlehem in the international section of today's New York Times refers to the assassination of "Rehavam Zeevi, Israeli's tourism minister and its senior right-wing leader." It should say "Israel's," not "Israeli's," but never mind that. Isn't Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Israel's senior right-wing leader? Or former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir? Zeevi was a senior right-wing leader, but he was not Israel's senior right-wing leader.

An article in today's New York Times reports that "the state attorney general's office is investigating complaints that day laborers hired to clear debris from office buildings surrounding the site of the World Trade Center have not been paid, some of them for up to two weeks of work."

The article goes on to report that "Day laborers are frequently illegal immigrants who are promised payment in cash."

Well, "frequently" doesn't really do the job here. The story leaves totally unanswered the question of whether these particular workers who are complaining about not being paid are in America illegally. If they are here legally, then it is unfair to tar them and their employers by lumping them in the group of "frequently illegal." If they are not here legally, it is a violation of the law to hire them, and the authorities and the Times should be investigating that in addition to the alleged failure to pay them.

Smartertimes.com believes that America's borders should be open and that, at the very least, the current levels of legal immigration should be dramatically increased. Still, until the immigration laws in this country are changed, they should be enforced. In fact, enforcing the immigration laws would probably only underscore how unreasonable they are and therefore increase pressure to reform them.

Terrible Setback: The lead editorial in today's New York Times comments on the assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister. "The implication of Mr. Sharon's ultimatum is that if his demands are not satisfied in the next few days, Israeli military forces could try to retake Palestinian-administered areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip by force. That would be a terrible setback for Israelis and Palestinians as well as Washington," the Times says.

A setback? The CIA's World Factbook reports that real per capita GDP for the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS) declined by 36.1% between 1992 and 1996. The 2000 estimated real GDP growth rate was negative 7.5 %. Economically, at least, the Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza were better off under Israeli rule.

A setback? Terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians have increased dramatically since Israel turned much of the West Bank and Gaza strip over to the Palestinian Authority. If retaking the area would be such a "terrible setback" for Israelis, why would a democratically elected national unity government with broad popular support in Israel consider doing it? Do the Times editorialists think they know better than the Israeli public what is good for Israel? Sure, governments, even popular and elected ones, sometimes make mistakes, but given the circumstances, if the Times is trying actually to convince anyone of its editorial position rather than simply asserting it, the newspaper needs to make an argument.

The editorial concludes by saying, "During the 1991 Persian Gulf war Israel wisely honored American requests for military restraint, even in the face of Scud missile attacks on Tel Aviv. After this new killing, Israel must again summon the political strength to act wisely and carefully." The Israeli restraint in 1991 in fact seems hardly wise in retrospect. Symbolically, the Israeli willingness to contract out its self-defense to America was the beginning of a pattern that led directly to discussion of more radical proposals like U.S. troops on the Golan Heights and a NATO force in the West Bank. And the very dictatorships that America was trying to appease by demanding Israeli restraint in 1991 -- Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt -- have returned America's favor by unleashing some of their restive populace to crash passenger jets into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. "Wisely," indeed.

Does the U.S. government know who is behind the anthrax attacks on America? Readers of today's New York Times can take their pick of which article to believe.

One Times news article today reports, "Though more tests remain to be completed, some scientists involved in the investigation, and others familiar with testing techniques involved, said it was likely that the authorities knew much more than they were saying publicly. They spoke on condition of anonymity."

Another Times article, a news analysis that begins on the front page, reports, "In 10 days, investigative agencies have made almost no progress in pinpointing the origins of the anthrax contamination." That Times article does not attribute the source of the information about the "almost no progress" claim.

These two claims appear to contradict each other. If the investigators have "made almost no progress," how then can they know "much more" than they are saying publicly? "More," perhaps, but "much more"?

This is particularly intriguing in light of Michael Barone's latest column arguing that "even if the government determines that Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks, though, it probably will not -- and should not -- say so." Such a determination would justify an American attack on Saddam Hussein, Mr. Barone writes, "and we should not give Saddam advance notice. Let him wonder what we are going to do next."

The "Lessons" column on the education page of today's New York Times says, "the last thing we should want is to inhibit professors and teachers from exploring Islamic fundamentalism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the politics of oil, the role of authoritarianism in the Persian Gulf region, how American mass culture is marketed internationally or anything else that might help to understand and prevent recurring terrorism."

Well, far be it from Smartertimes.com to want to inhibit the study of anything, but someone ought to study just why it is that a New York Times columnist would conclude that studying "how American mass culture is marketed internationally" would help to understand and prevent terrorism. Surely American fashion and music and television and books are threats to unfree and undemocratic Islamic regimes, and those regimes would want to lash out at America in self-defense. But this dynamic has a lot more to do with "Islamic fundamentalism" and "the role of authoritarianism in the Persian Gulf region" than with "how American mass culture is marketed internationally." American mass culture is marketed internationally pretty much the same way it is marketed domestically, and you don't see Americans turning to terrorism in response. Nor, aside from the rare anti-McDonald's attack in France, do you see people or governments in free countries outside America resorting to terrorism to combat the marketing of American mass culture.

False Light: A headline in the "metro briefing" column in today's New York Times says "Manhattan: Official Charged With Larceny." Directly under the headline is a photo of an official. But the official pictured has not been charged with larceny. The pictured official is the special commissioner for investigations for the New York schools, Edward Stancik. He has not been charged with anything and in fact is apparently the one who apparently announced the charges against the alleged thief. The article makes that clear, but the juxtaposition of the headline and the photo of Mr. Stancik is the sort of thing that makes libel lawyers shudder.

Untimely Attack: An editorial in today's New York Times calls for American involvement in "maintaining some sort of equilibrium in relations between Pakistan and India." The Times calls an Indian response to a terrorist attack "untimely." This is a variation on the Times editorial position that America should take a balanced and evenhanded approach to mediating between Israel and the Arabs. Just as the Times ignores the fact that Israel is a free democracy and the Arab states are terrorist-supporting, unfree dictatorships, the Times ignores the fact that India is a democracy and that Pakistan is a military dictatorship that sponsors terrorism. In the subcontinent as in the Levant, the Times's concern with "equilibrium" seems to exceed its concern for the spread of freedom, democracy and rule of law.

A front-page story in today's New York Times reports on "secret talks" between the Taliban foreign minister, Mullah Muttawakil, and Pakistani officials. The Times article renders the foreign minister's name as "Mullah Abdul Wakil Muttawakil," while a photo cutline that runs with the article inside the paper calls the foreign minister "Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil."

The Times claim that these were "secret" talks is questionable. If the talks are being reported on the front page of the New York Times and being disclosed to the paper by Pakistani officials, they are not much of a secret. The Los Angeles Times reports in today's editions that "Over the weekend, several Pakistani newspapers reported that Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel, who is considered a moderate in the context of the extreme fundamentalist regime, also secretly traveled to Islamabad to meet with senior Pakistani officials." Again, if this news is being reported in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and "several Pakistani newspapers," it isn't much of a secret.

The New York Times article refers to "the moderate Taliban camp" led by Mullah Muttawakil. The New York Times article also refers to "moderates like Mullah Muttawakil." The New York Times never explains what exactly is "moderate" about Mullah Muttawakil. Does he support Israel's right to exist? Does he believe in the right of women to drive cars and to vote and to dress as they please? Does he believe people should be allowed to watch television and listen to Western music? Does he believe in freedom of religion and freedom of the press?

The Los Angeles Times is more helpful in this respect, describing the mullah as "a moderate in the context of the extreme fundamentalist regime." The New York Times just calls him "moderate," making him sound like Lowell Weicker or something.

An article in the business section of today's New York Times speculates on the source of anthrax attacks on NBC and on American Media. One source at Harvard University, Juliette Kayyem, is quoted suggesting that "right-wing groups in America" may be guilty of the attacks. The Times quotes Ms. Kayyem as noting that the press "has not been a particular target of Islamic fundamentalist groups or groups we associate with Sept. 11. It has been a target of right-wing groups in America."

Another Harvard University source, Jessica Eve Stern, tells the Times that "Right-wing extremists are obsessed with biological warfare." The Times says Ms. Stern "finds some logic in suspecting the media attacks may have a domestic origin."

Well, the evidence may eventually show that "right-wing extremists" were behind these attacks. But until it does, some more skepticism is in order in passing along such claims.

If the Times is going to quote Ms. Kayyem and Ms. Stern blaming the attack on the American right, it might note that they were both political appointees in the Clinton administration and thus might have some motive, however slight, to cast their political opponents with the taint of terrorism.

If the Times is going to quote Ms. Kayyem claiming that the press "has not been a particular target" of Islamic fundamentalists or of those suspected in the September 11 attacks, it might note that she is wrong. In fact, the Committee to Protect Journalists, an international press freedom group, in May named its "Ten Worst Enemies of the Press for 2001." On the list were Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, whose courts have banned more than 30 papers and jailed at least nine journalists. Also on the list is Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister of Malaysia, another Islamic country. Terry Anderson, the Associated Press bureau chief in Beirut, was held hostage for seven years by Islamic terrorists in Lebanon. Bob Simon of CBS News was held for 40 days in Iraqi prisons during the Gulf War. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has committed countless abuses against journalists; many of these offenses are detailed on the Committee to Protect Journalists Web site.

If the Times is going to quote Ms. Kayyem noting that the press has been a "target" of right-wing groups in America, it could also note that the press has been a target of left-wing groups in America. The right certainly doesn't have a monopoly on press criticism, as a glance at the Web sites of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (http://www.fair.org/) and "Media Whores Online" (http://www.mediawhoresonline.com/) makes clear.

Moreover, if these anthrax attacks were an act of the American right wing, why did they target a reporter on the New York Times whose beat has been the dangers of Arab terrorism and weapons of mass destruction? If the American right wanted to hurt a Times reporter, columnist or editor, the one the letter was addressed to would have to be pretty low on their list. The reporter in question, however, might well have enemies among the Muslim terrorists. Of course, it is possible that the attack on the Times, which has so far not tested positive for anthrax, is unrelated to the ones on NBC and American Media.

Also attacked with a white-powder threatening letter was Fox News, a network that attracts a loyal audience on the American right. Why would "right-wing groups" attack the one network that is seen as giving them a fair hearing?

Finally, the Times business section article makes no mention of the letter to a Microsoft office in Reno, Nevada. A test showed that letter contained anthrax, and it was "sent from a Malaysian vendor," the Times reports elsewhere in today's paper. This would tend to undermine the "domestic origin" theory, though it is of course possible that the Microsoft attack is entirely unrelated to the ones on NBC and American Media.

Miss Tennessee Teen USA: An article in today's New York Times reports that "a 16-year-old Clarksville native, Rachel Smith, was chosen Miss Tennessee Teen USA." A photo cutline that runs alongside the article reports that "Rachel Clark, center," won the contest. What is the winner's last name, Clark or Smith? Times readers can take their pick of which version to believe.

Today's lead New York Times editorial, about Saudi Arabia, says, "The monarchy should crack down on its own corruption and do a better job of distributing the nation's wealth so that economic inequities do not generate new legions of terrorists."

The sentence is a real gem in the sense that it captures the New York Times view of economics and foreign policy all at once. For the Times wealth is something to be "distributed" by a country's government. In fact, there has been no government ever that has equitably distributed wealth, and certainly no monarchy. If you give the government wealth-distributing power, corruption and inefficiency invariably follow. In America, rather than having the government "distribute" wealth, we, for the most part, allow the natural workings of markets to distribute the wealth. The wealth distribution is determined by the free actions of individuals and businesses. Sure, the American government redistributes some of the wealth by taxing and spending. But if someone suggested that Washington needed to "do a better job of distributing the nation's wealth," they'd probably be greeted with a chuckle and the announcement that the Soviet Union tried central planning and state socialism and it didn't work. We don't so much think of wealth here as "the nation's"; we think of it as belonging to individuals. The Times seems to think different rules should apply in Saudi Arabia.

Similarly odd is the claim that "economic inequities" generate terrorists. It's unclear how this happens. If the Times is claiming that aggrieved and jealous poor people become terrorists, then, in fact, that is at odds with recent experience; many of the terrorists involved in the recent suicide attacks on America were not poor. Their masterminds certainly were not poor. Osama Bin Laden is a multi-millionaire, and Saddam Hussein's net worth has been estimated in the billions of dollars. Maybe what the Times is getting at is that the economic inequities drive the rich to terrorism. But there are plenty of rich people who have not resorted to terrorism to ease their boredom. The Times editorial writers, to judge by their writing, are among those most upset about economic inequities. Yet they have not resorted to terrorism. If by economic inequity the Times means a large gap between rich and poor, then America has lots of economic inequity but has spawned few terrorists. Saudi Arabia lacks freedom and lacks equality of opportunity. The distribution and income inequality problems there, such as they are, are merely symptoms of those deeper problems.

High Classification: A book review in today's New York Times refers to "two responses from people with high classifications." This looks like a new usage in the context. Information and secrets have classifications; people have clearances. A person with a "top secret" clearance can look at "top secret" documents. The person doesn't have a top-secret classification, the information does. Or maybe this is a new usage.

SmarterSmartertimes: The Daily News is the paper that endorsed Michael Bloomberg. Friday's Smartertimes incorrectly stated that another New York tabloid had endorsed him.

An article in the metro section of today's New York Times mentions a Mark Green campaign commercial that called Fernando Ferrer "borderline irresponsible." The article quotes one politician referring to the commercial as "distortion and lies," and it says Mr. Ferrer called the commercial "ugly and divisive." But the Times doesn't mention today that the "borderline irresponsible" phrase was a quotation from a description of Mr. Ferrer in a New York Times editorial.

"Powerful": The same article in today's New York Times metro section reports that Mr. Ferrer conceded "at the headquarters of 1199, the city's powerful health care workers union." Some editor would have done well to delete the word "powerful"; the union doesn't look too powerful this morning, with the candidate it backed defeated. In fact, the greatly underplayed angle in this morning's Times coverage is that 1199, the United Federation of Teachers and DC 37, the municipal workers' union, all backed Mr. Ferrer, who lost. It's an amazing display of the political impotence of the city's unions, and it could have implications for how Mr. Green negotiates with those unions if he becomes mayor. Who knows how many voters cast ballots for Mr. Green yesterday partly because they thought his opponent was too closely aligned with the unions?

Endorsements: In its analysis of the race ahead between Mr. Green and Michael Bloomberg, the Times notes that Mr. Green was "endorsed by The Daily News, The New York Post and The New York Times." It doesn't mention that Mr. Bloomberg was also endorsed by the Post and the News.

Lost on 242: A dispatch from Jerusalem in today's New York Times reports, "Mr. Arafat wants all the land taken by Israel in 1967 to be placed under Palestinian control. But Mr. Sharon's advisers contend that a 1967 United Nations resolution calling on Israel to surrender West Bank territory does not require a complete withdrawal."

This isn't just a contention of Mr. Sharon's advisers. It's a checkable fact. Go look at the resolution and the history of the debate in the U.N. over it. The British and American ambassadors to the U.N. at the time are both on the record noting that the resolution does not call on Israel to withdraw from "all the" territories. Such language was proposed at the time and rejected. In addition to calling on Israel to withdraw from territory, the resolution recognizes the right of every state in the area "to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries." For these reasons, among others, the PLO rejected U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 at the time, while Israel accepted it.

The Times has run at least four corrections on the matter in the past year and a half, and the newspaper's then-executive editor, Joseph Lelyveld, mentioned the issue in a speech last year to his top editors, saying, "Three times in recent months we've had to run corrections on the actual provisions of U.N. Resolution 242, providing great cheer and sustenance to those readers who are convinced we are opinionated and not well informed on Middle East issues." In fact, at this point what the repetition of this error by the Times is provoking is not great cheer and sustenance but annoyance and disbelief.

Friedman's Folly: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes today, "Stalin and Mao killed a lot of their own people, but even these thugs had a plan for their society." His point seems to be that Osama Bin Laden is somehow worse than those two because Mr. Bin Laden has "no vision," "no plan." But merely having a plan is not a redeeming quality if the plan is as diabolical as were Stalin's and Mao's. It's a clumsy comparison.

Park Plans: An article in the metro section of today's Times reports on the proposed demolition of an attractive building beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. The demolition is part of an effort to build a new park on the Brooklyn waterfront. "The demolition of the building is considered critical because it bisects the land to be used for the park, and removing it will allow planners to prepare a design for it," the Times says. This doesn't make much sense. For one thing, as the Times itself has reported in earlier articles, planners have already prepared a design for this park. For another thing, if, as a general rule, planners had to wait for demolition of buildings on a site before preparing their designs, the new New York Times headquarters tower being planned for near Times Square would be pretty far behind schedule.

An article in today's New York Times runs under the headline, "New York Carries On, but Test of Its Grit Has Just Begun." The article reports, "A wonderful paradox has resulted, according to Stephen A. Cohen, vice dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Even with a foreign-born population of about 40 percent, New York is now seen by most of the rest of the country 'as the most American of cities,' he said."

This is not a paradox at all. There is nothing un-American about being born in a foreign country and then moving to America. It's one of the classic elements of the American story. Every American who is not a full-blooded American Indian is either an immigrant or has ancestors who came to America from somewhere else relatively recently. And it makes sense that the foreign-born are the "most American" -- they are the ones that opted to come here of their own free will, rather than being here by accident of birth. And they are the ones with the freshest memories of life outside America, and therefore the ones least likely to take America's freedom and prosperity for granted. Pollsters can push and pull on this issue, and the debate over the appropriate levels of immigration hasn't been fully and vigorously joined in this country for years. But Smartertimes.com believes that on some basic level, "the rest of the country" understands -- even though the Times and this Columbia dean may have doubts -- that a large foreign-born population is not incompatible, not even apparently incompatible, with being "American." It's not a paradox and it's not a case of "even with." It's inherent in the nature of a nation of immigrants.

Recount: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on a city council candidate from the Independence Party who is asking for a revote in his party's primary because of primary-day irregularities. The Times tells us that the winning candidate "received 65 percent of the vote in the party's primary," but it doesn't tell us how many votes were cast, which is a highly relevant fact. If there were only 20 Independence Party voters in that council district who went to the polls, and 13 of them voted for the winner and seven for a losing candidate, then a swing of four votes would change the result. If there were tens of thousands of votes cast, it is a different matter. Space that could be used to tell readers about how many votes were cast is instead devoted to telling readers irrelevant details such as the street location of a "low-rent hotel" that the winning candidate is said to run.

The "Liberties" columnist on the op-ed page of today's New York Times writes, "I call my doctor to plead for Cipro, the antibiotic that may not work on the Deadly Anthrax Virus but then again may."

Anthrax is not a virus but rather, as the Times reports elsewhere in today's paper, it is bacterial. The medical consensus is that antibiotics don't work against viruses, so the mistake is actually relevant.

Election Day: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports that the Democratic runoff for mayor "is taking place on a Thursday, rather than a Tuesday, because Monday was Columbus Day." What is it exactly that says you can't have an election the day after Columbus Day? A more likely explanation is that Tuesday and today are Jewish holidays.

One of the interesting things about the attack on America is that even the New York Times is now increasingly slipping some pro-American bias into its news reporting. Consider the following passage from a front-page article in today's paper: "The worst anti-American demonstrations occurred in Quetta, a city 60 miles from the border with southern Afghanistan. At least one person was shot dead, and police reported that a subinspector had been kidnapped when the central police station was burned in rioting that destroyed several shops and movie theaters. United Nations agency offices were also burned."

By the "worst" anti-American demonstrations the Times doesn't seem to mean those that were the least successful in drawing a crowd; it seems to mean the demonstrations that were the largest and the most violent. When American television news networks show flags on the air, the Times runs ponderous news articles accusing them of slipping from journalism into jingoism. Smartertimes doesn't object to displays of patriotism in the press, and Smartertimes agrees with the apparent position of the Times news department that large, violent anti-American demonstrations are worse than small, peaceful ones. But it is interesting to see this sort of language making its way into a newspaper that makes a pretense of objectivity.

Identifications: An article in today's New York Times refers to "Daniel Benjamin, a former White House official in the Bush administration who is writing a book on religious terror." Mr. Benjamin in fact was a White House official in the Clinton administration.

Another article in today's New York Times refers to "Robert J. Blendon, an expert on public opinion at Harvard." In fact Mr. Blendon is an expert on public opinion in America, not just opinions at Harvard. A more clear and accurate description of him would be "a Harvard expert on public opinion" or "a Harvard professor who is an expert on public opinion."

For all the extensive coverage in today's New York Times -- including an excellent William Safire column and some good old-fashioned war reporting by David Rohde -- the paper is missing an article throwing into sharp relief the question of whether Washington intends to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The Bush administration has been sending mixed signals on this question, and it is reflected in the Times coverage, which isn't much help to readers interested in this topic.

One front-page article in today's New York Times reports that "the White House insists military action is 'not designed to replace one regime with another.'" That is in keeping with the statements that have been coming from the State Department; at a briefing October 1, the department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said, "We have not changed policy goals over the weekend. We have not set toppling the Taliban as one of our goals. At the same time, we recognize very clearly that the Taliban is not representative, that they have in many ways betrayed the interests of the Afghan people and that the Afghan people deserve better."

At the same time, another front-page article in today's New York Times refers to "American-led efforts to topple the militant Islamic Taliban government." And another front-page article in today's Times reports that the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, "made clear that the U.S. was seeking to orchestrate the overthrow of the Taliban."

The contradictions here are clear enough that it sure would be nice to get a Times article explaining whether the American government is trying to overthrow the Taliban, and, if it is, why the White House and the State Department are misleading the public about it, while the Defense Department is being forthright about it. A case can be made that openly declaring the goal reduces the chance of achieving it, but Smartertimes.com doesn't find that argument particularly compelling. If that is the argument that is winning the day, then the Times could do a better job of explaining it.

Trimmed Transcript: Today's New York Times carries a transcript of the videotaped statement released yesterday by Osama Bin Laden. The Times transcript omits the opening sentences of the statement. Those sentences are available at ABCNews.com and in the Washington Post, and they include some significant points. Bin Laden said, "Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Andalusia would be repeated in Palestine. We cannot accept that Palestine will become Jewish. And with regard to you, Muslims, this is the day of question. This is a new (inaudible) against you, all against the Muslims and Medina. So be like the followers of the prophet, peace be upon him, and all countrymen, lovers of God and the prophet within, and a new battle, great battle, similar to the great battles of Islam, like the conqueror of Jerusalem. So, hurry up to the dignity of life and the eternity of death. Thanks to God, he who God guides will never lose. And I believe that there's only one God. And I declare I believe there's no prophet but Mohammed."

Gephardt's Phone: The New York Times reports today that President Bush on Saturday night told the House minority leader, Richard Gephardt, about the plan for U.S. military action on Sunday. "Mr. Gephardt was at Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles, straining to hear the news over the cheers for Cal Ripken Jr., who was about to play his last major league baseball game," the Times reports. Is there a secure phone line at Camden Yards? The Times doesn't tell us. If the timing of impending U.S. military actions is being announced to Congressional leaders over non-secure communications, it is no wonder that the videotape of Osama Bin Laden's message was delivered just in time to be aired during the attack. Maybe Mr. Gephardt has some sort of specially encrypted cellular phone. But the Times account sure raises more questions than it answers.

Afghanis: An article in today's New York Times reports, "In addition to food packets, the Pentagon also plans to drop leaflets, imploring Afghanis to oppose the Taliban." As Slate has pointed out, the people of Afghanistan are Afghans. Their currency is the Afghani.

Coffin Error: A dispatch from Israel in the international section of today's New York Times reports on a memorial service for a Jew killed by an Arab suicide bomber. "The Orthodox do not usually bury their dead in coffins, but because of the destruction caused by the bomb, the mourners today gathered around a plain pine box," the Times reports. The claim that "the Orthodox do not usually bury their dead in coffins" is false. In fact, the Web site of the Orthodox Union, a major Orthodox Jewish group, carries links to several articles that describe a plain wood coffin as standard in Jewish law. One of them is an article by Rabbi Maurice Lamm, a professor at Yeshiva University's rabbinical seminary, which explains, "'For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return' (Genesis 3:19) is the guiding principle in regard to the selection of caskets ... The coffin must be made completely of wood. The Bible tells us that Adam and Eve hid among the trees in the Garden of Eden when they heard the Divine judgment for committing the first sin. Said Rabbi Levi: 'This was a sign for their descendants that, when they die and are prepared to receive their reward, they should be placed in coffins made of wood.'"