An article on the front page of the metro section of today's New York Times reports on Herman Badillo's entry into the race for mayor of New York. The article reports that Mr. Badillo was "born in rural Caguas, Puerto Rico" and "At 11, without being able to speak English, he moved to the United States."

As Smartertimes.com pointed out on May 9, when the Times made this mistake before, Puerto Rico has been part of the United States since the Treaty of Paris in 1898. So it doesn't make much sense to say someone born in Puerto Rico "moved to the United States." Not only did Smartertimes.com point out this error on May 9, but on May 11, the New York Post "Media Watch" column picked up the Smartertimes.com item, citing the lyric from "West Side Story": "Nobody knows in America/Puerto Rico's in America." And, also on May 11, the New York Times itself published a correction on this point. Today, however, the newspaper repeats the same error -- despite having already corrected it once, less than a month ago.

Death and Taxes: A news article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on President Bush's signing of a tax cut bill. "It slowly winds down the estate tax, eliminating it in 2010," the Times reports. "But the levy, which Republicans called the 'death tax' to press their political case, will be fully restored in 2011, more than two years after Mr. Bush leaves office if he is re-elected." Why does the newspaper write it that way instead of writing, "It slowly winds down the death tax, which the Democrats call the 'estate tax' to press their political case"? The way the Times article puts it, it sounds like only the Republican language is politically charged.

Missing a Story: The Times reporter and editors who were responsible for the following three-sentence brief in the national section deserve some kind of award for "most drama packed into fewest sentences": "Disney World employees who dress as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and other characters have reached a tentative contract that allows them to wear their own undergarments. In the past, those workers, who are represented by the Teamsters union, complained that they had to wear Disney-issued undergarments, like tights and athletic supporters, tailored not to bunch up under their costumes. The workers turned in the clothing each night and picked up a different set each day, and several said they had been afflicted by lice and scabies from wearing other people's underclothes that had not been properly cleaned." This is a front-page story if Smartertimes.com ever saw one, and it's amazing the Times turned it into a brief: Mickey Mouse turns out to be a lice-infested member of the Teamsters Union wearing an athletic supporter. The Times brief contains no comments from any Disney spokesmen. Well, maybe Maureen Dowd or Frank Rich will come back at this topic in a column for the Times op-ed page and give Michael Eisner a chance to give his side of the story on this one.

An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on the results of the mayoral election in Los Angeles. "Mr. Hahn, like Mr. Villaraigosa a Democrat, will succeed Mayor Richard J. Riordan, the millionaire Republican businessman who has led the city since 1993 but was barred from seeking a third term." Why identify Mayor Riordan as a millionaire? Hillary Clinton owns two million-dollar houses and has an $8 million book contract, but the Times never refers to her as "the millionaire Democratic senator." Reuters reported on March 6 that the chairman of the New York Times Company, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who is also the publisher of the New York Times, "received a pay compensation package valued at about $4.7 million in 2000, up from $3.7 million in the previous year." But the Times never refers to Mr. Sulzberger as a "millionaire businessman." What is it about the phrase "millionaire Republican businessman" that the Times finds so enchanting?

Fatherhood Spokesman: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on a fatherhood advocate, Wade Horn, who has been nominated for a job in the Bush administration. "'Wade Horn is an honest broker who works effectively across party lines in the best interests of our nation's children,' said Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, the chief Democratic spokesman on the issue," the Times reports. The chief Democratic spokesman on what issue? The issue of Wade Horn's nomination? The issue of fatherhood? The issue of "our nation's children"? If the Democratic Party is organized enough to appoint a chief spokesman on any issue, particularly a controversial one like fatherhood, and if that spokesman is Senator Bayh, it seems like that might be a more newsworthy story than the one about Mr. Horn.

War Memorial: The New York Times displays on its front page today an architecture review by the paper's architecture critic, who has pretensions as a political scientist and historian. The critic declares that "real estate development" is the "modern version" of "primordial ooze." (So much for affordable housing.) He criticizes the proposed World War II memorial as "a monument to the military-entertainment industry complex." He asserts that "Before Vietnam, before Watergate, before the cultural distortions of the cold war, there was an age of moral certainty, a time innocent of complexity, irony or ambiguity. This time can be bracketed between the years 1939 and 1945." Anyone who ever saw a Bill Mauldin cartoon knows that the years 1939 to 1945 were not innocent of irony or complexity. And as for moral certainty, the fact that it was absent at the Times during the Cold War doesn't mean that it was absent among the masses of Americans, who knew their cause was just. The critic further says, "Our political system is great because it enables authority to be challenged. Washington is relatively insubstantial architecturally because it does not." This is silliness. Washington is a great city architecturally because, unlike other less democratic cities, the governing buildings are accessible to the public and built on a relatively human scale. The humble scale of the White House compared to European palaces and even compared to the Capitol conveys exactly the message of the American executive as a servant of the people rather than an authority over them.

Said Valentine: The "Public Lives" column in the metro section of today's New York Times is a valentine to Edward Said. The Times says Mr. Said wields "moral clout" and has a voice that defies "religious and ideological extremism." It's not so much the glorification of Mr. Said that is so troubling here, though that is troubling. It's just that this is about the third fawning profile of Mr. Said that the Times has run in the past few years. They usually go in the Saturday Arts and Ideas section.

Missing Bar: The bar graph that goes with the AIDS article on the front of the business section of today's New York Times is missing a year between 1985 and 1990.

A "news analysis" in the national section of today's New York Times runs under the introductory line "The Context." The article discusses the question of mandates, considering the examples of President Clinton, President George W. Bush, and the Senate Democrats. "Senate Democrats might be mindful of Mr. Bush's recent experience: He won the election by barely a hair (some Democrats argue that he did not win at all) but governed as if he had a mandate from the voters. That approach has turned off some moderate voters, polls show, and certainly helped drive Senator James M. Jeffords from the Republican Party."

The article goes on to assert that "The no-mandate chorus is something of a staple in American politics. The conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal declared at the start of Bill Clinton's presidency that he was behaving more like a liberal than the moderate he campaigned as. 'The Clinton White House still seems to think that its victory was a mandate for updating a 1965-66 legislative agenda for an MTV electorate,' said one Journal editorial. Perhaps Mr. Clinton should have paid more attention to such critiques. It was only after the Democrats lost Congress in 1994 that he restored himself politically by trying to make amends with Republicans -- and refashioning himself as a moderate."

This is pretty half-baked "analysis." Mr. Clinton's mandate for his presidential agenda was questionable because he abandoned so many of his campaign promises -- from his middle-class tax cut, which turned into a tax increase, to his promise to end welfare as we know it, which was put on the back burner until Republicans took over Congress. Mr. Bush, on the other hand, has followed through on his campaign promises. If Mr. Bush has exceeded his mandate, it hasn't been, as the Times suggests, by being too conservative in pursuing tax cuts, missile defense and education reform, but by being too liberal in abandoning school vouchers and shrinking the tax cut. If Mr. Bush had abandoned the tax cut, missile defense and education reform entirely, the Times would probably still be criticizing him -- not for exceeding his mandate, but for breaking his campaign promises or for failing to get his agenda passed. The other questionable aspect of this "analysis" is the notion that Clinton restored himself politically "by trying to make amends with Republicans -- and refashioning himself as a moderate." While Mr. Clinton did bring in Dick Morris and move to the right by claiming credit for some accomplishments of the Republican Congress, his "amends" with the Republicans included shutting down the government rather than reaching a budget agreement with them. The "amends" also included airing demagogic television ads accusing the Republicans of trying to cut your grandmother's Medicare. That's some "context" that this piece on "The Context" seems to have left out.

Some Calm: The off-lead headline on the front page of this morning's New York Times says, "C.I.A. Chief Going to Israel In Effort to Maintain Calm." Calm? A suicide bomb in Tel Aviv Friday night killed 20 people. That's calm? The text of the article makes clear that the reference is to "three days of relative quiet since Yasir Arafat ordered Palestinian security forces to prevent further violence." But the headline doesn't say "relative quiet," it just says "calm." Relative to a suicide bombing that kills 20 people, a lot of things can be considered quiet. But it seems a bit of a stretch to call the current situation in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza "calm." As the Times itself reports today, "There were clashes today between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli troops near Ramallah, at least one roadside bomb and a car explosion that injured an active member of Mr. Arafat's Fatah organization." That's "calm"?

No Disclosure: The arts section of today's New York Times carries a review of a book by Michael Pollan. Amazon.com and the cover of another book by Mr. Pollan identify him as a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. But the book review in today's Times never mentions that he has, or had, a formal connection to the newspaper. The Sunday Times Book Review made the same omission, as Sunday's Smartertimes.com noted.

Today's New York Times carries on the top of its front page an article that runs under the headline, "Surplus of Finger-Pointing In California Energy Crisis; Critics Tie Profits on Gas to Electricity Shortage." It's an appropriate headline, except that the ones being subjected to the surplus of finger-pointing are the New York Times readers who endure this article in which the Times itself dutifully parrots the complaints of "critics" and "experts" whining about the price of gas and electricity in California. The Times just doesn't seem to understand how markets work.

Today's article, for instance, reports, "In one significant case, California utility regulators and Southern California Edison, one of the state's struggling electric utilities, have accused the El Paso Corporation of using its control of a major pipeline into the state to inflate prices artificially." What's the difference between inflating prices "artificially" and inflating prices naturally? The Times never explains. Why should a business be faulted for raising its prices to what the market will bear?

The same Times article reports that, "Between them, El Paso and Southern California Gas were responsible for $3.7 billion in excess prices for energy in the last year, Edison contends." What constitutes "excess" prices? The Times never explains why a price is "excess" and what a non-excess price would be.

For a full half-page inside the paper, the article continues in this vein, dancing around the energy price issue without ever explaining how the behavior of the energy companies is supposed to have violated any rules of the free-market system, or of whatever other system the Times would like the energy market to operate under. At one point, the Times asserts, "Regardless of whether companies are manipulating prices, the California natural gas market is fattening bottom lines." Again, there's no explanation of what would constitute "manipulating" prices, as opposed to just charging the price that maximizes profits. There are laws about this, but, because the laws are obscure to all but a fairly small circle of lawyers and economists, it would be helpful if the Times would give readers some background.

At another juncture, the Times article says that "Federal regulators, concerned that the high gas prices in California may not be legitimate, have proposed requiring companies selling gas in the state to disclose extensive data about their transactions." Again, there's no explanation by the Times, no definition of what makes a price "high" or "legitimate." The Times article also refers to "problems in the California natural gas markets," but the newspaper never says what the "problems" are. Maybe the problem is the "fattening bottom lines." The Times seems to hate it when any business other than the New York Times Company makes a profit -- it's generally a sign of "excess" prices.

Taking Control: A front-page "news analysis" in today's New York Times reports on negotiations between the United Federation of Teachers and the mayor. "The teachers' union president says she is willing not only to see the mayor take control of the board of education but also to make it easier to dismiss bad teachers and reward good ones with some form of merit pay," the Times says. But as an editorial, also in today's Times, points out, the union proposal would allow the mayor to appoint only six members of an 11-member board of education, and those members would have to be from a list approved by a panel appointed by the state education commissioner. The proposal, the Times editorial says, "does not go nearly far enough in making the mayor accountable for the city's faltering school system." Well, if the proposal "does not go nearly far enough," then why is the newspaper's news department heralding it in today's front-page news analysis as a chance for the mayor to "take control of the board of education"?

Today's New York Times carries a front-page report that says the Pentagon is cutting back on friendly military contacts with the Chinese Communists. "Under the new policy, the United States is also no longer requesting port calls in Hong Kong, requests that the Pentagon had previously made to reinforce the territory's unique status," the Times reports.

Well, this policy is either really, really "new," it's nonexistent, or it was developed after the Chinese turned down an American request for a port call in Hong Kong -- any of which seems worth including in the Times article. The missing context appears in an Associated Press dispatch from Hong Kong that was picked up by FoxNews.com on Tuesday, May 29, 2001. That article reported: "HONG KONG -- Beijing refused permission for a U.S. warship to make a routine port call in Hong Kong -- turning down the first such American request since the spy plane crisis last month, a U.S. official said Tuesday. The U.S. Navy sought clearance for the anti-mine ship USS Inchon to stop in Hong Kong from June 28-July 3, said Robert Laing, a spokesman for the U.S. Consulate here. 'No reason was given for the disapproval,' Laing said by telephone, and he declined to speculate on China's motive."

In other words, the Times is reporting on its front page that there is a new "policy" under which the U.S. is no longer requesting port calls in Hong Kong, and the AP reported, albeit a few days earlier, that the USS Inchon requested a port call in Hong Kong for June 28 to July 3 but was turned down by the Chinese Communists. If there is an explanation for the apparent contradiction, it would have been nice if the Times included it in today's front-page news article.

Guilty Promise: The "Essay" column on the op-ed page of today's New York Times refers to "Arafat's guilty promise of a cease-fire." In fact, a June 3 report in Al-Ayam makes clear that, in Arabic, Arafat wasn't even promising a cease-fire. What the PLO chairman said was "We exerted and we are ready to exert all possible efforts" to prevent bloodshed. The word "ready" -- in Arabic, "musta'idun" -- was omitted from the translation of Mr. Arafat's comments in yesterday's New York Times, which reported him as saying, "We have exerted and will now exert the utmost efforts." A front-page news article in today's Times again refers to "Mr. Arafat's declared support for a cease-fire." There's a difference between declaring support for something and declaring that you are "ready" to support something. While the difference may sound subtle to American ears, the distinction surely won't be lost on Arab suicide bombers.

Can't Spell: The same "Essay" column in today's Times also misspells the name of America's ambassador to Israel. His name is "Indyk," not, as the Times has it, "Indyck."

The city section of this morning's New York Times carries a report from Brooklyn that describes, in all apparent earnestness, a house that is haunted by ghosts. The Times reports that in 1995, the homeowner called in "a parapsychologist and a medium" who "apprehended five restless 19th-century Dutch spirits and two dogs, as well as the ghosts of two newlyweds who had died in the 50's." The Times reports that the "parapsychologist" and medium "convinced the ghosts that they were dead" and "hauntings ceased."

The Times further reports that "one bedroom still gives off occasional banging noises. But family members no longer see balls of light near the ceiling or strange mists floating down the hall. And it's been years since anyone invisible has splashed water on them."

A photo cutline that accompanies the article shows the homeowner "in her once-haunted basement in Brooklyn."

If the New York Times has genuinely discovered a haunted house in which "a parapsychologist and a medium" have "apprehended five restless 19th-century Dutch spirits and two dogs, as well as the ghosts of two newlyweds who had died in the 50's," then this story should be on the front page of the newspaper, above the fold. If it's just a ghost story, though, it's hard to see why the newspaper would devote any space at all to it in its news columns.

Gutter Ball: An article in the city section of today's New York Times reports on bowling alleys in New York. "Young executives like Dan Smith and Rob Gordon stop in for a pitcher of beer and a game after work," the Times reports. "'It's a refreshing change,' Mr. Gordon, a 24-year-old writer, said." Well, which is Mr. Gordon, a "young executive" or a "24-year-old writer"? The Times gives readers two different descriptions, one after the other.

No Disclosure: The book review in today's New York Times carries a review of a book by Michael Pollan. Amazon.com and the cover of another book by Mr. Pollan identify him as a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. But the book review in today's Times never mentions that he has a formal connection to the newspaper.

An article in the international section of today's New York Times runs under the headline, "China Prepares Big Exercise Near Island Facing Taiwan." The article begins, "The Chinese military is mounting one of its largest war drills in years this month around an island facing Taiwan, according to news accounts in China and Hong Kong."

What does it mean to say an island is "facing" Taiwan? Does it mean "near" Taiwan? If one encounters an island in the ocean, how does one determine which way it is facing?

AIDS Victims: The lead editorial in today's New York Times, about the New York State budget, says, "Some not-for-profit groups that do vital work like supporting AIDS victims will have to borrow to make up for lost state contributions." This is a violation of the Times's own style. The Times stylebook entry on "victim" says, "Applied to people with serious illnesses or disabilities, the term conveys an undesired tone of pity, and slights the aspects of their lives that may be unimpaired."

Kahane Message: An article in the Times metro section about Jews, Hindus and Muslims reports that "Central to the Kahane message is that all Jews belong in Israel, making any Jew in the United States a temporary resident. Many of the group's biggest supporters shuttle back and forth between Israel and New York, keeping one foot in each country." This is cited as evidence of the "extreme" religious philosophy of the Kahane group, as a sign that the Jews are here not as "immigrants seeking a better life," but rather "to engage in politics from afar." The idea that all Jews belong in Israel is not merely "central to the Kahane message" but central to Zionism, and, indeed, Judaism. There may be differences about how soon all Jews will end up in Israel and by what means (the Jewish people's last "temporary" eviction began in the year 70), but the mere idea that all Jews belong in Israel is pretty basic and uncontroversial, at least among Jews. So it's a bit odd to see the Times portray it as evidence of religious extremism. And the ranks of those who "shuttle back and forth between Israel and New York" include not just the followers of Rabbi Kahane but also those active in, for example, the UJA-Federation of New York (a beneficiary of the Times's own Neediest Cases fund) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Colonizing: The "Abroad at Home" column in today's New York Times demonstrates an attitude about Jews and the land of Israel that is similar to the one expressed in the metro section article about Kahane. The column says "the inescapable fact is that Israel has been colonizing the occupied territories." It's a strain on the meaning of the word "colonize" to use it to refer to lands, like Hebron, the Old City of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, where Jews have lived for thousands of years and which are referred to in the Bible. The column claims "Israeli military leaders" say the settlements "strain the country's defenses." In fact, as the Israeli military leaders like Rabin and Sharon who built the settlements realized, several settlement blocks in the West Bank are crucial to Israel's defenses, providing strategic depth in the Jordan Valley. Today's Times column focuses on territories Israel seized in 1967, but it makes no reference to Israel's return of the largest such territory, the Sinai Peninsula, in exchange for a peace treaty with Egypt. And it makes no reference to the fact that Ehud Barak last year offered the PLO the return of nearly all the rest of the land -- and the PLO rejected the offer.

Thomas Friedman's column in today's New York Times bashes President Bush for his "decision to pull the U.S. out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which called for industrialized nations to steadily reduce their carbon dioxide emissions." Mr. Friedman reports that Mr. Bush "bowed to the oil companies and pulled the U.S. out of Kyoto." The column refers to "what Mr. Bush did in trashing Kyoto."

The Kyoto Protocol was trashed as far as the U.S. was concerned long before Mr. Bush got to the White House. On July 25, 1997, the U.S. Senate voted 95-0 in favor of the Byrd-Hagel resolution instructing U.S. negotiators that any greenhouse gas reduction agreement must apply to developing countries as well as to industrialized nations such as America. The actual Kyoto agreement violated these instructions. On January 30, 1998, the executive committee of the AFL-CIO passed a resolution calling on President Clinton "to refrain from signing the proposed Kyoto Protocol to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change." On July 18, 2000, the Senate passed, 97-2, an Interior Appropriations bill that included a ban on the use of any of the money to implement the Kyoto Protocol. The Clinton-Gore administration never even submitted the Kyoto Protocol for ratification by the Senate, even while it went through the motions of continuing the Kyoto "process" and trying to modify the treaty.

Continuing Crisis: The lead editorial in today's New York Times refers to "Californians facing a summer of crisis." The second editorial is headlined "Crisis in the Clinics." And a front-page article about electricity regulation in New York ends with a quote from a vice president of a Buffalo brass mill who says, "I want everyone to understand that this is a crisis." There's a crisis emerging over the over-use of the word crisis.

The international section of today's New York Times carries a report from Washington that says Secretary of State Colin Powell may name Chester Crocker as a special envoy to deal with the conflict in Sudan. The Times reports, "The conflict has become a lightning rod for Christian advocates and for black lawmakers because of what they call the Sudan government's policy of allowing Christian black Sudanese to be abducted and sent into slavery in the Islamic north. Some church groups have financed 'redemption' missions, in which visiting Americans pay money to 'free' abductees."

What's with the snide, dismissive "they call"? It's not just "Christian advocates" and "black lawmakers" who say the government of Sudan is allowing slavery. It's the U.S. State Department (even during the Clinton administration); many established and nonsectarian human rights groups such as Freedom House and Human Rights Watch; and independent journalists like the ones that the Baltimore Sun and the Atlantic Monthly sent to go find and redeem slaves in Sudan. According to the Web site of the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, the State Department reported to Congress on October 22, 1999, that "The capture and sale of hundreds of persons, mainly women and children, into slavery continued in the south and has been tolerated and backed by government forces. Baggara raiders, supported by the Popular Defense Force (PDF) and regular government troops, took hundreds of women and children slaves during raids in Bahr el Ghazal in mid-1998. The practice has religious as well as racial aspects; victims are largely black Christians or practitioners of traditional indigenous religions. Some of the children captured and sold into slavery were forcibly converted to Islam."

And why is the word "free" in quotes? Does the Times not really believe that the slaves being freed are actually slaves or are actually being freed? If the Times has a shred of evidence that the State Department, the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, the Baltimore Sun, the Atlantic Monthly and Freedom House are all the victims of a massive hoax being perpetrated by Christian conservatives and the Congressional Black Caucus, then the newspaper should share it with readers. If the Sudanese government denies involvement in slavery, then that denial should, of course, be reported in the article. But the end result in today's dispatch is that it looks like the Times is trying slyly to cast doubt on the generally accepted facts about the horrible abuses in Sudan.

A headline in the national section of today's New York Times reports, "Hispanic Trails in Mayoral Poll in Los Angeles."

A brief in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on the Rev. Floyd Flake's endorsement of Alan Hevesi for mayor of New York and identifies Mr. Flake as "an influential figure among blacks."

Both are textbook examples of the Times' obsession with race and national origin and the newspaper's tendency to mention it -- in violation of its own style -- in cases where it is irrelevant, or where the relevance is not clear to readers.

In the case of the L.A. mayoral race, the article itself doesn't even mention the fact that the trailing candidate is Hispanic. The article doesn't mention the race or national origin of the leading candidate, either. There is some information about what polls indicate are the preferences of Hispanic voters. But does the Times really think the one word used to describe the former speaker of the California Assembly, in a headline, should be "Hispanic"? When the Times announced the accession of Howell Raines to the executive editorship, it's a wonder the paper didn't run the article under a headline that said, "White Named to Succeed Lelyveld as Times Editor."

As for the case of Rev. Flake, he is a former U.S. congressman from Queens, a top official of the Edison education company, and a regular contributor to the New York Post. The description that he is "an influential figure among blacks" may be true, but it vastly understates his influence. It's hard to see why the Times would focus on Rev. Flake's influence on blacks at the expense of his influence on anyone else, except perhaps to play into the questionable notion that blacks, like Jews or Hispanics, are somehow herd-like and susceptible to being influenced by leaders. Imagine if the Times story on Mr. Raines taking over from Mr. Lelyveld had described Mr. Lelyveld as being "an influential figure among Jews."

None of this is to suggest that the Times should flinch from discussing race or national origin or religion in articles in which it is clearly relevant. Or that the newspaper should do so in language that is anything less than direct. But both the trailing L.A. mayoral candidate and Rev. Flake -- not to mention the Times readers -- deserve better than the glancing, clumsy references in today's paper.

CBC: An obituary of Bernard Mendik in today's New York Times reports that over the years he was a trustee of the "Citizens Budget Committee." The group's correct name is the Citizens Budget Commission, not "Committee."

A dispatch from Colombia on the front-page of this morning's New York Times runs under the headline, "Europe Expands as Market for Colombian Cocaine." The second paragraph of the article says, "Estimates from the White House office of National Drug Control Policy indicate that up to 220 tons of cocaine flowed to Europe last year, as much as double the amount in 1996."

It's not clear from the article what "estimates" the Times is referring to. But the 220 ton figure appears wildly inflated and alarmist, at least to judge by the data publicly available from the White House office. That office's December 2000 "Estimate of Cocaine Availability" assessed several possible ways to estimate the world's total non-U.S., non-Latin America consumption of cocaine, and said the most consistent was 140 metric tons. Other scenarios, the report said, "provided outputs inconsistent with the other independent estimates." The report is available on the Web in pdf format at http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/drugfact/cocaine_report/cocaine_report.pdf. The conversion between metric tons to short tons means that 140 metric tons are 154 short tons, which are presumably the tons the Times is using. Still, it's a long way from 154 tons to 220 tons. Maybe the Times's phrase "up to" is intended to tell readers "we took the largest estimate rather than the most reliable and logical one, in an effort to hype this story onto the front page."

The estimates in the Times article are not only inconsistent with the White House statistics, they are also inconsistent with other estimates in the Times article. At one point, the Times says that the European Union's police agency reported seizures of 43 tons of cocaine in 1999. Several paragraphs later, the Times says that "about 50 European-bound tons of cocaine were seized in 1999." There may be some reasonable explanation for the inconsistency, involving, say, the difference between cocaine reported seized by Europeans and "European-bound" cocaine reported seized by someone else. But reporting the differing statistics without explaining the difference just has the effect of confusing readers.

The Times also reports, without further explanation, that "The United States, in comparison, received about 330 tons last year, a figure that has remained stable in recent years as consumption by casual users has fallen." It's puzzling how the overall U.S. consumption remains stable while "consumption by casual users has fallen." Has consumption by hard-core addicts increased? If so, why does the Times just tell us about the falling consumption and not the increasing consumption?

There's some spot pricing information about cocaine stuck in the last two paragraphs of the article, but without historical pricing information, it's difficult to translate those prices into information about supply or demand. All in all, the report on cocaine is a frustrating read.

Ill-Considered: A brief item in the World Briefing column in the international section of this morning's New York Times reports on speculation about a resumption of talks between Israeli and Palestinian Arab security officials. "The Americans have helped bring together security officials several times during the eight months of violence," the Times says. "Those meetings have produced no lasting change on the ground, but they are considered to be better than no such meetings at all." Are considered by whom? By the Bush administration? By the American state department? By the Israeli government? By Yasser Arafat? By the Israeli Labor Party? By Hamas? By Jews living on the West Bank? By the New York Times bureau in Jerusalem? The Times, mired in the passive voice, doesn't tell us.

The Weekend section of today's New York Times carries a review of a show at the Brooklyn Museum of paintings by Leon Golub. The Times writes: "More grisly is the artist's four-painting 'Interrogation' series of the 1980's, presumably commenting on American military actions in Central America and representing a shift to more underground methods of combat."

The article continues: "'Interrogation I' (1981) shows two uniformed men, in shiny brown boots, confronting a nude body suspended upside down like a side of meat. One man approaches the victim with a stick; the other gestures complicitly . . . .In 'Interrogation III' (1980-81), the victim is a woman, mauled with seeming sexual intent by two clothed men as she sits nude, handcuffed, legs wide open, on a mat."

The notion that these "grisly" images of torture painted in 1980 and 1981 would be "presumably" commenting on "American military actions in Central America" is a typical example of the New York Times's attitude of loathing toward America and the American military. What sort of mind sees images of grisly torture or abuse and presumes that the perpetrator is the American military? Was the Carter administration that evil? Is it possible that some Central Americans who were brutal torturers were Communist and were not backed by the American military? Or that the torture was the result of the Soviet Union's military actions in Central America? Or that those to blame for the torture were the Central Americans themselves and not the American military? Smartertimes.com could probably guess what Leon Golub's attitude was toward American aid to Nicaraguan freedom fighters, but the point isn't his politics, it's the art. And the Times critic's use of the word "presumably" makes it clear that the politics and presumptions in evidence in this review are the newspaper's as much as the artist's.

Times Stumbles: A front-page article in today's New York Times reports that "A growing number of hospitals are becoming more powerful in their regions through mergers and acquisitions." The article says that, "In New York, Mount Sinai, New York Presbyterian and North Shore-Long Island Jewish extracted double-digit increases from some insurers in the most recent contracts."

This amounts to a front-page correction of the March 14, 2001, front-page New York Times story that ran under the headline, "Hospital Mergers Stumbling As Marriages of Convenience" and reported that "promises of financial triumph have been largely unrealized." The March 14, 2001, Smartertimes.com had pointed out the problem with the March 14 Times story, but it took the New York Times another two months to figure out what was going on.

Sabbath Eve: A dispatch from Jerusalem in the international section of today's New York Times reports, "As the eve of Sabbath, Thursday is the favored night for weddings in Israel." The Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown Friday and lasts through Saturday, so it's a bit strange to describe Thursday as the eve of Sabbath. Many Jews consider Friday the eve of Sabbath, and Thursday as the day before the eve of Sabbath.

Brownout: The metro section of today's New York Times carries a profile of divorce lawyer Myrna Felder. The article says, "She entered Brown at 16, graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1961." Maybe, but given that Pembroke College and Brown didn't fully and officially merge until 1971, the sentence will probably make those who are familiar with Brown's history stop briefly to remember that.

Holiday Weekend: Smartertimes.com will be traveling in California this weekend. The next guaranteed regular update of Smartertimes.com will be Tuesday morning; the site may be updated before then, but probably only if the Times does something so egregious that it warrants interrupting a long weekend.

The New York Times publishes a classic today in its national section under the headline "Conviction of a Polygamist Raises Fears Among Others." The article, datelined Salt Lake City, begins, "The conviction of a Utah man on bigamy charges last week is causing anxiety among the state's polygamists, many of whom have grown fearful that prosecutors may now be eager to bring them to trial on the same charges." The story is neutral on its face, but the more a reader thinks about it, the more it seems like an implicit endorsement of polygamy, or at least a statement of sympathy. Polygamy, after all, is illegal. But the approach of writing about a criminal conviction from the point of view of other criminals would be odd if applied to a more conventional crime. Can you imagine, "Conviction of an Arsonist Raises Fears Among Others"? Or an article reporting that the conviction of a mass murderer is "causing anxiety among the state's mass murderers?" Polygamy -- which, after all, has a distinguished biblical history -- isn't mass murder, and there may well be some legitimate religious freedom issues with the government 's law against it. But lines in the Times story like one paraphrasing an advocate who recommends that the legislature "decriminalize bigamy altogether, which would make it easier for members of plural families to seek help when they need it," give a sense of the paper's approach to the issue.

Take His Word For It: A dispatch from Jerusalem in the international section of today's New York Times passes along unchallenged a quote from "the Palestinian information minister, Yasir Abed Rabbo," to the effect that "Our security services were not involved in any shooting incident in the past." In fact, the Times itself has reported information to the contrary, and has published at least one photograph of uniformed Palestinian troops exchanging fire with Israelis. If a spokesman for President Bush tried to get away with a claim that was so obviously contradicted by the facts, the Times would call him on it. Why give Mr. Abed Rabbo a free pass?

Editorial Reality: The lead editorial in this morning's New York Times asserts "Mr. Bush pulled his conservative bait-and-switch with the American electorate after running as a moderate." Mr. Bush said in campaign appearance after campaign appearance that he was a "conservative." He often modified it by saying he was a compassionate conservative or a conservative with compassion, but certainly his positions on taxes, missile defense, education and other issues were clear during the campaign. The notion that there was some sort of "bait-and-switch" is just unsupported. The editorial goes on to report that Republican moderates from the Northeast and Midwest are "beseeching Mr. Bush to pay attention to schools." The idea that Mr. Bush, who ran on his education plan and on his education record in Texas, needs to be beseeched by anyone to pay attention to schools is, also, just unsupported.

Illegal Death: The "inside" box on the front page of today's New York Times says, "As temperatures soared to more than 110 degrees, a dozen people in a group crossing the border illegally died from heat exhaustion." This could be read as saying the people "illegally died." In fact what was illegal was not their death but their border crossing, a matter that could be clarified by moving the word "illegally" earlier in the sentence, to the space between "group" and "crossing."

The business section of the New York Times today carries an article that runs under the headline, "Bush Is Putting Team in Place for a Full-Bore Assault on Regulation." The article reports that the Bush approach is "one that experts predict will tip the balance of power from consumer, environmental and labor groups to businesses and will lead to a wholesale elimination of scores of rules that have prevented American companies from both growing and having more flexibility in making business decisions." Later on, the article gives up the cover of "experts" and reports in the Times's own voice that "the deregulatory renaissance is largely a reflection of the pro-business agenda that President Bush campaigned on."

This emphasis by the Times on the effect of deregulation on "businesses" is misleading. The customers, shareholders and employees in businesses, after all, are citizens, voters and consumers.

At least two of the bogeymen the Times invokes in its deregulation article are not as scary as the Times makes them out to be. One, Mary Sheila Gall, was re-appointed as a member of the Consumer Product Safety commission by President Clinton, as National Review Online reported on April 27, 2001. The Times wasn't all in a froth when Mr. Clinton appointed her. Another, John D. Graham, is described by the Times as "a Harvard professor whose research on risks has been sponsored by corporations with stakes in the outcome of regulatory debates." As Smartertimes.com noted on March 25, "The Times doesn't bother to actually scrutinize the professor's study . . .to find out if the methodology was somehow flawed or the results were wrong. The newspaper reports no evidence that the funding was conditional on the study's outcome, or that the study's outcome was conditional on the source of the funding. Instead the Times simply casts aspersions. It's as if someone at the Columbia Journalism Review decided to write an assessment of the environmental reporting of the New York Times, but, rather than arguing that there were mistakes in any of the news articles, simply pointed out derisively that the Times gets advertising from big polluters." And as Smartertimes.com also noted on March 25, "It's hard to see what perfectly pure method the Times would propose the professor use to fund his research. Perhaps it could be funded solely by contributions from Maryknoll Sisters, with the size of the contributions limited to $10 each and the identities of the individual donors immediately disclosed over the Internet."

Slow Times: The off-lead story on the front page of this morning's New York Times runs under the headline, "3 Bush Cabinet Members Drop Meetings With G.O.P. Donors." The Washington Post reported on May 17 that Tommy Thompson and Spencer Abraham were "unlikely" to attend the briefings for donors. The Washington Post reported on May 22 that among Cabinet members only Evans would speak to the Republican donors. Now the Times decides it's the No. 2 story in the nation?

Homework and Equity: The "Lessons" column on the education page of today's New York Times is a classic example of the lengths the Times will go to in putting equality over liberty or excellence. "Homework may increase the gap between students from middle class and low-income homes," the column says. "With growing inequality now a greater danger than middle-class pupils' inadequate achievement, policies that widen learning differences should be avoided." The article suggests creating after-school homework help centers for the poor, and says, "it is unconscionable for educators to exacerbate inequality by assigning homework without first ensuring such programs are in place."

After-school homework help centers for the poor may well be a fine idea, but the idea of holding all teachers and students hostage to the implementation of such a program seems extreme. Why should poor students who want to do homework and learn to read and write be prevented from doing so by some Times columnist whose concern about "growing inequality" apparently outweighs his concern about growing illiteracy? Talk about "unconscionable."

The front page of today's New York Times carries a dispatch from Wendover, Utah, that reports on the town's planned merger with West Wendover, a town across the border in Nevada. "Unlike Utah, where gaming is not permitted, Nevada has no state income or corporate taxes," the Times reports. Later, the article says, "Currently, West Wendover derives almost one-fifth of its $5 million budget from gaming, Mayor Melville said."

Both uses of "gaming" are violations of Times style. The newspaper's stylebook says, "gaming is a euphemism. Ordinarily use gambling instead, except in official names and direct quotations."

It's interesting, too, that the Wendover residents who hope their town will become part of Nevada seem to be undeterred by that front-page, Saturday, May 19, 2001, New York Times dispatch that claimed, "In Nevada, these experts say, a long legacy of low-tax, libertarian government, rural isolation and a steely tradition of self-reliance have combined with a population growth of more than 60 percent in the last decade that has left little sense of community to create huge challenges to the state's mental and physical health."