From a New York Times article about a Jewish high-school football team:

Dr. Clayman was waiting outside the locker room for Elan, so he could take some pictures on the field to commemorate the night. "I was schlepping naches," he said, using the Yiddish term for deriving pride or satisfaction. "As we always said at Oxford."

The Yiddish word the Times wants here is shepping naches, unless the point is that neither this Florida Jewish grandfather or the dons at Oxford know how to speak an idiomatic non-Yogi Berra-style Yiddish. Schlepping, with an "l," is a different Yiddish word that isn't used with naches but with heavy valises.

An art review in today's Times refers to "that slouching-toward-obsolescence format — the newspaper."

Someone should tell the advertisers spending hundreds of millions a year on ads in that format, and the customers paying hundreds of millions of dollars a year to receive it at their doorstep every morning or buy it at the newsstand. Maybe the Times can try it as a new front-page slogan to replace "all the news that's fit to print": "slouching toward obsolescence!"

Sometimes the insecurity of the paper's editors and reporters is hidden behind a veneer of pomposity that verges on arrogance, but at other times — and this is one — some self-awareness shines through to places where readers can catch a glimpse.

Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has a column extolling the reduction in lead levels as progress:

Eventually, over industry protests, came regulation and the removal of lead from gasoline. As a result, lead levels of American children have declined 90 percent in the last few decades, and scholars have estimated that, as a result, children's I.Q.'s on average have risen at least two points and perhaps more than four.

Funny how many of the current top editors of the New York Times, and even perhaps a columnist or two, came of age before the regulatory crackdown on lead. These are the same editors and columnists who regularly assure us that life was so much better in the 1950s and 1960s, before the rise of Reagan Republicanism, the Tea Party and with it the dreaded income inequality and political polarization and dysfunction in Washington.

I'm not arguing for the reintroduction of lead into gasoline or paint or any other products, just chuckling that the current generation of Times editors have somehow managed to muddle through with lower IQs than they might have attained if they had been born younger, and marveling that there's a Times columnist who doesn't share the belief that everything has gotten worse over time.

Niall Ferguson has published a series of articles at the Huffington Post (one, two, and three) eviscerating Times columnist Paul Krugman.

The lead news article in today's Times begins:

WASHINGTON — President Obama and House Republicans failed to reach agreement on a six-week extension of the nation's borrowing authority during a meeting Thursday at the White House, but the two sides kept talking, and the offer from politically besieged Republicans was seen as an initial step toward ending the budget standoff. ...Even before the meeting, the White House and its Democratic allies in Congress were all but declaring victory at the evidence that Republicans — suffering the most in polls, and pressured by business allies and donors not to provoke a government default — were seeking a way out of the impasse.

In this telling of the story, it's the Republicans, not Mr. Obama, who are politically besieged. You wouldn't know it from the Times article, but President Obama is also suffering in the polls — his approval rating was down to 37 percent in a recent AP poll, a level so low that when George W. Bush reached it, it was considered big news. The Times makes it sound like the Republicans are caving in, but Mr. Obama's position had been that he would not negotiate over the lifting of the debt ceiling, and it sure looks like now he is negotiating. So it's not at all clear that the outcome emerging here is the one-sided Democratic victory depicted by the Times.

From Thomas Friedman's column:

President Obama is leading. He is protecting the very rules that are the foundation of any healthy democracy. He is leading by not giving in to this blackmail, because if he did he would undermine the principle of majority rule that is the bedrock of our democracy. That system guarantees the minority the right to be heard and to run for office and become the majority, but it also ensures that once voters have spoken, and their representatives have voted — and, if legally challenged, the Supreme Court has also ruled in their favor — the majority decision holds sway. A minority of a minority, which has lost every democratic means to secure its agenda, has no right to now threaten to tank our economy if its demands are not met. If we do not preserve this system, nothing will ever be settled again in American politics. There would be nothing to prevent a future Democratic Congress from using the exact same blackmail to try to overturn a law enacted by their Republican rivals....The reason so many mainstream Republican lawmakers want Obama to give something to Cruz & Co. is that they want to get out of this mess, but they're all afraid to stand up to the far-right fringe themselves — with its bullying network of barking talk-show hosts and moneymen.

If anyone is bullying and barking here, it is Mr. Friedman.

Here are some of the ways he is incorrect.

First, he writes: "A minority of a minority, which has lost every democratic means to secure its agenda, has no right to now threaten to tank our economy if its demands are not met." First, they have not lost every democratic means to secure their agenda. They won a majority of seats in the House of Representatives, and they won enough seats in the Senate to prevent the Democrats from having a filibuster-proof majority.

Second, the Republicans are not threatening "to tank our economy." People said the sequester was going to tank the economy and it did not. The Republican fear is that ObamaCare is going to hurt the economy, and they are trying to help the economy by getting President Obama to delay it.

Third, the idea that "nothing will ever be settled again in American politics" is nonsense. Things change all the time in American politics. Prohibition was imposed, then repealed. The Bush tax cuts were imposed, then partially repealed. Welfare was reformed. Congress revises laws that have been passed all the time.

"Boehner Hews to Hard Line in Demanding Concessions From Obama," is the headline over the Times' government shutdown update in this morning's paper. The headline could have easily been "White House Hews to Hard Line in Demanding Concessions From Boehner," but that would portray President Obama as the inflexible, stubborn cause of the shutdown, rather than the Republicans, and that is not the story line the Times wants to advance.

David Carr has a column in the Times about Carl Icahn and Apple:

Never mind that Mr. Icahn would probably not know an iPhone from a Galaxy S4. ...Apple is a deliberate, careful company and will not suddenly adjust its managing strategy to accommodate someone's need for lucrative short-term returns.

Mr. Cook is an unfailingly polite person who probably saw no harm in telling Mr. Icahn as much face-to-face.

What's with the swipe at Mr. Icahn's knowledge of mobile phones? Mr. Carr probably didn't bother to call Mr. Icahn or his office to report out the level of his technical knowledge, so he uses the word "probably" to veil the fact that he doesn't have a precise view of Mr. Icahn's technical knowledge or an on-the-record source that he can attribute the information to.

Likewise, the "probably" about what Mr. Cook said to Mr. Icahn at the dinner is a way around the fact that Mr. Carr either doesn't know precisely what was said at the dinner or doesn't have an on-the-record source that he can attribute the information to.

The column accuses Mr. Icahn of being "mostly hot air," and seems to disagree with Mr. Icahn on the best use of Apple's cash and the desirability of Apple borrowing money. But if anyone is blowing hot air, it is probably Mr. Carr, not Mr. Icahn.

Disclosure: I own some shares of Apple.

The Times Sunday metro section regularly comes with a left-leaning column, which is odd because there is almost never a right-wing column to balance it out. Today's column blames billionaires for failing to help hungry poor people:

Another woman, who would give her name only as Carmen, was laid off as an administrative assistant at a hospital in November 2011 and has been looking for work ever since, she told me. She has a 10-year-old living at home with her and a 20-year-old on scholarship at Iona College, and the younger child has been gaining weight, she lamented, "because nutritious food is expensive." Carmen applied for food stamps in May for the first time, after her unemployment benefits ran out and she was granted temporary emergency assistance. But her plea for more prolonged help has been pending and pending. She visits the SNAP offices twice a week to try to move things along and in the interim has relied on friends who have been generous offering food.

As his days in office dwindle, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been reminding us of his unimpeachable faith in the value of attracting the very rich to the city. The more of them there are, he believes, the better off those in the lower rungs will be, a claim challenged by the fact that although more wealthy people moved to New York during his tenure, the poverty rate did not decline. It is doubtful that among the friends helping Carmen are any of the billionaires the mayor calls such a "godsend."

The Times column gives the ages of Carmen's children but not of Carmen, and it makes no mention of the father of the children. That makes it easier to blame billionaires, rather than Carmen or her husband, for Carmen's problems.

The Times columnist seems to have missed the news article that ran in the Times the other day under the headline "Data Supports Bloomberg on Disparity With Income." It pointed out, among other things, that rich people pay a lot of taxes, which pay for things like food stamps. Some rich people also support or sit on the boards of hospitals (perhaps the one that used to employ Carmen, we don't know because it isn't named) and nonprofit organizations devoted to helping the poor.

A news article in the national section of the Times reports on Obama campaign and administration officials who have gone on to take sides in the fight over whether the U.S. government should approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The Times article refers to "the half-dozen top aides who now work as well-paid consultants for environmental groups," and it also reports that "A handful of former Obama aides are working on the opposite side."

Why characterize the compensation of the former aides working for the environmental groups but not say anything at all about the pay of the aides who are working in favor of the pipeline?

And instead of offering the Times reporter or editors' opinions about how "well-paid" the environmental consultants are, maybe the Times should just report the numbers on how much they are being paid, and leave it to readers to judge for themselves whether the compensation is adequate. For some Times readers, no amount of money might be enough to have to deal with a bunch of self-righteous environmentalists all day. Others would probably leap at the chance to volunteer for the work in exchange for minimum wage. The consultants may seem "well-paid" compared to newspaper reporters, but not compared to hedge fund managers.

Bottom line: If the Times is going to comment on the pay of the former Obama officials turned environmental activists, the right way to do it is with reported facts, not glancing asides. And if it is going to include glancing asides, then the fair approach would be to treat the former officials on both sides of the Keystone battle the same way, rather than singling out the environmentalist side of the fight for snarky treatment.

From a Times article about troubles afflicting Howard University: "Founded soon after the Civil War, Howard has produced a long string of prominent alumni, including Toni Morrison, Vernon Jordan and Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court."

Some Times editor or reporter apparently made a judgment that the average Times reader knows who Toni Morrison and Vernon Jordan are, but needs an explanation about who Thurgood Marshall was. It seems to me the paper should either explain them all or leave them all unexplained. If the alumni are indeed "prominent," as the Times claims they are — and as, in fact, they are — no explanation is necessary. In any event Marshall's greatness stems as much from his service as chief counsel of the NAACP as it did from his tenure on the high court.

There are plenty of Times I wish the Times gave me more context (anything involving "Breaking Bad" or "Twerking") but this was a case where the explanation felt patronizing, as if the Times thinks its readers are ignorant of American history.

Here's how the New York Times covered the imperious dismissal by the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, of a question from CNN about why the Senate does not approve a House-approved bill funding the National Institutes of Health. From a front-page news article by Jeremy W. Peters:

On Wednesday, Republican press offices, including Mr. Boehner's, and Tea Party groups circulated remarks from Mr. Reid in which he appeared to be dismissive of cancer-stricken children. (In fact, he was ineloquently making a point about the need to fund the entire government, not just parts that Republicans have selected for special appropriations bills as a way to ameliorate the effects of the shutdown.)

The Times itself doesn't appear to deem Mr. Reid's actual response to the reporter who asked about helping a child with cancer — "Why would we want to do that? — worthy of reporting. Instead, it offers itself up as Mr. Reid's apologetic interpreter: "In fact..."

Nicholas Kristof, in addressing the NIH issue in his column, ignores both the Reid remark and the House-passed bill (which House Democrats opposed). Mr. Kristof writes, "at the National Institutes of Health, two-thirds of the staff is furloughed. That means that as long as the shutdown continues, 30 children each week — many with cancer — won't get access to clinical trials. You want to tell those kids that the damage is 'minimized?'" In fairness to Mr. Kristof, maybe the House bill passed after his column deadline. But whatever you say about the House Republicans, at this point it is the Democrats blocking funding for the NIH cancer kids in order to, as Mr. Peters puts it, make "a point about the need to fund the entire government."

From a Times editorial about Prime Minister Netanyahu's concerns about Iran's nuclear program:

Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Rouhani have hard-line domestic audiences and allies that they will need to consider and cajole as they undertake this effort to resolve the nuclear dispute and develop a new relationship. For Mr. Obama, that means working closely with Israel and helping Mr. Netanyahu see that sabotaging diplomacy, especially before Iran is tested, only makes having to use force more likely. That would be the worst result of all.

I disagree with the Times that having to use force against Iran "would be the worst result of all." I can think of at least two even worse results than that. One would be Iran getting a nuclear weapon. And the second would be Iran using the nuclear weapon against Israel, Europe, or America.

From a Times news article on a meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu:

While Mr. Obama was reassuring Mr. Netanyahu in private, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. delivered a rousing declaration of American support for Israel to J Street, a moderate pro-Israel lobbying group that favors a two-state solution to the conflict.

This is a classic Times "framing" issue. To a lot of members of moderate pro-Israel lobbying groups like, say, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, J Street doesn't seem either moderate or particularly pro-Israel. A Zionist Organization of America report, for example, describes J Street as "a far left organization" and concludes, "in terms of the policies and positions it adopts, J Street is much more closely aligned to those hostile to Israel, especially anti-Israel Arabs and Muslims, rather than to those supportive of Israel." But if one is as far left and anti-Israel as the Times reporters and editors apparently are, J Street looks like "a moderate pro-Israel lobbying group."

In situations such as this, the Times would be better off either dropping the characterization or attributing it, or sticking to facts rather than characterizations.

From a Times Question and Answer article about the effects of a government shutdown:

Q. How would the American economy be affected?

A. According to Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody's Analytics, a partial shutdown would trim annual economic growth by 0.2 percentage points in the fourth quarter, even if it ended within four days. An impasse of a month could cut growth by 1.4 percentage points, about half of that from the lost pay of government workers. An interruption longer than two months, he said, "would likely precipitate another recession."

In the event that there is no shutdown, Mr. Zandi has projected fourth-quarter growth at an annualized rate of 2.5 percent, a relatively weak rate of recovery.

Of all the economists out there, with all the different forecasts available, why does the Times pay attention to this guy? He's certainly not the most accurate economic forecaster out there. He does seem to be highly accessible to the press, perhaps more so than other economists.