New York, May 12, 2003 (NYT)

Taking a cue from the Democrats in their 2002 election loss, in which they decided that their poor showing was due to a shortage of mindless collectivism and demogoguery, the New York Times has decided that its recent scandals are a failure brought about by insufficient diversity in its reportorial staff. Accordingly, it has decided to bring on board simian, non-sapient reporters, to make up for an overemphasis on blinkered, parochial reporting by Homo sapiens.

As the paper’s executive editor, Howell Raines, pointed out, “…we realize that we were too focused on the issues of humans, to the extent that our reporter felt that he had to make things up in order to satisfy the strict, anthropocentric homo-sapient-oriented narratives of the paper.”

“Therefore, we want to expand our reportage to other species and viewpoints, and offer more freedom to our reporters to bypass recitations of rote imperial pronouncements, and allow our reporters to actually speak truth to the system.”

When jarred by a reporter’s question about the ability of a monkey to report news using only the letter “ess,” he replied, defensively, “We don’t look only at a reporter’s vocabulary, or even his or her knowledge of the alphabet, or paucity of consonants and utter absence of vowels. We don’t even consider his or her defecatory or urinary habits as they relate to the creation of the narrative. We look beyond that, to the authentism of the feelings behind the writing, to the legitimacy of his or her experience, as an outsider, in a Homo-sapient world.”

The paper is excited about the prospects for its new reportorial staff.

“We believe that, given random outputs from the reporters, the problem of plagiarism will vanish. After all, if you can’t read, you can’t copy,” said a lead editor for the paper.

Not all are happy with the seeming favoritism for non-Homo species. Dr. Jane Goodall, in an exclusive interview, was very angry.

“Such a policy will result in continuing discrimination against the true achievers in the non-sapient world.”

“Now every chimp, even those smirking in the White House, will have to fight the stereotype of the unequitably favored–the notion that no one who is of the genus Pan or even of the order primata is capable of reporting for the New York Times without favoritism based on his or her order or genus.”

If Doctor Goodall’s concern is valid, all non-sapients reporting human news will be forever tainted by Mr. Raines’ decision to specifically seek out non-sapients, even to the exclusion of quality in its reporting of the news, in the search for the elusive goal of diversity.

“That’s ridiculous,” said the executive editor.

“If we were simply looking for someone with the IQ of a monkey, we’d have had Michael Moore and John Pilger on staff months, even years, ago.”

(Copyright 2003, Rand Simberg)

I think the Gray Lady should hire these guys. They could, and have, done worse, and it would give the paper an authentic simian perspective, instead of that of dead homo sapien males.

Steven den Beste says that the Macintosh (and Apple as a computer company) is ultimately doomed and sooner rather than later.

OK, you medical types (and I mean folks who are actually up to speed on controlled studies). I have a question.

We know that high cholesterol levels, and particularly the low-density lipoproteins, are correlated with increased risk of heart disease and stroke. The theory, as I understand it, is that these are the cause of plaque which results in coronary problems.

Many people are now being prescribed drugs (usually statins) that reduce cholesterol production and measured levels. Now, I know that these have been proven to be effective in cholesterol reduction, but have they been actually shown, in clinical studies, to actually reduce risk of heart attack and stroke? In other words, because of our faith in the cholesterol-coronary link, are we treating a symptom, rather than a cause?

Student dissidents are accusing the New York Times of being a propaganda machine for the theocracy. If only Americans could see that clearly.

Student dissidents are accusing the New York Times of being a propaganda machine for the theocracy. If only Americans could see that clearly.

Student dissidents are accusing the New York Times of being a propaganda machine for the theocracy. If only Americans could see that clearly.

Here’s a good long and detailed rundown on the NYT scandal over Jayson Blair.

I find the most interesting thing about it the source, and the voice. It’s by the NYT, written in active voice third person, as though they were another paper reporting about the competition. I assume they made that editorial decision to give it more of an air of objectivity. It’s nice not to read, “mistakes were made…”

Jonathan Rauch says that, contrary to conventional international “wisdom,” George Bush didn’t “squander” the world’s good will after September 11–he spent it. (Not a permalink, unfortunately).

I was going to note something about the story (available from several sources) that Rep. Joe Barton wants to shut down the Shuttle program because it might kill astronauts. Either that, or fly it unmanned, which is an utterly senseless idea.

The significance of this is that the congressman is from Texas, tribal homeland of the Shuttle, and he’s on the Space and Aeronautics subcommittee. I’m not necessarily opposed to ending the current manned spaceflight program in its present form–there are several arguably good reasons to do so even if one supports humans in space, but to do it because it’s unsafe is, well, stupid. It would be yet another case of doing (possibly) the right thing for completely the wrong reason, and when we do right things for wrong reasons, it dramatically diminishes the possibility of doing follow-up right things.

Anyway, fortunately, I don’t have to say much, because Thomas James already has.