Fun at the Times’ Expense

There is something about the pedantry of the New York Times’ Corrrections Section that makes it an endless source of merriment. Today’s edition includes this item:
“A chart on Sept. 28 with a brief article comparing the bigoted television characters Archie Bunker of ‘All in the Family’ and Mavis Rae of the new NBC comedy ‘Whoopi’ misstated a sample line from Mavis Rae. Mavis, played by Whoopi Goldberg, tells Nasim, an Iranian: ‘You know, your people do scare me. They do. They scare a lot of people. I mean, I see three or four of you guys on an airplane, I’m off’ (not ‘When I see three of your people, I get nervous’).”
This is classic New York Times of the Howell Raines era: 1) Incompetence. They can’t get a simple quote right. 2) Humorlessness. The Times’ version is not funny, and no one noticed. 3) Prejudice. People who are nervous about Arab terrorism are “bigoted,” like Archie Bunker. Some would say, of course, that people who set out to murder anyone not of their religion are bigoted. Not the Times.
And, in a less serious vein, this one:
“An article last Sunday about footwear and politics misspelled the brand name of boots that seem closest to President Bush’s personality. It is Tony Lama, not Llama.”
This sent me scurrying off to find out what they were talking about. Here is the graphic on Tony Lama’s web site:

For once, I can’t disagree with the Times.