I will not turn this note into a scathing attack on the NYTimes, but it sure has fallen from grace in my eyes. They hocked their HQ, and are trying to survive in these crazy times. Just recently their stock traded at less than the price of one copy of the Sunday times. I think I trust the writing from exiledonline.com more.
The only way the NYTimes will survive is if it publishes GOOD articles, not chaff like this.
Here are two reasons why:
Here is an article on the FAA (IMHO quite possibly the second most incompetent federal agency in the USA) “Scrambling to hire more Air Traffic Controllers“. The article reads like a 8th grade term paper, just one long narrative with a few quotes. Its singular and biggest fault is that the article refuses to go into the REASON why there is a ‘scramble’ to hire ATC’s: it is the convoluted, dingbat method by which air traffic controllers are hired. Prospective ATC’s who do not come from the military have to first attend a special school where they obtain a degree in air traffic control or something, and they have to be hired by their early 30′s. So, for example, an engineer with a Ph.D. from MIT who is 35 would not be qualified to be an ATC. I don’t precisely know what ATC’s do, but it can’t be tougher than being a surgeon, and you can become that at age 40.
In this economy, where engineers are losing jobs by the tens of thousands, the FAA can hire ALL the ATC’s it needs if it institutes realistic requirements: have a technical degree, pass a security screen, and pass the FAA’s in-house training academy.
And here is another article by James Traub, on Pakistan, the world’s most mispronounced country. It says “Can Pakistan Be Governed?” Well duh. Of course it can be governed, it is the quality of that governance that matters. So we start out with a bad title. The article talks about how the President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardafi is faring in his early days in office. The article revolves around a misstep made by the President, in not reinstating a judge, Iftikhar Ali Chaudhry. The country apparently went bananas over having this judge reinstated. Zardari said no no no then he said yes. What Traub COMPLETELY missed was the real reason why people in Pakistan cared about this judge. The regular folk of Pakistan (anyone without access to a Western escape hatch) are literally dying for a decent, working justice system. Now, this judge, whom everyone wanted reinstated, was the chief justice for three years. What did he do in the three years to gain so much faith and love from the people? Did he improve the justice system? Did he write an opinion that changed Pakistani society? From my cursory scan of Wikipedia(you can google it yourself), it seems he did nothing that would affect the lives of the regular folk. Isn’t the chief justice supposed to manage the country’s justice system? So is this article just useful for its shock value, telling us how our latest puppet in Pakistan is going to blow it?
