New York Times Correction of the Week. Truly, no one does the mea culpa like the Times. In today’s paper:
Because of an editing error, the Reuters Breakingviews column last Friday, about the deal-making of the private equity investor J. Christopher Flowers misstated the release date of “Rock Me Amadeus,” the only major hit in the United States by the pop star Falco, to whom Mr. Flowers was compared as a one-hit wonder. It was 1986, not 1980.
Life and Death of a Hero Dog. Also from the Times, the story of a dog who once confronted a suicide bomber trying to attack a U.S. barracks in Afghanistan and how she wound up being euthanized by mistake in an Arizona animal “shelter.” Plenty of anger, sadness, regret, and pathos in this story, but here’s one passage that stuck out:
Target, not used to being confined, escaped Friday afternoon from Sergeant Young’s home in the San Tan Valley area in central Arizona. After being spotted on the loose, she was reported to Pinal County’s animal control. Target was brought to the county animal shelter in Florence, where she was held just like any other run-of-the-mill stray. Because she had no tag, microchip or license with the county, her photo went up on the shelter’s Web site on Friday in hopes that her owner might respond.
No tag, no microchip, no license? Well, you gotta give yourself a better shot at getting your dog back if the unthinkable–strike that–perfectly predictable happens and he or she goes wandering.
Michael Lewis: “What we’ve got now is socialism for the capitalists and capitalism for everyone else.” (OK–I can’t find this online, and I’m not 100 percent sure it’s the exact quote, but he said it during a recently aired appearance at City Arts and Lectures–a comment on the government’s rescue of the financial industry and the financial industry’s grim workings on the rest of us.)
Roger Ebert: “As a nation we once said, give us the facts and we’ll make up our own minds. Now we say, spare us the facts and make up our minds for us.” (From today’s post, about the new political attacks on NPR, on Ebert’s blog.)