Secrets of a Sunday NY Times – Mother’s Day 2005

We’ve talked before  about how not uncommon it is for newspapers, including the NY Times, to bury potentially upsetting news in editions published on Saturday, a day of the week when most people are running around doing things, using the example of February 12, 2005 as a rich example.

Sunday, on the other hand, is a day when the newspaper IS more likely to be read – which may account for the general LACK of interesting stuff in the news section at least, on most Sundays.

Mother’s Day, however, is one of the few “pre-summer-three-day-weekend Sundays” when almost no one reads the paper …

So it was not surprising to discover, when we actually had a chance to look at it ourselves, that there were a number of important and interesting stories – most of which, the editors at the Times could not fail to have known, were going to be missed.

Growing Alienation of Sunni Arabs from New Order in Iraq
‘Professors in Britain Vote to Boycott 2 Israeli Schools’
Germany, However, Moves Forward POSITIVELY I
German Positivity II – Gunter Grass: ‘The Gravest Generation’
‘Drug Makers Reap Benefits of Tax Break’
Finally, Moms: ‘The Perfect Storm That Could Drown the Economy’

And we’re not even talking about the lead story -- NY Times: “US to Spend Billions More To Alter Security Systems,” by Eric Lipton, May 8, 2005 --

which basically talked about how most of the “security” spending in the aftermath of September 11 was for equipment that was either problematic from the beginning or now outdated …

Hardly surprising that this would mean a new surge of government cash directed by the Bush administration to companies in the “security-industrial complex” … a topic to which we will return shortly.

But also something the Bushies would want to make sure most people would miss while celebrating Mom on her day …

The disturbing question is why the Times would seemingly go along with that blatant move …

Before we go on to some of the OTHER “hidden in plain sight” gems, a few quick quotes from this upsetting piece that, surely, most people missed (bold emphasis mine):

After spending more than $4.5 billion on screening devices to monitor the nation’s ports, borders, airports, mail and air, the federal government is moving to replace or alter much of the antiterrorism equipment, concluding that it is ineffective, unreliable or too expensive to operate.

Many of the monitoring tools – intended to detect guns, explosives, and nuclear and biological weapons – were bought during the blitz in security spending after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In its effort to create a virtual shield around America, the Department of Homeland Security now plans to spend billions of dollars more. Although some changes are being made because of technology that has emerged in the last couple of years, many of them are planned because devices currently in use have done little to improve the nation’s security, according to a review of agency documents and interviews with federal officials and outside experts.

“Everyone was standing in line with their silver bullets to make us more secure after Sept. 11,” said Randall J. Larsen, a retired Air Force colonel and former government adviser on scientific issues. “We bought a lot of stuff off the shelf that wasn’t effective.”

Among the problems:

• Radiation monitors at ports and borders that cannot differentiate between radiation emitted by a nuclear bomb and naturally occurring radiation from everyday material like cat litter or ceramic tile.
 
• Air-monitoring equipment in major cities that is only marginally effective because not enough detectors were deployed and were sometimes not properly calibrated or installed. They also do not produce results for up to 36 hours – long after a biological attack would potentially infect thousands of people.
 
• Passenger-screening equipment at airports that auditors have found is no more likely than before federal screeners took over to detect whether someone is trying to carry a weapon or a bomb aboard a plane.
 
• Postal Service machines that test only a small percentage of mail and look for anthrax but no other biological agents.

And on and on the article goes …

Should give Mom a nice feeling of security on her special day, eh ???