As a rule, when I write a piece about all the mistakes my newspaper, the L.A. Times, makes, I have to wait a week or even two to compile a selection large enough to make it worth our while. It’s not that they don’t come up with a ready supply on a daily basis. Heck, UPS doesn’t deliver the goods with such regularity. But some of the goofs are simply too boring to mention, as when they get the days and times of certain events wrong or when they simply misspell someone’s name. Sometimes, too, the corrections run even longer than the original news items.
Today, however, the Times out-did itself. In the For the Record section devoted to these little mea culpas, they had 13 separate items, and nearly all of them are worth sharing. When people ask me why I continue to subscribe to the paper, my answer is that no matter how bad the news is, the Times will generally find a way to make it amusing.
They started out slowly this morning, simply acknowledging that in a story about the Metrolink crash, they had confused Mount Washington with Cypress Park.
They next confessed that the mountain from which Moses is believed to have viewed the Promised Land was really Mt. Nebo, not Mt. Nemo. An honest mistake. They simply confused a Biblical mountain with an animated fish.
Geography tripped them up once again when they called the river where Soviet and American forces met in 1945, calling it the Elba. It’s the Elbe. This time, they were obviously thinking of the island to which Napoleon was exiled. It could happen to anyone. It just happens more often to the folks down at the Times.
In a story about the Grammy Awards ceremony, they claimed that Santana’s “Supernatural” album had won eight Grammy awards; it had won nine. It also stated that ’N Sync had once won a Grammy; not true.
Regarding CNN’s Eason Jordan, it stated that in a New York Times opinion piece written in 2003, he admitted he didn’t allow his network to report all it had learned “during the intense early days of combat in Iraq, for fear that releasing certain confidential information would put lives in jeopardy.” In its correction, the Times only went so far as to state that the essay was about his network’s coverage in the years preceding the war as well as in the early days of the conflict. What was left out was the fact that in his original piece, Jordan made the shocking admission that for many years CNN had refrained from reporting anything that touched upon the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s regime, lest CNN lose its Baghdad bureau.
Perhaps this helps explain why the Times never once mentioned Mr. Jordan’s outrageous statement that the American military had targeted and killed a dozen journalists in Iraq. Not a single mention in fact until the day CNN forced him to resign! You have to wonder if this use of kid gloves where Mr. Jordan is concerned means that his next job will be with the Times.
In the obituary of Robert “Sunny” Rogers, Jr., he was said to have been the child of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. His mother was Roy’s first wife, Arlene.
The Times claimed that the farm machine known as the Optimizer weighs 50,000 tons. Not quite. It weighs 50,000 pounds, apparently, not 100,000,000.
The Times then informed us that Pope Paul IV died in 1978. It was actually Pope Paul VI. Which only proves that the Times has as much trouble dealing with Roman numerals as with Arabic.
And, finally, in an article in the Food section about Asian cooking, it erroneously translated Omakase as “today’s delicious one; I leave it to you,” when any fool knows that the literal translation means “entrusting,” and when written on a menu means “putting your trust in the chef.”
Now, wouldn’t you think that a newspaper that has as much trouble as the Times does just dealing with English would get on a bus and leave town before even thinking about taking on Japanese?
For good and for ill, Hollywood has often been in the forefront where America’s values, mores, fashions, and even politics, are concerned. Clark Gable didn’t wear an undershirt in “It Happened One Night,” and deep-sixed an entire industry. Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart went through a carton of Camels in every scene, and the entire nation lit up. All that was required was that leading men stopped wearing hats to leave everybody in the country, except for cowhands and orthodox jews, bareheaded.
Hollywood, almost to a man and woman, are anti-gun ownership — except for those Barettas in the hands of their bodyguards — are opposed to the “Three-Strikes” law, are against capital punishment and in favor of illegal immigrantion — and, so, the politicians they finance and campaing for, take a blood oath to the prevailing agenda.
But, as with so many things, there is some good mixed in with the bad. For instance, people in Hollywood spend lavishly on homes, landscaping, security, travel, automobiles, clothing, publicity, nannies, entertainment, therapists, trainers, detox, Botox, rehab, plastic surgery, lawyers, and property settlements, doing way more than their part to keep money circulating.
There are, after all, only so many movies that can be made in a single year, Ben Affleck being only human. So, while they have already tried to deal with the ongoing problem by hiring ten or twelve writers to write, re-write and polish, a typical script, that still leaves a great many others on the sideline. I refer to those people who, through no fault of their own, are unable to write, re-write, or polish, even a shopping list, but are otherwise deserving of employment and an honorable niche in the cinematic food chain.
Hollywood, as well known for its heart as its headlines, has found a good way to deal with this tragic oversight. And, as with so many of its good works, it’s carried off without a lot of hoopla. I am stating for the record that the current practice of assigning producing credit to everyone who comes within spitting distance of the set is no mere whim or accidents, but is, in fact, an act of charity.
I suspect there are people who find it ludicrous that while “Spirit” bestows producing credits only to Mireille Soria and Jeffrey Katzenburg, and selfish Rick McCallum hogs all the glory for “Star Wars, EpisodeII,” “Insomnia” spread it out amongst George Clooney, Steven Soderbergh, Tony Thomas, Kim Roth, Charles J. D. Schlissel, Paul Junger Witt, EdwardL. McDonnell, Broderick Johnson, and Andrew A. Kosove, while “About A Boy,” clearly up to the challenge, doled it out to Nicky Kentish Barnes, Debra Hayward, Liza Chasin, Hardy Justice, Nick Hornby, Lynn Harris, Jane Rosenthal, Robert DeNiro, Brad Epstein, Jim Bevan, and Eric Fellner.
I repeat, some people might find this current practice ludicrous. But not I. Two movies, twenty producers. I think those numbers say it all. If only every employer hired ten people to do the job of one, what a world this would be!

Guns And Sons Of Guns

I have a terrible confession to make. You see, even though I am not a member of the National Rifle Association, am not a hunter and never even considered Charlton Heston a particularly good actor, I have no objection to my fellow citizens owning guns.