The Chronicle‘s Editorial LiveJournalists have been providing so many (unintentional) laughs lately that it’s hard for us to keep up.
In a Sunday editorial, they concluded:
Americans, still working on the ills exposed by riots 30 years ago, should avoid smugness and wish France the best in a long, arduous process.
Fine, but in the paragraph that preceded the conclusion, they wrote:
Finally, and perhaps hardest of all, France is going to have make its economy more flexible — even though its high minimum wage, nearly ironclad job security and 35-hour workweek are, to many French, reflections of their deepest values.
The 35-hour workweek is a reflection of France’s deepest values? Okay, I admit that it’s kind of funny, and that I sometimes crack jokes about the French. But I don’t do it and then lecture my fellow Americans not to be smug about France!
Their second editorial on Sunday noted:
FOR anyone who believes in the existence of mental illness, the first trial of Clear Lake housewife Andrea Yates for drowning her five children provided convincing evidence that she was a very sick woman under the delusion that she had to kill her children in order to save them.
Harris County prosecutors convinced a jury in 2002 that Yates knew right from wrong and therefore was guilty of capital murder in the deaths of three of her five slain children.
So, apparently not one member of the jury that convicted Yates believes in the existence of mental illness?
Broad strokes, Editorial LiveJournalists. Broad strokes.
They continue:
With the community now facing a possible replay of that miscarriage of justice and the waste of taxpayer dollars and court time, Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal should demonstrate reason and compassion, both for her and for us.
[snip]
There are no winners in this case, but a humane and reasonable plea bargain would go a long way toward easing the pain and controversy that the deaths of the Yates children and their mother’s trial visited upon this community.
What? That certainly came out of left field. Given the Editorial LiveJournalists’ frequent smears of Chuck Rosenthal, though, we’re guessing their begging to be spared the horror of another trial may not resonate with the DA. Perhaps Jeff Cohen can get the Editorial LiveJournalists some grief counseling if there is another trial.
And today, the Editorial LiveJournalists wrote:
IN an agreement hammered out Tuesday, Israelis and Palestinians set out a plan for opening the borders of the Gaza Strip. In addition to the colossal achievement of giving Palestinians control of one of their own borders, the deal bodes well for progress toward crafting a peaceful relationship between the two perennially tense neighbors.
The term “perennially tense neighbors” connotes two nations long uneasy with each other, but that is not especially an apt description of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, until Israel finished its pullout from Gaza in September, it would really have been a misnomer to refer to Gaza and Israel as neighbors, since Gaza was better regarded as an administrative entity of Israel (yes, some people called it occupied, but that doesn’t change the point being made here). We think perennial implies a time frame of more than two months. The phrasing was just clumsy.
At least the Editorial LiveJournalists didn’t create a new treaty with this foray into international politics.
Still, somebody should be found to read these things more carefully before they go to print.
