A journalistic cliche is that ‘Dog Bites Man’ isn’t a headline, but ‘Man Bites Dog’ is.

The New York Times has always been desperate to appear non-sensational to the extent of being dull and its headlines are sometimes almost willfully boring. My personal, all time favorite Times headline is: “No Anthrax Found in Pond”, i.e. nothing happened in an insignificant body of water. This is the equivalent of running ‘Dog Nearly Bit Man’.

In recent years the Times’ understatement has lead to neo-Edwardian prudery, which is ironic for the newspaper of record in a town where people are renowned for being thick skinned. Today’s example comes from middle of the road, star reporter, Thomas Friedman, who quotes the classic Onion article about a Chinese factory worker who cannot believe the crap he is making for American export. The Times censors the word shit, and removes 90% of the impact of the punch-line.

NYT:

“Often, when we’re assigned a new order for, say, ‘salad shooters,’ I will say to myself, ‘There’s no way that anyone will ever buy these.’ … One month later, we will receive an order for the same product, but three times the quantity. How can anyone have a need for such useless [garbage]?”

Onion:

“Often, when we’re assigned a new order for, say, ’salad shooters,’ I will say to myself, ‘There’s no way that anyone will ever buy these,’” Chen said during his lunch break in an open-air courtyard. “One month later, we will receive an order for the same product, but three times the quantity. How can anyone have a need for such useless shit?”

People usually claim that London taxis are prohibitively expensive and that driving in NY is impossible, however these conclusions wouldn’t be the same if they were based purely on relative costs:

Suppose you lived two miles from the center of New York City or London and wanted to go to the town center for a one hour lunch by cab, subway or car, how much would the travel cost:

Cab:
London: $27.60
NYC: $15 [54% of London price]

Subway:
London: $8
New York: $4 [50% of London price]

Car:
London: $21.50
New York: $2.75 [13% of London price]

This is based upon the following data:

Cab:

1 mile cab ride (with 1 minute waiting time), excluding tips:

London: $6.90 (noon), $9 (midnight)
http://www.transportforlondon.gov.uk/pco/fares-detailed.shtml

New York: $3.70 (noon), $4.20 (midnight)
http://www.ny.com/transportation/taxis/

Car:

Toll for driving in city center:
London: $14
http://www.cclondon.com/

New York: $0.

Gas price per gallon
London: $7
http://www.yrl.co.uk/tony/fuel2/fuel2.html

Gas price per gallon
New York: $2.30
http://www.newyorkgasprices.com/

One hour, on street, metered parking:
New York: $2.50
http://www.parkingticket.com/about/press/release_040403.asp

London: $7 per hour
http://www.londontown.com/London/Public_Transport

Subway:

Single peak hour subway/tube ride within center:

London: $3.45, zone 1 ($4, zones 1-2)
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tickets/2005/single/tube.shtml

“Irwindale, a 9.5-square-mile moonscape of open-face gravel pits and industrial waste 26 miles east of Los Angeles.”

Lets face it, NY is much better than Irwindale.

Take, for example, the Guggenheim, its much better than the Irwindale museum of Yes album covers and the menu at Chucky Cheese just doesn’t compare to Alain Ducasse.

Fatty SoCal Town Eats 350,000 Big Macs a Year

I’m not actually sure why I am giving this the oxygen of publicity, however, on the subject of the little guys v. big meanies -

I’m referring of course to the trumped up SF v. NY debate where an extremely pleasant seaside town of less than 1M people is pitted against the arch metropolis of Gotham city. Even NY v. Chicago would be stretching it.

Nick Denton writes:

“I’ve always thought that San Francisco would be a perfect city if it was inhabited entirely by New Yorkers.”

WHAT! (Come on Nick its obvious that you’re only trying to stir up shit for clicks).

The sight of sweating hoards of black-clad PR flaks pounding up Mt. Tam in Manolo Blahniks would almost be worth it.

nickdenton.org: Friscophobia