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Times tosses top editors, GOP cancels vote on overtime bill, blond-bashing spree continues

The New York Times has apparently decided not to take my advice and retrain Executive Editor Howell Raines: they're firing him instead, along with Managing Editor Gerald Boyd; the official word is that they are "stepping down." Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who is not "stepping down" so far himself, praised the departing, much-dissed executives for "putting the interest of this newspaper, a newspaper we all love, above their own." Former Executive Editor Joseph Lelyveld will come out of retirement to serve as interim executive editor while the Times tries to figure out what to do next. The Poynter Institute's Jim Romenesko has published Sulzberger's memo to the staff. Of course, since we last wrote about the Times May 25, embattled Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter Rick Bragg has also "stepped down."

Meanwhile, the Republicans have cancelled the vote scheduled for today in the House of Representatives on a bill that would allow employers to substitute compensatory time off for paid overtime: the outcry from working Americans was so loud that they realized they just didn't have the votes for it. In that case, it would have been better if they had just gone ahead, so that H.R. 1119 could be declared officially dead.

As you may have noticed if you've had your television on for more than 30 seconds today or yesterday, celebrity homemaker Martha Stewart has been indicted for a crime that involved much, much less money ($45,000) than the billions involved in the recent Worldcom, Enron, or Tyco scandals, but then the deposed heads of those companies are neither blond nor female, nor do they go around offering handy hints.

Coincidentally, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) does happen to be both blond and female, which may or may not be a reason the media has pounced on her for daring to write a memoir, Living History. Whether you agree or disagree with her, she's had an interesting life so far, the most interesting part of which was not, as reported ad nauseum, her husband's most-publicized infidelity.

Blonds, especially blondes, are perennially popular targets, though there has been some backlash from blonds (and blondes) themselves, most enjoyably in the 2001 movie "Legally Blonde," so successful that a sequel, "Red, White, and Blonde," is scheduled to premiere next month.

Not blond, but still picked on: Burmese pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi, duly elected head of her nation's government although she has yet to take office because of a 1990 military coup, is now in "protective custody" after being injured in what junta spokesmen said was a clash between her supporters and the military's. Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), who himself was injured and taken into "protective custody" by the North Vietnamese military some years ago, has wasted no time calling for her release. This story may be a bit confusing because in addition to taking over the country, the coup leaders tried to obfuscate the issue by changing the name of the nation to "Myanmar."