Among the others on an unusually star-studded list of 16 recipients was Oprah Winfrey, the television entrepreneur; Dean Smith, the Hall of Fame college basketball coach; Bayard Rustin, the civil rights campaigner; Sally Ride, the astronaut killed in the Challenger space shuttle crash in 1985; Benjamin C. Bradlee, the Watergate-era editor of The Washington Post; Daniel K. Inouye, the late senator from Hawaii; Loretta Lynn, the country music singer; and Gloria Steinem, the feminist writer.Are there no editors, fact-checkers, or even people with memories at the Gray Lady? Dr. Ride died last year of cancer, as the Times reported. I hope the author of the Medal of Freedom article didn't get the above from a White House press release.
Update: The Times has corrected this to "Sally Ride, an astronaut who was the first American woman in space." Thank you.
Additionally, the Challenger exploded on in 1986 (January 28), not 1985.
ReplyDeleteSyllogism:
ReplyDeleteA. The Times remembers that a female astronaut was aboard Challenger.
B. The Times can only think of one female American astronaut.
C. Therefore ...
There was one US astronaut, Judith Resnik, on the Challenger, and also there was a schoolteacher (with the title payload specialist or something) Christa McAuliffe. So I have to wonder what exactly the Times remembered....
ReplyDeletePerhaps I should have phrased leg A of the syllogism as "The Times remembered that at least one woman was aboard Challenger." But I gave them the credit, perhaps undeserved, of 1) assuming that they wouldn't mix up McAuliffe with Ride, and 2) vaguely remembering that at least one of the professional crew members was a woman.
ReplyDelete