The Grey Lady's Tales
During the Johnson/Nixon years the newspapers of record in the US were unable to report about Southeast Asia and Latin America. The newspapers of record published a lot of copy, but it wasn't reporting. It was something else. Dahr Jamail's just posted a side-by-side of two pieces, his own and the piece by James Glanz and Richard A. Oppel, Jr. Both pieces contain elements of first-hand accounts of a specific recent event, the second was published in The Grey Lady. Here is the link to Dahr's side-by-side.
The first written compilation of كتاب ألف ليلة و ليلة(pronounce as: Alf Layla wa Layla, trans as: A Thousand Nights and a Night) was made in Iraq by al-Jahshiyari in the 10th century. The Nights have a deeply nested structure, which is wicked attractive to anyone who's groveled about inside a complier. There are stories within stories within stories, held together by Sharazade's neck -- a framing device also used in Cantabury Tales and the Decameron, even Orlando Furioso by Ariosto (Ach mine gott! I've read all three).
Sharazade bared her neck to King Shahrayar, and kept her head on her shoulders with her endless supply of tales was borrowed from the Persian Hazar Afsana, composed in turn by Humae, the daughter of Bahman, and first cited in Kitab ul Fihrist, written by Muhammad Bin Ishaq Un Nadim circa 987. The Tales of the Grey Lady are keeping some heads off of modern pikes. Some state-side heads.
I think tomorrow I'll splurge on a Sunday copy of the Times and dump it in Portland harbor. Rock breaks scissors, paper wraps rock, scissors cut paper, but water does a wicked thorough job of turning paper into pulp.