I’m hoping it’s either serendipity or perhaps a subconsious riff on the deisgn similarities manifest within book covers, but it looks like the New York Times may have ripped off Nathalie Chicha. Not only did Andrew Adam Newman use the same examples that Nathalie used, but he quoted the blog Foreword, quite literally jonesing Foreword’s proprietor for examples rather than doing the legwork himself. (That would involve going to a bookstore and using a pair of eyes.)

It can be argued that a good journalist essentially collects information and assembles it. But the real question I have to ask is why Newman didn’t at least consult Nathalie in the course of writing his article, particularly when she was the one who ferreted out the issue in the first place and when a link to her visual examples was featured in the comments section at Foreword. Newman could have included a simple sentence along the lines of “Nathalie Chicha, editor of the blog Galleycat, has collected several interpretive examples of what these covers might mean.”

I would suggest that tracking the original source of an association is what a paid journalist should be expected to do. It’s decent and ethical and it also allows you to swap information with the enthused experts. Everybody wins.

(While I am not paid to blog here, I do go out of my way to attribute the original source, if I have found an item from somebody else — because it’s just possible that for anyone interested in the topic, there may be a debate or an additional debate or possibly a fantastic rabbit hole to head down.)

Most bloggers do this. It’s not entirely perfect, given that we’re posting entries on the fly, but it is possible to track linkage. However, if this is a case where bloggers are doing a better job of accrediting a source than Andrew Adam Newman, the real question is why the Times didn’t hire Nathalie Chicha to write the piece. She had the knowledge, she had the curiosity, and if a bit of cash and a shrewd and encouraging editor had been thrown her way, I’m convinced she would have dug up the reasoning behind the design similarities.

As widely reported throughout the blogosphere (and with a particularly heartfelt tribute from Sarah), the man who signed his checks Evan Hunter and who offered books under the names Hunter and Ed McBain has passed on. He was 78.

My first introduction to Hunter’s books were through a few hardcovers that somebody had given to me. This person was going to throw the tomes away and, being a selective packrat when it comes to books, I stopped him in the nick of time. Let’s just say that I was dubious about the “sultry” women on the covers, who sported pistols and wore their hair in dated feathery 1980s efforts to look what some publisher perceived as “trashy.” Presumably, it moved books. But the look of these ladies, to my eyes anyway, was about as morally compromised as It’s a Wonderful Life‘s George Bailey.

But I read them anyway. And found that the text itself was far from the pinup cliches on the cover. These were cops who had sizable problems, inhabiting a gritty world that was damn near hopeless, but bristling with life as if to defy the hard breaks. What made the McBain novels work were the telling details tossed so effortlessly throughout the text. A carefully wiped counterpane or a hastily tied garbage bag wouldn’t just give you a hint to the crime. It would tell you everything you needed to know about the people.

I’ve only read a few of his novels and that was many years ago. But now than Hunter’s gone, I hope I can work in some time to check out a good deal more.

• Emails being sent in to The Sun.
• Someone has already turned the attacks into a comic. Incredible turnaround time.
• Specific details on the blasts from The Guardian.
• Flickr: The London Explosion Pool.
• At the Huffington Post, Andrei Cherny suggests that the bombings will be a test to see if the U.S. can reciprocate Tony Blair’s pledge to America during 9/11 and Simon Jenkins pleas for normalcy.
• “The front of the building was covered with blood.”

Technorati Tags: London Underground, terrorism, London, headlines

• Cameraphone video showing trapped commuters.
• Raised alerts everywhere in U.S. but San Diego. Why?
• Sterling drops to 19-month low.
• American Communist Party issues statement condemning attacks.
• Queen in shock, Buckingham Palace sealed off.
• Eyewitness account from Marketwatch.
• Mayor Ken Livingstone calls attacks “mass murder.”
• David Plotz in Slate.
• Israel also holding economic conference near one of terror sites.

• Eyewitness reports from BBC.
• Wikipedia has an entry up on the attacks with some emergency numbers, if you need help. I understand that mobiles are down, but you can still text message.
• Numerology probably has nothing to do with this, but is there any significance to 7-7?
• The Guardian is now reporting 40 dead, 350 injured.
• London hotels are being overrun by commuters.
• Stocks take a dip on news of London bombings.
• Putin says attacks demonstrate that world is not united.
• G-8 talks postponed.
• Here in San Francisco, subways are delayed and many cops are patrolling the streets. I saw at least ten during my walk up Montgomery Street.
• CNN: “U.S. government sources told CNN that there was no specific or credible information indicating that there might be a threat to the United States.”
• Already, UPI is pinning this on al-Qaeda.