Well, it didn't take long for The New York Times to demonstrate that their policy of not offending religious believers was a bunch of bolshevik storytelling. Yesterday's Times, in a "Critic's notebook" analysis piece on the Muhammed cartoons controversy followed policy by not using any of the "blasphemous" drawings. Instead, they again ran the "artwork" of the Virgin Mary covered in elephant feces.

Today, a letter writer aptly expresses my bewonderment.

To the Editor:

Not one day after you profess to be a reasonable news organization that refrains from printing images that are "gratuitous assaults on religious symbols" that are "so easy to describe in words" (editorial, Feb. 7), you chose to print a photograph of "a collage of the Virgin Mary with cutouts from pornographic magazines and shellacked clumps of elephant dung" (Critic's Notebook, by Michael Kimmelman, Feb. 8 ).

Are there only some religious symbols that you believe should be shielded from assault? Are there only some religions that you are not afraid to offend?

Was the written description inadequate to describe the gratuitous assault on the Virgin Mary? What's going on at The Times?

Michael J. Scheer
Chappaqua, N.Y., Feb. 8, 2006

When it came to directing the news coverage of the Times, I honestly didn't think that you could do worse than Howell Raines. Bill Keller is worse. Frankly, the publication of the Virgin Mary "art" is just completely insane. Seriously nuts. Wacko. If there are any devout Catholics in the Times newsroom, I'd suggest they see a lawyer about filing an lawsuit claiming a hostile work environment.

The Times credibility is shot. I mean, you can't really scream any louder that you're either bald-faced liars or anti-Christian bigots than the Times has done over the past two days.