The copyeditor is like a baseball umpire: No one notices unless there's a screwup. And hey, in the newspaper business, everybody makes mistakes. That's why we run corrections (really, really small, somewhere we hope no one will see them). And sometimes, it's more likely the writer's fault. Like in the Sentinel's Sports section, when Dave Joseph wrote a commentary on Ricky Williams. Really, any writer who would begin a sentence, "In the words of Meat Loaf..." without even a hint of irony can't be the sort of fellow who makes for a fun night in the ol' copyediting slot. But shouldn't he know that, when reaching for a hackneyed cliché to describe Williams's propensity for driving fast, the phrase to use would be "put the pedal to the metal," not "put the peddle to the metal"? We are left to conclude that this guy's copy was so riddled with other errors that this one just slipped by the Sentinel's grammar police. In the case of the headline for Vanessa Bauzá's Cuba Notebook column in the International section of the same issue, though, we're afraid we must blame the beleaguered copy desk. At daily papers, copyeditors almost always write the headlines -- and if they don't, they're still responsible for checking the things and are supposed to be trebly vigilant for gaffes that will appear in 30-point, small-caps type. The headline in question: "In Fox flap, Castro flaunts convention." OK, all you grammarians out there, figure it out. The column describes Fidel Castro's revealing tapes of a conversation with Mexican President Vicente Fox, which is a diplomatic no-no, which flies in the face of tradition, which means that Castro... flouts convention. The horror, the horror.

The copyeditor is like a baseball umpire: No one notices unless there's a screwup. And hey, in the newspaper business, everybody makes mistakes. That's why we run corrections (really, really small, somewhere we hope no one will see them). And sometimes, it's more likely the writer's fault. Like in the Sentinel's Sports section, when Dave Joseph wrote a commentary on Ricky Williams. Really, any writer who would begin a sentence, "In the words of Meat Loaf..." without even a hint of irony can't be the sort of fellow who makes for a fun night in the ol' copyediting slot. But shouldn't he know that, when reaching for a hackneyed cliché to describe Williams's propensity for driving fast, the phrase to use would be "put the pedal to the metal," not "put the peddle to the metal"? We are left to conclude that this guy's copy was so riddled with other errors that this one just slipped by the Sentinel's grammar police. In the case of the headline for Vanessa Bauzá's Cuba Notebook column in the International section of the same issue, though, we're afraid we must blame the beleaguered copy desk. At daily papers, copyeditors almost always write the headlines -- and if they don't, they're still responsible for checking the things and are supposed to be trebly vigilant for gaffes that will appear in 30-point, small-caps type. The headline in question: "In Fox flap, Castro flaunts convention." OK, all you grammarians out there, figure it out. The column describes Fidel Castro's revealing tapes of a conversation with Mexican President Vicente Fox, which is a diplomatic no-no, which flies in the face of tradition, which means that Castro... flouts convention. The horror, the horror.

"Because of knucklehead errors, a photograph caption in The Palm Beach Post Monday incorrectly identified one of the Three Stooges, as well as Abbott and Costello. The caption misidentified Curly Howard, at left, one of the Three Stooges, as Curly Joe Howard. Curly Howard, whose real name was Jerome Lester Horwitz, was the brother of Moe and Shemp Howard. Curly Joe DeRita was the sixth and last member to join the Stooges. The caption also incorrectly referred to Bud Abbott and Lou Costello when in fact the photo showed Costello and Abbott, at right. The errors appeared on Page 4E of the Accent section; the photos illustrated a story on the front page of Accent about movie shorts. We're pleased to note that we correctly identified Laurel and Hardy."

"Because of knucklehead errors, a photograph caption in The Palm Beach Post Monday incorrectly identified one of the Three Stooges, as well as Abbott and Costello. The caption misidentified Curly Howard, at left, one of the Three Stooges, as Curly Joe Howard. Curly Howard, whose real name was Jerome Lester Horwitz, was the brother of Moe and Shemp Howard. Curly Joe DeRita was the sixth and last member to join the Stooges. The caption also incorrectly referred to Bud Abbott and Lou Costello when in fact the photo showed Costello and Abbott, at right. The errors appeared on Page 4E of the Accent section; the photos illustrated a story on the front page of Accent about movie shorts. We're pleased to note that we correctly identified Laurel and Hardy."

Bob Stevens had worked for supermarket tabloids for 30 years, pasting alien heads on celebrities and making us believe that indeed Elvis is alive. His career was cut short last October after he died from inhalation anthrax upon opening a letter laced with the fatal white powder at American Media Inc. in Boca Raton. More than 500 people attended the 63-year-old photo editor's funeral at the Unity of Delray Beach Church. The parking lot outside the church was filled with journalists waiting to catch a shot of the procession. A few shouted questions at those in mourning. Reporters were, not surprisingly, asked to exercise a little restraint or leave.

Bob Stevens had worked for supermarket tabloids for 30 years, pasting alien heads on celebrities and making us believe that indeed Elvis is alive. His career was cut short last October after he died from inhalation anthrax upon opening a letter laced with the fatal white powder at American Media Inc. in Boca Raton. More than 500 people attended the 63-year-old photo editor's funeral at the Unity of Delray Beach Church. The parking lot outside the church was filled with journalists waiting to catch a shot of the procession. A few shouted questions at those in mourning. Reporters were, not surprisingly, asked to exercise a little restraint or leave.

Say what you will about Michael Koretzky, but he is undeniably irrepressible. And every now and then, he is very, very good. From his turbulent times at XS/City Link to his brief helmsmanship of the now-defunct weekly Free Times in Palm Beach, Koretzky keeps sharpening his role as universal thorn in the side. In his latest venture, the made-on-a-shoestring zine called Slug, he's rubbing the Palm Beach Post and the Sun-Sentinel the wrong way. Koretzky obtained copies of internal memos from the papers and pasted them all over his little publication. Want to see the unseemly Post gloat over the sales boost from 9/11? It's in there. Want to hear the cynical Post boast about beating the competition into the house of a nine-year-old girl who accidentally stabbed her brother in the heart? It's in there. While the raw ambition of the Post is laid bare, the Sun-Sentinel, in a strange way, comes off as even worse; the Sentinel's internal communiqués are unbearably boring in the worst, most sanitized, life-sucking corporate way. Check out this drivel from Sentinel management on strategies to increase readership: "Work on a variety of action plans is nearing completion.... Blitz the market with a campaign to increase our standing as the premiere provider of information." It makes you realize just how important those secondary and tertiary providers of information really are. Keep slugging, Koretzky.

Say what you will about Michael Koretzky, but he is undeniably irrepressible. And every now and then, he is very, very good. From his turbulent times at XS/City Link to his brief helmsmanship of the now-defunct weekly Free Times in Palm Beach, Koretzky keeps sharpening his role as universal thorn in the side. In his latest venture, the made-on-a-shoestring zine called Slug, he's rubbing the Palm Beach Post and the Sun-Sentinel the wrong way. Koretzky obtained copies of internal memos from the papers and pasted them all over his little publication. Want to see the unseemly Post gloat over the sales boost from 9/11? It's in there. Want to hear the cynical Post boast about beating the competition into the house of a nine-year-old girl who accidentally stabbed her brother in the heart? It's in there. While the raw ambition of the Post is laid bare, the Sun-Sentinel, in a strange way, comes off as even worse; the Sentinel's internal communiqués are unbearably boring in the worst, most sanitized, life-sucking corporate way. Check out this drivel from Sentinel management on strategies to increase readership: "Work on a variety of action plans is nearing completion.... Blitz the market with a campaign to increase our standing as the premiere provider of information." It makes you realize just how important those secondary and tertiary providers of information really are. Keep slugging, Koretzky.

At its best, boxing is a balletic display of mental and athletic prowess. But who needs that when there's a bunch of has-been trash-talkers whose royalties ran out in '96 who are willing to get the crapola beaten out of themselves on national television? As evidence of this truth, we turn to Miramar bike-shop owner and former pompadoured pop-rapper Vanilla Ice. 'Nilla just couldn't quite slide across the ring fast enough to avoid the right hooks, roundhouses, and jabs of Todd Bridges, who played Willis on '80s sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. The celebrity match -- also featuring putative Clinton harassee Paula Jones versus Olympic redneck Tonya Harding and Partridge Family vet Danny Bonaduce versus Greg from The Brady Bunch -- was sure entertaining. But we have a suggestion for next time: Vanilla's old-school Aqua-Netted 'do against Paula Jones's fake, uh, fingernails.

At its best, boxing is a balletic display of mental and athletic prowess. But who needs that when there's a bunch of has-been trash-talkers whose royalties ran out in '96 who are willing to get the crapola beaten out of themselves on national television? As evidence of this truth, we turn to Miramar bike-shop owner and former pompadoured pop-rapper Vanilla Ice. 'Nilla just couldn't quite slide across the ring fast enough to avoid the right hooks, roundhouses, and jabs of Todd Bridges, who played Willis on '80s sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. The celebrity match -- also featuring putative Clinton harassee Paula Jones versus Olympic redneck Tonya Harding and Partridge Family vet Danny Bonaduce versus Greg from The Brady Bunch -- was sure entertaining. But we have a suggestion for next time: Vanilla's old-school Aqua-Netted 'do against Paula Jones's fake, uh, fingernails.