In your sun-drenched Tuesday media column: Ed Schultz has opinions still, rape and Twitter debated, newspaper paywall detractors, the Mirror Awards vs. Fox News, and Ken Layne leaves the internet behind.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wants to make sure Anthony Weiner didn't use any of your tax dollars to send pics of his dick to a half-dozen women over the years. She's calling for an Ethics Committee investigation into "whether any official resources were used or any other violation of House rules occurred." What, you didn't think we were done with Weinergate, did you?
The Senate Ethics Committee has uncovered extensive evidence that former Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and others broke U.S. law by trying to cover up an affair Ensign had with a campaign aide, the wife of one of his top Senate staffers.
We'll never know for certain what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have said about the killing of Osama bin Laden — but luckily, we still have the 14th Dalai Lama to turn to for spiritually elevated words of pacifism and tolerance in these rootin' tootin' times. So what are those words? Well, that Bin Laden kind of had it coming.
Amid all the ululation and praise for great men in the wake of Osama bin Laden's assassination, a few killjoys have emerged to shame us for celebrating a man's death. We are not barbarians!
Some academics claim that the words "pet" and "owner" are insulting to animals, and might even affect how they're treated. So from now on, please start using the term "companion animal," instead of the p-word, when referring to Binky/Mr. Winkles/whatever the fuck embarrassing name you gave the poor creature. You're not Andy Capp, after all—you're a "human carer."
One portion of the devastating documentary about the global financial collapse, Inside Job (which won an Oscar, so you have to see it), dealt with academic economists—specifically, the ways that they became financially tied to banks and other players in finance, and how that may have compromised the entire practice of economics. It even showed the heads of the economic departments at Harvard (pictured) and Columbia blithely asserting that there was no need to disclose their financial conflicts of interest in academic papers. It was sickening.
In your springy Monday media column: reporters get great bonus opportunities, Katie Couric's future in detail, the SF Chronicle eyes a paywall, the freelancer purge at AOL, and Ken Auletta on Robert Thomson.
