Well, Dan Rather's final broadcast at CBS news was more heartfelt than a Arkansas armadillo in a barrel of blue yarn — until he went back to that damn courage thing, couched in invocations of September 11th, soldiers and journalists abroad, and, yes, the tsunami. Everything always comes back to the tsunami.

· Media doyenne Tina Brown has signed a major (possibly 7 figure) deal with Random House to write...a biography of Princess Diana. Um, Tina? Sweetheart? Are you okay? Have you been taking your medication? [Reuters]
· Now you, too, can wear Martha Stewart's prison-release poncho. [Lion Brand]
· And more Martha: Now that she looks great post-incarceration, "The rich people are going to be taking prison away from us." [Zulkey]
· Something about the product BlogPins gives us the hives. Maybe because it's a mini CD-R product with "blog" in its name. [BlogPins]

Top, Bob Watts for Salon; bottom, Jean Lagarrigue for Esquire, Nov. 1969.

The end may be nigh, but one can always seek comfort in comic strips.

· Another week, another article about the supposed invasion of British editors. Everyone talks about British editors, but has anyone ever really met one? [NYP]
· Because you've been waiting since Monday for it: Russ Smith on the mess that is his former paper, The New York Press. [NYPress]
· Sis looks at the big Week shindig. [Wonkette]
· We may be a day early, but we gotta paraphrase Lenny Bruce on Vaughn Meader: Poor RatherBiased! CBS is gonna need three gold wristwatches. [RatherBiased]

When we noted last week that Page Six seemed a little behind in their reportage, it seemed to have inadvertantly sparked a new phase in gossip columnist catfightery. The latest cage match:

Coming soon to Plum TV: Trophy Wife Swap!

This week, Newsweek reported that our old pal Jason Kottke has gone pro. In the web exclusive story, we learned that Kottke is "The Blogosphere's Matt Lauer" and were treated to three fetching views of the ur-blogger's close-cropped pate.

There's a mysterious item from yesterday's Mediaweek about Lizz Winstead's departure from Air America Radio, the liberal station she helped build and for which she co-hosted Unfiltered with Chuck D and Rachel Maddow. (You also may have seen the open request for info posted on Romenesko's letters page.)

Page Six's Paula Froelich gives her agent/BFF Ari Emanuel and his agency a healthy plug in today's column:

"Thanks for all the nice things you said, Walter."

While you were home sitting out the blizzard, Buzzmachine's Jeff Jarvis was in Washington, DC for The Week Magazine's Opinion Awards. He even live blogged part of it the panel discussion (featuring our sister), bringing us a quote from our favorite New York Times op-ed writer-turned-infomercial pitchman:

Frank Bruni ruminates on the New York dining experience, in which menus have lately taken a turn towards the absurd (yeah, Megu, we're talking to you):

From today's New York Times' Corrections: For the Record:

Ever since Jeff Koyen resigned from The New York Press earlier this week, the shockwaves—okay, shock-ripples—have continued to reverberate.

In this week's New York Observer, Tom Scocca reports on yesterday's 'State of The Times' New York Times management pep rally at the Disney Theater, in which publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. "sans necktie, in a navy suit and blue shirt delivered a cheerful (if not sunshiny) account of the company s condition."

We have no idea what insanely funny video performance artists Tim & Eric are selling in this QT video, but we're definitely buying it. Twice.

Perhaps offering an update on George W.S. Trow's Tina Brown-era New Yorker essay, "Folding the New York Times" (also reproduced in My Pilgrim's Progress: Media Studies, 1950-1998), Apple offers a how-to guide for how to read the paper without, you know, the paper.

While people with too much time on their hands debate whether or not CNN anchor Anderson Cooper is gay (but God, those eyes!), the commenters at Out.com, in response to Michael Musto's recent musings about Cooper, debate the situation's larger meaning:

· Miramax Books' Jonathan Burnham is off to HarperCollins where he'll get his own imprint. Miramax publishes books? [NYP]
· You won't have Dan Rather to kick around anymore. [CBSNews]
· Remember Rosie O'Donnell? Well, she's a blogger now. [formerlyrosie, via TVTattle]
· Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, call your lawyers: The sudden ascendency of 'fugly.' [Salon]