Bloggers, meet the new object of your scorn: Byron E. Calame, The New York Times' new public editor. According to AP (via Editor & Publisher), Calame is formerly an editor at The Wall Street Journal, where he worked for 39 years.

If the Times Dining section were going to permutate into anything more absurd, you'd expect Frank Bruni to be behind it. And today, he is, forgoing the culinary reviews and flavorful reflections on godknowswhat to sit down with — brace yourselves — 80's fat "before-Kirstie" actress Delta Burke:

Who doesn't love a good blooper, bleep, or blunder? Nothing yanks the rug out from under some stuffed shirt better than a boinger of blundery blooper!

Guy Trebay, eager to assert his status as the most fabulous reporter since Jeff Gannon, spends a weekend in Palm Beach with potter turned decorator/designer Jonathan Adler and his partner, Barney's creative director Simon Doonan (we'd discuss the boys' terrier, Liberace, but we can handle only so many reinforced stereotypes for one day). Jonathan is best known for his love of kitsch and his use of "Mary" as a universal name for pretty much everyone:

A funny thing happened on the way to our inbox: We received a copy of a quiet little email from Times' head counselor Bill Keller to maybe a handful of extremely senior editors. Apparently, there's going to be some "significant" changes to the Culture pages (something about competition from Yahoo!, no joke), including the main Arts listings:

In her 'Deadline Hollywood' column today, Nikki Finke reports that New York Times' Hollywood correspondent Bernard Weinraub is stepping down from his post:

Hey, have you heard about the new trend of knitting? According to a signed New York Times editorial by Carol E. Lee (the same keen public-interest journalist who railed against the horrors of drunk dialing one day after the Iraqi elections):

Please make our jobs harder. You're taking all the fun out of this.

It's day two of The New York Times' special series on celebrity gossip writers. Yesterday, as we've already pointed out, was Katharine Q. Seelye on Liz Smith and today, David Carr reports on—get this!—British editors at American tabloids.

We've got some bad news. The American Podiatric Medical Association has released its annual rankings of the "10 best" walking cities in America and, after holding the top spot in 2003, New York has plummeted to seventh place. A moment of silence, please.

WE HEAR...

Today's epistemological question comes via The New York Times' 'Style' section: Can a woman stalk her own husband?

From a particularly This is Spinal Tap-ish New York Times 'Week in Review' Correction:

This weekend, Times film critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott hate everyone and everything:

From today's New York Times 'Circuits' section:

Don't ask why we noticed this candied, candy-coated, cloying, delicious, honeyed, luscious, nectareous, saccharine, sugar-coated, sweetened, syrupy, toothsome trend. Instead, ask why the Times hasn't discovered the thesaurus.

Damn, if only this story couldn't have broken around the time of Lawrence Summer's dumb-ass comments:

A round of applause, please, to the Times' Virginia Heffernan, who managed to employ the word "bitch" thirty-two times in an article under 1200 words. She's so...subversive. We like it, girlfriend!

At right, it's happy! To the left, it's sad. Click to enlarge.

· Is singer-songwriter Keren Ann the newest patron saint of the Times? Two prominent mentions this weekend (in Arts and Styles) means love is in the air. [NYT & NYT]
· If you didn't catch Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore's monologue on SNL this weekend, here's a recap: funny 'cause it's true. [goldenfiddle]
· When you think of the johns that rip off tranny hookers, you rarely think of NYPD officers. But maybe you should. [Gothamist]
· The death of John Delorean means the end of time travel and the beginning of several Photoshop gags of questionable taste. [low culture]