Author: Brian Lambert

  • City Pages Snaps a Towel at Al Franken

    In a world where everyone, especially celebrities are free roaming targets for everyone with a cellphone camera, Al Franken ought to be thankful City Pages’ newshounds don’t have his workout routine up on YouTube. Maybe tomorrow. City Pages posted a tiddy by writer Ben Westhoff describing Franken’s goofball antics in his condo work-out room. Reaction…

  • Strib-Watch: The Whacking Continues …

    You’ve all heard of the half-dozen sweet old ladies at the Star Tribune switchboard let go in … what was that? Round 5? of “right-sizing” (TM: Par Ridder) … then came the end of what was no doubt an outrageously expensive deal paying mentally handicapped people to run errands around the building. Today’s instant-whackings (they’re…

  • Weekly Standard Week on The Daily Show

    When I saw the front page flag on yesterday’s Wall Street Journal — the one that said, “Why We Need More Dick Cheney” — I thought my favorite WSJ contrarian troll was at it again. If you follow the Journal’s Op-Ed page, you know it is populated — exclusively — by some of the eeriest,…

  • Does It Have to be News OR Analysis?

    The extraordinarily anachronistic Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times — a guy writing about media, newspapers even, while on the staff of a daily newspaper — has a particularly interesting piece up today. It’s about several things all adding up to what news consumers really want out of an on-line newspaper, supposedly the creature…

  • Before It's too Late: Tom Snyder

    The bridge disaster put a hit on my carefully planned blog schedule. (I’ve been reading through the local papers from the first days after — I was out of town when it happened — and will offer deep thoughts in the not too distant future. I know, hearts be still.) But I gotta say something…

  • Why Are These People So Happy?

    This photo was passed along to me without any idea who the photographer was. If anyone knows, I’ll happily credit them for what I think captures an iconic moment in Minnesota government, namely Gov. Pawlenty and his, uh, anti-government, “No New Taxes,” transportation advisers, (note Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau beaming at left), vetoing last year’s…