under a cloud

COULTER
* johncloud tries to defend himself for the coulter article and criticises alterman. alterman responds. smack down.

* meanwhile, gilliard is convinced that coulter and cloud engaged in some horizontal folk dancing LINK

* apparently Cloud is gay - so gilliard is apparently wrong. unless the rumours about coulter being a man are true... separately, doesnt coulter seem the type to hate gays? (i have no idea whether she does or not)

* CI explains why Time's choice of putting coulter on the cover is causing a ruckus(separate from the actual article) - its not just that coulter is a coulter.
"By industry standards, she has no place gracing the cover.... What a lot of the criticism over this choice is about is people instinctively knowing what is and what isn't a cover. Magazines have instilled this in readers... America is scratching it's collective head." LINK
the question remains as to why Time did it (i dont pretend to know much about Time or its position). it seems to be either a) they are trying to reach out to the fetusfolk and threw their normal rule book out the window b) the choice was mandated from on high (either from within the company, or from the shitehouse)

OTHER MEDIA NEWS
* david brooks is happy. healthy elite blue folk will all die soon. idiot presidents are the most effective. darwin was wrong. and its important to be opinionated and stupid. LINK

* Matt Taibbi critiques tom friedmans book - which is fun to read cos tom's an idiot. LINK

* juancole in Salon: "The lesson for academics, and American society as a whole: McCarthyism is unacceptable except when criticism of Israel is involved... The New York Times editorial is among the more dangerous documents threatening higher education in America to have appeared in a major newspaper since the McCarthy period" LINK
this whole episode is bizarre/scary - JC doesnt even mention the extraordinary deal that the NYT did with Columbia.