This is rich: The Nashville Post (paid subscription required) is reporting that the NYT’s Frank Rich, who was reviewing Broadway plays back when Bill Frist was performing heart and lung transplants, said this last night at a Vanderbilt lecture:

“I have really strong views about Bill Frist. They are not positive,”…. Frist “plays both sides against the middle,” Rich said. “His party is not going to nominate him” in 2008.

According to the Nashville Post, the Wednesday lecture, which is part of Vanderbilt University Chancellor’s lecture series, was based on Rich’s thesis that the “Democratic cultural agenda” is winning in America despite the outcome of the recent election.

Wait a minute. Did Frank Rich actually hang the adjective “Democratic” onto the phrase “cultural agenda”?

Newsweek launches ‘Tip’ magazine In news that sounds like Newsweek may be doing a magazine much like the magazine “Wired Test” I blogged Monday, I just ran across news that a magazine called “Tip” will be hitting newsstands (and certain mailboxes) next week. Here’s the press release:

Tip magazine, a spinoff of Newsweek’s highly successful The Tip Sheet section will hit newsstands across the country on Monday, November 15. With a rate base of 300,000, Tip will be on sale until mid-February and 150,000 copies will be given to a select group of Newsweek subscribers.

“Our research showed that The Tip Sheet was a reader favorite, and even better, readers were taking action on something they had read about in Tip Sheet,” says Gregory Osberg, Newsweek’s Executive Vice President and Worldwide Publisher. “It was a very compelling case to take to the advertising community, and, sure enough, marketers have eagerly embraced the launch of Tip.”

Kathleen Deveny, Editor of Tip and Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, says, “With choices exploding, people are hungry for information that will help them sort through all the products and services, and that’s what TIP does. It helps consumers figure out what’s right for them.”

There will also be an online component to Tip, which includes links to some products’ Web sites, a daily online forum with Tip editors, where readers can offer suggestions and questions about holiday-related topics, “E-Mail This to Santa,” where readers can e-mail a particular product’s information to a friend or relative, and a weekly online newsletter.

The debut issue of Tip aims to help families have smarter holidays and offers a guide to an easier, happier season. Articles cover sure-fire gifts for everyone, tipping from A to Z, how to throw a perfect party, last-minute plastic surgery and holiday getaways. There is also a “Best of the Best” holiday gift guide with 73 Tip-tested, surefire gifts for everyone on your holiday list.

Update: This additional press release makes it sound less like Wired Test and more like an Oprah Magazine wannabe.

Maybe they are more intelligent, but are they smarter? Other than some offline joking with one of this weblog’s seven readers, I have mostly ignored the gnashing of teeth by those claiming intellectual superiority over the rednecks like me who voted for Bush. Last night, however, I read several chapters of James Surowiecki’s book, Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. While I’m not ready to review the book, I am ready to admit that individual Kerry voters may, indeed, be intellectually superior to individual Bush voters (or not). However, I believe Surowiecki’s book provides a convincing argument that the collective wisdom of a majority of 120 million voters is greater than the individual intelligence of any one New York Times columnist.

Audited websites — the print way: According to wired.com, “next week, I/Pro and BPA are set to announce a $100 million program that will offer…niche sites an incentive to get audited. After I/Pro does its dirty work, a website would be eligible to receive ads from advertisers and ad buyers participating in I/Pro’s Agencies for Interactive Audits program.”

No comment: I know I should rant the way I usually do when the person who’s quoted in this article called “betting on tools that power blogs” says something like, “It’s very clear the blogosphere has become a substantial alternative media source.” But I’m in too good a mood today to care about people who live in alternative universes where such a phrase as “alternative media source” is actually used in a conversation.

(via: micropersuasion.com)