I wrote extensively about The End of Suburbia in January (here's my blog posting). Christopher Hume, the Toronto Star's architecture columnist, has also written about it today in advance of its screening at 10 p.m. Wednesday on Vision TV.

Washington Post ombudsman Michael Gertler wrote a column last weekend about the essential newspaper. This weekend, it was fixing the essential newspaper.

What some of his readers told him was that their essential newspaper should show a little more spine in challenging power.

NYT public editor Daniel Okrent looks at the use of the t-word, particularly in the minefield of the Middle East in general and Israel in particular.

This NYT story looks at the Apple Computer lawsuit against a blogger, forcing him to reveal his sources. That raises the following question: Is the blogger a journalist, with limited rights to protecting source confidentiality, or not?

Mr. Dithers jibes aside, PM PM got a solid endorsement from the Liberal faithful -- a reward for taking over all those riding associations in his long march towards the leadership, no doubt. :)

Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian journalist taken hostage in Iraq and then nearly killed by U.S. troops at a roadblock, offers up her side of the story.

If you're paying cash, riding "The Rocket" will cost you $2.50 today, up from $2.25. Kids' fares rose a dime, and seniors and students' rates are up 20 cents.

Oh, and a little something on the mythical T.O. subway map the Globe discovered.

The NYT published a story yesterday called 'Violent new front in drug war opens up on Canadian border.'

It was number three on the NYT's 'most e-mailed'stories' list this morning as I wrote this and was number one when I came home last night. If only the story were true! :)

Maureen Dowd of the NYT continues her recent roll with this column. I'm too tired to comment tonight, but here ya go:

The BBC profiles the Italian journalist who was held hostage in Iraq for a month -- and also killed by U.S. troops shortly after being released by her captors.

CBC has ended its CBCRadio3.com online magazine venture after 100 issues. But it has plans, big plans, for what comes next.

The Toronto Star's Antonia Zerbisias on why  liberalism is a dirty word in the U.S. -- and why the liberals partly have themselves to blame.

Now Magazine contributor Robert Priest takes a run at CBC's The Hour, saying it is all bits without much bite.

Steve Earle, one of my favourite alt-country performers, has never been shy about expressing his opinions. He once called Shania Twain "the world's highest-paid lap dancer" and said Garth Brooks was "the anti-Hank."

(That would be Hank Williams, Sr.).

Anyway, here's an excerpt from a CP story about Earle carried on CTV.ca:

Susan Delacourt, who took a soft look at Paul Martin's machinations to capture the Liberal Party's leadership in Juggernaut, did this analysis piece on "Mr. Dithers" management style.

An excerpt from a Toronto Star story:

The NYT did a big story on the smuggling of B.C. Bud into the United States from British Columbia. And some of it is wildly out of context.

Ukraine's former interior minister apparently offed himself today rather than answer questions about the 2000 kidnapping and murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

An Italian journalist who had been a hostage of Iraqi militants for the past month had the vehicle she was travelling in come under U.S. fire at a checkpoint near Baghdad International Airport.

Giuliana Sgrena, a reporter for Il Manifesto, was trying to leave the country after being freed by her captors. An Italian Secret Service agent accompanying her was killed.

An odd bit of science news that should send men running for the tape measures to scope out a different part of their anatomy than the usual.

The NYT's Frank Rich on the disappearance, as he puts it, of news from the News.

Jay Rosen is a very serious thinker and writer about journalism (check out PressThink to see what I mean).

You can add good sport to that; he appeared in a segment on Thursday night's episode of The Daily Show.

Four RCMP officers were killed Wednesday at the scene of a marijuana grow op -- carnage not seen by the force since the 1885 Northwest Rebellion.

Politicians are already talking tougher penalties. But is that really going to solve the problem?

Here's something I did for CTV.ca on the Liberals' convention and PM PM's upcoming speech to it on Friday evening.

It basically says while Martin has had some bad luck, some of the wounds on his government are self-inflicted.

I was riding the College St. streetcar the other day. Its forward progress was stalled by a double-parked cab. The streetcar operator honked his annoyance.

"Why not just hit him (with the street car)?" I asked innocently.

The NYT's Maureen Dowd -- who's been hitting the female appearance ball pretty hard lately -- watched the Oscars and was appalled by the Stepford Celebrity Women.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko says arrests have been made in the 2000 abduction and murder of investigative reporter Georgiy Gongadze.

Central Asia is one of many places in this world where challenging power as a journalist can get you shot to death in the lobby of your own apartment building.

A new CBS/NYT poll says Dubya is out of step with most of the country when it comes to priorities, both foreign and domestic. And people are really getting antsy about his Social Security "reforms."

Eric Bohlert, writing in Salon, argues the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has an agenda to sabotage the press's coverage of government -- and that it has willing co-conspirators in organizations like Fox ...   more »

Michael Buerk was in Toronto on Monday to deliver the Atkinson lecture at Ryerson University. Here is Toronto Star media columnist Antonia Zerbisias's take on his speech.

Monte Solberg, Conservative MP and blogger, offers a few thoughts on the sometimes testy relationship between journos and politicos while saying a few nice words about CTV's Joy Malbon, who has moved from Ottawa to ...   more »

The buzz in the TV world today is the release of a New Yorker article by Ken Auletta on Dan Rather, in which the outgoing anchor of the CBS Evening News is ripped by network stalwarts like Don Hewitt, Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite.

Canadian journalist Stevie Cameron is in Israel, where her professor husband David is teaching a course on federalism until June or so.

Stevie has caught the blogging bug: You can find her stuff at http://steviecameronblog.blogspot.com

Washington Post ombudsman Michael Gertler, after reading several bad-news-for-newspapers stories in his own paper, defends the beleaguered medium.

For more on the bashing, please see this blog posting, newspaper angst.

This Toronto Star story out of Monday's Gomery testimony is quite astonishing. Read it and see what I mean.

This little BBC piece talks about the toys for boys that real Brit secret agents had available. Exploding pens and human torpedoes aren't myths!

The things one finds in the archives of one's national intelligence services, in this case, Britain's MI5.

Here is what you, the cherished visitors to this blog, found interesting in February. And I've also thrown in a few posts I'd wished you'd found more interesting. :)

It's been over 30 years since Clint Eastwood's famous 'Dirty Harry' character blew away the punks and psychopaths of San Francisco. But the character is being resurrected in a video game, and Clint's involved.

Robert Reich, former secretary of labor in the administration of Bill Clinton, tries to be provocative on the retailer many publicly hate and privately shop at: Wal-Mart.