Sam Levin

Mayor Mike Bloomberg responding to reporters' questions at a press conference today.

Recently, we've noticed that Mayor Mike Bloomberg likes to respond to reporters' questions in a way that he thinks, perhaps, might grab their attention best: newspaper analogies.

While on the defense about a controversial issue, Bloomberg seems to enjoy taking a combative stance with reporters at press conferences by directly bringing the newspaper industry into the discussion. Last month, he defended the barricades at Zuccotti Park by telling the Voice that we should go around thanking police officers for protecting our right to ask the mayor questions. In February, he told reporters that the surveillance of Muslims is necessary to protect them and free press in general.

At a press conference today, he used this technique (maybe he wanted to make sure reporters were really listening?) to defend his administration's position on two controversial issues: his refusal to release a 9-1-1 report and his persistence on releasing teacher evaluation data.

More >>

Kristof

​On Sunday, New York Times columnist Nick Kristof wrote about the harrowing experiences of a young woman who had been savagely attacked and forced into a life of prostitution at only 16 years of age. The men who attacked her were prosecuted, and one is serving 25 years.

In his piece, however, Kristof took aim at Backpage.com, a site owned by the company that owns this newspaper. Kristof wrote that when the woman was 16, the pimps offered her for sale on the site.

This claim was the very basis for his column.

And it is wrong.

For our full response, please see the story we have posted this morning, and you'll see what else Kristof failed to tell you about Backpage.com.

​The New York Times commended Attorney General Eric Holder in an editorial this weekend for investigating the NYPD's Muslim surveillance practices, and called on the Justice Department to examine some of the department's other practices, including stop-and-frisk, the marijuana arrest initiative, and pepper-spraying at Occupy Wall Street. "The Justice Department should also review other practices -- chief among them, stop-and-frisk -- that have virtually eliminated the presumption of innocence and that treat citizens, and even entire communities, as suspect even after they are proved innocent," the Times wrote.

More >>

​In a mishap that sent tremors through the media consciousness, the New York Times earlier today sent out an email that was first attributed to spam, possibly a hack, and then acknowledged to be from the Times. It was supposed to go to 300 subscribers; instead it went to 8 million. It was, as they say, an accident. But was it, as FoxNews writes, the New York Times's Anthony Weiner moment? Let us investigate the email. It went like this:

More >>

Linguists have actually taken measures to study the famously unusual speech patterns of New York Times executive editor and noted dog-lover Jill Abramson. A video of Abramson talking, in case you're unaware:

You'll be shocked to know that scientists at Penn have found that Abramson's speech differs from other people's.

More >>

Rosie Gray

Our copy of the Puppy Diaries.

​The New York Times review of New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson's The Puppy Diaries is in. They got the guy who wrote Marley & Me to do it, and he loved the "worthy addition to the crowded so-called dogoir genre." Amazing.

More >>

The Numi, doing its thing.

​At the New York Times, "All the news that's fit to print" sometimes translates to "All the toilets that are fit to review." And that includes the Numi, a $6,400 luxury toilet made by Kohler. The Numi is basically a spaceship for your bathroom. Only the finest commode will do for all the opulent rich one-percenters out there. It can do literally everything ever:

More >>

Never attempt to finish someone else's crossword.

​In this contemporary day and age, and also, summer, now that people are wearing less clothes, and tattoos are practically, like, shirts or at least jaunty vests in some parts of town, the question of how to behave in the presence of a tattoo has apparently become top of mind in other parts of town. This, as the New York Times puts it, "raises all sorts of etiquette questions," at least enough to fill Neil Genzlinger's City Critic column today. It is a doozy of social and cultural proprieties!

Things wondered by Genzlinger:

More >>

Samantha can't believe this nonsense.

​Again, this is happening. The "Sex is Over" trend piece is back in a new incarnation, and it still sucks. To recap: first we had the Observer, then that mind gem from Meg Wolitzer, and now another Times piece, this time by Erica Jong. "Is Sex Passé?" Jong asks, causing this blogger to laugh out loud because are they seriously trying this one again. Let us be clear: sex is not over, it is not "passé," and people are still having it. Is eating passé? Is breathing passé? Is the New York Times' opinion content passé?

More >>

​Interesting column from Maureen Dowd this weekend, about Barack Obama. It starts off "He was born this way. Bi." Are you shuddering in anticipation yet, thinking that she will make some kind of awful biracial joke? Thankfully, she doesn't, although she had me on the edge of my seat waiting for it throughout. The content of this particular column isn't crazy -- there's some boilerplate "Obama flip-flops!" stuff and then some valid points about his refusal to truly back gay marriage -- but there are a few awfully cringeworthy turns of phrase. "On Wall Street, he assails fat cats, but at cocktail parties, he wants to collect some of their fat for his campaign." I see what you did there, but the image is gross and perhaps violent, no? Removing their fat from their bodies? "On some of the most important issues facing this nation, it is time for the president to come out of the closet." Maureen Dowd, everyone. She'll be here all week.

[rgray@villagevoice.com] [@_rosiegray]

More >>