Media Monitor: Of flags, sex and ballast water

A day late on inconsequential news: When MinMon’s Tom Elko blogged about Tim Pawlenty’s joke on WCCO about not gettin’ any, it took off: Wonkette linked us up and off it went: it seems everybody covered it, from CBS to the Guardian to Huffington Post. So, funny to read that Vita.mn sex columnist Alexis McKinnis, presumably up on all things sex-y, heard about it from Fox Twin Cities a few days later — not from her own paper — and wrote that “only Fox News seems to care.” While the story was good for traffic, Elko muses, “How come this never happens when I write about ballast water?”

Strib speech bubbles: The Star Tribune’s new “featured comment” function — selected comments appear within a speech bubble beside stories (cool!) — makes for good fun. Here’s a curious comment attached to the Strib’s story on this week’s RNC fashion show. Of a star-spangled toddler (above), a reader asks, “If the kid soils himself while wearing that outfit, is it flag desecration?” [A proposal: Let's start tagging such images strib + "featured comment" so they're easier to find on Flickr.]

MNspeak-dot-something: On Twitter recently, I wondered why when one types just “mnspeak” (no .com) in the Firefox address field it takes me to MNspeak creator and former owner Rex Sorgatz’s site. PiPress tech blogger Julio Ojeda-Zapata has the answer.

MinMon at DNC: The Democratic National Convention just released its list of credentialed state-based bloggers. Of more than 400 applications, Minnesota Monitor was selected to represent the state. A “general blogger pool” will be announced soon.