(Wikipedia)

Twineball’s media moment? Brent Schacherer of the Litchfield Independent Review reports that home-decor diva Martha Stewart is interested in Minnesota’s legendary twine ball. Billed as the world’s largest ball of twine, Darwin’s 17,400-pounder — spun over 39 years, beginning in 1950, by the indefatigable Francis Johson — has sparked interest among Stewart’s producers, who have set up a Wednesday morning call with Roger Werner, curator of the Darwin Twine Ball Museum. No word yet on when or if the ball will be featured on Stewart’s show.

Power Line pilfers: You can’t find Tom Tomorrow’s comic strip at City Pages anymore, but local rightwing blog Power Line is picking up the slack — apparently without permission, credit or remuneration for the artist, according to a tweet by Tomorrow.

Untangling obfuscation: Graphic designers are telling Republicans to tell the truth when presenting infographics related to healthcare reform. A healthcare flowchart created by John Boehner’s office has been met with a graphic retort — in more ways than one. California designer Robert Palmer has created his own chart of healthcare, packaged on Flickr with an open letter to Boehner. In part, he tells Boehner, “By releasing your chart, instead of meaningfully educating the public, you willfully obfuscated an already complicated proposal. There is no simple proposal to solve this problem. You instead chose to shout ’12! 16! 37! 9! 24!’ while we were trying to count something.” The title of his letter and chart: “Do not fuck with graphic designers.” (Via Infosthetics.)

On local online news videos: Taylor Carik, formerly of KARE-11′s Metromix and founder of the blog Mediation, digs into an analysis of video use by online news outfits by University of Minnesota student Vadim Lavrusik. He praises Lavrusik’s college thesis as a starting point, but suggests a deeper look at, among other topics, accepted standards for online video. He writes: “Taken side-by-side, Minnesota’s mainstream media video usage is comparable. KSTP is on-par with MPR. Great. But taken against general video developments online, the group is easily two years behind an acceptable standard of online video usage.”

As media outlets continue struggling with the bad economy, City Pages has cut back on its online budget allocated for food and music blogging, after bumping up those budgets in January, editor Kevin Hoffman confirms. As he told me early this month, food blogging is one of the areas he hopes to build traffic, yet it’s one area that took a hit “when the economy soured.” While both areas are seeing cuts, he says online food and music have seen a net gain in funding over the past year.

One City Pages writer to feel the budget axe is James Norton, who until his late-December layoff, served as the paper’s under-$20-per-meal restaurant reviewer. Tuesday morning, Norton’s next move was unveiled: He’s launched The Heavy Table, a foodie site covering all things edible and imbibable in the upper Midwest.

“Our mandate is broad,” Norton writes in an email. “We’ll have articles of interest to the home cook, to the restaurant diner, and to the food enthusiast who cares to know the story of how his or her dinner got to the plate. We appeal to those who are looking for what’s in season, what’s local, what’s heirloom and what’s new.”

While the funding situation’s gotta be tough, Norton, a veritable jack of all media, has diverse enough experience to give it a good shot. The former Middle East editor for the Christian Science Monitor, co-creator of Flak Radio, and former producer for Al Franken’s radio show, he’s written on food for Chow.com, Minnesota Monthly, Saveur, Salon and others. He’s also the author of the forthcoming book “The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin.”

Two other local sites are testing out new funding models for online content. Based on the popularity of his recent posts at The Deets about online practices by City Pages and its parent Village Voice Media, tech blogger Ed Kohler is asking readers to ante up if they want him to publish his next piece on the Minneapolis altweekly this Thursday. By noon, he said he’s raised $26 dollars toward publishing the piece. His goal is $50, but he says he’s raised more than $26 because some contributors are donating so he doesn’t publish. He credits consultant Jeffrey McManus for his inspiration for the microfinancing idea.

Since City Pages seems to be the connective tissue here:

Mediation, voted best local blog of 2008 by the altweekly, is trying out an inventive funding model: content partnerships. “Instead of just posting ads that interrupt the normal flow,” writes Taylor Carik, “I’ve approached some folks who are doing cool things in the Twin Cities, and I’m helping them create web content for this here blog that might be something you’d like to check out. In return, they’re hooking me up with something.” First to take part: Uptown Minneapolis’ handmade fashion and jewelry hub Design Collective.

Meanwhile, Mediation tips us off that Bleat, the personal blog by the Star Tribune‘s James Lileks, was named one of the top 25 blogs by none other than TIME magazine.

Online ad sales slow: The New York Times’ Stephanie Clifford writes that one of the few bright spots in economic forecasts for the print news industry — online ad sales — is darkening. Papers have been rushing to bring on features like blogs and original web video in hopes of increasing online advertising dollars — and for 17 quarters they’ve enjoyed growth. ‘Til now: the second quarter of 2008 saw a 2.4 percent dip compared to last year. Related, one of the more interesting local reads on the changing mediascape is offered by Mediation’s Taylor Carik.

Late Night with John McCain? After blowing off David Letterman to go save the economy appear on Katie Couric’s show, John McCain will appear on “The Late Show” this Thursday night — that is, if McCain sticks to the plan. “Now in an attempt to save his campaign, they’re talking about coming back,” Letterman said late last week. He says McCain has asked to do the show a half hour early and “we kind of already changed our schedule to save the economy…. I just don’t know if we can trust him.”

“This just in”: Shanai Matteson captures a not-earth-shattering PiPress cover, and a doctored USA Today box conveys one view of front-page news these days.

Best columnist: Nick Coleman. I agree: This longtime Stribber “found a cause big enough to support his righteous outrage” in the 35-W collapse. Can’t wait to see the ipecac-like effect this has on rightwing bloggers, who already rack up thousand-word screeds on their dislike of Coleman.

Best weatherperson: “Filthy rich” Paul Douglas

Best (non-TV) weather person: In a wide, wide field of possiblities, the nod goes to Jimmy “Dutch” Gaines of Dude Weather for his “hilarious skewering of the cult of the ‘meteorologist.’”

Best citizen-based media outlet: Duh. The UpTake.

Best local website: MNspeak. I like it too, for the info and odd assortment of personalities, but shouldn’t technology play a role in a best-site honor? As its creator Rex Sorgatz told me last year, MNspeak hasn’t implemented any site updates since he sold it in 2006; by outward appearances, at least, that still seems to be the case. (A biased aside: for sheer technical weirdness, my vote would go to my old employer, the Walker Art Center, for its new site for teens.)

Best local blog: Mediation. I agree on the choice, but City Pages fails to mention the entire point of Taylor Carik’s site — media — and seems clueless about his Tumblr template: “[H]is stripped-down site simply offers links to other web pages he finds interesting, with perhaps a sentence or two of comment, as if he’s doing this simply as a public service.”