• David Letterman had his second-highest ratings of the year last night thanks to Barack Obama's appearance. [THR]

Former Conde Nast editorial director James Truman will try to save the environment by teaming up with an ex-Golf Digest man Mitch Fox. The ex-paper wasters will organize a traveling event that joins eco-technology with a Cirque du Soleil-like performances. Apparently combining green innovations with dramatized gymnastic routines takes priority over starting a media empire. [WWD]

Wondering whatever happened to former Conde Nast wunderkind James Truman? He's busy skinnydipping with his girlfriend, Elle contributor Leanne Shapton. [WWD]

• If you watched Katie Couric on Monday night you're in a pretty exclusive club. [Drudge Report]
• The publisher and editor of the Toronto Star have resigned. [NYT]
• There's a new head at Metro. [FBNY]
• The F.C.C. makes Sumner Redstone crap his Depends. [B&C]
• Louise MacBain sounds like a real pleasure to work for. [WWD]

There's an interesting moment in this Daily Intelligencer interview with James Truman concerning his former employers. Truman, who resigned from LTB media yesterday to cast his bread upon the waters of the media industry, is asked to compare his most recent employment to his time at Cond Nast, and replies: "How does Ecclesiastes compare with the Bhagavad Gita? One, it's shorter ..."

The Observer brings news that former Cond Nast Editorial Director James Truman has resigned from the same position at LTB Media. Truman plans to launch his own media company, from which he expects to resign some time in March.

^{LTB Media honcho James Truman, his billionairess boss Louise MacBain, Culture + Travel EIC Michael Boodro, and LTB marketing mandarin Lawrence Kaplan.}

• You'll find a lot of information in this David Carr piece on how journalists are forced to act like C.I.A. agents, "encoding files, shredding notes and switching cellphones." What you won't find is any mention of the Observer, which reported essentially the same story two Wednesdays ago. [NYT]
• Nancy Grace, desperate to wrest the title of World's Most Vile Human Being from Ann Coutler, adds plagiarism to her list of sins. Ann Coulter is 45. [NYDN]
• Chris Wallace was stunned that a non-confrontational question suggesting that Bill Clinton was responsible for the deaths of 3,000 American citizens might have been taken the wrong way. [FishbowlDC]
• James Truman, footloose and fancy free, is learning to live without Conde cash. Culture and Travel launches Friday. [NYT]
• Jon Friedman wonders why H-P never tapped his phone. Maybe it's because when you write columns like "The media world is in convulsions" you're pretty much identifying yourself as someone who has no new information. [Marketwatch]

• Barbara Walters on Rosie O'Donnell: "As she always says, she doesn't want to drive the bus, she wants to ride it." Either way, it had better stop at Krispy Kreme. [Fishbowl NY]

• Networks sue FCC to make it stand up to Parents Television Council right-wing nutjobs. One can dream. [WSJ]
• Joanne Lipman wants to steal James Stewart from The New Yorker for her new Conde biz mag — which nearly has a name. [NYP]
• More books were sold in 2005 than 2004. A sales uptick for a print medium? How unusual. [NYT]
• Former Conde editorial director James Truman has a prototype for his new Culture & Travel, which is not — not at all, he says — the art mag Si wouldn't let him do. [NYP]
• Mike Wallace once tried to kill himself. [NYDN]
• Hachette to launch Shock mag next week. It's "Life magazine for the new millennium," says founder Mike Hammer, formerly of Maxim and Stuff. We suppose this means its gross pictures — such as one of a rotting human head in the first issue — are shot by Margaret Bourke-White and Alfred Eisenstaedt. [WSJ]
• In his forthcoming bio, Ed Kosner is not very nice to Mort Zuckerman. We're just shocked. [WWD]
• Jack Shafer, de facto Times ombudsman, doesn't care for Howell Raines' new memoir. [Slate]
• NYTer Sharon LaFraniere wins $25K Michael Kelly Award. [Kelly Award]

This week cranky Simon Dumenco is, for a change, happy. Why? Because Cargo died. It's not that he's pleased people are losing their jobs; it's that he's pleased to use it as an excuse to dance on James Truman's grave. Truman was editorial director of Conde Nast for a bit over a decade, and Dumenco takes this chance to recap his career:

• Jon Friedman gets feisty and calls "Bullshit!" on Time and Newsweek's Person of the Year shtick. [MW]
• Jann Wenner channels Joe Francis at the company holiday party, asking a female employee to show her tits for some shiny beads. Wenner reps deny reports, but who cares?. [Lowdown]
• Former Condé Nast editorial director James Truman is feeling out New York editors to helm a soon-to-be-launched travel/culture publication for Louise McBain. Condé Nast Traveler braces for an inevitable fleecing. [WWD]
• Time Warner appoints Jeff Bewkes as new president and chief operating officer of television and movies. We still don't know who to call when our wifi craps itself. [NYT]
• OK! magazine assures everybody that their recent addition of tabloid editors are not signs of desperation for a struggling publication. Things are okay at OK!, okay? So stop asking. [NY Post]
• And then there's that half-wit, pseudo-McCarthyism involved in the White House trying to stop the publishing of the New York Times' wiretapping story. [NYO]

• We're not sure what's more disturbing: Heidi Klum's poor little baby, or the fact that In Touch is an international publication. [The Superficial]
• Jon Fine eagerly waves his hand, screams, "Pick me! Pick me!" in an effort to get a screenwriting gig on the inevitable Judy Miller/Valerie Flame movie. [FineOnMedia]
• Manhattan is the most expensive place in the United States. Also, bear shits in woods. [CNN]
• High-profile media mogul seeks submissive gimp for office play fantasies. [Craigslist]

GQ Managing Editor Marty Beiser is the first casualty of the post-Art Cooper regime change. Insiders suspect that Conde Nast Editorial Director James Truman is behind the firing. I'd pretend to care, but I'm too busy reading Maxim and Stuff.
Beiser banished from GQ [Keith Kelly - Post]

The first media party since I arrived in New York, the Slate event at which Jacob Weisberg was unveiled as...