In your sultry Wednesday media column: HuffPo's scapegoat gets her job back, WSJ reporters mildly defend themselves, Tablet magazine redesigns, a military reporter reflects on death, and Jim Romenesko is the new Yelp.

In your springy Thursday media column: Nir Rosen and Jeffrey Goldberg deserve each other, turnover and understanding at the New York Times, Essence weaves, Helen Thomas regrets nothing, and a Meet the Press veteran passes away.

What is going on with Fidel Castro? The former Cuban President has been rather... candid, lately, admitting gay persecution was his fault and condemning anti-Semitism. Most recently? He told a reporter that the Cuban model of economics "doesn't even work."

Israel is ready and anxious to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities soon. At least that's the claim in a lengthy new Atlantic piece, which puts the chances of a strike within the next year at "better than 50 percent."

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg visited cancer-stricken writer Christopher Hitchens at his Washington D.C. apartment for a very sunny interview session. When Goldberg first asks how he's doing, Hitchens doesn't hesitate: "How am I? I'm dying."

Ever notice how Atlantic bloggers Jeffrey Goldberg and Andrew Sullivan shill compulsively for their magazine—the print edition of their magazine, they are quick to point out, only $14.95/year? It's like Newsies, but with bloggers instead of grubby paperboys.

Any mass email with the subject line "Jews" is going to be trouble. That is an ironclad rule. So Dan Baum, the famously former New Yorker writer, should've maybe rethought this one.

There are sketchy reports that Maj. Nidal Hasan tried to contact "people associated with Al Qaeda," and some are calling Ft. Hood "the largest single terror act in America since 9/11" — something both terrorists and wingnuts wish were true.

Openly gay Congressman Jared Polis (D.-Colo.) has a peculiar habit of creating enemies. Silicon Valley's movers and shakers loathe him. His fellow rich Colorado gays shun him. And now the media hates him, too!

Atlantic contributor Jeffrey Goldberg started his very first blog this week, with a charmingly naive post mostly about how he knows nothing about blogging but does sit near uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan. "This is almost certainly a mistake," he begins, and it turns out he's 100% right. When the New York Observer's media blogger Matt Haber (the forgotten Gawker Alum!) devoted a post yesterday to basically announcing the existence of Goldberg's blog and needling Goldberg for his initial boneheaded support of the Iraq War, Goldberg blew up with rage. Haber's post was a mugging, he says. Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Jeffrey. We'll show you what a mugging is.

How did Atlantic owner David Bradley lure writer Jeffrey Goldberg from the New Yorker? Charm, flattery, and ponies. Also, a ton of cash. [WP]