Because everything Roger Federer does deserves press, the NY Times has run an astonishingly long piece on his super-stylish RF monogram. Where did it come from? What does it mean?! It means he's into himself. And you should be, too!

The NYT Magazine's cover story about a euthanizing, beleaguered hospital during and after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans dropped today. It's estimated to have cost around $400,000. What kind of reporting does that buy? The expensive, endangered type.

While America's medical debates rage on, many of its significant members, of all colors and sizes, limply, quietly weep to themselves: penises. But! This is one health care package making serious progress: flaccid penises demand innovation, as the Times discovered.

• The average person consumed 32.2 hours of TV each week this summer. It's a new record. And it's all thanks to the quality programming that cable channels have been putting on the air the last few months, obviously. [NYP]
• The bad news for newspapers is getting worse: Ad sales dropped by 29% during the second quarter, which means newspapers have $2.8 billion less in their (already empty) pockets than they had at this time last year. [AP]
• Related: Please take the time this weekend to read the massive story about Hurricane Katrina in the New York Times Sunday magazine. It cost the paper and ProPublica a record-setting $400,000 to produce. [CJR]
• Because Nightline feels left out of the war between Conan and Letterman, the show is launching a campaign to remind you that it still exists. [AdAge]

An odd line in the Times obit of Dominick Dunne seems to suggest that the late writer's family wanted to delay the announcement of his death in order to make sure it wasn't overshadowed.

• Today was Frank Bruni's last day as New York Times dining critic. In honor of the momentous occasion, Bruni shares some thoughts on, well, just about everything you've ever wondered during his five-year tenure. [NYT, NYT]
• Bruni-blitz, con't: Two more interviews with Bruni are online today, including the longest one you'll probably ever see, courtesy of Team Eater. [Eater, TFB]
• The "disastrous, wipeout summer" that many chefs and restaurant owners were fearfully predicting just a couple of months ago never really came to pass, Steve Cuozzo happily reports today in the New York Post. [NYP]
• Today in food reviews: The Daily News' Danyelle Freeman gives The Mott three stars out of five; Pete Wells of the Times pays a visit to SHO Shaun Hergatt; Time Out's Jay Cheshes hits the Standard Grill and has very good things to say; and Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton surveys the city's sandwich scene.
• Corton's Paul Liebrandt may be widely respected chef. But to describe him as an unpleasant interview subject would be a huge understatement. [BlackBook]

Oh, good. Times op-ed mean girl Maureen Dowd wrote a column about people writing mean things on the internet. And she quotes Leon Wieseltier!

• Just when you think members of the Jackson family can't possibly stoop any lower comes confirmation they've agreed to do a reality TV show for A&E. It's going to be "genuine," says the show's producer. Clearly. [THR]
• Because the public has been clamoring for 24/7 access to fake wrestling matches, the WWF is now hoping to start up its own cable network. [NYP]
• More on what went down when Vogue editor Anna Wintour sat down to chat with David Letterman on his show last night. [WWD]
• Sony unveiled its electronic reading gizmo/Kindle competitor today. [NYT]
• The Observer's Jason Horowitz is leaving for the Washington Post. [NYO]
• A homeless woman has scored a four-month internship at Elle. Just wait until Elle "employee" Olivia Palermo gets her hands on her on the next season of The City. Homelessness, we presume, will never have looked so good. [Gawker]

The Way We Live Now: In a cul-de-sac in Moreno Valley, California.The NYT has made it the national headquarters of recession-oriented media interest! Meanwhile, back in New York, the Hamptons crumble, and everyone's ready to kill to be a plumber.

• Harvey and Bob Weinstein are breathing a sigh of relief today. Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds did better than expected at the box office this weekend, raking in $37.6 million in sales. Not that one good weekend will be enough to lift the studio out of the financial mess it is in. [NYT, THR, WSJ]
• Related: In what may be a first for a movie opening, Inglourious Basterds seems to have benefited by a "crest of tweeting goodwill." [THR]
• Some 48 years after it was first published, Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking is now No. 1 on the New York Times' best-seller list. [NYT]
• Has the Glenn Beck brouhaha made advertisers skittish about buying commercial time during political shows in general? [AdAge, Politico]
• Jared Kushner's New York Observer is launching a new paper called The Commercial Observer. It's about commercial real estate, naturally. [NYT]
• Magazine newsstand sales continue to suffer, not surprisingly. [AdAge]

Paul Krugman says Reagan sucks blah blah...oh, look, a correction! "In my column last Monday, I made a joke about the Swiss that fell flat with some readers. Also, the Swiss don't wear lederhosen." So shrill! [NYT]

The late, great Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, has been given a cinematic boost, thanks to Julie & Julia. And she's not alone.

WTF? The New York Times made a huge "teachable moment" in this weekend's weddings, and we got tipped off to it! Phyllis Nefler, who polices the mean streets of the Weddings & Celebrations, is on the case. Sick 'em, Phyllis.

Clark Hoyt — de facto ballbuster and Public Editor of the New York Times — took the Styles section to task today. Hoyt finally went after Cintra Wilson's hysterically size-ist, Middle America tone-deaf, awesome assessment of NYC's new JC Penney's.

• Last night's long-delayed premiere of the sixth season of Project Runway—on Lifetime, not Bravo—earned the show its highest ratings ever. [NYT, THR]
• Breathe easy: Anna Wintour's travel itinerary for the fall fashion shows in London, Paris and Milan will not be affected by the recent round of budget cuts at Condé Nast. She'll be staying at the Ritz in Paris, as usual. [NYP]
• The cuts have claimed Condé's supply of coffee stirrers, however. [P6]
• Another member of the Sulzberger clan is joining the New York Times. [NYO]
• News Corp. has been meeting with newspaper publishers to discuss forming some sort of "consortium" to charge people for access to news online. [LAT]
• News Corp. is also in talks to sell its Dow Jones stock market index. [NYT]
• Harvey and Bob Weinstein have a lot riding on the success of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. How is the movie expected to perform at the box office this weekend? Not too bad, per early estimates. [THR]

Three! That's how many days Times reporter Geraldine Fabrikant—one half of the duo behind today's sympathy-for-the-rich piece about the decline of the super-wealthy—spent hanging out in New Mexico with deflated multimillionaire John McAfee. Why are newspapers dying, again?

Former New York Times food critic has been unveiling all his secrets in service of promoting his book—his undercover aliases, his credit card numbers, his weight issues. Today, it's the grand lie that was his fake author photo.

How many fortunate coincidences can one family have? First, three successive generations of Sulzbergers become publishers of the New York Times. Then young A.G. Sulzberger lands a reporting gig there. Now another Sulzberger relatives's joining the paper! Total insanity.

For the first time in decades the super-rich are suddenly not getting richer anymore. In fact, they're becoming poor! Take John McAfee for example, whose $100-million fortune has now dwindled down to a measly $4-million.

What's happened to America's movie stars in the summer of 2009? A slew of boldface names have opened films this summer and most of them have tanked hard. Some people are blaming Twitter, but the answer is really quite simple.