New in the quirky single topic blog department: a blog that runs away with the observation that a lot of the people in photographs from local newspapers are scowling. Welcome to Angry People In Local Newspapers.The blog’s mission statement is as follows: “I feel sorry for local news photographers. They are hugely skilled and poorly paid, and sent out to photograph miserable people pointing at dog turds. Here, we celebrate their work.”

The Metafilter commenters, a few of whom sound like they’ve done some unforgiving local news photography assignments themselves, do not approve. A lot of the photos are pretty funny and spot-on; some of the text (cf. calling people ugly) is kinda mean and exploitative in a People of Wal-Mart way. This may be a somewhat backhanded compliment, but it’s fair to call it a blog better looked at than read.

(via Metafilter)

Salon’s excellent 3-part series on Glenn Beck‘s Zoo Crew roots has restored a lot of focus to the impact that Glenn Beck’s instincts as an entertainer have on his political stances. Google News Spotlight, an automatic aggregator which highlights heavily linked-to and debated articles from across the blogosphere, has placed the article near the top of its feed; it’s also gotten a ton of play on Metafilter.

The Salon series has also had a hand in making a viral phenomenon out of this zany 1986 TV ad for Beck’s radio show, which involves balloons, cuckoo clocks, and a chimp named Zippy. Yes, this is actually real. Observe:

As Glenn Beck, art historian, Glenn Beck, fake karaoke singer, and Glenn Beck’s fake boiled frog (below) can attest, who needs gimmicks?

(via BuzzFeed)

The photographer says nothing was done to the pics, which apparently captured abandoned real estate projects. Though in the age of the air-brushed cover, where Photoshop is available to all and sundry, what constitutes as altering is questionable. Did he Photoshop people back into the houses? An extra missile into the sky, perhaps, to make the housing crisis look more threatening? No idea, the pics are down. And as we said, the photographer says he didn’t do anything. Regardless, it’s reassuring to see the NYT taking these things so seriously — journalism isn’t dead yet! And even if it was we’d have the sharp-eyed folks at Metafilter to pick up the slack.