Curt Schilling doesn't think much of Dan Shaughnessy's take on contracts in the Age of Coach Jags:

So CHB chimes in on the BC coaching fiasco in about as timely a fashion as reporting on the Lincoln Assassination at the outbreak of WWI. Sweet. In the world of hypocrites he’s vaulted to the top spot. ...

Oh, snap. Schilling, who sometimes maybe, just maybe, doesn't know when to shut up, then goes on and on about what a loser Shaughnessy is, with copious examples from his coverage of the Red Sox dating back to Roger Clemens days.

The Globe's gone through a lot of changes over the past couple of years, but one thing remains a constant on Morrissey Boulevard: A fixation on stories about the amazing things women can do these days. Like, oh, become tattoo artists. Lissa Harris has started a blog to chronicle all these "Women Do" stories:

... Far from having sprung fully formed from a fit of pique this afternoon, the Women Do Project has been underway for some years--since at least 2006, when I was toiling in the swamps of the Weekly Dig's Media Farm. There, it came to my attention one day that women go bowling. Amazed by this, I did a little poking around, and discovered that women also shoot guns and DJ. Yea, they even blog. There seemed no end to the stuff Globe reporters would uncover about these preternaturally accomplished she-beings. ...

On page 1 of today's Globe is a
NOTE TO READERS:

The Globe is no longer publishing a standalone classified advertising section Monday through Thursday. A classified section will appear in the paper on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and local classifieds may also be found in the Thursday regional sections. Classified ads can also be found 7 days a week at www.boston.com/classifieds.

As Boston's two major dailies head towards a seeming financial death spiral, it's time once again to ask whether they should be charging for access to online content.

When the computer age dawned, a "hacker ethic" emerged, holding that information should be free and accessible to all. (Steven Levy's fascinating book, Hackers, is especially recommended.) That ethic has permeated the Web, which in less than a decade has become an incredible free library of human knowledge and a great source of informed and diverse commentary.

David Scott reviews the big local sports-media news of the past year, including the way NESN quietly dumped Bob Ryan's show this month:

... The move, initiated by NESN's higher-ups and delivered (awkwardly and clumsily, according to multiple sources) by Joel Feld, the network's executive vice president of programming and executive producer, was yet another sign of an eroding relationship between the Red Sox broadcast unit and the New York Times Company (dba here in Boston as the Boston Globe). ...

I got a thank-you note today for a Christmas tip, from the person who delivers the Globe! This was so unusual that I wanted to post it - there is still great service out there.

I also got a typed-up note saying that she would not be delivering the paper for a couple of days, but someone else would, and it included a phone number to call in case of any problem with delivery.

She also delivers the paper right to the front step, every morning, even during the awful weather we had last week. (I really love having the paper delivered.)

I don't know if the Globe instructs the people who deliver the papers to do this or if this is just a really great employee. Either way, thanks Renee! Delivering papers is a tough job, but you are appreciated.

Dan Kennedy has posted a report from Barclays Capital that puts the value of the Boston Globe at just $12 million to $20 million - less even than the value of "the Worchester papers." It also puts the value of the Times' share in Boston Metro (49%, right?) at $5 million to $10 million, which would make the Metro worth as much as the Globe. Which I'm just finding hard to believe, especially given that this valuation comes from a service that can't spell "Worcester" right and hasn't done enough basic research to know that the Telegram & Gazette haven't been separate papers for years and years now (also, Barclays puts a value of $140 million to $166.5 million on the company's stake in "the Boston Red Sox's").

Muammar Gaddafi thinks Boston is important enough to pen a Globe op-ed piece about Russia? Or as the Outraged Liberal asks:

... But it would be fascinating to know how this piece wound up in the Globe. No offense, but how many other newspapers rejected it? Who is representing Gaddafi? How much is the author being paid? Couldn't the PR advisor find a Harvard faculty member the same thing while not stirring up the kinds of comment that have already started to register? ...

The best part of his op-ed piece, though, is the tag line:

Muammar Gaddafi, the leader of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, recently returned from a state visit to the Russian Federation.

Chuck Tanowitz, who lives and blogs in Newton and who does public relations and marketing for a living, considers the Gatehouse-vs-Globe issue, concludes there's less to the Globe's efforts than meet the eye and that what's at issue is really GateHouse's survival under an attack from an organization using its own content against it.

Once the New York Times sells its stake in them. For one thing, we'll no longer be able to accuse the Globe of trying to drum up some business every single time it runs a fawning article about the new luxury boxes at Fenway or whatever.