2 Bruce Webers?

After Prof. Follis suggested we try something new for our blogs, I decided to break out of my comfort zone of CNN.com and branched all the way out to NYTimes.com.

First and foremost, I thought this homepage was very busy and almost intimidating. However, a certain headline caught my eye: "Talk to the newsroom: Bruce Weber."

Now I know the last name "Weber" is very common, but after clicking on the headline I found that the New York Times' Bruce Weber is actually the obituary writer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/business/media/22askthetimes.html?pagewanted=all

From Sept. 22-26, viewers can email the New York Times to directly reach Mr. Weber himself.

Even though this Bruce Weber probably can't shoot a 3-pointer as accurately as the Fighting Illini Bruce Weber, but the New York Times does have interesting qualities.

One reader emailed Weber a question about who's death he would have enjoyed writing an obituary for. Weber responded rather sarcastically, but eventually said Mae West is a person he would have enjoyed writing about. This made me laugh because Mae West was a controversial actress in the early 1900s who spent time in jail for obscenity charges. West was a woman way before her time with her carefree notions of sex, women and a combination of the two.

Regardless of which Bruce Weber people talk about, it seems like the name has a lot of prestige behind it.