Gawker

The New Yorker , by the Numbers [Magazines]

Hamilton Nolan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:51:53 -0500

For the second time this decade, the New York Observer's cobbled together the TOP SECRET masthead of The New Yorker. It sure has a lot of people working for it! A numerical summary, below.

The NYO's full masthead listing, with every name and title, is here. An awesome piece of work. Keep in mind that Si Newhouse, keeper of a crumbling empire, is still so in love with the New Yorker he wants to marry it and will cut every other magazine to pieces before he makes David Remnick fire anyone.

Total Number of "Critics": 11
Total Number of Staff Writers: 66(!)
Total Number of "Editors" of One Sort or Another: 31
Total Copy Staff, Fact Checkers, and Editorial Assistants: 40
Total Art, Photo, Layout, and Cartoon Staffers: 43
Total Number of Staffers with "Makeup" in Their Titles: 6

That does not even cover all the miscellaneous positions! It makes the New York Times Book Review look positively anorexic. Ah well. The best magazine in America can do what it wants.

[John Koblin's full NYer masthead]

It's a Good Thing, You Wouldn't Understand [Open Caption]

Brian Moylan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:33:22 -0500

[Martha Stewart deals with Tina Brown's tantrum when she tries to drag the editor into the kitchen to make some rum balls at the Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mount Sinai Medical Center Gala last night. Image via Getty]

The Shake, Rattle, Decline and Fall of American Empire [Charts & Graphs]

Pareene — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:17:01 -0500

This graph is the key to everything and it will soon be a book from HarperCollins. ("Everything" means, in this case, Jann Wenner, Baby Boomers, mass culture, and the death of liberal consensus and middle class stability.) [Colin via Maura.]

Martin Scorsese — [Pullquote]

Gabriel Snyder — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:03:58 -0500

explaining why he doesn't read newspapers at the book party for Harry Evans' My Paper Chase: True Stories of Vanished Times, to Daily Intel. (For what it's worth, he doesn't like computers or BlackBerrys either.)

Guest at Horny Sex Hotel Assumes Rape Included in Price [Scandals]

Hamilton Nolan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:03:36 -0500

The tabloids love the sexy nude people parading in front of the windows of the Standard Hotel overlooking the High Line (an 8.5 on the Post Shamelessness Scale, btw). Now, the guests are trying to rape the housekeepers. Evolution.

One might say the hotel's guests are really getting into the spirit of the place! The Standard did everything it could to encourage its reputation as a $400 a night orgy den. Let's look back at this nice NY Post story from September 2:

Even hotel staffers and managers get in on the act, workers said, stripping down and posing provocatively in front of the massive floor-to-ceiling windows to draw attention to the hotel, which straddles the city's new High Line Park.

"We don't discourage it. In actual fact, we encourage it," a friendly bellhop told a pair of reporters as they checked in yesterday at The Standard, where randy guests cavort with abandon to the dismay — or delight — of parkgoers below.

Fucking in front of the assembled crowds below was actually the basis of the hotel's marketing policy, in a very thinly veiled way. Well, now we can officially dub that a "miscalculation;" last weekend, a hotel guest decided to help himself to the cleaning lady. She came in his room; he started chatting her up, asked if she had a boyfriend, asked if she thought he was handsome, then went ahead and jumped on her. (He was unsuccessful).

Could have happened anywhere, of course. But it's probably a much smaller mental leap for a horny hotel guest to decide that the cleaning lady must be interested in a quick fuck if he's staying in a place that's already been all over the tabloids for running ads saying "We'll put up with your banging if you'll put up with ours." Orgies are included with the room rate, right?

Hard to believe that not one marketing person, at any point, said, "These ads are edgy and all, but it sure would suck for us if any sex crimes happened in this place. Ya know?" Anyhow, expect the Standard Hotel to come up with some new taglines soon. It is very convenient to transportation!
[Pic: Ed Yourdon]

Which Gay Actor Only Sleeps with Boys Who Look Like His Wife? [Blind Items]

Brian Moylan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:50:15 -0500

Let's hear it for the boys. Today they are traveling so they can have DL affairs with men, sleeping with a retinue of women, and turning down work they're too "good" for. Let's give these boys a hand.

1. "He's a movie star, he is married, and he is gay. Out of respect for his wife, though, he only allows a boy in his bed when either one of the couple is traveling. Thoughtful, right? Well, it's rather creepy, because the last couple of guys he has been with bear a strange resemblance to his wife. So is he picking the boys because they resemble his wife, or did he pick his wife because she resembles the kind of boy he likes? Hard to say, but in either case, he has no intention of coming out of the closet any time soon. Oh, and yes, they are practically boys. He likes them young, but is pretty careful about them being of legal age." [Blind Gossip]

2. "This married A list television reality producer has always had a revolving door policy when it comes to the women with whom he has sex. However it seems that he has finally found just one woman he wants to have as his mistress and has cast the others aside. He wants to remain faithful to this mistress who also happens to be a B list reality star who seems to never have a boyfriend that sticks. Now you know why." [CDaN]

3. "This TV actor has been out of work for some time now, occasionally picking up spots here or there. (You might have even seen him in a commercial or two). He recently had a huge movie deal offer where he could play the supporting role of a very big name, but he turned it down because he felt it was beneath him. Not John Lehr." [BuzzFoto]

Chicago Cops Cripple Preteen Food Fight Ring [Crime]

Hamilton Nolan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:16:08 -0500

They say when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Likewise, when you call the cops to a middle school cafeteria food fight, they will take 25 kids to jail. It's what they do!

Who's to say that flying milk carton is not full of kerosene? Go, NYT:

Diana Shulla-Cose, president and co-founder of Perspectives Charter Schools, said that an on-campus police officer had called for backup as the food fight escalated and that the resulting heavy police presence had led in turn to the large number of arrests.

Any time you're in need of assistance, call the police, and they will arrest somebody, for something, or, failing that, arrest you.
[Pic via]

Warning Signs of the Fort Hood Killer Were Missed, Still Not Clear [Front Pages]

Ravi Somaiya — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:01:51 -0500

Select from the following: the army a) did know the Fort Hood shooter was radicalized, b) didn't know he was radicalized or c) kind of knew, through a third agency. Alternatively, ignore the whole intelligence mess and read about fishing.

The impression one gets going through the intelligence coverage today is that no-one — the agencies included — know what happened. The agencies seem to be furiously leaking in their own favour, and the papers are lapping it up. Really, all that is revealed is that it's incredibly complex and entirely understandable that Hasan wasn't apprehended for sending a few emails. But that's not a story. An intelligence failure that led to the deaths of 13 soldiers however, is. So we're in the strange position of one piece of evidence being interpreted two different ways and definitive reports in either direction. It is notable that the New York Times does not run anything on the topic today. Maybe they're taking the sensible route and waiting until the dust settles instead of peering blindly through it.

Disclosure: I freelance write and report for newspapers that are included in this roundup. Where there is a direct conflict of interest I will make it clear.

The New York Times: has a nice mix today. Mark Mazzetti has frankly been killing it of late. The latest investigation to feature his byline reveals that private army Blackwater, now rebranded as 'Xe' and its worst-person-in-the-world boss Erik Prince paid bribes to shut people up after they massacred 17 Iraqi civilians. Quadruple sourced no less! There's the shoo-in emotional tale and picture from the Fort Hood service yesterday, to which the paper sent big-gun political reporter Peter Baker. The picture is outstanding - and as everyone takes amazing photography in the Times for granted I'd like to commend Nicole Bengiveno by name. The story that two Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers, accused of fraud for their part in the financial crisis, here, gets some analysis for its potential implications for other nefarious banker-types, and runs above a story about Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's growing political skills. Meanwhile Supreme Court Justice, and first amendment protector, Anthony M. Kennedy forced a New York school to give him copy approval on an article the newspaper wrote about a talk he gave, and the New Museum faces a potential conflict of interest.

The Washington Post: the series leading up to the execution of the DC sniper reached its inevitable end when John Allen Muhammad was executed. The paper uses the closure to analyze the impact of the shootings too. They also use the Fort Hood service as a hook to look at the intelligence failures surrounding the shootings. Ben Bernanke is going to have to use the political skills the Times says he's developed - Chris Dodd wants to strip his institution of many powers, something no-one else picked up on the front page. There's been an interesting fragmenting of financial crisis coverage of late - as more and better stories emerge each paper is picking its own angle. The Post didn't want to get left without with an intelligence exclusive either - they report that a weakened Al-Qaeda now relies on the Taliban for protection. Frankly the war is so murky out there, and stories conflict so often, that I now take any reports from the region with a pinch of salt. And finally: Americans learning to live without cars.

The LA Times: uses a Reuters picture of the Fort Hood service, unlike the Times and Post who sent their own cameras. It is either very smart as most pictures will be pretty similar anyway, or a missed opportunity to showcase a fine LA Times photojournalist. They also look at the intelligence failures. There's a slightly old story about a hand-written note British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent to the mother of a fallen soldier. He either misspelled the family's name, or has bad handwriting, depending who you believe. The real story, reported well here, is how the media and public turn on a beleaguered politician. The feature today looks at a couple in Iran over several years, some prison inmates prefer the more-comfortable death row and a panel approves fishing restrictions to help stocks recover.

The Wall Street Journal: leads with the news of the Bear Stearns acquittal and looks at the rebuilding of GM. Job seekers are trying to erase their criminal records, which is a nice counterpoint to yesterday's story about people living on severance. The paper also uses the word 'sextet' to subtly imply that six women did naughty things in a van in the 70s. (At least in my eyes.) They also take a wire picture of the Fort Hood service and dutifully run it on the front.

The New York Post: quotes directly from Obama's speech, which kind of sums up their straight-ahead coverage of the service. There's an interesting comparison here - the Post says a third government agency ignored warnings about Hasan, and cites the Wall Street Journal for this "stunning evidence" that adds to the storyline that Hasan could, should, have been stopped. The Journal takes that evidence for a more measured piece on intelligence infighting - the claim that I think the Post is referring to isn't mentioned until the fourth paragraph. Although it's all such a confusing mess of not-quite scoops about procedures that I have a headache trying to unravel it.

The Daily News: reports the same intelligence failures story in a slightly different way, adding to the confusion.

The Naples Daily News: I will buy and eat a hat if this story, about an eccentric Floridian who sent flowers to the Fort Hood shooter because he wanted to be a good Christian and love his enemy, is not picked up in the tabloids tomorrow. Unless he's too crazy to report on - which is a surprisingly fine line sometimes.

Asahi Shimbun: All I can tell you about this Tokyo paper's front page is that it doesn't cover Fort Hood, it looks cool and the columnist in the top left corner resembles a bearded Mr. Miyagi.

Scientology Seeks Investigative Journalists for a Potential Media Fight-Back [Revenge]

Ravi Somaiya — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:23:59 -0500

Freedom magazine, the church's official reporting arm, wants "experienced investigative reporters" in the Tampa Bay area - precisely where the St. Petersburg Times, a newspaper which recently published a critical series on the church, is based.

Here's Freedom's response to that excellent series. (Yes, I'm linking it twice - it seems like an expensive project and they might as well get some clicks out of it.)

And here's an excerpt from the ad on journalismjobs.com:

Freedom, published by the Church of Scientology since 1968, covers human rights and social betterment issues and does investigative reporting in the public interest. Projects for this particular assignment are in the Tampa Bay, Florida area for the most part, but investigation can be conducted by phone and through Internet research.

Part of the ad reveals Freedom's motto: "investigative reporting in the public interest." Which is firmly in the tradition of Fox News and various dictatorships (the 'Democratic Republic' always means 'the hideous dictatorship'). The church are not afraid to get personal when they feel they've been slighted, which is all the time, and I've emailed the address listed on the job listing to ask precisely which 'human rights and social betterment issues" they want reporters in the Tampa Bay area to look into.

This Is What $11,716 Funeral Invitations Look Like [This Is It]

Ravi Somaiya — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:43:46 -0500

Michael Jackson's death continues to form effortless metaphors for his life. At his private family funeral the remaining Jacksons were charged $35,000 for 'burial garments', $21,455 for food and $3682 for a framed picture, among other ludicrous inflations.

The Associated Press reports that the funeral cost $1m in total and the family were also charged $1,975 for wardrobe, $2,000 for usher costumes, "$959 for embroidery; $11,716 for invitations and programs; $16,000 for flowers; $30,000 for cars and security; and $15,000 for a funeral designer."

I suppose it was naive to even hope that people would stop seeing Jackson as a kind of weird, frail piggy-bank after his death. Cursory investigations reveal that this woman designed the invitations to the ceremony - the ones that cost $11,716. She says the following on her website:

My experience in defining and executing the mood of your special day is my area of expertise. Because of my unique personalized service, you will have the experience you have always dreamed about. In short, I can connect with your desires & satisfy your budget at the same time.

She's definitely good at writing fancy, but define 'satisfy your budget'. I know nothing about the world of high-end calligraphy so I've emailed to ask whether this is a typical price for pieces of paper with nice handwriting on them.

Playgirl Turned Down by High-End Hotel for the Levi Johnston Shoot [Levi Johnston Watch]

Ravi Somaiya — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:18:51 -0500

The magazine wanted the Hotel on Rivington penthouse, but only offered $4.83 and some gum wrappers. "Their offer was well below the current rental rate. They were politely declined," said an anonymous rep for the hotel, according to Page Six.

It seems plausible - how much spare cash can a quarterly online-only magazine have lying around? And Neel Shah of p6 knows Matt Levine of the Hotel on Rivington pretty well. Perhaps they'll find an accommodating Howard Johnson instead. They want to keep the shoot "elegant", after all.

Heath and Lindsay Were Totally Boning When He Died [Gossip Roundup]

Azaria Jagger — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:46:56 -0500

Dina Lohan says Lindsay and Heath were dating at the time of his death, Jacko's funeral cost $1 million, Fergie didn't know what "cheating" meant until her therapist told her. Come, drink the sweet nectars of Wednesday gossip.

Radar has a WORLD WIDE EXCLUSIVE that Lindsay Lohan was dating the Heath Ledger when he died. The evidence comes from the umpteenth phone conversation that Michael Lohan secretly recorded with family members, then sold to the tabloid site, because he's just that nice of a guy. In it, Dina says, "She was dating Heath when he died.... I would drop her off and they were friends, very, very close, ok?" Leaving aside the very peculiar decision to drop one's chemically- and emotionally-troubled daughter off at a strange older man's home, does that even necessarily sound like dating? But then the conversation gets sad when Dina says she fears Lindsay will "do something like Heath Ledger did" some day. [Radar]
Dina fires back: Michael's betrayal of his family with the phone conversation sales is "unforgivable." Dina, who also regularly sells candid recordings of her children (albeit through lawyer-vetted contracts to reality TV producers) concluded: "My heart is breaking for my children." [E!]
Finally! Definitive evidence that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are wildly in love: A photograph of them holding hands on their way to the airport in Paris! But wait—what if they're just messing with us? There was an entire Gossip Girl plotline about a situation just like this, I think the lesson was something along the liens of "believe everything you see on TV," in which case: Confirmed! Edward and Bella are making babies. [PopSugar]
Even in death, Jacko knew how to spend. Court documents show Michael Jackson blew a milli on his burial, the L.A. Times reports, including $35,000 for the burial outfit (burned during his cremation) and $16,000 on flowers. Janet, the only Jackson with two pennies to rub together, fronted $49,000, a sum that is paltry only in comparison. [LAT]
[TMZ]
Kate Gosselin respectfully objects to Jon's characterization, on their reality television show, that she must "pull the stick out" of her butt. Looking back, Kate now sees their relationship's doomed fate foretold in that single, sodomitic exhortation: "Perhaps [that] was a sign of things to come." I like to imagine she said it with a sigh. [Us]
Surprise of the year: America's Next Top Model judge and Tyra Banks' gay best friend Miss J. has a seven-year-old son. The mother is a "French lesbian" who had Miss J. and ex-boyfriend Alex jiz in a test tube. [Us]
Halloween star Danielle Harris' stalker is following her again, on Twitter, leading to an interesting quandary: Does that count? Creepster Christopher Small has a restraining order against him until 2012, but now were sort of curious, does following count as making contact? What about retweets? Christopher tweets things he likes about Danielle as "Stalkr-approved :)" which proves that 140 characters is enough to make an innocent female puke on the spot, and also that emoticon smileys can be really sinister in certain contexts. [TMZ]
This might explains why Josh Duhamel thought he could get away with cheating on Fergie: Apparently she didn't know the meaning of "cheating" until a licensed professional explained it her. "I learned through talking with my therapist that it is still cheating even if it's with girls," she explains in the same breath that she admits that she "also love[s] a well-endowed man." [P6]
Shanna Moakler called Khloe Kardashian a "donkey" on Wendy Williams' show, prompting one of Khloe's friends to call Shanna a "dirty whore." Khloe delivered the ultimate insult: "I have no idea who this girl is." If only we could say the same about both of them. [TMZ]

Supreme Court Justice Censors High School Newspaper's Puff Piece About Him [Pissing Match]

Azaria Jagger — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:29:34 -0500

Cherry on the cake? It was famed defender of the First Amendment Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, and fancy-pants Manhattan prep school Dalton's class rag.

It all began with a mysterious note from the editors of The Daltonian, The New York Times explains:

"We are not able to cover the recent visit by a Supreme Court justice due to numerous publication constraints," the note said. It promised "an explanation of the regrettable delay" in the next issue.

Apparently Justice Kennedy spoke at a Dalton assembly, and his office insisted that school give Kennedy final approval on any article the little rugrats put together on him—then sent back a revision with "a couple of minor tweaks" and "tidied up" quotations. Enraged, Dalton's student civil liberties union took to the streets, smashing the windows of nearby Bentleys and littering the streets of the Upper East Side with Molotov cocktails, until their sassy schoolgirl uniforms were rended from their sweaty, heaving chests and their ranks swelled into a wildly fevered, anarchic orgy!

Just kidding. They're college-obsessed teenagers with parents who would totally ground them if they screwed up their chance at Harvard over some silly SCOTUS spat. (Besides! Maybe your censor from Justice Kennedy's office can give you some pointers about summer internships.) They're doing whatever their school's PR department tells them to do, which is apparently to go with "no comment" when NYT comes calling, and to let the responsible adults in the room issue gracious statements about the pedagogical value of factchecking. Besides, the ability to keep your publication friendly with the powers that be is a skill that comes in handy in journalism these days!

The Four Clips that Prove ABC's V Is Anti-Obama Propaganda [Allegories]

Adrian Chen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:53:50 -0500

When the new ABC sci-fi series "V" premiered last Monday, everyone wondered if its titular Visitors were an allegorical critique of the Obama administration. Tonight's episode proved without a doubt that the creators of "V" hate Barack Obama.

On November 4th, conservative talkdude Sean Hannity said:

A new ABC drama seems to be taking aim at Obama-mania. That's right, you heard me right. The show is called V, and it focuses on a telegenic leader who arrives from outer space offering a message of hope and compromise and promising, you guessed it, universal health care. Sound familiar? Oh, and the media? They love this new leader.

(Our own Bryan Moylan weighed in as well/)

Executive producer Scott Peters denied any allegorical bent to the series. But tonight's episode shows that, indeed, V is a thinly-disguised polemic against the Obama administration that may as well have been bankrolled by Fox News. Here are four clips that prove it:

In this scene, Chad Decker—a journalist who's in bed with the alien Visitors—reports on the U.S. deciding to granting the aliens visas; he then receives a call from the alien leader, Anna, thanking him for his help.
Talk about riding into anti-Obamaville on a horse made of allegories! Where to even start with this thing!? First of all: visas = immigration. The media is covering immigration in the show, just like they do in America. So, easy parallel: Media in the show = Media in real life. The aliens in this clip stand for Chinese people. Or maybe Russians. (But not Canadians or Mexicans, since they don't need visas to enter the U.S..)

And it's already been established that the alien leader Anna = Obama.

ALLEGORICAL ANTI-OBAMA POINT: Obama controls the media and is secretly Chinese or Russian.

In this scene, the aliens torture a human prisoner with a pile of snakes to try to get valuable information from him:
This one is a little trickier. Obviously, it's an allegorical commentary about torture: The aliens—who are, like, the most allegorical things ever—are torturing someone. But wait: Isn't Obama very vocally against torture in real life? Yes! So Obama is not represented by the aliens in this scene. Obama = the pile of snakes the aliens use to torture the human. (The human = America, because a lot of humans live in America.)

ALLEGORICAL ANTI-OBAMA POINT: Obama is a snake. Watch out, America!

In this scene, Erica Evans, an FBI agent, asks Father Jack, for help in finding her partner:

So obvious: Priest + FBI agent = Separation of Church and State!

ALLEGORICAL ANTI-OBAMA POINT: Separation of Church and State—which Obama strongly supports—is good up to a point, but sometimes they should be allowed to mix.

Here, the alien leader speaks to different countries in their languages the hopes of convincing them to welcome them (the aliens)
Extremely obvious parallel here: Obama speaks Spanish—just like the aliens. ("Si se puede," anyone?)

ALLEGORICAL ANTI-OBAMA POINT: Obama can speak Japanese as well as he can speak Spanish—he just chooses not to. (Suspicious.)

There you have it: Allegory solved.

Livestreamed Childbirth Is the Only Sex-Ed You'll Ever Need [Tmi]

Azaria Jagger — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:38:46 -0500

Lynsee and Anders Gannett welcomed darling daughter Solveig into the world by aiming a webcam at unmentionable parts of her mother's anatomy and livestreaming her birth, making her the youngest oversharer in the history of the internet.

Unspeakable perverts and frightening hippies will be disappointed to hear there was no spread-eagle shot of little Solveig crowning, but everything else is legit enough to turn horny teens off sex forever, if only because the phrase "birth livestream" is really starting to gross me out. Lynsee is strangely placid as the baby is emerging (apparently she got an epidural), but then the nurse plops a scrunchy-faced Solveig—covered in the chunky white goo-matter I am told is de rigeur for the miracle of life—onto her chest, and the presence of a multi-limbed being that was, until mere moments ago, thrashing around her vagina totally freaks her out. Anyway, here's the video. The excitement starts around 8:30.

Watch live streaming video from specialdelivery at livestream.com

And thus, with a grunt, a shriek, and an unceremonious plop, sticky little Solveig Gannett outdid every single oversharing ego-blogger on the planet in the first five seconds of her life. Congrats, Solveig, you are the Miracle Baby of Generation TMI. I'd say you'll never live this down, but Spencer Pratt skipped his vasectomy and Nadya Suleman's always a wildcard, so don't count your nanny cam endorsements, just yet.

UPDATE: I— oh my god— apparently witnessing the miracle of Solveig's birth answered none of my questions about how babies are made, because this post originally identified Solveig as a boy. But Solveig is a girl. All I can say is, as soon as this child learns how to type her name into a search engine, she's totally screwed. At least she's adorable?

Diaper Astronaut Gets Surprisingly Pleasant Plea Deal [Dramatic Conclusion]

Azaria Jagger — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:17:44 -0500

Sad Lisa Nowak, the 'astronut' who wanted nothing more than to be loved—and to avoid soiling her pants on her mission to attack, kidnap, and destroy her romantic rival—has been sentenced to 50 hours of community service.

Lest you don't recall: Nowak drove from Houston to Orlando in one fell swoop (clad in adult diapers to preclude the need for rest stops) so she could attack her astronaut ex-boyfriend's Air Force captain girlfriend, thereby winning him back. The ex and the girlfriend now live a relatively peaceful, private life in Alaska, though the girlfriend is periodically terrorized by nightmares about Nowak and other heebie-jeebies. The ex got kicked out of NASA. It is highly unlikely that either will accept Nowak's court-mandated apology for the "misunderstanding." [BBC]

Prosecutors Accuse Illinois Journalism Students of Practicing Journalism [Journalismism]

Adrian Chen — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:39:56 -0500

In the case of the mean prosecutors vs. the plucky journalism students playing out in Illinois, the most surprising fact is that some people still believe journalists are a benevolent race of energy beings devoted solely to uncovering the truth.

Last month, Illinois prosecutors made news for subpoenaing the grades, emails and other records of a group of journalism students who claimed they had uncovered evidence that a man convicted of a 1978 murder was innocent. Basically, the prosecutors don't agree with the journalism students, who are working with the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University, and during a subpoena hearing today they accused the students of "flirting" with sources, and paying one of them $60 (which he allegedly used to buy crack cocaine). They also reiterated their claim that the students may have scandalously been motivated by something other than a noble search for the Truth, with a capital T, underscored thrice and written in fancy cursive.

Reports Reuters:

In Tuesday's submission in support of the subpoena of students' e-mails and grades, which the school is fighting, prosecutors argued that the students' investigation was flawed and may have included pay-offs to witnesses.

Prosecutors said they want to know if the students' motivation to find exculpatory evidence was driven by a quest for better grades.

Oh crap, these students were driven by "a quest for better grades" and not for the absolute, objective, Platonic truth of the Universe!? Somebody go check on H. L. Mencken to see if he's pulling 360s in his grave. Come on, prosecutors: The idea that journalists are objective truth-seekers died out with, like, Walter Cronkite's "And that's the way it is." We've all got an angle these days. Sometimes it's coming up with incomprehensible metaphors to explain globalization in order to sell a million books; sometimes it's not flunking out of journalism school by proving murderers innocent. (Incidentally, does one really undertake a "quest" for grades? Makes journalism school seem way more fun than it probably is!)

Maybe it's because I only write stupid articles about public restrooms and cemeteries, but of the many things that have motivated me as a journalist, not one is any less impure than these students wanting to get an A- in Exculpating Murderers 101. My motivations include: Not having any money and wanting to have some, fear of an impending deadline, fear of my editor's wrath, fear of failure, fear of being yelled at by people who didn't like my article. Fear, basically. A lot of fear.

And regarding prosecutors' claim that students aren't practicing proper "journalism" because they paid a source, I have just ten simple words: "Gawker" "bought" "the" "Balloon" "Boy" "scoop" "from" "that" "one" "guy." (Although there's a pretty strong argument to be made that Gawker's status as practicing journalism would not hold up in any U.S. court.)

United Airlines Pilot Almost Flew Across the Atlantic Drunk [Don't Drink And Fly]

Adrian Chen — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:27:21 -0500

United Airlines announced today it has suspended a pilot who was arrested just as he was about to fly from London to Chicago Monday. Because he was drunk. Who wants to carpool to La Paz with me this winter? [NYP]

Larry King's Suspender Watch: Blue and Boring [Suspender Watch]

Adrian Chen — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:06:51 -0500

Whatever moved Larry King to sport insanely bright yellow suspenders yesterday has passed. Tonight, he's back to his modest, dark-blue standbys. We miss you, zany yellow suspenders: You lit our lives for just one night—but what a night!

Rest in Peace, Yellow Suspenders: Like two brilliant bands of happiness, you girded all our hopes and dreams.

O'Reilly: We Should Win Hearts and Minds Because 'We Can't Kill All the Muslims' [Logical Fallacy]

Adrian Chen — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:51:44 -0500

Tonight, in the midst of browbeating the media for missing the "all Muslims burn with hatred for America" angle of the Ft. Hood shooting story, O'Reilly terribly misinterpreted why we're trying to win hearts and minds in the Middle East.

Yes, Bill O'Reilly, the only reason we're dicking around over there installing potable water systems is because we don't yet have the capability to kill every single Muslim in the Middle East. And your guest, Lt. Col. Peters, of course knows this. He is a soldier, and we all know that soldiers secretly die a little on the inside when they are forced to hand out boring old life-sustaining Powerbars to Afghan villagers instead of getting to have an awesome firefight with them.

(O'Reilly was right in one important aspect, though: killing every Muslim in Afghanistan would definitely end the war there, seeing as how 99 percent of Afghans are Muslim. Seems like we're disturbingly well on our way to doing this.)

Bill O'Reilly: Always good for a laugh, followed by a long period of reflective silence, followed by a little more laughing, then a bit of weeping, then silence again, then some more weeping, and, finally, a week-long bout of problem drinking.

Adobe Joins Pre-Holiday Layoff Wave [Holidaze]

Ryan Tate — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:23:32 -0500

Adobe will lay off 680 people, or nearly 10 percent of its workforce. The publishing software company joins Electronic Arts and AOL in making pre-Thanksgiving cutbacks. At least these workers won't be shocked during the holidays. Just broke. (Pic)

Interns and Robots Stoke the Twitterati [Twitterati]

Ryan Tate — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:46:22 -0500

Joel Madden walked out on a radio interview; Alexis Ohanian enjoyed some robot bartending and Bucky Turco did something we'd rather not think about with one of our interns. The Twitterati were especially excitable.

Next time, Bucky Turco of Animal New York will just live-tweet the entire makeout session.

Tech investor Paul Kedrosky did not entirely enjoy his flight, but he certainly enjoyed it more than some.

Meanwhile, in Japan, the air travel scene still managed to provoke childlike wonder in Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian. One assumes his former Wired office colleague @beerrobot will take the insult in stride.

Good Charlotte singer Joel Madden is not your clown, Australian morning radio DJs. Maybe Sony BMG's clown, but not yours.

Potty-mouthed tennis star Serena Williams may need to shove some fucking pills down her fucking throat.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

Letter, Box [Pic Of The Day]

Brian Moylan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:39:24 -0500

[A woman walks by a portion of the "Journey" exhibit, which opened today in Washington Square Park. Meant to raise awareness of human trafficking, it contains art shown on shipping containers. Image via Getty]

Publicist for Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld — [Quote Of The Day]

Gabriel Snyder — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:30:38 -0500

explaining the job title of the 32-year-old son of French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld at an art show he "tailored" for Nicolas Pol, to Vanity Fair.

The Beginning of the End of the Jay Leno Experiment [Television]

Richard Rushfield — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:29:05 -0500

In their quest to reshape television, NBC passed a critical milestone on the way to the primetime experiment's end this week — ratings fell below their own ridiculously low benchmarks to judge the show's success. Now the format's being reworked.

This Monday's show averaged a 3 rating and a 1.15 in the critical 18- 49 demographic group, which determines the show's desirability to advertisers. The 1.15 number was against powerhouse Monday Night Football, but for the first time it sent Leno below the 1.5 mark that NBC had said, pre-launch, would define success.

The free-falling ratings have also dragged down the rest of the network's after hours line-up. The NY Times reports:

Conan O'Brien on the Tonight Show fell to just a 1.8 rating in the overnight household ratings and the preliminary 18-49 ratings put him well below his main competitor, David Letterman on CBS. (Mr. Letterman's household ratings at 11:35 p.m. even beat Mr. Leno's at 10 p.m. a 3.3 to a 3.0.) ABC's late-night entry Jimmy Kimmel scored a 1.5, putting him closer to Mr. O'Brien — who starts a half-hour earlier than Mr. Kimmel - than Mr. O'Brien is to Mr. Letterman.

Across America, NBC's affiliate stations are sounding increasingly ready for war in the face of sinking viewership for their evening news show, pulled down by Leno's flailing lead-in.

To which the response from the show has been some minor tweaks to the format: moving the "signature" Jay Walking and headline-reading bits to their old slot after the monologe; moving them up from the back of the show — where they had been placed on the insane belief that people would stay around for them and thus provide a strong closer/lead-in to the local news. In other words, making the show even more like Leno's Tonight Show.

And now finally, the press, always eager to take a few whacks, has officially started the countdown clock on Jay's final days.

"To Save NBC, Rethink Leno Strategy" demands Newser.

"Is It Time to Pull the Plug on Leno?" asks an ABC news headline.

"Is Leno's 10 p.m. experiment nearing an end?" asks MSNBC!...of NBC network fame.

However, with the flood of bad press raining down on Jay's head, that can only mean one thing: rebound is just minutes away. While one would have to be certifiable to bet on Leno and NBC at this dark hour, the law of nature that no one ever lost a buck betting against the wisdom of the press has not been repealed.

David Plouffe Is a Two-Faced Machiavelli Who Broke Our Hearts [How Things Work]

John Cook — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:37:41 -0500

David Plouffe ran Barack Obama's campaign as a steady and extended fuck-you to the hyperventilating Drudge junkies at Politico, and we loved him for it. Now he's admitted he was leaking to them the whole time.

Plouffe was the author of the founding statement of anti-Politico-ism, as reported in a December New York Times Magazine story:

"If Politico and Halperin say we're winning, we're losing," Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, would repeat mantralike around headquarters. He said his least favorite words in the English language were, "I saw someone on cable say this. . . ."

Oh how that lifted our hearts and gave us solace! We've often returned to it late at night when our thoughts are troubled by Tea Parties and death panels, and we fall asleep with the sounds of Plouffe's soothing, measured voice whispering in our ear that it's all going to be OK—that the shouting and the cynical, empty-headed analysis and the superficial horse race obsession and the bullshit stories all amount to little more than sound and fury. He proved that you can win by ignoring it.

But it's still a useful sound, and a pliant fury! Because Plouffe dropped one of the biggest "I saw someone on cable say this..." Drudge-bait stories of the primary into Politico's lap—he was responsible for saddling John Edwards with the $400 haircut story via a tip to Ben Smith:

Obama's campaign had a particularly capable opposition research shop, a source of tips to many reporters, not all of them on policy. And Plouffe, in passing, outs the campaign as the source of a brief item I did in April 2007 off an Edwards campaign expenditure — probably driving as much traffic, chatter and grief as anything that short I've ever written.

"We did much less of this [opposition research] than other campaigns did," Plouffe writes a bit self-servingly, "but there were times we indulged — it was our researchers who found John Edwards's infamous $400 hair cut expenditures."

So you can't win by ignoring Politico. You have to pretend to ignore them while you service them with material that makes your opponents look like the shallow self-obsessed divas that they are. There are no heroes.

Miss J Alexander Is the Best Gay Role Model in the Whole Wide World [Herogram]

Brian Moylan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:25:56 -0500

America's Next Top Model judge J Alexander is on The Tyra Show helping a young lesbian come out. He is the best ally that gay youth have, just by being as big and gay as he wants to be.

Today we watched Alexander on Tyra give a girl the courage to tell her mother that she is a lesbian. However, by being true to himself and successful for the unique brand of fashion and flair that he brings to the table, Miss J is helping kids come out of the closet every day. He has made a career of teaching people how to walk with their head held high, and that's just what he's doing for gay people, one flouncy step at a time.

Sure, he may only be a flamboyant fixture on a reality television program, but Miss J is bringing gay black street culture to audiences all over the globe and we owe him desperately for that. When little girls in Kansas are shaking their finger and calling something "Fierce," it's not because they've been to the Christopher Street Pier lately. Alexander never had to come out of the closet (like some silver-haired news anchors) because he was never in it. It wasn't easy for a tall sissy from the South Bronx—as he says in his new book Follow the Model—but he was never afraid to be himself and always had the strength to strut his crazy self out in public even when it might not have been the easiest thing to do. Check out his own silly coming out story in the video below.

Alexander won a Teen Choice Award earlier this year, showing that the kids who watch the show think he's great no matter who he sleeps with. But he's not only spreading acceptance among the show's young viewers and serving as a success story. While he may not be the most mainstream role model for young gay men and women, he is certainly one of the best. Coming out isn't easy for anyone, but for those who fit into more stereotypical gender roles, it can be a little bit easier. Miss J is here to stand up for the sissies and the queers and the freaks, and the people who can't hide behind a butch exterior or a little bit of lipstick and just pass as heterosexuals when it's easy or convenient. He is gay with a capital G, and he lets every natural born babygay at home know they're not alone and that they're better off for the special brand of outrageousness that they've been blessed with by their fairy godmother.

Crazy Anti-Muslim Rant of the Day [Outrage]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:50:04 -0500

Tunku Varadarajan is the winner of today's Outrage-Off, with 74% of the vote. Congrats, psycho.

Carly Fiorina Bravely Attacks Uppity Woman Senator [Politics]

Ryan Tate — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:38:06 -0500

Carly Fiorina is already elevating the political discourse in California: The former Hewlett Packard CEO is emailing ads about that one time her opponent politely asked a general to call her "senator" instead of "m'aam," like an arrogant bitch.

In an email to potential donors (below) first discussed by The Frisky's Jessica Wakeman, Fiorina's campaign manager touts a video (above) of her opponent Sen. Barbara Boxer talking to a general during congressional testimony. The brief conversation seems to have offended no one who was actually involved in it, but Fiorina's campaign calls the video "shocking" and said Boxer "disrespectfully demanded" to be called "senator." Her exact words:

Do me a favor, could you say 'senator' instead of 'm'aam?' It's just a thing. (Laughter.) I worked so hard to get that title. Thank you.

This "shocking" moment of terrible rudeness is obviously the most important issue in California right now. It's a good thing voters have a tough businesswoman like Fiorina to help them identify women who espouse feminist ideals only when it advances their own ego and political interests.

Jason Reitman Diagrams the Modern State of Junket Journalism [Charts]

Richard Rushfield — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:36:22 -0500

Media can stare at itself all it likes, but it takes sitting across the table from today's news monster to really see what journalism has become. In a fascinating diagram, director Jason Reitman has pretty much broken it down.

Posting his chart on twitter, Reitman breaks down all the questions he's been asked in his Up In the Air press appearances. Shown in full the chart demonstrates first of all what a deadening experience it must be, sitting in junkets and having to answer, by his count, a full 111 times, "What's it like working with George Clooney?"

However, pulling up the number two slot, the world's entertainment journalists, sparked by the big contemporary issues raised by Up in The Air, asked Reitman 96 times about the economy. No doubt these were probing questions posed by the hard-nosed financial analysts of Ok! and Hello! to the director of Juno; questions we imagine along the lines of "So the economy,...isn't that just awful?" and "What does George think of the economy?" and "If the Federal Reserve were an ice cream store, what would be its most popular flavor?"

But hey, maybe those are just the sort of questions we need to be asking if this nation is ever going to think its way out of this mess.

Faux-Anthrax Terrorists Gunning For Vulnerable Media Agencies? [Rumormonger]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:35:14 -0500

The German consulate in Manhattan received a suspicious white powder in an envelope today, just like three other consulates did yesterday. We hear the media agency Initiative, in the same area, had to be evacuated too. Send terror stories here!

Everything Is Peachy in the Land of Make Believe [Recessionomics]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:08:21 -0500

The Way We Live Now: Virtually well. Not "virtually" like "almost," like "we're almost living well again, thanks," because, whoa, not even close. We mean "virtually" like "in a virtual world." Mentally transport yourself to Affluenceville, population (your name)!

In pre-recessionary times, business travelers were provided with "expense accounts" that allowed them to "travel" to "hotels" for "meetings." Now businesses have modified slightly, so you go to the hotel "down the street" and go into the "telepresence suite" and "look at the people you are 'meeting' with, on a video screen" and "pretend" it's not humiliating how broke you are. Hey, at least you didn't have to go all the way to "Asia," which is the last place hotels are "open!"

Visualizing yourself doing something more promising than what you're actually doing is a proven way to make it through the recession without offing yourself. Pretend that your seasonal holiday job at the mall, as an elf, is a real career that will never end, just like Christmas itself, which happens every day. Pretend that you can just keep stealing money from your retail job forever, and it'll be just like if you worked for a hedge fund! If things go bad, you can always pull another daring helicopter heist. Pretend you'll have that money forever!

America will make-believe its way out of this recession yet.
[Pic via]

MSNBC: Two Dead, Up to Ten Wounded in Portland, Ore., Shooting [Breaking]

John Cook — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:06:30 -0500

MSNBC is reporting that ~~one~~ two people were killed and up to ten have been wounded in a shooting near a Portland strip mall. Stop, please?

UPDATE: An armed gunman fired multiple shots into a drug testing facility at a strip mall, local television is reporting. A man and a woman were killed. The gunman is not at large, but it's unclear if he's in custody or among the dead.

MSNBC says an armed suspect fired shots into the mall. Local authorities say the suspect is "not at large."

According to KGW-TV in Portland, the shooting took place in the past two hours at a mall in Tualatin, a suburb roughly 15 miles from downtown Portland:

PORTLAND, Ore. — A shooting has been reported and confirmed at a Tualatin business mall.

Few details were available. According to Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue, there may be as many as 10 victims.

The shooting was reported at 7575 SW Mohawk at the Martinazzi intersection.

Nearby streets had been closed. Businesses located in the mall were evacuated.

Police first confirmed that a shooting had occurred sometime after 11 a.m.

'I'd Like to Prank the Little People' [Open Caption]

Brian Moylan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:58:27 -0500

[Rihanna points to the miniature trailer park that her twister of a gown is going to destroy after speaking at the Glamour magazine Women of the Year Awards at Carnegie Hall last night. Image via Getty]

January Jones Free to Start Her Movie Career [Mad Men]

Brian Moylan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:19:16 -0500

Matthew Weiner says the Draper marriage is "unambiguously over," making our Betty-betting line look generous.

Britney Scandal Down Under Reignites Debate Over Concert Faking [Annals Of Britney]

Richard Rushfield — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:08:48 -0500

As a nation, we have clearly settled the question of whether it's okay for Britney Spears to fake a concert. Of course it is. But leave it to Australia to stick their mitts right back in that can of worms.

This past weekend, our beloved national trainwreck set off a storm of controversy down under when it suddenly dawned on fans at a concert that Britney was lip-syncing her songs; "miming" they call it. One critic on hand penned a review which featured disappointed fans storming out and suddenly, the old wounds of our great national Britney conversation were torn open.

The brouhaha has gone so far as to have Australian lawmakers calling for a new law which would require performers to state on their tickets that concert goers risk exposure to non-singing. China apparently passed such a "Name and Shame" law after controversy related to the Olympic opening ceremonies.

Over the past few days, however, her US supporters have raced to the embattled star's defense. Singer John Mayer twittered astutely, "If you're shocked that Britney was lip-syncing at her concert and want your money back, life may continue to be hard for you."

And on Britney's own website, fans are leaving words of support by the thousands, registering their sentiment that Britney lip-syncing a concert is just fine by them.

So now we think it's time to turn the tables back on our little friends from the Southern Hemisphere whom have made our standard bearer feel so icky over something that we all told her was just fine. A few questions for Mr. and Mrs. Australia before the lynch mob does something that we assure them, they will live to regret:

• Do you really think there is anything real about the Britney experience in the first place that can be captured in a live concert?

• Are you prepared for the consequences if she tries to sing and dance at the same time and something terrible happens? Do you really want that on your head Australia?

• How do you know that it wasn't just a robot in the first place?

• Do you really think we'd risk letting the actual Britney travel to foreign countries with bizarre snack foods and measurement systems?

• If a robot sings live, and you feel that experience was "authentic" than who is the robot and who is the human being?

Its easy for a little nation to throw stones at the giants of world culture, but beware, those fingers wrapped around that rock end up pointing right back at you.

Catholic Dude Jealous of Sexy Study [Sexy Science]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:02:01 -0500

Duke University sponsored a study on female students' attitudes towards sex toys, which the director of the Duke Catholic Center worried would encourage the young women to "just sit around and masturbate." Do studies really do that? Awesome. [Katie Drummond]

How ABC News' Brian Ross Cooked His 'Hasan Contacted Al Qaeda' Scoop [Hype]

John Cook — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:47:52 -0500

ABC News' Brian Ross has a breathtaking record of recklessly inaccurate, overhyped stories that don't live up to the headline. His scoop yesterday about Nidal Malik Hasan's "attempt to reach out to al Qaeda" was one of them.

Ross' report yesterday that Hasan had attempted to "make contact with people associated with al Qaeda" took over the internet yesterday and sparked a furious round of speculation that Hasan's attack was part of an Islamic terrorist plot. The headline, "Officials: U.S. Army Told of Hasan's Contacts with al Qaeda," said it all. The far more mundane truth emerged today in the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post: Hasan had communicated via e-mail with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American cleric living in Yemen who formerly served as the imam of a mosque Hasan had attended in Virginia. What did they talk about? From the Washington Post:

The FBI determined that the e-mails did not warrant an investigation, according to the law enforcement official. Investigators said Hasan's e-mails were consistent with the topic of his academic research and involved some social chatter and religious discourse.

We were confused this morning, because Ross had clearly reported that Hasan had made contact with "people associated with Al Qaeda," and the only contacts that other reporters were confirming were with al-Awlaki, who is, as far as we know, a single person. We called Ross and asked him if there were more "people." No, he told us, his initial report was only in reference to al-Awlaki.

"That's how it was initially described to me by my sources," he says. "Given what they told me, that's all I could say. It's a strange use of the word 'people.' But when pinned down, my sources said it's just al-Awlaki."

A strange use, indeed. How about false, too? Especially because Ross' original story did, in fact, report that al-Awliki was among the "people" Hasan was suspected of having contacted. So he reported that Hasan contacted more than one person associated with al Qaeda, and then named one person that he was suspected of contacting. What he apparently didn't bother to do was "pin his sources down" on exactly what they were saying. The result was a clear suggestion that Hasan had tried to communicate with the al Qaeda network on more than one occasion.

So did he? Al-Awlaki is routinely described by the FBI and others as an al Qaeda supporter, and a fiery inciter of violence against infidels. And he was the imam at the Virginia mosque attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as Hasan. But while it's clear that Al-Awlaki is a bad guy, what's not clear is whether he's simply a propagandist or someone who actually operates as a part of al Qaeda. It's one thing for Hasan to have sent e-mails to someone who vocally supports al Qaeda, and quite another for him to have sent e-mails to al Qaeda itself, or to operatives actively involved in trying to kill people. Ross told us that, according to his sources, "Al-Awlaki is considered a recruiter," which is how he justified invoking the name of the terrorist network. We'll defer to him on that point.

But without knowing what the e-mails are about, can it really be known that Hasan's communications were "attempts to reach out"? The FBI didn't consider them as such. Ross didn't know the contents of the e-mails when he described them that way, but felt perfectly justified in doing so based solely on the knowledge that Hasan had sent the e-mails.

We asked Ross if he had tried to contact Al-Awlaki in reporting the story:

"Yes."

So you reached out to al Qaeda, then?

"To al Qaeda? No. I reached out to him. Oh. I see what you're saying."

What's particularly maddening about Ross' hype is that it had already been well established that Al-Awlaki was the imam at Hasan's Virginia mosque in 2001. Hasan's mother's funeral services were held there at the time. While it hadn't been definitively established that Hasan had ever met Al-Awlaki, it was abundantly clear that the two men were in one another's orbits and that Hasan likely heard him preach. That wasn't reported as a "contact with al Qaeda," but once Ross got his hands on the fact that Hasan sent e-mails to his former imam, who had a web site with a comment form, he turned it into a blockbuster story.

Which wouldn't be the first time. Ross reported—inaccurately—after the anthrax attacks in 2001 that the powder contained a "potent additive...known to have been used by only one country in producing biochemical weapons - Iraq." He laundered CIA agent John Kiriakou's lie that the agency only used waterboarding once, for 30 seconds, when in fact Kiriakou wasn't even in the same country as the secret prison where his colleagues waterboarded two men a total of 266 times. He fell for the lies of Alexis Debat, a grifter and fraud who masqueraded as an intelligence expert. And he hyped his access to the phone records of DC madam Deborah Jean Palfrey for days, but only came up with the names of two low-level clients.

Ross' stock response to these complaints is that he only reports what his sources tell him. "We reported what we knew, when we knew it," he says. "I'm comfortable with the story." His problem, as we've said before, is that he has shitty sources. And he just repeats what they tell him. Which is how you get from "Hasan sent e-mails to his former imam, who now preaches in support of Al Qaeda. We don't know what the e-mails were about, but they didn't raise alarms at the FBI" to "Hasan tried to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda" to the headline's blunt, and thoroughly unsupported, reference to "Hasan's Contacts with al Qaeda." It would have been a good story if Ross had stuck to the first, accurate, formulation.

Quit Laughing: The Hippie Industry Is Booming [Communism]

Ryan Tate — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:38:25 -0500

Everyone seems to think it's funny that UC Santa Cruz has a job opening for an official "Grateful Dead Archivist." But it's just the latest example of hippies riding high during the recession, floating on a cloud of groovy breaks.

The UC Santa Cruz job is no accident; it was made possible by a donation from the Dead themselves. And it's not just drug bands spreading counterculture good fortune these days:

Amid mass journalism layoffs, a new hippie-friendly type of gig has opened up: Pot reviewer. Denver's alt weekly went looking for just such a fellow, to serve the booming local market for "medical" marijuana.
Grungy well-heeled young music fans made this year's Coachella music festival a "super happy" success. Far out for concert organizers who refused to grow up and get a "real job!"
Vegan animal activist Jane Velez-Mitchell has a hit show over on CNN's Headline News and can now aspire to the even greater level of success attained by left-wing-radio-host-turned-MSNBC-anchor (and fellow lesbian) Rachel Maddow. (Maddow was a Rhodes scholar, putting her on the high achieving side of hippiedom.)
The White House installed an organic garden under lobbying from Alice Waters, delivering a PR victory to the restaurateur derided as a hippie "dreamer" on national television just days earlier.
In San Francisco, the sort of company that holds "naked" meetings and makes decisions through unanimous consensus is now showered with VC cash.
A protest marcher from a hippie college changed his name to the militant "Barack" from the placid "Barry" and was soon elected president of these United States.
If you advocate turning your cat vegan or making men pee while sitting down, for the environment, the New York Times will publish your op-ed, these days.

And all this time you thought "get a job" was the ultimate way to insult a hippie. Who's laughing now, straight edge??

(Pic via)