In honor of NYC surviving last night's derecho, we've rounded up the best hate mail from this week for your reading pleasure. Those who chimed in want us to know we've got a lot to learn about sports, conspiracy theories, acceptable first names, and, most importantly, shrews.
It's the Olympics, which means Chinese flag manufacturers are working overtime to churn out the oversized Old Glories in which Team USA will be swaddled for their heart-tugging televised NBC Moments. But I've found myself obsessing over athletes that will never be the subject of a network capsule bio: The women of the North Korean Olympic team. Skilled and mysterious, they are one of the most interesting stories of the games.
Ed. Note: Unfortunately, we were asked to take down the photographs which originally ran with this story. However, since the way Caity's story is constructed requires corresponding images in order for it to make any sort of sense, we've just made Jim Cooke illustrate the ones we originally used. He's very disappointed with the results because he was rushed and insisted we say 'Bad Drawings by Jim Cooke.' But instead we will acknowledge his heroic patience and say that we think his renderings are better than the original photographs taken by some slimy paparazzi person hiding in a tree anyway.
The London Olympics have taken a lot of flack in recent weeks, mostly from Mitt Romney but also from some other people, for making choices that seem, if not altogether bad, certainly weird.
The public relations industry is dogged in its pursuit of money, a doggone shame, a hired gun without a dog in the fight, the crisis management version of hair of the dog. This is PR Dummies: watching corporate America rim dogs, once a week.
With his rosy cheeks and bushy white beard, Thomas Tolbert can't help but remind people of a certain beloved Christmas mascot.
Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Mary J. Blige's debut album, What's the 411?. No single disc of the past two decades did more to define the sound of R&B (though Aaliyah's One in a Million came close). The idea of singing straight R&B over hip-hop breaks (including classics like that of Audio Two's "Top Billin'," as heard in "Real Love") was a foreign concept at the time of its release. After 411? it become commonplace. Sometimes landmarks alter things so definitively that they end up subverting their own importance — 411? redefined sound so much that it's easy to forget just how revolutionary it once was. In today's context, it can sound like just a really tight collection of great songs.
For a lot of people, last night's derecho was not muy malo. In New York City, it didn't seem all that different from a regular thunderstorm, except that people on Twitter were way more excited about it.
Donald A. Perry, vice-president of public relations at Chick-fil-A, died this morning from a heart attack, in the midst of a growing national controversy over the fast-food restaurant's opposition to gay marriage. "We are saddened to report the news to you that our dear friend Don Perry, vice president of public relations, passed away suddenly this morning," said a company statement.
Not to be a gloomy Gus about the molasses-like rate at which our shattered global economy is pulling itself out of a deep dark depression hole, but the news today is not stunningly good. The U.S. economy is growing by a mere 1.5% in the past quarter. How would you describe that, media? "Tepid," "Slow," "strangled," and "Dismal." Thank you, media.
After learning that shade-throwing, anti-gay bully Kirk Cameron would be attending the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association in New Jersey this weekend, an idealistic, formerly bullied gay 17-year-old invited Cameron to drop by the Garden State Equality's Youth Caucus. Corey Bernstein's letter reads, in part:
A McDonald's in Croatia allegedly stayed open and served food without interruption despite the fact that a woman had dropped dead inside the store and her body remained in the corner for nearly 90 minutes.
