DWIs are fucked up and bad, but driving a tiny electric toy car after your real wheels are taken from you is fucked up and great? What I’m trying to say is Texas State student Tara Monroe is maybe the antihero we deserve.

Michelle Obama filmed a Sesame Street appearance yesterday, and, as any good American would be, she was delighted. Apparently it was even more fun than meeting some ancient English broad!

Model and heiress Lydia Hearst sat down in her dark corner with her glass of tequila and lime juice, all Hemingway-like, and pumped out another column for Page Six magazine. Thank God. Besides some musings about her new hair color and the traffic that kept her from her Puma bag launch breakfast, Lydia has some unsolicited advice for Brooke Astor's troubled son Anthony Marshall.

Top: "Anabel, one of the cheerleaders of the Washington Redskins US football team, removes her helmet to adjust her hair, after landing by helicopter at Patrol Base Dragon, some 20 kilometers (about 12.4 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007, where the cheerleaders were to stage a performance for US troops.(AP Photo/Petr David Josek )" Bottom: "U.S. soldier from the 3rd Brigade combat team of 101st Airborne Division, dances with Chastity, one of the cheerleaders of the Washington Redskins US football team, during their show at Patrol Base Dragon, some 20 kilometers (about 12.4 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek )"

American hero Grace Paley, one of the great writers and humanists of our time, is dead at the age of 84. Start here, if you haven't. [Maud Newton]

Hey! Whatever happened to Jocelyn Wildenstein? Why haven't we heard a peep about her in years?

Mr. Butch, a musician who lived on the streets of Boston for something like 30 years, has died in a high-speed scooter accident. [Boston Globe]

Last night's "American Inventor" introduced America to a new hero who will occupy the empty space in our personal pantheon that has been vacant since Ian Benardo left the stage. Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Silvio DiSalvatore. He just might change your life.

We live in an era of apathy and cynicism. Government is broken; religion fails to relieve the anxiety of the age; torpor and resigned acceptance are the default responses to the inconveniences and incivilities life throws in our way on a daily basis. So when a group comes together and rouses itself against injustice, despite the arduous effort and unlikely odds of success, that group deserves to be celebrated, nay, put forth as a model for others to follow.

Designated Post moralist Andrea Peyser can still work herself into a state of highly-frothed outrage when righteous anger is called for (or not called for!), but if today's paper is any indication, The Peys has a softer side.