Rob Kardashian has some juicy gossip from your mom's favorite show, Dancing with the Stars: one of the couples is doing the horizontal mambo. This producer paid for his lover to get rid of a pregnancy and this singer is paying the paparazzi to take her picture. She needs to get on Dancing with the Stars.
Gawker friend Aaron Jamison—who approached his own terminal cancer with a wry and sometimes morbid sense of joy, starting with his plan to sell ads on his own cremation urn to help defray the costs of his medical bills—passed away last weekend. His wife Kristin has written an appreciation of her husband that can be read here. Aaron's blog, in all of its inspirational glory, can still be found here.
Over the weekend the city of Chico, California hosted the U.S. National Yo-Yo Championships, just like it does every year, and there were winners! Nimble, lightning-fast winners, most of whom were male. In fact, only one woman competed in this year's contest: 19-year-old Ann Connolly, who won the "Best Girl Player" award. WTF, ladies? Stop having babies and get cracking on your Rock the Babies. Stop sleeping and start practicing your Reverse Sleepers. Let's estrogenize that thing next year.
As if you needed another excuse to skip church: In Viareggio, Italy, 46-year-old Aldo Bianchini blinded himself and permanently scarred everyone else attending mass at Sant'Andrea church when, during the priest's sermon, he suddenly stood up, ripped his eyes right out of their sockets with his bare hands, then "collapsed to the floor in a pool of blood."
News that Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry used to hang out and hunt at some west Texas hunting camp called "Niggerhead" hasn't made him too many new friends among the American public. Oh well! At least he's still got his old friends to support and help him. Or hurt him. Helpfully hurt him.
You can't spell "NPR" without "PR," as in "disaster," as in what that particular media organization had more than its share of in 2011. Former CEO Vivian Schiller resigned last March in the wake of the Juan Williams firing and James O'Keefe undercover video fiascos. Now that position has been filled by Gary Knell, a Sesame Street producer and CEO of Sesame Workshop, who'll use his hands-on experience in cookie budgeting and grouch negotiations to move NPR past the bumpiest period in its history to where the air is sweet.
Every day, celebrities across the world are followed and photographed by the omnipresent paparazzi, often to entertaining results. Here are some of our favorite shots from the past week.
Jerry Brown struck a mighty blow to the Occupy Foreskin movement on Sunday, as the California governor signed a bill preventing local governments from banning circumcision in males. Back in July, a judge had ruled a ballot proposal outlawing circumcision in San Francisco, backed by 7,700 supporters, to be unconstitutional. Now, thanks to bill AB768 — or what will eventually come to be known as "Jerry's Bill" — no male child in California will ever be denied his God-mandated right to circumcision again. Let the protests commence! Bay Area Urban Docking League, you have the floor. [AP]
With his normally cluttered desk wiped clean and his hair slicked back—his eyebrows, however, roamed free—curmudgeonly commentator Andy Rooney signed off from 60 Minutes tonight. In his final show-ending segment, the 92-year-old said he is and will always be a writer before anything else, apologized for the (very few) times he's been wrong, and reminded us that we should never, ever approach him in a restaurant.
For several years, British woman Nicole Lindsay says, she had a boyfriend named Lee. Or so she thought she had a boyfriend. Because Lee lacked the proper equipment to be a boyfriend—i.e., a favorite sports team. Oh, and a penis!
An Iowa convenience store owner tried to reward his most clairvoyant employees by awarding $10 to any cashier who correctly guessed which of their coworkers were soon to become an ex-coworker. Ten whole dollars! Enough to buy Doritos and gum for your entire family. Enough to buy ten Mega Lucky Power Lotto Ball tickets.
Not even Canada wants Russell Brand. Gene Simmons finally gets married, which means he can have sex for the first time. Kim Kardashian is nice to someone. Sunday gossip is ready to go hunting at Rick Perry's camp!
Last night President Barack Obama delivered the keynote address at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)'s National Dinner in Washington, DC, and spent much of his time at the podium raving about his meal. "The dinner rolls were absolutely divine," he said. "The little potatoes—well, I need to get that seasoning recipe before I leave here tonight. And the peas and carrots had the perfect amount of butter on them. I remember when I was really little, like maybe five or six, my mother used to drop a whole inch-thick cube of butter on my peas and carrots, which turned them into a fattening, greasy soup. I always told her, 'Ma,' I said, 'if you want me to eat my vegetables, you gotta lighten up on the Land o'Lakes. My arteries, man.' But she never acknowledged my simple requests, and now I bear the emotional scars of feeling invisible during my formative years."
A Florida woman faces a charge of battery causing bodily harm after breaking the eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not throw thy Bible at thy son's girlfriend. She is literally a Bible beater.
