Congratulations, rap pioneer Ricky "Slick Rick" Walters! You won't have to spend the summer on one of those sad, gray half-assed "beaches" of your native England, because the Governor of New York has granted you a full, unconditional pardon for your 1991 attempted murder conviction! "Walters, 43, has been under threat of being sent back to his native United Kingdom, although he has lived in the United States since he was a child. In a statement, he expressed gratitude to Paterson and his lawyers, and hoped that he could finally put the turmoil behind him. 'This has been a long and difficult road and I am happy for this to be settled once and for all," Walters said. "I look forward to enjoying this time with my family and friends and to continue leading an honest and productive life.'"

Because it's a lazy Friday before a long weekend, it's time to talk a bit about sports. But this is important! The Knicks, to everyone's chagrin, drew only the sixth pick in the upcoming NBA draft. Had they landed the first pick, they would have been assured of getting Derrick Rose, the best player in the nation and a great point guard, which is what the team needs. Now, draft projections say they may end up picking OJ Mayo, the USC guard and former high school phenom. Who could also be good! Why is this important? Now that supervillain Isaiah Thomas has been fired as Knicks coach, the city needs to heal again. This draft will set the tone for the team's resurrection. Even if you don't like sports, you must wish fervently for a strong Knicks squad, for the sake of NYC's honor—we cannot afford for our city to be trashed by middle American teams. It's bad for everyone here, and everyone who runs America is here, so it's bad for America. Below, a highlight video of Derrick Rose (maybe they can trade up for him!) and one of OJ May (did you know he had such a sweet jumpshot? I didn't.). THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Oh yea. [LAT]

A new newspaper-insert magazine called RiseUp, which will feature "race-related content," is launching next month. It will have a circulation of 4 million, appearing in papers like the NY Daily News, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune. If RiseUp helps drive a true national conversation on race, it will be a good thing. But it will have to break the First Law of newspaper insert magazines: "We all suck." [FOLIO]

Because some stories are nothing but blatant cries for condemnation, we're going to allow our disgust to swing around 180 degrees so that we support this idea: A Park Avenue plastic surgeon is offering a $500,000 package deal that includes a summer house rental in the Hamptons, and all the plastic surgery you want! "Within reason," of course. He's also throwing in a chauffeur, personal chef, and a nurse to tend to the surgically wounded. And tickets to the hottest parties, to show off your healing scars! This development is... a good thing.

For former Gawker blogger Emily Gould's raw "Blog-Post Confidential" essay in the upcoming New York Times Magazine, she was photographed by Elinor Carucci, who specializes in "portraits of everyday female vulnerability." The photo on the left is Emily Gould by Carucci, the one on the right is Carucci, from her Closer series. Shoot the Blog remarks that Carucci, admirably, is able to "delivers editorial imagery that is barely distinguishable from her own [fine art] work." That's the photographer equivalent of making it big writing personal narratives! (Click to enlarge.)

Sultry beach hero hottie set to save journalism! [NYDN]

Last weekend Barack Obama once again revealed his anti-Americanism when he told a crowd, "We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees all the time, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra, and then just expect every other country is going to say OK." Hey, maybe Barack can speak for the Muslims who won't eat as much as they want. But Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Patrick McIlheran is sick of you arugula-scarfing elites telling him and his family what to eat. And his trip to some Jewish restaurant in New York proves he's right, somehow!

Sue Simmons is the WNBC personality who famously swore at her co-anchor during a live promo last week, scandalizing New York viewers of NBC drama Medium and prompting sympathy from network colleagues on the Today show, who said anyone could slip up like that. But CBS' Late Show host David Letterman isn't about to let the scandal drop; he's milked the incident for all it's worth, airing a new clip of Simmons swearing every night this week. It looks like Letterman plans to make his "Local News Highlight Of The Night" feature a going concern, but making Simmons the butt of his joke every night would get pretty repetitive, wouldn't it? Yes, and actually, knowing Letterman, he can keep up this sort of drumbeat for weeks. After the jump, the four WNBC segments the Late Show has run thus far.

Times editors are apparently tired of people saying mean things about Emily Gould and about their own decision to publish her meditation on blogging, because they've shut down the comments section attached to Gould's magazine piece. Some 727 responses flooded in before the shutdown, even though the article won't be physically published until the Sunday issue. Many called the former Gawker editor narcissistic, self-indulgent and a bad writer and said her story was a waste of space; there were supporters, including people who praised Gould for having moved on from vicious, inconsequential Gawker and for pushing them to reexamine their own online personas. Whatever was said, the decision to shut down comments is bizarre, because just yesterday Times Magazine editor Gerry Marzorati told FishbowlNY the story was worthy of his cover precisely because of the discussion it would spark:

Yesterday we noted that even though the American media is the grand imperial bloodsucker of our nation's soul, that's okay; at least we don't immediately do bikini shoots on the scene of our latest national disasters. Like the media in China does. In a counterpoint, Animal's Bucky Turco argues that the Chinese government's censorship of the media in the wake of said photos was actually worse than the photos themselves—a couple of which he has posted on his site. Since we have posted only a heartrending photo of homeless young victims, we're better than him. So whatever. [Animal, Previously, Donate to Earthquake Relief]

Veteran sportswriter Pat Jordan, who worked for Sports Illustrated back in the good old days when every athlete would grovel and tap dance for a chance to appear in that magazine, has a long piece in Slate today detailing exactly why his job was way better back then than it is now. To sum it up: athletes today know they can control the media, whereas back then they were basically underpaid rubes grateful for any press coverage that might land them some endorsements to enhance their meager salaries. Jordan also notes that Jose Canseco is a jerk, old-timey players weren't afraid to ogle girls in front of a reporter, and Deadspin.com is the future of sports journalism. Suck on that, Buzz Bissinger!:

Popular Page Six gossip hack Paula Froelich had a party thrown in her honor last night, complete with her own signature cocktail: the IZZE FROLIC. Awww! She sent an email to all of her contacts saying, "It seems someone has decided to name a drink after me. I think we can use it as a good excuse to go play." But when the party happened, one boldface name was conspicuously absent: New York Post reporter Paula Froelich! So what happened? Bothersome ethics, of course.

Daily News reporter Caitlin Millat went crazy yesterday. Crazy for journalism, that is! "I stabbed an innocent victim, got shot by a police officer, and suffered a severe asthma attack on Wednesday in Brooklyn," she writes, "all in a day's work for the Daily News." She now languishes in an isolation cell on Riker's Island. No, just kidding! She was just playing the role of a crazy person to help out with the city's annual EMT competition. Don't scare us like that, Caitlin! As an added bonus for all of us curious readers, she was able to turn her unique first-person experience into a story in today's paper. Synergetic! There's also a video. Near the end is when she stabs a guy. [NYDN]

The Times metro section ran a story this morning about Joe Armstrong, and how he's "the Mayor" of Michael's, the media power-lunch sport, and a ubiquitous presence there and friends with all the regulars and, according to Carly Simon, "probably the most loved person in New York." It was the same sort of atmospheric, getting-to-know-your-city type column the same writer did on Nikola Tamindzic, our own nightlife photographer. Fair enough! Armstrong was publisher at New York, Rolling Stone, Saveur and was involved to a lesser extent with a bevy of other publications, like Harper's Bazaar and USA Today. He's on sabbatical from ABC News and has been doing charity work for the past two years. He's still well-connected, the Times insisted. As if to underscore this point, the Post, this same morning, ran a friendly item on Page Six about a pin Armstrong wore, tongue-in-cheek, to a book party: "the image of John McCain hugging President Bush under the words, 'Four More Years!'" I hate to say this about someone so beloved but, Joe, if you can get this much coverage just, you know, hanging out, maybe consider a career in PR. Or as an editor-at-large for Star! They pay six figures for doing basically nothing, and we could probably make an introduction. (Photo via Trinity University)

A University of Wisconsin professor believes the New Yorker ripped off famed comic book illustrator Jack Kirby with the cartoon on the right, which was used for the magazine's popular back-page caption contest. So the professor dug out the Kirby comic on the left and started complaining. The New Yorker said its cartoon was intended as "an overt reference... not an attempt to plagiarize... a tribute," and added an online credit to Kirby, but that wasn't good enough for the prof. So he rang up the Post and complained that Kirby "never got proper credit then, and isn't getting proper credit now." Well, then. The similarity is so great it's hard to imagine the New Yorker cartoonist, Harry Bliss, actually thought he was going to pull a fast one. And the cover is kind of perfect for a caption contest. But if this particular comic book is super obscure, that makes the "it's an homage" explanation much less plausible. Comic book geeks, your services are at last required! How obscure is this Tales To Astonish? (If you can't find our comments section or email addresses, then you're almost certainly not a comic book nerd.) [Post]

Design blog Signal vs. Noise today reminded everyone of the 1997 Times infographic reproduced above. Nicholas Kristof, whose article on world disease featured the chart, declared in an old-but-recently-surfaced email that "no graphic in human history has saved so many lives in Africa and Asia." Apparently it persuaded billionaire Bill Gates to start donating his money to disease prevention instead of global internet access. Kristof said the Microsoft founder was too lazy to read the full, 3,500-world article:

Good news for fabricating memoirist James Frey and his once-embattled publisher: His first novel, Bright Shiny Morning, just debuted at number 9 on the Times bestseller list, with 14,000 copies sold. "We hear HarperCollins is pleased," reports the Observer's Leon Neyfakh. Among the many, many people not sharing the publisher's glee are certain proud citizens of Los Angeles, who have begun to notice false statements in the book about their city and its history. "New York reviewers adore the book because they think it nails L.A.," wrote LA Observed. But get this: It doesn't! The book is filled with awful, awful LIES!

David Blum laments the internet and romanticizes Gay Talese in a story too long for anyone to read in this fast-paced modern world. [NY Press]

A source tells us that Metro ed Gregg Gittrich is indeed out at the Daily News. Gittrich was widely consdered a rising star, maybe even next in line for the managing editor gig. But the NYDN isn't great about holding onto talent. And maybe Greg's taste of TV glory on unwatched 2006 reality program Tabloid Wars inspired him—we hear he quit the Daily News to go to NBC. If you know what he may or may not be doing at NBC, drop us a line.