John McCain got in trouble this week for an old joke he told once about how women enjoy rape. No one gets his sense of humor! He grew up with the subtle wit of Sir Francis Burnand's Punch, is it his fault the kids today all read filthy comic books or whatever? Similarly, The New Yorker got in trouble this week for printing a cover that everyone had to pretend not to understand in order to be outraged about how no one would get the joke. It was complicated. But we have advice from an expert that will help. John McCain needs to read this email from your day editor's mother.

Oh gawwwd. The Observer notes today that everyone who writes for Salon, that online kaffeklatsch, wants a gay son. Well, OK, there are just two examples, but they're both infuriatingly dumb. One is the mostly crazy Ayelet Waldman's piece from March '05 about her son maybe being gay and how that makes her excited and how lesbians sorta scare her. The other example is the new piece by Sarah Bird, in which she curses the straightness of her 18-year-old son and wishes she had some swishy interior design guru who would just love and adore mama forever (and call her "girlfriend"). It reads like a drunk Norma Desmond channeling Dave Barry.

I've been having a one-sided conversation all week via email with my Mom. "Did you know that in New York there' s no licensing required to do laser hair removal?" one of my emails asks. Another begins with "I'm on YouTube!" and goes on to bitch about work. I also sent her a few pics of myself, as well as a LOLdog! She hasn't been replying at all. Whatever! I just emailed her more, with theories about imagined illnesses and questions about what I can or can't write off. Then I talked to her over the phone last night and she told me she hadn't gotten any of the emails. That's when I realized I had sent them to the wrong address. Not sure who got them! But definitely someone who is not my mom. [Internet Is Full of Moms]

So yesterday the Times weighed in on everyone's most detested yuppie mecca, Park Slope. Today, the new issue of Time Out New York piles on! "Websites like Gawker and Curbed crackle with anti-Slope invective, hurled at the twin bugaboos of the 'Stroller Mafia' (pushy, indulgent yuppie parents) and the bleeding-heart 'People's Republic of Park Slope' (headquartered at the Food Co-op)." Update: Via email from Maureen Shelly: "Hi Ian. I'm the EIC of Time Out Kids. Just wanted to point out that the Park Slope piece you turned up is from last year — not the upcoming June issue. Our piece was also by Lynne Harris, who penned the Times story. I guess she felt she had more to say on the subject."

"To its detractors, Park Slope is both haunt and hatchery of New York's smuggest limousine-liberal yuppies. It is, if I may further summarize the bad publicity, overrated and hypocritical. Its glorious brownstone blocks and jaunty cafes are awash in carpetbagger entitlement, ruled by snarling 'Stroller Nazis.' The neighborhood is a ground zero of all that is twee and lame. It is, God forbid, the suburbs." Well done. But what do the anonymous blog commenters have to say, New York Times?

Gawker alum Doree Shafrir and Jezebel associate editor Jessica Grose started a tumblr made up of nothing but emails from moms. It's inspired reading, and also a fun ("fun") parlour game: match the mom-mail to the famous ("famous") New York media or internet personality! [Postcards From Yo Momma]

The holidays are a stressful time for everybody—estranged families, bourbon distributors, Chinese restaurants, poor people. How are the mommies over at UrbanBaby dealing with the crunch? Currently, they're trying to figure out the most appropriate—yet still demeaning—way to reward "the help" for their efforts this year. Let's take a look inside their minds (and their messageboards)!

The New York Times mag fills a front-of-book page with a grab bag of the week's correspondence. Some of the people they print are mad, some are sad, and some are impressed. Who are these people? Why did they decide to write in? Did they read whatever they're writing about during brunch? Or, was it on a porch! Gawker Weekend will provide you with that back story.

Overheard at the O'Reilly Where 2.0 conference: