Taken at around 5 this morning, a picture of the valiant news media waiting for a resolution to the MTA negotiations:

The good news: The subways are running.

• We know that it's not the art department's job to know much about politics, but someone should really help the poor fucks at Esquire brush up on the differences between Senator Joe McCarthy and Senator Gene McCarthy. [Off-Topic]
• Former Women's Wear Daily reporter and sexual assault suspect Peter Braunstein was spotted in Memphis two weeks ago. This is all we get after six years of no news on the matter? [Jossip]
• Bloomberg's Transit Strike Contingency Plan: "Commuters encountering MTA workers are asked to throw ROCKS, STONES and PEBBLES." [Cracked]
• You know why we mock hipsters? Because they're probably the ones buying stirrup pants from Urban Outfitters. [JJB]
• We also mock hipsters because they search for personal assistants who are familiar with MisShapes and wear "drainpipe/skinny jeans." This is why they invented suicide watches. [Craigslist]
• Britney Spears tops the Yahoo! Buzz Index as the most searched for term on the internet. Never underestimate the public interest in acne and trailer trash. [Reuters]

The clock is nearing noon, meaning that there's just 12 hours left for the MTA and the Transport Workers Union to come to an agreement and prevent a big nasty strike that would shut down most of the city's public transportation and effectively fuck up your workday commute. Local businesses are prepared, however — according to reports, "One advertising agency provided its workers with vouchers to buy new sneakers."

As the deadline for MTA strike nears and New Yorkers are faced the with the possibility of riding the icky bus or God knows what else, rest assured that your employers are taking extra steps to ensure that you won't be able to justify a single excuse for taking the day off. From the Viacom offices:

Click to enlarge.

We hate those MTA vigilante signs all over the subways (at right). Seriously, we "see something" all the fucking time, but it's not like we're going to go hunt down some listless MTA employees just to tell them that Al Qaeda planted an unattended package of rotting KFC under the benches.

This news alert is just in from 7Online, WABC's website:

Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of Rosa Parks's famous civil disobedience, and, in an a Elijah-like tribute, the MTA joined with transit systems across the country to ask passengers to leave the seat immediately behind the driver empty in Parks's honor. The Times reports today that the vast majority of MTA riders, even those on packed rush-hour buses, were happy to comply.

September, reports the Sun today, saw the highest daily MTA ridership of any month since June 1971. There are several general trends responsible for this — job growth in the city, the subway system's ever-increasing cleanliness and safety since the 70s — but there was also, interestingly, a sort of perfect storm in September that made it uniquely capable of setting this 7.5-million-per-day record:

The Daily News today nudges all New Yorkers' favorite — and deserved — bogeyman, the MTA, by determining the ten worst stations in the city's subway system. There's "peeling paint, crumbling concrete, leaks and grime" in the ten, the paper says. The particularly bad news is that their locations demonstrate just the sort of inequality you'd expect: Five are in the Bronx, one is in Bensonhurst, and the only two in Manhattan are on the J/M/Z.

We were first drawn in by the Newsday headline — "Williamsburg Residents Decry Subway Track Work" — which we found intriguing because we had difficulty imagining Williamsburg residents mustering the energy to abandon their habitual ennui and decry anything, least of all track work.

On Tuesday, we noted the MTA's dangerously ugly housekeeping at the 155th Street stop — and, as of today, it seems the problem's been fixed.

We love the adorably named "lushworkers," who work hard to keep NYC EDGY by preying on sleeping straphangers. The impish thieves (or so we imagine them to be, what, with that cute monikor of theirs) ruin commuter naptime by cutting their victims' pants and stealing wallets, cell phones, and whatever else one might have shoved in there. How do they get away with it?

So it's an eyesore, and perhaps wildly unsafe. But that's what one gets for being at 155th Street, where the MTA still exists in that whole "separate but (inherently) inequal" phase.

You hear the train in the tunnel. And you really don't want to miss it. So you run up to the gate, quickly swipe your Metrocard, and rush through, only get an unyielding turnstile arm square in the stomach. It's your own fault, you realize; you swiped too quickly. So you do it again. And again. The train arrives, the doors open, and you're still on the wrong side of the gate, swiping and swiping and swiping. No luck, still. "Stand clear of the closing doors." More swiping. The thwack of the train doors closing. More swiping. The eerie, first-three-notes-of-"Somewhere" sound as the brakes release and the train accelerates. More swiping. The train is gone. And finally your Metrocard registers.

• The world's mysteries explained: Wintour spawn Bee Schaffer was toting a 46-lb. copy of The Iliad around Fashion Week because Columbia University MADE HER. Fashion and education are an ugly combination, indeed. [The Daily]
• Yankee Alex Rodriguez treats his mistresses right, takes wife to swingers parties. [Deadspin]
• We believe that President Bush is hitting the bottle. We don't believe it was because of the devastation in New Orleans. He didn't seem bothered enough by that whole mess to fall off the wagon. [National Enquirer]
• The MTA orders a cease-and-desist for the maker of those beloved iPod subway maps. [ISM]
• Never pay retail for your TimesSelect. [John Tabin]
• Pam Anderson deprives Veuve Clicquot drinkers of their God-given right to live penguin entertainment. [Mr. Mickey]