Today's WWD goes deep on the unexamined story of lack of women on media softball teams. Seriously. (Well, you try putting out a column on July 5! Go on! No seriously, please do, because we'll write about anything today.) Apparently the "New York Media Softball League," in its official capacity as People With Too Much Time On Their Hands And Not Enough Concern About Their Publications, has instituted a rule that insists that at least one woman be on the team for every five men. Vanity Fair and the New Yorker have not joined, so will not be subject to trying to find more women. "No knock on those guys, but they don't want to play on the same level, apparently," scoffs the editor of High Times. In fact, at our most recent game, we noticed an extreme, near-total lack of women on the New York Observer's softball team. (Makes sense: Of their six or so most recent editorial hires, only one was a woman.) Of course, if all women bat like our Doree or like Gawker Intern Kaila, we wouldn't want to hire them either. How could they possibly be any good at their jobs if they can't rock the diamond?

New York Observer owner Jared Kushner and his dad, convicted felon Charles, sell off nearly $2 billion in New Jersey real estate in order to focus on "fewer properties but larger transactions" in New York City. To the rest of New York's real estate families, though, they'll always be bridge and tunnel. [Star-Ledger]

Seriously, who cares if Taylor Antrim's new prep school novel with a Smiths song title is good? Just look at him. The Observer's Sara Vilkomerson certainly is looking, and boy does she like what she sees.

On Thursday, June 21, 2007, the strapping young lads and lasses of Gawker Media took the field at Central Park's Great Lawn and engaged in fearsome competition with the salmon-hued staffers of the New York Observer. Some of the finest softball in the history of the game was played there on Field 6.

Manscaping: According to Simon Doonan, it's an epidemic amongst our city's movers and shakers. The depilatory procedure, "known among practitioners as 'back, sack and crack,' ...concerns male hetero hair removal. Yes, below the waist. Eeeeeuw!" Our feelings exactly, compounded with fear: Do we really have to go out and get our short-and-curlies tweezed away? Because, seriously, you could make wigs for every resident of Staten Island and have plenty left over for blankets and handkerchiefs. To get to the bottom (haha, get it?) of this whole sordid business, we checked in with the ladies of Jezebel.

Donations to Heritage of Pride, the horribly-named non-profit that produces New York's annual gay pride parade, have dropped off so significantly that the organization is now in the red after years of flushness. Why? Because rich and white people just don't care about their stupid parade. According to the Observer: "'Some people,' said Dennis Spafford, a spokesman for Heritage of Pride, 'don't care anymore.'" OMG no!

Sure, it would be easy to read the Observer's profile of Fiat heir Lapo Elkann and get all ladyishly offended. Lapo does seem have that noblesse oblige thing going on, especially when it comes to his dealings with the fairer sex! Seriously, what kind of guy sits down to an interview, checks out the waitress, and says, "Usually this place has ugly waitresses, but this one is a very delicate and elegant one, I must say"? But maybe that's just Lapo being... refreshingly honest! Uh oh... what is this feeling? Do I actually have a crush on a Euro-jerk with an anchor necklace who characterizes his conquests as like "flowers in a vase—they need to be changed every couple days"? Dad, why were you not around more when I was little?

Current score of the ongoing Radar vs. New York Observer softball game: 7-2, Observer kicking butt. Also the Observer's media reporter Michael Calderone just took a ball to the eye. (Just one? Ha! Kidding! Sorry!) UPDATE: Radar sources report a "bench-clearing brawl" gave Calderone the black eye. Whatevs! We report, you decide.

Author and former Observer blogger Philip Weiss has taken to the pages of The American Conservative to detail how he felt he was forced out by Observer owner Jared Kushner and his former Harvard friend, Observer editor Peter Kaplan, for writing incorrectly about Israel. (Also, we find out that Weiss did the blog for free! Uh, what?) Weiss claims that as he got increasingly strident about his feelings about Israel, Kushner and Kaplan's quiet discomfort with his blog grew, and it didn't help that the paper was being totally besieged by complaints. Kushner comes from an Orthodox Jewish family, and his family has also long donated to Jewish and pro-Israel causes. And from Weiss's account, it sounds like this is Kaplan's lone Achilles heel that he might have for any Kushner editorial thoughts. Definitely Weiss made Kushner uncomfortable, if not unhappy.

Pity the poor souls still laboring under the delusion that book-writing can potentially be a lucrative, fulfilling career. Or, like, don't! Today, we learn of some of the pitfalls and dashed expectations that, yes, even published authors find themselves coming up against. Such as: even a six-figure advance isn't really enough to live on for a year once your agent's 15% comission has been subtracted and you've had to pay for your own permissions. Also, did you know that writing alone in your room all day can be depressing?

You know, we were all set to write off the A-Rod affair as a harmless bit of ballplayer adultery until we realized—thanks to illustrator Robert Grossman in today's Observer—that the dude is black. A black guy nailing our busty blond strippers? Unthinkable! To arms, people.

"Your next few weeks of The New York Observer," a subscriber was recently informed by letter, "will be your last, unless you respond to this, our final renewal notice. Just think, after a few short weeks, no more writers, like, Rex Reed, Joe Canason and Andrew Sarris, ... no more breaking news stories exposing New York's power brokers, political shakers, business moguls and society mavericks...no more of New York's pre-eminent guide to arts and culture...no more of The New York Observer." No more Joe Canason! How could we, like, deal with that? Let alone the idea that we might miss the insights of, like, Tom Skokka or Sara Vilokome— Vilcommer— Vilkkker— eh, you know, the saucy chick who writes about the movies! Fortunately, publisher Jared Kushner has offered to extend the subscription to the ever-thinning paper a generous four weeks. Equally fortunately, his name is spelled correctly.

• New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson is suing the driver that ran her down and his employers too. [P6]
  

So why is socialgay and clothing publicist Kristian Laliberte moving apartments, as he mentioned in yesterday's bulletin? Turns out, he wuz robbed! That's what he gets for living at 96th and 2nd. "Along with a Patek Philippe watch that had belonged to his grandfather, Mr. Laliberte's laptop also disappeared. 'I'm writing a book, and my book was on it!'" he told the Observer. If only Kristian had backed up his work! Who knows what kind of literary masterpiece has been lost to posterity? Anyway now his parents will buy him a new apartment.

"Women in big fancy hats and low cut blouses exposing large, low hanging breasts abounded in every direction" at the Kentucky Derby, which Spencer Morgan attended in order to bring us news of the fauxlebrities who partied there on Saturday, bless his heart. One of those fancy-hatted ladies was Star Jones, who was "clad in a black mini-skirt" and "was getting freaky with her husband Al Reynolds, as Adam "DJ AM" Goldberg burned up the turntables."

A tipster reports seeing blond power-couple Ivanka Trump and her current boytoy, New York Observer owner and fellow real-estate scion Jared Kushner, at Bowlmor Lanes last night. (Bowling! Together they're learning about how the poor live!) Maybe they were celebrating the fact that the Observer got out on time and actually got printed this week. Or maybe they bought a building or two! "Every now and then they sneaked a kiss," our spy reports. "They seemed to have been enjoying themselves until we made a big deal of them."

As of tomorrow, the Observer will have a new friendly face around the office (not Ivanka Trump, either, though some say that she's now "exclusive" with owner Jared Kushner). No, the new hire is the relatively unknown Jesse Wegman, who's had one of those overachieving yet peripatetic careers (NPR reporter, creative writing degree, NYU law degree) that should serve him well in his new role. (The old managing editor, Tom McGeveran, who may have held every job at the paper by now, will oversee the website full-time.) But Wegman may have been prepping to be an M.E. for awhile now. He was thisclose to being hired by David Blum at the Village Voice a few months ago, but the hire was "vetoed by New Times execs," according to one. Jared, however, did not seem to find a problem with the young looker. —Doree

• LA Times sportswriter Mike Penner to become LAT lady sportswriter Christine Daniels. Expect plenty of stupid headlines like the one above. [LAT]
  

Later that night, at the Vanity Fair party held at Christopher Hitchens' house, The Transom pried loose a few wedding details from Mr. Sullivan's fianc , Eric, an actor (last name withheld at Mr. Sullivan's request): It's going to be a small affair, mostly family, to take place in Provincetown, Mass.

A Midtown-based media operative reports on a frightening state of affairs: It's Wednesday, and the New York Observer is nowhere to be found! Could this have anything to do with Monday's website relaunch? Is Jared Kushner trying to tell us something? In any case, our tipster says that the newsstand on 43rd and 7th said the paper would come "maybe tomorrow," though the newsstand in the Conde Nast Building was confident it would arrive "later this afternoon." (In Penn Station, we can personally report, this week's paper is totally MIA, and the paper-selling ladies did not give a damn.) As our tipster says, "They all said it just didn't come." Now that would be a 21st century newspaper!