Leave it to the Post to find an angle on Saudi King Fahd's death that, in one swoop, hits at least three of that paper's favorite points: Zionism, sex, and ethnic slurs. To wit:
• What does the Murdoch family feud mean for 11 Spring Street? No one knows yet. [Curbed]
• Sudoku vs. Sodoku: One is a game transmitted by the Post, one is a disease transmitted by rats. We fail to see the distinction. [Hard, Cutting]
• Trickle-down Hottie contests. Nominate NYC politicos over at the Observer's Politicker. [The Politicker]
• Thank God we're not the only ones who confuse LES blogger/stalker Lindsay Robertson and Long Island actress /trainwreck Lindsay Lohan. [Lindsayism.com]
• Everybody loves a byline. [Overheard in New York]
• A milestone in the struggle for equality: TV networks cover a missing black and Hispanic woman the same way they usually cover missing white women. Someplace, Dr. King is smiling. [USAT]
• Surprised to learn in the Post a few days ago that Osama planned to poison our cocaine? Yeah, so was the DEA. [NYDN]
• Morgan Spurlock is coming to Comedy Central, continuing his effort to become more ubiquitous than McDonald's but not nearly as delicious. [Mediaweek]
• Interestingly, in-flight mags are not the best place for subversive political satire. Who knew? [Folio:]
• At new Bloomberg LP headquarters, Charlie Rose guests are insufficiently from the hoi-polloi reporters. The horror. [WWD]
• Bob Woodward's The Secret Man is, maybe, a very poorly selling best-seller. [Media Mob]
Keith "The Body" Kelly reports today that American Media Inc.'s celebrity-eating Canadian of Doom, editorial director and on-again, off-again Gawker mascot Bonnie Fuller might have to tighten her purse strings and downgrade her whip to a more frugal, pleather blend. Thus far, under her current contract, she's been sitting pretty:
Today's Post has a disturbing piece on the rise in lifestyle consultants who, for choice fee, will help you revamp, reorganize, and restyle your life into something resembling "cool." The idea, of course, being that this will then trick your acquaintances into believe that you actually are cool. In reality, however, you've just paid some control-freak shopaholic several thousands of dollars to perform your consumerist duties for you:
• Former Timesman Dean Baquet continues to be newly crowned LAT editor, as Tom Scocca goes west to confirm. [NYO]
• And Michael Kinsley did "a pretty horrible job" at LAT, says Nikki Finke. Come on, Nikki, what do you really think? [L.A. Weekly]
• RIP, Post's Hamptons Dairy, more or less. [Media Mob]
• Syd Schanberg teaches the right way to read the paper and watch TV. We can't believe we've been so woefully undertrained all these years. [VV]
• More virgins in Manhattan: Richard Branson considers free NYC daily. [Forbes]
Holy ghost of Alan Freed! There's payola in them thar radio stations.
Nadine Haobsh, aka the writer behind blog Jolie in NYC — who, after much speculation, was outed as a beauty editor from Ladies Home Journal — dropped us a line yesterday. As we mentioned before, we had simply emailed Haobsh months ago asking where she worked and, when she said LHJ, we shrugged (plus, she said she couldn't get us any Creme de la Mer). She writes:
This is bad:
Plastered across the top of the Post's front page:
We may have different feelings about asscracks and thonglines than most people, but we admit we're fairly pleased by news in the Post that low-rise jeans are finally, well, rising.
For a few seconds, we thought this top headline had something to do with Al and a pit bull, and some kind of an attack on Bill O'Reilly.
The New York Post is like Karl Rove: As much as you hate all it represents, you're also periodically forced to stop and admire its sheer, unapologetic, evil brilliance. This is one of those times.
From one of the twentieth century's great pop singers comes one of the finest autobiographies of our time. Sweat, Freak is Michael Jackson's moving account of a loving, civilized family, of adolescent awakenings, flight from Bolshevik terror, education in England, and emigre life in Paris and Berlin. Sweat, Freak vividly evokes a vanished past in the inimitable voice of Jackson at his best.
It is truly a sad day for journalism when boring, 30 year-old political shit makes the front page of the New York Post, forcing more newsworthy stories into the back pages. Take the still-developing case of the Long Island tattoo artist "accused of chaining and beating his wife as two leopards crouched nearby" — turns out he had a whole "zoological horror show" in his $1 million home:
Today's Rejected Post Headline:
Our apologies to Post columnist Andrea Peyser: We've neglected you, our favorite Gorgon above all others, for far too long. And, as when a child is deprived of attention, Peyser has now taken to flailing attempts at making sure we remember that she's crusading against injustice — even if it's a stretch. Today's column is a hard-hitting examination of Charles Spencer, the brother of late Princess Diana, and his new furniture line:
