Time Inc:
RIP 600

Gannett:
RIP 3,000

Star-Ledger:
RIP 140

Christian Science Monitor:
Goes paperless
(I can just see the tombstone now.)


At least Twitter is still going strong, right? ... RIGHT? Oh, good GOD.

All this stress. I needs me a Vivanno^TM Nourishing Orange Mango Banana Blend. Bananas cure everything.

I've been through media layoffs before, from a company that started with A and ended in L and maybe had an O in the middle, but I'm not really sure. It was surreal to sit in the multipurpose auditorium where Santa would come to visit employees' children sprung briefly from the company daycare center across the street... where we created care packages for home-bound senior citizens on volunteer days... where we got discounted flu shots, donated blood, and ate brownie triangles on launch days ... and where we were, on a sunny October morn one year ago, receiving our severance packages in thick, navy blue folders that were not in any way pink, nor slip-like.

Do I miss my happy little company fambly? Yes, yes I do. Sure, I can joke about it NOW... but many, many more media cumps are following suit.

I predict an explosion in Blogspot accounts any second now. And three, two, one...

So of course on every Web site, blog and/or magazine's list of "ingenious" money-saving tips is to ditch the $4-a-day Starbucks habit. I have to ask: What kind of person spends 80 bucks a month on coffee without realizing they spend 80 bucks a month on coffee? (Let's see: Coffee, new boots or interest-bearing savings account? COFFEE, obvs.)

On Newsweek.com today:
A Venti-Sized Recession? The more Starbucks a country has, the bigger its financial problems.

Naturally, I'm suspicious that this can be tied in a neatly wrapped package with a shiny silver bow, but here we go: "The Seattle-based coffee chain followed new housing developments into the suburbs and exurbs, where its outlets became pitstops for real-estate brokers and their clients. It also carpet-bombed the business districts of large cities, especially the financial centers, with nearly 200 in Manhattan alone. Starbucks's frothy treats provided the fuel for the boom, the caffeine that enabled deal jockeys to stay up all hours putting together offering papers for CDOs, and helped mortgage brokers work overtime processing dubious loan documents."

Still awake? Yeah, me neither.

Now, there's nothing I like more than coffee. Possibly a Nintendo Wii, if I had one. But tying the Starbucks excessplosion into the housing crisis? Ehh... I rent. And I will forever, until someone can figure out a way for me to save tens of thousands of dollars for a down payment without reducing my monthly iTunes expenditures.

What we really need is some way to, oh, CAFFEINATE the economy. We're not gonna pull ourselves outta this mortgage/Starbucks/McMansion ditch with just one Vivanno^TM Nourishing Orange Mango Banana with Matcha Blend.

Mark Malkoff knows what to do, and he started it back when this economic meltdown was still solid chocolate, long before it was shaved into curls and drizzled on the foamy surface of a 200-degree beverage.

Indeed, he made a purchase at all 171 Starbucks locations in Manhattan... in one day.

• Yes!
We!
Carve!
(.com) [by way of Daily Kos] shows off Obampkins! ...Barack-o-lanterns?


• New York Times piece on Cindy McCain makes her out to be a sad, lonely lady who's been shunned as the floozy John left his first wife for. It starts off with this telling anecdote:

"Cindy McCain was new to Washington and not yet 30 when she arrived at a luncheon for Congressional spouses to discover a problem with her name tag. It read “Carol McCain.” That was the well-liked wife John McCain had left to marry Cindy, to the disapproval of many in Washington. Fearing that the slight was intentional, she slinked to a half-empty table that never filled. “No one wanted to sit at her table,“ said Barbara Ross, , a friend who was not surprised when Mrs. McCain announced a few months later that she was moving back to Arizona. “It was like high school.” And McCain is POed -- Fox News fires back.


• New endorsements for Obama - Colin Powell, Chicago Tribune (who has NEVER endorsed a Democratic candidate), Chicago Sun-Times


• Did youse guys hear about this when it happened, ‘cause I sure didn’t: Richard Fuld, CEO of Lehman Bros., got punched in the face at the company gym after it was announced they were goin’ down: "He was on a treadmill with a heart monitor on. Someone was in the corner, pumping iron and he walked over and he knocked him out cold.”


• Target: Women goes after the Disney Princesses. Finally! Someone needs to put those pretty little things in their place. I think Cindy McCain has been pursuing a career as a Disney princess, incidentally. P.S., Did you know that Al Gore helped start Current TV? I read it in his book "The Assault on Reason." Seriously, he did. This isn't like how he helped start the Internet.




• David Brooks: Sarah Palin "Represents A Fatal Cancer To The Republican Party" - Huffington Post. Wow. Harsh.


• McCain “Loves Being the Underdog" - CNN.com. Well, yeah, who DOESN'T love being the underdog? I love being an underdog almost as much as I love parking tickets, the smell of moldy bread and having to walk my dog at 2 a.m.

This moment on 'SNL' went WAY too quickly. Personally, I'd been hoping for a Jennifer-screams-and-passes-out moment like in 'Back to the Future Part II' when the teenage Jennifer encounters her 47-year-old alky self in 2015.

One of my heroes, Joan Didion, has a piece up on Salon this a.m.: "Belief" in the surge translates to "success" in the surge; does Palin have a better life story than Biden; what was up with the "lipstick on a pig" bid-nez?

Time got wasted in the familiar ways. The presence of Barack Obama in the electoral process allowed us to talk as if "the race issue" had reached a happy ending. We did not need to talk about how the question of race has been and continues to be used to exacerbate the real issue in American life, which is class, or absence of equal opportunity. Instead we could talk about what Barack Obama meant by "lipstick on a pig," and whether it was appropriate for him to go off on vacation "to some sort of foreign, exotic place." The "foreign, exotic place" in question was of course Hawaii.

Anyone who complains that Barack gets to go to Hawaii regularly is just jealous. Trust me.

I am drinking Yoo Hoo for the first time since I was about 12. My workplace always has various sodas in the fridge, but the addition of Yoo Hoo was too powerful to resist.

It is not as good as it was when I was 12.

Other things that were way better when I was a kid:

• Fun Dip


• Boy bands


• Hot Dogs


• Chewing on the rubbery feet of Barbie dolls


• The fact that members of The Baby-Sitters Club spent 10 years in 8th grade


• Dot-matrix printers

Sweet deity in a bicycle basket! It's not like I regularly turn to Dear Abby for advice on my oh-so-post-modern existence (can't even REMEMBER the last time she discussed how hard it is to hold up a 1200-page Ayn Rand on a crowded Metro) but I couldn't believe the idiocy she's spewing today.

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend and I have been living together for a year. We split all the bills -- rent, utilities, etc. -- in half.

A few nights ago I asked him how he felt about paying for half my birth control pills, which amounts to $40 a month. Because neither of us is ready for children, I think we should share the expense.

Am I out of line to ask my boyfriend to split the cost with me? This has become a hot topic at work. The guys don't agree with me, and surprisingly, most of the women don't, either. What is your take on this? -- ALL IN LOVE IS FAIR

Abby responds that it's HER expense, not theirs: "As I see it, there are two kinds of expenses when people share a dwelling: joint expenses and those that are personal. Prescription drugs usually fall into the latter category." So is it only her "personal" expense when she starts spewing out bebehs that need dydies, milks and college educations because he's too cheap to pony up for a couple of Trojans?

Abby also suggests that if a man needs Viagra, it's his expense and not the woman's. Now, I don't necessarily agree with that either, except that it's been more than obvious for a very long time that women still make less than men for doing the very same job. But why is Viagra always the obvious counterpart for birth control pills? I would argue that Viagra is (well, somewhat) necessary, but not compared with a pill or other method that would prevent the average woman from becoming pregnant 10-15 times in her life.

Psst:

Reproduction is prohibited, but not impossible.



Another wonderful moment from this creepily narrated but brilliant video:

"There are three types of virgins:
A. Virgins by choice
B. Virgins by way of poor social skills
C. People who should be in Group B, but claim otherwise for reasons of prestige"

Anyhoo, watch it NAO!

In case you haven't already seen this, oh, I dunno, EVERYWHERE?

It was elbow-to-elbow after hours last night at Nanette Lepore in Chevy Chase, where they held a party for the opening of the new boutique. Yes, I was there! And newsflash, so was Nanette herself, glowing amid the pink recessed lighting of the shop. (Everyone looked so rosy.)

Champagne, teeny noshes, three-piece band popping out Euro jazz, but unfortch, most of the clothes were moved away to make room for party space. Sad! However, I ogled the off-the-rack goodies around the edges, including a single soft-tastic purple coat, size 0 and $525. Le sigh. (Avail in blue at Bloomie's. And Stella McCartney also has a great fuzzy purple coat this season.)

Goodie bag: Nanette Lepore perfume, logo umbrella and a copy of Capitol File. I gave the mag to my boyfriend. He reads it for the pictures.

K Street Kate (who I haven't met, btw) has piccies.

Store:
5449 Wisconsin Ave.
Chevy Chase, MD (just across the DC line opposite from Mazza Gallerie)

Here's my um-brella-ella-ella-ella:

Newsflash: It seems that Barack Hussein Obama has gay parents! Oh em gee.



Courtesy of failblog.org

1. It's possible to be both full and hungry at the same time.

2. It's perfectly acceptable to eat a hot dog at 10 a.m. when you've already been up for half a day.

3. Likewise, it's OK to eat half a pound of pasta and go to sleep at 9 p.m.

4. Sometimes, despite all that hot dog and pasting eating, Spandex is actually a good choice of attire.

5. If someone tells you you're "looking strong" ... you're not.*


* A fact I'd long suspected, but no one's actually told me that lately. Rah! I must be getting better.

Escape
Carolyn Jessop, 2007

During this spring's raid on the ranch, former polygamist wife Carolyn Jessop made the rounds of news shows, talking about a life of squabbling with sister-wives, constant pregnancy and arbitrary rules. I decided to check out her book because I'm incredibly nosy.

Even though she got out (I mean, consider the title if nothing else), I found myself incredibly disturbed and depressed by this book. Everything in their lives was such a mind-trick. Jessop believed it all because it's what she grew up with, but life got more and more extreme on the compound until schools were closed and women were on virtual lockdown with expired car registrations and empty gas tanks.

Jessop finally escaped the Yearning for Zion with all eight of her children, then won legal custody of them in the first court battle of its kind. The brainwashing runs deep, though -- her oldest daughter was never comfortable with life "on the outside" and returned to live on the compound on her 18th birthday.

Purchase on Amazon here.

So, I do triathlons. This is my second year. I'm slow, but I'm mighty. However, the picture in this post is NOT of me. I do not look good or happy while doing a race, no matter how excited I actually might be on the inside.

But this weekend's race presented way more challenges than swimming 1K, biking 40K and running 10K.

Yes, kiddies, despite the fact that the Nation's Triathlon was in the city where I've lived for 10 years, I got lost on the way there -- got lost to the point that I had to go into Virginia and back again to get on the right track. I got literally the LAST parking space in the athletes' lot by staring someone down.

I know, my Pontiac Vibe is just that threatening.

Then I got to carry my stuff like a mile and a half around the Tidal Basin. Good God, where is a sherpa when you need one?! I was so late that I heard them doing the National Anthem when I was still quite a bit off, getting sweaty from the intense humidity that had already started at 7 a.m.

I knew there was a very, very good chance they wouldn't let me into the race since I was so late.

When I arrived, the main athlete entrance was closed. I knew it had closed at 6:45 a.m., so I knew I'd have to beg. Officials assured me there was another entrance that was still letting people in ... but I couldn't find it.

So I literally hopped the fence to get into the race area. (Threw my huge pile of gear/crap over first.) Fortunately, bike racking had been the day before. Set up my area as fast as I could -- helped that for some weird reason, I had an ENTIRE RACK to myself so I completely spread out.

Luckily, I was in a later swim wave -- we didn't go out until around 7:50. Got in the water, silver caps not pink this time, FINALLY (women 25-29 ALWAYS seem to get stuck with white or pink, ugh).

So I was legally in the race, despite having to basically SNEAK in in the first place. But the weirdness was not over.

The bike stickers were not sticky enough and there were stickers on the ground EVERYWHERE. Before I'd seen one, all I knew was that I ran over something big and white with my bike and had to stop because the intense hissing noise made me think I had a flat.

Me: [Censored]

I'd never had a flat on a race before. So I ripped open my repair kit, got out ALL my equipment, flipped the bike upside down ... and the front tire was still firm. And the back tire was, too. WTF? Then I realized someone's bike sticker was lodged between my brake and my tire, which was what was making the hissing noise! I was so sure is was a flat that I'd gotten all my gear out ASAP to do it quick. Oh well, at least it wasn't a flat. I repacked my gear and got going.

Around the Maryland state line, we came on a huge dead German Shepherd dog that clearly had been there for QUITE awhile. I was bothered by that because that was someone's pet ... but I was also annoyed that race officials had put so little effort into sweeping the course, for, oh, I don't know, 80-pound dead dogs lying in the road for the past week?

About five minutes after that, I RAN OVER A SQUIRREL WITH MY BIKE.

I repeat: I RAN OVER A SQUIRREL WITH MY BIKE.

The day just kept getting weirder and weirder. The little scamp ran out in between my wheels -- there was no was to avoid him on such short notice. Bump-ba-bump.

Me: NO! [beeep]! OH GOD!

But I looked over my shoulder and he was running away without a limp so I guess I just got his tail.

The guy behind me complimented me on not crashing.

Final, though less surreal moment, was between the bike and the run, asking a girl for a squirt of her sunscreen. She gave me, literally, an ice cream scoop size of sunscreen and then I ended up dropping most of it INTO my sneaker, though I put it on anyway, because seriously, that's just how the day went.

Fabulousosity from Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in the 'SNL' season premiere.

Ani DiFranco wrote a poem shortly after 9/11 that she later set to music and published on her album "So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter."

Fan-produced vid here:



and once upon a time
we were moonshine
rushing down the throat of a giraffe
yes, rushing down the long hallway
despite what the p.a. announcement says
yes, rushing down the long stairs
with the whiskey of eternity
fermented and distilled
to eighteen minutes
burning down our throats
down the hall
down the stairs
in a building so tall
that it will always be there

More lyrics here.

Slate's got an interesting article up about measuring the effects of the under-30 vote:

...On Election Day 2004, kids turned out in record numbers: About 4.6 million ! more people under the age of 29 voted in 2004 than in 2000. Yet 18- to 29-year-olds accounted for only 17 percent of voters—roughly the same as in 2000—because the geezer vote also grew. As a result, youth mobilization was declared a myth, perhaps unjustifiably. "We rocked the vote all right," Hunter S. Thompson said at the time. "Those little bastards betrayed us again."

Read the rest...

"The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade"
Ann Fessler, 2006

This compilation of personal histories brings forward birth mothers of the 1950s and 1960s -- in other words, victims of the "unwed mother" homes of the time. This isn't something you'd want to stretch out by the pool to read. Each story is achingly sad; most women didn't want to give their babies up but were forced to by an army of doctors, nurses, social workers and angry parents. For many, the pain of that loss has never gone away.

Fessler herself was adopted. When the book opens, she's known her birth mother's name and location for years but has been afraid to go, instead opting to interview dozens of other birthmothers. Finally, near the end of her project, she seeks out her own birthmother, who got pregnant by one boy and engaged to another. Her fiancé offered to help raise the baby, but she felt it wouldn't be fair to him. After hearing so many legacies of loss, Fessler must have seen this as a stinging rejection by her birthmother.

I do wish Fessler have done more research and presented more of a factual history in addition to these women's personal stories. However, she is a photographer first and foremost, and I think it shows in the construction of the book. That's all right. This book has a place, especially because decades later and in a society where this sort of thing would never happen anymore, people still don't talk much about that time, the time before.

Purchase on Amazon here.

Sarah Haskins of current.tv never fails to amuse.

The District Sample Sale opens its doors on Tuesday, Sept. 9 and I am rarin' to go! General admission tix are $40; VIP tix get you in an hour earlier, at $250. I'm getting in for free thanks to my jobby-job.

In case you've never been to a sample sale, a bunch of local boutiques offer up their unsold, end-of-season merch for deeply discounted prices. In the past, sample sales used to be limited to actual "samples" -- the size 0s and 2s that usually end up on the mannquins -- but these days things are fortunately a bit more democratic.

DC Shops participating in 2008:
Caramel
Daisy Too
Green & Blue
Ginger
Harriet Kassman
Hysteria
Lettie Gooch
The Little Shoebox
Periwinkle
Proper Topper
Sangaree
Simply Soles
Sugar
Sherman Pickey
Terra
Urban Chic
We One You Too
Wink

Want tix to this twice-a-year event? (Uh, YEAH, who wouldn't?)

Visit www.districtsamplesale.com.
General admission: $40
VIP admission: $250 (early entrance + sweet goodie bag)