One of the countless unsightly blemishes upon the human condition’s soiled visage is that people tend to only get outraged about injustice when it directly affects them.

Witness the American media’s reaction last week after the Associated Press revealed on Monday that the US Justice Department had been secretly collecting the news agency’s phone records for a two-month period in 2012.

Suddenly, the same mainstream press that for a half-decade had served as Barack Obama’s hagiographers, water carriers, bootlickers, lawn jockeys, shoeshine boys, livery drivers, toadies, stooges, and secret election committee…the same ones who’d dismissed all criticism of their big-eared saint as smelly hillbilly racism…the same ones who’d previously scoffed at the New Black Panthers case, Fast and Furious, and Benghazi as Republican-manufactured piffle…suddenly, it seemed as if Obama had flashed his fangs and bit them on the buttocks, leading them to act like teenage girls whose lover had cheated on them.

The sense of betrayal was profound. Those who seemed to have forgotten about Big Brother and civil liberties and constitutional overreach ever since George W. Bush staggered back home to Texas were smacked back into reality by the cold hand of governmental power.

All at once, it seemed to dawn on America’s journos that despite the Obama Administration’s long track record of aggressively prosecuting people who leaked government secrets to the press, it did not take kindly to whistleblowers—in other words, rather than blowing the whistleblowers, it was anally raping them.

On Monday, AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt fired off a stern and outraged letter to Attorney General Eric Holder:

There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters….That the Department undertook this unprecedented step without providing any notice to the AP, and without taking any steps to narrow the scope of its subpoenas to matters actually relevant to an ongoing investigation, is particularly troubling….We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.

The word “troubling” also appeared in statements by representatives for the ACLU and The American Society of News Editors. James Goodale, legal counsel to The New York Times during the Pentagon Papers imbroglio, wrote that Obama was worse than Richard Nixon when it came to honoring press freedom.

On Tuesday the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press—representing over 50 major newsgathering agencies—sent their own letter to Holder:

The nation’s news media were stunned to learn yesterday of the Department of Justice’s broad subpoena of telephone records belonging to The Associated Press. In the thirty years since the Department issued guidelines governing its subpoena practice as it relates to phone records from journalists, none of us can remember an instance where such an overreaching dragnet for newsgathering materials was deployed by the Department, particularly without notice to the affected reporters or an opportunity to seek judicial review.

The New York Times wrote that Obama’s administration “has failed to offer a credible justification” for what the paper called “Spying on The Associated Press.” The New Yorker referred to the Justice Department’s “cowardly move.” USA Today called it “another excessive use of government power by the Obama administration.” The Washington Post  opined that the scandal “challenged Obama’s credibility as a champion of civil liberties.”

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Politico wrote that “The town is turning on President Obama — and this is very bad news for this White House.” A Boston Herald headline stated that “Even Liberals Are Leaping Off the Bandwagon.”

On cable television, even such stalwart Obama peen-fluffers as Chris “Tingles” Matthews, Jon “Leibowitz” Stewart, and Rachel “Butch” Maddow are expressing disgust that their idol has been revealed to have wings of wax and feet of clay. On Twitter, current radio host and former California Democratic Party Chairman Bill Press called for Attorney General Eric Holder and his improbably sleazy mustache to be fired.

Even members of the Democratic Party have aired skepticism about the AP scandal. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said on Monday night that he is “very concerned” and “very troubled by these allegations.” Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren of California suggested on Wednesday that the Justice Department’s actions “have, in fact, impaired the First Amendment.” After a fresh change of adult diapers, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called the affair “inexcusable,” adding that “there’s no way to justify this.”

One of the few holdouts in the rapid and overwhelming anti-Obama media backlash was, but of course, Media Matters, those silicon-chip-implanted barking marionettes of global totalitarianism funded by the currency-manipulating, culture-destroying, Holocaust-enabling billionaire George Soros. The site, a well-known tool of the Justice Department, even had the brontosaurus-sized balls to issue a list of talking points aimed to deflect media criticism of the AP scandal.

Glenn Greenwald, who is staking out a reputation as one of the political journalists you could count on one hand who seems to care more about facts and ethics than partisanship, observed in The Guardian that “it is remarkable how media reactions to civil liberties assaults are shaped almost entirely by who the victims are.”

Whether the backlash is merely temporary or will snowball until it turns into Obama’s Watergate remains to be seen. Cognitive dissonance is a helluva drug, and it would take superhuman levels of introspection and honesty for the press to admit they’ve been hoodwinked for the past five years. But whatever happens, the past week has proved to be a refreshing respite from the endless tongue bath they’ve been giving America’s First Mulatto President.

SPECIAL EDITION: A BAD WEEK FOR OBAMA

(Disclaimer: Please disregard all of the following, because the mainstream media and America’s social-sciences community have already established beyond all doubt that anyone who criticizes, or even dares to think bad thoughts about, America’s 44th president is motivated solely by blind feral bigotry, which is a defect of character—and, verily, the soul—that is exclusive to white males.)

As far as weeks go, last week was really weak for Barack Obama. Or, as Elmer Fudd might say, it was a weally weak week for that wascally wabbit. We feel that we can say with impunity that Obama is beginning to show chinks in his armor, because the plain fact is that he is not Chinese.

Not only was Obama’s administration rocked by the Benghazi hearings and revelations that the IRS during his reign has targeted Tea Party and “patriot” groups for extra scrutiny, it has become increasingly evident even to Obama’s Borg-like defenders that he may care more about appeasing his wealthy benefactors and toasting his celebrity friends than he does about uplifting the vanishing middle class and the squirming proletarian masses.

Although esteemed pundits ranging from semi-retarded choco-walrus Al Sharpton to nasally inflected Floridian yenta Debbie Wasserman Schultz dismissed the ongoing Benghazi scandal as mere Republican political grandstanding—as if politics ever consisted of anything more than politicians playing politics against other politicians, no matter their political party—last Wednesday’s Benghazi hearings lent strong suspicion to the idea that Obama’s Administration has been lying about the incident all along.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and even Barack Obama himself on David Letterman’s show had blamed Benghazi on outrage over the video Innocence of Muslims. But former Deputy Chief of Mission at the US embassy in Tripoli Gregory Hicks testified before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that he’d informed Hillary Clinton during the attack that the US consulate was under siege by an organized terrorist group, only to be “stunned” and “embarrassed” when Susan Rice subsequently went on television to blame the video. Government emails in the wake of the siege revealed that administration officials scurried to change talking points in ways so that the word “Islamic” was removed from the phrase “Islamic extremists” and the word “attack” was downgraded to “demonstrations.”

It has been speculated that prior to last November’s election, Obama’s flunkies covered up the attack’s terrorist underpinnings—and essentially blamed it all on an “Islamophobic” video rather than radical Islamists—because one of the Obama campaign’s selling points was that he’d killed Osama bin Laden and essentially neutered al-Qaeda.

Four Americans died as a result of what appears to be deliberate government inaction during the siege. But during last Wednesday’s hearings, black Congressman Elijah Cummings opined that “Death is a part of life.” In an interview after the hearings, black Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton asked, “What’s the big deal here?”

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Obama’s problems were amplified on Friday when the IRS issued an apology for placing political groups that had included the words “Tea Party” or “Patriots” in their self-descriptions under extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. It is alleged that in some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors. This practice reportedly affected “dozens of organizations” and recalled Richard Nixon’s targeted tax audits of those on his “enemies list.” IRS officials had previously denied such allegations, and it has been suggested that the agency offered a preemptive apology to help derail an upcoming audit by the agency’s Inspector General regarding the matter.

The Daily Beast published an article on Saturday criticizing Obama for kowtowing to his benefactors in the oft-reviled “1%” rather than doing anything substantive to aid those among the “99%” who fell for his populist class-war rhetoric. They noted that earlier this month, Obama nominated billionaire Penny Pritzker, who’d helped raise oodles of cash for him in both his presidential campaigns, as Commerce Secretary. Pritzker’s net worth is estimated to be about seven times that of Mitt Romney’s. Obama also appointed Mel Watt, who during his two decades in Congress reportedly received more contributions from the banking sector than any of his colleagues, as head of the Federal Housing Financing Administration. Obama also chose millionaire venture capitalist Tom Wheeler to head the FCC. Amid making all these appointments, Obama found time to deliver a commencement speech at Ohio State University about how Americans need to “reject a country in which only a lucky few prosper.”

Obama was roundly criticized last week after a White House visitors’ log was revealed in late April that the Obamas held a huge and largely secret post-inauguration bash at the White House featuring A-listers such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, Rahm Emanuel, Jamie “Django” Foxx, Penny Pritzker, Whoopi Goldberg, Eric Holder, Jennifer Hudson, Eva Longoria, and the eternally balding singer James Taylor.

Flanked by an all-female contingent to ostensibly honor Mother’s Day, Obama also held a conference on Friday announcing that his Affordable Care Act is “here to stay.” He stated that he is “110% committed” to implementing the plan, which is appropriate, seeing as the public debt could soon eclipse 110% of the Gross Domestic Product.

Last Week’s Most Captivating and Infuriating News Stories

OBAMA-LAMA-DING-DONG!
America’s 44th president says he’s comfortable with the fact that the morning-after pill has been approved for over-the-counter sales for anyone over 15, which means his daughter Malia will be eligible to start taking it in July. At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Obama joked that “I’m not the strapping young Muslim socialist I used to be,” a jibe that was not blown into a huge controversy by the press; in fact, the Huffington Post omitted the word “Muslim” in an early version of the story. The number of names in a classified terrorist database has soared by 60% or so during Obama’s reign. These names included that of freshly dead Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother. Conservative black Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was roundly condemned as a shuffling, cornbread-fetching house Negro for observing that he always expected America’s first black president would be one “who was approved by the elite, and the media, because anybody they didn’t agree with they would take apart.” In response, the elite and the media took Thomas apart. Thomas’s comments were tamer than those of former Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright, who in 2009 blamed “Them Jews” for preventing him access to Obama subsequent to The One’s election.

IT’S A WONDERFUL TIME OF YEAR FOR A RIOT
Seattle, a disproportionately safe and nonblack metropolis where white anarchists go to complain about racism and pretend they’re dangerous, hosted another wave of scruffy young storefront-smashing radicals protesting “capitalism” for this year’s May Day “celebrations.” Although protestors reportedly destroyed property, spit on reporters, and threw various blunt objects at police, an activist named Olivia One Feather complained that Seattle’s Finest “don’t have any manners.” In Virginia Beach, which saw a wave of violence during 1989’s Greekfest, locals held a meeting to discuss how to salvage the city’s tourism industry after late April’s “College Days” hootenanny was pockmarked by violent mayhem.

KEEPIN’ IT RACIAL
Outrage erupted after an Arizona school announced it would hold a satirical “Redneck Day.” In keeping with the times, those most outraged were not the whites who are routinely maligned by terms such as “redneck,” but blacks who were reminded yet again of the slavery that they were far too young to have experienced. No one seemed to realize that rednecks weren’t slave owners, because their necks got red from doing their own farm work in the sun. Speaking of red skin, Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III Tweeted a comment about “the tyranny of political correctness” and was greeted with widespread hostility and tut-tutting—especially because he’s black and doesn’t think like a black person is expected to think—which doesn’t quite undermine the idea that we’re living under an ideological tyranny. Down South in Georgia, a petition is gaining steam—if 164 total signatures can be described as remotely steamy—to erase the massive carving on the side of Stone Mountain depicting Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee. Up North in Canada, the CBC pulled an ad seeking a host for a children’s program that specified the actor be “any race but Caucasian.” Over in Merrie Olde England, a ferry company has been criticized for using Viking imagery in its logo because it apparently induces fears of a sudden Nazi revival. And after an Islamic bombing plot targeting the English Defence League was foiled, “experts” say they fear the situation could trigger a race war on the soggy old island.

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GAY, GAYER, AND GAYERER
NBA player Jason Collins, who averaged a puny 3.6 points per game throughout his career and less than a point per game last season, staved off his inevitable slide into abject obscurity by announcing that he’s gay. The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, which by its very name would seem to exclude men, or at least men who have no problem with being men, came under fire for excluding the “transgendered,” leading to the predictable rainbow-colored fireworks about overcoming hatred and bigotry. Nothing was mentioned about overcoming hypersensitivity.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT
California Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee, whose keen mind is able to make correlations that escape the rest of us, averred that global climate change could drive women into prostitution. Florida sheriff Ric Bradshaw urged citizens to snitch on neighbors “if the guy down the street says he hates the government,” while a Florida Senate budget chief assured everyone that it will “be done in a way that respects people’s privacy and autonomy.” According to a poll, 29% of Americans say they think an armed revolt against the government may soon be necessary.

UNFAIR AND IMBALANCED
The Koch Brothers, those supremely eeeeeeee-vil cartoon bogeymen for progressives who never bitch about the democratic system becoming “corrupted” when leftist billionaires shovel money into the media, are considering a purchase of the Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles City Coucilman Bill Rosendahl—a Democrat—warned it would be the “end of journalism” if such a purchase were to occur. At a Los Angeles Times awards ceremony, reportedly half of the paper’s staffers raised their hands when asked whether they’d quit if the Kochs were to buy the paper. No one raised their hands when asked whether they’d quit if “Democratic mayoral candidate Austin Beutner and…prominent Democratic donor Eli Broad” were to buy the paper, because it goes without saying that such a team would sponsor objective and unbiased journalism.

UNCLASSIFIABLY DEPRESSING
In this time of unbridled progress and forward thinking, suicides now outnumber auto fatalities in the USA. The rise in suicides was sharpest among the middle aged, with men outpacing women at a clip of more than three to one.

Image of suicide courtesy of Shutterstock

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

HOME
Two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon. A female restaurant manager, a Chinese graduate student, and an 8-year-old boy were killed, and nearly 200 others were injured. Federal agents pieced together that a black bag and pressure cooker were used to create the explosives. The FBI released video of two main suspects, who were later identified as Russian-born Chechen brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tamerlan died in a gunfight with police. … The Senate voted down the Manchin-Toomey amendment, which would have expanded mandatory background checks to cover sales at gun shows and on the Internet. President Obama called it a “pretty shameful day for Washington” and claimed “the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill.” … A Mississippi man was arrested after he allegedly mailed letters containing ricin to the White House, a US Senator, and a local judge. Elvis impersonator and registered Democrat Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, maintains that he did not commit the crime. He arrived in court wearing a Johnny Cash T-shirt. Curtis authored a book claiming to expose a secret organ-harvesting ring. … A fertilizer plant blew up in Texas. The explosion registered as a 2.1-magnitude earthquake. One report estimates that it killed 35 people, including ten first responders, and injured more than 160. … A Hooters franchise temporarily closed on Hollywood Boulevard after an apparent beer-and-boobs connoisseur told everyone that he had a bomb in his lunch box. The LAPD swept the restaurant, and the suspect later admitted that the threat was a joke. It is unclear why he brought a lunch box to Hooters. … The homeless man accused of stealing an iPhone from a child in Greenwich Village pleaded that the deal was fair because he gave the three-year-old boy $2 for it. A judge set bail at $10K.

ABROAD
The US government is nearing a $10-billion arms deal with Israel and other Middle Eastern nations. A senior administration official said that the deal, which will include missiles and warplanes, will help “our Persian Gulf partners…to address the Iranian threat.” … German MPs, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s party, defeated a motion to impose gender-based employment quotas. The measure would have forced companies to increase the number of women on their boards to 40 percent by 2023. … Britain and France told the United Nations that they have obtained soil samples proving that Syria has used chemical weapons more than once since December. The US has yet to confirm these findings. … According to diplomats, Iran has tripled its installations of advanced uranium-enrichment machines within the past three months. They noted that the machines are not currently functional and that many are only half-complete. … Men from the United Arab Emirates were deported from Saudi Arabia when police officers determined that they were “too handsome.” Officials said they feared that female visitors, who are now allowed to ride bikes, would be too tempted by them.

ONLINE
Reuters accidentally published George Soros‘s obituary. The news agency announced that Soros had kicked the can “at age XXX,” prompting Twitter users to lament the death of such an old-looking 30-year-old. Reuters called Soros, who unfortunately remains very much alive, a “predatory and hugely successful financier.” … New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof Tweeted that the Boston explosions should act as a reminder that Senate Republicans are to blame for blocking ATF appointments. … Before police fatally shot him, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a fan of YouTube. An account linked to his name includes playlists titled “Terrorists” and “Islam.” His most recent subscription was to a channel called “Allah is the One.” … Netflix began streaming its newest original series, Hemlock Grove, directed by torture-porn aficionado Eli Roth.

Ashley Judd

HOME
The City of New York agreed to pay Occupy Wall Street $365K for stomping all over its book tent when the NYPD raided Zuccotti Park in November 2011. … Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asked the FBI to investigate how Mother Jones obtained an audio device that secretly recorded one of his reelection campaign’s strategy meetings. On tape, McConnell aides talk about targeting the emotionally twisted past of Ashley Judd, who allegedly “had a mental breakdown in the ‘90s,” among other things. … Arizona postal workers found explosives in a package mailed to Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The ATF detonated the package with a water cannon and is now following up on an investigative lead. … The National Council of Resistance of Iran opened a new office in Washington, DC, one block away from the White House. The organization was removed from the US government’s terrorist sponsor list seven months ago. … A Texas college student allegedly stabbed 14 people before being arrested. He reportedly told police that he has fantasies about wearing his victims’ faces as masks. … The US Treasury says it expects to collect a record $2.7 trillion in tax revenue this year. Rep. Dave Camp said that Congress anticipates revenues doubling over the next decade. … A California man “used several saws” at Home Depot to saw his arms down to the bone while in the store.

ABROAD
Margaret Thatcher died. The UK’s “Iron Lady” suffered a stroke and will be buried on April 17th. … The Sun published what it claims to be photographs of Kim Jong-un performing in a school production of Grease. Others insist the featured teenager is Kim’s older brother Jong-chul, which may explain why he was passed over as a successor. … Museum executives shut down the Louvre after its 200-man security force went on strike, citing pickpockets as the reason they can no longer work. According to one union member, “They threaten guards by telling them that they know where they live.” It is unclear if the guards understand their job description. … Leftist British MP George Galloway blamed North Korea’s aggression on the United States, which he claims “invaded Korea, killed millions of people, [and] divided the country.” He also praised the country’s “innocent culture” for not being “penetrated by globalization and by Western mores.” … Thieves in Germany somehow made off with 5.5 tons of stolen Nutella, a score worth about $20K.

ONLINE
The value of Bitcoin plummeted nearly 60 percent during a single day of trading at the Mt.Gox exchange. Many speculated that a DDoS attack caused the panic. A spokesman clarified that it was only the result of poor infrastructure, which couldn’t handle the influx of new accounts (about 60K in the first few days of April). … LulzSec hacker Ryan Ackroyd pled guilty to one count of carrying out cyber attacks under the screen name “kayla.” The group is responsible for breaching numerous websites, including those of Sony and PBS. … The ACLU revealed a March 2011 update to IRS guidelines stating that even without a warrant, the tax agency “can obtain everything in an [email] account except for unopened e-mail or voice mail stored with a provider for 180 days or less.” … Rep. Stephen Cohen flirted with singer Cyndi Lauper via Twitter: “great night,couldn’t believe how hot u were,” he said. “see you again next Tuesday.try a little tenderness.” Cohen maintains the Tweet was a ruse meant to poke fun at media outlets. … A Redditor is accused of publicly confessing to murder with a meme, although he claims it’s all a joke. He allegedly killed his sister’s “abusive meth addict boyfriend” by injecting the unconscious man with his drugs, which police later ruled as an overdose. He deleted the account when other users published his personal details online.

HOME
Film critic Roger Ebert announced Tuesday that he would be taking a leave of absence, adding, “I am not going away.” He died on Thursday. … Two young girls called 911 after witnessing the abduction of a couple in Manhattan. Witnesses claimed that masked men forced the couple into a minivan at gunpoint. A surveillance camera also caught footage of the incident, which was later proved to have been a birthday prank gone wrong. … A reporter in Minneapolis was fired after he wrote a story about a gay couple attending the White House’s Easter egg hunt. The reporter, who is also gay, referred to the men as “big HOMO dads.” … North Carolina lawmakers pushed a resolution affirming the state’s right to establish an official religion. Many residents saw the measure, which died in the House, as a response to the ACLU’s lawsuit against Christian county commissioners who prayed before meetings. … Alec Baldwin’s 17-year-old daughter Ireland decided to launch her bikini-modeling career in the New York Post. The paper’s headline? “Daddy, I’m in the Post!” Baldwin filed a harassment complaint against a Post photographer. Back in 2007, he called his daughter a “thoughtless little pig.”

ABROAD
Kim Jong-un says that he has cleared the North Korean military to attack the US with “smaller, lighter, and diversified” nuclear weapons. US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who claims that this threat represents a “real and clear danger,” ordered the transport of a missile-defense system to Guam. … Pressure is growing for Rupert Murdoch to “Take the Bare Boobs out of the Sun,” a reference to the topless women on the daily’s Page 3. So far, almost 90K people have signed the pledge. A Sun spokeswoman responded that the paper’s 7.5M readers can attest to how well its formula works. … German customs officials detained Justin Bieber‘s pet monkey after Bieber failed to provide proper documentation. Bieber has four weeks to pick up the animal, or else it will be taken away permanently. … Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks are joining hands to produce an HBO movie about former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev. It will chronicle the dissolution of the communist state through Gorbachev’s eyes. … UN nuke chief Yukiya Amano expressed his own worries about the Middle East: “…we have information indicating that Iran was engaged in activities relevant to the development of nuclear explosive devices in the past and now.” Iran met with the six major powers—the US, China, Germany, Russia, Britain, and France—last week. … Women can finally kind of ride bikes in Saudi Arabia if they’re accompanied by a male relative and are covered head-to-toe in robes.

ONLINE
The New York Times issued a correction after failing to understand why people celebrate Easter. “It is the celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, not his resurrection into heaven,” the editor wrote. … The National Republican Congressional Committee is modeling its new website after BuzzFeed because, according to the group’s spokesman, “BuzzFeed’s eating everyone’s lunch.” … Hacker group Anonymous seized control of North Korea’s propaganda arm, Uriminzokkiri. The hackers uploaded a “wanted” poster of Kim Jong-un dressed as a pig. … Someone found what is thought to be Mark Zuckerberg‘s first website. He was 15 at the time, called himself “Slim Shady,” and featured a Java applet that looks remarkably similar to what would become LinkedIn. … An economics professor at the University of Rochester asked on his personal blog whether rapists who “reap the benefits” of unconscious women should be prosecuted if “the victim never learns about it.” … The NYPD arrested 63 of Harlem’s Smartest after the gangsters bragged about murder on Facebook.

Rep. Yvonne Davis

HOME
Hopper Penn, the 19-year old son of Milk actor Sean Penn, tackled a photographer whom he subsequently called a “faggot.” Noticing the man was black, Hopper called him a “fucking nigger.” … An eBay user tried to sell his autographed picture of Jim Carrey to raise money for a Glock G30S .45 ACP pistol, saying he lost all respect for the actor after seeing his new anti-gun skit. The listing has since been removed. … Texas Rep. Yvonne Davis introduced legislation seeking to remove state and local officials who refuse to enforce federal laws. … Actress Ashley Judd, who once said that being “raped twice” did enough to prepare her for debates against Senator Mitch McConnell, announced she will no longer run for US Senate. … Alabama Rep. Joseph Mitchell told a white constituent to stop complaining about gun control because “Your folk never used all this sheit [sic] to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed [sic], backward-assed, inbreed [sic], imported criminal-minded kin folk [sic].” … A neighbor of pop star Justin Bieber says he asked him to stop driving his Ferrari so fast around the block. Bieber allegedly spit in the man’s face and went inside.

ABROAD
The Cypriot government is tightening its regulation over the banking industry. Account holders will be prohibited from taking more than 3,000 euro in cash outside of the country, and ATM withdrawals will be capped at 300 euro per day. … Hundreds of armed vigilantes took control of a Mexican town and began to arrest local police officers they accuse of working with organized crime. The angelic group also opened fire on a car full of tourists heading toward the beach for Easter weekend. … Nelson Mandela is having trouble breathing again. The former South African president was admitted to the hospital for a lung infection that doctors are trying to quash. … North Korea cut its last remaining phone line to South Korea in a move Kim Jong-un blamed on the country’s relationship with the United States. In response, the US military deployed nuclear-capable B-2 Stealth Bombers to the Korean Peninsula. … Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani activist, signed a book deal worth about $3 million. Her news scoops include the Taliban firing a bullet through her skull and losing to President Obama as TIME‘s “Person of the Year.” … Marketing agency JWT India canned the staffers responsible for a hilarious advertisement featuring three women tied up and gagged in the back of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s car.

ONLINE
The world’s first Bitcoin ATM is set to premiere in Cyprus. The digital currency recently surpassed a $1-billion market valuation. … Customers at a gluten-free grocery store will be charged $5 for “just looking,” part of the company’s strategy to deter passersby who use the store as a reference and then buy their goods online. This effect, called “showrooming,” is an oft-cited argument in the US Senate’s fight for an Internet sales tax. … Portuguese publishers are demanding that Google pay up if it wants to keep linking to their news articles on its search engine, the most-trafficked website on Earth. … Taxi and limousine trade groups sent out another batch of emails claiming that tech-friendly transit startups such as Uber are “rogue apps” and should be treated with suspicion. … Amazon swallowed up the online book community GoodReads (and its 16 million members) for a reported eight-figure payday. … A video of a two-year-old boy went viral after he was caught stealing his sister’s toys in the middle of the night by using nail clippers to pick open the lock on her bedroom door.

Hillary Clinton

HOME
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced legislation requiring stores to hide tobacco products inside cabinets or under counters where customers can’t see them. … The Government Accountability Office said it will not allow the cash-strapped US Postal Service to cease Saturday deliveries. … A gay-rights activist spent about $90,000 to buy (and paint rainbows on) a house across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church. … Hillary Clinton announced that she now supports gay marriage in a move that most are taking as her unofficial declaration of intent to run in 2016. … The Republican National Committee tried to prove that the GOP can still be hip in these quick-moving times but succeeded in doing the opposite with its 100-page strategy report. Chapters include “Groupthink is a Loser.” … Chicago Public Schools have forbidden “Persepolis,” a graphic novel about the author’s upbringing in Iran, from its 7th-grade curriculum over worries that the content is too violent. Luckily, most of the city’s students seem unable to read anyway. Local booksellers are reporting higher sales as a result of the ban. … A 61-year-old Frenchman dressed himself up as a pilot and managed to bypass security at Philadelphia International Airport before crew members threw him out of the cockpit.

ABROAD
A wave of bombings struck Iraq on the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion. Al-Qaeda subsequently claimed responsibility for the attacks. … The Pentagon might shuffle $150M toward Guantánamo Bay for an overhaul. No word on whether the hunger-striking prisoners, some of whom are being force-fed through tubes, will appreciate the proposed dining hall. … Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev criticized how the European Union has been reacting to the financial crisis in Cyprus, saying he could compare its actions only to those of Soviet authorities. … An Israeli heckler interrupted Barack Obama’s speech over the imprisonment of Jonathan Pollard, an American who was caught spying for Israel in the 1980s. The president responded that the harassment made him feel at home. … A new book alleges that the US Secret Service almost shot Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2006. The agency’s spokesman dismissed the charge as inaccurate, admitting that while an unfortunate incident did occur, the book’s date and circumstances are completely wrong. … Newlyweds went diving in South Africa and found themselves inches away from being torn to pieces by a shark that didn’t care too much for their protective cage. “Good video but it would’ve been much better if the shark ate both of the people in the cage,” one man said.

ONLINE
Microsoft revealed that the company received 75,378 law-enforcement requests for user information in 2012. More than 137,000 accounts were potentially affected, but only 0.02% of the requests resulted in the disclosure of customer content. … A hacker named “Guccifer,” who apparently has a passion for nice leather and human sacrifice, leaked Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi emails after breaking into a former White House aide’s email account. … Child porn went viral on Facebook when a video of a grown man sexually abusing a young girl garnered an estimated 32,000 shares and 5,000 likes. The social-networking website took it down after eight hours. … YouTube is now serving one billion monthly users, equal to a little more than 14 percent of the world’s population. … Actress Amanda Bynes said on Twitter that she wants rapper Drake to “murder [her] vagina” but was quickly reminded by Red Eye contributor Andy Levy that “Chris Brown [is] probably more likely to do that.” Levy deleted the Tweet shortly thereafter. … NBA fans crowned a mystery man known only as the “Ice Cream Guy” King of the Internet when cameras caught him refusing to share a mint-chocolate-chip ice-cream cone with his girlfriend during the Magic v. Pacers game.

Michael Bloomberg

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A judge smacked down Mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s soda ban in New York City. Bloomberg vowed to appeal the decision, calling it “irresponsible not to try to do everything we can to save lives.” … The US Department of Agriculture might buy 400,000 tons of sugar to prop up the miserable industry, whose spokesmen claim prices are too low. … The White House is drawing up plans that will give the intel community full access to a database containing information about American citizens and others who bank in the US. … The Pew Research Center found that only 26 percent of Americans feel they can trust government “always or most of the time.” Hispanics (44 percent) and blacks (38 percent) showed overwhelmingly more trust in the federal government than whites (20 percent). … The Ludwig von Mises Institute discovered a letter that Warren Buffett’s father, Howard, wrote to Murray Rothbard in 1962 where Howard requested a few of Murray’s books so that his son could learn more about the free market. … Former US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords‘s husband, who has been lobbying for stricter gun-control laws, was caught buying an AR-15 rifle at a gun store. … The Boston Globe and breitbart.com ran stories about Paul Krugman filing for bankruptcy without realizing their primary source was a satirical online newspaper. … NYPD officer Gilberto Valle was convicted on charges of plotting to kidnap, cook, and eat women, including his wife.

ABROAD
The world gave a round of applause to Greece, whose unemployment rate reached a record 26 percent in Q4. … Jorge Mario Bergoglio was officially elected to the papacy. Pope Francis, as he’ll be known, is the first non-European pontiff to head the Vatican in almost 1,300 years. … French lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre is defending the Iranian government in its lawsuit against Hollywood for making movies such as Argo that “distort the country’s image.” Taki’s Mag reached out to her fiancé for comment, but he was busy serving a life sentence for international terrorism. … Britain and France might make a play to bypass the European Union in order to arm Syrian rebels. … Venezuela took too much time deciding whether to embalm Hugo Chávez‘s body for eternal viewing, so nature decided for them. “Maduro wants to run the country, and he can’t even make sure that the president’s body is embalmed correctly,” said a doctor. … A Russian man named Aleksandr Kuptsov took four people hostage with a toy gun, demanding only a pizza and Coke before his swift arrest.

ONLINE
A Politico staffer “accidentally” added “haha” in an article about two American soldiers who died in Afghanistan. … The feds indicted Matthew Keys, a deputy social-media editor at Reuters, for allegedly feeding sensitive login credentials to the hacker group Anonymous, who later used them to deface the Los Angeles Times‘ website. … The journalism industry is in a state of chaos after Google announced that it is retiring Google Reader in July. … The FBI opened an investigation into a rogue website (sporting a Soviet Union domain) that published Michelle Obama’s credit-card information. … An audio version of Bradley Manning‘s military court speech was leaked onto the Internet, allegedly marking the first time the American public has heard his voice. … Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas opened a Kickstarter campaign to pique interest in a film adaptation. Fans pledged $1M in four hours, setting a website record. The account reached $2M only six hours later. … A keyboard warrior learned an important lesson when English boxer Curtis Woodhouse, whom he had been taunting on Twitter about a recent loss, found out where he lived and live-Tweeted his trip to the kid’s house. “i am sorry its getting a bit out of hand i am in the wrong i accept that,” Woodhouse’s antagonist wrote shortly after peeing his pants.

Hugo Chavez

You will be missed, Hugo Chavez. The world has lost a man who was larger than life, and we don’t only mean your Body Mass Index. We will always love and admire you, even though you are now technically dead.

Because we absorb most of our political insight from people who’ve done nothing more in their lives than pretend to be somebody else while reciting lines that other people have written—we speak, but of course, of the noble and compassionate actors, actresses, and gender-neutral acting persons of Hollywood—we offer yet another warm and rosy encomium to your passing.

You are a hero for improving the lives of Venezuela’s poor. Even though most of your fawning admirers in America’s entertainment industry have never felt poverty and don’t know any poor people personally and are generally repulsed by them and in truth live far from the unwashed masses safely behind electric gates manned by armed security, pretending to relate to those far beneath them allows them to feel a little less guilty for being wealthy and privileged.

Even if debt has mushroomed under your reign and inflation is soaring and you’ve effectively sold off your country’s future to China—and even if this means that any uptick in the poor’s living standards is temporary—it’s the thought that counts, Hugo.

You bravely stood up to corporations and oligarchs, and since we’ve been trained Pavlovian-style to react with revulsion to buzzwords such as “corporations” and “oligarchs,” we thank you. Pay no mind to the fact that Hollywood is a clusterfuck of extremely well-heeled corporations run by oligarchs. And let us ignore the fact that you swept away one group of oligarchs only to replace them with a new breed of government-enabled oligarchs. These neo-oligarchs suck blood from the public treasury and according to various estimates have siphoned anywhere from 20 to 400 billion petrodollars and tucked them away in offshore banks where the humble slum-dwellers of Caracas won’t ever notice it’s missing. But since we are largely a creative rather than a pragmatic class, it’s symbolism rather than reality that is important to us.

It doesn’t matter that during your long and heroic life you made insinuations that there may be no life on Mars because of capitalism and that the USA caused the Haitian earthquake with a “tectonic weapon.” It isn’t important that we’d lambaste any non-leftist who uttered anything that was one-thousandth as stupid or insane. We can forgive such things because you are on the right side of history, a self-described “Trotskyist” who advocated “permanent revolution,” even though history has shown that socialism invariably leads to violent repression, mass murder, and even more egregiously intractable forms of the poverty it promises to cure. Because we emulate actors and actresses we must not deviate from the script, no matter how drastically it deviates from reality.

We don’t care that your country’s homicide rate nearly quadrupled during your reign. We don’t care that it’s become a hub for cocaine trafficking, human trafficking, and diamond smuggling. We don’t mind that you provided money and weapons for Colombia’s FARC rebels that enabled them to kidnap and kill people. It’s for a good cause, so it’s not really murder.

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We don’t care that in 2012, the World Economic Forum rated your country near the bottom when it comes to economic competitiveness. Neither do we care that in 2013, the Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation rated Venezuela 174th out of 177 countries on their Index of Economic Freedom. We don’t care that of 130 national economies studied in the 2012 International Property Rights Index, Venezuela scored 115th.

We don’t care that you’ve gleefully seized land and resources from private citizens on a scale rivaling the infamous Scottish Highland Clearances or the Soviet Union’s brutal, murderous, and genocidal purging of the kulaks. Leftist wisdom teaches us that it is only the marginally powerful who stand in the way of the extremely powerful and the extremely impoverished forging a new friendship and becoming Best Friends Forever. It doesn’t matter whether you uplifted your country’s poor at the expense of those wretched entrepreneurs and middle-class creeps who are neither extremely rich nor extremely poor. Here in America we are undergoing a similar process of demonizing and expunging the middle class, so we see you as a brother in arms.

We don’t care that you shut down dozens of media outlets for criticizing you, nor that you’ve imprisoned journalists who’ve spoken ill of you on the pretense that they were inciting “hatred” against the government. None of this confirms our long-held suspicion that all this endless railing against “hate speech” was a clever ruse to ultimately criminalize all criticism of the almighty and incorruptible centralized state. Even though we never shut the hell up about “human rights,” we don’t care that in 2008, you forcibly detained and expelled members of Human Rights Watch for daring to criticize your record on human rights.

We don’t care that in 2010 and 2011 Transparency International deemed Venezuela the Western Hemisphere’s most corrupt nation, because in 2012 you conceded the bottom spot to Haiti.

We don’t even care that due in part to your policies, the price of gasoline in America nearly quadrupled since you assumed office. We can afford the gas, we don’t care if the middle class can’t, and poor people don’t own cars, anyway.

We love you because you hated America as much as we do, even though we for some odd reason refuse to leave America and live in Venezuela. When America finally collapses and starts resembling Venezuela we’ll probably regret it, although we’d never admit it. This movie inside our heads that we call “the revolution” must continue, no matter how simplistic, delusional, and ultimately destructive it is.

O: A Presidential Novel
Well. Isn’t this fun? An anonymous author has penned a book on President Obama—or, rather, a presidential candidate only identified as “O.” The shrouded secrecy of the author, purported to be someone “who has been in the room with Barack Obama,” has created a rapid-fire guessing game around Washington. Could Robert Gibbs, Politico’s Ben Smith or even Rahm Emanuel really be behind this fictional tale set in the 2012 election season? Joe Klein was eventually outed as the author of 1996’s similar Primary Colors, so it’s unlikely for this political sneak to remain secret for long. The Releasing of the book on Tuesday, the day of Obama’s highly-anticipated State of the Union addresses, is a cute move, and while the account isn’t is dishy as lookie-loos might like, it’s still a quick, amusing read.

33 Variations, The Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, January 30 – March 6
A Broadway favorite last year, Moisés Kaufman’s play about a Beethoven scholar made the long cross-country trek and will soon be playing again in Southern California. (It first opened in La Jolla two years ago.) Jane Fonda was splendid as the ill musicologist committed to researching the composer’s final days, and is thankfully reprising her Tony-nominated role. Apparently Fonda took well again to the stage; the 73-year-old hadn’t seen the Great White Way in 46 years. It’s her Los Angeles debut and Fonda’s decided to blog for the occasion. She recently wrote “I realized today that I will have to concentrate on re-learning my lines. I have no trouble with lines but, still, it’s not like they’re just there, waiting to be released.” Part music lesson, part performance (a live pianist is onstage throughout), 33 Variations reaches across centuries to create a surprisingly moving show.

Jim Nutt: Coming into Character, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, January 29 – May 29
There’s really no more appropriate place to display the work of Jim Nutt, the Chicago painter whose creative, culture-based paintings are as amusing as they are confusing. Nutt is a member of the Chicago Imagists, a faction of surrealist artists from the 1960s that shunned New York and exhibited mainly at Chicago’s Hyde Park Art Center. Among these imagists was a group called The Hairy Who, of which Nutt was also a member. His first major show was, unsurprisingly, at the MCA in 1974. His most recent works focus primarily on female figures depicted in a colorful, playful way and the museum is heralding them as changing the city’s art scene. Locals will appreciate the exhibition, and passers-by will love the new introduction to a truth-teller.

The 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, TNT, January 30
The Golden Globes kicked off the nonstop awards coverage last week, but the race between all those shoo-in Oscar contenders is looking ever more muddled. Just this weekend, The King’s Speech topped The Social Network for the main prize—despite previous Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award wins. Now if history’s any indication, the stuttering king will conquer the nerds come Oscar night. (PGA’s best picture winner has gone on to win the best picture Oscar 21 years in a row.) But another way to anticipate the awards show night is the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Alec Baldwin, Hilary Swank, Amy Poehler and, yes, Betty White will present to the winners, one of which is almost certainly Colin Firth. The race is still a toss-up between leading ladies: Could Annette Bening upset newly pregnant and glowing Natalie Portman for the win? And will everyone please stop talking about Ricky Gervais?

The Roses by Will Ryman, along Park Avenue, January 25 – May 31
Despite the frigid temperatures and piles of dirty snow, greenery is blooming in the middle of New York City. A new public art installation will sprout on Tuesday between 57th street and 67th street. Will Ryman is the creative genius behind the infusion of the spring flowers, made to imitate the tiny tulips that typically line the streets. These 38 flowery creations will range from three to 25 feet with scattered rose petals in between. The only thing missing is the trash that usually litters vegetative surroundings, but the committees in charge of the artworks nixed the coffee cup and bag of Doritos that Ryman wanted to include—for fear of inciting litterers. At least thieves won’t be encouraged to swipe anything from the medians—each of the flowers weighs up to 250 pounds.

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Beatles Memorabilia Museum, Buenos Aires, Argentina, open now
Diehard Lennon fans have nothing on Rodolfo Vazquez. The Beatles aficionado has proved his loyalty to the mop-topped foursome by opening a museum in, of all places, Argentina, nearly 7,000 miles from the boys’ hometown of Liverpool. Vazquez has been collecting his curios for four decades, and he’s bought nearly 8,500 items, including a brick from their early hangout The Cavern Club and 64 boxes of Beatles chewing gum. Scoff all you want, but he’ll probably be laughing all the way to retirement—and collecting entrance fees for the some 2,000 guests who’ve already taken a peek at his wide-ranging private collection. And for Beatlemaniacs who want to celebrate their love of the rock band, Vazquez plans a “Beatle Week” each year.

The Australia Day Regatta, Sydney Harbour, Australia, January 26
Remember when Europeans set sail and conquered the little island of Australia? No? Ah, well, it was quite a long time ago, but that’s why the Australia Day Regatta takes place, to remind you of the white man’s colonization of the land belonging to aboriginal inhabitants. The sailing adventure is the oldest continuously-conducted sailing regatta in the world. Usually at least 700 yachts and vessels take to the water, but this year, at least one is more susceptible to spring a leak. The Weene, one of the continent’s oldest wooden ships, will try to float its 100-year-old racer self across the finish line in front of the cheering crowds.

Mission Bell
It’s a rare day when an artist regularly played at Starbucks actually warrants a spot on your own iPod, but Amos Lee has been churning out his blues-inflected soul music for years—and his fourth full-length album is no disappointment. Produced by the musical talents behind Calexico, Mission Bell is another hip-swaying masterpiece. On “Windows Are Rolled Down,” the album’s first single, Lee wails that he’s “fixin’ to die” yet there’s a twinge of joyfulness and hope swimming alongside those strumming guitars. Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams, and Sam Beam of Iron & Wine drop by for a few notable tracks. Williams is in fine form on the slow burning ode “Clear Blue Eyes.” Pick up Lee’s latest Mission, in stores on Tuesday.

Silencing the Song: An Afghan Fallen Star, HBO, January 26
It’s doubtful this season of American Idol will spark an international crisis, but its Afghanistan reality-TV counterpart Afghan Star got in hot water last year for the supposedly provocative actions of a singer. Setara Hussainzada challenged gender norms by appearing on the show, where, much to the shock of viewers, she swayed to music. Naturally, female audiences loved her. But when Setara was booted off the show, her scarf fell off, accidentally letting her hair show on air and inciting widespread controversy in the country steeped in tradition. One detractor in the trailer even said she “deserves to be killed.” Well, consider this documentary her official response. Afghan Star’s director follows Setara during a difficult pregnancy and throughout her new role as a wife. “When you are not married you can do anything you want,” said Setara. Peering through the lens of reality TV is a challenging, interesting way to look at life in the post-Taliban regime. You’ll find yourself rooting for Setara once again.

Up Helly Aa, Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland, January 25
Baby, it’s cold outside. Warm yourself up at Europe’s largest fire festival taking place this week. It’s quite the presentation, with thousands of participants dressing up as Vikings for the occasion. Leaders named Guizer Jarls are elected and don silver helmets and brandish shields, daggers, and axes. A torch-filled march and visit to the Shetland Museum and the Town Hall ends in, basically, a big party with lots of dancing. Oh, and a ritualistic burning of a Viking ship. The whole thing’s done in the name of history—we think—but any excuse will do to drink the night away and set fire to a giant galley.

The Cresta Run, St. Moritz Tobogganing Club, Switzerland, December 20 – February
If you’re jonesing for the Winter Olympics, or just have a taste for the extreme, this Swiss ice run will give you the jolt you’re looking for. The three-quarter of a mile ice run is built every year for daredevils who slide headfirst down the track on small toboggans. It’s scarier than bobsledding—those man-made tracks have high corners; this run is made of natural ice and trickier to navigate. Now in its 125th year, the Cresta Run kicks off this week with races continuing for nine weeks. Beginners can take lessons and then try out the track. The very faint of heart can merely sit on the sidelines or watch the dizzying live webcam.

Paris Fashion Week, January 24 – 27
Well, we can guarantee the biggest topic of conversation on everyone’s lips at next month’s display of Spring/Summer 2011 collections. French Vogue’s editor Carine Roitfeld announced her resignation late last week—and now the blogosphere’s in a tizzy about whether she was actually pushed out by unhappy higher ups at Conde Nast. It seems unlikely—she injected the title with style and flair (if not a lot of controversy), not to mention hundreds of ad pages over her 10-year reign—but that won’t stop the gossip at the front rows of haute couture by Christian Dior, Givenchy, Valentino, and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar, Opening December 30
This one-of-a-kind museum will soon celebrate contemporary art from around the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey in a palatial schoolhouse turned museum re-designed by French architect Jean-François Bodin. The first exhibition, Sajjil: A Century of Modern Art, showcases the evolution of art over the last century by looking at categories of nature, individualism, family, and more. One of the most fascinating aspects of the new museum, which houses over 6,000 works, is the lack of censorship on nudity or politically charged art. The space will also be home to a research center for students and scholars.

Somewhere
Sofia Coppola’s made a career out of dreamy, immersive films. Who didn’t want to go to Tokyo after watching Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson try to find themselves amongst the skyscrapers in Lost in Translation? Now, Coppola turns her eye towards California, and more specifically, Chateau Marmont, the hotel that doubles as a hideaway for stars who want to disappear and be seen at once. Stephen Dorff, who should have slipped into dramatic roles long ago, plays an action star careering into a midlife crisis when his young daughter (Elle Fanning) reenters his life. The hotel becomes their playground and a place of reconnection. This is a breakout role for both, and a return to form for Coppola, whose last film, Marie Antoinette in 2006, overdosed on sugary confections. Somewhere does the near-impossible, and makes Los Angeles just plain sweet.

The Louvre in the Age of Enlightenment, Louvre, Paris, France, Now – February 7, 2011
It doesn’t get more meta than this. A new series of paintings in the Louvre showcase its time during a small window throughout the late 18th century. It wasn’t a shining moment for the grand museum—during 1750 – 1792 the Louvre’s physical space was in a state of ruin thanks to Louis XIV, but it also doubled as home to royalty and anyone passing through, from staff to nobility and artists. It was a hodgepodge collection and hardly recognizable from the current space that over eight million people visit a year. This exhibition is one of four at the Louvre scheduled through the New Year that looks at its influence on the 18th century.

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Yalda Festival, Iran, December 21
This traditional Iranian festival takes place on the longest night of the calendar year, and began as a symbol of the battle between good and evil over 5,000 years ago. The winter solstice is also called Shab-e yalda—or rebirth of the sun. After the long night, the Zoroastrian God Ahoura Mazda (light) defeats the devil Ahriman (a representation of the darkness). This gives way to much celebration and happiness for the return of the sun, and Iranians now celebrate with bonfires at night—to help the sun battle against the darkness—and feasts of fruits and pastries.

E! True Hollywood Story: Sarah, Duchess of York, E!, December 21 at 10pm
Merry Christmas to the Royal Family’s biggest trainwreck! Poor Fergie now has the honor of a definitive guide to her missteps in the spotlight—from the toe-sucking incident so long ago to her most recent pay-for-access scandal that saw the drunk and slurring Duchess offer a News of the World reporter a meeting with her ex-husband, Prince Andrew. There’s plenty of dirt to be dished—the Royal Editor of the Brit tabloid shares his thoughts, and Fergie’s former financial advisor is also on hand to discuss how she blew through her money. Not exactly an uplifting hour, but delicious fun nonetheless.

Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design, Art Institute of Chicago, Now – July 20, 2011
The Windy City’s art haven is home to one of the largest spaces dedicated to architecture, and a new exhibition is marrying the worlds of technology with that of innovative design. Thirty new and highly varied projects are now on display—from the social mapping project Walkingpapers.org to a futuristic film subtitled “Domestic Robocop”—and aim to paint a broad new portrait of the relationship, or “hyperlinking” between design, science, transportation, and more. One of the coolest pieces that you could soon see coming to your own neighborhood is LightLane, which fastens to the back of a bike and creates a digital outline of a bike lane behind its rider. Safety and creativity—we’re in.

Easy A
It’s easy to dismiss this romantic comedy as just for teens seeing as plenty of people did when it was first released. But now the high school-set film is getting some extra notice. Its young star Emma Stone nabbed a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of Olive, a girl who pretended to have sex with her gay best friend Brandon so he would stop getting picked on, but then gets caught up in a Scarlett Letter-esque scandal. Stone’s immensely charming both onscreen and off (upon hearing she was nominated alongside Angelina Jolie and Anne Hathaway, she says she “lost her shit”) and the 22-year-old is also starring in the upcoming Spider-Man reboot. Catch Easy A on DVD this Tuesday, and when Stone hits the A-list, brag that you knew the sweetly conniving star back in high school.

True Grit
Joel and Ethan Coen, the brainy duo behind No Country for Old Men and, yes, The Big Lebowski, have headed to the Wild Wild West for their latest outing. They’re making a big fuss in film circles by claiming they never got around to watching John Wayne’s 1969 version of the film—blasphemous words for diehard Western fans. This Josh Brolin and Matt Damon vehicle, in theaters Wednesday, instead takes all its cues from the 1968 Charles Portis novel, infusing it with that signature Coen Bros dark humor. Damon’s right at home galloping around as a Texas Ranger, and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld shines as the young protagonist who wants retribution for her father’s murder. Finally, after soppy rom-coms and indies, a true contender for Oscar rears its head late in the game.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
She may be the Comedienne of Mean, but Joan Rivers is also the hardest working woman in show biz—and she’s not about to let you forget it. Filmed two years ago during the throes of Celebrity Apprentice when Rivers could hardly book a show, this documentary (out on DVD Tuesday) reveals a surprisingly human side to the red carpet terror. Now 77 years old, Rivers fears being without work more than anything else—she flips through her datebook, each empty month a symbol of how far she’s come from her days seated next to Johnny Carson on the Tonight show. Luckily, this is one documentary with a happy ending—Rivers’ career was revitalized after Donald Trump deemed her the winner of his reality show, and she’s back to late-night appearances and sold out stand-up. Welcome back, Joanie. We hardly had a chance to miss you.

Norman Rockwell’s America, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, UK, Opens December 15 – March 27, 2011
Norman Rockwell was able to capture the nuances and beauty of everyday life in America and now, with the opening of the first major exhibition in England, an entirely new country is getting a dose of his classic work. The span of his six-decade career is covered, including 323 photorealistic Saturday Evening Post covers spanning 1916 to 1963 and other illustrations and ads. Not to worry, for those who live stateside, two other shows of Rockwell’s work are still at the Brooklyn Museum and the American Art Museum in Washington D.C.

Michael
It may be two weeks before the end of the year, but one of pop music’s most-anticipated albums is here in the nick of time. MICHAEL, the first posthumous work from the King of Pop since his sudden death in June 2009, is comprised of unreleased songs he was working on up until his demise. If it seems a little thrown together, that’s because it is—Jackson’s label included outtakes and Michael’s brother Randy argues that his famous sibling isn’t even singing on some tracks. Reviewers are still calling it compelling work and who are we kidding—diehard fans are going to be rushing the stores for this one. Before its release on Tuesday, the entire album is streaming for free online at MichaelJackson.com.

Cirque Phenix, Pelouse de Reuilly, Paris, Now – January 10, 2011
They may not leap over tall buildings in a single bound, but the extremely lithe and talented performers of this circus act have other impressive talents. Fifty artists from all over the world gather for this show, a favorite in Paris. Over three million people have seen the Cirque Phenix, now celebrating its 10th year on stage. Russian trapeze artists share the stage with Ethiopian contortionists—and there’s even a little 3D effect thrown in for good measure. Its director Alain M. Pacherie is responsible for the global reach of the show and has expanded it this year with fireworks and accompaniment by the Phenix Orchestra. Beats a stroll down the Seine.

Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures, Museum of Modern Art, New York, December 19 – March 21, 2011
His actors don’t talk. The storylines don’t make sense. The images don’t flicker in color—and certainly not in 3D. Yet Andy Warhol’s motion pictures are nonetheless compelling, perhaps because they star some of his favorites from the worlds of art and Hollywood. Edie Sedgwick, Allen Ginsberg, Lou Reed, Dennis Hopper, Susan Sontag and others make cameos. Warhol shot his films during the height of his career in his creative studio The Factory. “Sleep,” “Eat,” and “Blow Job,” along with his longer works, were shot on 16mm black-and-white film at 24 frames per second, then slowed down to mimic earlier silent films. MoMA is showing the shorts constantly, the longer films are scheduled through the end of the exhibition. Oh, and did we mention they’re racy? The sound of silence is sexy again.

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The Paris Review Holiday Gift Set
With the holidays fast approaching, the pressure is on to find the perfect gift for that literary lover in your life. Here’s a present that’s thoughtful but not boring, smart but not snarky. The Paris Review has undergone something of a comeback in recent years—the New York Times called it “a thing of sober beauty” and writer Maud Newton says it’s “elegant, edgy, and surprising, an unusual but cohesive mix of writing characterized by intelligence and precision and, frequently, humor.” How often does a stuffy ol’ magazine warrant that praise? The set includes the magazine’s winter issue with interviews with Jonathan Franzen and Louise Edrich, a year’s subscription, a Paris Review shirt (by American Apparel, of course) and holiday card signed by the editor. Très bookish!

Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, The British Museum, Great Russell St., London, Now – March 6, 2011
Ancient Egypt was all the rage this year. A fascinating exhibit on King Tut is in its last days in New York’s Times Square, and in November, the British Museum opened a special exhibition honoring the Book of the Dead and the journey to the afterlife. The spells, printed on papyrus and linen, gave careful step-by-step directions on how to navigate the underworld and properly cross over to the afterlife after mummification. Other jewels, statues, and coffins—basically anything relating to death and eternal life—are also on display, making for a thoughtful examination of one of ancient Egypt’s most treasured tenets. First journey to London—and then journey back three thousand years.

Rabbit Hole, Opens in select theaters December 17
There are plenty of films, plays, and novels that mine the grief that bubbles up after the death of a small child. Families twisted apart, fractured marriages, rage. But few did it quite as well as Rabbit Hole, which began as a play by David Lindsay-Abaire that hit the stage six years ago. Thankfully, the playwright adapted his own script so the new film, out this week, avoids messing with a good thing. Nicole Kidman is swapped into Cynthia Nixon’s Broadway role and Aaron Eckhart takes the place of Mad Men John Slattery. John Cameron Mitchell, most well-known for his bombastic Hedwig and the Angry Inch masterfully directs this acting tour de force. And Dianne Wiest, on a bit of a comeback herself with a recurring stint on In Treatment, also stars as Kidman’s mother and look!—there’s Sandra Oh in her usual temptress role.

Mythbusters: The Green Hornet Special, Discovery Channel, December 15
The only superhero happening more anticipated this year than Spider-Man’s turn on Broadway is The Green Hornet, which is finally hitting theaters after years of turmoil. Seth Rogen is the unlikely hero, but he’s not debuting on screen until January 14. In the meantime, the Mythbusters team—still riding high from Obama’s appearance last month—is digging into two scenes from the film. Rogen, who also co-wrote the film, guest stars on the episode where they try to determine if a few scripted moments from the film could happen in real life. They recreate a scene in which The Green Hornet and his sidekick are buried alive in a car and bust out with rockets. In another, they crash into an elevator, which slices the car in half. Can either of these things actually happen—or are they the result of Hollywood magic? Rogen might be the first actor to debunk his own film.

III/IV
Ryan Adams is notoriously prolific—and obsessive—about his work. He’ll pump out two or three albums a year without breaking a sweat. The unclassifiable singer-songwriter—he’s a little bit folk, a dash of rock and roll—is back with his band The Cardinals for a new 21-track album that hit shelves Tuesday. Don’t expect any references to “Mandy” (Adams married actress Mandy Moore last year), these sets were recorded back in 2007 and didn’t make the cut for “Easy Tiger.” It’s hard to see why—Adams is at his best with this jangly folk-rock. And for those who like to take it slow, Norah Jones guests on the quiet track “Typecast.”