The lights atop the Empire State Building are open to anyone (except Iranian dissidents), so the day after the Manhattan skyline pays homage to the founding of a brutal dictatorship, the lights will go blue and white in honor of the 125th anniversary of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

It didn't always used to be that way. There was a time, according to a history of the Empire State Building's tower lights on the building's web site, when they only represented one lousy thing:

1956: Revolving beacons, the "Freedom Lights", were installed. The "Freedom Lights", four beacons each five feet in diameter and weighing one ton, were installed 1,095 feet above the streets to symbolize not only a welcome to this country but also the unlimited opportunities in America and the hopes and prayers of the American people for peace.

Glad that changed! If you have any other closed societies you'd like to nominate for a shout-out, go here and fill out the form. We just missed the 20th anniversary of the Union of Myanmar, but the 33rd anniversary of the Soviet Union's crushing of Hungarian independence is right around the corner!

[Photo via Flickr by Christopher Chan.]

1572: French Huguenots massacred in the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre.
1814: British troops burn down the White House.
1954: The American Communist Party is outlawed.
1966: Nick Denton born.
1992: Hurricane Andrew devastates South Florida.

She is old, so she doesn't know that cupcakes were over like six years ago. Tonight she's gonna drink a Cosmo!

Ha, just kidding. Helen Thomas has finished a day's work with a lowball of neat rye every night for the past 39 years and she's sure as shit not gonna stop now. (We assume.)

(Seriously, this is kind of adorable, everyone singing to Helen and all.)

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By the way, here's Times reporter Jeff Zeleny trying to defuse the Birther thing, today:

The controversy will surely fade away. But the date in history will not. The birthday of President Obama, who incidentally shares the day with Queen Elizabeth II, has already been etched into the history of Hawaii and the nation.

Why should we believe this "Obama was born in Hawaii" nonsense when you don't even know that the Queen of England was born in April? (He might mean the late Queen Mum. Either way, that passage does not appear in the current version of the article. Because Obama's GOONS got to the Times.)

[Photo: AP]

How is Obama celebrating? He is going to have lunch with every single Democratic senator. (Sorry, Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders!) (Unless you guys count because you caucus with the Democrats, we're not sure!)

Obama will ask them to please get some more money for his "cash for shitty cars" program, or whatever he calls it, and then he will hopefully just yell at them for an hour or two, reserving his filthiest language for Max Baucus.

Here is the sort of "tough talk" that could stand to be a bit tougher, for example:

The meeting comes as Senate Democrats are growing increasingly weary of bipartisan health care reform negotiations being run by Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.). Sen. Charles Schumer on Monday said if the three Republicans and three Democrats on that committee who are negotiating can't reach an agreement by mid-September, Democrats are likely to end their attempts at getting broad GOP support for a bill.

Oh, man, Max, if your pointless fucking posturing negotiations involving six Senators from some of the least populous states in the union, three of whom are in the minority party and ideologically opposed to health care reform, do not get your ridiculous toothless bill out of committee soon, they may give up on seeking Republican support a month-and-a-half from now!

Argh.

Anyway, after lunch Obama will pray to Mecca and reread his Little Red Book.

Vanity Fair deputy editor and classically trained pianist Doug Stumpf played "My Favorite Things" on an electric keyboard, while staffers sang lyrics written by contributing editor David Kamp, "My Graydonish Things." Lyrics included: "Mid-cent'ry modern and books by O'Hara/ Pear liquer poured by Reinaldo Herrera/Mac and cheese garnished with truffle shay-vings/These are a few of my Graydonish Things…"

They continued:

"Pink pencil-wielding for Waverly seating/
Speaking quite quickly, returning to eating/
Ideas that took just a smidgen of brainssssss/
These are a few of my Graydonish Things...

Not making fun of Brooke Astor's dementia/
Once-fancy rest'raunts, now hobos can enter/
Amazing fucks, for his monster cock hangssssss/
These are a few of my Graydonish Things."

Happy birthday, dude!
[WWD]

His flacks are offering sponsorship of the party's VIP room—including naming rights!—for a mere $25,000. Let's hope Ex-Lax goes for that buy. They're also selling naming rights to the whole party for an undisclosed sum. It's a bargain at any price! The pitch claims that a single mention on Perez's site reaches more than 300 million people—more than the entire population of the US, in other words.

Yea.

Below is the entire "deck" they're sending around trying to sell this year's Perez party—last year's event was so star-studded, how could you resist? Half a billion "media impressions!" You'd be crazy not to pay to associate your brand, in the midst of a recession, with this...stuff:

Well, it's not "the future" so much as... we wanted to say something more clever than "the past," but in a sense it is "the past." Time Warner is the Platonic ideal of the massive, multi-tentacled, omnipresent media corporation. And in 1989, that sounded like a fabulous idea. Here's what was said at the time:

AP 3/4/89
"There's never been a deal like this in the media business. This is going to be a frighteningly powerful company," said John S. Reidy, an analyst at Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc.

LAT 3/5/89
Some analysts expressed surprise that Warner sought the merger, because they believe its stock value could appreciate more rapidly on its own. But one analyst called the move a "career capper" for the 61-year-old [Steven J.] Ross, who co-founded Warner in 1961.

Ross rose from managing "parking lots . . . and now he is the head of the greatest media company in the world. I mean, give me a break!" said one securities analyst.

And Time Warner was frighteningly powerful!

NYT 3/5/89
The merger would insure Time Warner a place in the 1990's as one of a handful of global media giants able to produce and distribute information in virtually any medium. The companies said the deal would help the United States compete against major European and Asian companies...

An analyst for Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., John Reidy, called the deal ''mind-boggling.''

''What you've got is a company that will be the largest magazine publisher in the country, the world's most profitable record company, a cable television entity with more than 5.5 million cable subscribers, one of the world's largest book-publishing operations and the country's largest supplier of pay-cable programming,'' he said.

So Time Warner had a pretty good run. The AOL deal was a killer, but in 1989, that was far in the future. The combo that was so "mind-boggling" at the time did its job well for a while. But the internet killed Time Warner in more than just the AOL way. Decentralization. Lowering of barriers to entry to the media. Virtually free and instantaneous publishing. More free content than you could ever see. And the music industry, you know. None of these developments are particularly good for the "behemoth" model. The future is smaller and quicker. As intent as those guys were 20 years ago to assemble Time Warner, they better be equally intent to take it apart today. TWX stock is now about a tenth as valuable as it was a decade ago. And for Time Warner, they'll never see a decade like that last one again.

Which presumably means she'd like us to publicize it, right? So here you go. The two party buddies are having joint birthday parties this year. Invites went out yesterday but didn't say where the fetes were to be held. Just now, emails arrived in two Gawker Media employees' inboxes (you can guess who; one of them might write for this very site!) with the subject line, "Shhh! Secret Location Revealed. No Sharing!" and an apology for not revealing the party locations earlier because "We really can't have this out on gawker/the internet in general."

Tonight's SF bash is at a club called Rosewood. Tomorrow, they fly back to NYC for a party at the IMI Club in department store Bergdorf Goodman. There's a charity involved with the events (the new rage!) so you know, maybe we've done our part to spread the word and help water and women or something.

Alaska Atty. Gen. Talis Colberg, who defended Gov. Sarah Palin's administration in the "Troopergate" abuse-of-power investigation, resigned Tuesday in what he said was the "best interest" of the state.

Ha, it's the resignation of her top, corrupt legal adviser, who told Palin's husband there was no need for him to comply with those pesky subpoenas. Just what we wanted! Okay Sarah, next year you give us a sex scandal, and we'll give you some spare change.

It's the former New York City mayor's 84th bday today! So here he is, warbling away in an animated short that won an Oscar in 1983.

See that, employees? He spent all his money hiring The Eagles, so take your lawsuit and go to hell. [via Philly City Paper]

And while Silver might be hurting now, with his bomb Speed Racer flailing its way out of multiplexes at last, you can't keep a bombastic, Tang-suit-wearing, sport-inventing man down. That's why we scoured the Web for a bit of his wit, wisdom, contradictions and counsel on the occasion of the big 5-6. Joel, if we could be there with a cake, you know we would; we don't quite trust you around candles, however. Please let this suffice: Happy birthday, big guy! [Video by Molly McAleer]