Seriously, we cannot actually imagine watching this and cheering on the shrieking old white man. Even if we agreed that ACORN was a terrible criminal organization bent on helping all the prostitutes in the world fill out their taxes while registering illegal immigrant cartoon characters to vote, we would still be incredibly uncomfortable watching Tim Jones scream at a couple fucking kids (one of whom he definitely calls "boy" in his charming Boston accent) and their mother.

The crime of these terrible black people? Selling "Don't Tread On Me" signs at the 9/12 rally. Which, you know, got to admire their entrepreneurial spirit! It's just too bad they were at the 9/12 rally selling the flags for ACORN, an organization that does not actually send employees to rallies to sell flags.

But according to ACORN spokesperson Ian Phillips, the only flags any of their members sell would be to their members at conventions. None of their people were at the Sept. 12 rally as vendors or for any reason representative to ACORN, and whomever was being targeted by Tim Jones in the video might have been unfortunate pawns in a rather racist game of his.

"It wasn't us," Phillips told One People's Project. "Unfortunately, you know this better from the work that you do, the kind of bogeymen that they've created over the years of some kind of freeloading person of color. Now they have transferred and said all these folks are with ACORN."

Phillips says this kind of scapegoating is something that the organization has had to deal with, well before the Leadership Institute's James O'Keefe videotaped various ACORN staffers suggesting ways to violate the law. Earlier in the year there were warnings from conservative figures like Fox News' Neil Cavuto that ACORN was mounting a counterstrike against this element. "In Florida, they put it on their list groups that ‘ACORN is going to be there, come out in force and tell ACORN what you think of them or ACORN is going to infiltrate, If you see anyone holding a camera, they're from ACORN,' but we never come to these things," he said. "We never engage these kooks. We don't go and film, none of our staffers do."

But against the word of the ACORN spokesman, we have the word of Tim Jones, hero, whom no one knows anything about, except that he declared that these people were from ACORN, because he heard them say it to a cop. And then Tim Jones whipped up a crowd of people to join in the screaming and chasing.

Once again, these people hate America.

They did not even fire him. He is suspended with pay.

And his email to the Boston Globe reporter, which calls Gates a "monkey" four times, is decidedly super racist and insane.

But in Obama's America, being suspended because you said you would've pepper sprayed any banana-eating jungle monkey who dared talk back to you is a violation of your "civil rights," thanks to the liberal political correctness.

Barrett claims he is not a racist, and, testing credibility even further, claims he'd never even used the phrase "banana-eating jungle monkey" before the day he wrote it four times in one email.

His lawsuit claims his civil rights have been violated; Barrett's lawyer said the words referring to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. were misinterpreted.

"The choice of words were poor; but they weren't meant to characterize professor Gates as a banana-eating jungle monkey," attorney Peter Marano said. "They were meant in a response to behavior and characterizing the behavior. Not the person as a whole."

Yes, just something about the way Skip Gates was behaving suggested, to Barrett, a monkey, in a jungle, eating a banana. We get it. Totally not racist.

(Even if he's not a racist [he is a total racist btw] his email suggests he's a completely unhinged PTSD-case who will snap and shoot a child for stealing a magazine basically any day now, so he should probably not complain about the suspension with pay thing.)

Here's a classic little detail from one of those profiles that basically tells you lots of things you already knew, like "Shep Smith is from the South and right-wing bloggers don't like him," but throws in a couple fun new anecdotes to keep you reading them:

Smith does spout strong opinions throughout the day, but they tend to be directed at LSU - the rival of his alma mater, Ole Miss - or at the Red Sox, eternal foes of his beloved New York Yankees. Trash talk comes with the territory; in the main newsroom at Fox News's Sixth Avenue headquarters, a fan on his desk bears the brand name "Boston," and underneath it, Smith has scrawled the word "Sucks."

Hah. This is from a profile in The Boston Globe, too.

A tipster tells us that NBC is poaching Thrillist's New York editor Steve Bryant, for a new site in Chicago similar to the San Francisco site they poached our own Owen Thomas for. NBC, always poaching! Man. [Thrillist PR machine Flavie tells us: "Yes. Officially August 1st: Hayden Lynch our former Nation editor will replace Steve Bryant as Thrillist NY editor. Joe McGauley, Thrillist former Web Editor will replace Hayden Lynch in the role of Nation Editor…Which leaves us with a web editor position to fill." Job!]

Whoa, don't everybody buy a newspaper at once! Cox has sold the Waco Tribune-Herald to a media company, and employees at the Gary Post-Tribune in Indiana want to buy their own paper from the Sun-Times. Strike while the MJ news is hot, Gary.

As if it wasn't hard enough just being a newspaper—try being the only black newspaper in Boston, for chrissake. A group of investors led by Harvard's Charles Ogletree say they've put together enough money to save the the Bay State Banner, which was going to be forced to close after 44 years. The downside: the paper's employees and readers will be forced to continue to live in Boston, Mass.

Paste Magazine! It is not dead, yet. Its Quixotic campaign to solicit donations from you, the public, to save itself, has actually paid off, to the tune of more than a quarter million dollars. Wowza. Impressive. Paste will continue to print, as we launch our own "Save Us" campaign here, via Paypal, please, give what you can, immediately.

Fairey was arrested in February, and initially looked like he was going to fight the case. But the prospect of spending a lot of time in court in Boston must have tired him out. He pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor vandalism charges, got 11 charges dropped, and was sentenced to two years probation.

The 39-year-old Los Angeles street artist must pay $2,000 to a graffiti removal organization and cannot possess tagging materials - such as stickers or paste - in Boston except for authorized art installations. He also must tell officials when he plans to visit Suffolk County, where Boston is located.

Hey officials, he'll probably never visit your town again, to practice his world-famous art, which could give your city a serious injection of badly needed cultural cachet. No. He'll stay far away. Score one for law and order.
[USAT. Pic: Getty]

Boston officials brag that their iPhone app is the first of its kind, allowing citizens to easily emal pictures — of graffiti, potholes and the like — to the city, complete with embedded GPS location tags.

Those residents who can't afford to blow $2,500 on an iPhone plus service plan can still use the city's 24-hour telephone hotline, which was the city's previous revolutionary way of collecting complaints. How'd it go?

In the past, residents have grumbled that their complaints disappeared
into a bureaucratic black hole. Some said they had to call the city
hotline repeatedly to get results.

With the iPhone app, that simply won't happen anymore. Now citizens will get a tracking number for their complaints, and the city will now ignore their hectoring via the internet, as God intended. Thank you, Steve Jobs!

(Image via)

New York: Wall Street. Fashion. The media capital of the world. Billionaires. Criminals. Mafiosos. Immigrants. Everything's grand!

Los Angeles: Hollywood. Movie stars. Celebrities. Parties. Drugs. Bloods. Crips. Speidi. Beaches. Hippies. Weed. Glamor!

Las Vegas: Casinos. The Mob. The Rich. The strung out. Hookers. Pimps. Steve Wynn. Luck!

Washington, DC: Politics. Presidents. Senators. Crack. Marion Barry. The Supreme Court. Museums. Landmarks. Legislation. Sex scandals. Obama!

San Francisco: The Castro. Barry Bonds. Gavin Newsom. Tech. Silicon Valley. The Gays!

Boston: Patriots. Celtics. Red Sox. Championships. Tradition. Massholes. Ivy League. M.I.T. Kennedys!

Chicago: Machine politics. Daley. Throwback Obama. Projects. Vice Lords. Second City. Jordanesque!

Detroit: GM. Eminem. Unemployment. Poverty. Decay. The perfect crumbling urban hellhole for an enterprising metro reporter to use as a canvas. Charlie LeDuff!

New Orleans: Katrina. Destruction. Resurrection. Cafe Du Monde. Mardi Gras. Hurricanes, alcoholic and otherwise. Brangelina. Master P. Ninth Ward!

Miami: Vice. Cocaine cowboys. South Beach. Cubans. Jamaicans. Retirees. Cigarette boats. Money. Mosquitoes. Storms. Carl Hiaasen. Dave Barry. America's landing strip!

HOLY SHIT. This is a sentence: "The also-untitled Chilli project will follow the singer as she enlists the help of relationships expert Tionna Smalls to find love." Like, our old friend Tionna Smalls? Holy shit. Oh, that's about a new VH1 reality show with the TLC chick Chilli. There's another show about Pepa Denton, from Salt 'n Pepa. Man, the world is reeling right now. In a good way. [Variety]

Oh God. Amy Adams has joined the cast of that Mark Wahlberg/Christian Bale boxing picture directed by Darren Aronofsky, The Fighter. She'll play "Charlene, a tough, gritty bartender and former college high-jumper from Massachusetts". And you know what that means, folks? Another bad, strained Boston accent. Adams is a great actress but "tough" and "gritty" she is nawt. Did anyone see What Doesn't Kill You? Holy hell, that thing was a maudlin disaster. Amanda Peet had a decent accent though. But what's with the Boston fetishism? I'm all for movies made in my beloved hometown, but "Charlene, a tough, gritty bartender"? Well, she'd better look like Beverly D'Angelo on a bad day and be cranking Newport butts 'cause otherwise, I won't believe it. [THR]

Speaking of faux grit, Mariska Hargimammy and Chris Meloni have signed on for more work as detectives Rapey and McLoosecannon on Law & Order: SVU. They'll stick around for at least two more seasons, making about $400,000 a week. Christine Lahti is going to guest for a few episodes, which is great, and Stephanie March will be back for ten episodes, which is also great. I really like this show, even though it is ridiculous and those paychecks listed above make me want to claw my eyes out. The world is off kilter my friends. [Variety]

Oh no! Unstoppable, that movie about a runaway train headed towards chemicals, might be derailed. Or stopped! Or any of the other wordplay things you can do! Chemicals! Denzel Wershington and Christina Pine were to star and Tony Scott was to shake a camera around and confuse everyone direct, but now budgetary concerns are halting its progress. See, star-driven stuff like Tony and Denzel's The Taking of Weird Numbers Train, also about a train, didn't do well. Mostly it's because no one likes John Travolta anymore, but Denzel will still get blamed. This is a tragedy for these multi, multi, multimillionaires. [THR]

Aw, Chris Kattan has something to do now. The rubber-faced Saturday Night Live actor will costar in a new series called The Middle, a single-cam ABC show about a Midwestern car saleswoman, played by Patricia Heaton. It will be a fun two episodes before it gets canceled. [THR]

Eight and a half million people watched something called Princess Protection Program on the Disney Channel on Friday. Sadly, and inexplicably, I was not one of them. Seriously, Richard? You didn't even know this was on? Even though Selena Gomez, whom you hate, was in it, and you have seen A Cinderella Story 2? Disaster. I'm losing it in my old age. [Variety]

Oh, terrific. Dimension is planning a remake of An American Werewolf in London, because of TwinkyTwinkleLight probably. Let's just hope that Tom Everett Scott stays far, far away from this one. [THR]

According to the Boston Herald - whose writers clearly had a blast penning this one - Beantown cops are ready for the hordes of reefer-scented degenerates, who're going to be spoiling all the fun by being ready for the fans ("hordes of weed-puffing jam band flunkies," hee!)...with their ticket-pads. Friday night's Dave Matthews Band concert apparently brought forth a similar crowd.

Cops on foot and motorcycles patrolling the streets around the park last night missed Gallant's posse but were on the lookout for other public tokers, ready to knock them down with a $100 slap.

"Boston police will be increasing visibility in and around the Fenway area for the concerts taking place over the weekend," Boston Police spokesman Elaine Driscoll said. "They'll be focused on enforcing compliance and issuing citations for marijuana when appropriate."

Weeeeak. But, ah, the Herald writers are still enjoying themselves, getting to use marijuana slang terms "weed," "tokers," "dope," and "pot" in their piece at least one time each. They also got some choice quotes:

"That's cool. Write 'em up," said 28-year-old Adam Aja of Leicester. "First of all, they have to catch us, and then the worst they can do is fine you."

Laughing, Aja pulled a pipe from his pocket and said, "Let's smoke a bowl right now!"

Wicked. The band known for their ability to stretch a song out into a two hour "jam" (who have "flown" into a concert of theirs on a "flying hot dog" a few times) recently reunited after a five-year hiatus for a three-night stand in Hampton, Virginia earlier this year. They're on a sold-out tour all summer, so like it or not, the whitebread noodle dance is probably on its way to a town near you, and it's starting right about now. Personally, I'd take Phish fans over the typical occupants of Fenway Park any day. They're slightly less "aggro," I suppose. Also, the pot.

Cops make joint effort [Har! Via Boston Herald]

You can get suspended from Boston talk radio for being just about as much of a racist asshole as the Boston-area audience? What did Jay Severin really do? Say something about the Irish? Demonstrate some limited basic human empathy for Alex Rodriguez?

Here is another fun fact about this gentleman:

Severin also has been criticized over the years for falsely saying he had won a Pulitzer Prize and that he had earned a master's degree from Boston University.

He will be missed, during his probable month-long absense from the Boston airwaves.

The Advocate piece is lighter on, you know, the financial crisis that's led to the recent Barney Frank renaissance than Moe's piece (though it does have Frank being spot-on regarding the after-the-fact anti-Prop 8 campaign), but it serves up lulz:

But as we’re about to leave, a slender, pale man with a thick Russian accent ruins the vibe. “We got into this economic mess because of people like you,” he tells Frank, declining to shake the congressman’s hand. “You gave a mortgage to everyone who didn’t deserve one.”

“No, you actually have that backward,” Frank blurts back. “I’ll show you articles where I was critical of that. If you want the facts, I can give them to you.”

“You’ve been in Congress too long. Look at what’s happening in Massachusetts. People are leaving.”

“Then why don’t you leave too?” Frank says matter-of-factly. “You should move somewhere else.”

The man seems momentarily taken aback. Has his congressman just told him to leave the state? “Well, then who will pay taxes for you?”

“A lot of people are very happy to pay taxes.”

And both the Advocate piece and the online-only special "12 fascinating facts" thing Boston let Moe put up in addition to her profile feature this classic:

On Republican Congressman Scott Garrett’s testimony that he had sponsored numerous amendments that would have helped prevent the Fannie/Freddie meltdown if they hadn’t been defeated by Democrats:

“Yes, the gentleman from New Jersey offered amendment after amendment—in his head. This is a serial violator writing on the mirror, ‘Stop me before I don’t legislate again.’ …I know it is a bad feeling not to get your own party with you. Sometimes, [your amendments] were defeated by only 60 percent of Republicans.”

Hooray for Barney Frank, the sassy smart-ass who will now be instrumental in passing and implementing the new new new deal! Sorry, guys—he's taken.

Update: The New Republic loves him too! Please add "liberals who feel quietly guilty about the Iraq thing" to the headline, in your mind..

From his childhood days in Germany, Chris/Clark was always intrigued by high society and the finer things. Prone to big dreams and imaginings, at seventeen-years-old he fled his family for the New World. The sleepy town of Meriden, Connecticut, to be exact, where he stayed with a family he'd met on a train in Europe some time earlier. From there he proceeded to a run a thirty year con, changing names several times and going from the toasted It Boy of San Marino, to fake USC film buff, Wall Street big wig, fake art collector, pretend Rockefeller, church owner, celebrated demagogue of Beacon Hill Brahmin high society, and, finally, a man named Chip Smith, arrested by a swarm of armed authorities on a Baltimore street. He's been kind of a terrible person who, you know, maybe murdered a young couple back in California, but compelling facts like these just keep us glued:

• He floated around the country for 30 years without one single piece of official documentation.
• Learned his rich boy drawl from none other than Thurston Howell III, the Gilligan's Island millionaire character.
• When in California as Christopher Chichester, XIII Bt, he made up a Chichester family crest: "a heron, its wings spread, with an eel in its beak."
• Said he was the descendant of a former viceroy of India. And people believed him!
• Was given his own public access television show, Inside San Marino.
• Lived with a drunk old lady named Didi Sohus. Later, probably, killed her son and daughter-in-law, buried them in the backyard. When asked why the whole yard was dug up, he said he was having plumbing problems. He kept Didi from worrying by posing, on the phone, as a State Department official and telling her that the kids were working for the government and were on a secret mission overseas. This case was later on Unsolved Mysteries, and Christopher Chichester was mentioned by name and a photograph was aired. He avoided it by fleeing back East.
• When in Greenwich, and reinvented as Christopher Crowe, had the initials CCC embroidered on everything he wore.
• Used David Berkowitz's (the "Son of Sam" killer) social security number when applying for a job.
• Managed to get two high-profile Wall Street jobs with absolutely no experience or credentials.
• When that went bust, reinvented himself again as Clark Rockefeller. Fooled much of New York society, dazzling them with his rococo stories about secluded mansions and regal dinners, jingling his "key to Rockefeller Center," and dazzling collectors and connoisseurs with his impressive works of art (which later turned out to all be fakes).
• "At the end of many a meal of beef ribs and succotash at the armory, Rockefeller would exclaim, 'Isn’t this grand!,' and if it was an extra-grand evening, he would add, 'It’s a peach-melba night!' Quigley recalls, 'And then he would order peach melba, and here we were, two grown men, sitting there eating parfaits.'"
• Played the didgeridoo.
• Rumored to speak five to seven languages.
• Sent text messages like: “In a submarine. Crowded. Strange. Thought of you a minute ago.” and “Sipping strange tropical drinks on Nantucket now. Would love to see you. This coming week perhaps go to Central Park and kiss. Sound good?”
• At five years old, his daughter Snooks drew the entire Periodic Table of Elements on a Boston sidewalk in chalk.

Srsly, just read the whole article. It's fascinating. And we were just saying that there are no good hoaxes anymore.

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit [VF]

Back in August, the Telegraph reported that Italian Vanity Fair found Obama's half-brother living in obscurity in Kenya.

Why does the British press care so much? What does it matter? It is kind of sad, yes, that many of Barack Obama's distant relatives live in poverty. This is perhaps why he is such a wealth-redistributing socialist? Once Obama is elected, of course, he will seize Joe the Plumber's mansion and use it to house his many, many illegal immigrant relatives.

Choochy the poodle got out of her kennel as she was being unloaded after a Saturday night flight. "About 15 state police, firefighters, operations personnel and even electricians chased Choochy late into the night," delaying "at least eight flights." They finally caught Choochy, laying on the tarmac, at 1 p.m. on Sunday, when Choochy got tired.

Good work, Boston.

Image: (c) Jana Kohl and Robert Sebree, www.ararebreedoflove.com, used with permission from (c) holder.

You may remember that last week ol' Madge was in New York, and said cryptically at her concert: "In exactly 29 moves, the Queen will dump the King." She had 29 tour dates left at that point, and I guess she was hoping to keep the gargantuanly expensive divorce (like lots of millions of dollars, or about six pounds) under wraps until her tour ended. But, I guess she was just too giddy about the exciting, shitty news so she made sly and self-important references to it in beloved old Boston and I guess we'll eat it up. A messy public divorce would be just the right thing to take Maddy from her too-comfortable role as fitness-crazed London mommy to bitter, song-spewing, 50-year-old chick from Detroit with scores to settle. Madonna's been way too nice for the past few years. Let's hope that her Beantown outburst means that the bitch is back. [Daily Mail]

When one fretting citizen wrote in wondering what Agins thought "of the 'rule' on not wearing white after Labor Day," she thoughtfully responded:

"To be sure global warming has made it easier to comfortably wear thinner clothes in the winter. But pulling off seasonless looks boils down to getting the balance right—choosing smart looks that make sense. A white linen suit won’t work for Boston in November."

Yet.

Anyway, it's nice to see the paper has finally warmed to the impending global catastrophe. Now, off to Barney's for just the right ensemble for drowning in a flood.

A) "We are going to have to go C list for all three of these people, but it is a really fun one. #1 is an actress who was the co-star of a huge tween show on a network. Makes it better than the tween shows on all the cable channels. Even though she was on the tween show and played a tween, the funny thing is she was already well out of her teens. Since then she has done a little of this and a little of that and got married. For #2 we have another actress. Foreign born. Parents are very famous dramatic actors. #2 really has not done a whole bunch, but then again she is really young. Legal, but young. #3 is an actor. Not much of an actor. More known for his body and his on/off celebrity girlfriend. I would describe the celebrity girlfriend but that just seems like too many people. Most of you would know who she is though. So, #1,#2, and #3 had themselves a little on set romance. Yes, all three are in the same film. Makes it easier. Started with #2 and #3, but then when #1 and #3 got involved he got all three of them together. #2 was not very good at keeping this discreet and so now #1 is in the middle of a divorce and #3 is on double secret probation for the 20th time with his celebrity girlfriend. #2 just got fake breasts." [CDaN]

B) "Which TV neurotic presenter insists on direct eye contact at all times? If any of the production team fails to do so, she instructs the hapless director to give them the boot." [Mirror]