The Village Voice reprints a delightful little rant from an anonymous NYT staffer that originally ran 45 years ago. It proves that bullshit lasts longer than anything else. There's fake trend stories:

Times reporters who once kept a watchful eye on the doings and undoings of the numerous agencies supposedly serving the public are now scampering about the city on so-called non-stories, such as features and long background and mood pieces...The Times local news coverage is cute, but not very informative.

A Metro section that ain't what it used to be:

For all practical purposes there is now one City Hall reporter and a part-time housing reporter. The Times now depends for most of its city affairs coverage on the Associated Press, which mans a few "beats" with newspaper hacks; the mail, though which press releases come; and the various department public relations men who will "let you know" if anything important breaks.

And, of course, this stuff:

City politics is now left to reporters so anxious for page-one stories — with an angle and with "color" — that they are biting at every worm dangled before them by gleeful politicians. These stories embarrass the more experienced reporters.

This French Perrier ad was made in 1976 and it is basically exactly the same as the Sprite one, but without the blow job. Just goes to show: there are no new metaphors for orgasms. Sorry.

Also shocking: the fake Sprite ad had its origins in Williamsburg.

[Adland via Adfreak]

And not finding an image online I dug it out of my closet and took a few pictures with my iPhone. And not the new iPhone with the decent camera, sorry.

The article, purportedly by Steve Dunleavy, begins, "Everyone on earth remained in deep seclusion today as the tragic news of Michael Jackson's bizarre death sent shock waves through an unconsolable and devastated world," and reports that Jackson had just gone into "his world-famous spin move" on stage when a nuclear blast hit, accelerating "the already dangerously high velocity of Michael's spin, increasing the twirl ratio beyond acceptable industry standards," propelling him into the earth's core. It announces a worldwide funeral tour as "weeping mourners from New York to Nepal donned solitary black gloves in witness to their grief." Remember when the glove was the strangest thing about him?

OK, so the joke doesn't sustain very well past the cover, which is funny largely because it's a joke about the Post, not Jacko. Who, note, was not yet called Jacko. The best bits in the article involve Jackson's brother: "'Jermaine just keeps reliving the entire horrible nightmare,' said someone. 'He sits in Michael's media room and screens the video tapes over and over.'" And later: "Witnesses to the tragedy report that Jermaine grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed the head of his rapidly disappearing brother. The action, while courageous and quick thinking, failed to help Michael in his greatest moment of need."

And there's a coda that will seem awfully familiar to anyone who's read today's newspapers.

For Michael, death was the worst blow to date in a life marred by tragedies ranging from blazing hair to fierce family squabbles over how best to extract every dime from his fabulous talent — all of which had caused him to retreat ever further into a childlike world filled with toys, games and persistent denials of homosexuality.

Ironically, Michael... may have realized he was living on borrowed time. 'He was walking around knowing that at any moment a nuclear blast could take him out, yet he kept up a brave front for his fans,' said Michael's closest friend, the Post Post's Lisa Robinson.

Now those fans, conservatively estimated to include everyone in the world still alive, struggled to cope with a lost of staggering proportions. In every country of the globe, rich and poor, celebrities and the insignificant alike joined together as one in an unprecedented orgy of weeping, so intense that in many areas flash floods resulted, killing thousands.

Daniel Radosh is the author of Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture. This article first appeared on his personal blog.

Remember how Bill Clinton had sex with some lady who wasn't his wife and everyone freaked the fuck out? Republicans immediately began holding cute little trials for him and calling him terrible names and things, for a year. Sadly—tragically, in fact—Sanford was never a moralizing Lindsay Graham type, wondering how he'd explain this all to his innocent children. But hey, he did vote for impeachment!

He bravely voted to impeach the President for lying about an affair, even though he knew it was politically unpopular. ''People's appetite for stepping out on the impeachment plank has substantially diminished,'' Sanford said the day before it happened.

So Sanford voted, honorably, to continue the madness and send impeachment to the Senate, where it never had a chance of happening. When the independent counsel brought the charges, we couldn't really say, 'No problem.' You had to signal this was not OK," he explained in 1999.

Still, he did not enjoy his solemn duty to reprimand the President for cheating on his wife! Oh, no! Not like some people!

"You've got your clear attack dogs. They love it, they don't mind living in glass houses and throwing rocks," said Mark Sanford, a South Carolina Republican. "But most of us feel uncomfortable in the role of judge. It isn't exactly why we came to Congress. We're off center and edgy."

Poor guy! He did realize, throughout, that this issue was a political loser, because no one in America expected Bill to be faithful, because Republicans had spent years telling everyone what a bitch his wife was. As he told the Boston Globe in 1998:

"In politics you can get away with anything as long as it's what's expected," says Representative Mark Sanford, a Republican from South Carolina. "If people expect you to be a rascal, you can be a rascal. That he is a rascal has been discounted. But he is also an engaging personality - and things can't get better than this in the economy."

Sadly, people did not expect Mark Sanford to be "a rascal," and so he will pay for his own infidelities, and craziness.

But hey, Sanford was just punishing Clinton for lying under oath. That's a crime! It was the lying, not the sex! Sanford certainly wouldn't get up on his soapbox about another man's flaws unless a law was broken, right? Tell it to Bob Livingston!

The now-forgotten Bob Livingston was the GOP's House Speaker-elect, until Larry Flynt tracked down ladies who claimed they'd slept with him, because every single Republican in Congress back then had cheated on his wife. This outraged Sanford.

As he said on Crossfire, at the time: "The bottom line is Livingston lied. He lied to his wife."

And the Associated Press:

Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., said he would be "struggling" during Christmas over whether to support Livingston, even though the speaker-designate had not broken the law. "We as a party want to hold ourselves to high standards, period," Sanford said.

And, even more emphatically:

But one House Republican, Mark Sanford, said: "The bottom line is that he lied under a different oath -the oath to his wife."

Yes. Well. The '90s! What a crazy time! How could he have known how alluring he'd some day find his dear, dear Argentinian friend?

[Photo: AP]

A balloongram for John Gotti, and an afternoon with Dan Quayle. Courtesy of Kurt Andersen.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

See how many of the following classic moments you can spot in this clip:

"All I can think of is the guy in the library."

Ron Leingang, "Game-Play Counselor"

Howard Phillips, "Fun Club President"

"I had trouble with Lincoln Logs! (Sigh). Kids and fantasy."

[via Mental Floss]

The best Rahm Emanuel story is not the one about the decomposing two-and-a-half-foot fish he sent to a pollster who displeased him. It is not about the time - the many times - that he hung up on political contributors in a Chicago mayor's race, saying he was embarrassed to accept their $5,000 checks because they were $25,000 kind of guys. No, the definitive Rahm Emanuel story takes place in Little Rock, Ark., in the heady days after Bill Clinton was first elected President.

It was there that Emanuel, then Clinton's chief fund-raiser, repaired with George Stephanopoulos, Mandy Grunwald and other aides to Doe's, the campaign hangout. Revenge was heavy in the air as the group discussed the enemies - Democrats, Republicans, members of the press - who wronged them during the 1992 campaign. Clifford Jackson, the ex-friend of the President and peddler of the Clinton draft-dodging stories, was high on the list. So was William Donald Schaefer, then the Governor of Maryland and a Democrat who endorsed George Bush. Nathan Landow, the fund-raiser who backed the candidacy of Paul Tsongas, made it, too.

Suddenly Emanuel grabbed his steak knife and, as those who were there remember it, shouted out the name of another enemy, lifted the knife, then brought it down with full force into the table.

''Dead!'' he screamed.

The group immediately joined in the cathartic release: ''Nat Landow! Dead! Cliff Jackson! Dead! Bill Schaefer! Dead!''

His brother Ari is the insane agent parodied by Jeremy Piven on Entourage (he also inspired Bob Oedenkirk's agent on Larry Sanders, and most other savage parodies of powerful agents). His other brother is, uh, an oncologist. Anyway! Attack dog! Shark elbows! And ballet!

When Rahm was a boy, his mother forced him to take ballet lessons, and he threw himself into it with the same intensity he would later bring to politics, winning a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet. Friends jokingly theorize that his toughness is actually an outgrowth of being a ballet dancer: With that sort of thing on your resume, you had better be ready to fight if you hope to survive in Chicago politics. "The guy had been a ballet dancer in college," says Bruce Reed, "yet grown men lived in mortal fear of what he might do to them if they couldn't get the answer he wanted."

He's a great source of material, and, obviously, this is fantastic news for people who worried that cool, calm competence would mean the end of entertaining political journalism in an Obama era.

IN 1864, back when rumor still traveled by foot, a young messenger walked into the newsrooms of New York City’s press row with an Associated Press bulletin that President Lincoln had ordered the conscription of 400,000 additional troops for the Union.

The news arrived at a precarious time for the newspapers — around 2 a.m. Even the night editors had left, forcing a skeleton crew to decide whether to rush something into the paper, or risk being scooped. Two papers took the bait on what soon was exposed as a hoax.

The news drove the price of gold up, which was the point for the people who had planted the rumor. What can we learn from this? Don't trust anything, unless it comes directly from the mouth of a PR person. [NYT]

"What do we know about the man?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"We don't have an inkling about the man."

"That could be an asset."

Oh, those debate preps they're doing? Obama is practicing against some ancient lawyer dude. This is maybe a mistake because the lawyer dude is probably way more well-spoken and, frankly, Obama-like in his answers than McCain will be, but whatever.

McCain is debating Michael Steele, who is entirely unlike Barack Obama in every way except for one important thing: his time spent as a college professor. Ha ha ha, just kidding, it's because he's black. This is to teach John McCain not to seem quite as contemptuous of the black guy as he actually is. (Oh wait, update—McCain says now they won't use Steele! We're sure Alan Keyes is available! Do it!)

[via the Gallery of Graphic Design]

In 1992, the Olympic Village had a special e-mail program where you could e-mail any Olympian who wanted, and it would be translated into their language. We all know what that must have led to. Now-41-year-old swimmer Dara Torres said of the scene back then, "I'd get e-mails from all these guys, and I'd have no idea who they were."

Also,

"Swimmer Summer Sanders, a four-time medalist in Barcelona, says that having a guy in your room was grounds for being sent home, but the big e-mail tease was okay. 'Some of my girlfriends would email basketball players,' she recalls. And the women would offer the U.S. Dream Team private tours of the village with enticing e-mails like, 'See if you can handle the heat of the Village, because we're so cool.' Charles Barkley was spotted in the village, and one swimmer recalls that, curiously, he really seemed to know his way around."

The lesson here: swimmers are nothing but trouble.

[From Women's Sports & Fitness, 2000, written by Erin Bried]