You might naively think that menthols would be included in the ban of "flavored" cigarettes, but of course you would be wrong, because banning menthols would be racist, according to white tobacco company executives. So the most popular flavor of cigarette was specifically excluded from this save-the-children ban of flavored cigarettes, and, naturally, while politicians were debating all this, kids have been sucking down more Newports than ever before. The WSJ reports:

In 2008, the rate of smokers 12 to 17 years old using menthol cigarettes rose to 48% from 44% in 2004, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA. Among 18 to 25 year olds, the rate jumped to 41% in 2008 from 34% in 2004.

Teens have learned the important lesson that non-menthol cigarettes aren't Kool.
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• Lincoln University (in Pennsylvania!) is mandating that students with a body mass index over 30 either lose weight or "take a one-semester fitness and nutrition course." Hahaha! That will be the reaction of their fellow students, which is why the school might have to back down on this requirement. Problem: You know who has a body mass index over 30? The Incredible Hulk. Who would make a fine soldier. A related problem there, and at other schools, is kids eating the fries and the pizza. Why not just remove "food" from the cafeteria? Cause, meet effect.
• In the San Francisco Bay Area, the toughest high schools are now forced to contend with yoga classes. "What began as small pilot programs has suddenly spread as more South Bay schools in neighborhoods challenged by poverty, drugs and gang violence turn to the power of yoga as a stress reducer," you see. All this does is make violent kids more flexible, which equals more torque on their kicks. Just great.
• More fat kid news out of California: Something called "Fitnessgram"—at least it's not a Golden Graham, ha—tells us that, statistically speaking, "teenagers are three times more likely to be overweight than their 1980s counterparts." If they made The Goonies today, the Truffle Shuffle would be a three-part dance routine. Furthermore, the rich kids are winning: "In suburban and wealthier communities, students generally posted higher fitness scores than those in urban areas with a greater percentage of low-income students." That's alarming, since our nation's Army is made up of the cream of the lower half of the graduating class of our poorest high schools. Will their yoga kicks be enough to fend off Saddam's remaining minions? Let's hope so.

"Hassan was captured on a surveillance camera setting the mini-blazes," see, so they arrested him and went on back home to sleep on their soft beds, not knowing a fiery menace was still lurking in the placid hallways of the prestigious high school. Because Hassan wasn't even in school when the latest string of trashcan, etc. fires broke out this week. Fiery doom is coming from inside the building. And, the Daily News reports, the copycat pyro is a mad criminal genius!

"I'm smart enough - you can't catch me," read a note left at one of the fires, according to FDNY sources. Another note appeared to be in hieroglyphics.

Not to alarm you, parents, but it appears that a twisted teenage Egyptologist has declared fiery war on your children's place of learning while bungling cops focus their attention on a patsy! (Mohammed's dad says this is a case of racial profiling).

If this turns out to be viral marketing for some Stuyvesant kid's version of 'The Rule of Four,' there will be some serious ass-kicking.
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The New York Times has the whole...sad? Incredible? Tale of Francisco Hernandez, who—after being warned by his mom that she needed to have a serious talk with him about his performance at school—hopped on a subway train with ten dollars in his pocket and just rode the rails. For eleven f'ing days, before a transit cop recognized his face from a poster. Man.

No one spoke to him. Asked if he saw any larger meaning in that, he said, "Nobody really cares about the world and about people."

Good lord, it's too much. Say hello to a stranger on the subway today. (But not a crazy one.)
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Freshman NYU ladies come running to windows of their dorm every time Jude Law comes out on his balcony. The reason for this, again: Jude Law lives in a condo with a balcony that is towered over by a dormitory full of 18 year-olds. He has not made friends with his neighbors, according to the NYP:

"He noticed we were there and we started waving at him. Then he went inside and came back with two oranges," freshman Neha Najeeb told The Post. "He threw them at our window, but he missed." Law then went back inside and returned with two additional oranges, she said.

In four tries, he landed two oranges on the windows next door. I see several problems here:

1. They don't play baseball in England. Try kicking the oranges next time, Jude. Heh.
2. Jude Law goes out on his balcony to exercise with a personal trainer, then gets upset when people look at him. Go to a gym, you bizarrely attractive yogi. Rich people seem to enjoy Equinox.
3. Look at these pictures of his totally comical workout outfit. Heh.
4. Just be thankful you're not located next door to a state school dorm, Jude Law. Your balcony would be covered in shattered beer bottles at all times. It's not as bad as you think. Your every move is an object of fantasy for dozens of young women, just enjoy it. God.

A member of the NYU revolutionary vanguard alerted us to the pie-ing, and her note is reprinted in full below. The victims were Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, and Robert Spencer from "Jihad Watch," both of whom were there to talk about how there is apparently a Jihad, threatening America? Did you know about this?

Anyhow the kids were not about to let this intolerance of opposing viewpoints stand, so they interrupted the guys with a pie assault. Spencer himself writes about his close brush with whipped cream here. One eyewitness account says the two speakers "ended up largely unscathed." Our tipster tells us that the revolutionary cameraperson assigned to film the pie-ing for propaganda purposes "was tackled by security at the very beginning and didn't get any footage."

How are we supposed to repel the Jihadists if our military-age youth can't even stage a proper pie attack? Very troubling indeed. Full revolutionary press release-type thing below.

Islamophobic Warmongers Pied at NYU!

Tuesday, November 17, 7:15PM

NYU students disrupted a university event this evening featuring Robert Spencer from "Jihad Watch" and Elan Journo from the "Ayn Rand Institute for Individual Freedom." Students called out the panelists for their Islamophobic, warmongering hate-rhetoric, shouting and launching pies at the speakers. One student was detained, and several were escorted out of the building.

The event, entitled "The Jihad Still Threatens America," encouraged viscous Islamophobia and promoted aggressive military intervention in majority Muslim nations. Speaker Elan Journo actively promotes devastating attacks on Iran, claiming that "victory in World War II required flattening cities, firebombing factories, shops and homes, devastating vast tracts of Germany and Japan.... Victory today requires the same: smashing Iran's totalitarian regime and thus demoralizing the Islamist movement and its many supporters, so that they, too, abandon their cause as futile." Fear-mongering comments such as these promote the expansion of US imperialism, and contribute to the wave of anti-Muslim hate that is sweeping our nation.

The pieing came on the heels of an anti-hate sit-in hosted by the Islamic Center at NYU. The event was a response to NYU professor Tunku Varadarajan's recent article entitled "Going Muslim," a new term he has coined in the vein of "Going Postal" (article available at ).

While it is disturbing to see hate being expressed on such institutional levels on our campuses, the students' refusal to be silent is an inspiration to us all.

[Pic via]

Who's to say that flying milk carton is not full of kerosene? Go, NYT:

Diana Shulla-Cose, president and co-founder of Perspectives Charter Schools, said that an on-campus police officer had called for backup as the food fight escalated and that the resulting heavy police presence had led in turn to the large number of arrests.

Any time you're in need of assistance, call the police, and they will arrest somebody, for something, or, failing that, arrest you.

UPDATE: The PR person from Perspectives Charter School sent us a lengthy statement on this, which can be summarized as "The event is not reflective of the culture of our school." Duly noted.
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Maclaren, the stroller of choice for parents who insist upon spending too much money on a stroller, has just issued a recall notice for all of its "umbrella strollers." The easiest way to determine whether your Maclaren is one of the affected models is to count your child's remaining fingers.

All Maclaren strollers sold since 1999 are included in the recall, according to a source briefed on the recall.

The step comes after 12 kids allegedly had their fingertips amputated by Maclaren strollers.

Loss of fingertips could impact your child's ability to fill out the little bubbles on the SAT, and should therefore be taken seriously. Please send us pics of the panicked mobs of sexually marginalized Mr. Moms in the streets of Cobble Hill.

[Pic: Pardon Me For Asking]

Greg Van Voorhis is totally the Cool English Teacher: Young dude, beard, long hair, calls himself "GvDubs" on Twitter. He gave his students the Chuck Palahniuk short story "Guts" to read and next thing you know all the uncool school people are complaining like some episode of Leave it to Beaver, In the Beaver's Butt. Now the Cool English Teacher's been suspended and the tabloids got ahold of the story and a 16 year-old high school girl is telling the New York Post "He didn't mean it to be anything other than something we could learn from," and everybody is laughing about that quote, because the story is all like,

At home, he whittles the carrot into a blunt tool. He slathers it with grease and grinds his ass down on it. Then, nothing. No orgasm. Nothing happens except it hurts.

Go back to Ohio if you don't want your kids learning masturbation things! The only danger here is the possibility the kids will turn into dreary Palahniuk groupies.
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Horrible parents across America are selling off their children's looks to make a few extra bucks during these tough economic times, according to the WSJ. They seen them other girls doing it on the teevee show and them girls aren't even as purty as Caitlin, gah.

Natacha Andrews recently signed up her 4-year-old daughter, Anaya, with a modeling agency. Anaya says she wants to be "like Tyra"-that is, model-turned-media-personality Tyra Banks.

Her mother, a 36-year-old Phoenix attorney, has another motivation. "I know people who successfully saved money this way," she says

I know a dude who said he made all this money stuffing envelopes at home, too. Get the fuck out of here. I wanted to be a fireman when I was four, but my parents didn't buy me a fucking fire truck.

Carol Stevenson, a public-relations consultant, signed her three kids up with Peak Models & Talent because she wanted them to start saving for college.

Your special model child will look just fine shoveling driveways this winter for five dollars, and, later, applying for a job at McDonald's. All you parents are way psycho.

• Fat City: Earlier reports had indicated that Mike Bloomberg's firm dictate that calorie counts be posted in NYC restaurants was not having any effect on what grease-guzzling citizens were ordering to cram into their gaping maws. But! Now city health officials say "New Yorkers ordered fewer calories at four chains - Au Bon Pain, KFC, McDonald's and Starbucks." Au Bon Pain! Until this law scares Kennedy Fried Chicken customers off of the tantalizingly cheap biscuits, it means nothing.
• Fat Baby: Wealthy NYC parents are doing another wealthy NYC parent thing, by hiring personal trainers for their eight year-old children! "The family's so busy, [mom] said, they can't find time to teach Julian to ride a bicycle." Also: "'Julian's idea of recreation is a food tour in the West Village.'" Hahaha. +10 to the New York Post for this one. What will these outrageous wealthy parents do next?!?
• Fat Jesus: Associate professor of religion at Concordia College Michelle M. Lelwica is taking on this whole "Religion of Thinness." She's against it! "Why must a woman be pencil thin to be recognized as 'beautiful' and 'sexy'?" she asks, rhetorically. Oh, Michelle of little faith. Why question the way god hath made us?
• Fat Justice: If you're an attorney looking to crack audible fat jokes about a prosecutor in open court, at least don't do it during a sexual harassment hearing.

40% of 18-24 year-olds are now enrolled in college, which is higher than ever, although the increase is 100% due to a rise in community college enrollment. And 85% of those same kids are finishing high school, the highest rate ever. And more men are enrolled in college than ever, and more whites are enrolled in college than ever. Blacks and Latinos are both slightly below their all-time enrollment highs, but Latinos are finishing high school in record numbers.

Damned if I can think of a good angle on this.

[Read the full Pew Center Study, for class.]

• SEX: In Los Angeles, high schools fed up with kids doing their sexy, sexy dance moves out on the dance floor are drawing up "binding agreements that parents and students must sign before a teenager can step onto the dance floor" regulating sexxxy dance moves such as, quote, "sexual bending." What ever happened to doing the mashed potato?
• DRUGS: Now that Obama's federal government has shamefully abdicated its duty to arrest weedheads, states are "Taking up the torch," heh, to ensure that you medical marijuana hippies don't get away with your toking and your smoking, of marijuana. Most states are run by old jerks.
• ROCK N ROLL: Police are working with the club owners to keep the noise down, and it's really working out well.

British experts studied more than 17,000 children born in 1970 for about four decades. Of the children who ate candies or chocolates daily at age 10, 69 percent were later arrested for a violent offense by the age of 34.

Related: If your parents give you candy or chocolates daily at age 10, they have bigger problems than you and your incarceration.
[AP. Pic: Flickr]

What does some state politico in Maryland have to say to the WaPo about all this?

"if somebody for whatever reason decides this drug is something they want to partake in, they can buy it like they're buying a comic book or chewing gum. You don't even have to be 18. . . . I just don't think you should be able to buy salvia like you'd buy a Mounds bar."

Au contraire grown-up man, because if kids could buy salvia at every single Duane Reade checkout line just like they buy those delicious coconutty Mounds bars then maybe they could be more productive, in terms of making these Youtube videos, which are America's greatest natural resource.
[Don't stop Smokin Smarties either!]

Can we simply state the obvious here by saying: Don't cry, kids. "Flavored cigarettes," what the fuck, really? "Camel Exotic Blends by R. J. Reynolds, which had flavors like Twista Lime, Kauai Kolada and Warm Winter Toffee." How many other, more potent drugs did you have to be on for those flavors to sound appealing when mixed with tobacco, and set on fire?

Tobacco is nasty. It's supposed to be nasty. It is not supposed to taste like various flavors of pie. "Flavored tobacco" is for hookah smokers who spend all day lounging around cafes rather than blazing trails and building railroads and slaughtering native populations.

In other words, good old-fashioned unflavored cigarettes helped make this country great. You can smoke them on a horse (obv.) without everyone for the next ten miles downwind wondering where that distinct Kahlua aroma is coming from. And cloves? Don't even start with that. "Cloves." Come on.

The point is, now kids will go straight to the unfiltered Luckies, and save their "flavoring" for the weed, and for mixing with Everclear. Your health is the most important thing, next to maintaining America's badass rep.

Sure, mama could probably get her some sweet gig in fashion but what is Bee Shaffer, just some rich mama's girl out to waste her life in a field that doesn't have real world impact? No. She wants to be in theater. And apparently Anna Wintour's name means nothing in the competitive field of theater, because, why would it, right? From Gatecrasher:

In fact, the 22-year-old former Teen Vogue contributing editor went on a staggering 24 interviews since graduating from Columbia in May - all of them unsuccessful.

Uh, think we've nailed down the problem here, "Bee" "Shaffer"-Wintour: if you worked at Teen Vogue, you have obviously seen Twilight.

But that's not your only problem. Your other, main problem is you don't name-drop enough. What's wrong with you, crazy girl? We have a Gawker internship with your name ("Anna Wintour's daughter") on it.
[Pic: Getty]