Here is one of those "viral" videos you've heard so much about. In it, imaginary cartoon soap bubbles representing chemical soap scum linger around a lady's shower, acting like jerks. That is because the household cleaner company that made it supports rape.

Here are some "So In Style African American Barbie Dolls." They are drawing complaints because black parents feel their hair, eyes, and body do not represent what most black girls actually look like. Yes, well, that means they are just as horrible as every other Barbie doll ever then, no? Perhaps the problem is that an inanimate plastic doll is now expected to be a role model. How about protesting the fact that Barbie costs $27, when did that happen? EHH?

Let's just worry about keeping Barbie safe from sexual assault from soap bubbles, shall we?

One might say the hotel's guests are really getting into the spirit of the place! The Standard did everything it could to encourage its reputation as a $400 a night orgy den. Let's look back at this nice NY Post story from September 2:

Even hotel staffers and managers get in on the act, workers said, stripping down and posing provocatively in front of the massive floor-to-ceiling windows to draw attention to the hotel, which straddles the city's new High Line Park.

"We don't discourage it. In actual fact, we encourage it," a friendly bellhop told a pair of reporters as they checked in yesterday at The Standard, where randy guests cavort with abandon to the dismay — or delight — of parkgoers below.

Fucking in front of the assembled crowds below was actually the basis of the hotel's marketing policy, in a very thinly veiled way. Well, now we can officially dub that a "miscalculation;" last weekend, a hotel guest decided to help himself to the cleaning lady. She came in his room; he started chatting her up, asked if she had a boyfriend, asked if she thought he was handsome, then went ahead and jumped on her. (He was unsuccessful).

Could have happened anywhere, of course. But it's probably a much smaller mental leap for a horny hotel guest to decide that the cleaning lady must be interested in a quick fuck if he's staying in a place that's already been all over the tabloids for running ads saying "We'll put up with your banging if you'll put up with ours." Orgies are included with the room rate, right?

Hard to believe that not one marketing person, at any point, said, "These ads are edgy and all, but it sure would suck for us if any sex crimes happened in this place. Ya know?" Anyhow, expect the Standard Hotel to come up with some new taglines soon. It is very convenient to transportation!
[Pic: Ed Yourdon]

At the time, Al Sharpton called for a hate crime investigation. And why wouldn't he? Megan Williams said that she had been "stabbed, sexually assaulted, beaten with sticks, forced to eat human feces and doused with hot water" in a trailer where she was being held captive by white people shouting racial slurs at her. Six people are in prison for the attack (because of physical evidence and their own statements, according to the prosecutor). Now, Williams says she was just trying to get back at her boyfriend, who beat her up. She also says she was pressured by her mother to inflate the case for financial gain.

So: Just another case of race-baiting by Rev. Al! Right? He singlehandedly forced those six convictions into existence! Right? Even though he didn't even get the hate crimes investigation he was asking for? Well. This maybe was a contributing factor to the downfall of the suspects: The two people Williams was living with in the trailer were both convicted murderers, says the NYT.

At the time of the alleged assaults, Ms. Williams was staying at a ramshackle trailer owned by Bobby Brewster and his mother, Frankie Brewster, in Logan County, about 50 miles from Charleston. Mr. Brewster had killed his stepfather at the trailer when he was 12, the authorities said, and served time at a juvenile facility. In July 1994, Mrs. Brewster shot and killed an 84-year-old woman she was looking after, also in the trailer, according to court records. She served six years at a state correctional facility and was paroled in 2000.

By all means, throw out the convictions. Let the people unjustly convicted sue. Hell, fire the prosecutor. But let's skip the "JESSE JACKSON AL SHARPTON PLAYS THE RACE CARD AND IT BACKFIRES AGAIN" bit. (Drudge: "Sharpton pushed WV rape story which turned out to be a hoax..."). Hate crime laws are dumb, but that's not what anyone is arguing about here. They're arguing that Al Sharpton should have known this girl was lying about her charges, even though no one else knew that.
Al Sharpton is not a detective! Although he'd be a funny one. Al Sharpton has many, many cartoonish qualities. But he's also on the right side of most issues. Particularly racial issues. Unlike Drudge, or the New York Post, or most of West Virginia. So, let's all save our valuable breath.
[Pic via]

Seriously, after Matt Lauer asks her what she can tell us about Polanski personally, as someone who's kept in touch with him over the years, the first words out of her mouth are, "Roman is a brilliant director." He's also a "philanthropist," a "humanitarian" and a "good guy," and wait, I don't know if I mentioned this yet, "He's brilliant as well."

You know, all of these things may very well true. Can I just point out that none of them rules out his also being a child rapist? As Bitch Ph.D.'s M. Leblanc said on Twitter yesterday, "I really am baffled by how hard people find it to accept that great artists can do terrible things. Where have you been for all of history?"

Lauer asks Tate what she'd say to those of us asking questions like that, and she tells us that back in the '70s, Polanski was in custody for 4 months — 4 months, 42 days, tomayto, tomahto — that the shrinks judged him not to be a pedophile*, and then, here it comes! "There's rape, and then there's rape." Actually, Debra, I think the legal term you're looking for is "rape-rape." (Ask Whoopi Goldberg about it.)

She continues, "It was determined that Roman did not forcibly have sex with this young woman." Really? Was that determined by someone other than Roman Polanski? 'Cause I sure haven't seen anything indicating it was. The charges involving issues of consent were dropped because he agreed to a plea bargain — you know, the one he skipped town before being sentenced for? But for all the talk about how the victim has forgiven him and doesn't want to see this drag out, I haven't heard anything about her saying, "He didn't put his penis in me while I said no. First in my vagina, then in my anus. After raping me orally. He actually did none of that! Sorry for the confusion!"

And yet, Tate assures us, "It was a consensual matter. I am a victim's advocate, and I know the difference." And that is where I lose any respect I might have had for Debra Tate (and also where my head explodes). First, as far as I know, she's an advocate for families like hers, who have lost loved ones to murder, not for rape victims. Second, even if she were an advocate for child rape survivors, her opinion would still be just that. As it is, I don't even have snark for someone who says, "I work with victims of violent crime, therefore I have special knowledge that allowed me to determine conclusively that this 13-year-old was lying when she said my ex-brother-in-law kept putting his penis in her, long after she said no." I just... yeah.

*No word on whether they would have called the forty-something man who went on to have a relationship with 15-year-old Nastassja Kinski an ephebophile, instead.

Hey, you made the choice to go into the Rape Tunnel. Read the disclaimers! This "controversial" new work will reportedly go up in a gallery there, in Ohio, and then I guess people will come to see it or whatever, and guess what happens then?

I've constructed a 22 ft tunnel out of plywood that leads into the project room. There is no way in or out of the project room except for this tunnel. As you travel through the tunnel, it gets smaller and smaller, making it so that you have to crawl and put yourself in a submissive position in order to reach the tunnel's destination. At the end of the tunnel the subject will find me waiting in the project room and I'll try to the best of my ability to overpower and rape the person who crawls through.

See this is actually the sequel to Whitehurst's famed "PUNCH-YOU-IN-THE-FACE TUNNEL," where he says he punched some aspiring model in the face and broke her nose and they're still in court like years later but hey, what sort of tunnel did she think she was getting into?!!

Anyhow we very much encourage you to read this entire Artlurker.com interview with Whitehurst, cause we're not technically accredited art experts, so far be it from us to say where, exactly, the Rape Tunnel fits in "the canon" of Modern Rape Art. But before you book your tickets to Columbus, ladies (or gents! Young or old! He's taking all comers!), remember:

I want to make it clear that I plan to make the experience as unpleasant as I possibly can to anyone who dares to crawl through the tunnel. I will try to the best of my ability to make them regret their decision.

We are totally taking a field trip.
[Pic: Artlurker]

UPDATE: A tipster notes that Googling "Richard Whitehurst artist" turns up virtually no background on the guy. Likewise, the interviewer "Sheila Zareno" seems to be absent from Google. So this could all be hoax! Be warned, before you get all enthusiastic for the Rape Tunnel. Know more? Email us.

The woman first made the accusations two years ago to the Seattle Police Department and then to the FBI, which launched an investigation that appears to be still ongoing. But on July 29, she filed a civil lawsuit against Copperfield, revealing the truly creepy details for the first time. The Seattle Times reported on the lawsuit last night.

The accuser says she attended a Copperfield show in Kennewick, Wash., two years ago and was pulled from the crowd to participate in the act. After the show, Copperfield's assistant told her to stick around to meet the magician. She was ushered backstage, where her picture was taken with Copperfield and she was asked her to fill out a questionnaire. Copperfield's assistant explained that Copperfield owned a private island and a resort, and often had "promotional work" for models to appear in brochures he produced.

Copperfield called her seven months later and invited her to attend a "promotional opportunity" on the island. The woman's complaint says she was told there would be other guests on the island, and that she couldn't bring her boyfriend because there wouldn't be room for him.

When she arrived on the island—which was reachable only by private boat—Copperfield greeted her by confiscating her passport, according to the complaint:

Isn't that how Dracula began? Then Dr. Copperfield's Terror Island got downright awful:

After the alleged rape, the accuser says she returned to her room and tried to call her boyfriend, but couldn't get cell coverage. When she tried to use the landline, Copperfield walked into her room holding a cordless phone to her ear and stared at her, leading her to believe he'd been listening in on the call.

The next morning, the complaint says, she walked to the beach to try to find a way off the island, but Copperfield tracked her down:

After that alleged assault, the woman says she went to take a shower, and Copperfield came after her again:

All in all, the victim says, she spent three days and two nights trapped with Copperfield on the island. When she returned to Seattle, the complaint says, she went "directly" to the sexual trauma center at Harborview Hospital and filed a complaint with the Seattle Police Department. The Seattle cops called in the FBI because the alleged rapes took place outside the U.S., and the Seattle Times says the U.S. Attorney's office is deciding whether to file criminal charges against Copperfield.

For his part, the illusionist has released a statement through his attorneys calling the victim a liar and saying that while on the island, "she sun-tanned in her bikini listening to her IPod, jet-skied with island visitors, had playful conversations with guests, and swam on island beaches, day after day."

This woman, who filed the lawsuit, has a history of lying. She has lied to law enforcement before and, as a result, had innocent people arrested based on a false accusation. She bragged to one of her closest friends that she could make up allegations against a guy to "take a guy down" if she wanted to. She said this before she even met Mr. Copperfield. Witness after witness who know her personally say she is incapable of telling the truth.

[snip]

The notion that this woman was trapped on the island is absurd. There are telephones everywhere throughout the island that allow guests to call anyone in the world, including "911." There is cellular phone coverage and even internet access on the island. She had access to jet skis and boats that she could have taken to the neighboring inhabited islands that are minutes away and not owned by Mr. Copperfield. She came to the island because she wanted to — no one lied to her — and she could have left the island on her own at any time.

You can read the whole complaint here. While it names both Copperfield—under his real name, David Kotkin—and his assistant Jennifer Dillon, the accuser's attorneys have subsequently asked the court to remove Dillon as a defendant.

We've redacted the accuser's name because there's still an open criminal investigation into her claims and not naming alleged victims of sexual crimes is the decent thing to do. We generally aren't squeamish about naming the plaintiffs in lawsuits since filing a lawsuit is pretty much the definition of willingly going public with an accusation. But, as we understand the situation, this suit was only filed now because a two-year statute of limitations applied to her claims, and she needed to file by July 29 to preserve her rights to any damages. So we're treating this as we would a criminal case and not naming her.

According to The Guardian, Golding's biographer, Oxford English professor John Carey, discovered the rape story in his subject's journals as well as in the manuscript of an unpublished memoir.

Carey quotes the memoir as partially excusing the attempted rape on the grounds that Dora was "depraved by nature" and, at 14, was "already sexy as an ape".

It reveals that Golding told his wife he had been sure the girl "wanted heavy sex". She fought him off and ran away as he stood there shouting: "I'm not going to hurt you," the memoir said.

Two years later, the pair met again and had sex in a field, with Golding again introducing crudity by quoting the girl's foreplay remark: "Should I have all that rammed up my guts?"

Goldman's writings also suggest that the girl he attempted to rape later tried to have his father watch the two of them having sex in a field though binoculars, and that his idea for Lord of the Flies sprung from sociological experiments he conducted students while working as a teacher.

In a somewhat related note, "you're sexy as an ape" will be my new favorite pickup line until the first time I get slapped across the face for uttering it, which probably shouldn't take very long at all.

Pic via

Joseph Brooks won the Oscar for "Best Song" in 1977, and proceeded to use that credential to help him lure starry-eyed young women to his apartment, where he got them drunk and raped them under the guise of "auditioning" them for a part that would launch their careers. He was allegedly assisted by his "42-year-old female personal assistant, Shawni Lucier"—when you add the "F," that spells Lucifer!

The pair would put ads on Craigslist and talent sites saying that an award-winning composer was looking for a pretty 18-22 year old girl to help with her career. In reality, cops say, Brooks had the rapes meticulously planned out.

Brooks primarily targeted victims from Washington state and Oregon — including former "American Idol" contestant Loretta Spruell, of Seattle — so they would be tired from traveling by the time they arrived in New York, authorities said. He allegedly hoped that would leave them without the energy to put up a fight.

Lucifer the assistant would pick the girls up at the airport, reassure them, and drive them over to Brooks' place, where he would spring his trap:

Once Brooks had his prey inside his apartment, he used the oldest trick in the book, cops said. He allegedly told the women they were trying out for the role of a prostitute, and the scene they were depicting involved drinking glasses of wine "repeatedly and quickly."...

Brooks then turned into a monster, urging them to take off their clothes and ultimately forcing himself on them, authorities said.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.
Brooks is facing 82 counts of rape, sexual assault, and other charges, and he says he's innocent. Anyone who could make that song is predictably despicable.
[NYP. Pic: AP]

Palin continued her insistence that Letterman had made a joke about the "statutory rape of my 14-year-old daughter, Willow."

When Matt Lauer mentioned Letterman's on-air analysis of the jokes he was making about Bristol Palin, who got knocked up at age 17 and had what Republicans call an "illegitimate child" with a "baby daddy" that she never married and quickly broke up with just like all those unruly black people do in the inner city because she was raised by horrible people, Palin unraveled the whole conspiracy for him:

You and anybody else are extremely naive to believe that very convenient excuse of David Letterman's the other day. It took him a couple of days to think of that excuse.

Also, she hopes people start "rising up" against him. And says that it's "not cool" to joke about statutory rape. Our question: Why is she stressing the "statutory" part? Why not just go the whole hog and accuse him of joking about Alex Rodriguez—a known Hispanic!—and Eliot Spitzer—a known liberal pervert who might have a venereal disease!—brutally and non-consensually raping her 14-year-old daughter, which is clearly what Letterman meant?

Robert Gibbs got all huffy about it today, but please keep in mind that he, as White House Press Secretary, is a professional obfuscater.

So. Major General Antonio Taguba, who conducted the Abu Ghraib investigation, acknowledged the existence of a couple specific photos of sexual abuse and rape. "Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed," the Telegraph reported. But hey, is that actually true? Salon posted a lot of additional Abu Ghraib photos back in 2006 and Larisa Alexandrovna just reposted two (NSFW, disturbing) that might represent some of the specific photos of sexual abuse that the Telegraph describes?

In other words, the denial might be factually true, because these photos were already released, while the administration sits on the rest of them, which don't show those specific abuses.

Or, maybe, the Pentagon and Gibbs are lying. Because frankly we believe Taguba before them.

You wouldn't know it from watching the commercials playing constantly on TV, but in Observe & Report Ronnie (Seth Rogen) date rapes Brandi (Anna Faris) after taking her out to dinner, and today, bloggers are talking about it. This is how The New York Times review describes the scene, which you can watch in the final 20 seconds of the trailer above:

In another scene [Rogen] forces himself on a makeup-counter saleswoman after a date of heavy drinking and drug use. (Before the scene is over she indicates that she had given her consent.)

In the scene, Brandi has thrown up on herself and appears to be totally unconscious as Ronnie is pumping away on top of her. He stops for a second, and then she murmurs the line that The New York Times says indicates her consent, "Did I tell you to stop, motherfucker?" before passing out again.

Dan Kois writes on New York Magazine's Vulture blog:

The movie doesn't mitigate that sex scene at all. In fact, it makes it even more clear than the trailer does that when Brandi and Ronnie get home from dinner, she's unbelievably trashed on antidepressants and tequila. Not only does she throw up all over the place, she can barely walk - and she certainly can't give any kind of informed consent. She's way too wasted for her yelling at Ronnie to mean anything.

But Kois doesn't get is that it's a dark comedy. People are so disturbed by rape that the fact that Brandi is too out of it to give any kind of consent what makes the scene so hilarious. Anna Faris told New York Magazine, "It's like date rape - that's funny, right?" Seth Rogen agrees in this interview posted by the Washington City Paper. He says:

SETH ROGEN: When we're having sex and she's unconscious like you can literally feel the audience thinking, like, how the fuck are they going to make this okay? Like, what can possibly be said or done that I'm not going to walk out of the movie theater in the next thirty seconds? . . . And then she says, like, the one thing that makes it all okay:
BRANDI: "Why are you stopping, motherfucker?"

Rogen explains that everyone in the theater then lets out a good long chuckle. See, even though she's probably blacked out and has no idea what she's saying, it isn't rape. (And Brandi's kind of a dumb slut anyway.) In the beginning of the trailer, a flasher is exposing himself to women in the mall parking lot and it looks like he's masturbating in front of Brandi. In this interview Anna Faris says:

It is the most traumatic event that's ever happened to her, which is funny because I always imagined that she's seen a bit of male anatomy and it wouldn't normally scare her.

Women who have many sex partners obviously love penis, so they'd welcome a stranger jerking off in front of them on their way to work.

And if you aren't already laughing at the idea of a pervert exposing himself to women and someone getting date raped, Sady points out on her blog Tiger Beatdown (via Shakesville) that the film will be even more entertaining for women with history of sexual assault. Sady writes:

"The incredible frequency of rape and sexual assault in our society means that many, many victims of rape will see [the movie], and the PTSD that often accompanies rape will mean that, for a joke, for some dipshit filmmaker's attempt at being edgy, they are going to experience all of the pain and psychological trauma associated with that experience, they are going to feel that rape all over again, there, in their seats, in the theater, and they are going to pay for the experience, and if they try to talk about what that filmmaker did to them it's probably going to get sidetracked into some conversation about the Sanctity of Art which is invariably given more consideration than their actual lives."

An Auteur of Awkward Strikes Again [The New York Times]
Does Seth Rogen Rape Anna Faris in Observe & Report? [New York Magazine]
Observe and Report's Date Rape Apologism [Washington City Paper]
Um. [Tiger Beatdown]
Quote of the Day [Shakesville]

Remember this guy? Andrew Warren climbed his way from lowly Middle East case officer to Algiers station chief! This impressive ascent was accomplished through judicial application of whores and strippers on would-be recruits. Then Warren was videotaped having sex with seemingly drugged local women, which is apparently against CIA rules!

As the Washington Post reports, this is one of three "sex-related scandals" the CIA is dealing with this year (this year! it's only March!).

One of the most awesome and also completely ignored scandals of the last couple years was the story of Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, a vile fount of corruption and crime who somehow became CIA executive director (and got a job for his mistress while he was at it) while throwing hookers-and-poker parties at the Watergate (with Randy "Duke" Cunningham!) and accepting bribes from Brent Wilkes, a criminal defense contractor. (This is the problem with this scandal: it's complicated!) (Also it involves a guy named Brant "Nine Fingers" Bassett.)

But yes, the CIA: they're evil and they torture people and they rape and murder with impunity, all the time. That is basically their mission statement!

A. John Radsan, a former CIA assistant general counsel, said there are internal guidelines and structures — including the CIA inspector general's office and a separate review board that oversees clandestine operations — that are intended to guard against scandal. In reality, he said, it is a self-regulating system with few incentives for reporting bad behavior.

"You want a culture that values innovation and creativity and doesn't mind violating the laws of other countries, but at the same time, you want a culture of compliance and honesty," Radsan said. "It is a built-in contradiction."

If there is one thing we have learned at the end of this miserable and god-forsaken decade it is that "innovation and creativity" nearly always means for "amoral and antisocial criminality." That is why there is no money left, and why we lost the war on terror.

It's hard to understand and describe the situation in the country; the Tutsis — the tribe slaughtered in Rwanda during the genocide of 1994 — are leading an army against the government. 5.4 million people have died from war-related causes in the Congo since 1998, which one organization calls "the world’s deadliest documented conflict since WW II." And the majority of deaths were from "secondary" causes: malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition. Preventable, and treatable, under different circumstances. But Ashley Judd says that women and children "tend to be the most vulnerable and the most exploited and the most underserved and so there is probably a gender inequality factor that contributes to the lack of attention that's being given."

Judd's experiences in the Congo — especially when she met with the many, many women who had been brutally raped — had a real impact on her. "I was flat on my back for three weeks after," she says. (She went to a doctor and then a psychologist, who diagnosed her with "plain old straight-up grief.")

Judd is extremely articulate about the horrors she witnessed:

"[I sat with] a woman, who, through word of mouth, heard there was a clinic which could help a woman who had been raped. She had to figure out—in the midst of being stigmatized, in the midst of her physical agony, in the midst of incontinence and starvation—how to get herself walking, crawling to this clinic, only to find that it's overcrowded, because there are so many women, hundreds, if not thousands, just like her. And just imagine, this is a clinic that does nothing but genital reconstruction; […] The vagina will tear when being forced to accommodate either a rapist's anatomy or objects that are introduced: wood, rock, sticks, guns, bayonets. There will be perforation of the vaginal walls, perforation and ripping of the cervix, potentially, based on the extent of the penetration into the uterus. The wall between the rectum and vagina is ripped apart. The urethra, which goes to the bladder, is damaged. There is incontinence. The urine is constantly seeping out, because the muscles and mechanisms that hold the bladder intact are ruined; there is faecal incontinency, which of course can introduce faecal matter into the gut, which results in horrific infections."

Christopher Dickey says: "Inevitably, there are people who say that you are a voyeur." Responds Judd: "Let them come with me—Come 'voyeur' with me."

Ashley Judd’s Heart Of Darkness [Newsweek]
Ashley Judd's Congo Diary [TheCommunity]
Population Services International [Official Site]

[image via Current.com]

In the interview, he discusses his new film Milk, a biopic about 1970's gay rights activist Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn). Franco plays Milk's longtime partner Scott Smith, and, if his interview with Out is any indication, he's just a straight guy who is surprisingly relaxed about his sexuality. There's none of the caginess of a closeted man, and none of the "it was fine. It was just work" rigidness of a straight actor desperately trying to feel comfortable about kissing a dude. Instead, he's just frank (heh) and honest, expressing an interest in (or at least a knowledge of) "queer cinema." He'll also be playing gay poet Allen Ginsberg in the upcoming movie Howl. All of which makes us like him!

I mean, other than this queasy-making gay rapist rumor, Franco otherwise comes across as refreshingly "enlightened"—a dashing, talented young man with an active interest in furthering his education and a sober, respectably artistic approach to supposedly difficult issues of a hetero playing a homo. From the Out interview, with Milk screenwriter Lance Black:

James: At one point during rehearsals, the idea was thrown out that Sean and I would go to the apartment that we eventually shot in and spend a night or two there just to, like — I don’t know what — feel comfortable with each other? That idea was kind of thrown out but ended up not happening because of scheduling. I approached the relationship part as I would approach any relationship. When I’m working with another actor or actress that I’m supposed to have a relationship with, I’ll look for things in the person I like. My other hero on the film was Sean, so it wasn’t too hard to look up to him — or whatever that is.

Lance: You fell in love with Sean? Is that what you’re saying?

James: Basically, I’ve been in love with him since even before Fast Times.

So, I guess, the mystery deepens. Franco may be hiding some dark and closeted secrets. Or, you know, maybe there's no mystery at all and grim rumors are just grim rumors and Franco is just a straight actor possessed of a progressive and exploratory spirit and I'm kind of an ass for harping on this gay stuff, because why should straight actors feel chased away from gay roles, you know? (Plus, why does Out keep putting straight actors on their cover as if to dangle some tantalizing, forbidden fruit?) Anyway, here are more photos from the issue for you to ogle:

Now you got Uncle Women, like Sarah Palin, who jumps on the shit and points her fingers at other women. Turncoat bitch! Don’t you fuckin’ reference Old Testament, bitch! You stay with your new Goyish crappy shiksa funky bullshit! Don’t you touch my Old Testament, you bitch! Because we have left it open for interpre-ta-tion! It is no longer taken literally! You whore in your fuckin' cheap New Vision cheap-ass plastic glasses and your [sneering voice] hair up. A Tina Fey-Megan Mullally brokedown bullshit moment.

[GayWired]

• "It's been a tough hop for this caravan of sales crews, though. Winding their way down from California, they lost a few agents. Two were arrested in Albuquerque after they allegedly forced their way into the home of an elderly couple and beat them to death, raping the wife first. A few weeks later, another agent allegedly raped a woman in Claremont, California, so he got picked up, too."
• "In the eight months the Press investigated door-to-door magazine sales across the country, the industry has seen at least three murders, one rape, two attempted rapes, one stabbing, one attempted murder, one vehicle fatality and one attempted abduction of a 13-year-old girl."
• Crystal Mathahy (pictured), a 17-year-old in Texas, got recruited to join a magazine crew. An older cousin signed a "permission slip" for her to participate, since her mom was illiterate. She didn't make enough money to eat, and tried to leave the crew, but couldn't afford a Greyhound ticket. Shortly after, the crew's van plunged 80 feet off the side of a mountain, crushing Mathahy to death.
• "[In] Houston in 2005, a sales agent raped a 17-year-old mentally retarded girl who answered the door of the apartment she shared with her mother. To gain her confidence, that agent acted as if he had a disability as well."

Apart from the individual tragedies, the real scandal the story lays out is the blind eye that big players in the magazine industry—including the MPAA, Conde Nast, and many other top-tier publishers—turn to the well-known excesses of the subscription business. That's to say nothing of the financial risks to consumers, like being subscribed to magazines against your will. The whole thing is worth a read.

[Houston Press]