First of all, this is not a list of "counter-arguments," or methods by which you can convince a conservative relative that their beliefs are wrong. Because these are not "political positions." These are mythology. Just as you would not try to convince a Viking that the sun will not be eaten by a wolf during Ragnarökr, or try to convince an ancient Mayan that a camper van could not drive up and down an erupting volcano during 2012, you cannot actually convince a conservative old white man that Barack Obama is not a socialist.

Instead, you should steer the conversation somewhere safe. Here, our advice.

Health Care
Any discussion of health care policy at a gathering of extended family members can be easily cut off before it becomes heated. As there will probably be children and old people present, simply inquire as to recent hospital trips, illnesses, and injuries. Watch as those who minutes earlier were complaining about government rationing are suddenly bitching about their insurance company! (Unless, of course, they are one of the Olds who loves their Medicare.) Alternatively, you could bring up the inspiring play of Lions rookie QB Matt Stafford, who will miss Thanksgiving play with a nasty shoulder injury.

Bowing
Just read up on your "wacky foreign customs" and distract everyone by talking about how in Japan it is polite to slurp your soup as loudly as possible and you heard it was considered polite in Bahrain, or was it Saudi Arabia, to burp after a meal, to demonstrate your satisfaction. And did you know that a thumbs up is obscene in Iran? Wonder aloud how ritual displays of male affection in American football may relate to how Europeans are always kissing each other.

Czars
This would be a good opportunity to talk about the mess that the Cleveland Browns are in, and ask if Mike Holmgren would make a good "football czar." (Pro tip: Holmgren is a better coach than an executive, as his stint as Seahawks GM proved.)

Illegal Immigrants
Sometimes it's just best to let older relatives be racist for a little while, but this could be a good opportunity to talk about your favorite Canadian-born football players, like Mark Rypien and Bronco Nagurski.

Where Barack Obama Was Born
There is not really a good way to get out of this one, so you might just want to change the subject entirely. How about bringing up the atrocious play of the Packers offensive line? Now there's a Death Panel.

Glenn Beck
Just get wasted, but not so wasted that you start yelling at everyone about how much of an bastard that Glenn fucking Beck is.

There you go!

Happy Thanksgiving! The finks at Universal Music Group have disabled embedding of Gus Van Sant's video of William S. Burrough's Thanksgiving Prayer, so enjoy this one, instead.

Glenn Beck survived his appendicitis surgery and issued the following real statement:

Glenn and his wife Tania are so thankful for all the kind words, prayers and support from everyone. Well, almost everyone. Those compassionate loving liberal bloggers were bummed things didn't end differently for Glenn.

We hear the microchip-implanting portion of the operation went just fine Fuck, that was supposed to be a secret.


A tipster sends us more on the layoffs at Essence we heard about yesterday: "Essence relaunched their digital services last week via the re-design of its new website. 18 of the 20 people who worked extensively on this until, the day of launch (10.29), were let go yesterday without previous notice. In addition to digital, essence laid off several within their sales division. Severances were extended to those who had been there over a year, however, no warning or notice was provided to senior staff members.Their method was distinctly different compared to People and Sports Illustrated, for example. It was calculated and underhanded... Apparently a lot of pissed off people there."


Keith Kelly says that the hardest-hit magazines in the Time Inc. layoffs with be Fortune and Sports Illustrated, with about 40 layoffs each. Idea for avoiding this: ... ah, we got nothing. Sorry.


"Weird," "Bizarre," and other synonyms come to mind as we inform you that, starting Monday, the dying San Francisco Chronicle will be printing on "magazine-style glossy paper." What the fuck? I really don't know.

Time Inc. layoffs: People magazine is looking for eight buyout candidates. The memo below went out to staff today:

From: Larry Hackett
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 10:02:00 -0500
Conversation: Staff announcement
Subject: Staff announcement

As part of a broad Time Inc. cost savings initiative, I regret to announce
that People magazine will be making cuts in its editorial staff. We are
looking for 8 volunteers to accept severance packages among the
following Guild-covered job classifications:

Staff Correspondent
Reporter-Researcher
Writer-Reporter
Writer-Editor

I strongly urge each of you to contact People's human resources
representatives... for details regarding your
particular package.

The call for volunteers expires on November 19th. If necessary, we will
then follow the guild contract procedure for conducting involuntary layoffs
in these Guild categories.

If you have any questions, please see me or your department heads.

A tipster tells us the Time Inc. layoffs struck Essence today. We're told the mag had a total of 18 layoffs, including "the entire web team." If you know more, email us.


Oh, and Time Inc. has decide to fold Fortune Small Business, a spinoff mag that was actually owned by Amex and sent directly to cardholders. Eleven layoffs there, reportedly.


Did you know that Al-Qaeda is bucking the current media trend, by publishing magazines? It's true. And the latest one has a nice grenade on the cover, proving they know how to move copies. Read all about it here, then explain why you did so to the NSA.


Hello, Vogue has a new publisher! Her name is Susan Plagemann, and Conde Nast lured her away from Hearst. John Koblin says that her hiring—and an accompanying broadening of Tom Florio's responsibilities—follows the recommendation of McKinsey, to ensure "a clearer bureaucratic structure is now in place." Everything is different now.

From: Hackett, Larry - People
To: +TI-PG-WEEKLY-EDITORIAL-WORLD
Subject: Important Staff Meeting 10 a.m. TOMORROW

There will be a general staff meeting at 10 a.m. TOMORROW in the 30th floor
conference room. All People editorial team members are encouraged to attend.

The essence:

We — and the entire media world — have been hit hard by both the severe recession and the seismic shifts wrought by the Web. Given these dramatic events, further layoffs, unfortunately, are necessary across the entire organization...On the editorial side, we will maintain the essential strengths of Forbes while also deepening our relationships with our community. On the advertising side, we are making shifts to fully meet marketers' evolving needs.

More ad cuts than edit cuts? Hard to tell just yet. The real bloodshed will come tomorrow and/or Wednesday, we hear. If you know more, email us.

[Full Forbes Memo]

We're hearing from multiple sources that a major round of layoffs will be hitting Forbes next week. So if you work at Forbes...um, just be nervous, I guess. And if you know more details, email us.


Danyel Smith was the editor of Vibe. Then Vibe folded. Then she got a job as editor of TheRoot.com. Now, after just six weeks on the job, she's quitting "because of issues related to her commute." Huh. Well I was coming home late one dark afternoon/ A reporter stopped me for an interview/ She said she heard stories and she heard fables/ That I'm vicious on the mic, and the turntable/ This young reporter I did adore/ So I rocked a vicious rhyme like I never did before/ She said 'Damn fly guy I'm in love with you'/ And the Casanova legend must have been true/ I said: TELECOMMUTE.
Hip hop has a message.


Details from a tipster regarding this week's cutbacks at Conde Nast Traveler: "A majority of the full-time research staff was 'severed.' Although, purportedly, there will be an arrangement in the coming weeks for those let go to remain as freelancers—a mitigating demotion, ostensibly. But the axe also fell on some editorial and copy edit staff, and several other senior editors, while not fully terminated, will see their work weeks shortened to two or three days only." That's marginally better than being laid off!


An 80 year-old man who retired as Baltimore's AP bureau chief in 1991 killed himself last weekend after being charged with molesting two young boys.

Writes our tipster:

Wow. I wasn't expecting him to dance like a monkey, but neither was I expecting to leave the bookstore depressed. You know the scene in 30 Rock where [Tracy Jordan] gives a speech at his High School and has a breakdown? It was like that, only not funny. At one point, while talking about his father and his mother, he broke down crying. Nobody knew how to react, so we gave him an awkward round of applause. Maybe three laughs in 45 minutes.

Here's the clip in question:




Well, it might not have been funny, but at least it wasn't a downer. Writes another tipster:

I also attended the reading last night and like other Gawker attendees, I was surprised by the tone and content of his talk. However, I left feeling slightly inspired. He spoke at length about how we need to interact more as a community, that we need to get off the computer and stop listening to our iPods and interact with fellow New Yorkers. He even mentioned Kanye West and how he was saddened by what he did to "that young girl." It was certainly not what i had expected but not entirely depressing.

Either way, it sounds like Morgan had a really emotional day. First he was breaking down on NPR and then this. There aren't many people we'd want to give a big hug and tell them that it will be OK, but Tracy is at the top of the list.

Were you there? Got pictures? Let us know!

A tipster tells us that Bon Appetit cut six editorial positions today—"One from every department - edit, art, food, copy, research, photo."

This comes after three other Conde mags had editorial layoffs yesterday. It's looking like a bad week. If you know more, email us.

Schreffler brought Gatecrasher—once Page Six's competition—back to the paper with Sean Evans (also canned) after legendary NYDN gossip Ben Widdicombe left it for dead (or Star, which he left after five or so months). Sarah Polansky (who went from the National Enquirer to Page Six, where she was fired for being exposed by Radar as a "swag hag") filled in for Evans. I guess Polansky is the only person left over there? We also hear Chris Rovzar at NY Mag's Daily Intel was offered the job, but (predictably) turned it down, possibly because if he were to quit New York Magazine, Manhattan's Gossip Girl-watching population would have to be tear-gassed and read the riot act.

So: it looks like nobody's running gossip or getting decent scoops at the Daily News but the once a week Boris and Natasha-esque sideshow of Rush and Molloy — and they haven't been at the top of their game, lately — so maybe they'll try to bring Ben back again? He was awesome and he's currently doing AOL's Stylelist but I sincerely doubt that Daily News has the cash to compete with whatever he's getting at AOL. That said, the NYDN's gossip pages are just rehashing national items, and there're sleazier places to go for that dirt, so really, they might want to invest in some talent before they become the Knicks of New York's two-team gossip leagues.

Update: Maybe there's absolutely no way the NYDN can compete for Ben Widdicombe. We just heard that Widdicombe's working with TMZ as their executive editor. He hasn't let his New York apartment go, yet, and "needs the money." He's on a six-week trial with them. Well, if it's scratch you're after, Harvey Levin's got plenty to throw around. There're worse places to sell out, I suppose. Another tipster reports that Harvey Levin's been looking since last fall to fill that position, so it's a long time coming. He's met with plenty of people, but it's been difficult to fill the position because of Harvey's temperament.

2nd Update: Sheffler writes in and asks us when will we will be "updating/terminating your piece from the web" because, as it turns out, she wasn't shitcanned, but is leaving the Daily News to go to Bonnie Fuller's Hollywood Life thing. Enjoy your press-releasey goodness:

"I'm ecstatic to join Bonnie Fuller and the team at HollywoodLife.com as the West Coast Bureau Chief. I look forward to bringing my experience in celebrity news and lifestyle editorial to what will be a fabulous online destination for all women," says Schreffler, West Coast Bureau Chief, HollywoodLife.com.

In her new position, Schreffler will work closely with Fuller and Will Lee, executive editor, on editorial strategy, content development and overall direction of the site. HollywoodLife.com, which focuses on celebrity, style and lifestyle news, will re-launch in November 2009 with a new design and editorial focus, targeting style-minded women, ages 18-35...

...Where it will terminate their faces via awesome Bonnie Fuller'd website wonderfulness with little to no discretion. May I suggest a theme song? This is what the future of celebrity gossip looks like:

They do! And this is actually enjoyable, so bear with me, here. I mean, this does come from the same progressive parent Ayelet Waldman, who wrote her book about what it's like to be a mom that came out in May. Which the Times does mention. I wish they would've quoted from The Hamilton Review of Books, however:

...Look, she likes to fuck her husband, Michael Chabon, a lot, and playing with her kids she thinks is okay and everything, but not really in the same league as fucking her husband, Michael Chabon, and if she feels that way, that's her right. She likes to fuck Michael Chabon, period, deal with it.

And her husband wrote The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. So! These parents, they have these children. And a bunch of people do terrible things to their children like maybe put them in balloons or put them on TV or put them in beauty pageants or, I don't know, make them part of an outer-borough trend New York Magazine ends up having to document for a five page facepalm-heavy read. No, this is not that. These people write books about their children. And not just books, people. Michael Chabon books. Let's be honest: you have fucked up parents. They're either going to put you on a reality show or write a Michael Chabon book about you. What do you want? You want the book. Especially if it's Chabon. Phillip Roth, not so much. Part of me thinks this Times article was written explicitly to make half of grown-ass-man Brooklyn jealous of Chabon's children. Michael Chabon wrote books about them. And not you. Not only that, but he fact-checked with them, too. Neal Pollack, stick this up your AlternaAss:

When they do write about their children, Mr. Chabon and Ms. Waldman check with them first. If the topic might be sensitive, they read the child sections aloud and ask for their permission to publish. (In the Times Book Review published Sunday, David Kamp writes that Mr. Chabon "shows admirable restraint in not pimping out his children, in not giving away too much of their lives, their trials and their cute utterances.")

Boom. Michael Chabon does more fact-checking and on-the-record, off-the-record designating with his kids than the Washington Post does with their lobbyists. And after all of this effort, after having this Pulitzer-winning dad who's brilliant and incredible and god, he's writing a book about you! What do you give him for it?

And for their part, their children have not been particularly interested in what their parents spend their days writing.

SPOILED CHILDREN! And I wonder why they didn't like it? Hm. Anyway: Michael and Ayelet are still crazy in love with each other. They go on "plot walks," which is kind of like when I go have a smoke except I do it alone when I can't come up with a new way to write about Lady Gaga's genitals and they do it together and make brilliant Pulitzer magic their kids won't appreciate for how brilliant it really is. They do it together a lot. They do everything together a lot. They have such loving parents. Why won't these kids like these books??!?!?

The couple's eldest daughter, Sophie, has read a few of her mother's murder mysteries. "She did not enjoy the experience," Mr. Chabon said of his daughter's read. "She just wasn't ready to think of me as having ever been young or smoking cigarettes." Ms. Waldman jumped in: "Or being sexually active, sleeping with men."

Ah. That's why. Embarrassing parents are universal. Also, Ayelet Waldman still likes to fuck her husband a lot, really, is the point.

[Note: I have been informed by two readers (thank you Baroness and Sunroar) that the final quote reads strangely (as it does in the Times). Apparently, Chabon actually did sleep with men, and he discusses it in an essay about The Mysteries of Pittsburgh that now appears at the end of the paperback. That said, Waldman could've easily been talking about herself, and she still likes fucking Michael Chabon. Also, all parents are still embarrassing. Don't ever try to be a 'cool' parent. Ever. You will fail.]

So, you can read the entire recap here, but to summarize: Erica Wang tried to spin the press in her direction after TV chef and restaurateur Todd English left her at the altar. As it turns out, they had a terrible relationship, and English just filed a domestic abuse charge against her for clocking him (heh) with a watch. We've been trying to figure out the two remaining mysteries, and put a call out for tips on this yesterday. We might've found what we were looking for. Here's what we now know:

• English didn't bill her for any part of the wedding – the $12,000 bill Wang received was the balance the band was owed for performing and the band billed her instead of English. This was one of her major grievances: that English sent her the bill for exactly half. Would she and English have been billed that had she canceled the reception as soon as she found out? (She says she found out at 3PM that day. I find that hard to believe).
  
  
• The other $150K the wedding cost was paid for by English, already. He sunk his cash into it and didn't bill her for that money.
  
  
• Wang held a lavish dinner at Olives NY for her family after the split but before the wedding, and charged it to English's credit card. Olives is one of English's restaurants that he no doubt has a house account at. Are the Olives NY people going to question his bride-to-be Erica Wang before she's about to be married? Probably not.
  
  
• Finally: people in the Todd English empire are apparently pissed over one thing in this entire fiasco: the fact that the press keeps referring to Erica Wang as his assistant (which she gave up her job as a concierge at the Peninsula Hotel to "be."). English has a long-time assistant who's paid for her work, and Wang supposedly never—never—supplanted that.

Now, tips are tips, and I'm pretty skeptical of any press plays on this thing at this point, so to provide counter-balance, here's another one we got. It's, uh, maybe less credible?

Todd, no, Toad English called her on the phone " I can't marry you today. " at 1pm Oct 3rd on their wedding day while hiding in Miami's night club. I am sure there is a phone record should she need to verify one day :))) I assume you live in New York City, so please get your facts straight before asking yourself, "Why the hell Wang thinks it was a good idea to carry on the wedding party....?" Do you think Erica Wang would be so low like the toad to leave their 150 guests stranded in their tuxex and evening gowns in the rain? Would the hotel doorman tell the out of town guests " Sorry, no wedding, no party,no dinner. " I think it was very classy of Wang to put on a brave face to greet her guests.

By the way, the day Toad English sent two security guards to watch her pack, he called NYPD to report there was a " domestic dispute" in her apartment. The two disgusted policemen soon apologized and left after they saw there was only Erica Wang, her mother and the moving company. English used our PUBLIC SERVANTS to do his dirty work while our city is constantly in need of law enforcement to protect the general public. Now, what do you think?

I think Erica Wang's friends also have sugar daddies because they've clearly never had to write an important email.

I also think the timeline's starting to become a little more clear. It goes something like: English knew this thing was dunzo earlier in the week, but how could Wang not know? She didn't hear from him that entire week except when he canceled the wedding, which it sounds like he definitely did, at 1PM on the day of. Who would actually go on with a wedding to a guy who hadn't called her the entire week before they were supposed to be on the altar?

A Conde insider tells us that the layoffs came down this morning with little notice, claiming at least ten sales staffers at Golf World and at least one more at Golf Digest. The company "basically gutted [Golf World] and are merging the sales and marketing team with Golf Digest," our tipster says.

This follows yesterday's execution of six staffers at Vogue. We've emailed Conde Nast and we'll update this post with their reply. If you know more about today's layoffs, email us.

Sixty jobs is less than one half of one percent of eBay's 15,000 worldwide employees, in line with the company's earlier statement that internal rumors of a five percent reduction were "not even close" to what was planned. Without commenting on chatter that the axe will fall Thursday, eBay said it plans to provide details to employees within a week, meeting a commitment it made to them on Sept. 21 to outline restructuring plans within 30 days.

Spokesman John Pluhowski wouldn't get into whether the layoffs would be focused on the executive suite vs. rank and file, but did say they would fall "principally" within the product and technology areas. The restructuring, he added, is intended to "help improve our customer experience, build a global product team and speed up innovation." In other words, further details are still to come.

(Pic: by Chong Fong Liew)

Ever since the wedding was canceled, Wang has been trying to spin it like she is the one who was wronged, and is reportedly looking for a book deal, a TV show, or something of that ilk. America loves to feel sympathy for a bride left behind, especially if Wang sticks with the story that English called her on the afternoon of their nuptials to cancel and then went out partying in Miami with other women that night.

We heard (but haven't confirmed) that English went to the 13th Precinct today to file the charges. This isn't the first time that English claimed that Wang was abusive. A "friend" of his told the Boston Globe today that Wang "sometimes hit him, including once with his own watch, opening a cut around his eye." We initially thought the charges were for old offenses, but since we heard English currently has a black eye, it might be something new entirely. (Update: The tipster clarifies that the charges concern an incident back in September, so the shiner is still unexplained.) Or simply part of a PR offensive.

[Image via Getty]