Okay, I have to catch the train. Second half of today's summer mini-Gawker around five. It's good to get out! Just ask these drunk monkeys.

It's a well-known fact that the monkeys have been plotting against us since the days of yore. But their terrible plans will get sped up quite horribly once they've mastered the skill of banking. That's right. Someone's been teaching the little hellions how to use money! "[O]ne can get some clues as to how evolution prepared us for money from the burgeoning research that seeks to present animals with economic choices. To gain perspective on human financial decisions, one may ask, what would monkeys do?Keith Chen and Marc Hauser at Yale University taught monkeys about resources that bear a strong resemblance to money. Monkeys don't care about money, per se, but they do care about marshmallows."

"A resource (marshmallows) exchange task was introduced whereby pressing a lever would give another monkey a marshmallow; hence this was a task that involved a bit of altruism. Not only were monkeys taught about the game. Two specific monkeys were conditioned (entrained), such that one always pulled the lever for his monkey partner (thus being a very generous partner) and the other never pulled the lever for his partner (stingy). Then they let these conditioned monkeys play the game with other monkeys. Monkeys that played with the highly generous monkey figured it out and quickly took advantage of him. Monkeys that played with the stingy monkey also figured it out quickly and subsequently shunned or were aggressive toward him [...]

"Other work suggests that monkeys do not have a fully developed sense of fairness. There are signs that they are acutely sensitive to getting less than their fair share, such as if they see another monkey getting more than they get. If you have two dogs and give one a biscuit treat, the other will look at you with a mixture of expectancy and indignation. Getting less than your fair share is called being underbenefited, and many animals seem to have that.

"But a fully developed sense of fairness means that you are uncomfortable with being overbenefited as well. That is, it bothers you to get more than your fair share. Here is where humans seem to part company with other creatures.

"What happens when monkeys overbenefit from an exchange - do they experience guilt, embarrassment, shame, or try to rectify the situation? Apparently not." [Psychology Today]

Greedy, hungry, and with no sense of fairness. Oh, they're cute all right.

A memoir worth reading? Imagine that! New York Times media reporter David Carr's Night of the Gun comes out next month, and it's been treated to a nice nine-page excerpt in today's NYT Magazine. After detailing how he became a crack addict and how his dealer/girlfriend prematurely gave birth to his twin daughters (which you should totally read) he tackles the question of memoirs, which have been so sorely tarnished in the last few years.

But was it really all thus? When memory is called to answer, it often answers back with deception. How is it that almost every warm bar stool contains a hero, a star of his own epic, who is the sum of his amazing stories?

If I said I was a fat thug who beat up women and sold bad coke, would you like my story? What if instead I wrote that I was a recovered addict who obtained sole custody of my twin girls, got us off welfare and raised them by myself, even though I had a little touch of cancer? Now we’re talking. Both are equally true, but as a member of a self-interpreting species, one that fights to keep disharmony at a remove, I’m inclined to mention my tenderhearted attentions as a single parent before I get around to the fact that I hit their mother when we were together. We tell ourselves that we lie to protect others, but the self usually comes out looking damn good in the process.

The arc of the addict, warm and familiar as a Hallmark movie with only the details pivoting, is especially tidy in the recollection:

I had a beer with friends.

I shot dope into my neck.

I got in trouble.

I saw the error of my ways.

I found Jesus or 12 steps or bhakti yoga.

Now everything is new again.

In the convention of the recovery narrative, readers will want to scan past the tick-tock, looking for the yucky part so that they can feel better about themselves. (Here’s a taste: When I got to detox for what I thought was the last time, they took one look at my arms and brought me a tub filled with lukewarm water and Dreft detergent to soak my scabrous, pus-filled track marks. They dropped pills into my mouth from several inches away as if feeding a baby bird, and even the wet-brain drunks wouldn’t come near me. See how that works?)

Today I am a genuine, often pleasant person, I do solid work for a reputable organization and have, over the breadth of time, proved to be an attentive father and husband. But drugs, it seems to me, do not conjure demons; they reveal them. So how to reconcile my past with my current circumstance? Which, you might ask, of my two selves did I make up?

As a veteran journalist, I decided to report the story. For two years on and off, I pulled medical and legal documents and engaged in a series of interviews with people I used to run with. By turns, it became a kind of journalistic ghost dancing, trying to conjure spirits past, including mine. [NYT]

Former Gawker editor and lucky bastard Choire Sicha got to interview Battlestar Galactica's Pretty Asian Cyclon Grace Park for today's LA Times. Lucky bastard. He opens up with a question about a certain leggy Maxim photo spread.

One second you're on a squeaky-clean Canadian soap, the next moment you're in high heels and panties in a Maxim shoot.

I wasn't like 18, where it was sending off sparks and it was taboo, you know how the American public likes to do that. The show's publicist one day called and said, "Would you be interested in doing Maxim?" And I said, "Do I get the cover?" And she said no. And I said, "Hell yeah!" So she broke it down and I was really happy with it. And that helped me get "Cleaner." Not that I was dressing like that — but it put a different image in people's heads.

When we know you as someone in an armor bodysuit, it does change the perspective on you.

Just look at media, and how they like to do headlines. You want to catch people's attention. Eh, I dunno! It happened to work. Some people will go further than others.

Are there points where you've sat down with your professionals and said, "OK, what do I do? How do I get to where I want to be?"

Not really! At that point I only had one, if you want to say "people," I only had an agent. I didn't have anyone in L.A. — I had an agent in Vancouver. And meanwhile I know people in the States collect a dozen people. Talking to my castmates, they say, "Oh, my financial manager, publicist, manager, agent" — there are so many. . . . I think I actually follow my gut a little bit more. If there was a Jim Carrey movie? For sure I'd want to be in it. We have our lists. I just haven't hit too many of those [...]

You would think we were, on the coasts, a nation of hedonist atheists. You know, all those godless gays and Jews in Hollywood.

There's a lot of Jewish people in L.A. and I didn't know that! I was like, "Jewfro? What's a Jewfro?" And half the people were laughing. I was like, "What are you guys in on?" What's matzo ball soup? What's actually in it? Everybody just knows, right? I was like, "Is it meat? Is it flour?" I just had my first a few months ago.

[Ah, Choire. Always with the gay Jews. Read the rest of the interview here.]

As any of my close friends will attest, I don't know a damned thing about music. But I do know when I like it, and I especially like it when it's used to wonderful effect in cinema or television. So what's your favorite example(s) of such use? As usual, the rules are loose and fast. It can be a bone fide musical number, or a scene that simply uses music especially well (Is that a "score"? I have no idea about this stuff.) Anyway, here's my first entry. Add yours!

This went up yesterday, and it's still live, so your summer could be made! "So here's the deal... I'm usually in the Hamptons with my girlfriend at my folks house, not far from the town of West Hampton. However, luck would have it that my folks are going away for a week and we're at the house alone. We like to mix it up and have fun with another guy, keeps our relationship interesting and fresh. She's only into guys but knows I like getting it on with another guy while she either watches or gets involved. So what I'm offering is this... if you're looking to get away from the madness of your share house this weekend and looking to stay with us for a couple of nights, let me know how willing you are to please us... sexually. If we think it matches with our style, we'll expect you this evening. Here's a picture of me for starters..."

Sorry, I won't post the pic, in case it's a prank on some innocent, silly-looking dude. (And who would post a pic with an expression like that on his mug when he's looking for sex?) But go see him, and maybe meet your Hamptons house-ticket here.

So, you're Gillian Anderson, and you're about to reprise your iconic role as Agent Dana Scully for the first time in ten years in The X-Files: I Want to Believe, and your hi-larious interviewer from Newsweek opens up with these "questions": "I've got to confess. I don't know anything about 'The X-Files' [...] Why is it such a big deal?" What on earth can you say? Well, there's this.

"Ohmygod. You're not going to do this to me, are you? Tell me you're not going to do this. Oh come on! It's been such a long time. Hire somebody that knows enough that we don't have to explain this again."

Here's the rest of Anderson's primer on how to handle a passive-agressive journo who's trying to act all cool.

I saw the last movie, but I didn't watch all nine seasons.
I mean, nobody did. Did they? Yes. There are some people that did. But that's cool. I love running into people who have no idea what it's about.

Was it hard getting back into character?
It was a little odd. It was more disconcerting than I anticipated. I expected it to be a breeze. But I tried so hard since the series ended to do things as different as possible from the character. When I was faced with making acting decisions on that character again, my brain started backfiring and internally combusting.

You're a mom now. Do you travel with all your kids?
All my kids!? You make it sound like I have a bushel.

You've got two and another one coming. How far along are you?
About five and a half months. As I recall.

What else have you been up to lately?
I travel a lot and have bought and sold a lot of houses. I like doing up houses and getting into the architecture. I've spent a lot of time doing that in various places in the world.

Like where?
London, California, Canada. There's another country that I've just added that I'm not going to talk about because it's private. So that's four continents.

California and Canada are on the same continent.
It doesn't sound so special, then. Never mind. Your voice is actually very similar to Ben Affleck's voice. Has he ever told you that?

No. Are you sure?
Well, you probably wouldn't be able to tell. But if you were standing next to Ben, people would say, "Are you brothers?" Or maybe not standing next to, but talking next to and somebody else was behind a screen.

Can I use that as a pickup line?
You absolutely can. You have my permission.

A journalist said interviewing you is like wrestling a crocodile.
What does that mean? I have no idea.

Did you try to bite him?
Metaphorically.

[Newsweek]

Sure, plenty of the old classmates from the original Beverly Hills 90210 have signed-up to be the CW's revamp of the cheese-TV classic. But forget those suckas. It was just announced today that simmering, lazy-eyed, trouble-making beauty Shannen Doherty is coming back!

"The CW's much-hyped 90210 reinvention braved the Hilton at the ballroom on their TCA day and made some substantial announcements. First of all, the big news is that Shannen Doherty will indeed be returning to 90210 as Brenda Walsh. And we will be seeing a return of Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling.

"Executive Producers Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah (Freaks and Geeks) also revealed that the quirky humor that made their cult hit so popular will find it's way into 90210. We'll also be seeing a more diverse Beverly Hills than in the original series.

"They also said that viewers will discover if there is indeed a connection between Jessica Stroup's character Silver and David Silver (Brian Austin Green) during the premiere episode. Let's just hope she doesn't share his penchant for painful white boy rapping." [EW]

Sadly, according the orginal report, many episodes may be sorely lacking in Doherty goodness. "[T]here will be a musical in an episode and Shannen will be the director. She'll be the guest drama teacher."

They get a little closer every day! Just yesterday one of the meat-crazed super-fish was defeated by a crew of life guards after it snuck up on some swimmers at Jones Beach. That's a real beach! Not some silly, pissy Hamptons beach where you deserve to be chomped into chum!

"Beachgoers seeking relief from steamy weather by taking a dip in Zach's Bay were thwarted for a second day by a lurking thresher shark - at least until it was caught Friday afternoon.

"The call dreaded by swimmers - 'Shark! Shark!' - rang out at Jones Beach State Park about 1:30 p.m., causing the 50 people to run from the water.

"Within a half-hour, the shark had made it to shore. Three lifeguards caught it by the tail, muscled it into a plastic container sans lid, and carted it away on an all-terrain vehicle as crowds gathered to catch a glimpse.

"Tim Byrne, the park's director of operations, said the shark caught Friday was the same one he first spotted on Thursday, and which had prompted officials to close the same beach to bathers.

"'It's the same size, same coloration - down to a small mark on its lower tail fin,' said Byrne, an avid fisherman."

"The shark was a baby with a 3-foot body and a 3-foot tail that is thought to have been disoriented when it entered the bay, said George Gorman, deputy regional director of the state Parks Department.

"Aside from being a little battered from the sand, Gorman said the shark looked healthy. 'It was small,' Gorman said. 'It was not imposing or threatening at all.'

"The shark was taken to an area off Jones Beach where it was released miles from shore into the Atlantic Ocean." [Newsday]

Oh my, did I overstate the threat this time? Well, one thing I know about baby sharks—they grow up!

Okay, I'm out 'til this evening. You should get out too. Like these intrepid surfers.

Come on! Can't us Star Wars fans have anything left to brag about? The millions and millions of fans who crammed theaters to see The Dark Knight starting at midnight on Thursday put the comic book movie into record-breaking territory. Which is nice, except the record it broke was previously held by Revenge of the Sith. Sigh.

"Midnight screenings of Hollywood's latest Batman picture, 'The Dark Knight,' racked up $18.5 million at the box office its first day, Warner Bros. said.

"Warner Bros. told Variety.com that figure only included the Thursday into Friday midnight screenings, not the Friday 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. showings that many theaters offered.

"The well-reviewed 'The Dark Knight' broke the midnight screening record set by 2005's 'Star Wars, Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith,' which grossed $16.9 million, the entertainment industry trade paper said." [UPI]

Oh pooh! The moneyed slobs of the Hamptons are feeling the pinch of the recession this summer! Tiffy's gala will be positively ruined! "Trustees of the Children’s Museum of the East End rejected a dinner dance at a rented farm in favor of a cocktail party on the museum grounds here, replaced a five-piece rock ‘n’ roll cover band with a teenage jazz combo and slashed ticket prices to $150 from $450, but still only drew about 150 guests, half the number that turned out for the benefit last year... And there are still hundreds of tickets left for the annual Art for Life gala, also scheduled for Saturday night, at the East Hampton estate of Russell Simmons, the rap impresario." People, won't someone please think of the rappers?!

"All along the East End of Long Island, a string of beach towns that represent a sort of New York version of the French Riviera, fund-raisers and their topiarists are suffering through a limp summer, with the rising price of oil and falling value of the Dow combining to cast a pall over the party-hopping set.

"Some fund-raisers say that it may not help either that the number of charity galas seems to keep increasing each year. 'In the past we’ve sold out pretty quickly, but this year we’re scrambling,' said Tangie Murray, director of the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, which was founded by Mr. Simmons and his brothers to expose children to the arts and is putting on the Art for Life event. While 850 or 900 people have typically paid the $1,500 minimum to attend in recent years, Ms. Murray said that this year, 'we’re hoping we can reach 700; it’s a different economic climate.'" [NYT]

Sober rocker Courtney Love posted an open letter to her myspace page last night, in which she charges that fellow musical mess Ryan Adams had something to do with stealing "858,00$" from her—and from daughter Frances Bean Cobain. Let's all try to make sense of it together, shall we?

Ryan Adams you fucking weasel. deal with it.858,00$
Current mood: determined

Listen this is another open letter
this to a beyond mediocre piece of shite- maybe its just my moment to fucking get the knives out of my back,
but in any case between 00 and 04 before ....well a dark pit of shit and fake names and insanity follows with lots and lots of people counting on Kookoo cherry not being able to prove things- and thats for another day- those people have not played chess with me.
But i was sitting with some people going thru the 29 american express cards that i didnt know existed that were connected to a few HUNDRED bank accounts,and there were all the bills for Ryan Adams worst record and one of the worst records i can think of in rock and roll history ironically called"Riock and Roll " and it was paid for by ME and mostly by my child.
and when i met Ryan we had a mild little flirtation, why not? but i made the deathly stupid decision to instead of just have very safe sex with him ( hes pretty dirty and man ive been around but im the virgin mary comparitevly) or make friends. no i fucking pimped my useless , ridiculaously terrible loser "Boyfriend" ( who ironically Edward Norton hates no one any more than this fuck and for good reason , yet Edwards OWN business manager put Barber up on West XXth street kitty corner from Edward, Barber could see into Edwards Apartment, and then he had his own Dean and Deluca account and an ABC Carpetand Home account and spent about 250,000 on furniture and another 600,000 dollars on travel, this loser who hasnt had a job since 98 - while Frances didnt have hardly enough to eat and i sure as hell didnt) i pimped Barber onto Ryan,"oooh hes a great producer"- maybe it wasbnt honourable0 i just wanted Barber gone, so maybe i used Ryan to get him gone,
yeah you listen to this shit im listening to my i tunes on right now who names a record "Rock n Roll" what assholes do that?

Got it? Me neither. Maybe Courtney can clear it up.

with these trebled up guitars my bandmate said sounded like "really horrific rem on steroids" all treble and compresssion and shit wirtten songs - but so what?
well on my amex atthat time the 858 but also from bank accounts....theres 200,000 thousnad dollar checks written to Barber for "comissions" ididnt even know where the fuck he was ! but here on Amex 28 is the entire invoice for Ryan- your ENTIRE album and meals and drugs and Hotels and outboard gear and wasted fabullous guitars STRAIGHT OUT OF FRANCES"S TRUST FUND
So you little shit, maybe you had NO IDEA right? is that why you used a hysterical voice mail of a very terrified and flipped out me- for your worst reviewed record and well deserved too, this record is shite totally one of the worst recordings ive ever heard yet Ryan you YOU spent 858,000 dolllars on this record of MY DAUGHTERS MONEY. so whats your paying me back plan? illbe in New York next week , you can start by working out your payment plan, because i will litiagate your thieving ass from here til eternity, your a thief and i used to think you had some subtsance to you then i find out your being managed or your money is by Victoria Blake? is that POSSIBLE? whata great PAL that lizard like cretin is t o you and i hope you had fun that week in :Jamaica" whilst more of my kids money was being shoved offshore- but thats not the point- Billy may have made my kid cry but i wasn't in the room - he's family and he always will be- he just laid his Billy trip on a person a little too young for it- I'm over it. but YOU RYAN, OWE FRANCES 858<000 dollars , so should isend the amex copies to Blake and he "staff"? because i would enjoy that very much,what a really good friend to leave you with someone whose been diagnosed as an "utter psychotic" by a professional foresnic psychiatrist.
This record sucks i mean WOW!
is this what youd like me to tell my kid a fraction of her money was stolen for this shite "Rock N Roll " cd shall i post the outboard gear and 4 seasons billls and fancy Nobu dinners, ahh so thats why you released two records at once where you getting paid a salary to let Gollum "produce" you cos we both know what a reall fucking genius that guy is, and this isnt about Gollum- hes inthe hands of the professionals, i walk away now knowing everything, all of it , its disgusting and its a fucking nuclear explosion of greed i dont think american history has ever seen but no other artist was ever involved in this scandalous vile behaviour ......but you were and i note to self; you suck on this record with your bile towards me, ande its gutless and cowardly and shit, and you know it,
Pay me back Ryan, Pay Frances back. an dtake my fucking voice off that piece of shit.

You can read the rest of the missive here, but I'd be remiss if I didn't include Courtney's sign off to Ryan: "still shooting smack? hows that going for you?"

Hey everyone, just a brief note about the summer version of Gawker Weekend. Tomorrow through Labor Day it's going to be mini-Gawker Weekend. The vom the papers and magazines—and all of media—seek to make us consume on weekends in the dead of summer is all rehash, trashy speculation, crappy political senselessness, and essays by people who have not yet earned the right express opinion or who should have STFU centuries ago. It's nothing anyone should read. It's certainly nothing I should read. So I won't read it. Well, I will, sadly, read it, but I refuse to post most of it. Wow, this is getting long. The rest after the jump.

Anywho, I found last weekend that it's a waste of time to spend all day hoping that more than six or seven interesting items will come out on a summer Saturday or Sunday. Parsing the Sunday Times and the nonsense in the garbage Brit weekend newspapers in July and August? Good ol' Methuselah's life was too short for that. And mine is likely to be quite a spell shorter. So...

Rather than get depressed as all hell by locking myself up in my apartment every weekend for the rest of the summer and looking at 45 Digg posts in a row of two-year-old videos and pictures of Miley getting coffee, I'm cutting the weekends in half.

For the rest of the summer, I'm gonna post a few items early in the morning. Then there will be a nice, long, long siesta, and then I will post a few more items late in the afternoon or early in the evening.

I hope that's cool with everyone. It is frankly all the attention anyone should pay the weekend media during this season of frolic and fun. It's not as if any of them were about to say anything that meant anything, ever, to anyone, anywhere.

See you tomorrow!

• We found Banksy!
• We discovered the terrible secret of Madonna!
• This happened.
• We came in your ear.
• We didn't sell our kids.
• Hasn't the damn Bohemian Grove story been written ten thousand times already? Whatever.
• Also there was this.
• Maybe we should go into television? Or hey we hear you can't go wrong in newspapers!
• Oh, and this is still going on.
• Everyone is a Nazi.
• If you do enough drugs, someday you might get a plum gig at the Times! Or you will end up on a Digg-bait listicle.
• Oh, right. A magazine printed a funny cartoon. It upset Wolf Blitzer. And maybe others? We wrote more lists. Then racism got solved, the end.
• The culture was is over. Begun, the comment wars have. Soon the monsters will eat us so whatever. We need to get to a barbecue. INOCHI!

Angelo Mozilo was the grossly overpaid CEO of disastrous mortgage lending company Countrywide, who became the human face of the subprime crisis while simultaneously finding his customers' pleas for help "disgusting." But scratch that, because his own sister says he's nice. And she's a liberal! [HuffPo]

[Jim Behrle's kitties explain today that everyone reads the New Yorker for the cartoons. Just like Gawker! Also more explication of how to mock Barack Obama. AND THE MOTHERFUCKING BATMAN. Click thru and watch!]

Get in line, the bread's here. But only six of you are going to get any. Why? Because these are hard times and experiments have failed, and theories are grand but practice is hard work. So put out those little mitts of yours and trudge after the jump to see who eats this week.

Beautiful job all. Enjoy your weekends. Oh, and you should take a listen to that sad hipster Footloose cover. Some of it is actually quite lovely. Also, this:

Update: Belated Commie from Pareene.

"This is what happens when real geeks find out about the self proclaimed [New York] digerati," writes a tipster, referring to this awesome geek conversation, which includes, "I bet those other fake geeks dont even know what an RS-232 booster chip is for."

syrix: WTF

syrix: this world is going to crap

syrix: i dont get this

syrix: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/16-08/howto_allison

syrix: i dont even know who Julia Allison is

Jim: oh dude dont you read my tumblr

Jim: shes the prototypical fameball

syrix: *flameball?

Jim: no fameball

Jim: sigh, you dont hang out on the cool side of the internet do you?

[Jim Rock]

Did you know that in the UK it's actually illegal for liquor companies to imply that their product will help you achieve “seduction, sexual activity or sexual success"? Crazy, right? But the byproduct is that even George Clooney—the sexiest man alive (according to women or whatever)—has to play like a good boy in his European ads for Martini vermouth. Oh, he's so couth. He just wants to twirl that fake mustache and meet you later on to get to know the real you. Don't believe the hype, ladies; he can't love you like a blogger can. Scoff at his act, after the jump:

[via Jossip]

Relaunching your niche magazine in this miserable market and dismal culture? Get legendary designer George Lois on board! He cannibalized his old Esquire work for Radar, and now he's lending his talents to pretend Harvard Alum mag 02138 (can't believe we got the name of the mag right on the first try, sigh). If it wasn't late Friday afternoon we'd mock up a funny photoshop here. But now YOU CAN'T MAKE US. Anyway Lois is still awesome and cantankerous so it will probably be good, unlike the rest of that miserable magazine. The relaunch cover story? "The Harvard 100, the magazines annual ranking of the top 100 living alumni. " [NYP]

How could the CW ever top their infamous "OMFG" Gossip Girl ad campaign that set uppity tongues a wagging earlier this year? By embracing the finger-pointing criticisms and couple them with more sexy pictures of the sun-browned, nubile cast. Like the one here! And the two below. Oh, you know. After the:

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

Do you ever read science magazines just so you have some interesting factoid to talk about and sound cultured? It's worthwhile. [60 Second Science]

More Batman! Our former leading man Choire Sicha reviewed The Dark Knight for Radar. And he liked it. A lot.

Ok guys, deep breaths. Do you know the Fanjuls? Pepe and his lovely wife Emilia? They're maybe the wealthiest Cuban-American couple in the nation. Emilia, a socialite about Palm Beach, the Dominican Republic, and, yes, New York, is famous for her charitable work. Recently she's made a couple headlines for her newest project—"helping to finance and build a sparkling new campus for Glades Academy, a charter school in the town of Pahokee, Fla.," a town full of impoverished migrant workers and their families. So it's odd, isn't it, that her "executive assistant" and publicist is a white supremacist.

The Southern Poverty Law Center noticed, in a magazine piece about Emilia and her work with the school, this innocuous-looking line: "For more information about Glades Academy, call Chloe Black." That name probably doesn't mean much to you, but it's very familiar to a group like the SPLC, which battles racist organizations.

Chloe Black used to be married to David Duke. Former national leader of the KKK David Duke. Straight-up neo-Nazi David Duke.

While less visible in the white supremacist world than either of her husbands, Black has a strong movement history of her own. She met Duke at a college meeting of the White Youth Alliance in the 1970s, and, after marrying him, became vice president of his Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. She long held the copyright to African Atto, a weird 1973 booklet that instructs blacks on how to kill whites — and which was written, as was revealed by enterprising reporters, by Duke, who then claimed he was using it to compile a list of “radical blacks.”

Yes but that was years ago, you say! People change! Sure. Her next husband was Don Black. Another former Klan leader! But far, far more famous these days for founding and operating the most notoriously hateful site on the internet: Stormfront. Look it up yourself if you don't know the deal—it's generally considered poor Internet form to mention it, let alone link. It's basically a neo-Nazi message board. Fucked up shit goes on there.

Don Black claims to be unemployed, though he pays to operate Stormfront all on his own in a house owned entirely by his wife Chloe. And where does Chloe get her cash? From Emilia Fanjul, the Cuban-American sugar magnate socialite! Black is an executive assistant at Florida Crystals, the Fanjuls' sugar conglomerate. They had no comment.

They maybe didn't even know! Though a GOOGLE SEARCH would've revealed that in recent years Chloe Black has attended the conferences of hate groups and says lovely things about David Duke to the press.

So yes a neo-Nazi is flacking for a school designed to help poor minority children out of poverty, and using the money she makes to run a site dedicated to raising hatred and inciting violence against those little kids. And a wealthy socialite is involved!

WTF.

[Photo of Emilia Fanjul: New York Social Diary]

Staten Island—all of it!—is threatening to boycott Belmar, NJ because the mayor there made derogatory remarks about "guidos," the overtanned, hair-gelled, well-muscled gentlemen who I say are just fine, so that I don't get jumped next time I go to the gym. "The mayor should watch his f- - -ing mouth!" one Staten Island resident told the Post. Ha, right you are, my friend! Do you care to read the entire press release about this grievous insult from Staten Island Good Neighborhood Association president John "JE" Englebert, for some reason? Then click through and do so! [UPDATE: And a sample of the mayor's original gentle insults!]:

MEDIA ADVISORY

Staten Island Organization calls for Boycott of Belmar New Jersey
if Mayor fails to visit Staten Island

Staten Island, New York- John "JE" Englebert President of the Staten Island Good Neighborhood Association is calling for a boycott of Belmar New Jersey by Staten Islanders. An apology is not good enough. The group wants the Mayor Kenneth Pringle who insulted Staten Island to spend 24 hours in the crown island jewel of New York. He would be treated to the local cuisine including a night at the Staten Island Hotel. The Staten Island Good Neighbor Association wants to take him on a tour of the place people love to dump on.

If he refuses the group plans a fundraiser to give for the candidate that runs against him in the next election and boycott ads will be placed in local newspapers across Staten Island. The groups website is http://www.statenislandgoodneighborhoodassociation.com

"JE" Englebert is a life-long resident of Staten Island. He is owner of New York City nightclubs including Suzie Wong and Prime. The Organization is a non political group that is dedicated to the health, safety and well being of Staten Island. It acts as a community watch dog organization for good government and civic activities for the people of Staten Island.

Some of what the mayor wrote [via Newsday]:

The more time we spend on the NJGuido site, the more we think of Guidos as a kind of rare bird: they flock to our shore towns during the warm months, and are as welcome as, oh, Canada Geese. They're always tanned to the color of coconut shells, and easily identified by their plumage: satin shirts and short skirts on the females; Armani Exchange T-shirts and artfully distressed jeans on the males. The females favor bold hair styles and colorful makeup; the males tend to strut and flex their pumped up muscles. The call of the Guido is bellowing, and frequently slurred, invariably starting with the sound, "Yo," followed all too often by some creative variation on an expletive beginning with the letter, "F."

Executions started with the goal that commenters would come to be respected. A part of me hoped that Gawker commenters could rise above the scene of thoughtless vitriol spewed by anonymous office drones and 12-year-olds, to not be mentioned in trend pieces that try to co-opt what it means to be mocked on the internet. Because these days, everyone hates anonymous bile, unless it's funny. I hoped to force the Gawker commenters into the former category. And it seems to be working. Maybe too well.

Everyone is so friendly now. I feel lost at this point. I don't know how I can continue to execute people regularly if everyone continues the lovefest. I suppose it's possible to participate in it, and be a murderous jackanape, without actually becoming hypocritical. But this tiny concentration of liveblog chat rooms has become a juggernaut that subtly controls everything that happens in the comments section.

The experience has left me to grapple with learning how to cull the truly objectionable from a much smaller sample pool. In truth, I'm happy my job is becoming harder, but also glad that those below were still stupid enough for this week to have some bloodshed.

Executed: Mister Lincoln
Crime: Well, duh.

Executed: Hubert Cumberdale
Crime: A lot of stuff that I don't want to slog through, so let's just say this one.

Executed: sidemouse
Crime: Please—no more comments regarding the editorial direction of the site. Thank you.

Whining can be directed to gawkerexecutioner@gmail.com. I'll be here. Not in Paris.

Metro, the free paper best known for causing track fires on the NYC subways, ran a cover story yesterday that is totally indefensible, even by the lowly journalism standards of free morning papers. Radar spotted it: a front page splash about an innocent grad student girl who was supposedly attacked by four wild young black females because she was wearing a t-shirt with the slogan, "OBAMA IS MY SLAVE." The paper's one and only source? The untalented media whore designer who sold the mystery girl the shirt. (We would feel dirty giving him more PR than necessary, but it was this prick). But guess what, Metro: we got that press release too. And if this whole story isn't a hoax, I will personally buy one of those shitty shirts.

Here's the release we got on Wednesday:

[Alleged victim], a 25 year-old graduate student who lives in Manhattan was attacked yesterday (Tuesday, July 15th, 2008) at 8.30 P.M. outside of the 14th St.-Union Square subway station. ["Victim"], who was at the time listening to music with her iPod, was wearing a pink t-shirt bearing the slogan "Obama Is My Slave". Four African-American female teenagers approached her and one of them started to curse her because of her t-shirt, screaming at her, and then push her. ["Victim"], who was shocked, started to walk away from the group but was followed by the girls. The same one who cursed her, pulled her earphones and another girl spat on her face. ["Victim"] ran away from them and called the "[Bad designer]" store on [LES] where she had purchased her t-shirt and complained about the attack to the employee who was working in the shop at that time. The employee agreed to give ["victim"] the owner's, [bad designer's], cell phone number and the still shocked ["victim"] told him about the attack and informed him she was thinking of suing him "for all he's got". [Bad designer] in return told her that he was very sorry she had been attacked, but that she could not blame him because as he told her "No one made you buy the t-shirt". ["Victim"] said that she would come the following day and demand a refund for the t-shirt, which cost her $69. [Bad designer] told her that he doesn't give refunds because it is against his store policy. This made her even more agitated and she started to scream at him saying that he should be "ashamed of himself". [Bad designer] asked her for her phone number saying that he would speak to his lawyer and call her back. Yesterday at 10 PM when I, his publicist, called ["victim"] she was extremely upset and told me that she had spoken to her parents and decided to take [bad designer] to court.

* To speak with [alleged victim] about the incident, you can reach her at phone number: [redacted]
* To speak with [Bad designer] aka [prick], you can reach him at phone number: [redacted].
* A picture of [Bad designer] aka [prick] wearing the "Obama Is My Slave" t-shirt can be found at: [Hell]

Sincerely,

Lauren Levy
[Bad designer's] Publicist.

What's wrong with this picture? The guy is supposedly getting sued, and his own flack blasts out a press release with all the alleged dirty details, including the contact info of the girl who is supposedly suing him. Any reporter who's ever seen a press release related to a lawsuit knows that there's no way on earth one side will be happily passing out the other side's contact info and encouraging journalists to call them. And Metro says the "victim" didn't return any of their calls. Which didn't stop them from putting this on the front page.

There are only two possibilities: Either this whole thing is a hoax; or, the girl did get assaulted, and the bad designer and his creepy flack decided that this race-baiting was just the thing to get his face in the paper. Either way, what a bunch of scuzzballs.

Metro: you fools.

[Radar]