[Berlin, December 11. Image via Getty]

BERLIN - DECEMBER 11: A young girl makes sugar cookies at a kindergarten of the Rudolf Steiner Waldorfschule on December 11, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. Each year Berlin's kindergarten children get into the festive spirit and prepare cookies and biscuits prior to Christmas. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

[Berlin, November 27. Image via Getty]

The 29-years-old Sumatran Orangutan female Bini holds her 10-weeks-old baby Bulan in her arms in the zoo of Berlin on November 27, 2009. The orangutan baby was born on September 20, 2009 and is the fifth baby of the orangutan mother Bini. AFP PHOTO DDP/ MICHAEL KAPPELER GERMANY OUT (Photo credit should read MICHAEL KAPPELER/AFP/Getty Images)

[Berlin, November 9. Image via Getty]

German girls paint a peace symbol on a replica of Berlin Wall standing in the center of Warsaw as a part of celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9, 2009. AFP PHOTO WOJTEK RADWANSKI (Photo credit should read WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

[Berlin, November 8. Image via Getty]

BERLIN - NOVEMBER 09: A visitor photographs over the edge of a still-existing section of the Berlin Wall into the so-called 'death strip,' where East German border guards had the order to shoot anyone attempting to flee into West Berlin, at the Bernauer Strasse memorial on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall on November 9, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. The city of Berlin is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, which led to the end of communist rule in East Germany and later on the reunification of East and West Germany, with a spectacular event at the Brandenburg Gate and the participation of international leaders. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

[Berlin, November 8. Image via Getty]

A girl leaps up to burst a bubble in Mauer Park in central Berlin, on November 8, 2009. Germany is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 2009 with many world leaders coming to Berlin to mark the event. AFP PHOTO/Leon Neal (Photo credit should read Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images)

[Berlin, November 5. Image via Getty]

A woman walks past a billboard featuring portraits of people and their recollections of the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, at Berlin's KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens) department store, rebaptised KaDeBe (Kaufhaus der Berliner, meaning Department store of Berliners instead of the usual Department store of the West) for the occasion, on November 5, 2009. Berlin has caught wall fever ahead of celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall on November 9. Sign in window reads: 'Where were you on the 9th of November 1989?' AFP PHOTO / JOHN MACDOUGALL (Photo credit should read JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images)

[Berlin, November 4. Image via Getty]

A woman playing the part of an angel takes part in a dress rehearsal for a theatre piece of a rooftop in Berlin on November 4, 2009. The theatre piece will take place on November 9, 2009 during the 20th anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Wall. AFP PHOTO DDP / MICHAEL KAPPELER GERMANY OUT (Photo credit should read MICHAEL KAPPELER/AFP/Getty Images)

[Berlin, August 20. Image via Getty]

BERLIN - AUGUST 20: Blanka Vlasic of Croatia reacts after a jump in the women's High Jump Final during day six of the 12th IAAF World Athletics Championships at the Olympic Stadium on August 20, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

[Berlin, August 13. Image via Getty]

A young woman listens to information about the German 'Currywurst' sausage on a handset in the shape of a bottle of ketchup at the German Currywurst Museum in Berlin on August 13, 2009. The exhibition, thematising the history and preparation of the currywurst sausage, opens on August 15, 2009 for visitors. The German speciality consists of a sausage in a sauce of ketchup and curry powder. AFP PHOTO DDP/ MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK GERMANY OUT (Photo credit should read MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images)

[Berlin, July 24. Image via Getty]

BERLIN - JULY 24: A woman peeks through a still-standing section of the former Berlin Wall, behind which lies the so-called 'death strip,' where East German guards had the order to shoot on sight anyone attempting to flee across to West Berlin, at the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse on July 24, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. Germany will mark the 20th anniversary this year of the fall of the Wall, which paved the way for the end of communist rule across Eastern Europe and German reunification later on. The Berlin Wall, built by the communist East German government in 1961, divided communist-controlled East Berlin and Allied-occupied West Berlin. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

[Berlin, June 9. Image via Getty]

BERLIN - JUNE 09: Zoo employee Petra Schroeder carries newborn baby panthers Larisa and Sipura during a media presentation of the cubs at the Tierpark zoo on June 9, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. The two panthers are twins and were born on April 26. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

[Berlin, May 31. Image via Getty]

BERLIN - MAY 31: Hula hoop enthusiasts perform in the annual Carnival of Cultures parade in Kreuzberg district on May 31, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. The carnival, in German called 'Karneval der Kulturen', celebrates Berlin's ethnic and cultural diversity. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

• David Kipen, organizer of community reading scheme the Big Read, pledged to eat To Kill a Mockingbird if the residents of Kelley's Island in Ohio failed to read the novel. Fortunately, everyone involved finished the book, and Kipen was not forced to eat Lee's words. • Several hours after being diagnosed with swine flu, 12-year-old Phoebe Wyburd began receiving threatening text messages, one of which read: "You will die." Fortunately, Phoebe is steadily recovering and has been dosed with Tamiflu. • Doctors may have found a new way to treat the extreme nausea and vomiting that effects many women during pregnancy. •  After 1,000 years of being visible only to masculine eyes, the treasures of orthodox enclave Mount Athos will be opened to women at the Petit Palais in Paris. • Oh. god. This is probably the most awful thing you will read all day: as part of the sexual cleansing of Iraq, gay men are being subjected to a particularly cruel form of torture in which their anuses are glued shut and diarrhea is induced. • Conservative opponents of Obama's scheduled address at Notre Dame have commissioned an abortion plane, that flies over the campus bearing the message "Abortion is terror." Classy! • German artist Gunther von Hagens is being criticized over one of his recent works, which depicts two corpses having sex. The exhibit, titled "Cycle of Life," opens tomorrow in Berlin. •  Chanel, a 21-year-old dachshund, is set to celebrate her birthday (with her owners) at a party in New York. Chanel is believed to be the oldest dog alive - she is 147 in dog years. • Good news for puking moms: severity of morning sickness is believed to be linked to high IQ in offspring. The same hormones that induce nausea may also be responsible for aiding in the child's development, doctors say. • A Swedish couple are in the process of appealing a court ruling that barred them from naming their son "Q". The court said that they may be willing to consider "Q:u" as an alternative. • A five-year-old hippo in Israel died today while being castrated by a medical team. • New research indicates that chlamydia may play a role in the development of a certain type of arthritis. • Jane Orobator, mother to Samantha, has been publicly begging for the release of her daughter. Samantha Orobator was jailed last August on charges of drug smuggling. Jane says she has not heard any news of her daughter's trial, and is unable to afford a lawyer. Clare Algar, a lawyer from charity group Reprieve, says they are hoping for a speedy trial. •

Almost five years ago, Katja Eichbaum, then 33, opened the restaurant Sehnsucht ("Longing") in Berlin with money loaned by her father. Eichbaum had struggled with anorexia and bulimia for over ten years; in a piece for NPR by reporter Emily Harris, she freely admits that running the restaurant is a therapeutic enterprise for her. And for the many staff members, including the chef, who are at various points in their own recoveries from eating disorders.

Eichbaum's idea is to normalize food, and to make the serving and consumption of food non-threatening to ED sufferers. "I have very normal food on the menu. Girls should take this kind of eating into their normal routine and stop depending on carrots or nibbling on the garnish at the edge of the plate," says Eichbaum. All of the menu items are given allegorical names (a rhubarb and vanilla dessert is called "Mixed Feelings," a rack of lamb is called "Ravenous") so that none of the customers has to dwell on the idea of food when ordering. But the dishes themselves are, apparently, simple and delicious. "We offer lamb curry, duck breast in orange sauce, very, very tasty things. They don't have to be afraid because the portions are normal. They don't overeat, and it's not too little, either." (Of course, you can order the Thieves Platter, €0, which is an empty plate and a set of cutlery, to allow anyone who doesn't want to order their own meal to poach from the dishes of their fellow diners.)

Sehnsucht is located across the street from a day center for people with eating disorders, and Eichbaum wants her restaurant to be a kind of low-key therapy for her patrons. "Girls will have no pressure to eat here," she says, "they can just drink tea. They'll have the chance to confide in someone here, I think...Maybe something like this would have helped me? I don't know, nothing like this existed." Partly to avoid stigma, and partly to attract other customers, nothing on the menu mentions the eating disorder focus.

A psychiatrist who treats patients with EDs quoted in the piece thinks the restaurant can be helpful, but only for people who've already come a long way towards recovery: "It also depends where you are with your problem....Some are really afraid of being observed, or stigmatized." Anyone who's seen an anorexic become an expert food stylist at the dinner table, pulverizing individual beans from the 1/3 serving of chili they've allotted themselves, or stripping the lobes off a broccoli stalk one by one, knows that not everyone with a problem might find Sehnsucht helpful; indeed, there's a danger that such an institution might actually enable certain sufferers. The last thing the world needs is another caloric-restriction anorexia-is-a-lifestyle pro-mia apologist; thankfully, it's absolutely not Sehnsucht's intention to normalize the disease, but to normalize the idea of being around food for its sufferers. Easing people who've had tortured relationships with food back into the pleasures of eating sounds like a great thing to me.

Painting, titled "Meat Painting II - In Memoriam René Magritte," by artist Adrian Henri, from here

Redux: German Eatery Caters To Anorexics [NPR]

• A three-legged cat from Ohio was found after seven weeks of searching, including having the cat's owner hire a pet detective. • A Muslim woman working at a cocktail lounge in England claims that she was fired from the bar after she refused to wear a red dress that would have made her look "openly sexual" to men. • No shit! An Australian doctor says that headbanging along to heavy metal tunes could result in neck injury. • A new study has found that women who experience persistent genital sensations that make them feel like they are on the verge of having an orgasm are likely to also have restless leg syndrome and/or an overactive bladder. • Berlin officials say they rescued 1,500 parakeets from a retired man's two-room apartment on Tuesday. • Most Britons guess Santa's age to be in his mid-60s. • Authorities in Michigan say they won't press charges against teens at Pinckney High School who forwarded nude pictures that a classmate had taken of herself. •

• Scientists around the world are working on new male contraceptive techniques one of which involves a remote-controlled sperm valve that can turn off sperm flow at the push of a button. • From today until October 10 a carnival will be held in Nigeria where "bachelor catchers" parade a bachelor around a village in a noose in order to encourage young men to marry. • The Guatemalan government has announced a five-month program to provide some 15,000 lay midwives proper training to avoid preventable childbirth deaths. • A new study from England says that women who are undergoing fertility treatments can increase their chances of having children if they undergo acupuncture during the embryo transfer as part of their regular fertility treatment. • The annulling of a French marriage in 2006 based on the fact that the wife lied about her virginity is currently being appealed because the court decided that a woman's virginity was an "essential quality" and therefore grounds for annulment. • Historians and economists believe that "witch-hunts" tend to occur when times get tough as evidenced by Western history and current persecution of "witches" around the world. • The Japanese Defense Ministry decided today to lift gender restrictions aboard destroyers for female members of the Maritime Self-Defense Force. • An English woman kept a baby hare alive by storing the little fluffball in her bra to keep it warm and feeding the hare baby formula with a syringe. • A pair of cloistered nuns in Spain are the country's newest celebrity chefs with a hybrid reality show and cooking show called Taste of Heaven. • A new rapid test for HPV, careHPV, may be able to help stop cervical cancer for some women in rural villages worldwide. • The Indian government's decision to review the Anti-Dowry Act has been criticized by women's organizations who want the Act to be strengthened instead of dissolved or relaxed. • Okay, so we have been entranced for the past hour by this cute video of a kitty playing "red light, green light" with a camera. Whatevs, it's cute! •

[Photo via Getty.]

Nora Tschirner looks like a 1930s film star! Love.
If this shape was always as well done as it is in Hannah Herzsprung's hands, we wouldn't be so eager to see it go. The big bag is fresh, too.
If you can do cherry, like Natalia Avelon, why not do it? Cute and classic.
The dowdy/awesome tightrope is the most dangerous and exhilarating in the world. Nadine Warmuth walks it faultlessly.



The Bad:
Had Astrid Posner just pulled the dress, I might have sighed and said, "she know not what she do," but the shoes! They take this into pure, deliberate insolence.
I actually really like Inga Busch. Know what I don't like? Too small, unflattering asymmetrical minidresses worn with leg-warmers.
For a moment there I thought, oh, Lara-Isabelle Rentinck's cold, I wear sweaters too. Then I realized, Wait a minute...it's the ugliest sleeve in the world!
It's one of my favorite things in the world when dads bring their daughters as dates to events, as publicist Stefan Aust does here. Which makes me wish Antonia hadn't forced me to put her in "Bad" with this choice of shoe. And dress. And, okay, hairdo.
How do I hate thee, let me count the ways. I'm talking to the dress here, not Nina Eichinger! Let's start by counting the shades of green.

[Images via Getty]

MEGAN: Hey, there, what's up?
MOE: I'm getting coffee. I'll be online in 5. I really feel like its the seventies today. Even the good news on the front of the Times about the natural gas in Louisiana is kind of dark.
MEGAN: Sure, no worries
MOE: Well the good news is that former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle is in on some Kurdish oil deal. That is bound to make him a lot of money and he sure deserves it having had the foresight to liberate The Iraq and also suck up to Bill Clinton's friend that dictator guy across the border in Kazakhstan, even as Seymour Hersh and his cabal of elite treason-loving freedom haters were knocking that for being a "conflict of interest" or whatever. Thanks to Wikipedia, we know Richard Perle explained back in 2003 that Sy Hersh was basically a terrorist, so we probably don't need to spend much more time on his smears. Especially with such other positive energy deals in the works as this one that is making everyone in De Soto Parish, Louisiana, suddenly a card carrying Cadillac owning rich person! And that makes 1 place GM might make a profit this year.
MEGAN: Well, unless they bought it outright, I'd say GMAC bought a bunch of Caddies more than people in DeSoto did, but no matter.
By the way, Bush has signed off on the first military execution since 1961. It's also the first actively-pursued execution since then. Can we all take a moment to be unsurprised that the soon-to-be executed man is black?
MOE: There are six other men on military death row. Are you saying that's why he got to go first? Incidentally, I never thought much about the death penalty before The Idiot wherein the lead character is this charismatic Christ figure named Mishkin, which happens to be the name of the retiring Federal Reserve board governor who apparently wants to set inflation targets, something I don't have much of an opinion on today, although I read somewhere else that only about a third of jobless are receiving unemployment benefits these days, down from 44% in 2001 and 52% when all "social safety net" stuff was actually taken seriously, before the breakdown of the family made us all stupid and neighbors started locking their doors at night and buying homes in ever farther-flung suburbs, a trend no one thought would ever ever end but boy were they wrong, but hey, on the bright side, it's a good thing we didn't turn out Berlin, right? All opera and free education and cheap rent and richly endowed cultural institutions and SO LITTLE GDP GROWTH??? Anyway, we were supposed to "weigh in" on that Tennessee guy. Um, he sucks is my opinion.
Because all the drawbacks of breakneck economic growth are so easily reversible! Oh wait.
MEGAN: Yeah, I'm sort of all like, meh, whatever, another crazy person went on another crazy shooting and we're supposed to go, ohhhh, it's because he hated liberals? Well, maybe he just hated Unitarians, it's not like he went to the local Democratic Party offices. Why would anyone expect that the guy's homicidal/suicidal rantings would make sense? It was like 4 pages long. I haven't written a letter that long since my best friend in junior high moved to Canada, not even the one time that I got a letter from a guy I'd been dating in college 3 weeks after the school year ended telling me what a stupid, slutty, vicious cunt I was but that he was only writing to make sure that he hadn't knocked me up so then he really wouldn't have to have speak to me again. God, damn, I wonder if I still have that letter somewhere. Anyway, even he didn't merit a 4 page reply. But God knows what Mr. Crazypants in Tennessee will write when he learns GOP hero Dan Quayle is about to turn Mr. Fancypants and is in talks to join Dancing With the Stars.
MOE: Yeah, oh god, Dan Quayle, it's the nineties again all right. Except insofar as the pollution in China is hella worse.
MEGAN: They're even still defending their human rights record. Seems like it would've been easier to try harder not to be human-rights violators in the last 20 years or whatever, but whatever.
MOE: Pitchfork crapsters: previous link contains JARVIS COCKER, J MASCIS, SEBADOH, LIZ PHAIR, BUILT TO SPILL, MISSION OF BURMA annnnnnnd Flava Flav, referencing his popular reality TV show! To get us back on the Dan Quayle angle. Lou Barlow does not sound like he held up too well, but we'll forgive him because his cover of Ratt's "Round And Round" was such a sparkling contribution to the culture. Okay, and also, pollution. because it's kind of a really good story with implications for the whole next century.

Shougang Steel Group, the giant steelmaker whose name translates as "Capital Steel," was ordered to relocate most of its operations hundreds of miles away to a partly manmade island. Xiang Dong, who worked at the company for 16 years, says he cried when his unit was shut down on March 31. Most of his 600 or so colleagues were transferred to the new facility. "Of course I was sad. A lot of coworkers cried when it stopped," says Mr. Xiang, who continues to work as a caretaker at the mothballed production line. "But this is for the Olympic dream. We do some sacrifices for that."

MEGAN: Speaking of human rights records, did you know the American Medical Association didn't support the 1964 Civil Rights Act? That they deliberately shut down black medical colleges, understaffed black hospitals while forcing the segregation issues, allowed affiliates to keep black doctors out and are only just now apologizing? Because I didn't.
MOE: Oh God, I looked at that story and had no idea what it was about, other than I didn't feel like I needed another reason to disrespect doctors this week. Holy shit.
MEGAN: Ahem. I'm feeling a little disrespectful to the medical establishment this morning, though, but I will change the subject before I rage out for the 2nd time in as many days and so we can talk about the Doha talks in which they're still debating the same fucking issues they did 2 years ago when I got my writing start authoring a "humorous" round-up of the week's events in the WTO negotiations. No, for real.
MOE: Oh, great last graf:

Consider this statistic: In 1910, when Abraham Flexner published his report on medical education, African-Americans made up 2.5 percent of the number of physicians in the United States. Today, they make up 2.2 percent.

MEGAN: Yeah, that was the best kicker I'd read all day.
MOE: Anyway, I have to go sort of. But the buzz today is Obama closing in maybe on Tim Kaine for VP. Do you think Obama could win your state? Maybe I could go home and vote there since Philly seems to have forgotten I existed. Garry Kasparov thinks O needs to go hard on Russia, not a shock, the Ataturk Thought Association is worried the country is turning into Iran following a raid on their headquarters. And I'm still hung up on China, because at some point the world needs to figure out how to make the whole green collar jobs thing work, and just to spite the fucking Republicans I hope they do it in Berlin.
MEGAN: One of my friends just took a green collar job! He mostly took it, though as a third job because his former employer outsourced a bunch of their work and his second job as a tattoo apprentice doesn't pay the bills either so now he's working at a recycling plant. He says he doesn't feel very green except on the really hot days and then he does, but only around the gills.
As for Virginia, polls show it's tight, so who knows. The Washington Post keeps running stories I'm too lazy to find at the moment that Obama's operation in the state just keeps expanding and expanding so maybe? I don't think Kerry was within a point or two of Bush, like, ever in 2004.

MOE: Whoa 8:45 on the dot!
ON THE NOSE.
MEGAN: That's impressive!
MOE: I'm never on time!
MEGAN: Me neither!
MOE: So guess what? I thought I made this reservation to fly to Seattle tomorrow and it turns out the reservation is for today and tomorrow's flight is sold out, and tonight's flight is sold out!
MEGAN: Hey, I've never been to Seattle and I've always meant to go and I totally actually did that once, only I didn't find out until an hour after the flight actually left. I felt like the world's largest idiot.
MEGAN: Anyway, so the British judges ruled in favor of the Nazi sado-masochistic orgy guy in his lawsuit against the tabloids, because I know we were all on the edges of our seats about that.
And Rudy Giuliani's annoying male progeny is suing Duke for kicking him off the golf team because it will ruin his plans to become a professional golfer. You know, his shitty golfing won't, but Duke cutting him would. Apple, tree in terms of sheer annoyingness and hubris.
MOE: Um, does his mean young people actually might bother voting in this election?
That's a story about an attack ad the Let Freedom Ring foundation is running on MTV. Um, do conservatives ever do youth outreach? Also, in this campaign? What? Also, as attack ads go, it's pretty tame. And cost like $13 to produce.
MEGAN: God, I love the names of bullshit conservative groups! There's always some play on freedom, freedom to own guns and have your religious beliefs imposed on others and to not pay taxes, just not freedom of speech and right of assembly and to IM without the government reading it and to have an abortion.
MOE: Duke is one of those schools that could probably turn a lot of decent impressionable young conformists into abject douchebags but Andrew Giuliani probably had an advantage. He's suing the Duke golf team for booting him off in a "bizarre scheme"…
A bizarre scheme otherwise known as "What can I say, I got sick of the little bitch."

The suit contends the new coach, O.D. Vincent, wanted to reduce the size of the team and trumped up or exaggerated "minor" incidents as an excuse to cut Giuliani. Vincent, who had caused a stir at UCLA when his team there posed naked - holding ball baskets - in Golf Digest, accused Giuliani of driving out of a parking lot too fast, tossing a putter, busting a driver and throwing an apple at a teammate during an argument.

MEGAN: I think that throwing shit at people is generally grounds for getting kicked off of shit.
MOE: I predict success for young Andrew, because it is Duke and as everyone knows money pretty much buys you whatever there.
MEGAN: Well, there and everywhere else.
MOE: Yeah Duke is just apparently particularly bad, according to that story about rich dumb kids whose parents get courted on special fundraising tours starting when they are like 12.

Cissy Bunn acknowledges her daughter didn't fit the academic profile of a Duke student. "She's bright, she had good grades, but she doesn't meet the superstar status," Mrs. Bunn says. "Did my normal child take the place of somebody who could really make a difference in the world? Sure, yes, to an extent. But there are so many things you can lose sleep over. I'm happy for me and my child."

MEGAN: My alma mater has a special 2-year program for stupid little rich kids (and the occasional person with actual potential). It gets them a group of students that will pay full tuition and doesn't need financial aid, but lowers the average SAT scores of the university so much that they take those students out when reporting it to US News & World Report, so the magazine won't rank us anymore.
MOE: Anyway, I just remembered that story because it was kinda truly gross. Like, if elite boarding school and private tutors can't land you a 1300 on your SATs I am sorry but nothing will and you belong fucking elsewhere.
(I say that as a former private SAT tutor who managed to coax 1300s out of some reeeeeally rambunctious kids.)
MEGAN: SATs are a bullshit test anyway. Standardized tests are a tool of the Man, which is why I did so well on them. It's a matter of whether you know or have learned how to game the system. I think it's not that someone like that isn't smart, it's that she doesn't feel like she has to try because she'll get what she wants anywhere, so there's no need to learn how to game the system.
MOE: (I didn't realize at the time I should have been buying their Ritalin off them.)
MEGAN: It's sort of like how financial institutions figured that even if they fucked up hard core the government would still bail them out, so there was no need to practice self-regulation or risk-management, since there was little risk.
MOE: That's a fair point. I mean, I personally hated the "system gaming" stuff because it was like, "No the point of this test is to see whether you know implicitly how to game the system." So I just basically told the kids CONCENTRATE. And focused on critical reading and vocab. One kid asked me if I had been watching too much Dawson's Creek.
I wonder what Maude Bunn is doing these days! I bet she's on Facebook.
MEGAN: I never watched Dawson's Creek. I think the WB didn't come in so well on my TV at college. But James VanDerBeek or whatever went to my sister's college before he made it, if being on one show is considered "making it."
I mean, it's better than I've ever done, but then I'm kind of a shit actor even when I'm a decent liar.
MOE: I think that's a big deal if only because without Dawson's Creek we never would have had Television Without Pity.
One of the most important cultural institutions of our time.
And I say that as someone who doesn't even watch TV.
MEGAN: Which sucks now that Bravo bought and redesigned it.
MOE: Well, that would suck even more if I watched TV. So did you check that Erik Wemple item about how the Washington Post's 97-part Chandra Levy series is quite possibly doing better pageview-wise than their Pulitzer-winning Walter Reed series? Although there is no actual data they are releasing to support this so it is fundamentally speculation? Speculation based on no underlying grievances or suspicions whatsoever??
MEGAN: Oh, by the way, Michael Savage is "clarifying" his shitty stupid assholic remarks on autism being a fake disease. It turns out that the uptick in diagnoses is due to doctors and drug companies peddling their wares like they did with ADHD, even though there are no drugs to treat autism. I hate that fucking guy. Fuck him, someone, please find him and beat him about the head.
Also, OF COURSE it's doing better, it's seriously written like at a 3rd grade reading level and published in like easily-digestable chunks and containing little in the way of actual new information. Like, you keep waiting to learn something and then never do if you read anything about it
MOE: I mean, is one thing to joke that, like, fibromyalgia or bipolar disorder is fake, but autism? Did he miss that Babysitter's Club? Also, in all seriousness, what are they prescribing to the autistic kids? I mean, I don't know nothing, but if it's SSRIs that's sort of a racket. Beyond that, regarding the Post, you know how carefully I monitor the Most-Viewed list because it provides a hilarious counterpart to the New York Times Most Emailed List. And right now Chandra is #5. I really think most of the Dana Priest investigations did better than that. The real mystery is Public Enemy Robert Novak, whose column — syndicated column! — is always like #1 or #2 for at least a few hours.
MEGAN: Also, you heard, the guy Bob Novak hit was a homeless dude? And he really did roll onto the hood and fall off and Novak drove away? I'm like, for real-real? You hit a guy at rush hour and figure no one will notice? What did he think this was, New York?
MOE: (Oh and guys! I know bipolar is real!! As is fibromyalgia! But it is true that bipolar is way over-diagnosed so the pharmas can maximize the profits on their schizophrenia meds before they lose their patents, so that is all I am saying!)
MEGAN: Also, I don't think that most autism patients are on medication. My cousin isn't. It doesn't really work like that, not that Michael Savage fucking knows because he knows so little about it.
MOE: You know who makes me appreciate our beloved commenters more? Yglesias's!
MEGAN: Oh, totally, his commenters all hate him. Oh, wait. Did I mention that I've been here long enough — 9 months since I first wrote for you guys — that I have commenters that hate me too?
MOE: Hahaha I thought they all loved you! They are always like "Megan is a captain of industry and Moe is the one who says outrageous shit that doesn't even make sense," which anyway, brings me to Savage, and his "autistic kids are just little brats who obviously need a good spanking" line of argument. And shit like this will resonate with folks who wonder what happened to the days when you used to grin and bear it and not belabor things — shit, not even talk about things — and everyone sort of fell in line, except that one kid in every family who just sorta became a "black sheep" or a hermetic spinster or an alcoholic or a suicide case…you know? And I basically think most of it comes back to the economy. Anyway
You got bumped off over there?
We should probs address the Berlin speech.
MEGAN: Yes, I got bumped off but I am back and, actually, that speaks to the issue in my family because my cousin who has Asperger's syndrome, his grandmother on the other side of the family was like, whatever, you're just coddling him, his father was the same way and everyone on our side of the family was like, ohhhhhhh.
Yes, Berlin. 200,000 screaming Germans. We should all be friends! Hooray.