• We love Betsey Johnson, but we're kind of weirded out by the revelation that she made out with Anna Nicole Smith, like on a Monday in 10th Grade when you hear about some really random hookup from a party over the weekend. "She was wearing one of those dotted net see-through things with roses on her bullet bra underneath . . . It was when she was doing TrimSpa, and she looked really beautiful." Okay, but wouldn't that be around the same time she was doing eating contests on her reality show? Again: to each her own. [Page Six]
• Janet Jackson's apparently unironic lingerie line, Pleasure Principle, is out. "The legendary hip-hop and R&B diva teamed with Bruno Schiavi, the Australian lingerie designer behind Dr. Rey’s Shapewear line (named for “Dr. 90210” fixture Dr. Robert Rey), for her debut fashion duet. The 18-piece line is named after the hit single from Jackson’s 1986 multiplatinum album “Control,” is designed to be comfortable for a range of sizes — 32A to 44G, and is crafted of mostly satin and lace." [WWD]
• It seems like celebs are always lying about how they're going to wear Project Runway designs, but after guest-judging the Australian iteration, Kelly Rowland's actually making good. "Wearing the custom-made, scalloped outfit on stage at a concert in Cannes, France, a few nights ago, the diva strutted her stuff - which almost brought a tear to the Brisbane designer's eye."She was so lovely and the fact that she has worn my design makes me so proud," Juli Grbac gushed. NB: from the pic, we can kinda see why they usually back out. [News.com.au]

• I think we've already expressed that the descriptions of Madonna's upcoming "Sticky & Sweet" tour are seriously depressing us. This doesn't help. "The Sticky & Sweet tour, which opens in Cardiff on Saturday, features an intriguing mix of gangsta pimp, dominatrix and gipsy costumes. And with looks designed by Givenchy's Ricardo Tisci, shoes by Miu Miu, thigh-high boots custom-made by Stella McCartney and sundry items from Yves Saint Laurent and Roberto Cavalli, it leaves no fashion stone unturned." [Telegraph]
• Kids aren't the only ones spending less on back-to-school; apparently teachers are some of the "hardest hit" by the recession. "Teachers from across the country are reporting they are spending less on clothes, waiting for sales and sometimes changing where they shop — even after some taking summer jobs to offset the increasing cost of living, according to an informal survey by WWD." [WWD]
• Nina Garcia "reveals" her list of top-ten "essentials." Spoiler: a little black dress is one of them. [Dallas News]
• Olympic committee rules make uniform expression a challenge: "Because country names on the front must be written in the Latin alphabet, countries like China compensate by using Chinese characters on the back. Flags and sponsor logos must be in a certain place and a certain size. The colors are regulated." [NYT]
• Speaking of rules, official sponsor Nike has been forced to let Speedo make the games' swim suits; seems the banana hammocks are just more efficient. "The apparent benefit of the LZR, which has a novel hydrodynamic construction that compresses the body into a tube, reducing drag while at the same time improving muscle performance, became apparent in national Olympic trials." [Times of Times]
• Teeny tiny Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth loves her some Armani: '"They really came though for me, and I'm a die-hard fan," she gushes. "After [the Oscars] were over, he sent me six dozen long-stemmed white roses with a really beautiful letter that said, 'Thank you so much' and 'I wanna dress you all the time.' " [Yahoo]
• Following Moe's profile of the editrix feuding at Elle, New York defends the story's integrity: "Maureen's story drew on many reliable sources — some on the record, and some on background. We stand by its accuracy." [WWD]
• Wait, so they don't just wear them to look hot? Holly McPeak explains that bikinis are more comfortable for beach volleyball: "You don't have an issue of sweat and sand collecting in places that you don't want it to," she says. "It really is the most functional uniform for beach volleyball." Thank you, we'd assumed that. [NPR]
• Heidi Klum's new ads for her Jordache collection - ripping off Heidi Montag? We're gonna go with, no. [Yahoo]
• Although the study is not conclusive, seems the rich are indeed different - or at least richer. Sales aren't flagging at all on Rodeo Drive. [LAT]
• Speaking of the rich — or at any rate, the titled — peers in the House of Lords have called for a moratorium on the waste culture that is fast fashion. No commentary required. [Daily Mail]
• Does Steve Carrell's wardrobe make the movie? Um, not really. [Guardian]
• Hayden Panettiere's mother apparently prepared to hawk her daughter's undies for charity. She didn't, though. [The Sun]
• Sweater company Lutz + Patmos, who in the past have done lines with random celebrities like Kirsten Dunst and Liv Tyler, is collaborating with Jane Birkin, who — if equally unqualified — is, at least, unassailably cool. [Nylon]

Tatiana, our favorite anonymous fashion model, has got her long-fingered, well-manicured hands on the not-so-svelte September issues of our "favorite" ladymags. Below, Tatiana trains her model's eye on the fashion editorials in the newest issue of Glamour...and finds a lot to be encouraged by.

Normally Glamour — aside from having terrible covers and terrible writers — also underwhelms me with its fashion. Sometimes it’s so lifestyle-y and light I feel like I’ve mistakenly picked up a catalog; except of course for the fact that all the shit pictured still has the inflated designer pricetags. Imagine, then, my surprise in finding September’s issue actually contains one of my favorite fashion stories so far this season — “I Want Fun Fashion!” romps through the countryside with eight pages of color and spunk and pretty floral dresses I now have to covet. All that, plus smiling models, unidentified models, lampshades on models’ heads, and one smokin’ hot biracial model, after the jump.

This shoot could have totally gone into the territory of whimsical, self-consciously "eccentric," kitsch-for-kitsch’s-sake — why yes, that is an antiqued birdcage you spy in that charming wooden canoe — but instead the whole thing, from the props and setting to Sabina Karlsson’s nonchalant badminton-guitar, just puts me in a good mood. The model on the right, Valeria Garcia, isn’t even wearing high heels. Hot.

And can we pause for a minute to dwell on Sabina K’s gorgeousness? Those freckles. That hair. Her smile. Her tooth gap! She even has a blog (unfortunately she doesn't write it in English). Sabina, who is Swedish and Gambian, came in second on Sweden’s Next Top Model. The girl who beat her seems to be working mainly as a parts model — proving that all is right with the world and that taking pole position in anything-NTM doesn’t necessarily mean shit on the fashion front lines. In fact, being second or third is (well, nearly always) better.

For future reference: whenever anyone on a shoot breaks out “lampshade hula dance” as a concept, know that you’ve strayed far from the realm of taste.

This picture just makes me want to live in a house in the country with my best friend and run around in Best Costumes for the Day while collecting vintage luggage and globes where we mark our travels with pushpins. And then we would cool our impeccably shod heels with evening games of Scrabble and drink strong coffee from dinky floral china teacups.

Who the hell is this girl? Why do they crop off her head? And why does Glamour, like so many magazines, insist on never crediting its models, anyway?


I often wonder just why it is that this particular emanation of the hands-on-hips pose has come to dominate women’s fashion recently. Ordinarily, holding your arms akimbo gives you good posture, as well as flattening your stomach and sticking out your boobs. But this pose does the opposite — bending your wrists backwards so you can brace your hands against your abdomen and thrusting your shoulders forward turns your chest into a hollow, gives you freakish man hands, and your weirdly angled arms always look as if they were photographed from behind and then digitally stuck back onto your torso. When you see this pose from the side, the model inevitably looks hunchbacked. Why do women sell dresses to other women with this pose at least 15 times per magazine?


Oh my God, Glamour's using Sabina, a model of color, in two of this issue's three shoots! Please tell me this is progress. Hair and beauty editorials are often the exclusive domain of lily-white, oh, let’s say, Argentines and Brazilians (such as, ahem, Vanessa Cruz and Valeria Garcia, the other subjects of this hair editorial), as though the magazine’s black audience didn’t exist. Is this an appropriate coda for the Glamour black hair fiasco? Maybe! In any case, Sabina looks hot with purple eyeshadow. And it totally made my day that they didn’t spackle over her freckles.

Do strike a jaunty pose in a striking asymmetrical knockout like indie darlin' Patricia Clarkson.
Don't show so much cleavage, like designer Cynthia Rowley , that no one can talk to you comfortably all evening.
Do make sure you can walk.

Don't wear a skull bracelet over the age of 16, like director Isabel Coixet.
Do avoid Miami Vice-style blazers like Eva Amurri's that dominate your ensemble.
Don't attempt needlessly bulky bubble-hem tunic tops like actress Jurnee Smollett's.
....and never do anything former fashion icon Debbie Harry is doing in this picture.

[Images via Getty, Filmmagic]

Studies show that a walk in the park reduces tension. Apparently this works especially well if you do it in your undies, a la Anne Heche.

If that doesn't work, try hypnotherapy. Glamour helpfully illustrates this technique phrenologically, plotting a woman's bad habits directly on her forehead. Good to know that while my anxiety comes from right under my hairline, my stress comes from just above my ear.

But if none of this works, perhaps the problem is those troublesome menses. If your bloating, irritability, and acne have gotten so bad that they are actually projecting enormous teal lettering in front of your face, try Yaz. Yaz is the young, fun birth control pill that makes you blast white light out of your vagina. Your vagina is Cyclops now. Enjoy. [Glamour]

We think it's just all the styling information on the top right. Editor! Hair! Makeup! Manicure! Bitch, if you weren't famous we'd have sworn we'd seen this picture on the wall at the Olan Mills.

In the June issue of Glamour, under the heading “5 things to say no to,” item 1 is: “Any threesome in which you’re committed to one of the other two.” If you’re not committed to one of the other two, presumably, Glamour would say: “You go, girl!” Admittedly, this advice is mostly directed at single women, so they do have some respect for marriage, especially when in item 4 the magazine turns suddenly and mysteriously prudish by telling its readers to avoid “Married men. Seriously.”

Still, one has to wonder. At National Review we are often told that opinion journals contain so few ads because advertisers don’t want to be associated with anything controversial. Now, Glamour certainly has no trouble selling ads; its issues are as fat as its models are thin. Evidently, then, the idea that it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to have sex with two people at once, as long as they’re both strangers, is now considered entirely mainstream.

Not so! Chimes in Lisa Schiffren, who asserts that the Glamour editors just got that idea from an early episode of Sex & The City, which perpetuated the notion that threesomes were common because it was written by gays.

So…funny how the male conservative is:
1. the only one who will cop to reading Glamour
2. the only one who asserts that threesomes are, like, totally normal.

Which is to say: just like a gay/guy! Anyway I'll leave it to you guys to educate the nation's publishers as to how mainstream threesomes really are, because I'm personally neither really "mainstream" nor a veteran of such an act — I'd honestly rather be waterboarded, call me sentimental — and also maybe to Photoshop Maggie, Fred, and Lisa onto the cover of the new W.

Rules For Threesomes [National Review]

According to the expert lady, "Women view a house as the ultimate self-improvement, lifestyle-transformation design project." So yeah, really like shoes. But I think there's a lot more commitment vs. fear-of-commitment crap that goes into this decision. Dudes like liquidity in their investments and the rush of playing the market etc. etc. Women like to invest in crap that seems solid and reliable. (In lieu of anything else that is solid and reliable.) As a homeowning friend of mine put it, "I broke up with my BF and was just like, 'Fuck it, I don't need a man to do this.'" But oyyyyy, when you're paying $4000 a month to "own" a place you could rent for $1250, why do you need to do it? It's like "settling" for a bartender high school dropout with pubic lice and pledging to have anal sex with him every night for the next twenty years, and giving him the option to renegotiate for additional blowjobs if women still find him attractive in three years. Like, you know? I know it's a long shot, but you actually might have better luck in a few years if you just spend the money on drinking and index funds.

"Welcome To My Mortgage Hell" [Glamour]

For those of you unfamiliar with the Kennedy family tree, Carole is the daughter-in-law of Jackie Kennedy's sister, Lee Radziwill. Perhaps the story was written simply because it could be; because they had access. Or perhaps it's just a further extension of the Vanity Fair JFK-love, showing a rosy, scandal-free portrait of what was, by all accounts, a somewhat troubled family.

I guess what irked the most about the article was the implication that the Kennedys are an every-family. Kathleen's daughter, Maeve, told this story:

People think, because I'm a Kennedy, I'm extremely wealthy and don't flaunt it. Ha! I have a great name, but by the time you get to the fourth generation, the money's run out. We're fortunate compared to the average American, but to think I'm a trust fund kid—so not true! Though my parents paid my tuition, I worked through Boston College at Bruegger's Bagels and Dunkin' Donuts.

Yeah. Do you want a medal? To not truly acknowledge the ridiculous amount of privilege implicit with a family name like Kennedy (hello, that's why you're being interviewed for this article in the first place), is disingenuous. No disrespect for Maeve, Kathleen or any of the Kennedy women, who all seem like genuinely fine human beings, but I ask again: WTF, Glamour??

Bobby's Girls [Glamour]

Earlier: Jackie O's Perfectly Designed Camelot Was Also Full Of Uppers

The Good:

Were I Hayden Panettiere (I'm not) I might have gone a little younger on the maquillage - but I think her dress looks lovely.

Oh, to be a model and look as effortlessly chic in trousers as Erin O'Connor does here. Instead of having to hem them seven inches all the time.
I won't lie: I don't know who Fearne Cotton is. (I mean, now I do. She's a TV presenter.) But I like her name, and minidress.
Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton works it, almost cancels out Geri Halliwell.

The Bad:

As I was saying...Geri Halliwell looks ming (because we're in London.) A hint of opacity around the mid-section would have classed this Showgirls frock up about 1000%.
Both Lily Allen and this century are really getting a bit old for this sort of thing.
Proving the axiom that accessories can make/break an outfit, TV presenter Alexa Chung's exert their destructive power.

The Ugly:

I think we all know that "Ugly" pix can have a special, daring majesty all their own. I just don't think Petra Nemcova's tie-dyed ragamuffin water nymph does.

[Images via Getty, ]

The Times' Julie Bosman thinks it's amusing that the same magazines and televisions that cover the ins and outs of celebrity breeding, fighting, sexing and weight-loss are also covering (some) of the ins and outs of the campaign — and not just where it intersects with celebrity, as was the case in 2004. What's even more interesting is that the editors are all doing it not as a public-service but because its what readers actually want!

It is also because having a woman and a young, photogenic man in the race hits the right notes, demographically speaking — the vast majority of readers of magazines like US Weekly are women. Many of those readers are, for the first time, paying close attention to the presidential primaries, and turning politics into dinner-party conversation.

Anyway, as a woman who writes for two women's sites and almost exclusively about politics, I have to say, I'm not really surprised that women are interested in politics and I don't think it's just because Barack is cute or Hillary's a woman. (Maybe it has something to do with old adage about Washington, D.C. and the town being like Hollywood for ugly people.) I might have approached Anna when I was let go from a certain political website and asked to keep doing Crappy Hour and other stuff, but, interestingly Glamour also approached me talk about writing for Glamocracy. Both of these places pay me to write about politics because both Jezebel readers and Glamour readers want to read about politics and talk about issues and rally for candidates and generally act like responsible citizens of this democracy while they also talk about Rock of Love or Heidi Montag's bad attitude. Many women, in fact, enjoy walking, chewing gum and thoughtfully debating the merits of health care policy and the problems with race in America today while cooing over cute shoes. I just hope it continues after the election because I'll still have bills to pay come December.

Sex? Yawn. Politics? That's Hot! [New York Times]

Earlier: Cover Lies (All previous posts)

Now. I know you might want to read about Padma Lakshmi's dress or the new shoes I regretted buying or all the booze and the chocolate fountain or this 30 Rock guy I talked to or Obama Girl but the fact is I didn't get into this fucking business to do work, I did it because I loved magazines and it actually sort of saddened me to be reminded how much of a pain it is for editors to actually read magazines; to sit down and ponder stories that other editors had deemed good enough not simply to assign to a writer; not simply deem fit for publication in their storied professional magazines; but enter for consideration to the National Magazine Awards.

I have never understood awards shows. I hate watching the Oscars, for instance, because I have never seen enough decent movies, and feel the same way, but exponentially, about words that are worth reading. It was worthwhile only in that I will carry with me the misery of sitting on a dark balcony wearing a dress through an excruciating two-hour sermon on the Things I Could Have Read Last Year that weren't TMZ posts on Brandon Davis' fat brother.

Later in the evening an award was given for some sort of internet feature. Before the winner was announced, a presentation of the nominees cited the "Primacy of Digital News." I didn't catch this; my brain was preoccupied by the all abiding alcohol anticipation anxiety that generally follows a worshiping at the altar of the Primacy of Digital News, but an editor at a monthly magazine was annoyed. "Who do they think they're fucking talking to?" he asked. Perhaps they hadn't read Autumn of the Multitaskers, Walter Kirn's ASME-nominated essay on how "infinite connectivity" is "dumbing us down and making us crazy," or, for that matter, Stephen King's Last Word On Harry Potter, a nominee in the same category that appeared last summer in Entertainment Weekly:

The very popularity of the books has often undone even the best intentions of the best critical writers. In their hurry to churn out column inches, and thus remain members of good standing in the Church of What's Happening Now, very few of the Potter reviewers have said anything worth remembering. Most of this microwaved critical mush sees Harry — not to mention his friends and his adventures — in only two ways: sociologically (''Harry Potter: Boon or Childhood Disease?'') or economically (''Harry Potter and the Chamber of Discount Pricing''). They take a perfunctory wave at things like plot and language, but do little more...and really, how can they? When you have only four days to read a 750-page book, then write an 1,100-word review on it, how much time do you have to really enjoy the book? To think about the book? Jo Rowling set out a sumptuous seven-course meal, carefully prepared, beautifully cooked, and lovingly served out. The kids and adults who fell in love with the series (I among them) savored every mouthful, from the appetizer (Sorcerer's Stone) to the dessert (the gorgeous epilogue of Deathly Hallows). Most reviewers, on the other hand, bolted everything down, then obligingly puked it back up half-digested on the book pages of their respective newspapers.

I'll start with Pat Dollard's War On Hollywood, the 23,000-word Vanity Fair profile of a stoner-turned-Hollywood agent-turned-documentary filmmaker-turned-crackhead who also happens to be a left winger-turned-right winger. He's friends with Ann Coulter; Billy Bob Thornton says he's the only guy in Hollywood crazier than him; apparently it gets really good in the middle; the tragedy is I don't know this, even though it not only won the award but was written by a guy I used to date. (Who is, incidentally, always trying to get me to quit drinking.) (And also: is now married and apparently didn't show up at the event because his wife had not been invited; times, they are tough.)

Dollard's target audience is the same as any rock band's: kids—the more disaffected the better. He aims to alter the course of pop culture. "What we've celebrated since at least the 1950s is the antihero," Dollard says. "Today, even though our country has been attacked, nothing has changed. If you are a young man in America right now, the coolest fucking thing you can aspire to be is like a gangsta rapper, or a pseudo bad guy. The message of my movie is simple: If you're a young person in America, the coolest, fucking most badass and most noble thing you can be today is a combat Marine. Period."

Breitbart believes Dollard is onto something important. "There needs to be a confrontation at the pop-culture level of the kids who are over there fighting versus the kids at home who are totally disconnected, immersed in this mindless Abercrombie & Fitch-MTV culture." Breitbart adds, "There needs to be a revolution, and Dollard is the man who can kick it off. I don't care if older conservatives are offended by Pat Dollard. I was not looking for someone pristine. He brings to our cause this whole spirit of, like, the Merry Pranksters Two."

There is a certain stylistic uniformity to all forms of propaganda, but the personality of the propagandist is never far from the surface. Bin Laden's murmuring voice belies the contempt in his words. Zawahiri speaks in the confident, rhythmic clauses of a master strategist. Adam Gadahn, though he tries to adopt the composure of a statesman, exudes the zealotry of a convert, and of youth. Sometimes his syntax is so baroque, his sentiment so earnest, that he sounds like a character from "The Lord of the Rings." "The call has gone out," he proclaimed in one video. "The era of jihad and resistance has dawned in all its glory." Mostly, though, Gadahn sounds angry. In 2005, with his head wrapped in a black turban and his face covered with a black veil, he warned, "We love nothing better than the heat of battle, the echo of explosions, and slitting the throats of the infidels." Last July, while discussing civilian casualties in Iraq, he said, "It's hard to imagine that any compassionate person could see pictures, just pictures, of what the Crusaders did to those children, and not want to go on a shooting spree at the Marines' housing facilities at Camp Pendleton." In a feature-length Al Qaeda documentary that was released on the Internet on September 11, 2006, Gadahn referred to the United States as "enemy soil," and celebrated the September 11th hijackers as "dedicated, strong-willed, highly motivated individuals."

At the end of our meeting Dollard offers to become my manager. "Seriously, dude, I could get something set up for you like that," he says, clapping his hands to indicate how fast he is going to make a deal.

But Dollard never becomes my manager. In the coming weeks, he breaks several appointments. One day he phones. Rapid, shallow breaths come across the line. "Dude, I am so, so, so fucking sorry for not calling you." No explanation is required, but Dollard offers one anyway. "I was fucking kidnapped."
Dollard claims that members of an A.A. meeting abducted him after promising his wife to get him sober. Instead, they held him prisoner at a hotel in Palm Springs while plying him with call girls and coke. Meanwhile, they used his credit cards to charter a yacht and a plane for business deals they were conducting. The story is incredible, but Dollard's fourth wife later confirms its essential truth, adding, "I'm sure those A.A. people started with good intentions, but Pat twisted their intervention around until they thought the right thing to do was buying coke and hiring prostitutes for him."

Which reminds me, one reason I don't generally read magazines is to learn about how to spend my time in ways that aren't reading. Nonetheless, eating and exercising and travel are all more valid topics, in my mind, than shopping and makeup application, which is my excuse for reading Women, Money And Friends Come And Go, But Dogs Are Forever, which won Men's Health an award in the category of "Leisure Interests."

Wolves, like men, come in an assortment of personality types. Some are naturally aggressive — a trait that hardly endeared them to Stone Age hunters. Such wolves learned to stay the hell away from humans altogether or they would have faced extermination by our Paleolithic forefathers. Those wolves blessed with a more peaceful nature, on the other hand, adapted better as the human population boomed. One theory holds that these laid-back wolves benefited from an easily accessible food supply: human garbage. We, in turn, benefited from their warning howls whenever predators or marauding tribes came near. At some point, perhaps following the adoption of orphaned pups by a Stone Age hunter, these pacified wolves stopped living beside us and started living with us. This most likely happened toward the end of the last ice age. In a grave near modern-day Bonn-Oberkassel, Germany, archaeologists discovered the bodies of a Stone Age man and woman and the first "morphologically unambiguous" dog, dating back 14,000 years. "People have been burying or otherwise ritually disposing of dead dogs all over the world for a very long time," says Darcy F. Morey, Ph.D., a zooarchaeologist at the University of Tennessee at Martin. His hypothesis: Humans at this point in history began to view these animals less as beasts and more as creatures imbued with spiritual qualities and thus deserving of proper burial.

Until the seventies, the cart business was dominated by Greeks. Now, coffee carts are run mostly by Afghans. Bangladeshis man virtually all fruit stands and most hot-dog carts, though many uptown hot-dog carts are Dominican. The Vietnamese run smoothie carts. Nut carts are manned by Brazilians and Colombians. The trade is so ethnically fragmented that even Bangladeshis, the largest single group of vendors, make up less than 20 percent of the total number.

The Full List Of Links, Please Go Read Something Good And Tell Me About It; I'll Add More Here Later [Andrew Lavalle]
Autumn Of The Multitaskers [The Atlantic]
Pat Dollard's War On Hollywood [Vanity Fair]
Azzam The American [New Yorker]
Know Your Footprint [Popular Mechanics]
Women, Money And Friends Come And Go, But Dogs Are Forever [Men's Health]
Cartography: The Complete Road Map To New York Street Food [NY Mag]
The Last Word On Harry Potter [EW]
Engineering The Megacity [IEEE Spectrum]

MOE: Together again at last! We'll have to celebrate this. But how?
MEGAN: I can make mimosas, but I was sort of planning on doing laundry later.
MOE: Shall we talk about the Reverend Wright?
MEGAN: Well, everyone else is, including Reverend Wright.
MOE: Or the economy? The food crisis. Stop hoarding food, world! It is only getting more expensive because you think it is going to get more expensive! It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, don't you see?
MEGAN: I don't think everyone is hoarding. God knows I'm not.
MEGAN: My fridge contains: butter, really old bread, prosciutto, eggs, beer and leftover pizza that I'm likely going to eat when we're done. And the afore-mentioned champagne but it turns out I don't actually have any OJ for mimosas, so it's just straight champagne for me.
MOE: How was your weekend? I went to a wedding. It was wonderful until I realized I had no place to go once it was over, save 30th Street Station, which was very cold and miserable. At least I had the money to purchase myself an Eagles sweatshirt to wad myself up inside on the way home. Warm clothes at cold train stations is a rarity. My fridge contains mustard and hummus.

MEGAN: Glamour sent me to cover the White House Correspondents Dinner and the various parties. I spent it in dresses and heels rather than the tank tops and flip flops that a 90 degree sunny weekend should have portended.
MOE: Oh we should really talk about our fabulous parties then, I suppose. The Mauritanians suffering at the hands of all the sudden hoarding from the food exporting nations — here is one area where the free market could be virtuous, and yet when called to be virtuous, I guess we cling to national allegiances and self-preservational instincts...and anyway so Craig Ferguson. Do share.
MEGAN: Craig Ferguson was deemed hard-to-understand due to the acoustics and his accent, but I was upstairs in the bar at that point so didn't catch a ton of it. It wasn't as bad as Rich Little or as evilly good as Colbert 2 years ago and then it started to rain.
MOE: Oh and here's a link re the new unflat world, the rise of nationalism. God I hated The World Is Flat. 2% of Mauritania's land is arable, I just learned.

MEGAN: I hated that book, too. I can't remember why, because I read it in grad school, but I remember hating it. I hate all those books. Don't get me started on Guns, Germs and Steel, fucking piece of social Darwinist bullshit
MEGAN: Axelrod was just on MSNBC. I don't think Wright's new speaking campaign is sitting too well with him.
MOE: Here's a YouTube clip from the event. At around 9:40 he says to GWB, "I remember eight years ago you promised you were going to restore dignity to the White House...pause...By the way I thought you were fantastic on 'Deal Or No Deal'." I don't think you can compare Guns, Germs and Steel to The World Is Flat but that's just maybe because I read Tom Friedman to feel smarter than him and I read Jared Diamond to familiarize myself with the deluxe version of the conventional wisdom he purveys.

MEGAN: Nothing like some delicious conventional wisdom that all peoples are made to be conflicted and the "best" society will win!
MOE: Reading about the development of penicillin...the drug's discoverer, Alexander Fleming, was sort of this absent minded dilettante who was moved by treating soldiers in WWI to try and isolate antibiotics, but the drug would have gone nowhere — it sat around on his shelves for 20 years — if not for a group of scientists at Oxford, some of whom were motivated partly by humanistic instincts but one of whom notably (I'm forgetting who) thought he was doing something very dangerous because plagues were necessary to keep the population under control, but he didn't care because the project was so intellectually tantalizing, and maybe he was right about all of that. Who knows. Shall we discuss Bill Clinton's Obama envy, brought to you by a certain notable ex-colleague of Spencer Ackerman?
MEGAN: Wait, so, plagues are the opiates of the masses?
MEGAN: Also, I know nothing about Spencer's ex-colleague whatsoever that I didn't read about in that piece he wrote about him (which sounded like typical interoffice backstabby nastiness on the colleague's part), but I now know he's not a fan of Bill Clinton. He's not supposed to be even-handed or something, is he?
MOE: Huh? Even handed? Oh lord don't give me that. My problem with this Talk Of The Town is that, being a Talk Of the Town, it doesn't really address annnnything beyond the perception of the perceptions and, you know, a lot of people would truly like to have an answer to: were the failings of Clinton economic policy fundamentally the result of a Giant Sellout, or well-meaning inevitabilitarianism?
MOE: Which is not a word.
MOE: Also, my sense was that Angela Davis may have been cool, but that Stalin was not, and now people think I am so terrible, and maybe they are right.
MEGAN: Oh, well, I just mean that it seemed very much like the author didn't like Bill Clinton from the get-go, which made me roll my eyes and not really take anything he was saying very seriously.

MEGAN: Stalin was very uncool. The problem with Communism was that its intellectual advocates were always sort of idealistic and understandable while its practitioners were always crazy, power-hungry oppressive megalomaniacs.
MEGAN: Um, by the way, what is the kind of goatee called when the dude shaves most of the front of the chin but leaves maybe an inch on the very, very bottom, on the curve? Because that's what Reverend Wright has apparently grown.
MOE: I should just point out that my bias is having grown up for some time with communism, and having the sense from a very young age that while it was not so bad to be poor, it was creepy to be brainwashed. And please send a picture.
MEGAN: Ok, I take it back, actually, it turns out he's always had it, I just never noticed it before because I've never seen his face quite this big and it's a little grey.
MOE: And here's something that will shock you: Republicans preside over periods of slower economic growth and widening income gaps than Democrats. Paul Krugman doesn't understand why exactly but thinks there could be something to that and come to think of it so do I!
MEGAN: Laffer curve! Laffer curve!
MEGAN: Like, all these tax cuts at some point stop generating additional productivity and just turn into tax cuts.

MEGAN: OMG, Reverend Wright just said "I served 6 years in the military. Does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?"
MEGAN: The room erupted.
MOE: Well the Laffer Curve is kind of whatever, I mean it's just a tool to illustrate the law of diminishing marginal returns, but I guess this new graph would suggest, "ha ha, actually no, fuck Laffer and Keynes and all that noise, Republicans are just more likely to get it wrong, the end." Which I like because I kind of hate the Laffer Curve, insofar as it makes something really fucking mind-numbingly complex look pretty and simple and Reaganite.
MOE: Oh shit! Did he read that about himself in the Tribune?

MEGAN: But it's fun to say. Also, it ties conservatives up in knots right now because the evidence suggests that we're on the bad side of the curve even as they advocate more tax cuts and the Laffer curve is like the tax cutter's Bible.
MOE: Also, Wikipedia points us to this interesting CBO paper on how tax cuts at this point are just in no way fucking worth it.
MEGAN: And that shit's more from more than 2 years ago.
MEGAN: "As I said to Barack Obama, if you get elected, on November 5th, I'll be coming after you because you'll be representing a government that grinds people under," says Rev. Wright.
MOE: And fucking check out this editorial from the always-populist Wall Street Journal.

So Federal Reserve officials are whispering to reporters that they will consider a "pause" after another interest-rate cut this week. Perhaps we should be more respectful, but this sounds like the alcoholic who tells his wife he'll quit drinking next weekend, after one more bender. What Chairman Ben Bernanke needs isn't a gradual withdrawal from easy money but membership in Central Bankers Anonymous.

The practical impact has been to send energy and food prices soaring. This is a direct tax on both the world's poor and America's middle class. Just when the U.S. economy needs a resilient consumer given the fall in housing prices, these price increases have eviscerated consumer pocketbooks. In its attempt to help Wall Street and the financial system, Fed policy is punishing average Americans. The public is frustrated and angry with these price increases, and it has a right to be. Inflation is the thief of the thrifty middle class.

MOE: So dude, honestly, tell me about the WHCD because the rest of the news is really depressing. It's like recession, no wait depression
MOE: rich financiers have been profiting under a reverse-Robin Hood system whereby the amount of capital underlying securities steadily decreased as the risk was moved to the public balance sheet, the dollar is going to keep sinking, the entire financial services industry is a laughingstock...we need a new Decameron, if you will.
MOE: Did you see Heidi and Spencer? Who appeared, despite rumors they would not.
MEGAN: I did not see Heidi and Spencer. Going made me realize that I'd been in D.C. too damn long because I was all like "Oooh, Carlos Gutierrez! Fran Thompson! Helen Thomas!" and then I geeked out and played spot-the-celeb with this guy after making him pose for the photo and I totally didn't recognize Ashlee Simpson though I caught Donatella.

MEGAN: And then, since Samantha Bee was at Glamour's table, I chatted with her (cutely pregnant, but still in heels and I commiserated that she had to attend but couldn't drink and she said she only came because she figured when she pushed out a second kid no one would think she was cool enough to invite again).
MEGAN: And I took the picture at the bottom of this blog post.
MEGAN: And Bush's speech: lame.
MOE: Who the fuck was pete wentz the guest of?

MEGAN: I dunno, but he DJ'd the Capitol File party, so maybe them?

• Europeans are always more progressive than Americans. Rumor is, Italian Vogue may be producing a cover featuring only black models. [Fashionista]
  
• Oh. My. God. High School Musical and Hannah Montana-inspired Crocs, soon available at a store near you. [Yahoo]
  
• Francis Ford Coppola and Sofia Coppola will be the next faces of Louis Vuitton's "core values" campaign (the very same campaign in which Keith Richards agreed to participate in exchange for a LV monogrammed guitar case.) What do you think the Coppolas get out of this? An LV director's chair? An LV vinyard? [WWD, 1st item]
  
• "Boyfriend" jackets are big for spring. But Peter Som says the ones he designed for Bill Blass are inspired by Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. [WSJ]

• Elle editor-in-chief Roberta Myers has decided not to assume the role of president of the American Society of Magazine Editors, most likely because she is too hell-bent on becoming a reality TV star. [WWD, 1st item]
• Rumer Willis, Kristin Cavallari, Christina Milian, Josie Maran, Pete Wentz, Corbin Bleu and Wilmer Valderrama have all apparently gotten desperate and all collectively facing Wal-Mart's Op line's latest ad campaign. [Just Jared]
• If you are dying to know what's in Kimora Lee Simmons' makeup bag, well, here's an itemized list. [Marie Claire]
• The rumors are true: Linda Evangelista will be the face of Prada's Fall 2008 ad campaign. [FabSugar]
• Tory Burch refers to her employees as her "family". [WWD, sub req'd]
• Kanye West-endorsed, Damien Hirst-designed t-shirts to benefit Bono's Product (RED)? Oh my. [Chic Report]
• Uber fashion publicist Kelly Cutrone likes chopping vegetables and washing dishes. [WSJ]
• Moby: Wants you to design a t-shirt for him. [USA Today]

When Stephanie Faucher, the design director of Computerworld, was questioned by Folio magazine about the infamous Lebron James image on the cover of Vogue, she answered with her own question: "What better way to sell magazines than to run a controversial cover?"

Except that Folio reports, controversial covers don't always increase sales. Though, writes Joanna Pettas, "It's nice to hear people outside the industry talking about magazines. It's a reminder that print, and magazines in general, still have an impact on social culture." Still, one has to wonder: If women are tired of airbrushed celebs and "perfect" models, and a magazine really wanted to court controversy, wouldn't it be a good idea to publish an untouched cover photograph? I'd buy that, in a heartbeat. Would you?

Liz Hurley Admits She Gets Her Bikini Pictures Airbrushed [Mirror]
Liz Hurley Confesses Love Of Airbrushing [Telegraph]
Why Ridiculous Covers Matter [Folio]
Despite Talk of Ethics Codes, Airbrushing Is Here to Stay [AdAge]
Related: Cover Critique: Vogue's Lebron and Gisele
Earlier: America Ferrera's 'Glamour' Treatment, Revisited
Is Vogue's "LeBron Kong" Cover Offensive?
Mainstream Media Outlets Have Picked Up On The Controversial "LeBron Kong" Vogue Cover

From the Blender cover where Britney's head was attached, Frankenstein-style, onto another body, to poor Faith Hill — readers are misled. Constantly. Take the new Marie Claire: We all know that Tina Fey has a prominent scar. So why can we barely see it?

As a reader pointed out, in this ad for Gossip Girl, Blake Lively's waist has been whittled down to the size of her neck. Screen shots from behind-the-scenes at the shoot prove how drastically she was chopped.

Some magazines in the UK claim that they're altering photographs to make models fatter. Well not fat, of course, just less emaciated. "It is now deemed just as negative to be too thin as too fat," says Belinda Coleman of retouching agency The Shoemakers Elves. "Every­one is scared of being highlighted as the magazine or label that promotes very thin girls, so they are being a lot more careful about the images they present." But this means that the model is still frightfully thin and getting paid. "Retouching skinny girls doesn't help anyone except advertisers, and least of all the models in question," writes Kate Finnigan, the style editor of Stella.

To be honest, when I think of a PhotoShop ban, what comes to mind is the scene in Batman where the news anchors can't use any makeup or cosmetics products because the Joker has tainted them all. The faces of the reporters are ashen, pale, craggy and uneven. It's shocking because we know what people on TV are supposed to look like: Smooth and perfect. Even if they're just reading the news. Magazines are the same; we're so used to the lies, the forgeries on the covers. How would we handle it if covers suddenly started revealing the truth? On the other hand, if magazines continue to lie and continue to have their lies exposed, are they fools for persisting? Are we fools for buying? Are the stars fools for aiding and abetting the lies?

ASME Plans To Address Photoshopping [Foilio]
Now Fashion Mags Make Models 'Fatter' [Telegraph]
Airbrushing Fears Under The Carpet [Telegraph]

Related: Britney Spears Blender Magazine March 2008 Cover [PopCrunch]
Tina Fey - "Marie Claire" May 2008 [JustJared]
Earlier: America Ferrera's 'Glamour' Treatment, Revisited
Vogue Cover Girl Drew Barrymore Has Been Powerfully Photoshopped
The Five Great Lies Of Women's Magazines
Here's Our Winner! 'Redbook' Shatters Our 'Faith' In Well, Not Publishing, But Maybe God

When she was fourteen, Padma got into a car accident in Malibu that left her with a long scar on her arm. That scar almost destroyed her burgeoning modeling career. She also had to battle the dominant "waif" mode to realize her modeling dreams. Padma told Vogue in a 2001 interview that her "voluptuous 34C-24-34" frame almost kept her from competing against the Kate Mosses on the runway.

Luckily, Padma persevered, and after writing two best-selling cookbooks (Easy Exotic and Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet), she is poised to become a worldwide branding superstar. She helps her naturally glowing skin maintain its burnished glow with Dr. Sebagh creme extreme maintenance, and in an interview with Vanity Fair last December, Padma said she hoped her name might be on as many food labels as Paul Newman and as many clothing labels as Jennifer Lopez. Unfair right? Especially since she also sizzled on the Emmy red carpet in a white satin Dolce & Gabbana gown.

Almost Flawless [Vogue via Padma Lakshmi Official Website]
A Taste Of Fame[Vanity Fair via Padma Lakshmi Official Website]

Welcome back to Cover Lies, where we rewrite the covers of major women's magazines to more accurately reflect what's inside, so you can spend your time in the convenience store line reading about Eliot Spitzer!

Mike drinks while driving. He lies frequently and about everything. He has almost certainly never made a girl come. He is thoroughly shameless and unabashed about all these qualities, and on top of that, clearly dumb. And for some reason girls date him anyway. For some reason Alyssa Shelasky, Cherico's Columbia-educated (if not, uh, always particularly Columbia educated-seeming) dating blogging predecessor on the Glamour website, dated him anyway, then nearly lived with him, then recommended him to write a dating blog. And it took more than six months to produce the woman who would finally put an end to his tenure, simply by blogging the truth about dating Cherico:

I thought it was just a first time thing but the morning after we slept together, we had sex again, and I went down on him and let him finish in in my mouth. I was literally sitting there with the taste of him still in my throat when he stood up to take a shower. He had now had two orgasms to my zero, so I asked if he might orally reciprocate. He, with no hesitation or hint of sarcasm, proclaimed "I don't know you that well!" and turned on the faucet.

A word from Glamour: We've read your comments, every single one. Our ultimate goal here is to open a productive conversation about men, sex, love and dating; clearly, that can't happen when the majority of readers would like to pulverize the blogger. And so, we've decided it's time to move on; as of today, Mike is no longer blogging for us.

[www.glamour.com]

they finally fired him!