One California mother is taking a stand against the scourge of twerking by making her daughter hold up a sign publicly apologizing for engaging in the dance-du-jour at a recent school event.

Frances Hena of Bakersfield explicitly told 11-year-old Jamie not to rhythmically gyrate her lower fleshy extremities in a lascivious manner with the intent to elicit sexual arousal (as Urban Dictionary defines "twerking"), but her daughter defied her.

As punishment, Hena made the seventh grader stand for two hours near a busy intersection with a sign informing passing motorist that she "was disrespecting my parents by twerking at a school dance.

"That’s ridiculous to even think that’s okay at a school dance," Hena told ABC News. "When she’s 18, she can do whatever she wants. As of right now, that’s not something she’s going to be doing."

Hena is also mad at the school for allowing her young daughter to twerk with abandon at an official function.

"I haven’t heard anything from the school still, and it’s just ridiculous to think that’s okay at a school dance," she said.

Hena wants the school to implement a strict "no twerking" policy, and hopes her daughter's public shaming will deter other young kids from twerking before their time.

[H/T: HyperVocal]

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is fond of saying that his pro-free market state is "wide open for business." It turns out that sentiment may only be true if you don't dare challenge the entrenched good old boys and their mountains of cold, hard cash like Tesla Motors did.

Over the past year Tesla has taken its fight for direct car sales to several states, but it got its ass thoroughly and completely handed to it in Texas. Being a scrappy and successful new automaker has nothing on the powerful and cash-flush car dealer lobby that has been a powerful force in Texas politics for decades, according to a new report from the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice.

You've probably heard that Tesla not only wants to revolutionize the car itself, but the way we buy them as well. Elon Musk would like to see a world in which car shoppers buy direct from vehicle manufacturers, not through independent third party dealership chains. After all, why is it you can buy a MacBook Air direct from Apple, but you can't buy a Mustang from Ford or a Model S from Tesla?

But thanks to the efforts of the late Gene Fondren, who passed away in 2010 but was a legislator, lobbyist and longtime head of the Texas Automobile Dealers Association, Texas has some of the toughest car dealer protection laws in the country. As Automotive News reports, Fondren's built a powerful legacy that continues to prohibit direct-to-customer sales in Texas today.

Do you want to know what employees at the Tesla stores are allowed to do? Legally, not much. From the report:

Employees in Tesla car galleries in Austin and Houston are legally prohibited from offering visitors a test drive, quoting them a price or even directing them to Tesla’s website. If a Texan does order a Tesla from California, the car must be delivered by third-party trucks that cannot advertise the Tesla brand.

It doesn't seem very fair, does it? During the most recent Texas legislative session, Tesla got two bills introduced in the State House and Senate that would permit them to sell their cars directly. But regular session ended in June without a vote on either bill.

Quoting longtime Texas political writer Paul Burka, Automotive News' story notes that lobbyists in that state — as is true in other places — don't have quite the same power they used to, due to changes in ethics laws and other factors.

Still, Tesla tried their hand at winning hearts and minds through political contributions. The Dallas Observer reports that Musk gave $7,500 in campaign contributions and spent somewhere between $255,000 and $565,000 on lobbyists.

But money talks and bullshit walks, and at the end of the day, Tesla didn't have the money and power to compete with the big boys. Compare Musk's contributions to what the car dealers spent from 2011 to 2012, according to the report.

Yeah, not even close.

The largest recipients of dealer cash, according to the report, were Gov. Rick Perry, Attorney General (and now gubernatorial candidate) Greg Abbott, House Speaker Joe Straus, Compotroller Susan Combs and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, in that order.

The rest of the recipients were almost overwhelmingly Republican lawmakers which, to be fair, makes sense because the Texas Legislature is overwhelmingly Republican.

However, it's also kind of funny considering these are the same people who claim to be pro-business, pro-capitalism and pro-free market. What would really be the harm of letting carmakers sell direct, besides politicians' car dealer money faucet getting turned off?

It's not like Musk hasn't had any victories with the Texas Legislature. SpaceX got almost no opposition when they sought to build a rocket launch site in Southeastern Texas, a move that would bring jobs and bolster Texas' reputation as a space-friendly state. Those bills got through the Legislature with no problem at all, the report says. Apparently, the same can't happen when car dealer money is on the line.

Musk is also working to make Texas a good place to actually own Teslas, too. A Supercharger station opened in Waco today, adding to the network of stations already in place across the state. Musk says that by the end of the fall, Model S owners will be able to drive through much of Texas for free.

But until Musk can come back to Texas with millions and millions of dollars he's willing to give to politicians, it's going to be business as usual in the Lone Star State.

Scientists say they've found waves 800 feet high—breaking underneath the ocean. Sure, guys.

We all grieve differently, and at Natasha's Equine Clipping Spa, they remembered and honored 9/11 by shaving the fallen World Trade Center towers into a horse's rear end.

Thanks to commenter horsenpony for the tip.

What a difference a year makes: In less than 12 months since voters in Washington legalized marijuana, local police officers have gone from putting stoners behind bars to helping stoners light a two-pound joint at last weekend's NW Harvest Fest 2013.

Marijuana.com reports that the massive, hash-oil laced spliff took an entire day to roll and was "smoked to completion" thanks to the assistance a "kind, herb-loving Makisupa policeman."

"Not only did the cop tolerate the joint, but he actually looks like he’s sincerely enjoying himself (and maybe a little high)," wrote site editor Barry Poppins. "This is the future, and in this future, cops get high too."

Dude.

Here's further proof that every single that happened at this year's MTV Video Music Awards was a culturally significant moment worth pondering (or that every culturally significant moment worth pondering happened at the VMAs).

Stashed asked New York rapper A$AP Rocky about his appearance alongside out basketball player Jason Collins to introduce the performance of the gay-rights anthem "Same Love" by Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, and Mary Lambert. Rocky appeared uncomfortable during Collins' rehashing of his coming out. When it was his turn to speak, Rocky sidelined the intro by promoting his crew member A$AP Ferg's Trap Lord album. The whole thing, including when Rocky pointed to Collins when saying the word "homosexuality," was awkward. Not hateful. Not think-piece worthy. Awkward.

In his explanation to Stashed, though, A$AP Rocky has made matters worse in a half-apology, in which he wonders why he was even asked to stand alongside a gay man in the first place. I mean, can you imagine the degradation? Via Pitchfork, here's Rocky's arm's length atonement:

I’m mad that my facial expressions was like that because I’m not homophobic at all, and that whole thing just came off real homophobic. I didn’t really notice it until I got home and saw it. I apologize to Jason for that, because people was laughing and shit, and you know… I really don’t think that’s funny. I saw they were making all the memes and pictures and making fun of him. There’s people out there that think I was doing that to be funny, and truthfully I got gay people in my family. I don’t give a fuck if you gay or you not, I just found it odd that MTV wanted to stand me next to this nigga when they are talking about gay people, that’s all. You know what I’m saying?

It's not odd at all, actually, given Rocky's outspokenness on the topic of gayness. He's said he doesn't care when people call him gay, and has discussed a pro-equality stance. He told Interview earlier this year, "...One big issue in hip-hop is the gay thing. It's 2013, and it's a shame that, to this day, that topic still gets people all excited. It's crazy. And it makes me upset that this topic even matters when it comes to hip-hop..."

Rocky's explanation to Stashed is so lucid in its convolution — he's basically representing hip-hop's evolving but still shaky acceptance of homosexuality. Here's a perfect, further example of that: Just moments ago, Mister Cee, a DJ for one of the most influential hip-hop radio stations in the country, Hot 97, resigned on air after yet another rumor regarding his taste in cross-dressing male prostitutes surfaced. His co-worker Miss Info tweeted some quotes from his final broadcast:

#MisterCee has resigned: "It's time 4 me to...take care of myself b/c there r situations when i try to do the rt thing, a setback happens"

— Missinfo (@Missinfo) September 11, 2013

#MisterCee: "Im good Im safe Im happy Im blessed. But the last thing u want 2 do is hurt ppl u love, n I love this station. I love hot97."

— Missinfo (@Missinfo) September 11, 2013

Rocky, meanwhile, acknowledges that homophobia is bad. He seems to realize that it's not socially acceptable, thus he must distance himself from it. That's easy enough in the abstract, but when it comes to actually standing next to a gay man discussing the same equal rights that Rocky has advocated, there's still an issue, there's still a need for distance. While it's admirable that Rocky called himself out (how often does watching oneself yield such humility?), I'm not sure how valuable that is. Rocky squirmed onstage and he's still squirming.

True solidarity comes without caveats. There is nothing odd about presiding over something you say you believe in. As it stands, A$AP Rocky's rhetoric is limp-wristed — no homo.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn is one of the most famously gentrified neighborhoods in the country, having completed its transition from industrial wasteland/ ethnic enclave to "place where financiers live in glass towers and joke about the 'hipsters' who can no longer afford to live there." But a few years ago, well— Williamsburg was wild, back then.

In the olden days, hilariously insulated parenting message board chatter was confined to Park Slope. Now, it appears, Williamsburg parents are "getting in the game." Specifically, parents who live at The Edge, the massivest of the massive condo towers that now line Williamsburg's west side like the mold rind on a particularly pricey imported cheese. A member of the "ParentsAtTheEdge" online group forwarded us this recent posting by an Edge resident— a wistful remembrance of the bygone days of old.

Believe it it not, two to three years ago when many of us moved into our apartments, we were pioneers and this section of Williamsburg was still the Wild, Wild West. We were surrounded by warehouses, vacant lots, empty retail stores and half-finished/abandoned condo projects.

Replied another parent:

As for kent circa 2009- I remember looking out my window here and they were literally creating the extension of the street past kent avenue in front of our bldg. I also remember hoping that they would put in a traffic light at the intersection because crossing felt like a game of Frogger! Wild West indeed! :).

Luxury condo tower, Williamsburg, three years ago. Wild West indeed! :)

[Photo: FB]

For more "Brands Remember 9/11," follow @JoeMande.

(They've pulled the tweet:

We apologize to anyone who felt our post was in poor taste. The image was solely meant to pay respect to those affected by the 9/11 tragedy.

— AT&T (@ATT) September 11, 2013

)

This clip from ABC's hidden camera series What Would You Do? is just a bit more poignant today than, say, yesterday, but it truly is an evergreen of verbal justice.

The premise of this particular "social experiment" was to test the response of random restaurant patrons to the racist rants of an Islamophobic customer.

You can watch the whole thing, or you can skip ahead to 4:45 to see something truly remarkable.

Thinking he's picked an easy target, the "bigot" starts to egg on a US soldier in uniform, warning him that he's about to give his business to a Muslim.

"We live in America. He can have any religion he wants," the medic responds without a second thought.

After some more taunting from ABC's paid actor, the soldier, fed up, delivers this powerful finishing move: "You have a choice to shop anywhere just like he has a choice to practice his religion anywhere. That's the reason I wear the uniform — so anyone can live free in this country."

Amen.

[H/T: Guyism]

The mighty rise, and fall, and rise, and fall, and rise again... and fall? Celebueditor and Princess Di necromancer Tina Brown is reportedly not going to have her contract renewed by her financial bosses at The Daily Beast.

Peter Lauria at Buzzfeed reports:

According to a source with direct knowledge of the situation, The Daily Beast parent company IAC owned by media mogul Barry Diller does not plan to renew Brown’s contract when it expires in January.

He says no decision has been made as to the future of The Daily Beast itself.

Why might Barry Diller have decided to pull the plug on the Great Tina Brown Experiment? A few possible reasons:

- Diller disastrously put her in charge of Newsweek, which she proceeded to editorially embarrass and run into the ground until its dessicated husk was sold off for scrap.

- The ill-fated merger of Newsweek and The Daily Beast succeeded only in running off a large portion of an editorial staff, something which was never, of course, Tina Brown's fault.

- Diller has been pouring tens of millions of dollars per year down The Daily Beast's throat for close to five years now, and it's still not making money.

Makes pretty good sense really.

Update: Politico reports that Tina Brown will be starting what is generously described as "her own company, Tina Brown Live Media," which will, it sounds like, mostly put on events.

Make no mistake: this is a major failure for Tina Brown.

Update 2: Here is The Daily Beast's own cringingly hero-worshipy story on Brown's departure, which reads like an official Soviet press release describing Stalin's vacation plans. It also implies that Brown is leaving of her own accord. Your move, Barry Diller.

[Buzzfeed. Photo: Getty]

A group of 15 self-described "young professionals" in their twenties — the guys work in finance, the girls in fashion — paid $40,000 to party in an East Hampton home this summer. It was "the BEST summer of my entire life," one told us. Their landlord has a different take. "She clearly was not expecting people to party," wrote the young profesh who forwarded us an email she sent the crew after their lease was over. "She is overreacting on an entirely other level." According to the landlord's letter, the group's preferred mode of partying involved denting fifteen foot walls, rearranging and breaking furniture, and soiling bedding with "extensive blood stains" and "other large stains of body secretions." Was the house ruined by drunken bros and betches or exorcists?

Here's the landlord's email, bold emphasis ours:

Dear ______,

What I find shocking is how polite and professional you conduct yourself in your manner and communication, which is so incongruous with how your rowdy group behaved here this summer.

Your group had a very busy drunken summer breaking glass, putting holes and dents in the walls, plugging toilets, and rearranging furniture which you were not supposed to do which resulted in widespread damage and excessive soiling.

If an undoubtedly intoxicated person broke my lamp, it was inappropriate to not inform me and redecorate my house without my consent, choosing a replacement for me without even knowing if I want or like it. And by the way, that little lamp that was placed besides the sofas is not a living room table lamp. It doesn't even remotely resemble the broken lamp in size or design. It is a bedside lamp and I don't want it. You can take it back because it is not going to be a part of the decor at [address].

This house was treated very roughly. The damages and issues are:

1. Soiled walls throughout every room in the house with multiple holes and dents requiring plasterwork and painting in basically every room. And out of curiosity, how does one put dents on a wall 15 ft high that can't be reached ? [Ed. note: best guess is they were throwing shit. Duh.]

2. Dents in wood moldings throughout house requiring wood filling and painting.

3. Every single piece of linen in the house was left dirty in enormous piles in the laundry area stinking of mildew. There are several sheets and a duvet cover that were heavily soiled with extensive blood stains with other large stains of body secretions.

4. Some mattresses had the mattress covers unnecessarily removed with soiling on mattresses with blood stains requiring steam cleaning.

5. Living room upholstery was dirty and stained. All rugs are heavily soiled from heavy traffic with shoes.

6. Downstairs bathroom shower glass shelf was broken needing replacement.

7. Both kitchen and dining room wood table surfaces are scratched requiring repairs.

8. The living room lamp was broken and will be replaced with one of my choice.

9. The wine rack glass was broken.

10. The bedside table in the yellow room upstairs has a broken and warped drawer and requires repair of a woodworking specialist.

11. Wood floors are scratched from rearranging furniture.

12. Microwave glass door was burned with a permanent black charred stain.

13. A bag of garbage was left the trash can in garage stinking requiring disposal fees.

14. A number of personal belongings were left throughout house.

15. A roman shade was broken upstairs requiring repair.

16. Two kitchen chairs are damaged. One has several broken slats. One has a cracked seat.

17. The upstairs single bed that was thrown has a broken bed frame.

18. The sliding kitchen garbage bin/ drawer is completely bent and inoperable.

19. The tile grout in the kitchen floor and one upstairs bathroom is black with filth and requires bleaching and steaming. Several kitchen tiles are cracked from obviously dropping very heavy objects on them.

20. A number of wine glasses are missing.

21. Every kitchen dish and utensil had to be rewashed because there were many dead insects throughout cabinetry and some pans and dishes were greasy.

22. The ceilings in the kitchen are sprayed with beverages and are only reachable for cleaning with a tall ladder.

23. Downstairs bedroom dresser wood finish damaged and finish was stripped resulting in bleached appearance.

24. Pool maintenance man reported that jacuzzi cover is broken and was " walked on".

25. Downstairs bedroom comforter damaged with bleach spot. [Ed. note: at least bleach is preferable to blood/mysterious secretions?]

26. Dirty hand and fingerprints on walls throughout house to numerous to count requiring extensive scrubbing.

27. Locking pin on bathroom door adjacent to kitchen is missing so door no longer locks. New hardware is needed.

28. Professionally wrapped furniture in the basement was tampered with and one antique chair was unwrapped.

Photos of all damage and soiling were taken upon inspection and I'm preparing for contractors to begin repairs.

"The landlord is COMPLETELY overreacting in addition to a complete fool for renting this house to kids in their twenties and not expecting minor damages to be done or people to be undoubtedly 'intoxicated,'" the young profesh wrote. "GET A GRIP LADY!"

Moral of the story: never visit the Hamptons/any place where young professionals have unsupervised access to alcohol and high-end antiques.

Image via house rental listing.

Welcome to Next Question With Michael Musto, a regular feature in which Musto uses his time-honed skills to interrogate big celebrities, former celebrities, and wannabe celebrities. Musto is a pop culture icon, regular TV presence, and the author of four books.

Twenty-three-year-old burlesque performer Katrina Darling became known for a routine called “God Save The Queen” in which she sported a British flag and a crown, then stripped down to reveal smaller crowns on her dumplings and nibbly bits. She later learned that she’s Kate Middleton’s second cousin, and kept doing the act with a vengeance, disrobing and bumping as Queen Lizzie no doubt felt some very sharp chest pains. On the verge of a September 14 appearance at the New York gay club xl, Katrina stripped her soul bare for a royal grilling. The lady happens to enjoy a lovely chat—sometimes in lieu of sex, in fact.

Hello, Katrina. So you had no idea you were related to Kate Middleton?

I’d been happily prancing around in clubs all over the UK and had no idea what was about to happen. A Daily Mail journalist showed up at my house and was going to do a cute little story about the family tree, and then my mother mentioned what I do. They kind of outed me in a way. They posted images and Page Three stories in the Daily Mail. My story suddenly seemed extremely interesting.

Were you really a banker at one point?

I worked at Barclays. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t particularly fulfill my soul.

Were you not invited to the wedding because you’re only a distant cousin or because you’re a stripper, or both?

It’s because we’d never met. I was completely unaware that we were related. There have been burlesque performers invited to the palace many times. Sukki Singapura was just invited to the palace for afternoon tea—she’s the burlesque ambassador to Singapore.

One day your invite will come. Do you think stripping is an art form?

I do. There’s a lot of skill and technique and hours of work that go into it, as well as making my own costumes and set pieces and putting my music together and doing my own hair and makeup. It’s live art. Back in the day, it was mostly a male audience, but modern burlesque also lays on wit and satire and parodying, like drag acts do.

So the geezers aren’t sitting there getting off in their trenchcoats these days?

You’re not gonna have any back row Johnnies with their johnnies out. Not anymore.

Are you ever self-conscious about baring it all for an audience?

No, not at all. I feel most comfortable with myself when I’m onstage. I don’t really get nervous. It hits me when I get offstage. “Somebody get me some tequila!”

Am I the only one to feel you facially resemble Britney a bit?

I’ve been told that. A young Britney, right? But hey, she’s a sex icon.

Offstage, are you sexually wild or totally vanilla?

I think I’m more verbal. All talk, no action. I’ve been with my partner for a year and a half. We used to work together in our hometown. We used to mess around and stuff. We didn’t see each other for four years or so, then we reconnected after we’d both broken up with other people. We decided to give the other a pity date.

Is your partner a guy or a girl?

Guy.

Would you say you’re straight or bisexual?

It’s not fair to say I‘m bisexual because I’ve never been in love with a woman, but I’ve certainly been attracted to women.

You did Playboy last year, but you didn’t show your nibblies, did you?

No, I did! I have nothing shameful to hide. I’d done nude shoots and things like that. When I’m onstage, I wear a C-string merkin, which barely covers what’s there. So Playboy wasn’t a far step from what I’m used to.

Would you eventually like to go in a different direction in the biz?

I’m still young and finding my footing and what I like to do. I’d love to see what I can do in the designing realm. I also like p.r. I could see myself as a Kelly Cutrone of the future. I love that woman. She’s insane, but in a great way. I’d love to write as well.

Is it ironic that the royals try to be so proper, but they’re always getting caught showing even more privates than you do?

It’s because they’re always being photographed. How many times are you naked in a day? If they had a camera on you, they’d get a photo of you in the buff.

Yeah, but thankfully no one would publish it.

Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would love to see that!

Yeah, pervs. By the way, I have to say that, even with the nude shots, the royals bore me to tears. I’m just not interested in people who were either born into or married into status.

It’s that English thing of “You play to the role you’re born into.” I’m fortunate to not have been born into any role, so I could decide for myself. I have that freedom.

So you don’t read gossip on the royals?

Not really. I hear so much through other people that I rarely need to go online and google it!

A Maryland woman apparently unaware of the dangers associated with texting and driving received a crash course on the subject after driving her car into a lake yesterday.

Authorities in Waldorf say the 25-year-old woman was distracted by texting when she ran off the road and clipped a tree.

Her vehicle was then propelled some 60 feet into Wakefield Lake, where it remained submerged in five feet of water.

Luckily, the unidentified Hyundai driver was able to crack open a window and exit the car before emergency services arrived.

She was transported to a nearby hospital with minor injuries. Police expect to charge the woman with a crime.

[H/T: Newser, screengrab via NBC Washington]

A Yale spokesperson responds to rumors that the school's administration is quietly culling the campus squirrel population:

Yale does not have a squirrel extermination program and has not tried to reduce or manage the squirrel population on campus.

Tom Conroy

University Press Secretary

There you have it.

Two summers ago, Turntable.fm, a place to virtually listen to music with your friends, was everyone's favorite website. Many hours of American Office Productivity were sucked away. Then, we all moved on to new distractions—but Turntable sealed a $7 million investment round, and gradually torched it.

Unlike so many other web companies that raised millions of dollars in VC cash, Turntable was very well liked! It proved to be a musical ephemerality, a browser fad, but at least it can say that at one point in time, it was providing a thing that made people who used it happy. In that way, it outclassed almost most startups that have ever or will ever exist. But running an online house party isn't a good way to run an IRL business, and according to Digital Music News, it's finally caught up with the team: "This is a company that is now admittedly fighting for its life." The company spells out its troubles in a new blog post:

Early on, we decided to partner with the labels and do everything by the book. There were pros and cons to this. One of the biggest cons is it has been very expensive. We spend tens of thousands of dollars a month in royalties, service fees, hosting, etc. We could have removed a ton of that cost by just simply using YouTube or another service, but we felt it would dramatically reduce the ease of use and user experience.

So that leaves us in a tough place. We started turning on ways for the community to help support us (GOLD) and methods to offset some streaming costs for non-gold members (ads). Thank you to everyone who has joined in. It means a ton to us.

All of this is in the hope to try and neutralize the cost of running Turntable so that we can keep it running. The change we made yesterday, removing the ability to upload music directly, will reduce our monthly bill by roughly $20,000. That’s a huge saving that we need and we thought validated adding an extra step to uploading (upload it on SoundCloud and search for it on Turntable). It was a choice we had to make to keep the service running.

When you start jettisoning feature cargo to keep the whole thing afloat, the capsize isn't far off. Turntable's co-founder Billy Chasen says "Turntable is incredibly important to us and we want to see it stick around. We aren’t trying to kill it, you are watching us fight for it." But this kind of admission of mortality is rare even for companies that are clearly screwed—to volunteer this kind of dire stuff means it's even worse than it seems. And worst of all if you stuck $7 million into the whole outfit.

[via Matt Lynley]

Though the possibility of a runoff remains, it looks very likely that the New York City mayoral race will pit Bill de Blasio, a progressive, tax-the-rich liberal, against Joe Lhota, a Republican seen as the "last, best hope for salvaging the business-friendly government of the Bloomberg era." Are you ready for a real live class war? Now, we get one.

This looming political and rhetorical class war is not just a vague hope of ours. It is guaranteed. The billionaire mayor-for-life is leaving. The rich will miss him. He has turned much of New York City into a vast playground for the wealthy. He has been a warm friend to Wall Street, even as homelessness soared to new levels. He has produced a city that is wildly prosperous, with that prosperity unevenly divided.

No matter what you think of Bloomberg's legacy, it's clear that this mayoral election is going to be a referendum on whether or not to continue The Bloomberg Way. Bill de Blasio has soared to great heights of popularity on an explicitly anti-Bloomberg platform: rejecting stop-and-frisk, speaking of unifying our "two cities" of rich and poor, advocating loudly for affordable housing and social programs to help the underclass, aided by new taxes on the wealthy. Lhota, meanwhile, a deputy mayor under Giuliani and the head of the MTA for part of Bloomberg's term, is neatly set up to market himself as the stable, competent continuation of all that the upper class found so dear about Mayor Mike: "fiscal responsibility," "proven leadership," an explicit denunciation of de Blasio's "class warfare," and other code words that are music to the ears of the financial establishment. The New York Times today quotes a banker calling the prospect of a de Blasio win "terrifying."

“There is a fear among middle-class voters that we’re going to take a hard left turn away from the Giuliani/Bloomberg era of governance,” said Michael McKeon, who runs the political action committee. “It’s going to drive electoral support for Joe, drive financial support for Joe.”

It's comical, of course, for either man to denigrate "class warfare." De Blasio is deeply engaged in class warfare, on the right side. And Lhota, a deep underdog, has no viable strategy except for class warfare if he wants to shift the polls in his direction. New York is a Democratic city, and, on top of that, a city grown weary of the imperial benevolent Wall Street billionaire style of governing. Lhota's only chance is to appeal to fear: wealthy people's fear of higher taxes; Wall Street's fear of being demonized as the face of a a city's inequality; and the general incoherent fear of "a return to what NYC was like in the 90s," when Brooklyn wasn't gentrified and the subway system wasn't safe for the wanton display of iPhones.

This election will be a merry, bloody battle of the haves and have-nots. The haves crave safety and stability—they crave a hard-nosed leader who will allow them to keep the gains of the Bloomberg years, and who will do what needs to be done in order to ensure that the cries of the angry rabble do not leak through the soundproof windows of the city's forest of new condominium towers. The have-nots, meanwhile, crave their own share of the pie. The prosperity of the Bloomberg years has been all the more frustrating to the majority of citizens, who stood outside its scope and watched as Wall Street grew ever richer, like hungry people glaring through the windows of a sumptuous restaurant.

"The economy" has notionally recovered from the recession. The people, in reality, have not. Since the end of the recession, 95% of the income gains have gone to the top 1% of earners. The majority of the income in America now goes to the wealthiest 10%, the highest proportion recorded in over a century. The "recovery" is a hypodermic needle, injecting capital directly into the accounts of the already-rich.

New York is the richest city in the richest country, and it must decide whether it wants to be a city for New Yorkers, or a Disneyland for the global rich. Yes, we will have a class war. After 12 years of billionaire rule, it is high time that we did. And we hope that it is a rough one. It's populist anger vs. establishment fear. May the most violent emotion win.

(Bill de Blasio will win.)

[Image by Jim Cooke]

A Hawaii woman says local officials are trying to get her to change her lengthy last name because it exceeds the number of characters allowed on state-issued identification cards.

Janice “Lokelani” Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele was able to convince the governor's office to issue a special ID that could fit her entire surname, but when it expired earlier this year, she was right back where she started.

The problem, Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele says, is that her driver's license was printed with just an abbreviated version of her family name — her first and middle name were completely left off.

As a result, getting stopped by police becomes an even bigger hassle than it normally is.

The two-card solution worked well until she received her new ID in the mail, and, just like her driver's license, it too was missing large chunks of her name.

Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele phoned the county to see what could be done, but was instead advised to change her last name to make it easier on herself and everyone else.

"And I went, ‘How disrespectful of the Hawaiian people,'" Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele recalled.

Another reason Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele refuses to revert back to her maiden name is that she considers "Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele" a living link to her late husband.

In an email she sent a tool supplier a few years back, Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele explains that her last name was also her husband's whole name:

You see, to some people in the world, your name is everything. If I say my name to an elder Hawaiian (kupuna), they know everything about my husband's family going back many generations... just from the name. When the name is sliced up, changed or altered it distorts the intention and meaning that the name represents. Unfortunately, many people have been shamed into hiding their real names because they don't fit in with the dominant culture's lack of respect for the name.

In response to Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele's complaint, the Department of Transportation said it was working to extend its character limit to 40 "so that issue can be resolved."

[screengrab via KHON2]

On this September 11, another year further removed from the events of 2001, many Americans have seemingly lost focus on the significance of what happened. As the attacks move toward history's horizon, like the Civil War and Thanksgiving before them, Gawker offers an educational resource to help America's schoolteachers explain and preserve the meaning of the day. This pageant may be staged with 20 to 25 children, depending on class size. For younger grades, the teacher may serve as the Narrator.

CAST:

a Narrator

four Terrorists

World Trade Center Tower 1

World Trade Center Tower 2

the Pentagon

Firefighters

People of New York City

Airplane Passengers

the Mayor

the President

the Freedom Tower

ACT ONE: NEW YORK CITY

Narrator: It was a nice, pretty day, but bad men were doing bad things.

Terrorists (holding planes): We have planes. We want to hurt people. We hate freedom.

Tower 1 and Tower 2 (in unison): Do not hit us. We do not want people to be hurt.

(Terrorists hit Towers with planes.)

Tower 1 and Tower 2: Oh, no.

ACT TWO: WASHINGTON, D.C.

Narrator: The bad men were everywhere. They wanted to hurt America.

Terrorist (holding plane): Now I will hit the Pentagon.

(Terrorist hits the Pentagon with plane)

Pentagon: This is bad. Now there is a fire.

Firefighters: Here we come. We will put out the fire.

ACT THREE: NEW YORK CITY

Narrator: Brave rescuers went to the Towers to save people.

Firefighters (in unison): We are here to rescue you.

Person 1: Thank you.

Person 2: I was scared, but now I am safe.

Person 1 and Person 2 (in unison): Be careful, firefighters.

Tower 2: I cannot stand up any more. (Tower 2 falls down. Some Firefighters fall down.)

Tower 1: I cannot stand up any more, either. (Tower 1 falls down. More Firefighters fall down.)

Person 1 and Person 2 (in unison): Oh, no.

ACT FOUR: PENNSYLVANIA

Narrator: The President had to go away, to make sure nobody hurt him. But regular people were ready to stop the bad men.

Terrorist (holding airplane): I will go hit Washington, D.C. I will hurt people there.

Passenger 1: No, he will not.

Passenger 2: No more hurting people today.

Passenger 3: We will get hurt, but we will stop him, here in Pennsylvania.

Passengers (in unison): Let's roll! (Passengers tackle Terrorist; all fall down with airplane.)

ACT FIVE: NEW YORK CITY

(Enter the Mayor, followed by People.)

Narrator: People were scared and confused, but they were brave.

Mayor: I am the Mayor. Follow me. (People follow the Mayor across the stage.)

(Lights flicker)

Mayor: Oh, no. Follow me this way. (People follow the Mayor back across the stage, the opposite way.)

ACT SIX: NEW YORK CITY, LATER

(The Towers lie on the ground. The President stands by, with more Firefighters and People.)

Narrator: The bad men had hurt a lot of people. They had broken the Towers. But America was not afraid anymore. The President spoke to everyone.

President: America is not afraid. We will stop bad men. We will fight back until there are no bad men anywhere. We will never forget this bad day.

People and Firefighters: America will fight back. We will never forget this bad day. (People and Firefighters cheer.)

Narrator: And no one ever forgot the bad day, or the brave firefighters. And everyone remembered how much they loved freedom.

People: We will build a new Tower.

(The Freedom Tower enters.)

Freedom Tower: Here I am. I am the Freedom Tower. (Freedom Tower holds up American flag.)

(All sing "God Bless America.")

(Curtain.)

[image by Jim Cooke]

Towering progressive Bill de Blasio almost certainly won New York City’s Democratic primary on Tuesday evening. He trounced previous front-runner Chris Quinn on an unapologetically liberal, anti-Bloomberg platform, following a competent campaign and decades of service in New York City politics. But in reality — the reality defined by Manhattan media, at least — de Blasio won because his son, 16-year-old Dante de Blasio, filmed that touching 15-second political ad you probably saw on YouTube.

Witness:

Time: “The Ad That Won the New York Mayor’s Race”

The New York Times: “[De Blasio’s] biggest buy and most talked-about commercial, of course, was the tribute from his son, Dante, known for his towering Afro.”

The Wall Street Journal: “Dante — and his definitive Afro hairstyle — shot to fame after featuring in a campaign advertisement for his father.”

The Daily Beast: “Dante de Blasio Might Just Have Gotten His Dad Elected Mayor”

USA Today: “Dante, with his big smile and even bigger hair, starred in a campaign commercial that helped push de Blasio and the candidate's message of ending economic inequality for New Yorkers to the top of the Democratic field.”

Bloomberg News (quoting a pollster): “Clearly [the airing of the ad was] when things changed for [de Blasio] in a dramatic way.”

Is any of this true? Sort of, maybe, but it’s not as dramatic as these reports suggest. According to aggregated polling data among New Yorkers asked to identify which candidate they would vote for if the Democratic primary were held that day, de Blasio’s upward trend, which had been fairly steady the month prior, bent slightly less upward after the ad appeared on YouTube and flooded New York’s television markets:

Around the same time, growing support for Thompson quickly reversed (before growing, once more, at the beginning of September), while support for Weiner completely cratered. Support for Quinn — once thought to be de Blasio’s chief competitor — was already declining. In other words: the ad didn’t hurt!

So who is Dante de Blasio? Mostly a normal high school junior. He attends Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene, turned 16 on September 4, and consumes extremely standard teenage things: Parks and Recreation, The Onion, Kurt Vonnegut. One Brooklyn Tech classmate described him as “really smart.” He has an older sister, Chiara. Like most other teenagers, he’s not terribly interesting.

His hair, however—his hair is fascinating. He wears it in an afro, which political reporters have made a sport of describing: “stupendous”; “striking”; “fabulous”; “enormous”; “gigantic”; “amazing”; and on and on. (The point being: his hair is big.) Dante told DNAInfo that he started wearing one in the 3rd grade, when he became aware of the Sixties “black is beautiful” movement: “At the time I really just liked the style. I was just bringing back the style that meant a lot.” He added: “Honestly, it’s my hair and I’m glad to show it off.” He’s such a teenager it hurts.

But no: Dante de Blasio did not single-handedly hand his father’s victory to him. It makes a nice story, though.

[Image via YouTube]

AMC is moving forward with its planned Breaking Bad spin-off, Better Call Saul. It'll focus on the character of Saul Goodman prequel-style, before he was Walter White's lawyer. But I don't want a new puppy! I want my old dog back!