Florida, the alleged Sunshine State, has more indoor tanning salons than McDonald's restaurants, Publix supermarkets, CVS drugstores, and Bank of America branches. Visiting Aunt Rea in Boca this holiday? Get your leather on.

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"I'll be honest, I really wanted to win the Best Rap Video, but this Moonman right here stands for a lot more," the rapper Macklemore said earlier this year, holding the MTV Video Music Awards "Best Video With a Social Message" trophy. The honor was for the video accompanying his gay-equality anthem "Same Love," a song that he called "the most important record" out of everything he's written. "To watch this song in the last year spread across the world is a testament to what is happening right now in America on the forefront of equality," he told the crowd, echoing the song's self-important earnestness.

Macklemore is cloying: A straight male liaison informing the world that Gay is OK! (note that the track's collaborator, Mary Lambert, an actual gay person, did not get to say a word during the acceptance speech). His song is simplistic—not all love looks the same, especially not all queer love—but that simplicity allows "Same Love" to speak to the masses, including and especially to the idiots who need a model for tolerance. The song went Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 this summer in the wake of DOMA's reversal. It has been nominated for Song of the Year at the 56^th Annual Grammy Awards. As recently as a few weeks ago, it prompted a sing-along amongst the 18,000 or so attendees who filled Madison Square Garden for the annual Jingle Ball concert.

Central to the song is its smarmy indictment of a hip-hop culture that it seeks to correct. "If I was gay / I would think hip-hop hates me," says Macklemore. That's an annoying thing to say, not just because it should be "If I were gay." It encourages wallowing. It ignores the complicated experience of being a LGBT person interfacing with bigoted pop culture. You don't have to surrender or ignore; you can glean what's useful to you and leave the toxic rest behind. Macklemore's sense of what he'd feel if he were gay matters less than, say, how actual, non-hypothetical gay people engage with hip-hop.

But you get what he's saying: Hip-hop has traditionally been an unfriendly place to gay people. "Same Love" was released in 2012, but it didn't break till this year, after Macklemore and Ryan Lewis scored their career-delivering hits, "Thrift Shop" and "Can't Hold Us." Had it been written later, it very well could have been different. It's been a watershed year in terms of hip-hop's relationship to homosexuality. It's harder and harder to make the case that "hip-hop hates me."

Hip-hop's traditionally overt homophobia—it's the musical genre in which anti-gay sentiments and slurs are most prevalent and acceptable—makes it a good gauge for social progress. And it is progressing, partly because it couldn't get much worse. Last year Frank Ocean, an R&B singer with close ties to the young L.A. rap crew OFWGKTA, made public a same-sex romantic relationship, and a new wave of sub-mainstream queer rappers such as Le1f, Mykki Blanco, and Cakes Da Killer provided new models for queerness in hip-hop, not to mention fodder for think-pieces. Established, well-respected rappers (many of whom had expressed homophobic sentiment on record at some point in the past) like Busta Rhymes, Jay Z, and T.I., spoke up to announce support of Ocean and Barack Obama's endorsement of gay marriage.

Earlier this year Lil' Wayne (frequent user of the that's-what-she-said variant "no homo") voiced his support for gay basketball player Jason Collins. Talib Kweli prophesied the imminent end of homophobia to Mother Jones: "There just needs to be a gay rapper—he doesn't have to be flamboyant, just a rapper who identifies as gay—who's better than everybody."

Times have been changing and we've been watching them change, and it's been exhilarating.

That doesn't mean the transition to tolerance has been entirely smooth, even when driven by seemingly good intentions. Snoop Dogg spoke out in support of gay marriage and admitted to having "gay homies," but when asked the possibility of mainstream gay rappers, he invoked stereotypes and the same kind of boys-will-be-boys attitude toward the status quo that suggests he's just as tolerant of homophobes as he is homos. "It's acceptable in the singing world, but in the rap world I don't know if it will ever be acceptable because rap is so masculine. It's like a football team. You can't be in a locker room full of motherfucking tough-ass dudes, then all of a sudden say, 'Hey, man, I like you.' You know, that's going to be tough."

Wu-Tang Clan's U-God sounded similarly beamed-in from decades ago, way back when gay men only existed to prey on straight men, when he spoke his peace on the subject: "Personally, I don't give a fuck if you're gay. That's your business. That's your sexual preference. But don't come over here and make me gay—you ain't gonna force something on me, see? But if you cool, you talented, and you gay? We can rock, nigga! We can drink, we can smoke, we can laugh. But don't try and bring that shit over here. I like titties. I like titties. I like titties. I like two pair, I like four pair of titties at one time." (We get it, U-God.)

On "the gay rap scene," U-God's colleague Ghostface said, "It's not my cup of tea."

Even Power 105 DJ Charlamagne the God (who so expertly handed Kanye West his ass) tripped over his sentiment in the slightly convoluted attack on homophobia in hip-hop that he issued in the wake of Mister Cee (from rival New York station Hot 97) coming out as someone who enjoys oral sex with men who dress up like women. Said Charlamagne:

Embrace who you are and use your truth, so that no one can use your truth against you. This is exactly what happened in this situation. Mister Cee's truth was used against him because he refuses to live it. I been sayin' since Day 1, nobody cares that Mister Cee is gay. The reason he keeps getting arrested and made the butt of all these jokes is because of his lifestyle choice of picking up male prostitutes. When I say Mister Cee is a serial purchaser of penis, that's not done in jest, it's the truth. When I say Mister Cee should get a boyfriend and an apartment and stop picking up young male trade in the streets, I'm not making jokes, I'm telling him the truth and I find it disturbing that we are part of a culture that has created an environment where a man can't just be who he wants to be without being ridiculed for it.

Charlamagne's language is coarse and seemingly mocking even where he says it isn't ("serial purchaser of penis?"). He also isn't entirely analytical—if he and his fellow hip-hop luminaries are "part of a culture that has created an environment where a man can't just be who he wants to be without being ridiculed for it," then in fact someone would care if Mister Cee were gay (if that's what he is). Charlamagne's on the right side of history here, more or less, but awkwardly, almost reluctantly so—in the broadcast he also referred to Mister Cee as "Sister Cee" and called his predilection for sex workers "disgusting." Ridicule.

But progress is progress. The incident around Cee was a particularly big moment—the Hot 97 interview in which he came clean featured his colleague Ebro Darden telling him things like, "There's nothing wrong with being who you are," and, "You're free, Cee!" Darden was a model of compassion and tolerance and Cee openly struggled to be honest about himself. Jon Caramanica in the New York Times said that as a result of this conversation, in addition to other overt signs of acceptance we've seen in the hip-hop world, "It's no longer tenable for hip-hop to be an island."

We can see a change happening within the music, too. It's not all "Same Love" kumbaya anthems, but increasingly, there is a more nuanced engagement with gayness in hip-hop than ever before.

In August, two hip-hop albums were released in which the only instances of the word "faggot" were descriptions of an antagonist's taunt. As opposed to the usual malice or at least thoughtlessness with which that word has been traditionally spit, here are two instances where using it is explicitly portrayed as a bad thing.

The first happens on the moody and eloquent album from Odd Future member Earl Sweatshirt, Doris. (As a contrast to Doris' single instance of the word, "faggot" appears about 15 times on the most recent album from Earl's cohort Tyler the Creator, who shows up on Doris both as a guest rapper and producer.) Sweatshirt's preceding release, 2010's Earl, contained an interlude titled "Wakeupfaggot."

Even more interesting, and novel, is that the person who says "faggot" on Doris is not Earl but Ocean, the only male Odd Future member to have publicly admitted to same-sex attraction (but don't call him bisexual).

Instead of singing, as he usually does, Ocean raps the following bars on the particularly downtrodden "Sunday":

They thought me soft in high school, thank God I'm jagged
Forgot you don't like it rough, I mean he called me a faggot
I was just calling his bluff
I mean how anal am I gon' be when I'm aiming my gun
And why's his mug all bloody, that was a three on one?

In this verse—ostensibly a recounting of his physical altercation with Chris Brown—Ocean touches on the tense relationship non-heterosexual males have with their own masculinity—how years of being openly judged for lacking it can manifest in violent or otherwise macho behavior. (The "calling his bluff part" also slyly nods to the fact that Ocean came out not as gay, but something more fluidly sexual and less defined.) The violence Ocean invokes may not be admirable, but his explanation makes it understandable.

This is a scenario to answer those people—like Ocean's teammate Tyler—who say that their use of the word "faggot" doesn't refer to men who sleep with men: Here's what happens when it does.

This is a conversation that hasn't made its way to mainstream hip-hop before now. It's probably not as tidy as the most sensitive listeners would prefer. There's ambiguity there as to whether Ocean's proposed gunplay is a reaction to homophobia (because saying "faggot" is wrong) or an insult (because being "faggot" is wrong). Ocean is typically terse and selective on these identity matters—it's possible that he's still working out this question himself.

The second example of "faggot" shows up on A$AP Ferg's Trap Lord. On the remix of Ferg's "Work," his crewmate A$AP Rocky muses:

You want that pretty Flacko? Ratchets, designer jackets
The same niggas who jack it be the first who claim we faggots

Unlike Ocean, A$AP Rocky is firmly—problematically, he might say—hetero. But he's an outspoken supporter of gay equality. Being that dude hasn't been easy, and Rocky's behavior this year makes me think he's more on Team Being a Faggot is Wrong than Team Calling Someone a Faggot is Wrong. He squirmed when was made to stand next to a gay man (Jason Collins) at the MTV Video Music Awards. He later issued an apology for the faces he made, emphasizing that he's "not homophobic at all," but he was still smarting over the incident: "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." (Note to Rocky: When you're really not homophobic at all, you won't find it odd.)

Roc Nation's J. Cole has been similarly awkward and convoluted in his supposed display of supposed equality support. He opened his second album, Born Sinner (released in June), with the song, "Villuminati," which contains this section:

My verbal AK slay faggots
And I don't mean no disrespect whenever I say "faggot," OK, faggot?
Don't be so sensitive
If you want to get fucked in the ass
That's between you and whoever else's dick it is
Pause, maybe that line was too far
Just a little joke to show how homophobic you are
And who can blame ya?

Because the content here seems to make little sense (here's a little game to expose your homophobia…though I don't blame ya for being that way), Cole repeatedly has found himself explaining these lines in interviews. Earlier this summer, here's how he clarified to the Huffington Post:

There will soon come a day when people in general, and rap artists specifically, are going to have to answer for their past usage of the word "faggot," much like the grandfathers who are ashamed that they used the word "nigger" as kids. At a time when public acceptance of gay rights is soaring (rightfully), hip-hop culture and general are still battling with homophobia (not excluding myself). Rather than run from it I chose to attack it playfully. Those lyrics are meant to make everyone uncomfortable for the sake of this very conversation.

He then reiterated as much to BET.com, adding:

Much more than I think any other culture, I don't want to just compare it to white people, but in terms of jokes that you make — everything's got to be "pause" or "no homo." You cant even play basketball without someone saying, "pause." I'm not innocent of it. I am part of that same culture – but why? That line was supposed to be offensive and confusing, but I was hoping to have more conversations about it.

This is an odd hedging. Cole could, and should, be harder on himself. There's no reason that "day of reckoning" needs to happen in the future, instead of now. But his willingness to engage with the issue in the actual content of the music signals a palpable change.

And then there are those whose non-engagement marks a change. Some of this year's most-discussed releases don't contain any gay slurs from artists who've previously used them: It's nowhere to be found on Kanye West's Yeezus, Killer Mike and El-P's collaborative Run the Jewels album, Joey BADA$$'s Summer Knights mixtape and Jay Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail, which does contain samples from the gay-culture approved camp classic Mommie Dearest on "Jay Z Blue."

And look, if you want hard proof of the decline of anti-gay speech in hip-hop, here it is visually:

Only "pause" seems to have had an upkick. It's slight—and not necessarily a stand-in for "no homo" at every reference.

I love these examples for, at least, working toward proving Macklemore wrong. Hip-hop doesn't hate gay people. Not all of it, at least. Even when it stumbles in these attempts, even when rappers don't exhibit the full enlightenment that we'd want from them (Too $hort: "Just go with it, it's just a lifestyle, you know, so whatever"), it's still making attempts at engagement, which is more than it was doing even last year and far more than it was doing two years ago.

Still, we're talking about a vast, varied pool of points of view and opinions. There's still plenty of homophobic language. Still. In 2013. There's bound to be some push-back from conservatives, like the irrelevant Lord Jamar of Brand Nubian, who rapped earlier this year that Kanye West is "the pioneer of this queer shit," for his taste in skinny jeans and a skirts.

Here it is on one of the most universally beloved hip-hop release of the year, Chance the Rapper's jubilant Acid Rap mixtape:

"Chance, acid rapper, soccer, hacky sacker / Cocky khaki jacket jacker / Slap-happy faggot slapper" ("Favorite Song")

Here it is on Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire's Kismet:

"Satin drawers like I'm a faggot / Attract these hoes just like a magnet" ("I Was Drunk When I Wrote This")

You can hear Action Bronson say it, practically underneath his breath (perhaps as the phony-pound-throwing homie character he's describing), on his Saab Stories EP:

"Homie hold me down / Homie throw me phony pounds (Faggot!)" ("The Rockers")

And elsewhere on that EP, Raekwon says it openly:

"And I'm gon' keep you rich so chill / Or you can live with them faggots and stay away from real deal abbots" ("Seven Series Triplets")

And then there is, of course, Eminem's verse on "Rap God," which months later, still makes no fucking sense to me:

You fags think it's all a game 'til I walk a flock of flames
Off a plank, and tell me what in the fuck are you thinking?
Little gay looking boy
So gay I can barely say it with a straight face looking boy
You witnessing a massacre
Like you watching a church gathering take place looking boy
Oy vey, that boy's gay, that's all they say looking boy
You get a thumbs up, pat on the back
And a way to go from your label everyday looking boy
Hey, looking boy, what you say looking boy?

Em later explained that he didn't mean "gay" like "homosexual" ("It was more like calling someone a bitch or a punk or asshole"), much like Tyler the Creator told Arsenio Hall that "faggot" is "just another word that has no meaning," which is a stupid thing for him to say since his words mean so much that they keep him fed.

But look, at least in the case of Em, exactly what he's getting at while using all of those epithets is less clear than it was in 2000 when he rapped, "My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge / That'll stab you in the head, whether you're a fag or lez / Or the homosex, hermaph or a trans-a-vest / Pants or dress, hate fags? / The answer's "yes" / Homophobic? Nah, you're just heterophobic." I like that "Rap God" verse for not just illustrating the nonsense of homophobia but for showing the weakening power of Eminem's provocations. He might still be homophobic, but his homphobia has been confused and dulled; he can get away with dancing around it, but he wouldn't dare declare, "Hate fags" in 2013. In his latest video, "Monster," he plays footage from throughout his career. His much hyped duet with Elton John (a symbolic mea culpa to the gay community) is featured, including a shot of the two embracing. This is what he wants to impress upon you. This is how he wants you to think of him thinking of gays.

Screaming "Homophobe!" the second someone utters "faggot" is not good battle-picking strategy. Using an epithet could just be a product of habit, of people holding onto a word that isn't theirs (ostensibly all of these rappers are heterosexual) to hold onto. The person could just be lazy or self-righteous or have a more apathetic or ambivalent outlook. The person could think of him or herself as so down with the community that he or she feels the same kind of ownership over this word that gays do (it's rare but it happens, see Azealia Banks). You need to care about something to hate it, and a lot of these quotes could be just examples of flagrant carelessness (Chance the Rapper's is the only one that seems like a specific argument for anti-gay violence). This is not to excuse or forgive, just understand and not jump to knee-jerk outrage. It would be a disservice to acknowledge how things are getting better without paying attention to where they're staying the same.

If you expose yourself to the points of view of others, you're going to hear shit that chafes you, especially within a genre that persists with traditional ideas about masculinity (see the frequently progressive Kanye West telling his mother-in-law Kris Jenner not to call him soft "as a rapper"). I could write something as long as this piece about misogyny and the word "bitch." Or abelism and the word "retard." For over a decade there's been a movement to eradicate the word "nigga" from hip-hop. Oprah and Jay Z publicly argue about it. I don't know where the policing and calling out stop. Are we working toward an ideal where nothing off-color or politically incorrect can be said? Maybe the ideal is that more thought be put into the words we use, which is not an unreasonable expectation for verbal art.

And if that's the case, we are noticeably approaching that ideal. We can't ignore that the conversation about homophobia and homosexuality in hip-hop is becoming richer, even if the discourse remains fixated on what real men do and don't do, as the critic Al Shipley has suggested. For now, discourse is flourishing. This is the "faggot" spring, blooming hope and better reasoned thought and more even-handed individuals. Enjoy it now. Someday soon we'll be wondering why anyone said that rancid shit in the first place.

[Image by Jim Cooke, source photo via Shutterstock]

A father and his 15-year-old son drowned on Christmas day during a cave dive in north Florida. The two were reportedly testing new diving equipment the 15-year-old had received that morning as a Christmas gift.

The bodies of Darrin Spivey, 35, and Dillon Sanchez, 15, were found Wednesday night at 8:30 p.m., roughly five hours after Spivey's fiancee called police because she couldn't reach the two by phone. "I called friends and family that were more experienced to ask if I should be worried, and then I made the call," she told ABC News.

Spivey was an experienced and certified diver, but reportedly was not certified for cave diving. Sanchez was not certified to dive at all.

Divers discovered Sanchez's body in a cave 67 feet beneath the surface at Eagle's Nest Sink, which is considered the "Grand Canyon" of cave diving; Spivey's body was found at 127 feet.

Senior CBS correspondent John Miller, who anchored 60 Minutes’ glowing profile of the National Security Agency earlier this month, is leaving the network to lead the NYPD’s new counter-terrorism division.

Welcome to The 12 Days of Thatz Not Okay, a special holiday edition of a regular column in which I school inquiring readers on what is and is not okay. Check back tomorrow for our next seasonal installment. As always, please send your questions (max: 200 words) to caity.weaver@gawker.com with the subject "Thatz Not Okay."

A college friend invited me, via Facebook, to his holiday party. Also attending will be some old friends I rarely see. I was looking forward to it, but then I received the following Facebook message from an acquaintance who is closer to the host and other guests than I am:

"Hey I'm wondering if you could not go to [xxx]'s party so that I can attend. I kind of dislike you that much.

Much appreciated.

[Redacted]"

I've seen him 6 times in 10 years. A buddy of his and I had a small, verbal fight after the buddy pinched my wife's rear as we left a birthday get-together last year. Other than that, I can't guess why he dislikes me enough to write this. I don't care for him, either, but I never think of him.

He, like me, is 34 years old. A mutual friend says that the writer has a lot of "baggage."

I still plan to attend. I'm thinking of responding:

"[Redacted]:
My wife and I are going to the party. If you go, please don't make it weird. I look forward to seeing you, and to it not being weird.

-Me"

Is that okay?

Thatz okay—with one minor tweak.

Before we get to that tweak, though, let's back-up a second. You are 34 years old and calling your wife's ass a rear? Did you mean 340 years old? Or did you write this letter in 1962 and it only just got delivered because Yahoo was down? Did you at least threaten to knock Roger Sterling "to the moon" when he did that or was "Hey, fella! Could we talk about that?" as far as you got?

Good for you for recognizing that this lunatic is in no position to disinvite you from someone else's party. If you want to control the guest list at a party, throw a party. Otherwise, show up, don't cause a scene, and don't touch anyone's bottom—including your own.

Before you put the "party" in m[p]artyr though, you should touch base with the party host (or another mutual friend) to find out exactly what this man's deal is. Sending an email to someone to tell them not to come to someone else's party isn't normal behavior for anyone (unless the person emailing is a cast member on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and the party in question is Kyle's annual White Party which Kyle acts like is a huge deal but how big could it even be if the only famous people who go are The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?). It's an even more bizarre thing for someone to do if they don't have a particularly close relationship with the person they're emailing. It takes two to feud.

In short, you need to determine if this is "passive aggressive sniping" hatred or "stab you in the hallway after drinking a bottle of schnapps" hatred. You do not want to go to this party if there's a greater than 50 percent chance you're going to get your rear kicked by a psycho. This man and his friend are, after all, the type of people who would grab a wife's butt at a party—which is insane! You'd have to be either stone drunk or a sociopath to do that.

If, after doing a little research on the guy's mental state, you determine that he does not pose an immediate physical threat to yourself or your wife or the butt of your wife, responding to his Facebook message is a fine idea. I would cut the line "If you go, please don't make it weird," so that it reads simply "My wife and I are going to the party. I look forward to seeing you and to it not being weird." This way, he will have no cause (though it doesn't necessarily sounds like he needs it) to get rankled about the fact you're already accusing him of making it weird. Instead, you're acknowledging that maybe, perhaps, for some unknown reason, the universe might conspire to possibly make it weird (No one's fault! Just one of those things!) and expressing your hope that that won't happen. (And, don't sign it "- Me"!!! Classic rookie letter mistake. )

If you'd like to get away from the meta Millennial "Things make me uncomfortable! People are weird! Ain't life adorkable?" sentiment, you could cut the "weird" part altogether, and replace it with something along the lines of "I look forward to seeing you and having a good time."

If you're feeling feisty, you might reply "Thanks for the note. Gave me a good laugh. See you at the party!" In that case, I would advise your wife to stay at home, as it is unlikely a small verbal fight is all that's in the cards.

(The flip side of this issue is that maybe you are the crazy one and this man should be applauded for finally having the courage to stand up to you, which I'm not entirely sure isn't the case since you otherwise seem far too reasonable and well-adjusted to be a real person. If that's the case, stay away from the party, you demon.)

- Me

Submit your "Thatz Not Okay" questions here. Art by Jim Cooke. Previously in 12 Days of Thatz Not Okay: 12 Bucks for Jim Fucking Beam; 11th Hour Bonus; 10 Dollars, Split Three Ways; 9 Christians Fretting; 86ing Grown-Up Christmas Cards; and 7-ty Degrees Farenheit.

Karaoke is fun because it's a group activity, usually involving a lot of beer and yelling loudly with your arms around others. Using your smartphone is the opposite of this, and yet, here is Just Sing It, a bad app with a celeb endorsement. In a rare victory for common sense, Just Sing It is already tanking.

Perhaps the singalong startup and its investors, including Lerer Ventures, pulled Lohan out of whatever stimulant pit she happened to be in one day because they knew their app was a stinker. Singing at your phone does not sound very fun. But choosing to associate a bad idea with a sad person has created a synergistic reaction of despair. Guests at the December 17th launch party weren't permitted to ask Lohan about the app she is ostensibly a fan of, though I doubt it would've been worth asking anyway. When I asked a Just Sing It rep if I could talk to Lohan about Just Sing It, I was told it'd be "probably vey [sic] difficult" to reach the struggling starlet.

Not much of a spokesperson—really just a case of promotion by proxy. Here's a thing you recognize next to something you would otherwise never hear of. But it's not working. Download data from AppAnnie shows a slight bump from contrived post-party writeups, followed by a steady decline into app store nowheresville:

Thud.

See that blue line? That is an unpopular app becoming so much less popular that nobody bothers quantifying it anymore. It's off the charts, but in the wrong direction—and a sign that maybe Just Sing It shouldn't have used some of its $1 million in venture capital to hire Lindsay Lohan. If it's any solace, getting Justin Bieber for the job probably wouldn't have worked either.

When I'm sleepy but I can't sleep, there's only one medicine that does the job. And that medicine is...medicine. But when medicine isn't available, because I went through my Ambien prescription too fast like a shambling snooze-junkie so my doctor was all "WTF bro" and cut me off, I turn to the second-best thing: MY ANIMAL STORIES.

Ever since I got my Roku (or as I like to call her, "Ro," because best friends should be on a first-name basis), the most cherished part of my evening routine has been turning on a soothing nature documentary and then drifting off to the sounds of a cheetah gnawing on an alpaca's entrails, the freshly dead creature's terror still thick in the air. Ahhhh, I'm getting dozy just thinking about it.

Bonus: Not only is watching animal stories hella relaxing, you also get to play my favorite game, "Hey, Hey, That's You." It's pretty simple. Basically, when a dumb animal comes on the screen looking dumb, you just poke the person closest to you and go, "Hey, hey, that's you. That's what you do. You live in bat poop." Then you pretend like that's them. 100% LAFF RATE.

So, say it's bedtime, and say you're ready to get started. There are a lot of animal stories on Netflix, and not all animal stories are created equal. Personally, I'm a purist. I like it simple. Animals doing stuff, genteel narration (PREFERABLY BRITISH), sweeping vistas of faraway lands, hilarious birds with dumb faces (see that bird? That's you), and solemn admonitions about the terrible ecological consequences of humankind's hubris. I do not enjoy electric guitars, gimmicky CGI (prehistoric megafauna excepted), people who are not David Attenborough, and crocodiles (PLAYED OUT).

Also, all of my opinions are correct and yours are wrong. So please enjoy this definitive, legally binding ranking of all of the animal stories available on Netflix (that I've had time to watch so far—I am not a machine) from awesomest to shit-garbage:

1. Blue Planet

Look, I'm sorry. I hate to break it to all the Jim Fowler superfans out there, but nobody can fucking touch David Attenborough when it comes to animal stories. Maybe this list seems unbalanced, but if it were up to me there'd be even more A-man on it (Planet Earth isn't on Netflix right now, but it'd obv be #1, because DAINTY BABOON).

Anyhoo, Blue Planet is the best because the ocean is the best. Whales are the best, weird fish are the best, baby seals are the best, crabs being dicks are the best, uuuuugggghhh oh god, everything about Blue Planet is the best. Yeah, weird polyp thingies that live in crazy thermal vents or whatever are kind of a snooze, but also, hey, show me the boiling ammonia faucet YOU live in, wise guy.

THIS IS YOU: This is you. You're this fish that just got its mind blown.

2. The Life of Mammals

WOOOOOOOO, MAMMALS ROOL!!! Mammals are fucking amazing, and also fucking gross. There's this one part in The Life of Mammals where these skunks find a giant pitch-black cave filled with millions and millions of bats, and the floor of the cave is just a blanket of guano and maggots, and the air is like 99% ammonia fumes and fungal spores, and the skunks just go in there and wait for baby bats to fall off the ceiling so they can eat them for dinner!!! AND they deliberately roll the baby bats around in the poop first so they have a nice tang before they bite their heads off and suck their brainz! Point is, SKUNKS ARE FREAKS.

Oh my gaaaaaaahd, also there's a part where David Attenborough scales a treacherous cliff so he can pat a baby sea lion and it is too much to be borne. Can someone get David Attenborough an assistant, BTW? Dude is 90 years old—does he really need to be sawing through sea ice and running from grizzlies solo?

THIS IS YOU: This is you. You're this raccoon dog.

3. The Life of Birds

Birds are okay.

THIS IS YOU: This is you. You're this carnivorous parrot's butt.

4. David Attenborough's Wildlife Specials

At this point in my animal stories career, I'm on top of my crocodile/humpback whale/wolf/eagle/dolphin game. But that's precisely why David Attenborough's Wildlife Specials is so great to have around—it's got all the animal stories classics. All the hits. Penguins clumpin' for warmth. Bears yoinking salmon from the river. Dolphins freaking the fuck out. Wildebeests getting chomped by crocs at the watering hole. Zebras getting chomped by crocs at the watering hole. Wolves taking down bison LIKE A BOSS.

THIS IS YOU: This is you. You're this frowny crab.

5. Killer Whales

Obviously this is not as good as Blackfish, but you can't really watch Blackfish before bed because it's like 40% humans getting bitten/drowned by giant angry whales. Also, it's hard to fall asleep when you're drool-sobbing like a Waterpik Elite. Fortunately, Killer Whales has all the whale facts and shark shade you're looking for, without quite so much heart-rending tragedy (don't worry—there's still some!).

The most important revelation: Orcas live in big happy families and have "the ability to communicate and cooperate," but sharks are lonely fuckers who nobody likes. So some smart-ass orca figures out that if you flip a great white over on its back, it goes to sleep and then you can eat it. AND SO THEY DO. Then all the other orcas are like, "LOL." Orcas are mean.

THIS IS YOU: This is you. You're this dead shark with no friends.

6. Magic of the Snowy Owl

I mean...really? A whole hour on just on one particular species of owl? YES. LET'S DO THIS. Did you know that owls are "mystical creatures"? Did you know that baby owls are just constantly drunk on lemming blood? Did you know that OWLS OWLS OWLS OWLS OWLS

THIS IS YOU: This is you. You're this baby owl that's high as fuck.

7. Thunderbeast

Bison. The Brad Garrett of mammals.

THIS IS YOU: This is you. You're this bison that doesn't even care if his friend poops right on his face.

8. Animal Odd Couples

Okay, nobody loves unlikely animal friendships more than I do (I mean, A MONKEY RIDES A DOG LIKE A TINY JOCKEY), but Animal Odd Couples doesn't really fit my criteria for bedtime animal stories. First of all, there's no omnipotent British narration. Second of all, too much of it takes place in sanctuaries and backyards, so it's kind of just Weird Shit Humans Did to Animals' Brainz: The Movie, which is interesting and all, but not really what I'm here for. I'm looking for NATURE'S MAJESTY ON THE TUNDRA, BRO. Third of all, there's a part where they show a bunch of monkeys running around and then they play "Hey, Hey, We're the Monkees." No. NO. Fourth of all, I don't need a guy with an ear cuff telling me that "animals have an innate drive to have friends." I KNOW THEY DO. WHY DO YOU THINK I KEEP WRITING THEM ALL THESE LETTERS?

That said, a tortoise and a goose are best fwiends. So.

THIS IS YOU: This is you. You're the dog.

9. Animal Face Off

Let me stop you right now and let you know that this is not a movie where John Travolta trades faces with a rabbit and then goes undercover in rabbit society to fight rabbit crime. MORE LIKE ANIMAL RIP OFF.

Instead, it's a show that tries to answer "questions" about which animals would win in a fight, such as Lion vs. Tiger, Saltwater Crocodile vs. Great White Shark, and Nicolas Cage Vs. El-Ahrairah. The first episode I watched posed this question: Who would win in a fight—a 7000-pound hippo or a 700-pound bull shark?

YOU GUYS. A 7000-POUND HIPPO WOULD OBVIOUSLY WIN.

They try to make it suspenseful by having the shark advocate say sarcastic stuff like, "You're talking about bringing an overweight vegetarian into a fight against a predator that's been evolving for over 400 million years!" Yes. A 7000-pound fucking hippo. The hippo would obviously win. It weighs seven thousand pounds.

To solve the "mystery," they build a fake hippo and then throw it at a fake shark.

The hippo OBVIOUSLY WINS. The hippo chomps the shark's head. The hippo douches the shark immediately.

THIS IS YOU: This is you. You're this completely unnecessary robot hippo. You obviously win. I hate you.

This Wednesday, at the Phoenix airport, a man jumped a fence and ran up to a landing Southwest Airlines jet and slapped it. Hard, right on one of the engine housings, which is widely considered to be the metaphorical cheek of the airplane. It is not clear at this point if the man was demanding satisfaction.

The man, who was homeless, 49 years old, and named Robert Bump, was spotted by airport officials, who contacted the pilot to shut down his engines so as to not suck Bump into one of them, which would have julienned him.

Bump was taken in to police custody, but the motives for the plane-slapping are not yet known. It is not believed the slapping was conducted with a pair of folded gloves, which would suggest he's challenging the plane to a duel. Arizona is one of the states in the union left with no laws making dueling illegal, so the man and the plane may be legally able to conduct their duel if that is determined to be the provocation for the slapping.

We're still waiting on other key details to explain the slapping. If the man had tears in his eyes and a slightly quivering, yet firmly set, mouth (pending surveillance footage analysis), and stories about the plane being seen in the company of another man the night before at an airport bar in Houston can be confirmed, the motivation may in fact be a love triangle.

Black box audio recordings are being studied to determine if the plane whistled at the man or said, via its external loudspeakers, anything suggesting that Bump should work it, or had a nice rack, or inquired if he'd like some fries to go with that shake.

Personally, I'm hoping that the man and the plane can get together and try and work things out.

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the NSA's phone surveillance program is lawful, dismissing in the process a lawsuit brought by the ACLU against the federal government.

"This blunt tool only works because it collects everything," Judge William H. Pauley said in the ruling, adding that the NSA has "adapted to confront a new enemy: a terror network capable of orchestrating attacks across the world."

"While robust discussions are underway across the nation, in Congress and at the White House, the question for this court is whether the government's bulk telephone metadata program is lawful," Pauley said. "This court finds it is."

Judge Pauley wrote that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to records held by private corporations, like phone companies.

But earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled the data collection program was likely unconstitutional because its "indiscriminate" and "arbitrary invasion" of privacy violated the Fourth Amendment.

Pauley's ruling likely sets up an eventual showdown over the program in the U.S. Supreme Court.

[Image via AP]

This morning, we told you about our favorite things that we wrote in 2013. As it turns out, other things were written in 2013. Good things, even! Here are our favorites—from reported articles in respected magazines to perfect single tweets; from novels to personal blog posts.

Taylor Berman

"The End and Don King" by Jay Caspian Kang on Grantland A fascinating profile of the legendary promoter at the end of his career.

"The Elvis Impersonator, the Karate Instructor, a Fridge Full of Severed Heads, and the Plot to Kill the President" by Wells Tower in GQ An investigation into the small town rivalry that launched one of the year's more bizarre news stories.

The End of Vandalism by Tom Drury (Grove) The best novel I read this year. A strange, hilarious, and, eventually, very moving story about a dozen or so characters living in a fictional county in Iowa. There are two other books—Hunts in Dreams and Pacific—based on the same characters that I can't wait to read.

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil (Penguin) An elliptical, semi-autobiographical novel about opium addicts living in Bombay over two decades. To be honest, I can't remember much about it (I read it in January) other than that I loved it.

Sam Biddle

"Not Even Silicon Valley Escapes History" by Alexis Madrigal on TheAtlantic.com Alexis Madrigal writes about technology like no one else can, and this is the perfect Alexis Madrigal article. Take something everyone talks about (Silicon Valley), take something no one talks about (architecture), and combine them to learn a lot about both. It's like Malcolm Gladwell, if you reversed the lobotomy.

"Your brain on pseudoscience: the rise of popular neurobollocks" by Steven Poole in The New Statesman This was a great one to bookmark and use on Facebook when friends post bullshit articles. Some of the best reads are the ones that help you tell other people to shut up.

"Rembert Explains America: Putting It All on the Line on Pre's Trail" by Rembert Browne on Grantland I don't really know what this article is about (sort of nothing?), but I loved reading it. Rembert Browne in August of this year was horribly out of shape after eating disgusting American junk food all summer, and then he went for a long run on a famous path that almost killed him. If anyone else wrote this it would be boring nonsense, but that's what makes it perfect.

Gabby Bluestone

"Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan In Your Movie" by Stephen Rodrick in The New York Times Magazine This article was an incredibly entertaining, sometimes tragic look at how a project with potential—a great actress, writer, and director, all looking for a comeback—went completely and totally off the rails. It's the ultimate "making of," and both contextualizes and outshines the sad final result that became The Canyons.

"A Scandal at the Bolshoi Ballet" by David Remnick at The New Yorker Fascinating look at the brilliant, oppressive Bolshoi Ballet, centered on a violent acid attack that blinded the ballet's director, Sergei Filin. It reads more like a Russian tragedy than a news report, thanks to the story's colorful cast of characters and the bitter-cold-vodka-tinged cloud that they all seem to exist under.

John Cook

"Summertime" by Charles Simic on The New York Review of Books web site Charles Simic, bored in the dog days of summer, writes leads like this: "What kind of birdie are you? Whistling outside my window as if a pretty girl was passing by?" Charles Simic is the best blogger in the world.

The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara (Doubleday) A deeply unsettling but gorgeously written novel. It tells the tale of a scientist who, during an anthropological expedition to a remote tropical island in the 1950s, discovers a turtle that, when eaten, confers eternal life. But also he brings home urchins from this island and rapes them. It's Nabokov on the South Seas.

"Why Did Jodon Romero Kill Himself On Live Television?" by Jessica Testa on Buzzfeed If you read this web site regularly, there's a good chance you saw Jodon Romero die. In 2012, he stole a car in Phoenix and, after a substantial car chase that was broadcast live on Fox News, shot himself in the head as a news helicopter looked on. The video was shocking. We posted it, Buzzfeed posted, others posted it. There was hand-wringing. But months later, Buzzfeed's Jessica Testa returned to the story, tracing out the human impact of an ephemeral news hit and humanizing someone who didn't even have a name other than "that guy who shot himself on TV."

Richard Lawson's Tumblr On occasion, newly minted VanityFair.com columnist Richard Lawson will deliver to his Tumblr these finely wrought, episodic little set-pieces about drifting, in fits and starts, into adulthood while your youth continues shimmering in the past: "We sat at the bar at an Italian restaurant, talking about grad school (for me) and baseball (for him), and I had two glasses of wine, and, emboldened by my sudden thirtysomethingness, a bourbon, right there, in front of my dad. I felt like a man! A man out with his dad, watching the Sox." Bring back Richard Lawson.

Bedsit Disco Queen: How I Grew Up and Tried to Be a Pop Star by Tracey Thorn (Virago UK) Thorn was one half of Everything But the Girl, a band I never really got. But her down-to-earth, literate, bemused tales of the rise from indie artistry to pop stardom and back are a lovely read whether you like her music or not.

Camille Dodero

"The Return" by David Finkel in The New Yorker David Finkel's reconstruction of an Iraq veteran's experience with P.T.S.D. is terribly sad, emotionally raw, and perfectly told. This is one of those rare pieces I've found myself raving about in conversation for more than a week, a piece so flawless that I'm thankful it's not online, because it's too beautifully spun to be cannibalized into a "heart-wrenching" listicle. This is the very best thing I read this year, by far, and that's not an insult to the other great work that's been done this year—this piece is just that important.

"George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You'll Read This Year" by Joel Lovell in The New York Times Magazine Joel Lovell's excellent George Saunders piece is functionally a profile, but it's also a meditation on so much more, thanks to the subject's tremendous humanity. In the process of sketching the fiction writer for "our time," Lovell works through the short-story author's words and dialogue to think about weighty things like mortality, clarity, the capitalism's insidious captivity. Lovell quotes the conversations he had with the Saunders, and I would pay good money to hear a recording of those dialogues.

"Charles Manson Today: The Final Confessions of a Psychopath Charles Manson" by Erik Hedegaard in Rolling Stone It had been nearly two decades since America's most famous convicted murderer cooperated (using that word loosely) for a lengthy and thorough interview, and Erik Hedegaard's portrait of the man circa-2013 is absolutely fantastic. Manson doesn't disappoint, dependably volunteering chilling asides and offering some transparent manipulation, but he also starts phoning the writer so much that Hedegaard avoids his calls. And it's with lonely details like that where the icon of evil starts to shrink to self-caricature and this piece grows even more historically remarkable. But then Manson spits out something terribly vile and you remember why he is who he is, and why we're still talking about him more than 40 years later.

The Media, a (mostly) bi-weekly ad-free webpaper The fullest disclosure: Founder Liz Pelly quoted me, and this web site, in her mission statement for starting this advertising-free online paper in the wake of the Boston Phoenix's untimely shuttering. But I'd hope that I'd recognize the significance and ambition of The Media without the personal connection: a DIY-minded alt-bi-weekly "experiment" that realizes traditional ad-based media models are broken, and is attempting to work from contributions and benefit shows and other ingenious fundraising methods. Besides, former Galaxie 500 mensch Damon Krukowski, who knows nothing about wine, has a wine column. This is important.

Lacey Donohue

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr. (Ballantine) This incredibly fascinating biography of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark has it all: insane mothers, mansions frozen in time, a $300 million fortune, secret French boyfriends, missing artwork, manipulative nurses, New York City, Reno, California, pink diamonds, and creepy dollhouses. Empty Mansions is so thoroughly American, so deeply fucked up, and it's easily the most compelling book I read this year.

"The Serial Killer Has Second Thoughts: The Confessions of Thomas Quick" by Chris Heath in GQ Is Sture Bergwall a killer or are his murderous confessions just a part of his fictional history? This creepy profile of a potential monster is so good it encouraged me to start reading about serial killers this summer. It all started with a harmless dip into the Jeffrey Dahmer Wikipedia page and it quickly spiraled into an off-putting literary pastime. As it turns out, some people don't like talking about Ted Bundy often or at all and I've yet to be rewarded with a "Serial Killers" category at bar trivia. Don't repeat my mistakes.

"Schizophrenic. Killer. My Cousin." by Mac McClelland in Mother Jones Mac McClelland's devastating tour through the American mental health system highlights just how difficult it can be for families to get help when they most need it. If this piece doesn't convince you that the mental health system is broken, nothing ever will.

Cord Jefferson

"Rape Joke" by Patricia Lockwood on The Awl On the internet, where the default methods of discussing serious social-justice issues are super-solemn essays and furious tweets (I'm no stranger to either), taking on rape culture in the form of a narrative poem called "Rape Joke" is brilliant and good for a zillion different reasons.

Nelson Mandela's Rivonia Trial speech The three-hour speech Nelson Mandela gave in his defense at the Rivonia Trial in 1964 was the most satisfying thing I read in the wake of his death. It's very good, and, for my money, a better way to understand Mandela and his complicated history than any of the thousands of obits—both positive and negative—that now exist.

"Jameis Winston Isn't The Only Problem Here: An FSU Teacher's Lament," by Adam Weinstein on Deadspin I highly recommend reading my colleague Adam's essay about being an instructor inside a college that values its football program to the detriment of its academic rigor and campus safety. Even if you don't watch sports—I don't—I think the piece is a worthwhile use of your time.

You'll occasionally hear people who advocate for college sports in spite of the industry's many problems by saying that college athletics are some kids' sole opportunity to get a college education. But that's only true if, once at college, these "student athletes" are given an education commensurate with their athletic instruction. If that doesn't happen, it seems like what many players end up doing is devoting their minds and bodies to a college team for four years or more—or until they suffer a devastating injury—only to come out the other end not good enough to play professionally and not educated enough to get a different job. But, hey, the college made a ton of money off of them while they played.

I'm not sure how to fix the problem. Perhaps they could set up a real amateur league for young athletes separate from colleges and scrap the charade that is the "student-athlete lifestyle." Regardless, it seems clear that the current system is very much in need of repair.

"Ol boy passed out at the barber shop lol" by Chet Haze on Twitter

Ol boy passed out at the barber shop lol http://t.co/jZgePfwmdz

— Chester M. Hanks (@CHETHAZE) August 25, 2013

Why is this so funny to me? I don't know, but it is.

Rich Juzwiak

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Fowler (Marian Wood/Putnam) Because what I said here and not another word!

"Joy" by Zadie Smith in The New York Review of Books "It might be useful to distinguish between pleasure and joy," begins an essay that in lesser hands would have been devoid of either, just lofty and insufferable nonsense. But this stunner that ran in The New York Review of Books fuses personal anecdote with social theory, and as a result is a terrific lesson in the mass-use potential of talking about oneself. Everyone on the internet should inspire to this.

This paragraph by Lionel Shriver that appeared in her "Warning: I Will Employ the Word 'Fat'" essay in New York.

Ken Layne

"Hidden City" by Ian Frazier in The New Yorker

"Often, it is a parking lot of strollers, a basic part of life for homeless families: these rolling mini-worlds are the single unchanging point of reference that many homeless kids know. The strollers proceed awkwardly through the security scanners, they queue up in a caravan going back and forth in lines in front of the admission desk, they occupy the middle of the floor of the building's elevators while standees press themselves against the walls. Plastic bags of possessions drape the stroller handles, sippy cups of juice fill the cup-holders, Burger King paper crowns ride in the carrying racks beneath. Kids sleep peacefully while consultations and long waits go on around them. Some lean back and watch with a numbed, listless patience that suggests how much of their childhood has already been spent like this. Others hunch and squirm and scream their heads off."

Before the New York Times weeklong epic about Dasani, a homeless child struggling in Bloomberg's city, there was Ian Frazier's illuminating story in the New Yorker about the shocking rise of homeless families during our current gilded age. Frazier's article was the year's first big piece about the children and families who make up the "invisible homeless." Thanks to his especially vivid description of these moms and kids with battered suitcases traveling between shelters on the subway, this population suddenly became very visible to better-off New Yorkers. The new mayor inherits a humanitarian nightmare. Articles like this one ensure that he'll have to address it.

Hamilton Nolan

The best books I read this year were Norwood by Charles Portis and Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

The best books I re-read this year were Working by Studs Terkel and The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty.

The best thing I read on the internet this year was, and is, Chet Haze's Twitter feed.

Max Read

Untitled by a fax machine and @twilio and The Bicholim Conflict, edited by Jesse Russell and Ronald Cohn

A fax machine called my #twilio voice number, this is how @twilio transcribed it.... pic.twitter.com/RYh19Pg2pG

— E.J. Brennan (@EJ_Brennan) October 31, 2013

Next year, in Her and Transcendence, we get two movies about artificial intelligence. Because of storytelling necessities and certain ideological assumptions on the part of the filmmakers, both movies, like all artificial intelligence movies before them, have an anthropocentric understanding of machine intelligence, the danger of which—it is imagined—lies in its dark mimicry of human thought and emotion. Machines, which in this formulation exist only in relation to humans, seek not only to become us but to sweet-talk and seduce us, all the better to take our place atop our imagined hierarchies of being.

But machines are not interested in the things we imagine them to be. What we should fear isn't machines talking to us, emoting, tempting us in Scarlett Johansson's whispery voice, ready to beguile and control. What we should fear is machines talking to each other. When it comes, the singularity won't be sexy and malevolent but distributed and algorithmic and utterly incomprehensible; not @horse_ebooks but @googuns_staging. The best we can hope is that sometimes our weird jokes and nonsense pranks will get swept up and included: a bit of odd human noise amidst the great throbbing machine signal.

"White Girls" by Hilton Als in Guernica Als writes difficult pieces, in every sense of the word, pieces that wiggle inside your skull like loose teeth. "White Girls"—about his friend and lover and twin, Sir or Lady, and the multiple ways in which he, SL, and the women orbiting around and between them structure their lives and identities—moves and works according to some different, maybe higher, kind of logic, one I feel lucky to witness. His is the kind of genius that, like Joan Didion's, is all the more terrifying because it's already trained its withering gaze on its master: Als himself.

"Royal Bodies" by Hilary Mantel in the London Review of Books Speaking of white girls! My favorite thing about Hilary Mantel is her understanding of the weight and heft and aches and pains of bodies. (She herself suffered for years from a severe and painful form of endometriosis.) Here she seeks to provide a material account of the royal family, especially its queens and princesses and duchesses—their aches and pains, their sizes and positions, the blood and bones behind and around the plastic smile and empty womb.

"When Dickens Met Dostoevsky" by Eric Naiman in The Times Literary Supplement An insane, amazing academic detective story. Trying to describe it does it a disservice. Go read it: It's too long but it kind of needs to be.

"If He Hollers Let Him Go" by Rachel Kaddzi Ghansah in The Believer Hands down the best and smartest celebrity profile I read all year. It's the accounting that Dave Chappelle has always deserved.

Tom Scocca

"In Renderings for a Library Landmark, Stacks of Questions" by Michael Kimmelman and "Shadows over Central Park" by Warren St. John, both in The New York Times In a city of immense institutions, civic engagement sometimes requires an immense institutional voice. Twice this year, the New York Times challenged New York to be more than a passive bystander to projects that will change life in the city. In January, architecture critic Michael Kimmelman attacked the conceptual and structural underpinnings of the Public Library's plan to "improve" the main branch by destroying the stacks at the heart of the building; in October, Warren St. John warned that the new wave of luxury ultra-high-rise building will cast a long, literal shadow over Central Park.

"So is Paris any good or not" by Patricia Lockwood on Twitter

.@parisreview So is Paris any good or not

— Patricia Lockwood (@TriciaLockwood) January 9, 2013

Why do we even go on tweeting when the greatest tweet of all time has already been written? We do it to pay homage to the memory of perfection.

Beejoli Shah

"A Prayer For Steve Bartman" by Will Leitch on Deadspin Will Leitch is one of those writers who reminds you why you got into the maddening profession of writing with his annoyingly brilliant prose, while making you hate the fact that you got into the madening profession of writing while people like Will Leitch are still getting paid to write. This excerpt about the Chicago Cubs' playoff curse was published in 2010, but picked up steam this year, on the 10-year anniversary of the Steve Bartman Incident. Leitch's recounting of what it was like to be a fan during a make-it-or-break-it playoff game puts you right in the center of Wrigley Field, complete with the deafening sound of a dead-silent ballpark. It's beautiful, climactic, and quite nearly as nerve-wracking as being at the game itself.

"Captain's Log" by Mark Lisanti on Grantland I know, including a former Defamer editor is kind of cheating, but I loved this column, a hilarious take on what Derek Jeter's diary would read like, back when I was gullible enough to believe that it was actually being written by a very self-aware Jeter (I'm embarrassed to say I believed this for upwards of 3 months). Now that I know it's just Lisanti writing e-novellas, I almost didn't want to admit my love for it out of jealousy, but hey, BuzzFeed still hasn't produced a GIF-laden listicle of their feelings towards 2013's best listicle, so here we are I guess.

Inferno by Dan Brown (Doubleday) Every so often in the Gawker Campfire chat, our more cultured writers will debate the merits of new works coming out by some of literary's finest (Eggers! Sedaris! Morrissey!), and I have to sit there and pretend I, too, am a page-turner of the highest order. But you know what? I love Dan Brown, critics of his grasp on the English language be damned. I devoured this, because even though i'm Indian, and female, and like everything Mindy Kaling likes, Jhumpa Lahiri's new book just didn't do it for me. Zadie Smith? No thanks! Khaled Hosseini? A fine paperweight! Dan Brown? SORRY WE CAN'T HAVE SEX TONIGHT BABE, I'M TOO BUSY FINDING OUT IF THE WORLD DIES OF A NEW PLAGUE.

Nitasha Tiku

@USInterior on Instagram There is only one unimpeachable act of patriotism: reading the Instagram feed from the U.S. Department of the Interior. It reminds you that the country is a vast expanse of earthly delights through vistas that often look like they're from another (purer) planet. Time and space squash you down to size—all from the window of your smartphone.

"Buried Secrets" by Patrick Radden Keefe in The New Yorker With all the attention and vitriol directed towards titans of Wall Street and the tech industry, the colonizing schemes of low-profile billionaires can go unnoticed. Patrick Radden Keefe's story about diamond king Beny Steinmetz and his attempt to control untapped iron ore in the Simandou Mountains—a potentially lucrative resource for a poor West African country like Guinea—reads like a Joseph Conrad novel, except with sophisticated shell companies and a pit stop in Davos.

J.K. Trotter

"Dropouts Tell No Tales" by Jamaal Abdul-alim in Washington Monthly Jamaal Abdul-alim returns to his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, to investigate why black college students at UWM post lower graduation rates than their white peers. The author balances a clear-eyed assessment of statistical data with uncommonly deep reportage of the situation on the ground, as lived by struggling students each day, illustrating how institutions can drift in their mission to serve those who need education most.

"My Job Search" by Emilie Shumway in The Point Twenty-something Shumway has achieved something rare with this essay: A confession of Millennial striving that manages to avoid the form's tendency to lump the generation's members into a giant mass of either laziness or misguided ambition (depending on the columnist). "To come of age among this cohort, have a dream, and then subdue it, feels cowardly, yet now we are faced with the consensus that we overrate what was fed to us," she writes.

"What Is the Business of Literature?" by Richard Nash in Virginia Quarterly Review Nash expertly reconfigures the present narrative about the book industry—and book culture—without sliding into limp justifications for the coming Singularity: "Books aren't sitting grumpily in economy class on the airplane to the future. They're in the cockpit." His manifesto: "Let's restore to publishing its true reputation—not as a hedge against the future, not as a bulwark against radical change, not as a citadel amidst the barbarians, but rather as the future at hand, as the radical agent of change, as the barbarian."

"When Your (Brown) Body is a (White) Wonderland" by Tressie McMillan Cottom Dissecting the racial politics of Miley Cyrus's widely-watched performance at the Video Music Awards in August, Cottom situates the performance within the larger (and often ignored) history of capitalism and its systemic subjugation of black women. "This political economy of specific types of black female bodies as a white amusement park was ignored by many," she writes, "mostly because to critique it we have to critique ourselves."

"Honor and deception" by Dave Phillips in The Gazette Drawing from dozens of hours of interviews and dogged use of the Freedom of Information Act, Phillips exposes the Air Force Academy's shadowy "secret informant program," under which the military college enlisted young cadets to spy and report on their peers. Shocking in its own right, Phillips' investigation shows how public records laws, when combined with shoe-leather reporting, shed necessary sunlight on our government's most secretive institutions.

Caity Weaver

Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel (Picador) The first thing that you should know about this book is that it is called Bring Up the Bodies, not Bringing Up the Bodies. I've been calling it by the wrong name for months now and only realized my mistake a few moments ago when I sat down to write up this recommendation. If you get confused, remember that "bring up the bodies" is a command, which starts with "C", like "Cromwell," which is the last name of the historical figure at the center of this book (Thomas). "Bringing up" is a gerund (I think), which starts with "G," as in the phrase "Gotta be wrong if you're thinking the title of this book starts with a gerund."

Even though I had no idea what was on the cover of this book for the entire time I read it and several months afterward, I promise I read the inside part very closely and loved it. Bring Up the Bodies is the second installment of Hilary Mantel's marvelous (as-yet-unfinished) Thomas Cromwell trilogy. I would recommend this book and its predecessor Wolf Hall (and its successor, which is not scheduled to be released until 2015) to anyone who is interested in the court of King Henry VIII but intimidated by the fact that there were so many people at court and all of them have their own names. The second chapter in Cromwell's biography (as fictionalized by Mantel) is as absorbing as the first. It's the kind of book you feel guilty reading because it's such a pleasure from start to finish.

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (Random House) For me, the sign of a great book is one that makes you think "Oh my God, I could never write a book." The ambition of Johnson's novel is staggering in terms of subject, scope, and even technical execution. I refuse to ruin the magic of the book for potential readers by describing its incredible plot in any detail; suffice it to say it tells the life story of an orphan in Kim Jong-il's North Korea, and that I've never read another book like it. The Orphan Master's Son is not for everyone. though; I recommended it to a bookworm friend who appreciated the skill of Johnson' storytelling but found many of the scenes too graphic (and/or flat-out depressing). If you like to play the favorites, this book won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and more importantly, the Caity Weaver prize for A Book That I Read This Year That I Liked.

Adam Weinstein

"Open Waters" by Simon Winchester in Lapham's Quarterly Are you not obsessed by the sea? By the mystery that lies beyond the edge of what you know, even now, in the 21st century, at the alleged high water mark of human knowledge? "Ignorance—or more kindly put, a profound unfamiliarity—has long dogged mankind's relationship with the sea," Winchester writes, while dropping a ton of experience and knowledge on the reader that somehow deepens, rather than unravels, the mystery of the deep.

The Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shacochis (Atlantic Monthly) Shacochis, an irascible curmudgeon and war reporter with a genius for understanding people and the world they make (or destroy), won the National Book Award for his first book nearly 30 years ago. The Woman Who Lost Her Soul—part autobiography, part American history—took him more than a decade. Ostensibly a murder mystery that ranges from Croatia in World War II to Haiti to 9/11, it is the Great American Foreign Policy Novel—if Dos Passos, Hunter S. Thompson, LeCarre, Conrad, and Styron put on an epic drunk and worked together to tell the story.

"Game of Tribes" by Diane Roberts in Oxford American "I'm a Democratic-voting, tree-hugging pinko. I have four degrees in English lit. I'm a feminist, for God's sake, an academic," Roberts cries. "Yet I can't quit college football." In a hilarious brief essay, Roberts explains why that's a problem: Football is fascist. Militarist. Brutal. Retrograde. And awesome. Conflicted about your fandom? You should be. And you will be after reading this.

Plan on never unhearing what you're about to hear about the Vanderbilts and their love of tongue play; if geriatric oral sex isn't your thing, TLC's new sex-focused reality series makes Kim Kardashian look like Jennifer Lawrence; Hollywood has joined the NFL in disenfranchising Native Americans for a quick profit; and a quarter million people who you never knew even watched Duck Dynasty now want Phil Robertson back.

• If you thought having a sex talk with your parents was hard, imagine having it with your 80-something mom about her ongoing sexcapades. Anderson Cooper revealed on CNN last night that his scion mother Gloria Vanderbilt once had him proofread her book, in which she, at the tender age of 85, described her then-lover as the "[Vaslav] Nijinsky of cunnilingus." How lyrical. [YouTube]
• TLC's latest bout at exploitation of the human condition is their four-part series Sex Sent Me To The ER, which is, well, exactly what you'd expect it to be. The exclusive clip of the purported reality show features some of the best worst telenovela-esque acting I have ever seen, and that's before we even get to the 440-pound virgin. [THR]
• Relativity Media is being sued over their upcoming Christian Bale-Casey Affleck starrer Out of the Furnace, due to their negative portrayal of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation tribe. Casual racism in Hollywood? You don't say. [CNN]
• More than 250,000 people have signed the IStandWithPhil petition to reinstate Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson, after he was placed on indefinite suspension by A&E, following his homophobic comments in GQ. [THR]

Breakdowns is a daily roundup of all the news that wasn't interesting enough to deserve two paragraphs.

Around the holidays—most especially post-Christmas, pre-New Year's Eve—I am approached with endless requests for champagne-based cocktails. Yet until a few years ago, I almost always disappointed all of those who asked. If for no other reason than I couldn't name too many champagne-based cocktails appropriate for late December or that I thought tasted particularly great.

For me, it was basically the French 75 or bust. I know, I know, everyone loves the champagne cocktail. But I consider it a pointless concoction of champagne, bitters and a sugar cube that was perfectly summed up by an exchange between Adam (Brendan Fraser) and Eve (Alicia Silverstone) in the only memorable part of the movie Blast From the Past:

Eve: Here ya go, one champagne cocktail.
Adam: Oh, thank you.
Eve: I thought only hookers drank those things?
Adam: Well, I know mom sure likes 'em.

The Champagne Cocktail—a drink for hookers and old ladies.

What a distinction.

And yet, champagne (or sparkling wine as it's referred to outside of the Champagne region of France) is the official drink of New Year's Eve. With good reason, too—it's meant for celebrating. So something had to give. My disdain for champagne-based cocktails was turning me into the Ebenezer Scrooge of New Year's Eve.

Luckily, that's around the time I discovered the Old Cuban, a drink created at the famed Pegu Club in New York City by owner-bartender Audrey Saunders. Conceived of as an upscale variation on the Mojito, the Old Cuban (a mix of rum, bitters, simple syrup and lime juice topped with champagne) is a versatile drink—i.e., the rum and champagne combination works as well in the summer as it does on December 31. Even more impressive: The dash of Angostura bitters brings a lot of Christmas spice to the party, allowing the Old Cuban to not only ably straddle two seasons but also two major holidays. (The Old Cuban—perfect for any occasion! Now, that's a distinction.)

There isn't, in fact, much the Old Cuban can't do. That's why it's the drink I'll be reaching for as the clock strikes midnight on Tuesday evening.

Old Cuban
1.5 oz. 12-year-old Appleton Estate Jamaican rum
1 oz. 1:1 simple syrup
¾ oz. lime juice
6 mint leaves
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 oz. chilled champagne or dry sparkling wine

Shake all ingredients—save for the champagne—with ice in a cocktail shaker. Double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass and top with two ounces of champagne. Garnish with a small mint sprig.

Adapted from a recipe by Audrey Saunders.

Jeffrey Morgenthaler is the bar manager at Clyde Common, the acclaimed gastropub at the Ace Hotel in Portland, Oregon.

This article was originally published on Playboy for iPhone. For more exclusive content and the best articles from the latest issue of Playboy, download the app in the iTunes Store.

Photo by David L. Reamer

Bad news if you were one of the 40 million people whose credit and debit card information was stolen from Target earlier this month: It turns out the criminals also gained access to your PIN data, a fact that Target had previously denied.

A Target spokeswoman admitted on Friday that the thieves captured the PIN information, but said the numbers are encrypted and require a code from a separate, uncompromised system.

"We remain confident that PIN numbers are safe and secure," Molly Snyder, Target's spokeswoman said in a statement. "The PIN information was fully encrypted at the keypad, remained encrypted within our system, and remained encrypted when it was removed from our systems."

Uh huh. As the New York Times points out, hackers have, in some cases, managed to decode information encrypted with similar technology. Even if the PIN numbers remain secure, the theft—the second largest breach of a retailer in history—has been a nightmare for Target. Credit card information from Target customers is already for sale on the black market, and some banks—like JPMorgan Chase and Santander Bank—have placed spending caps on potentially compromised cards.

[Image via AP]

People eat, fuck, say, and do weird shit and I live for watching them do all of it (and more) on TV. Above is a megamix of some of my favorite ridiculous, disgusting, hilarious, shady, inane, nonsensical, and Vera Farmiga-freaking moments of the year in television. I hope you enjoy it as much as the Basketball Wives enjoy saying, "It could go real right or real wrong." I hope you enjoy it as much as that impish little 2-year-old that says, "Wheeee!" loves coffee. (She is, to me, the mascot of not only this video and my TV coverage but 2013 as a whole.)

Many (but not all) of the clips above came from Television Without Pretty posts this year. Here is a list of all of the sources (when previously posted):

Here's Jenna Jameson's Messy, Slurred Good Day New York Segment

Troll Doll-Loving Woman Talks and Flirts Like a Troll Doll

This Woman Didn't Wake Up Chinese, But She Sounds Like It (She Thinks)

Toddlers & Tiaras Went Bollywood and Everything Was Insane

"I Feel Like Poop": Here Are Highlights from Lifetime's Anna Nicole

Here Are Highlights From Lifetime's Ridiculous Jodi Arias Movie

Oh God Richard Simmons What Are You Doing?

Does Tanning Make People Dumb, Or Do Dumb People Tan?

Real Housewife Brags That She Is "Gone With the Wind Fabulous" in Her New "Single"

Here's Jennifer Tilly Acting Insane on Watch What Happens Live

Carrot Top: "I'm Sorry That I Look Good"

"It Sucks Being Pretty," Explains Reality TV's Samantha Brick

Crazy Cat People Have Nothing on Crazy Squirrel People

Small Child Drinks Coffee Every Morning, Is Probably Always High

Here's a Good Ramble About Whale Sharks by Tara Reid

Beyoncé Has Never Been Less Convincing About the Veracity of Her Pregnancy Than She Was in Her Own Movie

Mariah Carey Said "Shit" on GMA, and Her Dress Broke

Here Are Druggy Highlights of Gina Gershon's Donatella Versace Biopic

"I Know What It's Like To Have To Sing Through Tears": The Wonderful Weirdness of Mariah Carey from Last Night's American Idol

Watch Vera Farmiga's Most Hysterical Freak Outs on Bates Motel

This Is the Best-Ever Impression of Little Edie Bouvier Beale

Ke$ha Pisses Into a Bottle and Drinks It On Camera

"Butter and Sugar Makes Everything Taste Better": Cooking With Honey Boo Boo and Mama Is as Gross as You'd Suspect

Here Is a Woman Who Has Eaten More Than 50 Rubber Tires

This Horrid Child Eats Worms

Vietnamese Centipede-Eating Is The Grossest Thing I've Seen on TLC

Here Is a Woman Who Stings Herself With Bees, Making Her Sex "Great"

Here Is a Woman Who Says That Thinking About Popeyes Chicken Helps Her Achieve Orgasm

Here Is a Man Who Has Sexual Relationships With Balloons

Here Is a Man Who Is in a Relationship With 15 Inflatable Animals

Here Is a Woman Marrying a Ferris Wheel

Here Is a Woman Who Eats Cat Hair Right Off Her Cat

Multi-Millionaire Feeds Loved Ones Cat Food in the Name of Frugality

Here Are the Best Dumb Things Ryan Lochte Said on His Reality Show

Here's How Male Strippers Achieve and Maintain Their Stage Boners

The Plight of the Instagram Celebrity

Patti LaBelle Does Not Give a Fuck

Watch Oprah Winfrey and Tina Turner Out-Weird Each Other

Oprah Winfrey Freaks Out Over Hugh Jackman's Abs, In General

Watch Oprah Kiss "Preeminent Mistress of the Universe" Beyoncé's Ass for Nearly Four Minutes

Sober Lindsay Lohan Gives Dry Interview to Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Probes Jason Collins' Sexuality, Asks If He Played With Dolls

Cissy Houston: I Wouldn't Have Liked If Whitney Were Gay, "Not At All"

Michelle Shocked on Supposedly Anti-Gay Rant: "I Didn't Know What I Was Talking About"

Here's a Supercut of Taylor Swift Dancing and Reacting at the VMAs

"What Is Hip-Hop?" Toddlers & Tiaras Investigates

In Defense of Miley Cyrus

The AMAs Was Mostly Just White People Being Weird About Race

Mariah Carey Throws a Drag-Queen-Sized Amount of Shade at Nicki Minaj

Here Is SharkNado's Iconic Shark-Versus-Chainsaw Scene

Bearded Lady Confessional: AMC's Touchy Feely Freaks

Jennifer Lawrence Would Like To Welcome You To the 2013 Gawker Golden Globes Liveblog

In today's examination of the difficult lives of poor little rich girls, television's savior Lena Dunham complains that unlike the classic writers of yore, she gets to take no breaks because she is constantly being forced to share her life on social media. The indignities! Can you imagine?

As she tells Salon, she is constantly writing under "great duress," duress which is compounded by the everpresent demands of social media. Rather than take the road of stars who eschew Twitter by realizing that public perception of them will remain the same regardless (see: Jennifer Lawrence, have we loved, George Clooney, have we hated), Ms. Dunham complains about how she is also being forced to tweet on top of her stressful job as a writer (ostensibly, by those droves of fans who are holding a gun to her head and coercing wit out of her, 140 characters at a time):

I feel like I miss a little bit the old – I mean it was kind of pre my career – but the idea that you made something, you put out a book or you put out a movie, and then you went into hibernation. You had your experience of preparing to put the next thing into the world. And that doesn't exist, because people are blogging and tweeting.

At the time of publication, Ms. Dunham has 7,181 tweets and 945 Instagram photos, all of which she has posted on her own, no doubt under great duress.

25. Ace Ventura

24. Austin Powers

23. Star Wars (Episodes I, II, and III)

22. Mad Max

21. RoboCop

20. Beverly Hills Cop

19. The Addams Family

18. Porky's

17. Harold & Kumar

16. Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight

15. Bourne

14. Jackass

13. The Matrix

12. Mighty Ducks

11. Ocean's

10. The Hangover

9. Legally Blonde

8. Look Who's Talking

7. Toy Story

6. Lord of the Rings

5. Star Wars (Episodes IV, V, and VI)

4. Iron Man

3. Back to the Future

2. The Godfather

1. Madagascar

[Despite what other Gawker writers may believe, Home Alone was not a trilogy.]

Following a year-long investigation into the December 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the state’s Department of Emergency Services has released several gigabytes of information gathered by law enforcement officials, including on-scene video footage, photographs, and previously sealed police reports.

“The investigation of this incident is unparalleled in the one hundred and ten year history of the Connecticut State Police,” Commissioner Reuben Bradford writes in an introductory letter published today.

Plenty is redacted, however. Much of the video footage, for example, consists of a blue “CONTENT REDACTED” warning.

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