The New York Public Library has abandoned its plan to hollow out its central building and eliminate its research stacks. It was undone by critical and public opposition, and possibly by the fact that the whole scheme—for which Sir Norman Foster took home $7.9 million regardless—was structurally unfeasible.

Kellogg has agreed to stop calling its Kashi line of products "all natural" because it contains ingredients like "soy oil processed using hexane, a component of gasoline." They can still call it "artisan," thank god.

Severe weather in May needs no introduction. Check out these incredible pictures that storm chasers caught across the central United States yesterday. Just a word of caution — more severe weather is expected today.

Rope tornado seen this afternoon near Akron, Colorado, via @9NEWS @SchwartzNow pic.twitter.com/4DLTBCFcUu

— BuzzFeed Storm (@BuzzFeedStorm) May 8, 2014

There are mountains in Okla & they don't stop #tornadoes. MT @ounwcm: Wichita Mts ctsy Shawn Komahcheet & @AustinKSWO pic.twitter.com/LFyl8HjKzg

— TWC Breaking (@TWCBreaking) May 8, 2014

The #Nebraska #sky has it going on tonight. @JimCantore pic.twitter.com/IjlJmiOlFu

— Austin Mackrill (@austinMACKRILL) May 8, 2014

Great shot of Rope Tornado in Akron from this afternoon. Photo: Scott Longmore pic.twitter.com/JsNe3I0lRf

— Shanna Mendiola (@ShannaMendiola) May 8, 2014

Tornado warned storm over Burkburnett, Texas @TornadoTours @reedtimmerTVN @StormChaseTV @NWSNorman pic.twitter.com/LUabKqUw7I

— Matt Phelps (@TheMattPhelps) May 8, 2014

Video of tornado near Akron, CO this afternoon from @TorChaser18 http://t.co/Is1AYcXY4W

— SevereStudios (@severestudios) May 8, 2014

#AMAZING supercell near Henrietta, TX #TXwx #gorgeous @JimCantore @TVNweather @reedtimmerTVN pic.twitter.com/F0O3cukGPb

— Mike Scantlin (@StormChaseTV) May 7, 2014

Absolutely amazing structure in Texas today @tornadotours @reedtimmerTVN @StormChaseTV pic.twitter.com/6PQaYL3bd7

— Matt Phelps (@TheMattPhelps) May 8, 2014

Amazing structure spotted this evening with tornado-warned storm near Grand Island, NE via @rungirlyrunnnn pic.twitter.com/zZSi9hvsos

— BuzzFeed Storm (@BuzzFeedStorm) May 8, 2014

Storms weren't the only story yesterday — the sunset around the country was also a sight to see.

Beautiful sunset in Jordan-Hare. :) @david_asbell @spann pic.twitter.com/GLz2B7n7mI

— Heather Goodson (@HeatherDeshae) May 8, 2014

Central Florida Sunset @JimCantore pic.twitter.com/4xVjaglUNL

— Leesa Brown (@ReasonVsFear) May 8, 2014

A few views of sunset from tonight.... Up Close and Personal... :) pic.twitter.com/qqCFlX4379

— Leesa Brown (@ReasonVsFear) May 8, 2014

[Top image taken in Omaha, Nebraska via Eric Anderson on Twitter]

As an Internet user, you're probably seeing an increasing number of GIF explainers lately, and also probably wondering what the deal is. They're pretty confusing, after all! The sites that run them just assume that you know what an animated image of the Insane Clown Posse has to do with scientists creating a new element.

GIF explainers aren't really all that complicated. Here's everything you need to know about GIF explainers, in the form of a GIF explainer about Thomas Pynchon.

Today, Thomas Pynchon turned 77 years old, and the world is celebrating. You've probably seen hashtags like #pynchoninpublic on social media, and maybe you're wondering what the deal is. Here's everything you need to know about Thomas Pynchon.

Who is Thomas Pynchon?

This is the part of a GIF explainer where you presuppose that your readers, who managed to make their way to your site, are incapable of using Wikipedia, and lay out incredibly basic information about your subject.

Thomas Pynchon is widely considered perhaps the greatest living American novelist. He's famous for writing long, complicated books like V., Gravity's Rainbow, and Mason & Dixon, for not giving interviews, and for really not liking to have his picture taken.

The joke here is that there's a dissonance between the subject, Thomas Pynchon, and this GIF of Justin Bieber going after photographers. Thomas Pynchon doesn't really have anything to do with Justin Bieber at all! But the ironic contrast serves to allay any concerns the reader may have about how the subject is incredibly complicated and not really the sort of thing about which one can learn everything there is worth knowing in two minutes.

OK, so what are his books about?

This is the important part of a GIF explainer. Because it's nearly impossible to actually explain anything worth explaining in this format, it's perhaps best understood as performative, on the part of the writer, and aspirational, on the part of the reader. Writing a Thomas Pynchon GIF explainer suggests that I'm the sort of person who knows a reasonable amount about Thomas Pynchon, and reading one suggests that you're the sort of person who would like to. So, while maintaining the kind of lightly ironic tone mentioned above as regards the GIF of Justin Bieber fighting with photographers, it's important to for there to be something hinting at the actual substance of the subject being explained.

People argue about this a lot! It would be fair to say, though, that Pynchon is obsessed with the relationship between reason and authoritarianism, and specifically with how the intellectual lineage of fascism—both its roots in the Enlightenment, and the way it informs present-day social and political structures—is intimately related to the project of objective scientific inquiry.

See what I did here? I gave a serious explanation that makes clear I'm a serious person who knows serious things, but by immediately undercutting it with a goofy GIF of G.O.B. from Arrested Development saying, "Come on!" I demonstrated an awareness that the subject might be off-putting, and so implicitly promised that nothing too heavy will be going on here.

Does that sound complicated? It is—sort of. Pynchon writes about things like World War II-era rocket engineering, colonial atrocities in Africa, and 18th-century astronomy, and expects you to know a certain amount about things like free jazz, fin de siècle political ideologies, and Jacobean drama. But aside from Gravity's Rainbow, none of his books are super difficult to follow in terms of plot or characterization, and even that one has really funny stuff like a human dildo being strapped into a rocket, a guy diving down into a sewer through a toilet, talking lightbulbs, and a whole plot about how a guy's erections are used by British intelligence to predict where German rockets will fall during the Blitz, and lots of song-and-dance numbers.

Woah, really?

Yeah, that's the cool thing about Pynchon. There's always lots of random fun stuff happening in his books. Like, Mason & Dixon is about Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who surveyed the Mason-Dixon line, and it's written in an 18th-century dialect and it's partly about the nature of empiricism and things like that. But it also has a talking dog and the heroes smoking weed with George Washington.

This whole sequence is another good example of how a GIF explainer works. I alluded to and acknowledged the idea that Thomas Pynchon is actually a pretty difficult writer, but with a nice bit of sleight of hand, I moved it to the side to focus on a not inaccurate but fairly misleading point that flatters the reader's sensibilities by suggesting that she could, if she wanted, understand the subject in fairly short order. I also worked in that "Woah, really?" which is clever because it suggests that downright stupid people are reading this and makes the reader feel good about at least knowing more than they do.

Plus, while some of his books are really long and complicated, some of them are shorter and a lot more accessible. Two of them—Vineland and Inherent Vice—are even basically about The Dude from The Big Lebowski.

Wait, I thought Thomas Pynchon was this super serious novelist, he wrote two books about The Dude?

Basically. They're both really funny. (Paul Thomas Anderson is even making a movie out of Inherent Vice, which, swag.)

OK, so where do I start?

Most people start with The Crying of Lot 49. It's about conspiracies and weird stuff like Jacobean revenge plays, so it's very hardcore Pynchon, but it's also got sex and rock 'n' roll, and it's also only about 150 pages. If you like that, try another one! If you want to read one of his big novels, try V., which is about a decades-long quest for a possibly non-existent woman that brings together cool 1950s New York beatniks and James Bond-type English spies. It was his first novel, so it's sort of basic compared to some of the later ones, but it's also got a motto worth living by—"Keep cool, but care." After you read that, you'll be ready for the really hard stuff like Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon, and your brain will feel fabulous.

Yes! It was awesome.

GIFS by Tim Burke

There are 100 potential questions on the US Naturalization test. You'd think most American citizens would be able to answer six out of ten. You'd be wrong.

The video claims 15 native-born Americans were stopped and quizzed randomly. Of those 15, one person passed. For contrast, 95.8 percent of foreign test takers passed in 2010.

Shot in Miami and produced by the Immigrant Archive Project, the clip does reflect a slightly more cynical view of America—nationwide, only around one in three Americans would end up failing.

The full list of potential questions is available online—would you pass?

[h/t 22words]

Influential writer/intellectual bell hooks boldly stared down the easily agitated Beyhive this week when she labeled Beyoncé a "terrorist" during a panel discussion titled "Are You Still a Slave?" at New York's New School.

After the conversation turned to the potential harm done by Beyoncé's appearance (specifically her underwear-clad appearance on a recent cover of TIME), trans activist/writer/thinker Janet Mock noted how inspired she was by Beyoncé's recent single "Partition" when finishing her book. Effectively shutting Mock down, apparently because her experience of Beyoncé differs, hooks said that she sees "part of" Beyoncé as "anti-feminist," "assaulting," and "a terrorist especially in terms of the impact on young girls." hooks went onto explain, "The major assault on feminism in our society has come from visual media and from television and videos," and then she talked about the T-shirt of herself that she was wearing at length. You can watch her entire explanation in the video above.

Point taken about unreasonable standards of beauty and how they tend to celebrate whiteness, but the your-hero-is-a-terrorist swipe smacks of condescension. It also seems very reductive to state outright that Beyoncé as an ideal is bad for the world. Beyoncé herself grapples with this repeatedly and in many layers on her recent self-titled album on which "Partition" appears—she loathes the concept of perfection while clearly striving for it in every flawlessly executed step.

"Terrorist" also sounds like trolling from one of the most influential thinkers of our time, whose language is echoed by far lesser minds in the name of social justice and branding all over the internet, but whose actual name pops up much less than it used to. hooks went on and on after saying the word "terrorist," but quite returned to that point to really illustrate the specific terrorism of Beyoncé. Pretty hurts, but is it seriously terrorism?

Elsewhere during the talk, hooks doubted Beyoncé's role in cultivating her own image for the TIME cover. When Mock challenged this, hooks concluded that "from my deconstructive point of view…she's colluding in the construction of herself as a slave…it's not a liberatory image."

She went on:

Would we be at all interested in Beyoncé if she wasn't so rich? Because I don't think you can separate her class, power and the wealth from people's fascination with her that here's a young black woman who is so incredibly wealthy…one could argue even more than her body, it's what that body stands for, the body of desire fulfilled that is wealth, fame, celebrity—all the things that so many people in our culture are lusting for, wanting. Let's say if Beyoncé was a homeless woman who looked the same way, or a poor, down and out woman who looked the same way, would people be enchanted by her? Or is it the combination of all of those things that are at the heart of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy?

At the very least, this undervalues Beyoncé's virtuosic talents as a performer. If Beyoncé were a homeless woman, she wouldn't be homeless for long because upon seeing her act, people would say, "Damn, get her a record deal," and she would get it. Yeah, her wealth is notable and undoubtedly aspirational, and yeah it's even acknowledged on BEYONCÉ, particularly in its visual component (opulence abounds, and "Partition" is her twist on the in Paris trope). But affluence is a leitmotif on an album of bold, unmissable themes about agency and sexual comfort and risk-taking and, yes, feminism. Focusing on Beyoncé's money seems at least willfully askew, if not out of touch.

hooks also said this thing about society's relationship with trans people and issues, referring directly to Mock:

We're really into trans right now. People will tell me, "Ooh yeah," y'know it's like the ordinary people…it's almost like they flipped the hate channel and it turns onto the voyeur channel and the isn't-it-interesting, isn't-it-cute, isn't-it-fascinating channel but nothing is really changing there, that is opening up, that is saying we want to hear from Janet Mock talking about many aspects of culture.

I mean, was hooks sitting on panels next to Mock 10 years ago? Five years ago? Before this week?

hooks talks, and it sounds pretty, but I'm not sure how well it all holds up. An essay from her on Beyoncé's specific terrorism could clarify.

You can watch the entire discussion—nearly two hours of it—below.

[H/T MadameNoire]

Tonight's the night for nigh-excruciating comedy here at Morning After: Join us as we flip back and forth between NBC's inaugural presentation of the American Comedy Awards at 9/8c and a night of awkward premieres on IFC: Comedy Bang! Bang! at 10/9c. and Maron's visit to The Talking Dead at 10:30/9:30c.

Former FBI agent and current indicted congressman Rep. Michael Grimm left the bureau on such bad terms that the FBI ended up barring him from the building in the most hilarious way.

Federal security personnel at the FBI's headquarters in Lower Manhattan and a satellite office in Kew Gardens, Queens, posted Grimm's photo inside their glass-enclosed stations in the event he showed up, sources said.

They were under orders to stop him and to immediately notify higher authorities on what further action to take, according to the sources.

"He is not permitted in our space," one source told "On The Inside."

"He is not welcome," a former top FBI official said.

"[The security photos] are all employees who were fired, or they were under circumstances where they were forced out or felt they should leave, and all are no longer welcome back," a former FBI official told DNAinfo.

Grimm's short FBI career yielded some tall accusations, but the actual reason for his departure is unknown. A 2012 New Yorker Story [DEFINITELY worth the read] suggested Grimm had aggressively abused his power as an agent to punish a man he had an argument with, although he denied the report at the time.

Grimm, who infamously tore into a reporter on-the-air after the State of the Union address this year, was also indicted last week on charges of mail, tax, and wire fraud.

[image via AP]

Residents of a northern Philadelphia neighborhood say hundreds of teenagers began having sex and peeing everywhere after a summer block party turned into a free-for-all.

"My entire house was peed on, people were having sex two feet in front of my children and everyone was drunk that day," a Northern Liberties resident told NBC Philadelphia.

"There was a lot of young people in the back, underage drinking, staggering around drunk, urinating on my garage," another neighbor told NBC.

Another terrified homeowner told the Daily News she witnessed hundreds of teens just drop trou.

According to NBC, one resident began recording two teenagers who were having sex in the open. When she asked them to stop, they ignored her and apparently continued on for another 40 minutes.

Residents say the crowd of marauding, procreating teenagers were in the neighborhood attending a radio station-sponsored free concert in a nearby plaza. Blaming the concert's apparent lack of security and porta potties, the residents are now trying to get the radio station to pay to clean up the damage.

The station put out a statement apologizing for "any of our fans who may have had a less than enjoyable experience at this past weekend's block party."

[screengrab via NBC Philadelphia]

James Franco's been kind of quiet since he sent out a sterile, half-naked bathroom mirror selfie to his millions of Instagram followers last week.

Of course, the topic came up on Letterman tonight and Franco sort of explained things.

"To me it's just a fun thing, it's something I don't put a ton of thought into, but it gets a lot of attention," Franco said, noting that he has "a lot" of Instagram followers (more than two million).

He later added, "It's not like I'm putting that on billboards. Ostensibly Instagram is for my fans. But now all the bloggers are on there so they'll just take it and use whatever they want."

Somewhere along the line, the interns got the (coy, meta) idea that one of them won't be returning "next year," meaning next season on the show that they are on. This causes Jo Wilson to break into an ugly rash and act like a fucking Kepner-level lunatic all day, Shane to who even cares about Shane, Leah to belch in front of a farting ballerina, and Stephanie Edwards to continue ramping up toward her ultimate fate of becoming one of the series' all-time classic characters. Mark my words. Leah was my favorite and Jo is clearly already indelible, but Most Improved of 2014 definitely goes to Edwards, who went from parsley to main course in like five episodes.

(Okay, I take it back. Shane blew up a baby while trying to resect its bowel or something, which is the most interesting thing Shane has ever done. Besides manslaughter everyone he meets.)

The farting ballerina I did not love, although Leah's genius idea to put a magnetic sphincter in the ballerina's faulty butthole was pretty neat. (Man once this show discovered the word butthole they were like, lean into it. Butthole is to this show what Republic was to Scandal this season. Buttholes buttholes buttholes.)

Jo goes hard and gets really annoying, cloying and aggressive by turns, and Kepner gets to play "wise resident," so it's like everybody switched personalities: Jo is the Kepner one that won't shut up, Kepner's grinning wisely like a Meredith/Callie the whole time, and Meredith just kind of sits around doing nothing until the end of the episode, like her husband usually does.

Shocking nobody, Alex is "drowning" in the Butthole Boiler Room that is his lucrative new career. His response to this anxiety is to lurk and loiter around Grey-Sloan Memorial, stealing infant surgeries and even blackmailing Shane into helping him (because of that one time he fully murdered Alex's hot dad while on drugs). Eventually Arizona loses it on them both, but once Alex explains his Richie Rich sadness of life, she smacks him on the head and says next time he should just come to her and say he's in trouble, and then she will help him fix it, because they have one of the best friendships and mentorships on the entire show, and he's always forgetting that.

Meredith is still in "calm before the storm" mode about Cristina's departure, noshing on Amelia's homemade waffles and enjoying having a sister/wife/sister-wife at home for once. Supposedly this is because Derek's in DC doing mystery medical adventures, but really it's because Amy has no intention of leaving the show, which it takes her all episode to explain, once she is done being a complete butthole to Meredith for no reason. Meredith takes it all in stride, because she is chill like that now.

In fact, it's my favorite thing about this show (or any very good show, Firefly/Serenity did it, Battlestar did it, Teen Wolf does it on the reg): When the crazy person stops being crazy (but they still have problems). In a hundred years the arc of Meredith Grey's transition out of darkness and into the light will still be one of the achievements of the Golden Age of Television and I wish people would talk about it all the time. Our group refrain in the early seasons with Mere was "Here comes fuckface, fuckin' it up for everybody!" and she never let us down – but once she got so crazy that she went through it and came out the other side, she became my favorite character on the show, and Top Five in all of TV. She's boring now, to a certain extent, but there is something so vindicating about even that.

So Amelia McDreamelia later has a giggle fit about Meredith's coolness toward her characteristically inappropriate bullshit, remembering how on Private Practice that would have been a three-episode arc of recriminations and constant bitching, because those people were the fucking worst. (Except Charlotte, the greatest television character of all time.) So she's stressing now not because of her life status but because it means breaking up with her fiancé, the mysterious James. I say even a trainwreck as incredible as Amy will still have competition here in Seattle, where everybody is a million planes flying into a million mountains at all times.

Speaking of: Owen puts Cristina in charge of interviewing applicants for Cardio Chief, which is of course a manipulative move on his part that Meredith calls out, but Cristina's not even feeling that and in fact gets this idea in her head that it's Mere who is running a con on her. Of course she hates all the applicants – especially this one guy who she tells will never win a Harper Avery because he is the shitty kind of person who wants a Harper Avery – but that's not too telling. It's not how Cristina works first of all, because she is competition with literally nobody on Earth except one Dr. Cristina Yang, but also it's not even a metaphor: This show is kind of literally about how surgeons are assholes and why that's okay.

Eventually Owen sits Cristina down for a chat about how he's not actually trying to run any kind of game on her, but – having said that – he is awfully afraid of being left out of the cold. They end this episode, like every episode this season, by fucking in a new location. I have to say that I have never cared one whit about Owen but I have always loved his effect on Cristina's life and how he works as a mirror to her. They're both soldiers, obviously – it's why the love triangle with Teddy was so equilateral – but more than that, he's just...

It's very inspired to take a case like Yang post-Burke, who cut off little pieces of her and whose momma took her eyebrows – and make her next LTR a guy who literally chokes her in his sleep. The fact that she could go from a passively unintentional abusive situation to a scarily active abusive situation and be like, "You guys, I got this, I know the difference" is another thing I loved about this show. He challenges her in very specific ways she needs to be challenged, and he deserves to be a part of her story. (But that's IT.)

April and Jackson are finally happy about their dumb baby, which is a dumb secret, because secrets are all that keep their love alive and once this baby is born, they will have to graduate to doing smack together, or killing hobos such as Jo Wilson.

Callie eventually figures it out, and makes it all about her, and is a monster to Kepner for repeatedly calling a "grumpus," all of which is delicious, but soon enough we learn the sad truth: Her depression about Kepner's pregnancy goes far beyond the natural trepidation anyone would have about that doomed child, because she's incapable of having children after that dumb musical episode. It's terrible because nothing bad should ever happen to Callie and yet continually does, but when Arizona offers to carry the kid Callie realizes that she's putting way too much pressure on their still-tender marriage and bravely gives up her dream, at least for now.

But the best thing in the whole episode was the end of the Bubble Boy Saga, which laid me out on the floor for reasons we will now discuss. Bailey puts on her strongest face to notify the Board – via Cristina, whose "Up top!" high-five reaction was a thing of beauty – and then the parents of Bubble Boy that there is good news and bad news. The good news is, he is no longer a bubble boy. The bad news is, I injected him with tons of HIV like you told me not to.

The parents don't take it well! But there's something so delightful about how shocked Bailey is by this, like, yeah it was fucked up but also you get to hug your kid, so bygones. Owen's entire mind is completely blown by Bailey's insane, life-saving activities, and they have to go to Legal, and the parents are real buttholes about it – understandably – and then Owen won't even let Miranda get Stephanie Edwards off the hook for knowing about it and not reporting her to the goddamn authorities for being a mad scientist.

Somewhere in the middle of this shitshow, Miranda's husband Dr. Ben Warren finds out about her latest insane secret mess and yells at her about it until she calmly explains the actual point of this show, over all ten seasons: She turned HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, into nature's perfect device for treating this boy's immunity disorder. The most horrible, darkest and most twisted thing – Meredith's mom, Cristina's dad – turned by ingenuity and faith and very hard work into the brightest and most beautiful things there are: 3-D printed conduits, and Zola; the smile that comes so easily to Meredith's face now.

The parents declare war on Miranda, who is probably just wondering what mental illness she's going to end up with this time, and – after an incredibly unexpected, poignant moment where Bailey and Edwards get to watch him leave the bubble from afar – Edwards throws herself on the grenade and says it was all her. And suddenly the whole thing goes away with a week's suspension for Edwards and that's the end of it, thanks to yet another in a dizzying series of the mom changing her mind about major shit on a dime. That mom of Bubble Boy is always flipping the script on everybody!

After her brilliant idea – which involves a magnetic butthole I can't even go into – goes well in surgery, Webber sits Leah down to tell her she'll be a great doctor, but never a surgeon. Which is exactly the kind of call Webber can best make, and even Leah – my favorite one! – knows it. She weeps, and even throws down a "is this because I'm a lesbian" kind of deal about the sexual harassment suit against Arizona, but very quickly turns back into a grownup. The saddest thing is the last scene, where she tells the other interns they'll be fine but not why, promises to meet them at the bar, and I think vanishes from the show forever. (I love your fucking face, Tessa Ferrer! Please be on another show tout suite!)

Along the same lines, Derek comes back from DC with big news relating to POTUS, but of course Meredith has to tell him hers first, about how Amelia is going to be their wife from now on because she doesn't want to leave Seattle. Derek says this is half right, because actually – just like Alex, just like Cristina – they are proceeding to their next step, which is living in DC, since without Cristina Seattle is just going to be a neverending parade of tragedies anyway. Why DC? Oh, because the President of the United States and some damn thing about science or something. Maybe more Kryptonian hologram technologies like Burke has? Or robot bodies? Who knows.

I tune out with Derek, it's a huge problem. Here's what I heard while he was talking: "We have to move to DC because I met with the President and he grinded on my booty and we touched the Constitution."

With the threat of firing over Stephanie's head, Bailey screams at her for risking herself, and then Edwards lays down literally the best part of the episode, as she explains herself so rationally and kindly and brilliantly and compassionately that Bailey bursts into tears. (Me too.) Basically her point is tripartite:

One is, if Bailey went down for ignoring the parents' wishes, that would have taken down the HIV treatment she developed, which would have been a very dark thing. A beautiful new magic in the world would be snuffed out, for no real reason, and Miranda with it.

Two is, Miranda risked everything to save that kid, so where does Stephanie get off doing any less to save this new kind of medicine and possibly an entire generation of people.

And last of all, she's probably getting fired anyway so fuck it.

I mean, it was everything I love about the show. Complete with the scene's ending, which... To the best of my knowledge I have never been a black woman with a high-stakes career, but seeing Miranda proudly pull Stephanie into a classically rough Bailey embrace, on a primetime network show that nobody even thinks to credit for its diversity anymore, made me feel like I was seeing something new and special. I can't think of too many memorable scenes that they've had together, but there was a sort of infectious pride in that embrace that made me very homesick for the future. It was bright and acidic and funny and wise and blisteringly compassionate, and that's this show at its best.

Next week, finale time. Say goodbye to Cristina Yang. And if it doesn't involve a car accident that eerily parallels the death of her father, I just ... don't know what this show is even about.

[Image via ABC]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. Read more here.

Articulating public policy on the campaign trail is hard, guys. Is Obamacare more like the Holocaust, or like the Nazis and the KKK put together? And if unions are like slavery, that has "no racial connotations," right? Don't worry, conservatives are gonna figure this all out soon.

Friday morning, the Toronto Sun published a new video of a clearly inebriated Rob Ford ranting in a Toronto bar. The video was reportedly filmed April 27, one day after Ford was recorded allegedly smoking crack cocaine in his sister's basement.

Here's a transcript from the newest video:

FORD: "No one better f—-with me. I'm going to kick you in the f—-ing head ... I'll knock you out, pa-pow! (making punching gestures), you b———, you b———... bro, bro."

PATRON: This round of tequila ...

FORD: Jack, Jack Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack (Daniels?), Jack, sweetheart. Jack.

WOMAN: And it's last call.

FORD: I'm nodding here. I'm in f—-ing divorce and going to the f—-ing doghouse and going in a hotel. (Inaudible) I don't know what to say.

After news of the second crack video broke, Ford reportedly checked into an unnamed rehab center, where, according to his brother Doug, he's been since.

"He has at all times been under the supervision of medical professionals and never once been alone one day in treatment," Doug Ford told the Sun today.

Earlier this week, Rob Ford described rehab as "amazing."

"It reminds me of football camp," he said. "Kind of like the Washington Redskins camp I went to as a kid."

[The Toronto Sun]

An undergraduate student group has announced plans to hold a Satanic "black mass" on Harvard's campus Monday evening, freaking out Catholics and conservatives who probably figured the Ivy was a dark servant of Beelzubub all along.

Via Boston Magazine:

Members of the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club, who posted fliers and notices on campus and online about the Satanic worshipping happening on May 12, said the event is educational and meant to add historical context to a lecture on the subject that will precede it. "Our purpose is not to denigrate any religion or faith, which would be repugnant to our educational purposes, but instead to learn and experience the history of different cultural practices," the group said in a statement. "This performance is part of a larger effort to explore religious facets that continue to influence contemporary culture."

The independent group, which is working with the Satanic Temple (of totally-metal-Oklahoma-statue fame), put out this flyer to promote the gathering:

Needless to say, handwringing handwringers in the right-wing blogosphere wrung their hands, although responses from the Catholic Diocese of Boston and the Catholic League were uncharacteristically measured.

For its part, Harvard's Extension School pointed out in a news release that it had no control over the students, but was content to let them do their thing:

Students at Harvard Extension School, like students at colleges across the nation, organize and operate a number of independent student organizations, representing a wide range of student interests.

Harvard Extension School does not endorse the views or activities of any independent student organization. But we do support the rights of our students and faculty to speak and assemble freely.

The school statement added that the Cultural Studies Club was planning an entire series of events—"including a Shinto tea ceremony, a Shaker exhibition, and a Buddhist presentation on meditation—as part of a student-led effort to explore different cultures." Considering the explosion in troll-culture's popularity in recent years, it seems only fair to have a Satanist thing, too.

Because Jon Hamm's penis (his Dick Whitman, if you will) gets so much attention, it's easy to miss that the Mad Man also has a gargantuan head. It's so big, in fact, that Saturday Night Live's outfitters have only ever measured one star with a larger domepiece.

It turns out that the only man in Hollywood who makes even Don Draper's hats look tiny is Ben Affleck. Apparently The Town deserves the Guinness world record for the cast with the greatest cranial surface area.

In other Hamm-related revelations, the actor talked to Vanity Fair about his very awkward appearance on a 1996 dating show, where two women passed him over. Although it looks embarrassing in retrospect, the 25-year-old Hamm was happy for it at the time, because it was a break from his "soul-crushing" gig as a set dresser for softcore Cinemax porn.

[H/T BuzzFeed]

For anyone who saw and didn't find charm in John Turturro's insane vanity project, Fading Gigolo, Conan O'Brien's interview with Sharon Stone on last night's Conan was a welcome helping of catharsis. For those who haven't seen the movie, Turturro wrote, directed, and cast himself in the role of a man that piles of gorgeous women pay for sex for no apparent reason other than his sensitivity (his character, Fioravante, apparently doesn't even have a big dick, which would also be a vanity move, but at least shade in the character's appeal more than "...because he's him").

Conan gracefully ticked off the movie's most outstanding problems—namely, that it's absurd that beautiful women like Stone and her co-star Sofia Vergara would ever have to pay for sex (let alone from a 57-year-old man who...looks like John Turturro), and that the threesome scene is a clear sign of the vanity behind the project. Regarding the point about beautiful women paying for sex, Stone seems to think that 50 Shades of Grey opened up the market. Regarding the vanity...well, Stone couldn't refute that.

She assured O'Brien, though, that Fading Gigolo is a "nice movie."

O'Brien also briefly touched on another huge problem with the film: that Woody Allen plays a pimp. He did that vaguely, noting how unlikely it is, but not mentioning that there's a decently large segment of the population that couldn't stomach watching Woody Allen play a pimp at this point.

While we're all busy going about our tiny mortal lives, Oprah is doing some weird shit over there on OWN. Seriously, Lindsay is the most regular thing that network has ever done. Case in point: Lifeclass with Bret Michaels — the most profound hour and fifteen minutes ever released as an online extra, in which noted expert of life (seriously, though, the guy has been through some stuff) Bret Michaels expounds upon his personal roses and thorns, fields questions from people who might be well served by seeking out a mental health professional, and promotes his terrible new single, "A Beautiful Soul."

In the words of viewer Jen, "So great to see this icon from our youth has transitioned so beautifully to an incredible life coach." (!!!!!!!!!!!) I could paraphrase some of the wisdom imparted during this momentous event, but I think it's most powerful to let the man's words speak for themselves. Eat your heart out, Iyanla!

On Medicines: "I've learned in my life that, you know when people talk about one of the best medicines in life, right — besides insulin…insulin is good! — one of the best lessons I've ever learned in my life, truly, and I say this from the bottom of my heart, is laughter."

On Brain Hemorrhages: "You know, when they're operating on your brain, it's not a lot of fun."

On the Profoundly Obvious: "You know you come to crossroads in your life, things in your life you hit that are absolutely going to stop you…or you're going to continue."

On Being a Language Innovator: "I have a self-proclaimed word I use called 'drealist.' And as a drealist, that is a dreamer…and a realist. And that is my biggest blessing."

On the Benefits of Community: "I tell this to everybody, surround yourself with great people. It takes a village to make things awesome."

On Earned Wisdom: "All of us are teachers. All of us have our cross to bear. We've all been through a roller coaster of a ride."

On Psychic Abilities: "I don't want you to think I'm having a moment as a medium, here."

On His Wig: "I feel blessed to be comfortable in my skin."

On Vocabulary: "Heighth."

On Aging: "Oooh God, no one wants to see me, especially me, in a pair of spandex now."

On Passion and Perseverance: "If I would not have made it and been able to do this as a profession, I woulda still got up every weekend and gone out and karaoke sang. I woulda played guitar till people booed me off the stage."

On Being the Number One Halloween Costume Three Years Running: "It was bittersweet, because…this is the way I look."

On ????????: "Don't ever, ever give up on a dream. With the dream starts to go the crack of hope."

On Making "Drealist" Happen: "I'm gonna be a drealist first, okay?"

On O: "Trust me, when Oprah heard I was gonna be here, she left Chicago."

On Opportunity: "But in my life, in life class, opportunity does not knock itself…what I'm saying is when you're…when you're doing something and it hits…they don't come… no one comes running…the things they make in the movies are a lie."

On Diabeetus: "I know I say that word incorrectly."

On Mortality: "In that hospital, for me, all I could do, as being part of a fighter, is every time someone told me I can't do something it makes me fight more. Now I know, one day, that we all, that…that…that day comes, right? That day comes. With you [counsel-seeking audience member], I feel like, even though…are [your] kidneys failed?"

On Learning that the Kidneys Are Less than 10% Functioning: "Okay, so that's bad. I'm not going to lie."

On Life Coaching Someone Who Has Stopped Dreaming Because Her Kidneys Are Less than 10% Functioning: "Please…help. I need help here."

On Emotions: "My eyeliner's smearing!"

On Connections: "All of us have to make an effort to contact. Let's exchange numbers."

On 21st Century Skills: "My life coaching is good, my sense of modern technology is not."

On Small Mercies: "Most of the music that I wrote never sees the light of day."

On Rolling with the Punches: "This is not the beer I ordered, by the way." [Drinks beer.]

On a Photo of His Kids: "Rain's teeth are great, a little jacked up, we get them fixed up, all right...My kids have taught me unconditional love."

On Statistical Odds: "You will miss, I guarantee it, 1000 of the shots you take if you never take them. I guarantee you'll probably make 50 of them at least if you try."

On Lifeclass with Bret Michaels: "And with the day and age that we live in now, with the internet, there's nothing we can't do."

Through it all, Bret showed a genuine ability to connect with the audience (which did seem to be stocked with fans), as well as legit empathy for audience members seeking his counsel, many of whom were battling personal tragedy or serious illness (see above re: kidneys). He looks pretty much the same at 51, with a bandana around his weave (and, I believe, stuffed into his pants) and facial hair that may or may not have been painted on.

Yes, he tended to fall back on clichés (sometimes prefacing them by saying, "I'm not good at generic terms") but also talked up the virtues of plain old hard work, grit, and not taking yourself too seriously. And since he almost died like 16 times (brain hemorrhage, heart surgery, emergency appendectomy, diabeetus, intimate exposure to Rock of Love contestants and Donald Trump), he has some perspective on when life does and doesn't suck.

Breat treated us to a few fun facts, like how he refused to be a 1986 throwback on Rock of Love (and credits the amazing women on the show for its success), that he wrote "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" in a laundromat, and how Poison had the foresight (or dumb luck) to hold on to their publishing ("…At 32 million records later, it didn't suck"). We also got to repeatedly experience his magical manner of sitting on a stool — a balletic waddle/squat that was readily admired by the two retired strippers in the front row.

There were also occasional hints that this might be more than a one-time thing — a message of hope for the drealist in us all.

[Top image via OWN]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. Read more here.

Earth will reportedly have trillionaires soon, as many as 11 of them in the next couple of generations. That would be roughly $140 for each human being on earth. Or enough to pay Atlas to stop shrugging and just flip off the rest of the world's population.

For unclear reasons, this discussion on the topic of "Should I Go to Grad School?" contains more than one word.

The weather is supposed to be positively summer-like in New York this weekend, and we've already seen the release of several major superhero movies, so it's not too early to start thinking about the music that will define our respective summers.

The goal of this post is simple: Let's collect some songs that you could see yourself listening to well into the year's hottest period. I want to differentiate "summer jam" from "song of summer." While the latter is a monolithic label applied to the most popular/ubiquitous song in any given summer and determined by data (thus 2014's was Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," with Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" and Miley Cyrus' "We Can't Stop" just behind it), a "summer jam" is a personal choice. Time will tell what the song of summer is; you can determine what a summer jam is.

In the comments below, name your song and its artist and embed the track. State your case for why it's a summer jam if you like, or let the music speak for itself. This should be easy.

Here, I'll start:

Tink featuring Jeremih "Don't Tell Nobody"

This is my favorite song of the year so far. The sung/rapped verses that have a "Drunk in Love"-type complexity, basically changing every four bars. The lyrical drama. The atmosphere via deflating synths. The section that goes, "I'mma text Ryan, Facetime Bryan / Call up Keenan, tell him I need him..." The fact that the hook comes from Jeremih's character's pleas to keep all this on the low, while the song itself punishes his philandering by laying it all out. It's all perfect to me.

What's perfect to you?

[Image via Getty]