The two Steubenville high-school football players who stood trial this week on rape charges were found guilty this morning.

The trial, which divided a small Ohio town and uncovered a history of adults associated with the football program protecting players from prosecution, came to a close Sunday morning as Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond were found delinquent by the juvenile court, which was decided by a sole judge and not a jury. The two boys will be jailed a minimum of one year, and now face a possible sentence of juvenile jail until they turn 21.

Details of the rape of the 16-year-old West Virginia girl spread through social media the morning after an August 11th party where Mays was seen leaving with the intoxicated girl. A series of texts and tweets from phones confiscated by the state were used as evidence against the defendants. A photo of the unconscious girl being carried by undisclosed males surfaced online months after the assault.

The Ohio Attorney General will announce later today whether additional charges will be brought in the case, including against other boys at the party.

Another week, another eccentric millionaire making promises to colonize Mars. This time, it's Dutchman Bas Lansdorp, whose Mars One project is looking to put teams of astronauts on the Red (well, not actually red) Planet by 2023. He's looking for applicants right now, no experience necessary. Just one catch, though.

You won't be coming back.

Lansdorp said that more than 8000 people have already applied for a chance to live (then die) on Mars after completing an eight-year training period that will include learning engineering, making mechanical repairs, and tending crops. Lansdorp told the CBC that, "The technology to get humans to Mars and keep them alive there exists," however "the technology to bring humans from Mars back to Earth simply does not exist yet."

Lansdorp plans to fund the trip through a reality show akin to "Big Brother" which will document the training of the laymen astronauts, their eight month journey in space, and their time (long or short as it may be) on Mars.

What separates Lansdorp's project with other, similar Mars initiatives? He says he's "had a team working on this for more than two years," including "ambassadors that are astronauts and Nobel Prize winners, advisers from NASA and the UN, investors and sponsors from all over the world."

So the Mars race is on! But who will win? Will it be a government agency, a billionaire devoted to throwing their money away and killing people, or the dark horse, Red Bull? Probably Red Bull. Red Bull, Red Planet.

Last night, an as-yet unidentified man locked himself inside of the bathroom at a Pennsylvania sporting goods store, then shot himself after a four-hour "standoff" with local police.

The man had apparently had a similar standoff with Pennsylvania police back in 2002. Oddly enough, he was already armed with a handgun when he entered the store and demanded the clerk on duty give him a shotgun. He took no hostages and the store's employees were evacuated immediately; no one else was harmed.

Last week, a Washington man named Brian Parry shot himself during shooting practice at a gun safety course called "Right on Target."

Using the gun and ammunition provided by the teacher of the course, Parry turned the gun on himself in front of at least twelve witnesses. One of the other students present said he had "looked lonely and 'deflated,' add[ing] that 'anytime someone is standing there with a gun pointed at his head, there's nothing anyone could have done to stop him from shooting himself.'"

Although the incidents were not related, both appeared to be premeditated, according to statements by the police.

[Image via AP]

A crime wave is spreading through rural areas in parts of central Africa. The stolen property? Penises.

Anthropologist Louisa Lombard writes that the phenomenon of penis-snatching has left the gritty confines of the city and begun to show up in villages in the Central African Republic:

A traveler passing through town on a Sudanese merchant truck had, with a simple handshake, removed two men's penises.

As best I could reconstruct from witness accounts, the stranger had stopped to purchase a cup of tea at the market. After handing over his money, he clasped the vendor's hand. The tea seller felt an electric tingling course through his body and immediately sensed that his penis had shrunk to a size smaller than that of a baby's.

Authorities later apprehended the penis thief and executed him.

Penis-snatching is a common fear the world over, with reports from Europe in the 16th century and the famous outbreak of "koro" in Singapore in 1967, when men reported en masse that their penises had retracted into their bodies.

Anthropologists have attributed the phenomenon to "an increasingly mystifying and capricious global economy" which has give rise to beliefs in "occult economies."

As Lombard points out however, penis-snatching is no weirder a response to global capitalism than "Americans who starve themselves near to death because their reflection in the mirror convinces them they are fat."

[Image: Shutterstock]

Today John Boehner told Martha Raddatz, host of ABC's "This Week," that he "can't imagine" himself ever supporting gay marriage, even after Senator Portman's high-profile reversal on the issue.

MARTHA RADDATZ: Can you imagine yourself in a situation where you reversed your decision, as Portman has, on gay marriage if a child of yours or someone you love told you they were gay?

SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: Listen, I believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. All right. It's what I grew up with. It's what I believe. It's what my church teaches me. And I can't imagine that position would ever change.

Did you know? There are actually a lot of things John Boehner can't imagine, such as:

• A duck and a cat who are friends
• Having a normal sized body but tiny, tiny hands
• That Spring Breakers could possibly live up to the hype
• Dying, like really dying, and not being alive, like forever though
• What traffic lights looks like if you're color blind
• A peanut butter cup that has dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate on the outside
• How they make that fake sugar that goes in sugarless gum
• Being a fighter pilot, or a majestic reindeer
• What happens to Atreyu at the end of the Neverending Story
• Why it's called the Neverending Story in the first place
• Having kids who move out of the house and don't mooch off of your family talk plan or steal your Netflix password, Christ, it is nine dollars a month and you sure seemed to have enough money for that ridiculous destination wedding to Vietnam for that friend you don't even talk to that much anymore
• Horses that can talk
• What everyday life must have been like in Colonial Williamsburg even after taking the tour

[Image via AP]

Great news for people who abuse their livers (on this day of widespread liver abuse) — doctors in Britain have perfected a device that will keep livers alive longer, drastically increasing the availability of viable transplants. The team presented the device on Friday, announcing that "it could be common practice in hospitals across the developed world within a few years, up to doubling the number of livers available for transplant."

Right now, up to a quarter of the 30,000 patients on the liver transplant waiting list will die before they get a transplant. Almost 2,000 livers are discarded before they can ever be transplanted because they are damaged in the process.

Constantin Coussios, a professor of biomedical engineering at Oxford University who helped invent the machine, remarked on the results of the first two transplants with the new machine:

"It was astounding to see an initially cold, grey liver flushing with color once hooked up to our machine and performing as it would within the body... What was even more amazing was to see the same liver transplanted into a patient who is now walking around."

The device could be used across the world as early as 2014.

So what does this mean for you, St. Paddy's Day revelers? Drink, drink drink!

What does this mean for you, college kids on spring break? Drink, drink so much. Toma mucho!

What does this mean for you, drivers? Don't drink! (Just park that car, ok? Then you can drink, drink so much).

In a move that might discourage women from reporting domestic abuse, the NYPD has issued a new directive to its officers that they run a criminal check on both the accused and the accuser when responded to an abuse call. The New York Post is reporting that a new memo sent out by the Chief of Detectives Phil Pulaski "requires detectives to look at open warrants, complaint histories and even the driving records of both parties."

Advocates of abused women are worried that this new directive will dissuade women form reporting abuse, frightened of possibly being arrested for offenses like an outstanding traffic violation. Marilyn Chinitz, a lawyer who represents victims of domestic abuse told The Post that the directive "is very, very frightening." She continued, "It would absolutely dissuade people. They would not report a crime because they would fear getting locked up. It would empower the perpetrator, and there's going to be more domestic violence as a consequence, and you're endangering children."

Police officers speaking anonymously to The Post that they would feel pressure to arrest abuse victims, fearful of their superior officers finding out that they had not arrested someone who had an outstanding warrant or violation. "There's a lack of common sense in this department right now," a officer told The Post.

Reacting to The Post's story, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne released this statement about the story: "While it is standard practice and policy for detectives to investigate victims' backgrounds to help lead them to the victims' assailants, the NYPD - contrary to a published report - has no "must arrest" policy that applies to domestic violence victims. In fact, the discovery of open warrants on domestic violence victims often results in their warrants being vacated."

"Must arrest" or not, by looking into records of abuse victims, the NYPD risks further discouraging reports of abuse at a time when an astonishingly few cases of domestic violence are being reported.

One way to report on the outcome of a rape trial is to discuss the legal ramifications of the decision or the effect the proceedings may have on the life of the victim. Another angle reporters can take is to publicly worry about the "promising future" of the convicted rapists, now less promising as a direct result of their choice to rape someone.

Reporters at CNN today chose the latter technique. General correspondent Poppy Harlow, speaking to anchor Candy Crowley, had this to say about the verdict:

"Incredibly difficult, even for an outsider like me, to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed their lives fell apart...when that sentence came down, [Ma'lik] collapsed in the arms of his attorney...He said to him, 'My life is over. No one is going to want me now.' Very serious crime here, both found guilty of raping the sixteen-year-old girl at a series of parties back in August."

CNN also played footage of both convicted rapists tearfully apologizing in court. Harlow went on to describe in detail an emotional exchange between Ma'lik Richmond, one of the defendants, and his estranged father.

Candy asked Paul Callan, a legal expert, to elaborate on the future of the two young men, stressing their youth and emotional vulnerability.

"Sixteen-year-olds just sobbing in court, regardless of what big football players they are, they still sound like sixteen-year-olds...what's the lasting effect, though, on two young men being found guilty in juvenile court of rape, essentially?"

"The most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label is now placed on them by Ohio law...That will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Employers, when looking up their background, will see that they're registered sex offenders. When they move into a new neighborhood and somebody goes on the Internet, where these things are posted, neighbors will know that they are registered sex offenders."

Yes, that is how the sex offender registry works. People who commit acts of sexual violence (rape, for example) and are convicted in a court of law are required to register with the national sex offender public registry, so that future employers and neighbors might do things like check said registry.

For readers interested in learning more about how not to be labeled as registered sex offenders, a good first step is not to rape unconscious women, no matter how good your grades are. Regardless of the strength of your GPA (weighted or unweighted), if you commit rape, there is a possibility you may someday be convicted of a sex crime. This is because of your decision to commit a sex crime instead of going for a walk, or reading a book by Cormac McCarthy. Your ability to perform calculus or play football is generally not taken into consideration in a court of law. Should you prefer to be known as "Good student and excellent football player Trent Mays" rather than "Convicted sex offender Trent Mays," try stressing the studying and tackling and giving the sex crimes a miss altogether.

It's perfectly understandable, when reporting on a rape trial, to discuss the length and severity of the sentence; it is less understandable to discuss the end of two convicted rapists' future athletic and academic careers as if it were somehow divorced from the laws of cause and effect. Their dreams and hopes were not crushed by an impersonal, inexorable legal system; Mays and Richmond raped a girl and have been sentenced accordingly. Had they not raped her, they would not be spending at least one year each in a juvenile detention facility.

It is unlikely that Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow are committed rape apologists; more likely they simply wanted a showy, emotional angle at the close of a messy and sensationalized trial. Since the identity of the victim is protected, and the rapists obliged the camera crews by memorably breaking down and crying in court, they found an angle to match: extremely gifted young men were brought tragically low by... mumblemumblesomething.

That isn't how rape trials ought to be discussed by professional journalists.

Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond are not the "stars" of the Steubenville rape trial. They aren't the only characters in a drama playing out in eastern Ohio. And yet a CNN viewer learning about the Steubenville rape verdict is presented with dynamic, sympathetic, complicated male figures, and a nonentity of an anonymous victim, the "lasting effects" of whose graphic, public sexual assault are ignored. Small wonder, then, that anyone would find themselves on the side of these men—these poor young men, who were very good at taking tests and playing sports when they were not raping their classmates.

The recent Girl Scout cookie crime wave continued last week when two Oregon Girl Scout troops were hoaxed by a fake order for 6,000 boxes of cookies worth roughly $24,000. By the time the troops realized the order was not real, the troop had already paid for and set aside the 500 cases of cookies necessary to fill the fake purchase.

"I contacted the ... company and they said, 'We have no idea what's going on,'" scout mother Jennifer Reed said on "Good Morning America" today.

Irresponsible scout mothers aside, this is sad.

"They placed a fake order on us and they didn't know that it hurt our feelings a lot," Girl Scout Erin Donnelly, 8, said.

Thankfully, for Donnelly's hurt feelings and the local homeless shelter the troops had committed to helping, local residents stepped in and bought over half the erroneously ordered boxes. That sale raised $12,000 and the troops have another sale planned for later this month.

"For every one person that has bad intentions, there are hundreds more with good intentions and good hearts that are here to help you," said Sarah Miller, director of communication for Girls Scouts of Oregon and Washington.

And everyone hopefully learned a valuable lesson: don't fall for suspiciously large orders without first checking to see if they're real. And if you do find yourself with surplus cookies, whatever you do , don't destroy them with bulldozers.

[Image via ABC News]

At least one NYPD officer has taken his department's elaborate spying program to heart: eight-year NYPD veteran Miguel Gomez was arrested on Friday and charged with using a surveillance camera to spy on a young woman in his apartment building. According police sources cited by the New York Daily News, Officer Gomez used the camera to track his 21-year-old neighbor's activities, including when she would enter and leave their building.

The same police source said it was unlikely Gomez was using any of the NYPD's technology: "If he did, he would definitely face additional charges," the source told the Daily News.

While there's been no official statement yet on the arrest, at least one person is sticking up for Gomez: his mother:

"My son is a very good boy and wouldn't do a thing like that," Juliana Gomez, 67, told the Daily News Saturday night, and refused to answer follow-up questions.

As DNA Info notes, the arrest took part during a particularly bad weekend for the NYPD; Gomez was just one of five NYPD employees – including three cops – arrested in two days. Two other police officers were arrested for drunk driving on Sunday, a traffic cop was found with stolen belongings and fake guns in her trunk on Friday, and an administrative aide in the department was charged Saturday with possession of a controlled substance.

[via Daily Intelligencer/Image via Shutterstock]

A private jet crashed Sunday evening through three homes in a neighborhood near an airport in South Bend, Indiana. Two of the plane's four passengers reportedly died in the crash, according to an FAA spokesman.

South Bend's Assistant Fire Chief John Corthier said several people were injured, though he couldn't comment on their conditions at the time. He did describe the situation as "very dangerous" because of the jet's fuel.

"It's still a rescue operation," Corthier said about three hours after the crash. Referring to one of the damaged houses, he said, "Because of the collapse in the house it's a very dangerous situation. We have to shore up the house before we can enter the house."

Neighbors near the crash site described a harrowing scene:

Stan Klaybor, who lives across the street from the crash scene, said the jet clipped the top of one house, heavily damaged a second, and finally came to rest against a third. Neighbors did not know if a woman living in the most heavily damaged house was home at the time, and a young boy in the third house did not appear to be seriously injured, Klaybor said.

"Her little boy was in the kitchen and he got nicked here," Klaybor said, pointing to his forehead.

His wife, Mary Jane, regularly watches planes approach the airport.

"I was looking out my picture window. The plane's coming, and I go, `Wait a minute,' and then, boom," she said.

"This one was coming straight at my house. I went, `Huh?' and then there was a big crash, and all the insulation went flying," she said.

The plane was registered to 7700 Enterprises of Montana LLC. When the AP called the home of Wes Caves, the company's owner, Caves's wife answered. "I think he's dead," she told the reporter, before hanging up.

Officials evacuated part of the neighborhood, which is located southwest of a nearby airport. Buses transported 200 residents to a nearby shelter.

According to Mike Daigle, the executive director at the St Joseph County Airport Authority, the plane had attempted to land after reporting a mechanical issue, then went back up to try another approach. Eight minutes later, Daigle said, the airport received word the plane had crashed.

[Image via]

Taking their cues from direct-to-DVD action movies, two inmates broke out of a Quebec prison today by climbing a rope to a hijacked helicopter hovering above the jail's yard. Quebec provincial police later arrested three people 30 miles from St. Jerome prison, including one of the inmates, 36-year-old Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau. The other escaped inmate, 33-year-old Danny Provencal, is currently "surrounded," according to police.

"We are negotiating with him now," [Quebec police spokesman] Richard said, adding police were hoping for a peaceful resolution.

Police tracked the helicopter to a town roughly 50 miles from the jail, where they found the pilot. He was taken to a nearby hospital and will be questioned later. Maxime Landry, a reporter LCN who knows the pilot, said the pilot was hired for a tour Sunday afternoon by two people; once in the air, Landry said, one of the passengers put a gun to the pilot's head, forcing him to fly to the prison.

Shortly after the escape, a man claiming to be Hudon-Barbeau called 98.5 FM in Montreal, saying:

"I don't want to cause any harm to anybody. I am not a killer. I never did anything bad to an innocent. I know that (the escape) wasn't the best thing to do, but I didn't want to stay in prison anymore. I am ready to die," the station reported he said.

Yves Galarneau, the correctional services manager at St Jeromes jail, said he'd never seen or heard of anything like the escape.

"As far as I know, it's a first in Quebec," he told reporters at the scene. "It's exceptional."

[CNN, AP, Montreal Gazette]

Eurozone finance ministers are demanding a one-time levy on bank deposits of all sizes—even on insured accounts—as part of a bailout package for Cyprus, which is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Cypriots sprinted to banks and ATMs this weekend, waiting in long lines to withdraw cash after hearing about the plan on Saturday; if approved by Cyprus' parliament, it would mark the first time ordinary European depositors would be asked to take a haircut for a bailout plan. The levy would take 6.7 percent for deposits of less than 100,000 Euros and 9.9 percent for those above, and while more progressive plans have been floated, as it stands right now "[t]his is a conscious choice to make poorer people pay to help richer ones," The Financial Times writes. Why lean on the little guy? In all likelihood to preserve the island nation's status as an offshore haven for, in particular, Russian businessmen. Still, the tax is far from being assured: it's unclear whether President Nicos Anastasiades has the necessary majority to approve the plan, and the vote has been delayed until tomorrow. [Financial Times | NYT | Reuters | image via Getty/AFP]

Police investigating reports of a man with a gun at a University of Central Florida dorm found a student dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound—and explosives and firearms in his room. All morning classes have been cancelled, and the dorm has been evacuated.

Police were called to Tower 1, a 500-student dorm, just after midnight on Monday morning, apparently on a report of a person with a gun.

Police found the man dead from what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Authorities have since interviewed several witnesses and they have confirmed the man was a student. It's not clear where his body was found.

Heston said they have not found any type of a written plan or manifesto in the man's room. He said the man's body, the weapons and the explosive devices were all found in one of the rooms in the man's dorm apartment.

Law-enforcement officers investigating the incident found a handgun, an assault weapon and and improvised explosive devices, a campus spokeswoman said.

Counseling is being made available to dorm residents. All non-essential UCF employees have been told to stay home.

[Orlando Sentinel]

College is not some soft fantasyland where professors gently stroke students' egos with uncontroversial lessons. College is a place where students come to have their opinions challenged, preferably by a law professor who shoves them and steals their cellphones.

When it comes to pure demonstrations of "best practices" in education techniques, you'll find none better than the above video (via Inside Higher Ed), in which University of Oregon adjunct law professor James Olmsted bestows priceless education upon the members of Students Against Imperialism, who were protesting on campus last week against U.S. immigration policies. By being a middle-aged man in a position of power who angrily mocks the students, Olmsted educates them on the makeup of the American power structure. By shoving one student, Olmsted educates them on nonviolent techniques. By snatching a cell phone out of the hands of a student who is recording his actions and putting it in his pocket, Olmsted educates them on the harsh realities of property law. By advising the students to "start a fucking war" and "stop being pussies," Olmsted educates them on the shortcomings of rule of law.

And by getting himself fired and arrested for harassing a bunch of kids protesting on campus, Olmsted has educated them on the fact that just because someone has academic credentials doesn't mean they're not a fucking moron.

[Inside Higher Ed]

If there is one thing the Internet loves its cochlear implants. Namely, watching people with cochlear implants react to having them switched on for the first time.

26-year-old Amy has been deaf since birth, but thanks to the miracle that is modern science, she recently heard the sound of her parents' voices, as well as the sound of her 6-year-old son's voice for the very first time.

Amy's aunt Catherine caught the emotional moment on camera, and filed this update, just over six months later:

[Amy] is continuing her hard work of speech and sound therapy to distinguish what sound is. Her pronunciation has improved vastly and she can hear words and especially music! Naturally, after a lifetime of lip reading and signing, it is still necessary for her to rely on that skill to have conversation in a group. Every day is new and sometimes an exhausting experience. She loves the challenge to improve yet more and she is a joy to be around.

[H/T: Viral Viral Videos]

Police in Chicago say a teenager with gang ties tried to blame a self-inflicted gunshot to the groin on a pair of ninjas before eventually coming clean.

The unnamed 17-year-old was brought to Loyola Hospital in Maywood with a "left groin" injury that appeared to be self-inflicted.

But police officers who were called to the hospital by staff were told by the teen that two men dressed in ninja garb were to blame.

The teen said the men emerged from a black van in front of his car and shot him with a semi-automatic handgun.

After a scan of the crime scene, a review of surveillance footage, and a number of interviews with potential eyewitnesses yielded no proof of ninja-related activity, police confronted the teen and eventually were told the truth.

It seems the kid was in his car with an unspecified number of "female friends" and was messing around with a gun when it accidentally discharged in his lap.

The wound was not life-threatening.

Charges are expected to be brought against the teen, but authorities are still in the process of settling a jurisdiction issue.

[photo via Shutterstock]

Today, in very interesting human beings: Andrew Wardle, a 39-year-old British man who was a) born with no penis and yet nevertheless managed to, with the help of LSD and ecstasy, b) sleep with over 100 women and is now about to c) undergo surgery to turn skin from his arm into a functioning penis in the proper place.

The Sun (so, caveat lector) reports:

Andrew, from Stalybridge, Gtr Manchester, was born with an ectopic bladder, which meant it formed on the outside of his body. Although he has testicles, he did not have a penis at all. He had a successful op on his bladder but his birth defect remained. [...]

Andrew [...] experimented with drugs such as ecstasy and LSD as a way of dealing with the psychological effects of being born without his manhood. He said: "By taking drugs I gave myself the perfect cover.

"I'd bed girls but said things could only go so far because the drugs meant I couldn't rise to the occasion. I've been to bed with over 100 women. Some were one-night stands, some long-term relationships. I've told 20 per cent of them the truth."

Earlier this year, Wardle read The Sun's coverage of the arm-to-penis surgery of Mohammed Abad (pictured), and decided to seek out his own. During the surgery, a "large flap" of skin from his forearm is removed, rolled into a tube (like a jelly roll), and attached to his pubic bone and testicles. The new penis will have feeling, be able to pass urine "and look natural too." (A "pump-operated implant" will be necessary for Wardle to have the ability to have penetrative sex.)

[The Sun]

In America, we have a stupid system of health care in which your health insurance, which might naturally be considered a fundamental human need, is covered by your employer, resulting in a horrible, expensive, uneven patchwork. At the same time, the earnings of most workers have remained stagnant for the past 40 years. It comes as little surprise, then, that workers are willing to gamble with their own health in exchange for more money in their pockets.

Last year, several big companies tested out a new health care insurance system for about 100,000 workers: it gave them a set sum of money, and allowed them to select their own insurance plan. The results, naturally: "Many workers were willing to choose lower-priced plans that required them to pay more out of their pockets for health care." From the WSJ:

Aon Hewitt said that for this year, 39% of the workers chose higher-deductible plans, up from 12% in 2012, when they weren't picking from an exchange. Those choosing a preferred-provider-organization plan dropped to 47% from 70%. Overall, 42% of employees picked plans that were less rich than they'd had the previous year, while 26% picked pricier coverage.

This demonstrates the fact that people who are not wealthy are willing to gamble that their health will hold out this year in exchange for money in hand. (Likewise, I'm sure that if you offered completely indigent homeless people $1,000 to sign away their Medicaid rights for the upcoming year, they would take it.) Of course, if these people do suffer severe health issues or get hit by a bus, either they or the taxpayers are stuck with a huge health care bill, or they go without necessary health care because their paltry plan does not cover it sufficiently. The Republican take on this common sense result is, "Let's have everyone shop for their own health care!" The rational response, though, is "Let's have national health care, because it is impossible to predict whether or not we will suffer a health setback this year, so in the end it is more rational to deal with the problem collectively, as it affects all of us."

But nah let's just let people pocket that health care money. God damn the American health insurance system is fucked up.

[WSJ. Photo: Leon Brocard/ Flickr]

Three years ago, New York Times media reporter and occult career-bender David Carr was taking a tour through South by Southwest and asked the festival's film person what movie he should see. She tipped him off to a movie called Tiny Furniture and he fell in love. He gave the movie and its creator/star, a 23-year-old woman named Lena Dunham, 1,000 words in the Times.

It was the first big write-up for Tiny Furniture and Carr "knew right away she would end up as a big deal." Dunham and Carr got dinner a month later and became fast friends. In the three years since, he's been a huge booster of her work, taking to various corners of the internet to spread the Dunham love:

People love to ankle bite her because she grew up well-situated, but nobody gave her a tv show for that. Nobody convinced Judd Apatow to co-produce because of who her parents were and HBO did not pick up Girls for a second season because she is wired.

It's true that Judd Apatow didn't decide to work with Dunham because of who her parents were. Instead, he chose to work with Dunham thanks to David Carr.

In 2010, Dunham had a blind script deal for HBO. What she was missing was the imprimatur of a Hollywood heavyweight. Meanwhile, Apatow, who is friends with Carr, was asking the Times columnist if he knew of any promising up-and-comers. Carr did know one.

Carr also knew, with his eye on the angles, that the director/writer/producer had a woman problem. Dunham was someone who could make Apatow's then-checkered track record with female characters disappear. Carr told Apatow to get a look at Tiny Furniture asap.

Apatow watched it and fired off an email to Dunham. Here's how she described it:

The title of the e-mail was "From Judd Apatow." I thought it was my friend Isabel pranking me. He said, "I saw your movie. I cried, which is not rare for me. But I laughed out loud, which is rare." Then he said a few things he liked that were really nice. Then he said, "If you ever want someone to give you a lot of money and screw everything up, we should talk."

By August, Apatow and Carr were talking about Dunham:

And two weeks later, Apatow and Dunham had a green light to do a pilot for an HBO show. Shortly after the HBO pilot was sealed, there was a meal that looked like a celebration:

And a few months later, they had another dinner:

And another meal:

And another dinner:

And yet another dinner:

And there have been PDA-moments. Like this:

And more:

And even more:

Carr and Dunham have obviously been strongly supportive of one another. In fact, in keeping with a tradition on the show, a few days after shooting on the pilot episode of Girls began, Dunham sent over a tweet to Carr.

Carr's daughter was a production assistant on the Girls pilot, the first of more than a dozen production credits that she lists on her website. She's currently a video producer at Vice.

Carr has been open about the fact that he's "in the tank" for Dunham. He hasn't written about her for the Times since that first story on Tiny Furniture (though he did conduct this loving Q and A with her in Hemispheres), so there's been little need to disclose his daughter's connection to Dunham or his devoted interest in her success (though he still does write about HBO and HBO's parent company, Time Warner, which have obviously benefited nicely from Dunham's success).

But if you're looking for the explanation of how this particular 20-something person, however well-born, has managed to seize such a firm hold on the Zeitgeist, it's worth remembering that she has one of the best-connected people in media rooting for her.

Carr's a fiercely loyal guy. In addition to his role as the Times' weekly media columnist, he's also become the Times' de facto Defender-In-Chief, something that might seem sort of surprising given his spit-balling alt-weekly background. On that point, he explained to Capital New York:

I am very tribal in my loyalties. Even though I grew up throwing rocks, the first 20, 25 years I was mostly hacking on daily newspapers and their foibles, and now I've not only gone native, I have turned into a reflexive defender of them.

He does that for Dunham. For Carr—a guy who has described himself as a skunk at the media world's garden party—the tribe keeps growing.

Photo by Wire Image.