Blogger Matthew Baldwin is sick and tired of the media misusing the word "hoax." A few days back, MSNBC Googled up a parody blog and included its fake quotes from Al Sharpton in their story on dog-killing former NFL quarterback Michael Vick. (Like Al Sharpton would have been so hard for the reporter to get on the phone—the trouble is getting Al Sharpton not on the phone! It's like phones come with Al Sharpton in them!) And so they ran a correction and said "MSNBC.com has determined that the blog is a hoax." Actually, no. No it's not!

"The case against Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has exposed a split within both the NAACP and the larger African-American community, as some activists condemn Vick's role in the deaths of fighting dogs and others cast him as a victim of a racist justice system," an MSNBC article revealed yesterday. Who are some of the dog-murdering quarterback's defenders? Well, you'd expect Al Sharpton to step up, right?

Glaring Omissions reproduces tips received from readers in the last week that weren't covered on Gawker, either by accident (it happens!) or by design (it happens more often). N.B. What an amazing week of glare! Keep those cards and letters coming!

From time to time the news cycle offers up an event of such import and complexity that it can only be comprehended through the medium of musical theater. Ben Greenman, the Rodgers & Hammerstein of the age (or, at least the Hammerstein), will lead you down the Great White Way to understanding. Shhh, the curtain's starting to rise!

Aging radio personality Don Imus received a two week suspension yesterday and compounded the damage done by his "nappy hos" remark in an awesome appearance on Al Sharpton's radio program; Sharpton hammered him for the first 90 minutes and then Imus seemed to refer to blacks as "you people" and attempted to use the word "jive." "NewsHour" correspondent Gwen Ifill, who has waited nine years to exact her revenge against the man who once called her "the cleaning lady," gets her chance this morning in the Times and does so in exquisite fashion. We're of the opinion that there'll be a continued hemming and hawing over the whole thing for a few more days and then it will be forgotten, as it always is, because, you know, he may be a bigot, but an appearance on his show does help to sell your book, and, really, isn't that what matters? Still it's all been worth it, if only for this AP photo, which we're going to have framed.

• Southampton Press, owned by entirely nutty Joseph Louchheim, begets East Hampton Press; East Hampton Star not thrilled. We say: If there are two places to read crime reports about dumb girls named Amy Kline who miss the last train back to the city and call the police, who then actually call and get them a bus back to town instead of telling them to sleep on the street, we're thrilled. [NYT]
  

Scientists over at Ancestry.com, working for the Daily News, have found documents linking the families of civil-rights gadfly Al Sharpton and segregationist-miscegenator Strom Thurmond. Their research shows that, back in 1861, South Carolina slavedriver Alexander Sharpton sold Coleman Sharpton—Al's great-granddad—down the coast to Julia Thurmond (not to be confused with hot English actress Julia Ormond), whose great-grandfather was Strom's great-great-grandfather. Got that? In any case, the dead senator's descendants aren't exactly welcoming our guy Al into the Thurmond fold. (Like we want him either!)

• The strike's overlooked victims: Those freebie papers you don't really want to read but grab anyway when the dude shoves them at on your way into the subway station. [NYP]
• CBS Evening News will — finally — be No. 2 within a few months, and Katie Couric will eventually be its next anchor, outgoing EP Jim Murphy predicts. [Phil. Inquirer]
• Now Al Sharpton says he won't do the proposed Al in the Family sitcom. This sort of breaks our heart, not least because we spend all that time a few weeks ago Photoshopping his head onto Carroll O'Connor's body. [AP via USAT]

This exciting news showed up in the Cynopsis, an entertainment-trade news summary, this morning:

We've never voted for a Republican before in our life, and there's a decent chance we never will again. (When we were 12, we and a bunkmate made a giant "Duke '88" banner in arts and crafts class, which hung over our beds at camp.) Even so, not for a moment have we ever considered voting for Fernando Ferrer for mayor. Until, perhaps, now:

· Christopher Hitchens on the possibility that Al Gore or NY Senator Hillary Clinton might run for President: "I just hope they all get some sort of wasting disease before they can run." [Page Six]
· D.A. Pennebaker is doing a documentary on Al Sharpton. [Page Six]
· Lucy Sykes is pregnant. [Page Six]
· Billy Bush (the President's cousin and an "Access Hollywood" correspondent) was buzzed, stoned and dancing with six girls at once at Guastavino's Sunday night. Said one model, "Isn't that the guy from 'Access Hollywood'?...What a dork!" [Page Six]
· WSJ executive Karen Elliot House brags that she can get coverage for Personal Journal from Charlie Rose because she used to date him. Husband and Dow Jones Chief Peter Kann fires back, "Oh yeah. I dated her at the same time, but I won out." [Page Six]
· Greek socialite Taki Theodoracopulos's greeting to familiar faces at Swifty's: "Darling, here I amthe only heterosexual in this joint!" [Liz Smith]
· Elizabeth Taylor's response when asked what she was doing at Liza Minnelli's wedding: "I really have no idea!" [Liz Smith]
· Richard Gere at a fundraiser at Cipriani for fighting AIDS in Africa: "I'm sorry, Sen. [Hillary] Clinton, but your husband did nothing about AIDS for eight years." [NY Daily News]

· Roman Polanski's chances of returning to the U.S. may be jeopardized by A.E. Hotchner's Vanity Fair article, which quotes Lewis Lapham as saying that Polanski was trying to pick up women at Elaine's barely a month after Sharon Tate's murder. [Page Six]
· Al Sharpton, finding himself rows ahead of Senator Joe Lieberman on a flight back from DC, told his entourage, "That's how it's gonna be when the votes are counted." [Page Six]
· Ex-flak Jake Spitz was busted for coke outside Suite 16 yesterday. Owner Noah Tepperberg says he's "shocked" and that Suite 16 has a "zero-tolerance drug policy." [Page Six]
· CNBC reported CNN president Walter Isaacson's resignation six minutes before CNN did. [Page Six]
· A diner at Mr. Chow reports that the fruit flies there are much more attentive than the waiters. [Page Six]
· Bianca Jagger's off to Baghdad and Foreign Affairs Editor James Hoge is overheard saying that First Lady Laura Bush is against war in Iraq. [Page Six]
· Paris Hilton is slated to star in her own reality TV show in which she lives on a farm. [Page Six]
· Webster Hall art curator Baird Jones' paperback, Mark Kostabi and the East Village Scene, includes stories of Andy Warhol handing out his work at parties and being met with "near universal contempt." People who threw away their prints include Diane von Furstenburg, Steve Martin, Paul Simon, Huntington Hartford, Chris Reeve, Boy George, and Michael Douglas. [Cindy Adams]
· Salma Hayek says the best post-Frida fan letter she got was from "Happy Days'" Henry Winkler. [Liz Smith]