Julia Allison, the editor at large for a magazine called Star, has issued a bold treatise in support of the work of Rachel Sklar, the Huffington Post media critic. "Rachel calls out the media on their hypocrisy in a FAIR way, which, it might be noted, is a quality many journalists today sadly lack," Allison writes. "They seem to think that in order to be critical, they have to be bitchy/snarky/cruel or—on the other extreme—they don't analyze critically at all, instead choosing to come down predictably (lazily!) with a hackneyed throw-away blurb and maybe an ad-hom attack, just to spice things up. It's nice to see a writer really THINKING about the issues about which she writes. You can tell she's a lawyer by training."

From the mailbag, about the big News Corp. party on the 14th: "Omg you would not believe the news corp holiday party invite. it's in the form of a comic book about how 'we saved the planet. (*not yet but let's party like we did.') My favorite nauseating bit: 'When it comes to climate change it's important to remember the 3 Rs: Relax!! Rejoice!! Rock!!' Whew—i feel so much better about my planet's future now that NEWSCORP is on it! Also we're asked to wear something blue in honor of COOL CHANGE, the party's theme. And all the rooms at the hilton have appropriately dubbed monikers for the party (my favorite being the escalators, now renamed 'The Winds of Change' that will blow you to the appropriate part of the venue). Good god." It goes without saying that you must send us images of this invitation NOW.

There's this kid named Sean Aiken who is doing a different job every week for a year, Times workplace ponderer Lisa Belkin writes. "In the spirit of his generation — the one that brought us extreme sports, and made a mini celebrity out of a blogger who traded a paper clip for a house, and a mega celebrity out of a socialite who went on reality TV to move from job to job in 'The Simple Life' — Mr. Aiken has begun a most unusual search." Digest that for a moment, millennials: you are responsible for not only Paris Hilton and One Red Paperclip, but also extreme sports. Also, when it comes to the future of your employment, you are as fucked as a base-jumper without a chute.

Today, Amazon told the world about Kindle, a "wireless portable reading device with instant access to more than 90,000 books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers." We're guessing it's called "Kindle" because soon all books will have to be burned, as we will no longer know how to interface with them without our wireless readers!

Lee Gomes's "Portals" column in the Wall Street Journal usually addresses the question concerning technology with a boomer-friendly sort of phenomenology—as in, "gee whiz, look at this phenomenon!"—and little else. Today's edition seems at first no exception: Gomes has discovered a YouTube "bulging" with all sorts of talentless novelty acts—actually mostly just one sort: pasty white guy incongruously singing and/or dancing—that become famous, in a way. But Gomes interviews some of them, and finds them remarkably attuned to the limits and liminality of "being the latest, greatest Web meme... [mere] human kitsch." We learn, then, that the struggle for First Life self-actualization still demands the imprimatur of Man. And what kind of Man?"Mr. [Adam "Chocolate Rain"] Bahner is hoping his appearances on the likes of 'Jimmy Kimmel' will turbo charge a career in show business and voiceover."

Good news for books! John Grisham's "Playing For Pizza"—the story of a washed-up American quarterback whose trip to Italy to play for the Parma Panthers leads to hijinx—is no longer #1 on the Times hardcover bestseller list. Bad news for books: "Playing for Pizza" is now at #3, bumped by a new Patricia Cornwell novel with "dead" in the title and a "paranormal romance" called "A Lick [hmm!] Of Frost." More distressingly, "The Orc King"—the story of a dark elf named Drizzt Do'Urden—is all the way down to #17. Of course, the list "is not a completely accurate barometer of what the reading public is buying," so phew.

The staph superbug currently terrorizing an already hospital-phobic America—Methicillin-resistant staph infection, which killed a 12-year-old Brooklyn boy earlier this month—has struck a male student who lives in an N.Y.U. residence hall, according to a memo sent by an N.Y.U. health administrator this morning. The student was hospitalized this week and has since been discharged.

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Previously: Kreepieween.

One of our new favorite blogs, Ephemerist, notes that "Guns & Ammo, 'the nation's leading gun and ammunition magazine,' also has a blog"! And it's amazing! It makes me want to shoot people right now! [Fully Loaded]

Great news, everybody! TMZ TV, the most erudite and thoughtful of your celebrity news options on the idiot box, is a hit! "It was the top-rated new show in syndication by a wide margin, delivering a 1.7 household rating, or about two million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research." [NYT]

Back in July, DJ Samantha Ronson filed a defamation suit against folks who said she'd placed coke in Lindsay Lohan's car. (For those just tuning in, Lindsay Lohan is a rising young starlet and a staple of wholesome Disney films.) Blogger Perez ("Mario Lavandeira") Hilton's posting said that Ronson "planted drugs that were found in Lohan's car after it crashed into a tree in Beverly Hills on May 26, and that she set up her friend to be photographed while under the influence of alcohol," according to AP. For a defamation claim, she must prove somehow that he acted with malice. Says Perez's attorney: "If Ms. Ronson is attempting to get some sort of relief in court and to show that Mario Lavandeira had any malice, I think she's going to a hardware store for milk. It's just not going to happen." Where did they find this guy? Ms. Ronson also stated that she has never "handled" cocaine.

A unified front of left-leaning ice-friendly countries, led by Russia and including Canada and Denmark, has begun to emerge from the once-frosty north. So far, they're just demanding the immediate return of all the ice they lost this summer. (This year, "six Californias" of open water appeared in the Arctic.) But what no one has asked is: Why do these fringey countries like ice so much? Is it because they have nothing else? Unfortunately, now that Canada's dollar is oddly similar to an actual dollar and a donut at any one of the 2,733 Canada-based Tim Horton's costs like four actual dollars, we must listen to their distress. But they are misguided! God's great plan for His world has at last granted Canada a Northwest Passage! Freed from this sad dependence on ice and misery, Canadian sea shipping lane dominance will turn Toronto into the new Tokyo, and Montreal into the new Seoul! Though Regina will still suck pretty bad.

Reality TV just got a whole lot more realer! Chris Crocker, stalwart defender of Britney Spears and all-around role model for fame-hungry teens everywhere, might have just hit the big time!

Note to set-crashers: "Gossip Girl," according to no parking signs, is shooting off Madison Square Park tomorrow, circa E. 25th Street or so, so you can go see the shallow for yourself. The T.V. show, which debuts next week and is about private school hissy fits between power-hungry bitches and date rapists and Upper East Side youngster alcohol consumption and a tawdry New York semi-blog, is getting a ton of advance, including in today's Times, even though it's on CW, one of those channels we don't really associate with a number. I've seen the pilot. It gives me that terrible trashy super-eww end times feeling. This means that it will be an incredible success.

Last night saw the debut of "TMZ" in its televised form, and we're kind of astounded. It's actually really good in a "death of Western culture" kind of way: crass, snappy, humorous, knowing, smirking, and sarcastic. Their turnaround time is impressive, and the little graphical flourishes they toss in make a good case that this is the new standard in omnibus trash television. It's just a day old, so it might be too early to judge, but today we're going to spend some time figuring out why it works so well. Anyway, here's how they covered the Tommy Lee and Kid Rock fracas at the MTV Video Music Awards.

From the e-desk of noted socialolgay Kristian Laliberte comes a missive with an opening that gave us pause:

Julius, the worst and most amazing craphole bar in New York City, a place of such filth that one was reluctant to touch even a bottle of beer, was seized by the Department of Taxation and Finance earlier this week. Where will the roaches, the infirmgays and the wasted teen hookers go now? But at last West 10th Street is safe for Sarah Jessica Parker's nanny and her ilk.

From the mailbag: "Not sure if you've heard yet but the Hilton on 6th and 53rd is spewing bubbles from the roof. I work nearby and we are assured it isn't dangerous, but the result of a massive window washing effort. The pic might not be of too high quality (camera phones all suck) but the view out my window is pure craziness."

New York got the total lunar eclipse this morning at 4:51 a.m., not long before moonset. If you're a hippie who believes in astrology, you can use it to excuse or explain anything bad, weird or confusing that has happened to you or the world recently. Handy! Right, Owen Wilson? (Or, if you're a crazed Pentecostal, you'll note that the blood-red moon presages"the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.") [AP, photo: Juddejah]

The Times' Lede blog notes that today's news has been especially depressing: hundreds dead from an earthquake in Peru, 500 dead from a truck bombing in Iraq, thousands homeless after floods in North Korea, flooding in Texas, a hurricane forming in the Atlantic, Wall Street is tanking, and those miners in Utah probably aren't getting rescued. Yay, reality! The comments are particularly hilarious. [NYT/The Lede]