Jack Shafer has had it with the weepy emails about how you lost Little Timmy forever to some overdose. He's a busy man. Save it for Cary Tennis. [via Nick Douglas]

Is it awful or wonderful that Slate launched its business website The Big Money the same day three large Wall Street institutions were in various stages of freefall? Characteristically, Slate takes the contrarian view: It's wonderful! Tons of news to cover! They'll "tap into people's... anxiety about the economy!" The joys of financial fearmongering aside, the implosion of financial services does tend to call into question how many more ads the site can sell to the likes of American Express. Also, two words: Portfolio magazine. Editor James Ledbetter (recently of CNNMoney.com) still isn't daunted:

Someone started an aptly-named site called "One Person Trend Stories," which does a pretty fantastic job of skewering the thinly-sourced, heavily-caveated features familiar to readers (and writers!) of pretty much every major newspaper and newsmagazine out there. It's not clear if the anonymous author — J-school student? Disgruntled intern? — intended the site as a parody, or as more straightforward humor. But it's pretty obvious that bloggers everywhere love the site and are linking to it. To be sure, the only example I have is the post you're now reading. Ahem. One of the better posts is after the jump.

Neatly encapsulating the prevailing foodie conventional wisdom, science-fearing New York Times contributor Michael Pollan has famously advised America to "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He also believes we should eat like our ignorant, backward ancestors ("Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food") instead of like modern human beings. But as regular Gawker readers know, heavily-processed, contemporary American fast food has preserved an inordinate number of its inventors and purveyors well past any reasonable life expectancy. This morning's Times brings word of the death of hamburger chain founder Wilber Hardee at the ripe old age of 89. Granted, he was felled by a heart attack. But he joins no fewer than four other fast food pioneers who have kicked the bucket over the past six months at extraordinarily advanced ages: