With all the hoopla that seems eternally to surround WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, one might easily have formed the impression that WikiLeaks is a thriving concern, and that Assange himself is still the world's most powerful and effective champion of press freedom. While it's true that WikiLeaks has accomplished great things, initiating a powerful worldwide movement toward transparency and free speech, a closer look reveals that recent defections have badly crippled the WikiLeaks organization and that the increasingly erratic, mercurial Assange may have shot his bolt. The defectors have moved on and are developing a successor site, OpenLeaks, which seems likely to take up where WikiLeaks left off.

In his striped shirt and conservative suit, Eddie Einbinder doesn't embody the kind of dishevelment that PSAs like to project onto drug users. But as the author of How To Have Fun And Not Die, which won the New York Book Festival's grand prize in 2008, Einbinder is a staunch proponent of drug use— the safe kind, that is. The book's second edition will be released May 1, and in November, Einbinder will debut a related documentary at a Drug Policy Alliance conference. Both the updated book and film incorporate lessons Einbinder culled while observing (and sometimes participating in) the young-adult party scene as he's traveled and lectured [...]

The Awl: So the founding of BabyCakes is actually fairly well-chronicled. You were allergic to wheat and dairy! You borrowed some money and started up a bakery, and you did it on a shoestring, and your finances were really tight. But what doesn't get mentioned in all this is: why! Why did you want to become the cupcake and cookie and muffin gluten-free, dairy-free queen?

Erin: Thank you for not asking the obvious. You are the first on record. The reason I wanted to open a bakery was pretty simple: I wanted to open a place I'd like to go to. I've never been a big partier—going to [...]

Das Racist (America's best rappers? You decide) recently played at Carleton College and of course hijinks ensued: "After their show I walked up to Victor who was being accosted by fangurls and I was like, 'Hey these chicks are weird come hang out with my friends our hotel room is right by yours' and he said, 'Okay' so we went back to our hotel and did a bunch of fun and weird stuff like playing chicken in the pool and watching The Nanny and four-way spooning and jumping on beds." Naturally. And then an interview ensued on the nature of philosophical problems with Das Racist's Victor Vazquez: [...]

Subports is a retail mechanism disguised as fun. They provides vendors with a text "shortcode"—you know, like the way they vote on reality TV shows—that customers who have enrolled their credit cards can use to purchase products via text message. But instead of rolling out in support of big box retail, Subports chose to work with artists, designers and record stores, and build stores (both virtual and pop-up) as sales points. We spoke to Subports honcho Will Robison.

Q. Are there some retail experiments you have in mind but can't yet pull off?

A. I have a list of ideas the size of my leg. We have played [...]

Darrell did not cry when the mortgage crisis killed new home construction, putting him out of work. Instead, he packed up his bags and joined his girlfriend in South Florida, where he found a new job as an in-home salesman, pushing expensive vacuum cleaners and air purifiers to snowbirds and other crazy Floridians. While Darrell is but one of hundreds of such salesman in the South Florida area, we have obscured the city in which he works and changed his name to protect his identity.

The Awl: Every day, you go into peoples’ homes and pitch them really expensive shit. How did you break into the in-home sales industry?

Do you know that when you join the KISS Army they still give you a dog tag? Yes they do.

People still join the KISS Army, all the time. I know that because I receive regular email newsletter updates that tell me all about it. The newsletter came free with the dog tag, which is a pretty sweet deal. I find all sorts of things out in the newsletter, like how Paul Stanley's latest art show went, or when a new episode of Gene Simmons' sadly still functioning reality sitcom "Family Jewels" is screening. Also things like when Gene Simmons is threatening to expose the hackers who [...]

Eyal Weizman is an architect who has worked and taught in Palestine, Tel Aviv and London, where his practice has to deal with both the practical and political meaning of pine trees and olive trees. And also, he has to deal with destruction, as do we all, as he describes in this interview: "There is a category in international humanitarian law called proportionality. It’s a calculation that assumes an economy of violence. Within that economy, the military and the NGOs tend to engage in bargaining. They say, no, that needs to be cheaper. And some people say, no, that needs to be more expensive, right? But they [...]

Here is a much more effective and fun way to donate to the Japan earthquake relief cause than sending a bunch of text messages: a series of upcoming benefits organized by John Zorn. The first has sold out, it looks like (on Sunday March 27 at Columbia's Miller Theater), where Sonic Youth, Yoko Ono, Cibo Matto, Marc Ribot and a bunch more are performing. At that benefit and at least three more to follow, 100% of the money will be going to the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund. For-real charity + free radical music = good deal all around, right? Last night, The Awl emailed back and forth [...]

The Awl: Dan Shanoff! Not long ago, after some scheming, you left a job and started your own company and its first publication, Quickish, which is sports-oriented, and in beta, and provides immediate, quickly done news and views and updates. You plan to expand beyond sports in the future. Dan, why did you do this?

Dan: I have wanted to create my own company since I had my first job, where I was employee No. 1 for a couple of MBA drop-outs that got some seed funding from AOL to start a content site to keep AOL subscribers enthusiastic and engaged to be paying by the hour [...]

"OLDHAM: I love that song 'The World’s Greatest' as well. We perform that song onstage sometimes. We do sort of like a country version of it.

KELLY: Yeah? I would love to hear that. You know, I took the Queen Mary to Europe once because I didn’t want to get on a plane . . .

OLDHAM: Because planes make you nervous?" —Have you read Will "Bonnie Prince Billy" Oldham interviewing R. Kelly in the new Interview magazine yet? If not, definitely do. It is an amazing and wonderful conversation about music and theater and boats and Africa and people and love and pain and talent and celebrity [...]