How stupid are magazines? So stupid that the writers of the pieces for those magazines now tend to take to Twitter to denounce the packaging, headlining and illustration. (The illustration—Michael Vick whiteface—ESPN promptly removed; you can see it here.)

In any event, if you read the actual ESPN piece by Touré, you learn that Michael Vick couldn't possibly be white but also is "heroic," because of how he's acted in his post-dog-fighting life. I... guess? I dunno? Elsewhere in ESPN the magazine's Vick package, you can read about how we love dogs too much but are too mean to animals and how we don't have a moral leg to stand on criticizing anyone because of our contradictions of eating versus petting: "We don't have to witness the stomach-turning horrors inside a farm factory in order to get chicken nuggets for lunch"! (This is not written by Jonathan Safran Foer, but ESPN definitely is starting to read like Cosmopolitan at this point.) Also, somewhere Oprah is cringing sympathetically: enjoy your food libel lawsuit, ESPN.

First they came for the hip hop websites, when Homeland Security seized the servers of popular websites OnSmash and RapGodfathers, due to "copyright" claims. But though that was a huge deal, the WHITE MEDIA couldn't sustain much interest or outrage. Now the government has come for the white people Internet, so attention will be paid! Last night, the FBI raided a data center that included hosting for Curbed, Eater and Instapaper, all of which cater to the iPhone and garlic scapes set, allegedly and supposedly in an attempt to grab info on some servers used by LulzSec, the "computer hacker group" who recently messed with PBS and Sony Playstation. READ MORE

In the wake of the devastation of last week's weather—178 tornadoes in two days! Hundreds dead, many missing—states from Tennessee to Alabama to Texas are beset with looters, we hear. Seven in Ohio! Three in St. Louis! Two in North Carolina! Maybe 20 all told in Alabama! Literally, perhaps three dozens of people have been arrested for looting in the past week. READ MORE

Man, I wish the Lionsgate movie about that one GQ article about some white dude named Devin who tries to make black friends that's been picked up by Oprah and Chris Rock and the people behind Tyler Perry movies was slated to be made not by the rightest, most correctest people ever but by regular white people. Not just any white people but British white people because sometimes even the most otherwise politically correct English dudes says things like "Nigerians make fantastic parking attendants" at normal speaking volume instead of whispering it like American white people do. It would be SOOOOOOOOOO uncomfortablefunny.

Last week's terribly important discussion of the US junkfood industry's consistently laughable attempts at strawberry flavorings resulted in one or two name drops of Glico's Pocky in the comments section by people up on their game. Pocky, for those who don't know, is a really thin, long biscuit stick far spindlier in diameter than a Grissini (those prepackaged breadsticks) but not dissimilar in texture/pallor and dipped in chocolate. READ MORE

I've been in a weird mood since waking; my mind is cycling frantically through thoughts on mortality, tragedy, and the futility of all that we do in the face of the overwhelming brutality of existence. I'm tempted to blame the weather, because it's pretty obvious that the last thing I need is any further self-reflection. Still, it's hard to read a sentence like this READ MORE