While Rupert Murdoch might not care what kind of disgusting vulgarity his papers are promoting on this side of the pond, it’s a different story altogether across the Atlantic, where NewsCorp’s Sun is claiming credit for the discontinuation of the dreaded “paedo bikini.” The outfit-which includes a low-cut haltertop and padding to indicate where breasts will someday grow-was pulled by discount retailer Primark after understandable outrage and revulsion at the blatant sexualization of children. “A padded bikini for seven-year-olds is too much at too young an age,” said one expert. “No wonder girls are confused about their bodies and self image.” This is too sadly true. Also today in the Sun, you can see Chloe from Leeds, age 22, totally topless.

I have never, ever seen this television program called “Glee,” because I don’t watch any program set in a high school. (I had to not really watch “Vampire Diaries” for a couple episodes when recently we were reminded that these 27-year-olds were actually supposed to be high school students!) But apparently “Glee”-related stuff went sort of off the rails last night? According to brave TV watcher Halle Kiefer, things got a little weird and rapey: “Sue Sylvester is obviously the best part of the show. Schuester is a whiner, Rachel be crazy, the football player is like, ‘I am very old to be playing a high school student!’ Sue gets the best lines and we love her because she is just so, so hilarious, the pitch-perfect quality of which lets us mitigate the fact that she is perpetually trying to destroy everyone else. And now she is a rapist. A rapist who not only drugged and took advantage of a coworker, but is now currently BLACKMAILING HIM OVER IT. LOLZ! Uh oh, how did this puke get everywhere? It’s in my eyes! O WAIT, NO, THAT’S JUST GLEE.” And to think that everyone at Columbia sat in front of the Jumbotron and watched it together.

Col Allan and his friends at the New York Post despise America and also human life, as evidenced by the comments on this story about the mysterious death of a New Yorker, who was class of ’05 at NYU. Why Rupert Murdoch would want to host this kind of vulgarity on the Internet, which could easily be prevented with about $38,000 a year in the form of a comments moderator staff position, is pretty unfathomable, particularly when the paper considers itself a moral crusader. I mean, even the Gawker comments are sort of respectful and empathetic! What a world.

by Erica Sackin

A woman is onstage, dressed as Dolly Parton, leading the audience in a group yodel. Everyone sings and stomps, seated in the haphazard arrangement of chairs and tables scattered through the jumbled room. Records line the walls; antiques, lamps, toys and antique serving dishes that invented to gather dust in your packrat grandmother’s basement clutter all available counter space. Christmas lights and dolls hang from the ceiling. Piles of books and records overwhelm the entrance.

This is the Bushwick Book Club, held at the Bushwick venue/coffee shop/bar/junk store Goodbye Blue Monday. To get there, take the J all the way to the Kosciuszko Street stop. Walk down past the plumbing supply company, car washes, vacant lots and shuttered store space. Walk until you think you’re lost, or that you must have gone in the wrong direction. If it’s late at night, you’ll be convinced you’re about to be mugged. Just when you’ve given up hope, you’ll see it: an eclectic jumble of lights, flyers and graffiti marking the entrance to Goodbye Blue Monday. Go inside.

Once there you’ll find a group of aspiring and professional songwriters and musicians who gather once a month for the Bushwick Book Club. Susan Hwang, the musician who started the Club about a year and a half ago, assigns a new book for each meeting-some classics (Cat’s Cradle, James and the Giant Peach, the Bible), some books that she’s just wanted to read (Miranda July’s No One Belongs Here More than You, A Confederacy of Dunces). Then participants read the book and write and perform an original song about it.

“You read books in a closer way than if you’re just reading them,” said Franz Nicolay, a musician, former member of the band Hold Steady and participant in the Book Club since the beginning. “You’re looking at all the characters, not just the main characters. You don’t want to just tell the main story of the book.”

“Every artist wants an assignment, and a deadline,” said Deenah Vollmer, an MFA student and another frequent performer. “The book clubs are fun because it’s fun to read books at the same time as friends. And you always want new ideas to keep writing.”

Susan came up with the idea for the Bushwick Book Club after participating in a horror-themed cabaret that required her to write songs about zombies. She says that was her first experience writing about narrative, and she liked it. Since she was doing a residency at Goodbye Blue Monday at the time, she took the idea of doing a book club to the café’s owner, Steve Trimboli. He said sure.

“I love it, because Steve will let you do that kind of thing,” says Susan. “If you have an idea, he will let you grow it, which is so rare in this city. We’re so concerned about our image as soon as we walk out the door.”

“You can’t let talent grow if it never gets a platform,” says Steve. “I’ve seen kids book here, and they could be atrocious, the first time they play. But if they have fun, they’ll come back and keep going. I’ve watched Susan grow up and I’ve seen that with so many other performers here. This has become their development.”

And the musicians are growing up-the Bushwick Book Club just put out a CD of 58 of their best songs. They also recently just held their first Hip Hop Book club, which was a resounding success.

“Something about being forced to write about something that you didn’t choose brings out the best in most artists,” said Lilly Jane, the musician who performed the acoustic yodel/stomp about Dolly Parton for her song about Dolly Parton’s biography. “You’re taken out of yourself and it usually brings out amazing things.”

Of course, the performances range from fantastic to, well, not. Performers take lots of chances-often dressing up and trying new instruments or formats. And since all songs being performed must be original, there’s always the chance that they’ll bomb with the crowd.

“When they read the Miranda July book,” said Carly Hauser, who was in the audience during the Cat’s Cradle book club, “this one guy went up there started singing about fucking Miranda July from behind. And like, and how’s that adding to anything? But that was just one guy. Normally it’s good shit.”

Yet, as Susan pointed out, even if you hate the songs, they don’t go on for more than a few minutes. And even though she never hears the songs before they’re performed, she’s been pleasantly surprised by them. “Although,” she said, “it’s been consistent, so guess I at some point I should stop being surprised.”

The Book Club plans on continuing to meet will continue to meet, and continue to offer musicians a free form venue to try out new work. Next up on their list is “GREEN PORNO” by Isabella Rossellini.

“I book everybody who contacts me,” Steve said. “There’s no judgment, there’s no agenda, I only hope that people bring some friends to a show. And sometimes it doesn’t happen, but that doesn’t matter, because if someone does something astounding, I can say that I was here for that.”

Previously: Williamsburg Fashion Weekend

Erica Sackin writes and lives in Brooklyn. She was once a contestant in the Ms. G Train competition, but lost. ‘The Spandex Report’ covers the lives of the youngs.

In other important studies today: “A comprehensive review of House re-election websites by the University of Minnesota’s Smart Politics blog found that GOP incumbents are 36 percent more likely to incorporate Old Glory into the banner of their page, with nearly half of all House Republicans positioning the Stars and Stripes as the main image on their website. Just a third of their Democratic counterparts prominently place the flag as a backdrop, according to a survey of 368 campaign websites.” The reasons for the discrepancy between the two major parties is not made clear, but if I had to guess it’s probably because Republicans love America more.

I’ve never been a big fan of the sex offender laws, mostly because, God, do they ever always end badly. Now we have proponents of Chelsea’s Law, in California, which is hard, on the face of it, not to get totally behind? “The bill notably includes a ‘one strike’ provision that would allow prosecutors to pursue a life sentence without parole for forcible sex crimes against a minor when there are aggravating circumstances such as torture and kidnapping.” I mean, you put “torture” and “minor” “forcible sex crimes” in there and it’s pretty much like, WELL, OKAY. Except I’m pretty sure those are all pretty heavily-punished crimes already? And… wait, why do I want to pay for a sex offender’s hot lunch into forever with my sad little tax dollars again? Come on. We all know the Bible has found a way to deal with this. Town Square. See you at dawn.

BLINDING JEALOUSY ALERT: A study by a couple of psych professors out of Delaware found that “women who were made to feel jealous were so distracted by unpleasant emotional images they became unable to spot targets they were trying to find.” So far the research has only been performed with women as its subject, which probably makes sense, because, you know, women are nuts with the jealousy.

“With all due respect to truckers, cargo pilots and other professional haulers, transporting goods across vast distances is looking more and more like a waste of our species’ time, opposable thumbs and easily bored brains.” Popular Mechanics says unmanned aerial vehicles like the Snowgoose Bravo, made by the Canadian company Mmist, should be deployed right away to carry our stuff for us. (You know the guys in Mmist’s AV department were pissed when they couldn’t get the rights to “Lunatic Fringe” for that video, right?) But, really, wouldn’t we just use our opposable thumbs and easily bored brains to tie the robot helicopters to our penises? Also reported in PM: the fact that the Department of Defense has mandated that a third of all military vehicles be autonomous by 2015 and the opinion that, “That’s not soon enough.” I say, that’s probably far too soon, and definitely terrifying!

You should definitely go to Glenn Beck’s website to vote for the faggiest of his potential book covers. (You’ll know it when you see it.)

Don’t worry, ladies! “The Bird Detective,” a forthcoming collection of research on bird lovin’, explains that birds all around us are perpetually trading up, ditching their husbands and babies and looking for hotter birds with whom to spread sushi on their taut, aging bodies. So it’s not capitalism, or the paradox of choice, or plain old postmodern inertia and ennui that makes modern dating and romancing a nightmare of fickle sluttiness and Carrie Bradshawism, it turns out. Animals are just like that. Embrace it! Birds are skanks and so are you!