"Even though I left the magazine 5 years ago, I always thought of it as "my baby" since I created the original concept on my bedroom floor with markers, a glue stick and lots of tubes of lipstick around me (to create the "Girl" in the CosmoGIRL! logo). Until Friday, it felt like my baby was still out there being taken care of by another wonderful family. It felt weird but the way things needed to be. Now that baby is gone....and replaced in my life by this new real life CosmoGIRL! - Angelika.

...My mom was right. If you work hard now, you CAN have everything later. I worked my TAIL off for about 15 years and today I have just the life I always dreamed of and my new baby girl completes that picture. I didn't get here by accident - I designed this life and set the foundation with years of hard work. Yet I'm still pretty young - young enough to ENJOY the fruits of my labor."

This is the type of earnestness we have come to expect from the 36-year-old 'Toos. Unfortunately it is not as endearing as babies or alpha kitties.

[via Atoosa's AlphaKitty MySpace]

"Whatever! You're an animal, goodbye," the 'Toos trills at husband Ari after he says he thinks charging for celeb babypix is a perfectly OK practice. "I promise you we are not that hard up for cash!" she tells the camera.

[Huffington Post]

Consistency is the hobgoblin of Atoosa's small mind, however: "Chic boxes would be a great add-on to their wonderful offerings," she later says of Amazon.com's packaging. That didn't stop her from buying her husband a Kindle, however. One Kindle has been sold!

But the holiday season isn't just about buying friends and family completely useless luxuries wrapped in gaudy packaging from sites with some sort of "green component." "Drumroll please. ... The U.N. Refugee Agency is where I did 90% of my 'shopping.' As an immigrant, I realize how lucky I am to be in the United States and to be writing a column about 'luxury online shopping.' Giving this as my main gift is a way of showing my gratitude." Showing and showing and showing, yes.

Atoosa watched the film 'Million Dollar Baby,' "At the end, Hilary Swank is on resuscitators and asking them to unplug her. She was like, I don't need to live anymore. Everything I wanted to accomplish, I've already accomplished," Atoosa says. "And I sort of felt like that. All my energy had been going toward work and not my home life. It just wasn't fun anymore."

Soon after that, her husband (whom she'd met at party in 1995) had a really lucrative day at work. "He said to me, 'You know, you don't have to do this.' Because I was so unhappy at my job." That clinched it for her.

Another: guess what, the 'Toos was not fired from or forced out of her role as Seventeen editor in chief!

"I think there was this perception that nobody leaves that kind of job... And for me I left because I realized that I was stepping farther and farther away from the journey that was meaningful to me." You know, just in case you weren't paying attention any of the other twelve million times she's said that.

Anyway, viral videos on the Interweb are the future! The 'Toos thinks that advertisers will queue up to go alongside her YouTube musings on fame, inspired by Andy Warhol, or her thoughts on fashion trends. And, well, why wouldn't they want to be a part of the 'Toos's brand! For instance, this video about how she is obsessed with drag queens because all of the real girls whose style we've been "totally worshipping" are "self-destructing!" Enter the drag queen: "The right one's gonna come along and we're all gonna totally fall in love with her." She is so witty and self-deprecating.

The first incidence of the term "Alpha Kitty" we could find appeared in a 2000 article in the Cleveland Scene about Judas Priest singer Rob Halford's sexual orientation. Mentioned in passing was an upcoming show at the Beachland Ballroom where the bands "Lesbianmaker, Satan's Satellites, King Nixon, and Alpha Kitty" were to perform.

Hmm. No insight there.

The next usage of the phrase occurred in Life magazine in a 2005 review of a touring production of 'Little Women: The Musical.' "Jo (Kate Fisher) is the alpha kitty of the four Civil War-era sisters." Ah, like an "alpha dog," but female. Ok.

Atoosa's own first use of the phrase can be found in Jon Fine's BusinessWeek article from February 5th of this year, 'Say Hello To The Alpha Kitty." In it, we were introduced to the concept of Atoosa's "tribe": "This tribe is 13 to 30, female, thoroughly digital, and, in Rubenstein's view, lacking an 'alpha kitty' addressing their concerns and sensibility." This was also the article where she discussed launching "Psychic Kitty." a series of videos featuring her cat Thurston "spouting, in Rubenstein's electronically processed voice, brief inspirational tidbits."

Yikes.

Not everyone seems to have agreed with Jon Fine that Atoosa's ideas were "so bent as to be half-brilliant," and in her next assessment of what it means to be an AK, she was more measured. "Alpha kitties are girls that are powerful, but they're also fun, and they want to be cute, and they don't feel like in order to be powerful you have to be super serious," she told FishbowlNY at the Sassy book party.

For the real scoop on what it means to be an AK, though, we eventually had to turn to Atoosa's always enlightening MySpace blog.

I'm an Alpha Kitty: brave, intuitive, fierce, passionate and...well, yes, weird. Weird is the new normal, haven't you heard? After all, who wants to be cookie-cutter, anyway? B-O-R-I-N-G. "Le freak c'ést chic" is our motto in the world of Alpha Kitty. We are a celebration of being different...of being individuals...of self expression. To that point, we love fashion—but Alpha Kitties don't wear muzzles. (Not even when they're made of diamonds—that's so 20th century, dahling.) Alpha Kitties must be heard.

New York-based video production intern (Art Student preferred) needed for web project with Big Momma Productions. Project involves sourcing images and creating/prepping collages for animation.

Applicant must be detail-oriented and very proficient in Photoshop with some experience in After Effects. We are looking for a great illustrator with a unique, fierce, fun artistic style. Your role will be very hands on. The content is art, style, & pop-culture oriented.

Duration:

Month of August - looking for someone with the right qualifications asap.

Salary:

Stipend

Contact Info:

Message Bec Stupak at myspace.com/becstupak and put "Internship" in the subject line. I love you dahling, but please don't message me re: the internship. Bec is the best person to answer your questions as you will be working most directly with her.

Can you believe Lindsay has gotten in trouble again? Let me know your take on it.
Here's my take:
When you are in recovery for ANY addiction, you have to get yourself AWAY from all the things that triggered you. You can't just wear an alcohol monitor on your ankle and keep going out with your party friends.
Even with me - I realized I was a work addict and that even though I'd left my job, by being in NYC, I was still being triggered by all the same things that made me workaholic. That's why I've decided to spend the summer in the Hamptons.

The hiring of Sitrick proved that the Hiltons are taking this latest crisis involving Paris very seriously indeed. It's a problem that clearly could not be managed by Paris's longtime spokesman, Elliot Mintz, who is "more of a PR footman," snipes one entertainment journalist. (He was also not long ago off the job for a while, if the tabloids can be believed.) "It's not like Mintz really has a strategy or anything." Others expressed surprise that Sitrick was taking on Hilton as a client: "He usually works with people like Ron Burkle, not Paris Hilton," said one magazine journalist.

So just who is Mike Sitrick, whose fees are reportedly up to $700 per hour? And why did the Hiltons turn to him? Well, he's a PR pit bull, and even Howard Rubinstein gives him respect—though he seems to regard him warily. He's a master of spin (he wrote a well-regarded PR book in 1998, Spin: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage). And he's known as someone who will stop at nothing to turn public opinion in his clients' favor.

Sitrick's Los Angeles-based "strategic communications" firm Sitrick & Company are known in the business and entertainment communities as the place to turn in the face of a potentially huge public relations disaster. Billionaire businessman Burkle is indeed a longtime client of his—Sitrick orchestrated the sting of Jared Paul Stern last year, then defended Burkle in the press when the whole thing threatened to blow up in his face—but his client list is staggeringly wide-ranging. He currently represents fired Wal-Mart marketer Julie Roehm. Atoosa Rubenstein hired him in October 2006 when items about departing staffers at Seventeen started appearing in Page Six. He represented Naomi Campbell when she was accused of assaulting her former housekeeper. He was retained by the law firm that represented the Archdiocese of Los Angeles when it was embroiled in the pedophile priest scandal. He helped Halle Berry when she was accused of a hit-and-run, and he was retained by Rush Limbaugh during his prescription pill addiction scandal. He's also represented people whose interests seem to be at odds; Ron Burkle sued former Disney chief Michael Ovitz over Internet ventures they were both involved in, but Sitrick reps both of them (and managed to get sympathetic coverage for both of them in the heat of the Anthony Pellicano scandal). Another longtime client of Sitrick's is Roy Disney, who, of course, has been at odds with Ovitz for several years.

His methods are aggressive and strategic. He uses what he calls "truth squads" to monitor the media (including blogs) to ferret out inaccuracies about his clients and "wheel-of-pain" tactics against his client's foes—a campaign of negative publicity intended to spur a quick settlement. Of course, to be effective, Sitrick employs a veritable public relations army. He's known for luring well-connected former journalists (presumably for a massive raise). Two of his more high-profile hires in the last couple years were Wall Street Journal reporter John Lippman, who wrote a weekly Hollywood column and had covered the TV business for the paper, and Los Angeles Times senior editor Mark Saylor. He's also fond of hiring corporate executives and lawyers.

So it's perhaps no surprise that the Hiltons hired Sitrick—Paris could certainly use some PR help. But the mere act of hiring Sitrick sends a strong signal that the Hiltons are spooked by the way Paris's sentencing and jail term were woefully mismanaged from a PR standpoint. The family lost control of the story in a major way, and the only way to start to try to fix it is with a big gun. Already it seems to be working—Hilton will go on Larry King Wednesday night after her release, and, so they say, won't be paid for her appearance—which seems to have given her just the tiniest bit of legitimacy back.

[Image via]

I probably should be embarrassed to say this, but most news is delivered in the most boring way possible!! I look at the New York Times and as smart as their reporting is, it's just so wordy. I zone out before I can dig in. I know it's not because I'm not stupid - I just think this generation (from my age and younger) just consumes information DIFFERENTLY and the newspapers and news programs are still being made for my parent's generation.

Why Don't We Care About The News? [ToosSpace]

Last night one of our Alpha Kitty sisters messaged me saying she wants to launch a television network (with a specific angle) and asked me to put her in touch with any television execs I know who can turn her dream into reality. My advice to her was probably not what she expected: I told her to research, intern and learn so she can blaze her own unique path with her own unique footsteps. I would not be introducing her to any television execs.

The answer takes us on another trek down memory lane, not to high school on Long Island this time (odd!) but to the early days of CosmoGIRL!, when then-Glamour editor Glenda Bailey was a bitch to the 'Toos. Apparently, Atoosa had asked Glenda to give up a Glamour trade secret and Glenda was just like "no."

She recalls: "At first? I nearly cried (major lump in my throat). I was so embarrassed. Then? I was really angry. I thought it was so mean of her— after all, I was just a kid and it's not like my magazine was competitive to hers. But today? I realize she did me a favor." Lesson learned: if you want to get all the way to where the 'Toos is now, you'll just have to figure out your own way there. —Emily

You're An Alpha Kitty, Figure It Out [ToosSpace]

Perhaps the 'Toos missed the long piece in this week's New Yorker about how Coelho has managed to spin his knack for writing what one scholar calls "yuppie esoteric narrative" into such massive sales. Or maybe she didn't miss it at all, and she's subtly rebutting it! There are unplumbed depths to the 'Toos, we just know it. Either way, she's probably psyched for Coelho's upcoming novel, which is about a witch who was ahead of her times and was misunderstood by the world. There are Alpha Kitties wherever you look these days. —Emily

This week, she's shared her "media diet" with them. She also has some recommendations as to how various media outlets might improve themselves. Here's her hot tip for a local rag called The New York Times. "I wish they'd borrow a page from The Huffington Post (a dietary recommendation from one of my 20-year-old friends on MySpace) and create a sugary version with more color and less words. Dear New York Times, once you hook us with your great reporting, we addicts will dig deeper and read those long articles (and get informed, for goodness' sake). But you've got to hook us first."

(Choire is the cat.) Ahem. Anyway, Atoosa also reads—but disdains!—a gossip site that's full of "snarky, entertaining and yes, hateful, takes on the day's top media stories." It's okay for you to read it, you grown-up Forbes-reading fat cat—"You've already arrived, baby." But Atoosa often tells "young people who have very high aspirations for themselves not to read it, because the addiction can distract from their ascent." Hear that, kitties? STEP AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW. —Emily

Hot Daily Media Diets [Forbes]

• We love it when People Photoshops out those Us Weekly backgrounds behind Lindsay Lohan!
  
• Atoosa Rubenstein at the Sassy party: "Alpha kitties are girls that are powerful, but they're also fun, and they want to be cute, and they don't feel like in order to be powerful you have to be super serious." [Mediabistro]
  
• The Assimilated Negro interviews Lauren Williams, editor of the new Jossip blog for and/or about the black people, and asks for her "credentials as a black person." [The Assimilated Negro]
  
• Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's new fashion line, The Row, features $360 leggings and $1700 cashmere tuxedo jackets. Boho chic, why have you forsaken us? [Fashionologie]

Emily: Well first tell me what you thought of the book! As you know, I loved it.
Doree: I loved it too. All the behind-the-scenes stuff was great. They were pretty frank about Jane Pratt, I thought, without seeming catty.
Emily: I was talking to Kara about that! I hazarded a guess that they'd gotten much of their info from Christina Kelly. And she said that actually, they got much more of their info from Jane!
So, oh my god, Christina Kelly.
Doree: Christina Kelly. She's like our generation's older sister.
Emily: Exactly, like that Juliana Hatfield song, sort of! Actually that reminds me of the sobering conclusion I drew from last night. That all the people involved in Sassy are old now!
Doree: Yeah. When i was 12 and Jane Pratt was 24 she seemed super old! Or... wait. I was 10 and she was 24?
Emily: I guess when Jane was 24 I was...
Doree: SIX? FIVE? Oh man.
Emily: Um, five. Yeah. Anyway I think I freaked Christina Kelly out by being a crazed fan at first.
Doree: I think she must get that a lot.
Emily: Totally, I'm sure everyone was coming up to her and saying "I just have to tell you that you changed my life." Thing is, though? I can't think of anyone else I'd ever say that to!
Doree: Ha! Kim Gordon.
Emily: Kathleen Hanna.
Doree: Anyway! Can we discuss Atoosa?
Emily: YES! ATOOSA SPOKE TO YOU!
Doree: I know. I have been blessed.
Emily: What were her exact words?
Doree: "Is this the line for the bathroom?"
Emily: And was it?
Doree: No! She was like, "Oh thank goodness!" and ran in.
Emily: What an illuminating conversation.
Doree: She reminds me of that Lily Tomlin character. The little girl in the big chair.
Emily: Whoa! That is so dead on. I actually had to ask her to move when I was fishing my umbrella out of the pile by the door as I was leaving! I did not say, "Hi Atoosa, I'm sorry about being a part of the negative media. We kid because we love. Can you move so I can grab my umbrella?" But I SO should have.
Doree: I did not see her talking to Christina Kelly.
Emily: Thing is, she's very intimidating! I think being 7 feet tall is part of it.
Doree: But she was wearing a little girl dress! It's like she's playing dress up! Whenever she speaks in public she likes to tell the story of how she finally got to intern at Sassy.
Emily: And the way she tells it is a little different than the Sassy book has it, right?
Doree:The Sassy book says she applied for a million jobs there and they finally let her be an intern. She also tells some story about running into them in the bathroom and having toilet paper stuck to her? Or something like that. Remember in the book how they said that Sassy became this refuge for freaks, but only the right kind of freaks? Atoosa was not the right kind of freak. I can't really see her with Nirvana posters in her bedroom
Emily: Yeah, Atoosa has been open about the lack of Nirvana posters in her bedroom, right?
Doree:It's like, she was rejected by the popular cheerleaders and the popular outcasts.
Emily: Her preferred narrative is "I was a teen dork, and not the cool kind."
Doree: She was a dork in all the wrong ways. And it seems like the cool girls still think she's a big dork.
Emily: Well, as you know, I felt a little bit like a high school outcast at that party. (Let's bring it all back to me!) Because, as you say, the cool girls were in effect.
Doree: It was a little much of cool media girl overload. It seemed like people were sitting in cliques and talking shit about everyone else there.
Emily: Which was the coolest?
Doree:The T girls were very cool.
Emily: What other media outlets were represented? Jane obvs
Doree: Lola Ogunnaike was there, as was Alex "not a girl" Williams. There was the curly-haired Penthouse editor. It was funny to watch people kiss Atoosa's ass! Sorry, I keep bringing it back to Atoosa.
Emily: It kind of is all about Atoosa! Let's figure out why. I think she represents a very specific type of Sassy reader. Like, the title of the book is How Sassy Changed My Life. For some of us, Sassy changed our lives by introducing us to zines and bands and making it clear that there were other girls like us out there in the world somewhere.
For others of us, Sassy was just about about how cool it could be to work at a magazine. So all those girls grew up and now they work at a magazine. And maybe it's not what they'd envisioned, because nothing could ever be that awesome again for a variety of reasons, including the internet? So the party is like a reunion, but it's also sort of a wake for peoples' lost dreams. No wonder everyone seemed to be in a bitchy mood!
Doree: Yeah. i was actually thinking, again, because I think about this a lot, how different my high school experience would've been with the internet. And Sassy was the perfect pre-internet magazine. And maybe that is what Atoosa is trying to do—recreate Sassy online. But it's not going to work! Heh.
Emily: It's not. But why isn't it?
Doree:There's something off about her sensibility
Emily: Exactly. And it's sad, because recreating a Sassylike thing online is actually a GREAT idea. (An idea that every woman in that room last night has probably spent some time seriously contemplating, I'd wager.)
Doree:Oh totally. Can we discuss Jane Pratt more fully?
Emily: Anytime!
Doree: I felt like she was this specter.
Emily: She's a symbol of so many things. And the biggest revelation of the book, for me, was the confirmation what I'd heard for years—that her knack was for being a figurehead, and for putting wheels in motion—not so much for day-to-day running a magazine.
Doree: Right.
Emily: She's also a symbol of being very successful very young, and what a double-edged sword that can be. I think maybe that is one of the reasons why there's so much schadenfreude directed her way.
Doree: Right. 24! I still can't get over that.
Emily: All these women (totally projecting, BTW!) grew up thinking, "I want to be the editor in chief of a national magazine when I'm 24!"
Doree:YES, exactly. And that it was something possible.
Emily: It's comforting to know that early success is sometimes less desirable than, you know... success when you're ready for it, I guess?
Doree: Yes. That. Also Karen Catchpole was TWENTY?
Emily: College = WAY overrated.
Doree: Did we forget anything? Oh the 90s music was a nice touch.
Emily: I loved the DJ! Pixies, Breeders. It made me want to have a 90s theme party. Ew, gross.
Doree: Oh, the only thing I wish the book had was PHOTOS. Why no photos? Or cover scans?
Emily: Faber & Faber. I mean, it's a book with a tight budget, it's for a niche audience.
Doree: Yeah yeah. Still! I would've loved some photos of the office.
Emily: I'm just glad it got published! I remember the editorial meeting when it was out on submission. Someone said, "Who would buy this book?" And I was like, "UM ME I WOULD BUY TWENTY."
Doree: Haha, seriously. But I think it will do OK.
Emily: Especially after I buy twenty! I'm a woman of my word.

Earlier: How Christina Kelly Changed Jane Pratt's Life

" I will never forget this one time when I pulled my group of friends together in the hall and I was like, "Ummm...have you seen Wendy's HAIR?? She looks like an ugly skunk!" And well...you guessed it. Wendy was in the group of girls - I just didn't notice until it was too late. Uh, yeah - negative AND stupid." Stay with her here! Cling to the sides of the kayak! "I realized that when I was at Seventeen, I sold hate in a different way. I sold self-hate. You know the coverlines I mean, too: "Get perfect legs" that sort of thing. Plenty of magazines continue to do it because as you all said last week: Hate Sells."

WHOA! TOOS OVERBOARD! SOUND THE ALARM! Oh, wait. Okay, things seem to be calming down. Paddle for the shore! "PS On a MUCH lighter note: The other day, I went to the Gap for the first time in YEARS and I actually got the cutest stuff! Have you seen the new designer collection that hit their stores this week? I wore one of my new shirts to a party for the New York Observer on Thursday night (pictured) and no one believed it was from The Gap. Score!" Ah, safe again in the shallows. Don't scare us like that again, 'Toos! —emily

TOO MUCH INFORMATION! [Atoosa's Space]

Europe Is Shrinking

My thoughts and prayers are with all the victim's families, the survivors, the students and faculty of Virginia Tech. My friend Billy once wrote a song that had this line: "I don't know gone without goodbye." That rings so true in this situation - all the family and friends who lost someone without being able to say "I love you" one last time. I hope we can find the light in all this darkness, so we can gather together and create something good out of so much bad.

Before this binge, for instance, I almost never turned on the computer during daytime except in times of major horniness. As it happened, on the day I first received a call about this job, it was about 4 p.m. when I put down the phone, fired up the laptop and headed over to Gawker. I was not yet equipped with an RSS reader, so for the next several hours I dipped in and out while I went about other business. My strongest reaction that first afternoon was, "Who are these people and why are they shouting at me?"

It was mid-March. The first shouting I read came on a post about Anna Nicole Smith. The post was so emphatic that a reader said, "Well, I guess there's no need to do the paternity test. Let's just declare Stern the father." This is analysis, I thought, and remembered a favorite saying of the day that had once been posted on the newsstand where I buy fetish magazines: "It doesn't have to be hard and veiny to still be a dick."

Next up was a post from Doree Shafrir. Shafrir wasn't exactly yelling at me, but the porn stand quote came to mind again. My reading was interrupted by a phone call (the fucking escort canceled again), and when I returned to the living room, two more heads were hollering. It was Balk and Emily Gould mixing it up about Dana Vachon. Back and forth they argued, with increasing vehemence and loathing. It was incredibly pointless, and only amused the sales team at Riverhead, who were no doubt thrilled for the publicity.

I was close to concluding that my sensibility was too far removed from that of Gawker for me to represent its audience, but I hung in there, as I had been asked to do, and kept reading. I learned more than a thing or two from analysts and editors like Choire Sicha, whose New Yorker piece was, until yesterday's madness about Portfolio, the longest thing ever to be posted to Gawker. I got several good laughs a day, most days, from the photo captions. When I wanted my gossip straight up, I could go, most days, to the Gossip Roundup.

Still, that first impression has remained. In the past two months, I have read a lot of yelling, from some but not all of the editors—that Joshua David Stein is unfailingly demure when away from the bowling lanes—from some but not all of the commenters, and always from Balk. The yelling editors sound manic. The yelling commenters sound angry. None of the yellers sounds to me as if he is reacting authentically to something he cares about. Asked to confirm this impression, Balk admitted that it was indeed the case. "Two months on this job and you learn not to care about anything, particularly self-respect."

Maybe the vast majority of Gawker's readers enjoy this ramped-up, in-your-face, I'm-the-show approach to New York media and gossip. Maybe it is not my business as an ombudsman to object to the hollering just because it doesn't suit me. I hope your responses to this column will let me know how far off or close to the mark I am about this, and I will take note, especially about hollered highlights, because after all, it does no serious harm. Neither does hollering about "what dead Playboy centerfold you'd stick it to."

There is harm, though, when the loud, cocksure approach is applied to certain off-the-blog issues. Take Danniellynn's disputed paternity. In mid-March, when they were burying the pill-popping model, a tip suggested that Smith's daughter's father was actually Smith's son. Lab tests would be conducted within a few days' time, but suspending judgment till the evidence is in does not suit the formats of Gawker blogs, which require judgment to be passed on 54 or more topics a day. The bloggers need material, so Danniellynn's incestuous origin was rushed straight to judgment within hours of the first sketchy e-mail.

The child was not only presumed to be the product of the most sickening potential coupling in 2007, she was immediately declared to be so. The editors hedged their bet by calling the rumor "ridiculous" but quickly added that the source seemed credible. I suspect most readers quickly forgot the "ridiculous."

When lab tests named Larry Birkhead the father last week, I did not hear any apologies. It is, in my opinion, Anna Nicole Smith's misfortune to have become a running Gawker story line (also that whole dying thing), which too often means a designated caricature who—like Atoosa Rubenstein or Dave Zinczenko or the socialite of the day—is considered open game for character assassination. I am as skeptical as anyone about what Zinczenko has to say about his oral sex skills but I still cringe every time I see his name next to the words "subpar oral sex provider." Mostly because of the image it puts in my head.

It's not fair or realistic to ask on-Internet opinionators to be as informed or measured in their off-the-cuff responses to breaking news, often indistinguishable from breaking rumor, as a magazine writer can be on his longer leash. But I think it is fair to ask a greater degree of humility and suspended judgment than is often seen on Gawker. And I think it is fair to ask Managing Editor Choire Sicha to encourage less ill-informed vehemence. "Good idea," responded Sicha via e-mail. "Also, go fuck yourself! Fuck yourself hard! Have a great day!"

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Besides, my subjective impression is that the over-the-top shouted certainty of opinion has toned down a bit since I began my binge-reading in mid-March. Maybe the lead-up to a celebrity paternity test is the peak of the yelling season. Or maybe I have just gotten used to it. I hope not.

One reassuring sign: After the Duke lacrosse rape case unraveled, the editors did not say anything about it except to mock one of the young men whose life has been by both an overzealous prosecutor and a media rush to judgment. They did mock him, however, on a real-estate related matter. They seemed to realize that one can viciously malign a victim without shouting.

As I gather first impressions, I needed that lesson, too. But that's a subject for another column. —Byron "Dan" Worthington III

Byron "Dan" Worthington III is Gawker's ombudsman and a noted crank with a lot of free time on his hands. He will write a sporadic column responding to the reader complaints that the editors usually send right to the trash file. This is his first column, which is to say, probably his fifth. He can be reached at tips@gawker.com. Please use the word "Ombudsman" in the subject line or the e-mail will probably be deleted by anxious editors before he can read it.

Related: Too much shouting obscures the message [ESPN]
Previously: Spit It The Hell Out Already