Okay, so Savage Love is - maybe, possibly - coming to TV!

Dan Savage, the syndicated sex columnist and editorial director of the Seattle alt weekly The Stranger, yesterday wrote on the paper's news and arts blog that he has been in Los Angeles all month working on a "non-airing presentation pilot" for HBO that would basically bring his advice column to the screen. The screen!

Read More "If You Love “Savage Love,” You’ll Love “Savage Love” on TV!" »

Good morning, City Desk readers, and welcome to an especially morose edition of Freedom Friday. The Bulletin in Philadelphia, the first real paper I wrote for, has closed. It was an odd place, what with the publisher's preference for syndicating only the brightest intellectual stars of conservatism: "Chuck Norris, Oliver North and Patrick J. Buchanan." And this after they launched a nice new website! I went looking for Dan McQuade's opinion on this (a former Bulletin employee who hated the place so much he took a job at Philadelphia Weekly in part so that he could bash write media criticism about his old employer). Turns out he's not blogging at PW anymore, but I did manage to track down his twitter reaction.

Obama's Top 10 apologies, P.J. O'Rourke, some nice things about David Carradine, after the jump.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: The Bulletin Bites the Dust" »

Head on over to the Sexist, dear readers, for a delicious Five Minutes (bordering six) You'll Never Get Back, during which Amanda Hess and Yours Truly talk about gay marriage, election-inspired Craigslist hook ups, and gender bias. Also: Intern Bobby asks Democrats how they'll make peace with the lose--er, Republicans (Hint: it ain't happenin'.)

For the past five years, Ellie Sachse of Cleveland Park has been collecting Halloween candy for D.C.'s sex workers. Last year, her neighbors donated some 80 pounds of the stuff, which was then handed off from vans owned and operated by HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive).

The drive is on again this year and Sachse invites dropoffs at her home on Newark Street (for the specific address, log onto the Cleveland Park Listserv). She writes in a post: "These people are often hungry and cannot otherwise get food while they are working. While they enjoy the candy they have access to important advice on health and other services available for them. HIPS' aim is to reduce harm not only to their clients, but to the community."

In a phone interview, Sachse says she got involved through her daughter, who worked for HIPS through the Americorps program. Ellie Sachse then served on the board.

The candy drive continues, in part, "because I know when I had kids I'd give my eye teeth to get the candy out of the house....I don't want that to end up on my hips, either."

She acknowledges candy isn't the most nutritious food item to give to a busy sex worker. But it's something, it's energy, she says, and prostitutes often have to grab and go; many are not allowed to have a meal while working.

"I'm sure if they had piles of fruit, they'd give that out...but this time of year, there's a lot going on. There's a lot of candy," she says.

(photo by JJ & Special K)

A white, law-abiding Capitol Hill resident discovers an angry black man pissing in the metro station and argues (among other things) that the "man does not deserve to walk among the rest of us law abiding citizens who only want to improve Capital Hill and make it a better place."

Read More "Where’s a Man Supposed to Piss?" »

Head over to The Sexist for episode 2 of City Paper's new sex & politics podcast, "Five Minutes You'll Never Get Back," in which we discuss the merits of Joe the Plumber and death by Facebook.

Who am I kidding?

When I clicked through the link in the press release from Integrity Toys (the name of which reminds me of Tim and Eric's Dadaist Cinco brand) I saw that the new Katy Perry doll had sold out, and that fans of miniaturized, bi-curious pop stars will have to add their names to a waiting list (the Integrity Toys Katy Perry GPS Anklet hasn't sold quite as well).

I'm debating putting my name on the waiting list for the doll, if only so that I can walk around in a few weeks mumble-singing "I kissed a doll and I liked it."

Won't somebody think of the children??

Actually, fuck that. Won't everybody please STOP thinking of the children? For just once? At least regarding something as traumatizing as...seriously? Movie ads?

To wit, the latest outrage over Kevin Smith's upcoming film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. First, Weinstein Co. decided to use stick figures on the posters because Joe the Prude thought photos of stars Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogen (!) were too racy. Now the title itself has gotta go:

Rina Cutler, Philadelphia deputy mayor for transportation, said the stick-figure posters were cute and clever but unacceptable for bus shelters where schoolchildren would see the word "porno."

"If they want to call the movie `Zack and Miri,' that's fine, but Zack and Miri cannot make a porno on my bus shelters," Cutler said.

Now, I'm no child-welfare expert. But I suspect those kids Ms. Cutler is so concerned about protecting might not suffer as much psychological damage from asking Mommy and Daddy what “porno” means than from more popular bus-stop distractions such as Crack While U Wait or Mr. Homeless's Magic Wang.

Plus, Zack and Miri is funny as hell, so it's all the more unfortunate that Smith has to take a hit because the sex hysterics of America are freaking out over a word. (Jersey Girl, though, that was a title to be feared.)

This newspaper won't be among the censors. And for an extra dash of offense, here's the red-band trailer.

The American workplace’s storied glass ceiling is in pretty bad shape. Female workers are on the fast track to conquering the upper echelons of all sectors of industry, including the nation’s highest office. But what about that unsung other half of our nation’s workforce: men? In 2008, what workplaces may truly call themselves manly?

In order to find D.C.'s remaining manly strongholds, The Sexist is pleased to announce D.C.'s Manliest Workplace Competition! Beginning next week, The Sexist will run 64 D.C. workplaces in eight industries through a highly unsophisticated algorithm to assess each organization’s manliness. In order to determine manliness, the Sexist will take the top 10 positions in each organization, ascertain which positions are staffed by men, then assign a point value to each male staffer. A man in the highest-ranking position (i.e., president, CEO, publisher) will earn 10 points; one in the 10th-most-powerful spot will receive one point. The manliest workplace—one that employs all men, all the time, in the most powerful and well-paid positions—can score as high as 55 on the Manly Index. The least manly workplace—one that employs no men, none of the time, in any position—will receive a zero.*

Read More "Man Madness: Introducing the Manliest Workplace in D.C. Tournament" »

Dear Readers (and Ernest),

In an effort to bring City Paper customers more, more, more, [more quality journalism!] despite our dwindling resources (and mounting depression), Amanda Hess and Yours Truly bring you "Five Minutes You'll Never Get Back," in which the two of us (and Intern Bobby) talk politics and sex, sex, sex! Please make your way over to The Sexist blog for a look/listen (and catch it again next Tuesday!)

Feel free to hate on it or love it in the comments section (as if any of you were waiting for permission). We're even open to ideas on how we can make it better. We will disregard blatantly cruel or stupid comments, unless we decide to incorporate them into an untitled section where we hate on people for being blatantly stupid and cruel.

*Originally titled "Four Minutes You'll Never Get Back," but Hess and I could not stop talking. (Psst, that's how you know it's good!)

This item only made it into the Washington Times' briefs. The short story had these details: Colin Hatch, a 23-year-old Capitol Heights church deacon gets sentenced to 14 years in prison for sexually assaulting a DC prostitute at gunpoint.

Pretty bad. Here's what they left out: Hatch was two weeks from taking a new job as a Baltimore City Police Officer. And his method of assault was particularly horrific.

According to a sentencing memorandum released by the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office, Hatch picked up his victim one night last November, near the intersection of 10th and K Streets NW. She got in his car, they agreed on a price ($100, for sex) and drove somewhere more private. The victim told police Hatch seemed like a nice guy at first. But when she climbed into the back seat, he turned mean. He pulled out a gun and demanded oral sex. From the memorandum:

"Once he became erect, the defendant forced [the victim] to engage in vaginal sex. During the course of the sexual assault, the defendant lost his erection and forced [the victim] to perform oral sex on him a second time so that he could regain his erection."

Amazingly, he allowed the young woman to escape once he had finished. She immediately called the cell phone of a police officer she knew, with no answer. She called another prostitute to put out a warning. Then a friend picked her up in his car and together they trailed Hatch, who continued to cruise the area for another 15 minutes at least. All the while, the victim was trying to reach police, who finally stopped Hatch an hour and a half after the assault. Asked if he had a gun, Hatch copped to a .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun in his glove box. He didn't have a permit to transport the gun. He said he'd meant to go to the firing range, but went to two malls, Applebee's and a friends house to play video games instead. He said the gun had slipped his mind.

At 2 a.m. he decided to go clubbing with friends in DC. Problem was, all the clubs were closing. Then, Hatch told police, the victim flagged him down as he drove by. He didn't realize she was a prostitute. He didn't deny they had sex, or that a payment was eventually discussed. That might have been hard given the presence of DNA evidence.

Hatch wans"t worried about how his arrest might impact his life, at least not his role as a deacon at church. In a telephone conversation recorded from his jail cell, he told a friend: "It wasn't like I was playing around in the church ... this is something that happened on my own personal time that I just got in trouble for."

Hatch hadn't yet completed the background examination for his job offer from the Baltimore police. I wonder how they test for selective morality.

Last week in this space, I confessed my inability to dump AOL email despite the many technical difficulties I've had with the service. I've since gotten calls from public relations and technical staffers from AOL, who say they're on the case.

But for now, as with the last several months, I'm still unable to sign on to AOL's homepage because of some software glitch, and, on the advice of AOL troubleshooting forums, have to go through the AOL-India Web site to check my email.

It's a hassle, but a funny one. Because through my visits to AOL-India I've learned so much about Indians. All I can say is "Oh, Calcutta?"

Turns out the nation of more than 1.1 billion people is more sex-obsessed than us Yanks.

Well, in the eyes of AOL-India's editors, anyway.

So, in the interest of sharing my anthropological awakening, here's the featured news AOL-India put on its front page this weekend. :

Findings of a behavioral study are revealed in "Why People Have Sex: It Feels Good!"

New technology is outlined in "Move Over, Internet Age, the Spray-On Condom Era Has Begun!"

Researchers offer domestic advice in "How Not to Suck in Bed!"

Anatomical issues are mulled in "Ashkay Kumar's Butt Looks Good in Levi's!

And, um, "Nine Die as Orissa Gets Flooded."

I have some separation issues. I still have sneakers from high school and a ballcap from Little League. But the worst evidence of my sickness is my AOL e-mail address. It's the first and still only e-mail address I've ever used.

Which would be OK if AOL e-mail weren't such an awful product.

Everybody around me has abandoned their AOL accounts by now. As friends have moved on to Gmail or Yahoo or whatever over the years, they've cited the constant trouble sending or receiving music and graphics or any sort of large files, and the fact that sent e-mails end up in people's spam folders as likely as an inbox, because AOL has such a lousy record of policing such things.

All problems I've encountered. And still do.

Yet I've held on.

But, I'm at the end of my "@aol.com" rope. I can't even check my AOL e-mail anymore without big problems. Since mid-summer, when I try to sign on to aol.com using a Firefox browser, most times I'll get an error message saying "The content you've requested is temporarily unavailable."

I Googled and learned that I'm not alone. The easiest solution I found, other than getting rid of AOL once and for all, was: "Sign on through AOL-India."

So for months I've been using the AOL-India homepage every day. It's been enlightening. I always thought the Indians were a conservative bunch, punishing folks for public displays of affection and the like. But the India I read about on AOL-India is even trashier and more sex obsessed than the U.S. It's all barely clad women, all the time.

The news headlines are hilarious. The front page of AOL-India last night juxtaposed "Blasts Tear Up Delhi" with "Most Intriguing Innerwear." The featured stories included "Priyanka Burns the Ramp Yet Again!" "Sleep Tight for Good Sex...So They Say!" "Why People Like Sex," and "Binge Drinking and Sex."

In other words, I really gotta get rid of my AOL account.

And, you know, move to India.

Editor & Publisher reported yesterday on the end of Leonard Downie's tenure as Washington Post editor, mentioning that he'll start dedicating his energies to writing books. He already has one novel in the can---The Rules of the Game, to be published by Knopf in January---which he says is "not about The Washington Post."

Reading Knopf's description of the book on Amazon, it's hard to see how he'll pull it off without a few Postie stand-ins. And back in April, as the video below shows, he told Nathan's owner Carol Joynt that the book came "largely from my own experience." In the interview, he also discusses the responses he got from his agent and editor after filing his first draft of sex scenes. That's at about 1:30 (via):

Last Friday, D.C.-based blog The New Gay posted this documentation of a recent Adams Morgan hate crime. The post, penned by film/theater outfit Crack co-founder Chris Farris, includes graphic photos of the victims of a severe beating that occurred on a recent Saturday evening close to the 18th Street strip. Writes Farris:

My friend, Todd, was recently walking back from a Saturday night at the bars with two other friends when they were jumped and savagely beaten by six guys. The victims were gay. They did not provoke. . . . My friend was beaten so badly that he has little recollection beyond the first punch, and he did not wake up until many hours later in the hospital. He has relied on witnesses to tell him how brutal the beating was and the fact that the word “fags” repeatedly flew from the mouths of the attackers.

After recounting attack, Farris launches into a critique of MPD's response to the beating:

Read More "How Blogs Can Help Reduce Hate Crimes" »