St. Louis News Blog

Will the trolls have the last laugh?

​Somehow we knew it would come to this.

An anonymous website called "Kurt Greenbaum is a Pussy" (www.kurtgreenbaumisapussy.com) popped up yesterday with a mission -- it seems -- to destroy the career of Post-Dispatch editor Kurt Greenbaum.   

Greenbaum is the man who infuriated an army of Internet trolls this week when he wrote how he outed a commenter on the newspaper's website. The commenter allegedly wrote the word "pussy" in response to an article on stltoday.com that asked readers to "name the strangest food" they'd ever eaten.

Greenbaum saw that the response came from an IP address belonging to a local school and called the school's headmaster. The commenter was later confronted by the principal and resigned immediately from his job.

The site kurtgreenbaumisapussy.com is registered to Domains By Proxy, an Internet hosting site that allows web creators to hide their identity. Daily RFT has emailed KGP, asking for an interview. We'll let you know what -- if anything -- we hear.

Meanwhile, the website contains Greenbaum's home address and phone number as well as the addresses and phone number of his bosses at the paper and encourages readers to let them know how they feel.

Update 3:22 p.m.: The site no longer lists Greenbaum's home address. Also the site's creator returned my query and said he/she would answer some questions via email. He/she wouldn't talk on the phone and wanted to remain anonymous. Pussy!

I'm awaiting his/her response.

connectmidmissouri.com

Alyssa Bustamante

​By now you've heard the story of Alyssa Bustamante.

The 15-year-old from outside Jefferson City is accused of digging a grave and then strangling and stabbing to death her nine-year-old neighbor because, according to police, Bustamante "wanted to know what it felt like" to kill someone.

Bustamante is clearly a fucked up kid. She suffers depression, routinely cuts herself and tried to commit suicide two years ago. But did you also know that she is "emo"?

What is emo, you ask?

Thankfully we have Channel 5 (KSDK) to explain.
If you missed station's lead story last night on the definition and (possible perils) of the emo lifestyle, you missed some unbelievably earnest -- and unintentionally comedic -- reporting.

Check out the video clip after the jump...

Like so many of our fellow layabouts who have nothing better to do, Unreal has looked on slack-jawed and mesmerized over the past week as Stltoday.com social media editor Kurt Greenbaum underwent a slow-motion self-immolation, beginning last Friday when he outed a poor schmoe at a local educational institution who had the gall to answer an innocent question -- "What's the craziest thing you've ever eaten? And did you like it?" -- with a one-word rejoinder: "Pussy".

twitter.com/kgreenbaum

Kurt Greenbaum

​

twitter.com/kgreenbaum

Kurt Greenbaum

​Stltoday.com editor Kurt Greenbaum yesterday posted a lengthy reflection on why he outed a commenter on the Post-Dispatch website that cost the commenter his job.

The person had twice published the word "pussy" in the comment thread for a story that asked stltoday.com readers to name the strangest thing they'd ever eaten.

After the second posting, Greenbaum saw that the IP address of the commenter was registered to a computer at a local school. Greenbaum then called the school, and the headmaster confronted the guilty employee. The man then resigned on the spot.

In his explanation yesterday, a somewhat contrite Greenbaum admitted that he may have overreacted but did not rule out that he would do the same thing again.

"Have I set some sort of precedent for STLtoday?" writes Greenbaum. "We don't routinely, and would not routinely take the steps I took in this case. For particularly bad cases of abusing our guidelines with vulgarity and obscenity, we would not rule it out."

​Regarding my post yesterday on how Sarah Palin's book tour is avoiding major cities and Democratic strongholds in favor of discount retailers in podunkville...

Yesterday the Springfield News-Leader reported a tidbit that supports my premise. Palin is in fact stopping in Missouri to promote her book Going Rogue.

So where will Palin land? St. Louis? Kansas City? Springfield? Columbia?

Nope. She's visiting Branson.

But even that's not quite right. Palin is visiting a suburb of Branson.

​11.16.2009 4:59 pm
Jury awards $100,000 in RFT photo dispute
By Robert Patrick
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A federal jury in St. Louis on Monday awarded $100,000 to a woman who claimed that nude photos of her torso appeared in a 2006 Riverfront Times article about cosmetic surgery without her permission.

Lawyers for the woman had sought $2.5 to $3 million for compensatory damages alone, but one male juror said the jury awarded only enough to pay something to her lawyers and to allow for her hotel and travel expenses. The woman, identified in court documents only as "Jane Doe," now lives in Georgia.

The juror, who declined to provide his name, said that the jury thought that Doe's lawyers were just trying to "drum up" a case, and there was not enough proof to award more money. He said the cosmetic surgeons seemed remorseful and that jurors thought the office staff and the newspaper were more at fault.

OK, test time! Based upon what you just read, choose the single phrase that most accurately completes the sentence below:

Had a conversation today with Albert Watkins, the attorney for Casey Ray.

Ray, if you'll recall, is the woman who in May found a copy of the script for the Twilight sequel New Moon in a Dumpster outside the Chase Park Plaza hotel in St. Louis.

Watkins says a TMZ.com news item about Ray -- mentioned on this here blog yesterday -- is not true.

Stop the presses! These "journalists" got the story wrong!?

​Earlier this week TMZ reported that Ray was ungrateful with the arrangement Summit Entertainment made with her after she -- on the advice of her attorney Watkins -- returned the script to the film company. Summit, in turn, rewarded Ray with tickets to last night's Hollywood premiere of the film.

According to TMZ, Ray is now complaining about the deal because she had to pay her airfare and hotel accommodations in L.A.

That's wrong, counters Watkins, who says that he, too, was contacted by TMZ. 

​Any of you catch the bizarre story yesterday at stltoday.com where online editor Kurt Greenbaum (whose job it is to monitor online comments to the website) wrote how he outed a commenter?

The incident went down like this: Last Friday Stltoday.com asked readers to tell them about the strangest food they've ever eaten. Within a few minutes a commenter responded with "a single word, a vulgar expression for a part of a woman's anatomy."

One of Greenbaum's colleagues immediately removed the word only for the commenter to once again leave the same lewd remark.

So what did Greenbaum do? In his words:

"I deleted it, but noticed in the WordPress e-mail alert that his comment had come from an IP address at a local school. So I called the school...About six hours later, I heard from the school's headmaster...The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the spot."

Other commenters on Stltoday.com are now having a field day, calling Greenbaum a "Thought Nazi" and suggesting that he be fired for outing the commenter to his employer.

Greenbaum is holding his ground, firing back in the comment thread:
 
"Defend the guy who posted the vulgarity all you want. I'm not regulating someone's thought. He can think whatever he wants. I'm moderating our boards. Follow our guidelines and this won't be a problem for any of you. Remember, I said it was a school, right? It could have been a student. I didn't know who it was. I just thought the school might like to know about it. I sleep fine at night."

Meanwhile, here at Daily RFT we're lying awake wondering that exactly the guy wrote that was so insulting. Greenbaum never divulges that seemingly very important factoid.

So, dear readers, what do you think it was? Continue on to cast your vote in our poll, "Possible Vulgar Expressions for a Part of a Woman's Anatomy."

Last week Unreal revisited our favorite local sex blogger, The Beautiful Kind, a 36-year-old divorced mom who was recently ranked #5 on a fellow sex blogger's list of the 100 best on the Internet.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/recyclethis/ / CC BY 2.0

​Remember your pride, Missourians, when kidnapping child-molestor Michael Devlin made headlines around the globe? And after serial torturer/killer Bob Berdella, you'd thought we had nothing else to contribute. Well get ready. The Show-Me State now presents: The Mohlers!

Defendants are innocent until proven guilty, true. But if the allegations against 77-year-old Burrell E. Mohler, Sr., of Independence, Missouri and four of his sons prove founded, we've got another winner. And the world is watching: news outlets in France, the U.K. and Australia have all picked up the story (not to mention CNN).

Bestiality, rape using various objects, the forcing of an 11-year-old into an abortion and coerced "marriages" to family members are all being alleged by a group of victims that has come forward many years after the fact, according to the Columbia Daily Tribune. They say it all went down on the Mohlers' farm in Bates City, MO.

Weirdest part: the victims say the Mohler boys told them to write down bad memories, slip the pieces of paper into glass jars and bury them so they could forget the horror.

Now, authorities are out at the Bates City farm, digging for the glass jars. And bodies. A sixth man was arrested Thursday. Stay tuned. 

For the last six months, Evan Benn has been editing and writing about topics that go down easy -- like craft beer -- for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

But the new St. Louisan used to cover much meatier subjects, especially during his time spent in Northwestern University's Medill Innocence Project. And because of that Benn now finds himself right at the center of a pretty big news story about reporters' privileges.

The Medill Innocence Project, an investigative journalism program that dispatches students to examine potentially wrongful convictions, has a platinum reputation in the media business. Its work is the main reason that former Illinois governor George Ryan in 2000 ordered a moratorium on the state's death penalty.

But according to the Cook County State's Attorney's office, past Medill students paid people for interviews. Enter Benn. 

www.chicagotribune.com

Evan Benn, center, flanks his former Northwestern professor, David Protess, after a court hearing in Chicago on Tuesday.

​In the course of gathering reporting that could potentially exonerate a Chicago man named Anthony McKinney, Benn and a fellow Northwestern student conducted a key, videotaped interview with a man who said McKinney was innocent of killing a security guard in 1978.

That interview took place just across the river, in Swansea, Illinois, back in 2004. 
 
"I have to say, when we conducted this interview, five years ago, where Tony Drakes confessed his involvement and said Anthony McKinney had nothing to do with it, I thought it would be days or weeks before McKinney walked out of a prison a free man," Benn tells Daily RFT. "Five years later and it's come to this."

bergersbeat.com

Jerry Berger

​Former Post-Dispatch gossip columnist Jerry Berger has been banned from his old place of employment.

Berger -- who retired from the St. Louis daily in 2004 and recently debuted his own online gossip column -- has remained a somewhat regular fixture at the Post-Dispatch over the years, turning up in the newsroom every three or four weeks.

Recently, though, Berger's visits have gotten a bit -- shall we say -- touchy. Late last week the paper sent the erstwhile employee a letter informing him he was forbidden to set foot inside the building at 900 North Tucker Boulevard. The reason?

"After a recent newsroom visit, we received several complaints from staff members about inappropriate behavior directed at them from Jerry," says P-D editor Arnie Robbins. "I love Jerry. We're friends. But we cannot tolerate that type of behavior in the newsroom."

Robbins declines to elaborate on the "inappropriate behavior," but Daily RFT has heard from one Post-Dispatch staffer who says he and several colleagues were the target of Berger's untoward advances.

Let's lighten the mood, shall we?

America's finest news source, The Onion News Network, gets a laugh by making a laid-off Clayton car salesman the main (pogue) character in a video game that simulates modern warfare...


Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

Unreal likes to think we knew her when...

​Gay Wilkinson has been a busy man since he and his anvil shooting hobby were the subject of a feature story in a recent Riverfront Times. Not only has the RFT-produced anvil shooting video in which he starred received more than a million views on YouTube, on Monday Wilkinson was profiled on CBS Evening News' "Assignment America" feature.

The segment, titled "Anvil's Away," was filmed last week in Wilkinson's hometown of Farmington, Missouri. Other than misspelling Wilkinson's name in the text-version of the story, at least one obviously staged moment, and the requisite kitschy jokes, correspondent Steve Hartman and his crew did a solid job of encapsulating all the quirks that make Gay one of the most colorful (and hilarious) interviews any reporter will ever encounter.

Watch the video (embedded after the jump) and be sure to stick around until the end when they toss it back to the studio; the look on Katie Couric's face when Hartman tells her she ought to see an anvil shoot is absolutely priceless.

Akin

​We kid, of course. But Todd Akin, the U.S. Representative from Missouri's 2nd Congressional District (Town and Country), forgot the word "indivisible" from the Pledge of Allegiance today while reciting the oath along with anti-health care reform advocates in Washington.

Perhaps Akin made such a political issue of the fact that "God" is invoked in the pledge that he forgot the all-important next word -- indivisible. As in, united.

Akin said the "Under God" portion of the Pledge -- added in 1954 -- "drives liberals crazy." A twist to the pledge story and perhaps why Akin was, uhh, achin' to recite it today: He's promised to "Protect the Pledge of Allegiance" through legislation. So one figures he knows it well enough to not forget words. But then again, that's a large crowd and nerves have gotten to the best of us.

One of Akin's aides likened the gaffe to a Supreme Court Justice John Roberts' swearing-in of President Barack Obama on January 20, writes Jo Mannies over at the St. Louis Beacon.

It's also worth noting that at least one person in the audience could be heard saying "nice job" after verbal fumble, but Akin, judging from the pregnant pause after he omitted the word, seems to have realized it immediately.

Politics is not a perfect science:



And if you've forgotten the words since grade school, here are the words to the Pledge of Allegiance.

It's election day in communities across America. Here in Missouri, St. Louis County voters -- only 10 percent them, actually -- are expected to to go to the polls to vote on a smoking ban for bars and restaurants.

​Stereotypically, it's been the younger generations who are least likely to vote, and over the years a whole band of celebrities have shot PSA's encouraging these young slackers to head to the polls. (Remember the "Vote or Die" campaign?)

Some of the messages have lasting power. Others, like this Madonna video from 1990, are such outdated relics that their only purpose today is entertainment.

Does Madonna really sing, "Freedom of speech is as good as sex"? Of course she does. She's Madonna. In 1990. Back when she was as sexy as, say, men in white tees and tight jorts.



Here are the exact lyrics:

obgyn.wustl.edu

​We shall let the New York Times' international wanderer-columnist Nicholas D. Kristof open this blog post with a description of obstetric fistula, a truly grotesque condition suffered by women mostly in the global south. Such a woman, writes Kristof,

suffers obstructed labor, has no access to a C-section, and endures internal injuries that leave her incontinent -- steadily trickling urine and sometimes feces through her vagina.

She stinks. She becomes a pariah. She is typically abandoned by her husband and forced to live by herself on the edge of her village. She is scorned, bewildered, humiliated and desolate, often feeling cursed by God.

But "the happiest thing" that could happen to such a woman, according to the column published in the NYT by Kristof on Saturday, is meeting Dr. Lewis Wall from Washington University's School of Medicine.

Wall launched the Worldwide Fistula Fund in 1995 and continues to do all kinds of medical work in Africa. He's also a Rhodes scholar and Fulbright recipient. Frankly, Daily RFT is disappointed that he's not more impressive. Check out Kristof's column here.

This year halloween fell on a weekend / Me and geto boyz are trick-or-treating / Robbing little kids for bags / Till an old man got behind our ass

Yes, like the lines rhymed by Bushwick Bill of the Geto Boys on the 1991 hit, "Mind Playing Tricks On Me," Halloween was on a weekend this year, meaning there were a bevy of nightlife options for anyone who wanted to go out.

Pop culture-inspired outfits and attitudes dominated at many St. Louis Halloween parties last night, and from some vantage points, it appeared that the backlash against slutty Halloween costumes had an effect on attire of female revelers, as nary a sexy nurse, sexy pirate or sexy schoolteacher could be spotted.

We have two slideshows up now, from two downtown parties at Lure nightclub and a few blocks up the street at Flamingo Bowl.

Photo: Egan O'Keefe

Balloon boy. See more photos from Flamingo Bowl.

​

​Our years apart have not dimmed the torch Unreal carries for former Post-Dispatch gossip columnist Jerry Berger. (Now that we think of it, make that "former Post-Dispatch and Globe-Democrat gossip columnist Jerry Berger"!) Yet we realize that not every St. Louisan follows the Bergermeister's journalistic peregrinations as loyally and breathlessly as we do.

So for those who don't regularly check in on JB's newish website, bergersbeat.com, we offer highlights of Berger's most recent dispatch, dated today, October 30.

Jer's lead item, "Pressing On," is a scoop and a half! He reveals that one cost-cutting measure Lee Enterprises is mulling for the Post involves removing the giant bottles of water the company provides via coolers. Even better, Berger writes that "publisher Kevin Mowbray has spent more than $160,000 to outfit his new office on the sixth floor. Costs include $48,500 for his private bathroom, that includes black fixtures. More than $2,000 was paid to install light switches. Then, there is the matter of a plasma, wide-screen television price-tagged at about $3,000."

Sadly, Berger's sensitive nose for news did sniff out one truffle that turns out to be rotten... 

www.thisweekontheinternet.com

​Any writer who's ever had the sweet, sweet assignment of reviewing a movie will tell you that the job ain't as easy as it would seem. It requires a pretty substantial background in film history, technique, and style as well as uncanny ability to gauge what the mainstream audience is expecting when they pay $10 to plop down in a cushy seat with a bucket of popcorn.

Then, even the most balanced criticism can be construed as bitter grousing by an overweight and balding failed screenwriter. It's unfair, even if the stereotype in this instance is often spot-on (and that's coming from someone who just attended a press screening earlier this week.)

All that said, sometimes even the best critic just flat-out f**ks up.

In honor of Halloween, let us examine one of the spectacular misjudgments in the history of movie reviews: The New York Times' scathing take on Ghostbusters, as published in 1984.

This used to be a two daily town. In the morning came the conservative-leaning St. Louis Globe-Democrat. In the afternoon, the liberal-leaning St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

​Then came a joint-operating agreement, in which the two papers agreed to share some costs and expenses. But even that wasn't enough to save the Globe-Democrat. It last put out a paper in 1986 -- October 29, 1986, to be specific.

Now 23 years later (to the date), comes the announcement that the G-D will return as a web-only publication with some old familiar faces -- including the paper's former baseball reporter Rob Rains.

If this sounds at all familiar, see our coverage of last year's launch of the St. Louis Platform Beacon -- an online news site created and staffed with former Post-Dispatch reporters.

The new, new Globe-Democrat will debut December 8 and is being headed by KPLR's (Channel 11) former IT director, Dan Rositano, 39, who was laid off following that station's newsroom merger this year with KTVI (Fox 2).

"The Globe-Democrat is an awesome brand," Rositano tells Daily RFT. "We looked at this as a great opportunity to involve a lot of the talented news people in this region who've been downsized. That's one thing we really take pride in. The ability to create jobs."  

Darin Slyman, a.k.a. D-Sly

​Apparently there was more to the story we reported last month regarding St. Louis' only LGBT newspaper, The Vital Voice.

In September the monthly tabloid published its last issue for 2009. At the time publisher and owner Pam Schneider told Daily RFT the reason was because she needed time to concentrate on a redesign and office move.

Turns out, Schneider left out a key detail: she was also selling the newspaper. Effective yesterday, the new owner of the Vital Voice is Darin Slyman, a.k.a. "D-Sly the Style Guy."

A St. Louis media veteran who has written fashion columns for Riverfront Times, Ladue News, toastedrav.com and Alive Magazine, Slyman joined Vital Voice earlier this year as a style contributor. That gig eventually led to a spot as associate publisher of the paper. Then, two months ago, Slyman says Schneider asked him if he wanted to take the reins.

"She's done a great job building this paper up over the years and felt the time had come to pass it on to a new generation," says Slyman, 36. "My response: Let's do it!"  

Last week here at Daily RFT we took a look at a recent interview St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols gave to a Dominican radio station and, more precisely, explained that Pujols' comments were inaccurately spun by the U.S. press, nationally and locally.

Wikimedia Commons | shgmom56

El Hombre, misunderstood All-Star

The Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac spent some QT in Town & Country earlier this fall, hanging with the Whole Foods buycotters/teapartyers. Bill Hennessy and Gina Loudon, among others, get featured in the final cut:

 

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Whole Foods Boycott
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

​ Today a former Anheuser-Busch executive filed a lawsuit claiming her former employer  discriminated against her based upon her gender.

The suit filed by Francine Katz claims Anheuser-Busch (now AB-InBev) has a "locker room and frat party atmosphere" that works against female employees.

Whoa! Stop the presses! You're saying that a company that came up with an ad like this one (suggesting an act they refer to as "sodomy" down in Texas) is overtly sexist?



Nah! No way. And the ad below is somehow demeaning to women?

Image Via

​Heck, no! Who doesn't like to go home and cover her (or his!) naked body with Budweiser bottle caps!? That's not "frat house" culture and neither are the following Budweiser ads going back decades. In fact, we defy you to find a "frat house" or "locker room" in any of the following images. Go on! Just try!

Todd Smith was the only person wounded in the Kirkwood shootings to survive.

​In case you missed Deb Peterson's schmooze on Todd Smith, the former Suburban Journals reporter who was wounded in the Kirkwood City Hall shooting a year before being laid off by the employer he took a bullet for: Smith has been hired by The State Journal-Register in Springfield, Illinois.

Smith is now an editor and writer for the newspaper's medical website, BeHealthySpringfield.com.

After being shot in the hand by Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton in February 2008 while he covered a public meeting, Smith says he knows a thing or two about medicine and hospitals. "One of the first stories I did was on people who are knitters and who set up a knitting group for people who have brain injures," he tells Daily RFT. "I get the idea of what an injury is like, obviously."

Smith was out of work for nearly five months after the Lee Enterprises-owned Journals canned him during lay-offs this past April.

There are few easier ways to make an ass of yourself in public than by being a college football fan. The face-painting, the (usually off-key) singing, the shouting, the chanting, the marshmallow-throwing, the growling, the grunting, the hooting, the horns-hooking. The only redeeming factor is that when you do all these things, you are usually surrounded by a stadium full of like-minded idiots.

flickr.com/photos/finitefocus

University of Missouri fans. In case you couldn't tell.

​
Now Hershey's has decided to isolate the idiots and get them to post videos on its website to compete for the dubious honor of College Football's Biggest Fan. Every week, we, the public, can vote in the Hershey's Big Fan contest. Then there will be a big face-off and the grand prize winner will get four tickets to the 2010 college football game of their choice, plus a tailgate sponsored by Hershey's. (Quick, which beer goes best with chocolate and comes in a keg?)

In the lead this week appears to be Jumpin' Jerry, a tailgater from the University of Louisville whose special fan-talent is shouting "Yeah!" a lot and spelling out C-A-R-D-S with his arms. (His spelling ain't got nothing on the O-H-I-O arm-waving folks at Ohio State. There's a reason St. Louis Cardinals fans don't spell at Busch Stadium, which Jerry makes abundantly clear: You can't tell what the hell he's supposed to be spelling.)

Clearly, this fool must be stopped.

St. Louis sports radio host Randy Karraker announced yesterday on his show The Fastlane (ESPN 101.1 FM) that he's putting together a group to purchase the St. Louis Rams.

How does Karraker plan to buy a team recently valued at an astronomical $900 million? He's soliciting donations. Whatever you have -- be it "25 cents or $600 million."

We'll let Randy explain...



BTW: Karraker says that if his effort fails to win the Rams, he'll give all the donations made for the purchase of the team to the Special Olympics of Missouri.

That seems like a pretty fitting charity to us, especially given how "special" Karraker's idea is.

media.photobucket.com/image/we suck/emilyandbobby

​At first it seemed like an aberration that St. Louis and the Show-Me State consistently came in last (or first in a bad way) in every national poll, study, and ranking under the sun.

First we topped that dubious "most dangerous city in America" poll. Then we found out we're just the 24th most intelligent city (tied with Chicago!). Hell, pollsters even tell animals they shouldn't live here: the Humane Society called Missouri one of "the five worst states for exotic pets."

Well, three new studies are out and none of them are flattering for our neck of the woods. Unless you consider being one of the cheapest places for old people to retire to as a compliment.

Here are the latest slaps in the face: