"Prepare your Emmys haterade now, because nothing can kill an awards show's buzz faster than..."

"... a Don Cheadle self-congratulatory tribute to how well television covered the Kennedy assassination, followed by a Carrie Underwood tribute to the Beatles' performance on the Ed Sullivan Show having been fifty years ago (next year)."

#13 is not like the other photos that won the Red Bull Illume Photo Contest 2013.

The photographer's explanation of his photograph:

I was in Barcelona for a week shooting the local BMX scene. Barcelona is definitely one of the most interesting BMX Meccas in the world, with many street spots where you can ride all day. After a hard day of searching for different spots, I shot this picture where an old man was angry with one of the local riders (Nil Soler), thinking that what he was doing was a bad thing for the city. He doesn't understand it's only BMX! After this mishap, which is usual in Barcelona lately, we continued our search for new images, new spots and new sensations.

From the comments:

The man in #13 is of course right. All this stunting should be limited to locations not in nature and not on other people's property including public space and infrastructure.

And despite the prettiness of some photos all this Red Bull crazy acting stuff is dangerous and people die in attempts to please Red Bull in commisioned shoots. So don't give away your photos for a tray of Red Bull or for nothing but a name quote. Nobody reads these but yourself.

Yeah, look at photo #3 and think of Mario Richard. Or — what the hell? — continue your search for new images, new spots, and new sensations.

"We were OK with Miley wearing a one-piece with a bear sticking its tongue out on it."

"We were OK with Miley sticking her face all up in that ladies big butt. However, when she ripped off her clothes to grind all up on Beetlejuice Robin Thicke, that was the twerk that broke the camel's back."

From NY Magazine's selections of the highs and lows of last night's VMA show. I watched the segment described above. It made me feel bad. But they were trying so hard to make people (admittedly, not me) feel good. Like they were bursting with barely containable sexual energy. Like they were. The most entertaining parts were the occasional shots of sad-looking men in the audience who seemed to be averting their eyes.

"American singer Bob Dylan has been decorated by France's Légion d'honneur..."

"... a spokesman for the historic French order said Monday, a move that raised hackles among some of the French elite."

The Légion honors foreign luminaries by granting them honorary titles within the order. They aren't considered full members of the order, which includes the likes of 19th-century French writer Alexis de Tocqueville....

The Légion was founded by Napoleon Bonaparte as a civil and military order that was open to members of society outside European nobility....

***

Well, Shakespeare, he’s in the alley
With his pointed shoes and his bells
Speaking to some French girl
Who says she knows me well...

I feel bad about all the winners of the Big Ten's Suzy Favor Athlete of the Year Award.

If your name has been pasted on others as an honor, you have a special responsibility not to besmirch it. I feel sorry for the winners of that award, but otherwise, I wasn't in the mood to add to the exposure of "Three-time Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton [who] says she coped with depression and a troubled marriage by turning to a life of prostitution."

One of the country's best-ever middle-distance runners, Favor Hamilton competed for the U.S. at the Olympics in 1992, 1996 and 2000 but did not win a medal. She won seven U.S. national titles. She lives in Madison, Wis., where... she and her husband, Mark, live in a $600,000 home and appear to be in no financial distress....

Favor Hamilton told the website that only her husband was aware of her escort work, but that, "He tried, he tried to get me to stop. He wasn't supportive of this at all."

Favor Hamilton has been attempting to tweet her way back into respectability, working the mental health angle, saying she had "reasons for doing this made sense to me at the time and were very much related to depression" and that she was "drawn to escorting in large part because it provided many coping mechanisms for me when I was going through a very challenging time with my marriage and my life."

This is the standard approach famous people use to explain sexual misbehavior when they get caught. But here's a person who worked for an escort service that scheduled $600 an hour dates for her in as well as in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago. It's a business venture that seems organized and deliberate, not some sad symptom of mental illness. Too bad she can't own it.

Golden Globe nominations.

If you care: here.