Star Reunites With Father At Thurgood [Snark Break]

"An audience member reports Fishburne, who has been estranged from his parents for 15 years, was overcome when he saw his father in the crowd and began to weep as he introduced his dad to the playgoers." [Page Six]

Anderson Cooper Praises Sex With Lots Of Troops [Wtf]

Anderson Cooper has staked out a position on media personalities having sex with vast numbers of overseas soldiers: Staunchly in favor! On air, the CNN anchor always seems to be saying or asking a little more than good sense would dictate, and then getting all blushy about it, and the same thing seems to have happened in Cooper's interview with Outside magazine. Here's how Cooper answered the innocent question "Do Americans have an exaggerated sense of danger about the Third World?":

Oh, yeah. But Americans have an exaggerated sense of danger about New York City.

I'm also not a good person to ask, because my sense of what's dangerous is completely warped. People have stopped asking me for advice, because I encourage people to go anywhere. It really pissed me off, two summers ago, during the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, when Depeche Mode canceled their concert in Tel Aviv. For security reasons!

I don't understand why more artists don't go and entertain the troops. I mean, hasn't Jessica Simpson been over there? I saw this documentary on Marlene Dietrich, and during World War II she was going out, right to the front lines. I think she was having sex with a lot of the troops, too. I'm not saying artists should do that. But she took supporting the troops to a level that few have since.

[Soup Cans]

Harry Potter Author Sorry She Made Muggle Cry [J.k. Rowling]

"'I never ever once wanted to stop Mr. Vander Ark from doing his own guide — never ever,' she said as she took the stand for the second time in the three-day trial, as the last rebuttal witness. 'Do your book, but please, change it so it does not take as much of my work.'" [Times]

In Prison, Reading Vogue And Harper's Bazaar Kind Of Makes You Everyone's Bitch [Creative Underclass]

Derek Khan is living the high life now in Dubai, having put his past as a jewelry-pinching celebrity stylist behind him. He has recaptured some of his past glory, now appearing as a "commentator and makeover specialist" on satellite TV and in magazines like OK! Middle East. But in between Khan's come-up and his comeback, between 2003 and 2005, he did time at Rikers Island and two upstate prisons. None of his famous clients visited him in jail, so Khan kept tabs on them by reading fashion magazines. You can guess how that went over in the clink:

Mr. Khan continued to follow their careers in the pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and his reading selections — along with the awareness of his formerly pampered lifestyle — made him a target of other prisoners and also guards.

“I was given the worst things to do, like scrubbing the toilets,” he said, “even though I was capable of helping G.E.D. students.”

Khan was deported to Trinidad at the end of his stint, with $10 to his name. An old friend eventually ran into him and ended up giving him $20,000 to get to Dubai. Now he "has been accepted into the society of wealthy expatriates and Saudi royalty" and is even designing his own jewelry line.

Dubai, Khan told the Times, is "a new Australia." Paging Margaret Seltzer...

[Times]

Why This Logo May Have Been In Your Face This Morning [Branding]

Thomson Reuters is expected to plaster its logo all over New York, London and Toronto subway stations today, along with the New York Stock Exchange building and Times Square. Why? Because the company, formerly Thomson, is very excited that it just completed its takeover of Reuters and wants the whole world to care. Also, the company thinks promoting its brand will sell a few more subscriptions to its databases, like Westlaw. and help the company surpass in size its competitor Bloomberg. Let the ridiculously expensive pissing match begin! [Times]

This iPiano Will Change Your Life [The Internets]

The new Yamaha Disklavier Mark IV is the first piano with an internet connection. It costs $42,000, plays virtually any song on its own and can function as a karaoke machine or an alarm clock. It also has a remote control, for some reason. That all might sound over the top, even ridiculous, but among old billionaire media moguls, this exotic combination of the ancient and the cutting edge will probably be even hotter than the iPhone. (That's a hint, Elisabeth Murdoch.) [Times]

Worst Vogue Cover... Since The Last One [Photoshop Of Horrors]

The new Vogue is like an attack ad against Adobe Photoshop. You can practically hear the ominous attack-ad music in the background as you gaze upon Gwyneth Paltrow's detached head, hovering "a full foot in front of her neck" on the cover. So far, more than 10,000 votes in a GoFugYourself.com poll support the notion that Paltrow "looks like an alien" in the shot. The photo has of course been named an official Photoshop Disaster. Vogue may have pulled off the neat trick of making as much of a mess of its front in May as it did in April. It certainly took some heat off Marie Claire, which up until now had been this month's poster child for ASME airbrushing guidelines with this strange cover involving the TV producer and actress Tina Fey:

[Photoshop Disasters, Go Fug Yourself, Stylefrizz]

Google Earth More Urbane, Badass [Things We Actually Like]

Google updated its Google Earth application to make everything look a lot more real and so you can basically be Spider-Man. The upgrade includes very real looking 3D buildings, a street-level view, shadows and all kinds of new controls to fly around the city with. I fumbled around New York a bit and edited the best bits into a movie after the jump. It includes the Times building, Hearst tower, Starbucks and America's Next Top Model.