Has the entire nation gone insane? By the looks of some politically-inspired Halloween displays, we'd say yes.

First, we had John McCain-supporter Melissa Neese, a Georgia woman whose All Hallow's Eve spectacle featured the "shadow of death" standing behind Barack Obama. Then, after inspiring "surprising" outrage, Ms. Neese replaced the macabre character with another figure the right finds frightening: Hillary Clinton.

Now we find ourselves in Odessa, New York, where a man named Ron Havens erected this set-up: a KKK-hooded McCain running after Barack Obama, an image that's pretty objectionable. McCain may have inadvertently fueled racist sentiment last week, and opposed Martin Luther King Day, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's not a member of the KKK.

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The New York Times editorial board came out against California's Proposition 8 today:

California voters will have a chance in November to protect the rights of gay men and women, and to preserve the state’s Constitution. They should vote against Proposition 8, which seeks to amend that Constitution to prevent people of the same sex from marrying.
…
Whether this important civil rights victory endures is now up to California voters. Opponents of giving gay couples the protections, dignity and respect that come with marriage are working furiously to try to overturn the court ruling through Proposition 8. It is our fervent hope that Californians will reject this mean-spirited attempt to embed second-class treatment of one group of citizens in the State Constitution.

We couldn't have said it better ourselves…

Tori Spelling is no longer just a New York Times best-selling author.

She is now a No. 1 New York Times best-selling author. On Sept. 14, her book, sTORI Telling, will move into first place on the prestigious newspaper's non-fiction list.

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The New York Times finds itself embroiled in some gay drama.

Longtime copy editor Charles Cretella has been suspended for two weeks after allegedly sexually harassing a newer hire. But Cretella claims he's getting the shaft - and now he's suing:

[Cretella], a part-time copy editor who's been with the Gray Lady since 1968, was suspended for two weeks without pay for inappropriate behavior toward a new hire, a 33-year-old man, according to papers filed last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

But in the suit, Cretella, 57, claims he was the victim, enduring the new man's come-ons and mood swings, then suffering a false accusation of harassment in 2006 that cost him a promotion to a full-time position.

"I'm a team player," said Cretella. "Thirty-eight years, never any complaints."

Cretella claims the other employee subjected him to heavy doses of harassment, like the aforementioned crotch grabbing, which went on for twenty minutes.

Cretella's suit alleges that by overlooking him, the Times discriminated against him for his age and "perceived sexual orientation."

It would seem designers are finally catching up with thrifty fashionistas, which explains the New York Times' piece on cut-offs today.

While we're not about to shell out $130 for pre-cut pants, we whole-heartedly agree with a reader's summation of photographer Dean Isidro's accompanying slide show, "Who's the smoldering model?… I'm going to be thinking dirty things all day today…" We could spend all morning on those calves along!

Don't be fooled by the cover, Bob Morris' Assisted Loving is not about a stooped old man eating roast beef in Florida. Well, it is - at times - but this memoir's more than that.

Picking up soon after his mother's death, Assisted Loving chronicles former New York Times columnist Bob Morris' struggle to find his eager beaver father a date. Surely trolling personal ads for one's father can take a toll, but, after all the arguments and aborted missions and, yes, his own dating misadventures, Morris finally learned to love his father. And, really, that's what this book's about: learning to love a parent - and yourself - as you look toward at times bleak future.

Morris recently sat down with our editor to discuss how this experience helped him come of age, the ethics of memoir writing and how his father led him toward his own relationship.

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Wonders never cease!

Instead of railing against the NY Times for their lengthy piece on young gay marriage, anti-gay activist Albert Mohler, who previously pondered homo genetic cleansing, offers a fairly measured, moderate reflection:

"Young Gay Rites" is itself a noteworthy signal about the future of marriage. If [author Benoit] Denizet-Lewis is right, the legalization of same-sex marriage is changing the ways some homosexuals are living their lives. In other words, same-sex marriage in Massachusetts is changing homosexual culture in some unexpected ways.

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That last story about gays using blogs provides a great segue into this story about the Pentagon's Machiavellian media machinations.

David Barstow's penned a mammoth article this weekend on how White House and Pentagon officials deployed new networks' "military analysts" to spread state-sponsored propaganda. And it's pretty startling…

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What's the most interesting thing about this New York Times review of new gay surfer movie Shelter?

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New York City's an ever-changing organism. And queer architect Charles Renfro's keeping it healthy.

With his colleagues at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which he joined in 1997, Renfro has worked or continues to work on some of fair city's most exciting projects the Brooklyn Academy of Music Cultural District, Lincoln Center and the High Line: a once-abandoned train track known for eye-popping interaction between industry and nature.

Our editor recently sit down with Renfro in his firm's 11th Avenue office. Read what Renfro has to say about New York's fluid cultural identity, eco living and how he uses gentrification for good - after the jump, of course.

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