Week Around the Ists

Phillyist nominated the administrators of the suburban pool club that allegedly kicked out a number of urban youth on basis of their race as its assholes of the week.

Shanghaiist took a in-depth look at the machinations behind the Xinjiang riots, from its beginning to the second day of violence to when everything finally started to calm down.

Torontoist held their noses and tempers as a municipal workers' strike lurched through and past the twenty-day mark, and tracked strike-focussed street art, overflowing trash bins city-wide, whiners, historical precedent for said whiners, literal cover-ups of waste drop-off sites, mysterious new garbage bins, plane-pulled publicity stunts, and, of course, picket-line romance.

Seattlest was kitchen-proud over two Seattle chefs making it onto Bravo's Top Chef and a local cookie-maker showing up on Rachael Ray.

Bostonist learned the difference between vampires and blood fetishists.

LAist watched their city host a mega-memorial for Michael Jackson that cost a whole lot of lunch money.

Londonist welcomed the clarification of the right to take photographs of the police, but wished it could be a bit less vague and confusing.

DCist took yet another ride on the Marion Barry-got-arrested-train, this time on charges of stalking his ex-girlfriend. The charges were promptly dropped, but not before revelations surfaced that the D.C. Council member may have improperly hired the same woman as a "political consultant."

Gothamist watched the uproar and agreement as Rep. Peter King complained about the media attention around "pedophile" Michael Jackson's death, prompting Rev. Al Sharpton to tell MJ's kids there was "nothing strange about your daddy." Naturally, Bill O'Reilly got the two men to discuss their POV's further.

SFist erupted into a firestorm after posting about pushy park rangers "abusing their power."