Cyrus’s music video, “It’s A Liberty Walk,” is a showcase of “Occupy” protests all over the world, and features footage of clashes between the protestors and the police, including the now-infamous video of the cop pepper-spraying students at UC Davis last week. A caption at the beginning of the video reads “This is dedicated to the thousands of people who are standing up for what they believe in…”

Now, just so we’re all on the same page, yes, Miley Cyrus is definitely part of the 1 percent. The question now is if she plans to join the protests or just give her their support from afar. Say what you will about old-timers like Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, they actually joined the protestors. Does Cyrus actually support what the Occupy Wall Street movement stands for or is she just standing up for the right of people to peacefully protest?

Watch the video below:

Last last month, 18-year-old (Legal to vote!) Cyrus Tweeted about Santorum’s take on same-sex marriage, as well as the fact that Richard Hayne the conservative chairman of URBN – the company clothing and home accessories retail chains Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, Leifsdottir, and Terrain – has contributed to right-wing campaigns:

Santorum, unfazed, said he and his family have discussed a possible Plan B:

When she came out against me, we actually had a family meeting and decided whether I can continue on in this process and, you know, we had to talk to the kids and it was difficult. But we’re actually holding out; we still think we might get Lindsay Lohan. And with that, we can continue. We’re waiting.

Listen to the full interview (wherein Santorum also discusses, among other things, his immigrant background, how “Obamacare” may distill rights rather than protect them, his success in straw polls, and Mormonism) courtesy of CBS Radio. Oh and, while Cyrus may not be Santorum’s greatest fan, he has found a friend and ally in none other than U2′s Bono. Yes, really:

For those of you who haven’t been down to your local head shop lately, salvia divinorum is an herb that is smoked out of glass pipes (like marijuana!) and is supposed to cause hallucinations (like acid!) yet is somehow still legal (like alcohol!). Its growing popularity and public presence (thank you, Miley Cyrus) has caused an increased pressure to ban it, basically an inevitability that’s now on its way. That would make this a perfect time for everyone (with a press badge) to test it out! So DeJohn headed down to St. Marks, bought himself a bag, and learned the terrible, horrifying secret of salvia!!!

That secret being that it’s not really that exciting.

Again, for those of you who have no black light paintings on your walls (is that still a thing?), the salvia high lasts only a few minutes (about as long as an Adult Swim cartoon) and is less about crazy existential realizations and more about giggling like an idiot for a bit. Or, as DeJohn puts it:

“I never saw any goblins jeering at me, the sky didn’t fill with psychedelic colors and I never felt like I was hovering over the Empire State Building.

The jolt of jubilance quickly tapered off and within 10 minutes everything felt mundane again. Aside from a residual feeling of relaxation, everything felt normal.

Once the salvia smoke cleared, I was underwhelmed by the medium strength blend that had the potency of chugging a few beers with no undesirable hangover.”

So, in other words, BAN IT! BAN IT NOW!

Anyway, while there were no…um, goblins, DeJohn did claim that the herb at its peak made him feel “like Gene Kelly.” In the actual video of the experience (which the Daily News helpfully provides) he actually describes it at the time as feeling like Fred Astaire. Is anyone else super curious as to why he switched golden age dancers? No, just me? Ok then.

Check out the video (in which DeJohn was apparently too excited to toke up to make it back to the news room) below:

(h/t Gawker)

GQ writer Chris Heath sat down with Cyrus for the magazine’s March issue to discuss his recent heartbreak – with as few Achy Breaky-inspired puns as possible, much to Heath’s credit. As it turns out, Cyrus has quite a lot to get of his chest.

For one, Cyrus is quite adamant that he has “never made a dime” off his daughter’s substantial, staggering fame – a fame which took root with her insanely popular Disney Channel series, Hannah Montana. “I’m proud to say to this day I’ve never made one commissioned dollar, or dime, off of my daughter,” he tells Heath. What’s more, he regrets ever having done the show in the first place.

He also shares that, contrary to what many seem to believe, he has never acted as his daughter’s manager (although he has played one on TV), nor has he “been able to have a voice” when it’s come to speaking out about his daughter’s penchant for angering and horrifying parents of her young fans, either by spinning around polls or taking bong hits on video:

Every time something happened in Miley’s career, every time the train went off the track, if you will—Vanity Fair, pole-dancing, whatever scandal it was—her people, or as they say in today’s news, her handlers, every time they’d put me… “Somebody’s shooting at Miley! Put the old man up there!” Well, I took it, because I’m her daddy, and that’s what daddies do. “Okay, nail me to the cross, I’ll take it….”

Until, that is, he decided he just couldn’t take it anymore:

You know why I didn’t go [to Miley's 18th birthday party]? Because they were having it in a bar. It was wrong. It was for 21 years old and up. Once again all them people, they all wanted me to fly out so that then when all the bad press came they could say, “Daddy endorsed this stuff….” I started realizing I’m being used. If I would have went out there I would have been right in the middle of all this stuff that’s going on right now with the bong.

The portrait Cyrus paints of himself in Heath’s interview is ideal for a country artist without an album coming out this Memorial Day, sure – a broken-down man struggling to leave his dark, troubled past behind forge a new path for himself… you can almost picture the album cover now – but it also presents a man who is looking in on Hollywood from the outside (Tennessee, specifically), a man who is more proud of his role in a TV movie penned by country crooner and chicken monger Kenny Rogers than his part in David Lynch‘s acclaimed Mulholland Drive. And? A man who is pretty darn funny: “I read that I have the distinct honor of creating the Kentucky Waterfall,” he tells Heath, referring to his particular “brand” of mulletdom. “I think that’s a pretty good name for it. Though I do love the Missouri Compromise.”

Heath’s article is a (surprisingly?) moving, funny, revelatory read, perhaps because Heath allows Cyrus a platform to say his piece while still keeping enough distance to recognize that, with a celebrity, it’s a risk to fully believe that a public persona can ever truly become simply a person having a conversation with an agenda, without a product to sell or a convert to claim. It also drives home a very important lesson: A life played out in front of the media can and will swallow you whole. Fathers, don’t let your daughters grow up to be Miley. And, while you’re at it, don’t get rich and famous off songs played at every wedding, graduation, cruise ship buffet and bar mitzvah in the late 90s.

The site seems to intentionally remain mysterious with an off shore registration that does not include Hillton’s name. But there is no doubt that he regularly links to and promotes it and at the least, Hilton seems to be happy to have his likeness and name on it as well.

No stranger to objectification, Perez Hilton takes the seediest elements of his flagship site and seems to expand on the Unrated version. Most of the website involves sex tapes– sex tapes with people who may have at some point interacted with someone famous, rumors of sex tapes of people famous for making sex tapes, sometimes even rumors of alleged sex tapes involving people of considerable public name recognition. More often than not, the “stars” of these alleged videos are women, either alleged mistresses, b-level stars, sex tape veterans like Paris Hilton, or jailbait celebrities of which there is very little indication a sex tape would exist (Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato most prominently in recent posts). When not discussing sex tapes, Unrated Perez posts nudes and semi-nudes of similar type folk that have either leaked to them, the internet as a whole, or have been released professionally through Playboy or similar outlets. It is difficult to categorize the site– which requires age certification to enter– as catering in anything but pornographic fare, even the posts that simply speculate as to the existence of celebrity porn.

It’s enough to elicit a fair amount of finger-wagging for its raunchiness though, of course, the Perez Hilton ethos is one of outrage and, to a certain extent, eliciting disgust. It’s a world of shock, awe, and embarrassment, but as long as a whiff of self-promotion slips through and, as Lady Gaga may put it, the Fame Monster keeps getting fed, the relationship between Hilton and Hollywood is symbiotic. There’s very little symbiotic about the relationship between the celebrities embarrassed on UnratedPerez, however, and he who profits from it.

But perhaps the most bizarre quality of the site is its nearly exclusive catering to males. The celebrities (and non-celebrities) involved in most of the posts are women. The raunchy pictures more often than not feature females, with the occasional Clay Aiken boyfriend eye candy. Overwhelmingly, the site seems to cater to straight males, the demographic that most eludes the flagship site. According to Quantcast.com, only 37% of Perez Hilton readers are male, and while the statistics don’t show, one may assume that a majority of those males are not the kind to be waiting on bated breath for the the sequel to One Night in Paris.

Perhaps this is precisely the raison d’etre of Unrated Perez: to attract the one demographic its good twin has a snowball’s chance in hell of hooking. This would explain the sheer number of posts regarding either Playboy or porn powerhouse Vivid Entertainment– perhaps also serving as sponsors– but the site’s ethos seems to run counter to what is best for PerezHilton.com. First of all, if the majority of Perez readers are female, would they not be insulted by the obvious commercial objectification of women in the hopes of seducing men to read his site? Surely some outrage would be in order from at least part of this demographic that reads Hilton for his unique Microsoft Paint genre of gossip literature, or for his outlandish cattiness, but certainly not for anything remotely resembling misogyny.

Then there are the people being profiled on the site themselves. What incentive does a celebrity– an actual celebrity, not the alleged mistress of the housekeeper who once shared a room with Lindsay Lohan‘s cousin– who cooperates with Hilton have to work with him once he posts the most embarrassing photos he could find of that person or people they know on this extracurricular site? How does this site reinforce the trust that surely must exist between publicist and blogger for the show to go on?

Many will scoff at the idea of Perez Hilton and trust in the same breath, but a completely discredited media fiend could not build the empire Hilton has at his fingertips. His personal reputation may be shaky after a series of intra-media battles that did little to make him more appealing to the mainstream. If it is, however, it is deliberately so. It elevates his often childlike demeanor to something more, makes of him an enfant terrible that haunts the people much of America (and the world) loves to hate the most. His social relevance comes from entertainment value as much as it does from the pleasure of watching him innocently peeve the stars. Let’s face it: drawing on a celebrity’s face is innocent. Vulgar as it may be, it should do no harm to a person of average self-esteem to see their face with white dots on it. It drives celebrities insane. And from thence comes Hilton’s success.

Once Hilton crosses the line into legitimately humiliating content, that cheekiness becomes malice, and malice doesn’t sell. Cheekiness sells, but ill will goes nowhere. And just as it goes nowhere with readers, those that protect the names on whose coattails Hilton puts food on the table should raise an eyebrow or two at this new endeavor. That it’s devoid of taste or brain-stimulating content is expected. How UnratedPerez.com exists in its current form– devoid of levity or good humor in any form, is the media mystery to solve.

In the meantime: Let’s go all the way tonight. Tik Tok, don’t stop. Tonight we can go a little longer. I wanna be a billionaire. Let the DJ go to play my favorite song. There’s not a thing that I would change. ‘Cause your’e amazing just the way you are. Or, were. Goodbye, 2010.

Songz:
Ke$ha – Tik Tok
Lady Antebellum – Need You Now
Train – Hey, Soul Sister
Katy Perry Featuring Snoop Dogg – California Gurls
Usher Featuring will.i.am – OMG
B.O.B. Featuring Hayley Williams – Airplanes
Eminem Featuring Rihanna – Love the Way You Lie
Lady Gaga – Bad Romance
Taio Cruz – Dynamite
Taio Cruz Featuring Ludacris – Break Your Heart
B.O.B. Featuring Bruno Mars – Nothin’ On You
Enrique Iglesias Featuring Pitbull – I Like It
Young Money Featuring Lloyd – Bedrock
Jason Derulo – In My Head
Rihanna – Rude Boy
Lady Gaga Featuring Beyonce – Telephone
Katy Perry – Teenage Dream
Bruno Mars – Just the Way You Are
Mike Posner – Cooler Than Me
The Black Eyed Peas – Imma Be
Jay-Z + Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind
Usher Featuring Pitbull – DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love
Travie McCoy Featuring Bruno Mars – Billionaire
Eminem – Not Afraid
Iyaz – Replay

Follow Rachel Sklar on Twitter at @RachelSklar.

In this week’s issue of Parade magazine, Miley says of Mika:

My impulse is to say get off my case Mika. Get over it…my job is first to entertain, and do what I love. And if you don’t like it, then change the channel. I’m not forcing you to watch me. I’m not forcing you to talk about me. I would do that pole dance a thousand times because it was right for that song and that performance. But dude, if you think that dancing on top of an ice cream cart with a pole is bad, then go check out what 90 percent of High Schoolers are really up to. It’s funny. I don’t know if a lot of parents remember what they were like as kids. But I’m like “dude! As if you were an angel!”

I think we can all agree to the most appropriate way to resolve this conflict? Dance off!

According to The New York Times, an average 41.3 million people tuned in for Hollywood’s biggest event last night, though that number was lower in New York because of that whole Cablevision/ABC-Disney fiasco.

Here’s the catch though: that data includes the more than 30 million viewers who tuned in for “at least a few minutes of the show.” Which was probably the several minutes Ben Stiller was on stage dressed in Avatar makeup, or for as long as it took for Sandy Powell to piss everyone off with her Best Costume Design acceptance speech (“I already have two of these…”). Last year, only 32 million viewers tuned in to watch Slumdog Millionaire sweep the ceremony with Hugh Jackman presiding.

Which tells us what? The teen ratings really paid off, so keep letting Jake Gyllenhaal chew gum on the red carpet and Miley slouch all she wants. As long as Zac Efron and co. are doing the presentations, the A.D.D. generation will tune in…and then get bored and switch stations again.

While our counterparts at Mediaite have been dutifully liveblogging every last moment of this year’s 82nd Annual Academy Awards, we at Styleite gave up before the show even started; we were in it for the red carpet, clearly.

Thankfully, this year’s pre-show fashion fest served up no shortage of sartorial sins, rewarding risks, and, predictably, the usual snoozefest offenders.

The Hits:

Meryl Streep won tonight’s best dressed award, hands down. While our first guess pegged her dress as Valentino, kudos goes to Project Runway alum Chris March for designing such a standout, knockout, all-around stunning dress. Meryl Streep outshone Oscar himself. Period.

Diane Kruger’s cream and black feathered gown was undeniably, iconically, and gorgeously Chanel. Featuring a halter neck, no small amount of Chanel camelias, and a bias cut that would make most actresses run for the hills, Kruger’s dress was a elegant and inspired choice for the red carpet.

Carey Mulligan looked whimsically chic for her first Academy Awards red carpet appearance in a black bedazzled Prada gown.  While many consider black to be a bit drab for the Oscars, Miuccia Prada’s design looked perfect against her pale skin and platinum blonde boyish haircut.  Accented perfectly with impeccably sized chandelier earrings by Fred Leighton, Mulligan’s dress most definitely earned the actress a place among Hollywood’s “Best Dressed.”

Vera Farmiga’s fucshia Marchesa gown was reminiscent of Diane Kruger’s Christian Lacroix Golden Globe’s dress.  The ruffled fanning that spanned from the upper bodice down to the bottom was a unique and perfectly executed accent, which was refreshing considering the red carpet’s surprising lack of originality tonight.  The color choice was daring and divine and the gown fit her body like a glove.

Zoe Saldana’s Givenchy gown sets a prime example for what red carpet fashion could and should be. Exquisitely styled and arguably the evening’s most creative, Zoe’s dress was purple, ruched, ruffled, and huge. Also: it had a sparkly top. Good for her for pulling it off, but more importantly, for having the courage to wear it in the first place.

Up next: The Misses…

Which was pretty much the problem to begin with – the 10pm offering started as a similar product to the Tonight Show, and only became more like the old format as time went on.

But let’s not let that stop us from taking a look back at some of the best, most memorable, moments of the past (almost) five months. After an exhaustive search, here are some choices.

Let’s get started!

>>>NEXT PAGE: Kanye West cries.

She’ll be teaming up with her pint-sized best friend Emily Grace to launch a children’s lingerie collection for ‘Ohh! La, La! Couture‘…“trendy, sweet, yet edgy feel, reminiscent of Emily’s true personality. She is collaborating with Ooh! La, La! Couture designers to create versatile styles that can be worn with sweet ballerina slippers, funky sneakers or paired with lace stockings and boots for more of a rock and roll look. Emily’s collection will appeal not just to little girls – the line also has an exclusive Teen Collection available to a size 14.”

Apparently those versatile styles include fishnet stockings because this little Emily Grace girl appears in a video promo for the line [UPDATE: which has now been removed — which I am NOT posting here because it is creepy — wearing fishnets. Also, who allows their children to do things like this and what sort of parent would buy these clothes?! This will not end well. Unless! As a person in our office just suggested, Noah has been hired by the FBI for some sort of sting operation aimed at outing pedophiles. Sadly, I suspect otherwise.

UPDATE 2: According to FabLife representatives of the line are claiming Perez Hilton’s initial report is not true. Though based on how these little girls have been dressed and sent out into public, it’s not much of a jump to make. Stay tuned.

The People also love Ellen DeGeneres, voted Johnny Depp their favorite actor of the decade, were polite when host Queen Latifah said “M.O.G.” instead of “O.M.G,” cheered just as loudly for Charlie Sheen, chose The Proposal over The Hangover (the People are clearly idiots), follow Ashton Kutcher on Twitter (M.O.G!), want you to be excited about Robin Hood even if it doesn’t feature men in tights, think you can handle Cloris Leachman dressed up like a dominatrix, and love Glee. The People also really, really, really, really love Twilight. The People maybe don’t realize just what kind of sore thumb Inglorious Basterds sticks out of there like, but whatever.

The People also like people named Taylor (Swift and Lautner) and apparently love a chance for Mariah Carey to give another speech. Even if she said nothing, though, that dress spoke volumes. Wow. Watch below:

Also:The People chose Steve Carell as favorite TV comedy actor, and he engaged with an amusing bit with his audience, cueing them to yell out “THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!” after he made an innuendo. Cute. I wonder what Alec Baldwin had planned. Or — sigh — Neil Patrick Harris (Queen Latifah could have used his help in the opening, yikes).

Here are some red carpet photos from HollywoodLife.com and here’s the complete list of winners:

Favorite Talk Show – The Ellen DeGeneres Show

Favorite On Screen Team – The Twilight Saga

Favorite TV Obsession – True Blood

Favorite TV Competition Show – American Idol

Favorite R&B Artist – Mariah Carey

Favorite TV Comedy Actress – Alyson Hannigan

Favorite Country Artist – Carrie Underwood

Favorite Animal Show – Dog Whisperer

Favorite Family Movie – Up

Favorite TV Comedy – The Big Bang Theory

Favorite TV Comedy Actor – Steve Carrell

Favorite TV Drama Actor – Hugh Laurie

Favorite TV Drama – House

Favorite Movie Actress – Sandra Bullock

Favorite Breakout Movie Actor – Taylor Lautner

Favorite Action Star – Hugh Jackman

Favorite Male Artist – Eminem / Keith Urban

Favorite Female Artist – Taylor Swift

Favorite Comedic Star – Jim Carrey

Favorite Breakout Music Artist – Lady Gaga

Favorite Breakout Movie Actress – Miley Cyrus

Favorite Rock Band – Paramore

Favorite Music Collaboration – Run This Town

Favorite Comedy Movie – The Proposal

Favorite New TV Drama – The Vampire Diaries

Favorite Movie – Twilight

Favorite New TV Comedy – Glee

Favorite Web Celeb – Ashton Kutcher

Favorite Frandchise – The Twilight Saga

Favorite TV Drama Actress – Katherine Heigl

Favorite Sc-Fi / Fantasy Show – Supernatural

Favorite Independent Movie – “Inglourious Basterds”

Favorite Pop Artist – Lady Gaga

Favorite Movie Actor – Johnny Depp

“DJ Earworm” has created “2009:United States of Pop (Blame It On The Pop)” from the 25 top Billboard hits featuring Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Jamie Foxx, the Black Eyed Peas, T.I. and Justin Timberlake, Kanye West, Jason Mraz, Miley Cyrus, Kelly Clarkson, Rihanna, Katy Perry, and of course, Lady Gaga. Purists may find it a little musically claustrophobic (aw! Remember Beyoncé in “Halo?” Look, it’s Beyoncé in “Halo” again!). But who cares it’s good fun, sounds great, will get you dancing if you happen to be the sort that frequents such dance-spots (and blames it on the a-a-a-al etc.) and also looks pretty as music videos ought (pretty easy when you’re mashing up other pretty music videos). Plus, what is more “Aughts” than a user-generated new work of art mashed up from previously existing works of art? And really, what is this post if not pretty much, that? Baby, don’t worry. The year’s almost dead and gone, but I got a feeling that you belong with me. Just dance. Use somebody. Now put your hands up. Let’s live it up. Pray it won’t fade away.

Track list can be found here.

I thought, therefore, that it made sense to see how they did. In the spirit of the end of the decade, I looked back at their first Year In Ideas released in December of 2001. Heavy on concepts that emerged following the terrorist attacks (such as “American Imperialism, Embraced”) and the Internet (“Populist Editing”), the series was born at a fascinating moment in American history.

While I’m not a scientist or a fashion designer, I did my best to gauge how much impact each “idea” actually had – if, in essence, it was viable. By my count, of the 77 ideas presented, over half (40 or so) are still relevant in 2009. About 30% aren’t. Many others I considered “maybes” – I just don’t know enough to make the call.

Maybe you do. Check out the full list below, complete with links to the original article, and share your wisdom. The Internet was made for arguments.

But in the meantime, we’ve got Naomi, Kate, Miley, Martha, Bjork, Michelle and more….

************************

Former Johnny Depp lover, actress and general bad-ass Winona Ryder shocked the world when she was arrested for shoplifting in December 2001. Ryder was caught on the security cameras swiping over $5,000 worth of loot from Saks in Beverly Hills. Ryder then had the book thrown at her with probation, community service, drug counseling, fines and restitution. She then dyed her hair blonde and stared in an Adam Sandler movie. Now she’s Spock’s mom. Pretty decent comeback.

Naomi Campbell may have been one of the hottest supermodels of the 90s, but the in Aughts she began to reveal her ugly side. First Campbell was sued in 2000 for allegedly beating an assistant. Then again in 2003 for throwing a phone at another assistant. Finally in 2006 she got slapped with a felony charge for throwing yet another (Swarovski crystal-encrusted) phone, this time at her housekeeper’s head. She eventually plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge, was forced to clean the subway where she A) wore stiletto boots and B) still looked amazing.

Speaking of 90s super models, Kate Moss, the iconic poster child for 1990s heroin chic look, found herself at the center of a scandal involving a different controlled substance. In 2005 British tabloid the Daily Mirror published photos of Moss snorting cocaine accompanied by the massive headline “Cocaine Kate”, thus getting her dropped from multiple ad campaigns. However, because she is a supermodel and not, say, a kindergarten teacher, the whole cocaine-party-girl thing didn’t really hurt her image and she quickly bounced back, signing on a Dior campaign and landing the cover of W in November 2005. However, Moss created something of a mini-scandal a week ago when she was quoted in Women’s Wear Daily saying “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” Hilarious, Kate. Obnoxious and untrue, but hilarious.

>>>NEXT: Miley, Martha and Bjork’s Swan-Tastic Oscar Dress

How about her Dad. Now he’s put out a video as well, urging her fans to follow him instead. Or rather, Jimmy Fallon did.

Last night on The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon, the host played the part of Billy Ray Cyrus as he mimicked the Miley video released last week. This one was a little harsher, and desperate. “”I may be a one-hitter, that doesn’t make me bitter, my career’s in the sh–ter, but I ain’t no Twitter quitter, I’m still here,” rapped Fallon as Cyrus.

You can follow Billy Ray Cyrus on Twitter here, but as Gossip Cop proved, his tweets aren’t always accurate.

Here’s the video:

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» Follow Steve Krakauer on Twitter

In April of 2008, tween sensation Miley Cyrus posed for Annie Leibovitz in what became an extremely controversial spread in Vanity Fair. It featured Cyrus, then sweet 16, covered only by a sheet, exposing her entire back.  Parents feared for what such images would do to their fanatic 12-year-old daughters.  A Disney executive was quoted in a New York Times article fearing for Cyrus:  “Parents have invested in her godliness. If she violates that trust, she won’t get it back.”

But she did.  And following the spread, Miley’s album “Breakout” sold over 371,000 copies In its first week, and debuted at number one in  the US Billboard Charts.  By October, Miley had gone Platinum.

And then came the stripper pole.

Monday’s Teen Choice Awards featured Miley singing her newest single, “Party in the USA.”  In nothing but a skimpy top, dangerously short shorts, and black biker-esque boots, the 17 year old gyrated her hips suggestively amid a sea of other, equally provocatively dressed dancers.  Then came the big bang.  After being escorted downstage by a fellow male dancer, Cyrus climbed an ice cream cart, from which a stripper pole had been strategically placed.

Her red carpet ensemble was no better.  After picking up some tips from her spread in Elle’s August issue, Miley showed up in her new biker-rocker look, fully equipped with a black sparkly mini, white tank top, and too many chain necklaces.  A once cute, pure Miley appeared trashy and inappropriate.

SLIDESHOW: Miley Grows Up

The Leibovitz spread may have been in the name of art, but there was nothing artistic about cavorting around a stripper pole on an ice cream cart in shortie-shorts doing oversexed dance moves.  Miley’s fame and fan base will not be affected by Monday’s dance.  “Party In the USA” debuted at number 40 on Billboard’s Top 40 and following the performance was the number 1 song on iTunes.  But the shift into overdrive of Miley’s sexualization cannot go unnoticed.  From Leibovitz all the way to the stripper pole, this girl is growing up fast. Or being grown up fast. The Teen Choice Awards.  The events title tells it like it is:  What the teens want.  Who they want to hear, and what they want to see and this time, they wanted to see Miley with a pole.

Follow Ruthie Friedlander on Twitter!

Judging from Elle’s September cover, which features Jennifer Aniston clad in black leather (last month anyone?), it’s beginning to look a lot like August. Magazine lovers beware: your September feast will be anything but.

In what is widely considered the most important month in both fashion and magazines, ad sales have dropped dramatically: Harper’s Bazaar’s ad pages are down over 20%. W has estimated a loss of 53% of its ad pages. Even Anna’s issue is losing weight – Vogue has experienced a 36.7% loss to be exact (these numbers were taken from the Ad Page Totals at WWD.com)

But ad pages aren’t the only thing September is hungering for. Where is the couture? Where is Uncle Karl’s newest tweed? Or Lanvin’s sexy fall dress? Why are we seeing Jennifer Aniston –yawn –in a black strapless leather bustier and black silk pants, when we saw Miley in leather and lace just last month? Joe Zee, my love, where are you?

WAKE UP! It’s SEPTEMBER, in case you have forgotten, and without high fashion ads itching our scratch, readers will need more than last month’s left overs.

Other soon to be disappointments include, but may not be limited to:

Vanity Fair’s sugar sweet, yet seemingly sell-out-ish choice to memorialize this year’s two biggest celebrity deaths by recycling images of Farrah and Michael

Marie Claire’s cover featuring Ashley Olsen, wearing a gorgeous, yet unoriginal, white see-thru frock and sporting her usual nose-narrowing smirk

Glamour’s cover girl, Jessica Simpson (aka, Marie Claire’s January Cover Girl and Vanity Fair’s June Cover Girl) decked out in slightly ripped denim – shocking – something sparkly – even more shocking – and too much blue eye makeup.

Follow Ruthie Friedlander on Twitter!

This month, women’s fashion mags across the globe dipped into the young, supple crop of up-and-comers. Will putting tarted-up teens on the cover help attract younger readers? (Any readers at all?) Or will this month’s covers just fall flat and lose their way?

Maybe Emma Watson looks like she’s getting ready to audition for the part of kinky tinman in some indie Wiz remake on the cover of UK Elle. But underneath all that eye-liner lurks outspoken, bookish Hermione. Actually it took us a double-take to recognize her. Maybe that’s the idea?

Mediaite Grade (B+): We’re a little uneasy about seeing 19-year-old Emma wearing something called silk and metal trousers, and the wool corset can’t be conformable. Somehow her get-up remains modest (at least as far as visible flesh is concerned); there’s a tinge of elegance somewhere on this cover. We’ll try to overlook the glimmering leather stool underscoring her widespread legs.

Hayden Panettiere, 19, weighs in on the dress she’s wearing on the cover of Lucky: “The shape is conservative, but the shade is totally fun.” OMG, totally.

Mediaite Grade (C-): Inside this issue, Lucky touts Hayden’s “Playfully sophisticated, totally age-appropriate look.” Props to Hayden for keeping it classy on the cover, but the result is pretty boring. Nothing against her, but so far Ben & Jerry’s is the only company that has figured out how to sell vanilla.

Between the trippy black and white stripes on Taylor Swift’s shirt and trompe l’oeil play between her arm and the banner, we’re too dizzy to read the August cover of Glamour.

Mediaite Grade (C+): There’s something to be said for having a mesmerizing (albeit stomach-churning) cover: Readers will want to get inside the magazine as fast as possible. Or in the case of this month’s Glamour — “40 Little Ways to Connect With a Guy (Besides Sex, Duh!),” “Plus, Your Breasts: An Intimate Q&A on What’s Normal, What’s Not”  — they’ll just put their head between their legs until the spinning stops.

On the cover of Elle at 16, Miley Cyrus is the youngest of the August flock of teeny covergirls. She also takes the cake for most seductive gaze and the deepest cleavage (notice the cross necklace… JC would be so proud). Believe it or not, Subscribers saw something even bawdier. Or was it artsier?

Mediaite Grade (C): We’ve been over this before (hi, Rolling Stone!): Writing decks like ”On Dad, Boyfriends, and Why She’s Not a Kid Anymore” won’t fool anybody that your covergirl (or boy) is old enough to be taken seriously, and in this case it just draws attention to how ridiculous Miley looks. (And to be fair, Elle is also guilty of the same nauseating banner play).

COVER WARS WINNER: We hate to let the Cover Wars crown leave the country, but we have to give this one to UK Elle. C’mon, the other covers were sooo bad. And, after all, the British are just better than us at pulling off the whole prim-sexy-sophisticated-steamy look — exactly the sensibility you need when you’re talking about dressing up girls in women’s clothes and making them sexy enough to sell.

If you’re lucky, you would get the Power Grid. But if you were British, you would get the Power Grid’s dodgy cousin from across the pond — MediaGuardian 100, The Guardian’s annual survey of the top 100 media professionals, released over the weekend. We’re going to go ahead and say, ours is better and not just becuase we’re too proud to put Miley Cyrus on our list. Does Miley really “run or influence” the media? (Actually maybe she does: see today’s story about Miley’s Elle cover).

For starters, The Guardian’s rankings are determined by a group of  Panellists (not to be confused with panelists), based on “three criteria – their cultural, economic and political influence in the UK.” All of that boils down to: basically there’s no system. We have a feeling that tiddlywinks (or conkers) may be involved.

We’re also not convinced that the Brits are really up to speed about how the Internet works. John Plunkett, The Guardian’s Media Monkey, begins the MG 100 overview by underscoring the importance of digital media and then goes on to explain that Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin are number one on this year’s list a) because Google is a noun and a verb and b) because without Google none of us would have been able to find the MG 100. All of which boils down to a pretty reductive understanding of the way companies create value and news moves on the Internet.

If recent editions of the MediaGuardian 100 have been dominated by one word – digital – then this year’s list is all about the impact of another D-word – downturn…

There was less debate, however, about who should be awarded the No 1 spot; Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, top the MediaGuardian 100 for the second successive year. The pre-eminent force of the digital era, Google has gone from being an internet startup to a verb in little more than a decade.

The dominant force in the search engine and online advertising markets, Google has powered ahead while media companies all around have faltered. If you are reading this year’s MediaGuardian 100 on the web, then how did you find it? Exactly.

Exactly what? We were reading a blog that linked to the list … but I guess we did spend the rest of the day Googling search terms, hoping to find news items that satisfy our appetite for news about the topics we love (?).

Further suspicions are raised by this line:

The chief executive of Twitter, Evan Williams, is one of this year’s highest new entries on the back of the phenomenal rise of the instant messaging site, two places ahead of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of its social networking rival Facebook.

Once again, the MG 100 is either woefully innocent about today’s Internet or painfully reductive. Sure Facebook and Twitter are both in the social-networking game, but we wonder how exactly Twitter and Facebook might be rivals. Users come to both sites with different purposes, and Twitter is not stealing Ad dollars from Facebook. MySpace and Facebook — that’s what we’d call a rivalry.

Forget the chatter surrounding the list, the rankings themselves are a bit strange as well. Arianna Huffington (#3 on among Newspaper/Online Editors) is as low as 42 on their list. Meanwhile the top 20 is littered with Murdochs, who, by the way, throw the most splendid birthday parties:

For an indicator of Elisabeth Murdoch’s influence, look no further than the guest list for her 40th birthday, which included Tony Blair, David Cameron, George Osborne, Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade), James Harding, Will Lewis, Simon Kelner, Peter Fincham, Alan Yentob … well, you get the idea. Gordon Brown was unable to make it because he had an engagement with the Queen.

Using party lists to rank the media never even crossed our mind.

All of this begs the question: What metrics did The Guardian’s panel use to measure influence? And how you can you appraise the respective influences of the players drawn from such an unruly, nondescript cross-section of the media industry (everyone from Miley Cyrus to Rupert Murdoch to Simon Cowell).

Lucky for us, the Power Grid includes both objective metrics and simple categories.

We could go on with our beef (and The Guardian’s readers have), but after all the MG 100 is meant to be as of “much a starting point for debate as it is intended to be any sort of definitive list.” Cheers to that.

“There are giant oatmeal cookies, thick, chewy brownies, and milk chocolate bonbons galore; sugar sweet cereals, buckets of Twizzlers, hot buttered popcorn, and more; strawberry shortcake with baseball-size berries and homemade whipped cream to explore…”

Seriously, a poem?

At first glance, this reads as innocent enough opening copy. But when placed in the context of the super hot vixen photo shoot of the 16 year-old star of Hannah Montana, it feels weird. Creepy even. On Special Victims Unit they call it the “lure.”

What follows is an article that promises to show a more mature Miley – one that has grown up from her days of glitter hair spray and flavored lip gloss.  But judging from the photos and the styling of an otherwise flawless fashion icon, Joe Zee, it seems that Ms. Miley has not only traded her Lip Smackers for a Chanel stick, but also a blockbuster career in film and music for getting roles in late night Cinemax programming. Oh yeah – she’s 16 years-old.

Elle may be striving to reach a younger audience by putting Miley on the cover. And the newsstand image is far more toned down that that used for the subscriber issue (a photo that some in the office described as “Miley’s first orgasm.”)  The article notes Cyrus’ requirement for a chaperone “…until she turns 18, she can’t do anything work related without an adult.” – I wonder which adult was there watching over Miley as she arched over backwards on the floor, hair a mess, stomach exposed.

One might recall last year’s Miley Cyrus scandal in which Annie Liebowitz shot her topless from behind for Vanity Fair. A controversy erupted and VF got loads of attention (and an increased newsstand sales.) There is a big difference here, however. The VF shoot was almost entirely wholesome (depending on how you feel about that picture of Cyrus and her father) and both Cyrus and Liebowitz apologized that the controversial pic was “misinterpreted.” There can be no misinterpretation of the Elle shoot. It’s meant to be sexy, in an S & M sort of way.

The leather and lace-clad Cyrus did not have a “grown up makeover” as the intro anticipates.  We don’t see Cyrus wearing a chic Chanel suit or classy Zac Posen cocktail dress.  She is not playing with her age, but dismissing it.  Makeover – not so much.

And Elle, there is NOTHING “chic” about a 16-year old in “leathers and studs.”

For more cogent analysis on the Miley Elle shoot check out the ShePop blog at EW.com.

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