Cities across England turned dangerous as violent riots, spurred by the death of a black man by police, spread throughout the country. Mobs took over the streets, setting buildings and cars on fire, shattering windows, and looting stores. Things were particularly bad in London, where the Prime Minister sent 16,000 policemen on Tuesday to calm things down. It worked- the worst is over- but the cost of clean up is estimated to be in the tens of millions. Even though the riots began because of one man’s death, the social and economic inequality may have been what really heated things up. That’s an issue pretty familiar to those living in the U.S., and now, many are wondering, could the same thing happen in the states?

A  9,000 signature-strong petition got attention this week for it’s forward-thinking idea: Bert and Ernie should get married on Sesame Street. There have been rumors for a while now that the best buds are actually in a relationship, and their constant bickering is reminiscent of an old married couple. The LGBTQ activists who started the petition claim that an on-screen marriage between the two male puppets would teach acceptance and tolerance to children, but the show disagrees, insisting that such a union is impossible- “Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets™ do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.” Wait… what about Kermit and Miss Piggy? You can still sign the petition here!

The 12 Congressmen who will make up the “super committee” have been announced. The group was part of the last-minute, we-must-avoid-the-implosion-of-our-economy deal to raise the debt ceiling last month. Despite their name, they’ll be searching for savings, not evil villains, though that’d be much more exciting. (Can you imagine if politicians were actually superheroes? Hello Hollywood, this is obviously a great movie idea…) To be exact, the committee, which is half Republican and half Democrat (and btw, only includes one woman and one African American- typical!), is charged with finding $1.5 trillion in savings over the next ten years. Maybe they will need super powers for that.

The main stage at the Indianapolis State Fair collapsed on Saturday night, killing 5 and injuring 40. Chaos erupted on the fairgrounds after the huge, metal structure- which was soon planned to hold the country-pop duo Sugarland- came crashing down due to a “freak gust of wind.” Visitors caught the unbelievable, horrifying event on video (here), but as a warning, it’s pretty scary and upsetting. The fair reopened this morning with a memorial service for those lost.

Warren Jeffs, the leader of the 10,000-member polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday. The jury took less than half an hour to decide that Jeffs, 55, deserved to spend the rest of his life in prison for sexually assaulting two underage female members of his church. In court, prosecutors showed evidence that he fathered a child with a 15-year-old and played a recording that was supposedly him having sex with a 12-year-old. For the past 2 years, Jeffs has been leading his followers from inside of a jail cell, and no one is quite sure what will happen to the group now that there’s no way he’s getting out. A former church-member told USA Today that “he will definitely remain a prophet behind bars, and they will be telling everybody that God’s going to tear the prison down and let him loose.”

Pic o’ the Week:

The U.S. has been in mourning for the past week after the deadliest day in the war in Afghanistan, when the above 30 U.S. servicemen died in a helicopter attack. The tragedy has come to be known as the Chinook Crash, named after the type of chopper the men were flying in.  This happened over a week ago, but it’s all people have been talking about this week, as more and more details- like the identities of the lost soldiers and the possible identity of the gunman who shot down the plane- have been coming out. In addition to the 30 Americans lost, 8 Afghanis were killed. Among the men who died were 22 members of Navy SEAL Team 6, the same group that took out Osama Bin Laden.

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- Fashion Week distracted us from everything. The clothes were amazing and the coverage was even better.

- We were wowed by all the Welcome Week photos that came pouring in this week. We laughed a lot. And then cried because we miss college so much. And then shared a bottle of wine.

- Will.I.Am reminded us that he’s not only extremely talented, but also a great addition to the Sesame Street family.

- We decided that Lady Gaga’s meat dress crossed the line. Like what’s next – lamb chop lingerie at the Grammys?

- Also fantasy football sucks. Did you know some boys choose make-believe sports over real life sex??

- Turns out your friends, your Bffs, your galpals have been lying to you about washing their hands post restroom usage. What else have they been lying about?

- Our fave sorority gal gave us the 411 on the do’s and don’t of rush. All was not calm in sorority land, though, and a little political debate broke out in the comments.

- Newsweek contacted us and was all “Major in THIS to make money” and we were all “Major in this if you want to LIKE your career.“

- Taylor Swift put us to sleep at the VMAs with her lackluster song to Kanye. The good news is that we’ve been playing it to fall asleep at night.

- We found out that our new favorite bathroom item is Vaseline. Why? Um, it’s a thousand times more useful than any other product you own.

- Last but not least, our 9th grade health teacher took over the sex column this week and reminded us to be safe.

Sometimes we all need that extra little push to get ourselves over Hump Day and this awesome video will help you get there. It’s cute, it’s catchy, and for all our bible-thumping-no-sex-having readers out there, it’s totally PG. Will.I.Am? Yes.I.Will.

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Everything I know I learned on The Street…. Sesame Street. And today, on the show’s 40^th anniversary, I want to give credit where credit is due.

Without Big Bird and the gang, I never would have figured out exactly what things are not like the others. This logic has helped me weed out the good guys from the frat guys at parties, and the under-cooked hamburgers from the well-done ones at the dining hall. Sesame Street has single-handedly saved me from STDs and E. coli.

Ernie and Bert taught me how to cope with living with a roommate and how to pick up on subtle undertones of romantic feelings from them, too.

And the Count, well he taught me how to count… slowly… and then faster… and then slowly again.

I had a lot of nightmares as a kid. Thanks to these nightmares and various frightening films I’ve developed a hilarious set of OCD habits such as opening and closing closet doors before sleeping and checking behind the shower curtain before I saddle up to the toilet (you laugh but one day someone is gonna be in there and then who’s the dumb one!)

My imagination is easily inspired. For a while I couldn’t even watch a commercial for a horror movie because I knew those 30 seconds were enough to create an entire world of horrific fantasy that I’d be trapped inside for the rest of the evening. The one thing more unnerving then horror characters and sharks (I don’t swim in the ocean, at all, ever) is muppets.

Not all muppets, Kermit is fine, Fozzy, whatever. I’m talking about those LSD muppets that creators slip in films and TV shows, mixed with other cute, lovable creatures. They lure you in with Grover and then BAM, some abomination walks onto the screen that’s burned into your mind forever. Some horribly disfigured, warbly voiced monstrosity that may as well be drenched in blood, because thats how you’ll remember them, regardless.

Here’s five of the worst perpetrators.

5) Sesame Street’s Big Bad Wolf

He first appeared in a mock ‘News Report’ that Kermit was doing about the story of the 3 Little Pigs, but eventually was cast in a full time role in my brain as the monster that lived in the crawlspace behind our dryer. His nose and mouth are almost crocodilian in length, making him a hybrid death machine that can not only eat you whole, but smell (and enjoy) your fear.

4) Sesame Street’s Yip Yip Aliens

Who the f*ck invented these? I’ve seen like 3/4th’s of every science fiction movie ever and I’ve never observed a more frightening rendition of creatures from another planet. They have no body, and their circular mouths are contorted into a look of excruciating pain. The sound they omit — ‘Yip Yip‘ — over and over gives them an almost zombie-like demeanor. Incapable of love or communication, their race knows only war.

3) Skeksis from ‘The Dark Crystal’

Bird reptiles that appear to have some type of bizarre bone disease and turn infantile when they die/age. As someone who grew up around wild turkeys, the thought of gangs of intelligent, upright walking, violent minded birds hit very close to home.

2) The Rockbiter from ‘The Never-ending Story’

Could you have designed a more horribly disfigured face? My cousins would loop this scene and force me to watch it as a form of torture.

1) The Fiery Gang from ‘The Labyrinth’

A gang of forest dwelling, possible serial rapist apes who sing about ‘showing you a good time’ while removing their limbs and creating a gallery of horrifyingly twisted body shapes. Then they try to rip your head off, in an effort to make you more like them. Awesome, just awesome.

[Got any childhood fears induced by muppets? We want to know]

Sesame Street is no longer safe for kids.In a hilarious New York Times article, Virginia Heffernan jokes about the very real warning on the DVD for volumes 1 and 2 of Sesame Street: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

After subjecting herself and friends to an “all-ages” screening of the 1970’s version of the kids show, Heffernan bemoaned the “damage” the show’s gritty early years caused her psyche.

“The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.”

Even though I was nothing but a faraway dream in the 70’s, I remember tuning into Sesame Street during my early years, somewhere around 1986. While I’m pretty sure Elmo had been ‘born’ by then, the images my pre-school eyes witnessed were not the saccharin filled pictures that flood PBS today.

Heffernan’s Sesame Street may have been gritty, but mine was terrifying.

First of all, does anyone remember the segments that featured a giant, fang-bearing blue wolf? (if not, check out the horror here) Whenever this wolf came on the screen, my brother and I would scream and run from the living room. I was petrified, and to this day my bro swears he used to have night terrors that revolved around “a big blue snout pushing open [his] closet door”.

Second, the Cookie Monster of my youth was not the put-together guy he is now. That growly voice, those googly eyes that just wouldn’t stop rolling, and an insatiable appetite, combined to make the perfect mixture for nightmares. I mean, if there was a monster living under my bed, I was pretty sure it looked and acted like Cookie Monster—except cookies were replaced with the desire for human flesh.

Thirdly, and most scarringly, was the segment I came to tearfully call “the scary aliens”. To this day, the palpable, body-numbing fear of seeing this segment is still one of the strongest childhood memories I have. Looking back, it makes perfect sense why trippy muppets that were all mouth and no body scared the bejeezus out of me. They flew around, had loud and uncontrolled voices, and stared at things with giant, unfocused eyes. Coked-out monsters who could hover. Frightening.

I don’t tune into Sesame Street anymore (I’ve got more mature things to watch. Like SpongeBob), but considering the “nobody-loses-and-we’re-all-so-special” society we live in today, I’m pretty sure the psychedelic, freaky episodes of my youth have been done away with.

Too bad the memories will never die.

What about you? Did you parents accidentally scare you for life by plunking you in front of good, quality children’s television? Let’s commiserate.

It was boring and hard, which meant that no matter what I tried, I constantly fell asleep next to my computer and woke up completely lost.

If only I could have taken one of these classes compiled by Mental Floss Magazine, I’m sure my GPA would have looked much better. Instead of dozing off to the lulling sound of a professor droning on about ratios, I could have been studying muppets and watching Sesame Street.

All of these, at one time, actually existed.

The Horror Film in Context – Bowdoin – Watch people get their heads smashed in and then talk about why society likes to watch people get their heads smashed in.

Simpsons and Philosophy – Cal-Berkeley – How much does this popular show reflect society? Apparently enough to warrant a semester’s worth of lectures.

Maple Syrup-The Real Thing – Alfred – Haven’t you always wanted to know the entire history of syrup?

The Science of Harry Potter – Frostburg State – Is it possible to make broomsticks fly? Let’s discuss.

Oprah Winfrey-The Tycon – U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – Race, Success, Money…and dealing with crazy movie stars jumping on your couch.

Far Side Entomology – Oregon State – Comic strips and insects. Sure, why not?

History of Electronic Dance Music – UCLA – Ace of Base never sounded so smart.

The Future is Lost: TV Series as Cultural Phenomenon – Tufts – Smart kids + mind-numbingly confusing show that went nowhere = deeper meanings that never existed.

Muppet Magic: Jim Henson’s Art – UC-Santa Cruz – How have muppets change your life, Little Jimmy?

Getting Dressed – Princeton – If you are what you wear, this class is probably full of polos and boat shoes.

Biblical Model for Home and Family –Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary – Gosh, I’ve always wanted to know how to “submit graciously” to my future husband!

I thought the writing was terrible, the songs were worse, and the acting was mind-numbingly bad. Granted, it was written for kids, and I guess it was fine for someone just wheening themselves off Sesame Street and the Disney Channel, but when it comes to the over-16 crowd who worship the movie, I just don’t understand.

Another thing I don’t understand is the magical pull of Zac Efron.

I mean, he kind of looks like he’s made of wax. A 12-year-old wax figurine. I know he’s almost 20, but he sure doesn’t look it, and if it wasn’t all over the place that he was dating what’s-her-name, I’d bet $100 dollars his ass was gay.

So why is he so famous? I think it’s the same reason Sanjaya and Clay Aiken (two boys who should just give up and step out of the closet) were /are so popular. Tween girls love guys who look harmless, sweet, and perfectly groomed.

These guys look into the camera lovingly, have non-threatening voices, bust out vaugely—but not too—sexual dance moves and always seem completely drug free. They’re male candy; sweet and sugary and manufactured.

I suppose I can understand the Tween love affair with Mr. “Cupie Doll” Efron. When I was that age, my walls were covered in Leonardo DiCaprio pictures. Covered. I was in love with his boyish face, his skinny frame, and his almost feminine hair…looking back on it now, I find it hard to see the allure of a pubescent looking 20-something, but that’s because at this age, I’m looking for a man. Someone who knows how to pay their taxes and make dinner and beat up someone for my affection.

Every time I look at Efron, I feel like I might have to stand next to him at the urinal and make sure he isn’t intimidated.

So if you’re 12, I say, go on and moon over the boy.

But if you’re pushing 21 and still think he’s dreamy…you might want to flip off the Mouse Ears channel. It’s brainwashing you.