i'm having a hard time deciding which subjects of recent nytimes articles are more reprehensible. by the way, this is a decision i am forced to make almost weekly. anyway, in one corner we have the nyc hipsters who are drinking rose by the bucketful. sample exceprts:

“A lot of younger people are buying rosés,” he said, adding that many men are no longer embarrassed to be seen drinking a pink wine. “Guys will bring it to rooftop parties and backyard barbecues. I’ve been putting rosé in an empty Gatorade bottle and drinking it in the park.”

...“I used to hate rosé,” said Alex Kapranos, the lead singer of the rock band Franz Ferdinand and a food columnist for The Guardian in London. “It was a Blue Nun-style secretary’s-night-out drink, and that put me off it. But a couple years ago I had a cold bottle on a hot night, and it was marvelous.”

Still, its old reputation was hard to shake. Jay McInerney, the wine columnist of House & Garden, compared rosé to Jackie Collins novels and Jerry Bruckheimer movies in his August column. “There was a sense that pink wine couldn’t be serious,” said Mr. McInerney, a rosé fan, who has been trying to lead a revival for years. “People were afraid of looking unsophisticated by drinking rosé. It wasn’t red. It wasn’t white. They didn’t know what to do with it.”

But now, among a certain group of global style setters ordering rosé is a sign of being in the know. Dropping the name of a Provençal rosé like Domaine Tempier can be code for having recently frolicked in St.-Tropez or Cap d’Antibes, where rosé accompanies leisurely seaside lunches. Even Pamela Anderson, in the days before she wed Kid Rock in St.-Tropez, was snapped by paparazzi on a yacht, a glass of rosé in hand.

EVEN pamela anderson?!? the height of class!

in the other corner, we have the "boat ravers" of chicago, making the waters of lake michigan even nastier:

In one undulating line of boats, several small to midsize yachts were bound together in the center of one cluster. Banners spelling out the name of local clubs hung from their sides, and coordinated sound systems blared music from local D.J.’s.

In the surrounding boats, bikini-clad women tried to stay upright as they danced on slippery runners or hopped from boat to boat looking for better drinks. Others tumbled onto giant floating trampolines or fired four-foot squirt guns at one another. On a few boats, grills were being fired up.

Fueled by wealthy boat owners and the young women they and their boats can attract, the daytime parties have become a magnet for local nightclub owners and promoters who use the scene to draw people to their clubs once the sun sets. Last year club owners upped the ante by ferrying D.J.’s out to spin during the day.

“It’s like maximum exposure,” Jason Kalendr, 28, better known in the club scene as DJ Kalendr, said during a break from spinning tracks one recent Saturday, his baseball cap turned slightly sideways. “Everyone who is in this business is out on the lake.” He, like any well-known Chicago D.J., spins for free on the lake.

it's almost impossible to choose! what's really amazing about these articles is that they overshadowed even the asshattery of the past couple of weeks' modern loves, a seriously amazing feat. anyway, in this case, i think i'm going to have to go with the rose-drinking hipsters. the boat ravers can't help being douchebags; they were practically born that way. it is sad they must take their activities out onto the water instead of remaining in their normal dens of terrible clubs that charge $20 for a cover; but this is america, after all. we cannot hold them back. but choosing to drink pink wine? because of its "cachet," because it won't get you as wasted as other drinks, because it's a code for the south of france? UNACCEPTABLE. especially unacceptable are those who have been "trying to lead a rose revival for years." in response i am going to go drink a bottle of red and 12 sparks.