Celebrity news hasn't been popping lately. It's vulgar—but more importantly, it's gotten repetitive. The new pastime is mocking the rich. But now, the journalists feel more sympathy with the fallen rich than ever before.

Movie idea: the daughter of Jewish refugees flees Europe for Wall Street, strikes it rich, gains billionaire mobster clients, but is then forced into hiding by a deal gone wrong. Bonus: it's a true story.

A German billionaire killed himself after hefty stock losses. A French money manager committed suicide after losing billions to Bernie Madoff. Is shame confined to the Old World?

German billionaire Adolf Merckle, one of the 100 richest people in the world, has killed himself by jumping in front of a train—emotionally "broken" over a bad bet on Volkswagen last year.

Alexandra Penney was a wealthy UES sex book author and editor who lost everything in the Bernie Madoff swindle. The only winners: us, because she's now the most delightfully un-self-aware ex-rich blogger evah!

First Ladybot Laura Bush sold her memoirs yesterday, and the speculation was that she'd get more than Hillary Clinton's $8 million advance, because of...inflation? But apparently she got way less.

Good morning sunshine! It's January, which means the horrible media advertising apocalypse has now begun. But not to worry, media lovers; it's only affecting every famous book, magazine, and newspaper publisher:

Yesterday America fell to its knees, wailing, because Time Warner threatened to pull several networks off the air because of a spat with Viacom. Well it's all over now so return to the couch, sheep.

Valkyrie is recovering reasonably well from the crippling stroke of bad publicity that nearly killed it earlier this year. But only part of that is due to slightly better-than-average word on the street.

Remember back in the good old days of journalism, when reporters lived like veritable kings? Me neither. But we know those days existed, because now everyone who lived through them is getting nostalgic:

The courts are doing everything possible to make this nasty legal situation comfortable for Hedge Fund Hustler Bernie Madoff, who after all only set billions of dollars on fire. Stay home and rest, Bernie:

Lovable, tobacco-spewing former ballplayer Lenny "Nails" Dykstra is having serious problems at his new ballplayers-with-money magazine Players Club. Proving you don't have to be a media professional to run a magazine into the ground:

The Huffington Post announced just weeks ago that it had landed $25 million in new investments. Now, their traffic is (predictably) plunging. Arianna Huffington's dealmaking abilities are awesome.

Everybody knows what Bernie Madoff did—hustle a lot of people out of $50 billion. But nobody's really explained how he did it. Now we're finding out his purported "strategy" was obviously fake.

Execs at the National Lampoon are charged with illegally inflating the company's stock price, which leads to a blogger making a predictable joke. Comedy sucks these days. [TheStreet.com]

Hedge fund hustler Bernie Madoff made $50 billion in wealth evaporate—much of it from some of America's richest Jews. Does this fact have a greater significance? We'll say... yes(?)

First Damon Dash's apartment got foreclosed upon, and now Doug E. Fresh is facing the same fate. One more to a full trend! We need more rhymes about financial planning:

Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman is the latest billionaire revealed to have fallen prey to ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. How many of Rupert Murdoch's papers does it take to cover the story?

Who, exactly, are the rich suckers who just got bilked out of $50 billion (collectively) by Hedge Fund Hustler extraordinaire Bernie Madoff? Here are the names we know so far:

Tina Brown, who's edited Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and now the Daily Beast, wrote an essay this week decrying the "Media Zombies"—the "feckless bureaucrats" who spent money unwisely and are really responsible for all the media layoffs going on right now. That's a bit rich (ha), coming from a woman who is famous, above all else, for throwing money around like confetti. Let's take a wildly abbreviated tour of Tina's spending history, shall we?