What Twitter Taught Us: Anderson Cooper Gets Clocked in the Face, Egypt-Style

THE TWEET: It’s alive! Almost. The @daily debut issue is ready. See you soon.

WHAT WE LEARNED: The Rapture occurred this morning in the basement of the Guggenheim. The Daily, heralded as the savior of media, was unleashed upon the world, and everyone in attendance got an iPad to read it on. But what does the Second Coming do? Like everything guys! It flashes, flits, jumps, leaps, dances, dives, explodes with colors, bursts with headlines and sharp videos and dynamic ads, makes you lunch and picks up the kids at school. Tablet-based tabloid trapeze acts of magic journalism! Let's forget that the Web site looks suspiciously like my high school newspaper's, and there's a "Portlandia" review with a facepalm-worthy thirteen (13) mentions of the word "hipster." That's no matter! Big day for Rupert and everyone involved! Seriously, though, the thing looks great. Any machine where Troy Polamalu pops up in random places is fine in our book.

THE TWEET: Only in New York: helping Barry Diller push his Maserati out of the snow in Central Park on my way to work! http://twitpic.com/3tw7fh

WHAT WE LEARNED: New York in January was a miserable, soul-crushing place where a gray airborne event seized the skies for 31 days and refused to cede its fearful hold on our happiness. Thank God that month's over! Also, it snowed a lot in January if you didn't notice. Good thing we have people like Katie Couric to dig out our Maseratis! Oh, wait, that's just Barry Diller. We can dig out our own Maseratis thank you very much.

THE TWEET: Praying for safety & peace in #Australia & #Egypt, join me!

WHAT WE LEARNED: Katy Perry is praying. Hey, some extra awareness can't hurt.

THE TWEET: Got roughed up by thugs in pro-mubarak crowd..punched and kicked repeatedly. Had to escape. Safe now

WHAT WE LEARNED: With blood-grubbed fingers Anderson Cooper took to his phone to send off a dispatch about a bone-crunching brawl. But he was not reporting; he was in the thick of it. They were menacing. They were pro-Mubarak and they were thugs. They brought their boys. They wielded their fists and spat. And Anderson Cooper had to face them -- barreling down the newsman took ten punches to the skull and suffocating dropkicks to the stomach. They beat him. The rioting mob beat Anderson Cooper to a sorry pulp. The Egyptian soldiers stood watching, their impalpable guilt barely gestating within them, perhaps set to fester and boil until it eats them alive. Like the man in Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" they watched Anderson Cooper drown.

Maybe they were Wolf Blitzer fans?

THE TWEET: "Female celebrity is a poisoned chalice." - Nick Denton to me just now. Truer words have never been IM'd.

WHAT WE LEARNED: Non-celebrity Julia Allison has a column again! She parlayed her former gig at A.M. New York to Gawker fame and, eventually, to the towering achievement of microfame. There is so much awesomeness in that tweet that it's hard for us to start on it, but let's take a look at this "poisoned chalice" bit. Who exactly is doing the poisoning here? Is it Denton? He's the one who made her famous -- he made the call and said his writers had to finally heed her non-stop requests that they write about her. And of course Julia + Nick are still IM buddies. The world is better off with this happening.

THE TWEET: No shadow! My prediction: an early spring! Forget science. Ignore common sense. This groundhog would never lie

WHAT WE LEARNED: Forget The Daily: Punxsutawney Phil is our real savior. Not even Rupert Murdoch's millions can bring an early spring, but one little groundhog can. No more misery! Hope! Sunshine! Happiness again! We'll be drinking rosé in no time.