Serial subway flasher and rax food restaurateur Dan Hoyt was sentenced to 2 years probation plus counseling in the case of his subway pleasuring that was captured by a cameraphone last August. Hoyt apologized for his actions, and it turns out he's flashed people four other times between 2004 and 2005. Eep. However, Thao Nguyn, who snapped the photograph, was deeply unimpressed with Hoyt's remarks to New York magazine, where he said some women would be turned on by what he did and want to date him. Nguyen was one of the women marching outside of the courtroom against Hoyt; Hollaback NYC founder Lauren Spees told the AP that Nguyen "is like the Rosa Parks of street harassment." more ›

Yesterday, public bus systems across the country paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks's decision not to give up her bus seat. New York's MTA got into the act, with limited success, with just a Rosa Parks poster plopped onto seats or just above them. Our readers let us know that varying levels of reaction for the tribute (people sitting in seats, people writing notes on the poster to remind them not to sit in the seat), as well as the fact that some buses didn't seem to have posters. The daily newspapers got mixed reviews as well: The tribute was a good thing, though empty bus seats were not. The NY Times found most people were receptive, though some people still stayed in the seat knowing it was meant to be left open or prompting others to move the poster to a more visible place. The Daily News reported that some people didn't notice the sign (they probably thought, man, another annoying thing from the MTA) and one poster had been ripped off and tossed to the floor. And Newsday spoke to one teenager who thought the tribute was great, but felt that some people would just want to sit down in a seat. Well, if it got just one person on each bus thinking, we'd call it a success. more ›

When we read that the MTA would pay tribute to the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks's decision not to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus by leaving all the first seats of buses empty and putting up posters explaining why, we thought it sounded great. But after looking at this photograph from Newsday how the MTA actually did it (left), Gothamist is less than impressed. Especially when you look at what Boston did with their buses (right) and see that the seat is tied with a black ribbon, simply with Parks's image on the back. What was the MTA thinking, just slapping the "BusTalk" photocopy onto the back of the seat? Sure, sometimes less is more and there's a description of why the seat is empty, but it just looks terrible and sloppy. We know the MTA's heart is in the right place, as their page about Rosa Parks is better. more ›

- Homicide and Oz creative force, Tom Fontana, is being honored tonight by Scenarios USA, the non-profit that helps teens face issues through the creative process
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Rosa Parks, the Alabama seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus and ignited the civil rights movement, has died at age 92 in Detroit. She had suffered from dementia since 2002, but Parks' legacy has reached far and wide for the past half century. After being tired of years of poor treatment on buses (she had had a run-in with the December 1, 1955 bus driver back in 1943), her decision to stay in her seat stirred the imaginations of many Americans, including Martin Luther King Jr. Her life and the events surrounding her arrest in 1955 are recounted with great detail in various obituaries from the New York Times, Washington Post, Detroit Free Press, and Birmingham News. more ›