I know everybody is up in arms about Harper’s Bazaar putting a recylced pic of Angelina Jolie on its July cover — the turn to tacky tabloidism must be a big morale boost in the face of a 15% drop in newsstand sales — but I’m reserving my visual ire for the wasted opportunity that is Vanity Fair’s Johnny Depp cover and feature spread. It’s not often that we get to see the most talented and courageous actor of our generation — and my lifelong “21 Jump Street” crush — in the glossies. While VF’s treatment may be the product of a commissioned shoot, it has the cheap look and feel of pickup art. Now, I understand that Depp is nearly as difficult to style as Jolie, but that’s no excuse for giving us girls nothing gorgeous to gawk at. I mean, how hard could it be to get him to take his shirt off?

Pete Seeger seems like a super-awesome folkie and all — who doesn’t love “This Land Is Your Land”? — and his “Guide to Surviving the Recession” in New York Mag is a fabulously cute idea. But, eek, viewing his ways from a feminist-family perspective kinda deflates the fantasy. Here are some bummer quotes:

1. “When I became successful my wife put the money in a bank account for our grandchildren’s education. Then I stole about $140,000 because I felt we should have a sailboat.”
— Right on! Nothing’s more American than living for the moment.

2. “My father-in-law put in a vegetable garden and sometimes I help.”
— Hmm, so who do you think does most of the work? (That’s Toshi, Pete’s toiling wife, boiling down maple syrup, above.)

3. “When I was on tour, [Toshi]‘d get a pail of water out of the brook with one kid on her hip and the other nipping at her skirt.”
– Wait a sec. This woman takes care of everything (see above), and she still gets no rockstar-wife perks? Not to mention help? Mrs. Seeger deserves a medal — she is the one saving the planet, her family’s finances and Pete’s career.

Don’t scare the straighties! As if the readers of Harper’s Bazaar didn’t know that most fashion designers are — horrors! — gay, and — double horrors! — cohabitating with their boyfriends, the magazine shot a shelter story on cutie-pie Derek Lam in the most hetero manner possible (Lam’s ball-hugging denim, notwithstanding). For what other “Fashionable Life” feature has ever included a friend that’s a girl in addition to a female employee? Flat-out suggesting to a casual peruser that there’s no gayness happening whatsoever? C’mon, Stephen Gan! Know thyself and embrace!

Several years ago, Mr. MILF and I were in Michigan, when a front-page story in the Detroit Free Press made plain that the ambitions of the city, and its premier paper, had gotten so provincial as to be depressing. (Or maybe the Freep’s hyperlocal focus made it visionary?) The article was about the Red Wings and their dogs, and it choked me up because when prime media real estate goes to soggy stories, it is a sure sign of decline. So you can imagine my shock when I happened upon Bazaar’s “Best in Show,” a six-page embarrassment devoted to fashion designers and their canine companions, which was inspired by — I kid you not — Mickey Rourke’s affection for his recently departed chichuahua. I have no idea how the magazine convinced anybody to participate, except as some cockamamie attempt to humanize designers in the eyes of their newly doubting subjects. Still, no wonder magazine ad pages declined 26 percent in the first quarter. Perhaps only Donna Karan showed worse judgment than the folks at Bazaar, by naming her dog after her dead husband. I mean, what does that say about their relationship?

Euw. What is a women’s magazine doing putting a 16-year-old — especially this 16-year-old — on the cover? It’d be one thing if Miley Cyrus were making grown-up content. That justification made sense for the few other teens who fronted Glamour, including Brooke Shields and Niki Taylor, points out Cindi Leive in a rather defensive Editor’s Note. But Cyrus’s professional duties are limited to the tweeny-bopper Hannah Montana franchise. (No word on how grown-up her — illegal? — relationship is with Justin Gaston, 20.) So it’s hard to fathom Miley’s appeal to Glamour readers, whose median age is 33. I’d bet five bucks that most 33-year-old Glamour fans don’t even have nieces in that demographic!