Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Memorial Day - The Lucky Ones are Dead (Creators Syndicate)
Rich man's war. Poor man's fight. They said that about the Civil War, when legless vets came back to beg in the streets while their wives and daughters sold themselves as whores.
Lucy Mangan: loved by the bad, feared by the good… (Guardian)
And so I still always want to ask - how many bags of gold is enough? How many before you can bear to part with one? Why do rulers persist in snatching so much from the peasantry but settle for a handful of groats from others? Why are there so many very merry men around these days who have absolutely nothing to do with Robin Hood?
Nancy Featherstone: "Experience: I've worn the same outfit as my husband for 35 years" (Guardian)
'If we need a new outfit, we go to the fabric shop together and pick out something we both like.'
Anonymous: "What I'm really thinking: the father-in-law" (Guardian)
'I can't help feeling disappointed in my daughter's choice of partner, even though I hide it pretty well.'
Simon Hattenstone: Patti Smith: punk poet queen (Guardian)
She was the angry, androgynous runaway who got chatted up by Allen Ginsberg and had a grand affair with Robert Mapplethorpe. And at 66 Patti Smith shows no sign of mellowing. We spend a gothic afternoon at home with the punk legend.
Lucy Mangan: "The Railway Children by E Nesbit" (Guardian)
The children must learn a new mindset ("Jam OR butter, dear - not jam AND butter. We can't afford that sort of reckless luxury nowadays!" counsels their mother, whose superb cheeriness and pluck are the things with which we truly built the empire), and seek out new friends and entertainments.
Charlyn Fargo: Fruit and Veggie Power (Creators Syndicate)
We all know we need to eat more fruits and veggies. Yet despite the scores of studies that have linked fruit and vegetable consumption with a myriad of health benefits, only 6 percent of Americans meet the daily recommended target for vegetables and 8 percent achieve the goal for fruits.
Melanie Chernock: Love Hurts
Love Hurts was created based on an assignment to make an activity book. I thought it would be more interesting to make a sort of activity kit instead. From there, I came up with the concept of Love Hurts: A first aid kit for a broken heart. Initially, I knew that I did not want to make a kit of sadness and wanted to approach the product with a sense of humor. Love Hurts contains all of the essentials for going through a rough breakup such as dark chocolate, vodka, bubble bath soap, a candle with matches, candy hearts, a mix CD, and if all else fails, tissues.! ?
It's Not About the Nail (YouTube)
"Don't try to fix it. I just need you to listen." Every man has heard these words. And they are the law of the land. No matter what.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, breezy, and cooler than seasonal.
'Blue is the Warmest Color'
Cannes
The tender, sensual lesbian romance "Blue is the Warmest Color: The Life of Adele" won the hearts of the 66th Cannes Film Festival, taking its top honor, the Palme d'Or.
The jury, headed by Steven Spielberg, took the unusual move of awarding the Palme not just to Tunisian-born director Abdellatif Kechiche, but also to the film's two stars: Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux. The three clutched each other as they accepted the award, one of cinema's greatest honors.
Exarchopoulos stars in the French film as a 15-year-old girl whose life is changed when she falls in love with an older woman, played by Seydoux. The three-hour film caught headlines for its lengthy, graphic sex scenes, but bewitched festival goers with its heartbreaking coming of age story.
The Coen brothers' 1960s folk revival "Inside Llewyn Davis" earned the Grand Prix, Cannes' second most prestigious award. The film's breakout star, Oscar Isaac, accepted the award for the Coens, who won the Palme in 1991 for "Barton Fink."
Best actor went to 76-year-old Bruce Dern for Alexander Payne's father-son road trip "Nebraska." Berenice Bejo, the "Artist" star, won best actress for her performance as a single mother balancing a visiting ex-husband and a new fiancé in Asghar Farhadi's "The Past."
Cannes
Gives Westboro A New Look
Jester
The Westboro Baptist Church is notorious for making incendiary comments about national tragedies, which they often purport to be punishments from God for alleged sins committed by humanity. The tornado in Oklahoma last week was no exception.
Fred Phelps Jr., the son of the WBC's minister, made a public statement on his Twitter account that the devastation was humanity's punishment for the public support shown to Jason Collins, an NBA player who recently came out of the closet.
And to drive that message home, the church erected a new website just a day after the tornado struck, titled GodHatesOklahoma.com, an obvious nod to their hallmark signage at protests, which usually reads, "God Hates F*gs."
But at least one long-standing critic of the congregation had enough. A hacktivist who goes by the name of Jester reportedly hacked the church's newly-erected website, altering its content and turning it into a donation page for victims of the Oklahoma tornado.
Here's a google cache of what it looked like: goo.gl/UgVtW
Jester
Odd Roadside Attractions
Rural America
Muscotah, 90 miles northwest of Kansas City, is like many towns across rural America - looking for quirky, offbeat and boutique attractions to invigorate declining local economies.
Rural counties are home to about 15 percent of Americans, but population numbers dropped overall between April 2010 and July 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. Depopulation often brings financial hardship: Muscotah has lost its school and grocery store. Its only remaining businesses are a mercantile store, a bait shop and a post office.
One Kansas town, Cawker City, boasts a 9-ton ball of twine, "the world's largest," that a resident started making in 1953. It is stationed downtown under its own shelter and visitors are invited to add twine, which is a strong type of string used in farming to bind together bales of hay.
Other states have their share of oddities as well. Texas has a museum devoted to barbed wire and a "Cadillac Ranch" with 10 autos planted nose-down into the ground. Florida has a handmade coral castle dedicated to a lost love; New Jersey has Lucy the Margate Elephant, a 65-foot-high wooden sculpture built to attract land buyers to the area.
Rural America
Choir Of 4,335
St. Petersburg
More than 4,000 Russian singers have performed outdoors in St. Petersburg with the aim of setting a world record for the largest choir.
The 4,335 singers of all ages and from nearly all of the city's professional and amateur choirs sang from the steps of St. Isaac's Cathedral before thousands of spectators under an intermittent rain.
The spectators, who closed their umbrellas with the start of Sunday's performance, sang along during the one-hour concert.
The 14 songs performed included some of the most popular and patriotic songs of Russia and the Soviet Union, including a hymn celebrating the country's victory in World War II.
St. Petersburg
Injures10 Race Fans
Rupert
Charlotte Motor Speedway said 10 fans were injured Sunday at the Coca-Cola 600 and three of them were taken to the hospital after a nylon rope supporting a Fox Sports overhead television camera fell from the grandstands and landed on the track surface.
According to CMS spokeswoman Danielle Frye the three people taken to the hospital had "minor injuries that are not life threatening."
Fox Sports announcer Chris Myers apologized to fans and drivers on air on behalf of the network during the race.
The race was delayed for 27 minutes while crews repaired damage to their cars.
Rupert
Vets Push
Recognition
The Navajo Code Talkers are legendary. Then there was Cpl. Ira Hamilton Hayes, the Pima Indian who became a symbol of courage and patriotism when he and his fellow Marines raised the flag over Iwo Jima in 1945.
Before World War II and in the decades since, tens of thousands of American Indians have enlisted in the Armed Forces to serve their country at a rate much greater than any other ethnicity.
Yet, among all the monuments and statues along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., not one stands in recognition.
A grassroots effort is brewing among tribes across the country to change that, while Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii has introduced legislation that would clear the way for the National Museum of the American Indian to begin raising private funds for a memorial.
"This is not a political gamble for anyone, and it's not politically threatening for anyone," said Jefferson Keel, a retired Army officer and president of the National Congress of American Indians. "This is something that both sides of the aisle can get behind and support, because it's not going to cost a lot of money for the country. It's just something that needs to be done."
Recognition
Mystery Solved
Irish Potato Famine
The Irish potato famine that caused mass starvation and approximately 1 million deaths in the mid-19th century was triggered by a newly identified strain of potato blight that has been christened "HERB-1," according to a new study.
An international team of molecular biologists studied the historical spread of Phytophthora infestans, a funguslike organism that devastated potato crops and led to the famine in Ireland. The precise strain of the pathogen that caused the devastating outbreak, which lasted from 1845 to 1852, had been unknown.
"We have finally discovered the identity of the exact strain that caused all this havoc," study co-author Hernán Burbano, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany, said in a statement.
Previously, a Phytophthora strain called US-1 was thought to have triggered the potato famine, but by sequencing the genomes of preserved samples of the plant pathogen, the researchers discovered that a different strain - one that is new to science - was the real culprit.
Irish Potato Famine
Funds Dry Up
Monuments
On the shoreline of Hawaii's most famous beach, a decaying structure attracts little attention from wandering tourists.
A few glance curiously at the crumbling Waikiki Natatorium, a salt water pool built in 1927 as a memorial to the 10,000 soldiers from Hawaii who served in World War I. But the monument's walls are caked with salt and rust, and passers-by are quickly diverted by the lure of sand and waves.
The faded structure has been closed to the public for decades, the object of seemingly endless debate over whether it should be demolished or restored to its former glory. The latest plan is to replace it with a beach, more practical for the state's lucrative tourism industry - and millions of dollars cheaper, according to state and local officials. They say a full restoration could cost nearly $70 million.
The corroding monument has challenged the community to maneuver a delicate question: How do we honor those who have served when memorials deteriorate and finances are tight?
Monuments
Immigration Reform
Farmworkers
After Paulino Mejia crossed the border illegally into the U.S. in 1980, he picked grapes, peaches and other crops in California's agricultural heartland, lived in crowded rental housing, hid from immigration agents and sent paychecks to family in his native Mexico.
His life, however, changed in 1986, when Congress agreed to allow immigrants who were in the country illegally to get legal status - with a special provision that focused on farmworkers.
Mejia then stopped living in fear. He left agriculture to join a construction company that hired only legal workers, sent his two daughters to college and bought a house in Madera, near Fresno, instead of wiring money to Mexico.
"Immigration reform changed my life. It gave my family freedom," he said. "It allowed us to reach the American dream."
With Congress considering a new immigration proposal that includes a speedier process to legal status for farmworkers, experts say the best indicator of how such an overhaul would play out is to look at the fate of the generation of farmworkers legalized over two decades ago.
Farmworkers
Mexican Cave Art
Sierra de San Carlos
In the mountains of northeastern Mexico, archaeologists have unearthed thousands of ancient paintings on the walls of caves and ravines from a time before Spanish rule.
The rock art offers rare evidence from native cultures living in the area around the Sierra de San Carlos, a mountain range in Mexico's state of Tamaulipas, researchers say.
Almost 5,000 of these paintings were found across 11 different sites in the region, the researchers said. Created with red, yellow, black and white pigments, the images show animals from deer to lizards to centipedes, as well as people. Depictions of tents, hunting, fishing and possibly astronomical charts also offer a glimpse into the life of this mysterious culture.
The findings document the presence of pre-Hispanic groups, "where before it was said that there was nothing, when in fact it was inhabited by one or more cultures," archaeologist Gustavo Ramirez, of the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History, said in a statement.
Sierra de San Carlos
Weekend Box Office
"Fast & Furious 6"
"Fast & Furious 6" is revving past "The Hangover Part III" in the No. 1 position at the Memorial Day weekend box office.
Universal Pictures' sixth installment of its muscle car franchise featuring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker debuted with $98.5 million domestically from Friday to Sunday, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Meanwhile, the final edition of the raunchy Warner Bros. comedy trilogy starring Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms opened with $42.1 million in the No. 2 spot.
Paramount Pictures' sci-fi sequel "Star Trek: Into Darkness" earned $38 million at No. 3 in its second weekend at the box office, while the Fox animated film "Epic" opened at No. 4 with $34.2 million.
Overall domestic receipts for the four-day Memorial Day weekend are expected to come in ahead of 2011's record-breaking $276 million.
"Fast & Furious 6"
In Memory
Ed Shaughnessy
Longtime Tonight Show drummer Ed Shaughnessy died Friday in his Calabasas, Calif., home of a heart attack, the Los Angeles Times reports. He was 84.
Shaughnessy was a three-decade fixture of Doc Severinsen's Tonight Show Band - in a time in which more of a big-band feel ruled the show. He played drums from 1963 to 1992 in the Johnny Carson era, leaving when Jay Leno stepped in as the show's new host.
Shaughnessy was a 2004 inductee to the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame.
Ed Shaughnessy
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