Visit Revolutionary War soldiers at the National Constitution Center July 2-4th

Mrs Peel, he's still needed.

Avengers star Patrick Macnee dies

 "Extraordinary crimes against the people, and the state, have to be avenged by agents extraordinary. Two such people are John Steed, top professional, and his partner Emma Peel, talented amateur. Otherwise known as The Avengers."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33279566

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Strawberry curry anyone?

Watson's AI-created recipe app goes live

An app which allows users to download recipes suggested by IBM's supercomputer Watson is going live for the public to test.

The Chef Watson app offers unique recipes by combining ingredients with data about the way humans perceive food.

The app is being launched with food magazine Bon Appetit.

The food served up by the cognitive computing platform has had mixed reviews.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33237527

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‘Jaws is no horror movie – it’s actually a comedy’

 

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150615-jaws-is-actually-a-comedy

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"I've seen The Exorcist about a hundred and sixty-seven times... and it keeps getting funnier... EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT!"

 - Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice

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RIP Vincent Musetto

 

Vincent Musetto, a retired editor at The New York Post who wrote the most anatomically evocative headline in the history of American journalism — HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR — died on Tuesday in the Bronx. He was 74.

A former colleague, Myron Rushetzky, confirmed the death, of pancreatic cancer, at Calvary Hospital.

The writers of newspaper headlines generally toil in anonymity, and over time a few others have been posited as the creator of this one. But among the salty, ink-stained, intemperate cadre of New York journalists who wistfully recall the days when men wore hats and newspapers were made only of paper, Mr. Musetto was widely credited as the creator of this headline, spread across The Post's front page on April 15, 1983.

The crime behind the headline was lurid even by tabloid standards. On April 13, 1983, Charles Dingle, drinking in a tavern in the Jamaica section of Queens, argued with the owner, Herbert Cummings, and shot him to death. He then took several women hostage, raping one and forcing another, in an apparent bid to confound the police, to cut off Mr. Cummings's head.

Apprehended the next day, Mr. Dingle was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life. Denied parole several times, he died in the Wende Correctional Facility near Buffalo in 2012.

But what endured in public memory far longer than the crime was the headline, with its verbless audacity, arresting parallel adjectives and forceful trochaic slams. (The corresponding headline in The New York Times that day proclaimed, genteelly, "Owner of a Bar Shot to Death; Suspect Is Held." Headlessness was not mentioned until the third paragraph; toplessness not at all.)

Mr. Musetto's headline, exquisitely emblematic of The Post under Rupert Murdoch, quickly insinuated itself into popular culture. It appeared on T-shirts; as the title of a 1995 movie starring Raymond J. Barry and loosely based on the crime; and as the name of a 2007 book, "Headless Body in Topless Bar: The Best Headlines From America's Favorite Newspaper."

continues:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/business/media/vincent-musetto-74-author-of-headless-headline-of-ageless-fame.html

If you haven't see this before...

THIS is truly funny, especially if you have kids...

Actual conversations with my 2 year old daughter, as re-enacted by me and another full-grown man - Episode 6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93aA6rAlUAo&sns=tw

When Christopher Lee Hunted Nazis

 

Beyond his acting prowess, it turns out Christopher Lee was a pretty amazing human, period. According to family lore , he was a descendent of Charlemagne on his father's side, and of the infamous Borgias on his mother's side. He sang on multiple heavy metal albums in his 80s and 90s. He served in the Special Operations Executive during World War II (also called Winston Churchill's "Secret Army").

Oh, and he also hunted Nazis.

Read more: 

http://forward.com/the-assimilator/309855/when-chrisopher-lee-hunted-nazis/

Space Weird Thing

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygrdAvmr-MA&feature=youtu.be

Published on May 26, 2015

This is a sweded parody of "Space Oddity," the David Bowie song (and music video). 

The lyrics contain only the thousand most common words in English. 

It's a loving tribute to David Bowie and it's inspired by Flight of the Conchords, Michel Gondry, and especially the Up-Goer Five diagram by Randall Munroe.

Sweded:

The summarized recreation of popular pop-culture films using limited budgets and a camcorder. The process is called sweding. Upon completion the film has been Sweded..

.

Death drives a Minivan

: How WWII Made America Literate

 

excerpt

Long before Pearl Harbor, American military leaders understood that maintaining the morale of their civilian troops was not a luxury but an iron necessity, and that by far the easiest way of doing so was to ensure that they had plenty of books and magazines to read in their off hours. In the words of Bill Mauldin, whose wartime cartoons so memorably portrayed the everyday life of the American G.I., "Soldiers at the front read K-ration labels when the contents are listed on the package, just to be reading something."

Because the Army Library Service had fallen into what Manning calls "a state of neglect" between the wars, it launched a national drive called the Victory Book Campaign, which by mid-1942 had collected 10 million donated books. But many of these unwanted books were of no more interest to servicemen than to their original owners, and it was increasingly evident that getting books into the hands of overseas troops would very soon become far more important—as well as logistically challenging, given the size and weight of hardbacks.

The solution was to distribute paperbacks, which had been introduced to the United States by Pocket Books in 1939. At a time when most hardbacks cost two dollars or more—$33 in today's dollars—Pocket Books printed 38 million 25-cent paperbacks in 1943 alone. Its success persuaded other publishers that it would make commercial sense to work with the military on a program to print books for soldiers, the assumption being that to do so would create a new market for inexpensive paperback reprints after the war. Thinking along closely similar lines, Time, the New Yorker, and other magazines created miniaturized "pony editions" for servicemen.

---

  full @

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/how-the-second-world-war-made-america-literate/

 

: How WWII Made America Literate

 

excerpt

Long before Pearl Harbor, American military leaders understood that maintaining the morale of their civilian troops was not a luxury but an iron necessity, and that by far the easiest way of doing so was to ensure that they had plenty of books and magazines to read in their off hours. In the words of Bill Mauldin, whose wartime cartoons so memorably portrayed the everyday life of the American G.I., "Soldiers at the front read K-ration labels when the contents are listed on the package, just to be reading something."

Because the Army Library Service had fallen into what Manning calls "a state of neglect" between the wars, it launched a national drive called the Victory Book Campaign, which by mid-1942 had collected 10 million donated books. But many of these unwanted books were of no more interest to servicemen than to their original owners, and it was increasingly evident that getting books into the hands of overseas troops would very soon become far more important—as well as logistically challenging, given the size and weight of hardbacks.

The solution was to distribute paperbacks, which had been introduced to the United States by Pocket Books in 1939. At a time when most hardbacks cost two dollars or more—$33 in today's dollars—Pocket Books printed 38 million 25-cent paperbacks in 1943 alone. Its success persuaded other publishers that it would make commercial sense to work with the military on a program to print books for soldiers, the assumption being that to do so would create a new market for inexpensive paperback reprints after the war. Thinking along closely similar lines, Time, the New Yorker, and other magazines created miniaturized "pony editions" for servicemen.

---

  full @

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/how-the-second-world-war-made-america-literate/

 

"Riddle me this, Batman!"