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Xeni Jardin at 1:18 pm • 
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A wonderful photo-essay on Dangerous Minds. The selection above, obviously: Marilyn Monroe.
(thanks, Tara McGinley!)
Jasmina Tesanovic at 12:31 pm • •
(Lady Gaga performs during a gay pride concert in downtown Rome. Stefano Rellandini / Reuters)
The gay icon Lady Gaga was there wearing her green wig, together with up to one million people marching chanting singing in a carnival gay pride march.
Rome is the capital of Vatican too, the place where Pope lives and preaches from his balcony every Sunday morning about how people should live and love. Lady Gaga's motto this Sunday was the power of love. She recalled her Italian origin and name ( La Germanotta) and, in a passionate speech, demanded immediate equal rights for the gays, meaning the right to get married, have children etc. While singing her new song Born This Way, an anthem to diversity...
But only few days ago, the Pope announced his firm opposition to equalize even straight informal marriages, that is, unions not sanctioned by God in a marriage sacrament. Where the Catholic church is concerned, gay marriages are not only a taboo topic but even a place of severe demonization and homophobia.
Xeni Jardin at 5:44 pm • •
Mad Libs
Around the web: New York Times, Reuters, Washington Post, NPR, Variety, LA Times.
Scanned vintage Mad Libs cover from the Flickr stream of Dan Goodsell. A very politically incorrect early page found at this blog, along with a nice collection of other vintage covers.
Xeni Jardin at 3:07 pm • •
Officials in the state of Alaska today released about 13,000 of Sarah Palin's emails from the former governor's first 21 months in office. During that period, her fame grew and she became a GOP vice presidential nominee. In the video below, you can see 24,199 pages of those emails boxed up and hand-carted on dollies (note that the boxes show they're printed on "Cougar" brand paper, heh). The process of preparing the documents for release took some two years, involved 55 current and former state employees, and required a legal review that concluded on May 31. Ms. Palin used a Yahoo email account, rather than an official Alaska government email account, presumably to avoid state archiving and recordkeeping requirements.
Among the 14,482 emails that were sent or received by then-Gov. Sarah Palin (R), Alaska officials released just over 11,000 without altering them. But they also redacted some information from more than 2,300. And they held back 953 entirely.
The content may not all be heavy (we are talking about Sarah Palin here), but the documents are. And unlike Palin, they're not cheap. From the New York Times:
[H]er old e-mails are being released by the pound, not the pixel, in six boxes, a total of about 250 pounds at a printing cost of $725 per set.Reading these early news accounts, it's not yet clear to me why the state chose to release the emails in printed form, as opposed to scanned images or in some native text-based digital form with full headers and such. Some interesting issues around forensics and privacy to consider there. But releasing these state documents on paper, and charging for them, makes the task all the more onerous for reporters and investigators. Of course, the state could have been even more cruel: selecting a font like, say, Comic Sans. Or Zapf Dingbats.
So why are we seeing them at all? Because Mother Jones, ProPublica, and MSNBC requested them in 2008.
Xeni Jardin at 2:32 pm • •
This weekend, CNN will air "Wikiwars," the network's much-promoted documentary on Wikileaks hosted by a former Navy SEAL. The one-hour program premieres Sunday, June 12, 8:00pm ET & PT, and will repeat at other times after that.I haven't seen it yet, but Greg Mitchell, who has been blogging tirelessly about Wikileaks over at the Nation for nearly half a year now, has. The short version: "Like [the PBS] Frontline epic," he says, the CNN documentary contains "no new news."
This is a list of Assange / WikiLeaks critics interviewed (and quoted more than once): David Leigh, Nick Davies, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, Adrian Lamo, Brigadier Gen. Mark T. Kimmitt (Ret.). Here is a list of Assange / WikiLeaks supporters interviewed: one unnamed and masked allegedly activist from Anonymous. Other critics who get face time: Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, even Newt Gingrich.
Not a surprise: The official Wikileaks Twitter account, presumably Julian Assange himself, describes the documentary as "full of the usual slanders."
Xeni Jardin at 2:15 pm • •
An academic appreciation of very bad late '90s Hip-Hop cover art. (thanks, David)
Xeni Jardin at 1:16 pm • •
(Above Left: Photo of Run D.M.C.
, just lost a court case which could result in significant damages. Sean Bonner broke the initial news of the legal dispute here on Boing Boing, in a guest blog post this January.
From the Melrose and Fairfax art blog:
A judge just ruled against Mr. Brainwash in a lawsuit from photographer Glen E. Friedman claiming that MBW used his iconic photo of Run D.M.C.
The Hollywood Reporter has the full story, and covered earlier news of the dispute here.
More at the UK Guardian, and Thomas Hawk's photography blog, and at photoattorney.com.
Some will ask how this case is different from that of the Associated Press and Shepard Fairey, over Fairey's iconic Obama poster. Some context: Fairey is a creative collaborator and friend of Friedman, and Bonner, and crossed paths with Guetta, as those of you who saw "Gift Shop" will recall. Sean Bonner covered that question here in detail, in a previous Boing Boing guest blog post.
Xeni Jardin at 4:06 pm • •
Remember the (fictitious, funny) Onion article "Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex"? Now the famed Abortionplex is on Yelp. Free nachos and mojitos after your partial birth abortion, with a Yelp discount code! As noted in a previous Boing Boing post, many people believe the Abortionplex (and other Onion coverage) is real. I can't wait for the credulous Fox News coverage to kick in.
Everyone loves Abortionplex, but true fans know that the real magic is found in the secret menu. A 2x3 lets you sandwich in movie screenings at the theater before, between and after ridding yourself of potential twins. An 8x8? Spend your day easily breezing from Octomom to Oscars noms. Hold the butter on that popcorn though - you're not eating for 9 anymore!(thanks, Susannah!)Tell your doc you want The Flying Dutchman if you want to squeeze your abortion appointment in between two pieces of meat, if you know what I mean, and let's face it, you always know what I mean.
But real pros know that nothing satisfies your hunger for an empty uterus quite as much as well as Animal Style. In this iteration of the classic abortion, after the doctor perfectly vacuums the contents of your uterus, she then fills it with a secret sauce filled with tiny unicorns which will trot around poking holes in your uterine lining and preventing zygotes from taking hold for at least 6 months. But let's face it, even if you're already filled to the brim with tiny unicorns and think you won't be abortion-hungry again for a while, you know you'll be poking around Abortionplex tomorrow on your lunch break. It's too good to stay away!
Xeni Jardin at 4:07 pm • •
For some, a defacement page from the PBS LulzSec hack will be the first introduction to Nyan Cat. For others, the animated pop-tart rainbow feline is already a familiar form of internet meme happies, despite having originated just two months ago.
This Know Your Meme feature is a good place overview of its origins. The attention-deficit-version is this: PRguitarman created it. Everything began on April 2, 2011, at LOL-COMICS, then hit Tumblr, and from there, mutated and spread rapidly like so many strains of gleeful, 8-bit ebola.
Below, one of the early videos to surface; and following that, a dubstep remix of the same, both via Laughing Squid.
Xeni Jardin at 2:50 pm • •
Members of the Westboro Baptist Church today "were met with an unlikely group of counter-protesters Monday at Arlington Cemetery"—the KKK. Problem solved for media unsure of whether to give more attention to racists or homophobes.
Not that the presence of either group is new. File photo above, via Reuters: Westboro Baptist Church trolls holding anti-gay signs at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day, November 11, 2010.
God hates faps.
Xeni Jardin at 11:30 am • •
The similarity between the work of Chicago-based designer Stevie Koerner, aka imakeshinythings, and a recently-launched line of jewelry from Urban Outfitters, appears too close to be an accident. This is not the first time the fashion chain has been accused of ripping off indie designers.
Above: Urban Outfitters' line at left, Stevie Koerner's at right. More on Stevie's blog.
(via Submitterator, thanks Jack Crosby)
Xeni Jardin at 2:04 pm • •
[Video Link, from NewGrounds via Jesse Thorn]
Xeni Jardin at 1:43 pm • •
Judgment Day is upon us: tomorrow, Saturday May 21, at 6pm local time, according to this gentleman. Are you planning to leave this earthly plane and join The Lord, or are you planning to observe the day in some other fashion?
Xeni Jardin at 11:52 am • •
Photographers are pissed that Lady Gaga is now demanding they surrender the copyright of any and all photos taken at her concerts. (Rolling Stone)
Image: Lady Gaga performs during the 64th Cannes Film Festival (Reuters/Yves Herman)
Xeni Jardin at 3:10 pm • •
[