Musician Robert Hazard (1948-2008) wrote and recorded "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" on a demo tape in 1979. Four years later, Cyndi Lauper covered it and it made her famous.
From Wikipedia:
— Read the restThe song was written by Robert Hazard, who recorded only a demo of it in 1979.
In the 36 years since Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" was an MTV staple, I had never listened to Robert Hazard's original version from 1979 that was only recorded as a demo. It's a totally different head. — Read the rest
Robert De Niro was scheduled to speak at The New Republic's "Stop Trump Summit" in New York City on Wednesday, but he was feeling under the weather, so someone else read his speech about Donald Trump on his behalf, and it's a doozy. — Read the rest
In 1983, Cyndi Lauper transformed Robert Hazard's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" into a new wave pop anthem that Gillian G. Gaar described as a "strong feminist statement", an "anthem of female solidarity," and a "playful romp celebrating female camaraderie" in her book She's a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll (2002). — Read the rest
"Hollywood's 33 Most Spoiled Brats!" dominate this week's cover.
Only 33?
It's an egregiously invasive and callous attack on the defenseless children of stars including Beyoncé, Will Smith, Elton John, Gwen Stefani, Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie, David & Victoria Beckham, and many more celebrities whose fame and wealth makes them a target. — Read the rest
Electric cars going up in flames is a trend. One Tesla's lithium-ion battery caught on fire recently in Scottsdale, Arizona. Twice.
"Witnesses at the scene tell ABC15 a teen girl was attempting to park the vehicle, and then it went forward, hitting the building. — Read the rest
"But then you find the maps", such as this one of the Chicago Metropolitan Area in 1940.
This is how Robert Gioielli describes the insight and specificity of the maps highlighted in the post, "The Tyranny of the Map: Rethinking Redlining," from The Metropole, the official blog of the Urban History Association. — Read the rest
In a new investigation, ProPublica reporters Lylla Younes, Ava Kofman, Al Shaw, Lisa Song, and Maya Miller used EPA data processing software to examine the spread of cancer-causing chemicals and other hazardous air pollutions in communities across the United States. — Read the rest
UFO sightings are on the rise, and America has 300 times the number of E.T. reports than the global median, claims the 'National Examiner,' which has done the math so that you don't have to.
That may explain why this week's tabloids seem even more divorced from reality than usual. — Read the rest
Here's this year's complete Boing Boing Gift Guide: more than a hundred great ideas for prezzies: technology, toys, books and more. Scroll down and buy things, mutants! Many of the items use Amazon Affiliate links that help us make ends meet at Boing Boing, the world's greatest neurozine. — Read the rest
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is one of the world's largest private jailers; it runs prisons and immigration detention centers across the USA (and is diversifying into halfway houses, mental health center, and surveillance for poor neighborhoods). Mother Jones's Shane Bauer went undercover at CCA's Winn Prison in Louisiana, the state with the highest incarceration rate in the world, and spent four months meticulously documenting the way that CCA destroys the lives of the prisoners in its care and its own employees, while paying its CEO $3.4M/year.
Two NYPD detectives who beat up a uniformed U.S. Postal Service mail carrier were charged with felony assault in Queens wednesday. Angelo J. Pampena, 31, and Robert A. Carbone, 29, were also charged with perjury after CCTV footage of the incident demonstrated that they had lied in their official reports of the arrest. — Read the rest
Ehdrigor, a game created by a black, American Indian game designer, gently reflects the Native experience, and how that approach to storytelling differs from Western narratives.
Merchants of Doubt is a new documentary that explores the dark heart of scientific spin doctors.
The gestation and birth of Beyond Cyberpunk! and Borg Like Me as narrated by Gareth Branwyn.
This is a detail from one of the regularly updated maps that researchers in Antarctica use when they want to leave McMurdo Station and travel across the continent's sea ice. It shows the well-traveled routes across McMurdo Sound, ice thickness measurements taken at various points along the road, and hazards like large cracks in the ice. — Read the rest
Click here to play the podcast. In this episode of the Gweek podcast I interviewed Ryan Holiday. Ryan’s the author of Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator. He's a media strategist who started his career as an assistant to Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power and is currently the director of marketing at American Apparel. — Read the rest
Roboto, the new "house" font for Android 4, was branded a haphazard mash of classic typefaces. The longer you look at it--and the technological constraints that it aims to transcend-the clearer its virtues become.
New York State has ordered pet cemeteries to halt their practice of allowing pet owners to have their ashes placed alongside the graves of their dead pets, saying that the facilities aren't licensed for holding human remains. I don't quite understand the issue — ashes are ashes, they're not generally considered a sanitary hazard (apart from airborne particulate), and it's not as if the residents could object. — Read the rest
