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On a cold November afternoon, Harriet Cleveland, a forty-nine-year-old mother of three, waved me over from the steps of her pink cottage in Montgomery, Alabama. She was off to her part-time job as a custodian at a local day-care center, looking practical but confectionary: pink lipstick, a pastel yellow-and-pink tunic, and dangly pink earrings. We’d need to start walking soon, she explained. The job, which paid seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour, was the only one she’d been able to find for some time, and was four and a half miles away. As we set off beneath loblolly pines, she recounted the events that had led me to her doorstep: her arrest and jailing for a string of traffic tickets that she was unable to pay. It was, in part, a story of poverty and constraint, but it was also a story of the lucrative and fast-growing “alternatives to incarceration” industry.

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With an A-list cast that includes Jack Black, Margaret Cho, and Eric Stonestreet, it’s not surprising that “Weird Al” Yankovic’s Mandatory Fun album, released last week, has been garnering attention. It’s also not surprising that the accordion-playing satirist’s 14th album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart—except it kind of is, since it’s the first time Yankovic has grabbed the top spot, reports Mashable.

Mandatory Fun

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Listen or download Billy Bragg Internationale for free on Pleer

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Louis Faurer, Eddie, New York, 1949 … via.

10. Stephen Hawking – IQ 160 – The renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking gets to open the list with an IQ of 160. He is widely known for his best-selling book “A History of Time.”

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Robert Capa, [Sailing race, Lofoten Islands, Hankoe, Norway], 1951 (2013.92.117)

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A father and daughter kayaking off the coast of Argentina had the experience of a lifetime when a huge Southern Right whale lifted their kayak out of the water before lowering them back down onto the surface. The close encounter was captured on video, and while the kayakers make a concerted effort to never touch the whale, the event has come under some scrutiny

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Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme sits in an interrogation room September 5, 1975, just after her assaination attempt on Gerald R. Ford

Shrek was a Merino sheep, a castrated male, belonging to South Island, New Zealand, who gained international fame in 2004 owing to his gigantic coat of fleece. Shrek became famous after escaping his enclosure and evading the shearers for six years by hiding in caves. Merino sheep are usually shorn annually but Shrek managed to escape the blade for six years straight. When he was finally caught, the sheep was unrecognizable. “He looked like some biblical creature,” said John Perriam, Shrek’s owner.

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Cognitive celebrity

Albert Einstein was a genius, but he wasn’t the only one – why has his name come to mean something superhuman?

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Five years ago, a team of researchers from Google announced a remarkable achievement in one of the world’s top scientific journals, Nature. Without needing the results of a single medical check-up, they were nevertheless able to track the spread of influenza across the US. What’s more, they could do it more quickly than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Google’s tracking had only a day’s delay, compared with the week or more it took for the CDC to assemble a picture based on reports from doctors’ surgeries. Google was faster because it was tracking the outbreak by finding a correlation between what people searched for online and whether they had flu symptoms.

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Soldiers in full field equipment learning the ‘chinpull’ method of saving men from drowning, 1942, Location unknown (i.imgur.com)

Here’s our complete archive of articles about con men, imposters and scam artists.

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I wrote about this practise earlier. Today, I saw this photo on my Facebook feed and could not unsee it. Different sources report that these animals are able to survive for only several days (some say, several months).

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Vanea H, 12 photos.

The many lives of Frédéric Bourdi

Serial French child imposter Frédéric Bourdin : The New Yorker.

Thursday, July 24, the 17th day of the IDF’s Gaza operation, Israeli ministers were discussing a possible “humanitarian ceasefire” in IDF-Hamas hostilities, which could last up to five days. According to debka’s military sources, it is Hamas which, behind its tough stance, is keen on a pause – and not just out of sudden concern for Gaza’s civilians. Its tacticians are desperate to find a chink in the Chariot-4 tank’s Armored Shield Protection-Active Trophy missile defense system, known as the Windbreaker. The 401st armored brigade is the only IDF unit with this armor.

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When Gene returned from his deployment overseas, he sought out therapy with his wife of six years, hoping to overcome his struggles with PTSD. It was in those sessions that an even harsher reality came to light: During his tour of service, his wife had cheated on him with a man he knew.

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GALLERYn.

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The bears did eventually attack the ‘visitor’ dummy… via.

Omens

When we peer into the fog of the deep future what do we see – human extinction or a future among the stars?

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Ennis the Menace: 1942

September 1942. “Civilian defense. Fire prevention. The careless smoker causes more fires each year than any other person in the country. He is to blame for 87,000 separate 1941 fires, which resulted in the loss of many lives and the destruction of 14 million dollars of property. Whether he falls asleep with a lighted smoke or is careless in the disposal of burning cigars, cigarettes, or matches, he is always a menace.” Office of War Information….via.

From a fish with genitals on its head to four-headed privates, we bring you more odd trivia about the male member

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Today’s picture shows old sailing ships in the harbor. The picture was taken in Naples, Italy in 1900. The picture is so calm it almost looks like a painting.

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This blog gets frequently linked from reddit, many of whose users think this photo as ‘the worst photo ever’. For this author, that photo was not even the worst photo ever taken on a hapless child dying on the ground.

The photo above, by Jeff Abelin – of whom I found very little — speaks volumes louder. This photo conjures up a world of medieval fairy tales — of Hansel and Gretel — in late twentieth century China; a world where untold millions are sacrificed at the altar of demographic dividend; a world where certain stretches of the Yangtze River are common sites of infanticide by drowning. Life magazine comments on the photo:

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May 1936. “Home of worker in strip coal mine. Cherokee County, Kansas.” Photo by Arthur Rothstein for the Resettlement Administration…. via.