M Is FOR MASHUP - February 19th, 2014
DJ Useo Sez M Is For Mashup
By DJ Useo
Revolution Rock Clashes With Chiddy
Doobie Brothers Swing Soul Machine
Generik B-side Emerges From Cashmere Cat
Believe Hallelujah
You Play Poisoned Tsunami
And We Run...Who Knew?
Please Don't Burn Me
Oki Okiokini DJ Save Down The Drain
Useo Mashups Live
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Turns out Bruce didn't take off Tuesday after all, so it's a super-sized Wednesday
Jane Czyzselska: Three cheers for Ellen Page - but coming out should not be such big news (Guardian)
Gay people don't want special treatment but the cruel reaction to the news by some says a lot about our cultural mindset.
Decca Aitkenhead: "James Lovelock: 'enjoy life while you can: in 20 years global warming will hit the fan'" (from 2008)
The climate science maverick believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. So what would he do?
Dahlia Lithwick: How Can You Explain "Color" to an 11-Year-Old? (Slate)
Alan Alda's challenge to scientists: Let kids be the judges.
Juliette Gréco: 'We were very naughty' (Guardian)
She was Miles Davis's lover, Orson Welles's drinking partner and Jean-Paul Sartre's muse. But Juliette Gréco is still going strong at 86 - and still singing chanson. Agnès Poirier meets the French icon.
Jennifer M. Wood: 15 Things You Might Not Know About Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (Mental Floss)
1. BILL AND TED WERE BORN IN AN IMPROV CLASS.
22 Inspiring Acts of Kindness That No One Ever Talks About (Cracked)
While we here at Cracked consider it our duty to shatter the illusions that hold your fragile life together, we also try to spread some good vibes to make up for it. Our readers have gathered a collection of inspirational acts of kindness that will make you feel just a little bit better about the world.
Jane Jones, David Wong: "5 Things You Think Will Make You Happy (But Won't)" (Cracked)
… almost everything we think about what would make us happy is dead wrong. Let's look at the five things we're most wrong about, with some pictures of adorable animals for good measure.
Rob Bricken: God's 12 Biggest Dick Moves in the Old Testament (io9)
Before Jesus arrived and his divine father chilled out, the Old Testament God was, ironically, kind of a hellraiser. He was not a nice guy. He really liked killing people. And he may have actually been insane, if his willingness to randomly murder devout worshippers like Moses was any indication. Here are the 12 craziest, most awful things God did in the Old Testament, back before that wacked-out hippie Jesus softened him up.
Pier Paolo: Cinematics (Vimeo)
Simple characters react moments from classic movies.
Paul Krugman: The Trouble With Being Abstruse (Slightly Wonkish) (New York Times)
In my field there is indeed a problem with abstruseness, with the many academics who never even try to put their thoughts in plain language. And what is the nature of that problem? It's not that laypeople don't understand what the academics are saying. It is, instead, that the academics themselves don't understand what they're saying.
Andrew Tobias: First Worms, Now Chickens
The Debt as a proportion of GDP was gradually worked down from 121% in 1946 to 30% the year Reagan/Bush took and sent it soaring back up . . . until the Democrat, Bill Clinton turned that around and got the ratio dropping again . . . until the Republican, Bush 43, turned it back around to soaring again . . . until the Democrat, Barack Obama, turned it back around to falling once more. Just sayin'.
Stuart Heritage: Somehow, the terrible floods in Britain have brought out the best in people (Guardian)
When my train drew to a halt I expected cursing and tutting and violence - but what happened instead was really rather heartwarming.
Chris Mooney: Internet Trolls Really Are Horrible People (Slate)
Narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic.
Teddy Roosevelt: 90-Pound Weakling? (Neatorama)
Teddy Roosevelt may have never had sand kicked in his face at the beach, but his weakling status seemed a sure bet during his childhood. Few would have guessed that this future president would be remembered as the solid, robust guy who led the Rough Riders, trekked through the Wild West, and never met a physical challenge he didn't want to embrace.
The Mellowest Park in Canada - Dude Chilling Park (Neatorama)
There's a park in Vancouver which sports a most unusual name on its official sign- Dude Chilling Park.
Austin Coop: Spendin' most my life livin' in an Amish Paradise (Roadtrippers)
From families on vacation to retirees, Florida is synonymous with getting the heck out of cold weather. What you might not know is even the Amish flock to the Sunshine State when the cold winds blow. The little town of Pinecraft outside Sarasota, FL is the spring break hotspot for the Amish and Mennonite community.
Angela Clayton: Elsa the Snow Queen Cosplay from Frozen (Wordpress)
This costume was easily the most time consuming and detailed project I have ever taken on. From start to finish it took two months and almost two hundred and fifty hours of work. The costume is made from a variety of fabrics and materials in an attempt to the the textures to flow together beautifully while still looking unique.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Gare Says...
Astrology
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny morning, cloudy afternoon.
'Game of Thrones'
Stevie Nicks
Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks found solace in HBO hit show Game of Thrones when her mother died. And she became such a big fan of the fantasy drama that she would like to write music for it.
"I didn't leave the house for almost five months," Nicks told Radio Times magazine in the U.K. about her reaction to the death in late 2011. "And then I got pneumonia. With my pneumonia and my mother's death, I watched the entire first season of Game of Thrones. That certainly took my mind off everything."
Nicks appeared in an episode of Glee dedicated to Fleetwood Mac. Asked if fans may get to see her in Game of Thrones, she said: "I would love to write some music for the show. I've written a bunch of poetry about it - one for each of the characters."
Discussing her favorite Game of Thrones characters, Nicks told Radio Times: "Khaleesi (Emilia Clarke) is my new favorite heroine. And Cersei (Lena Headey) is fantastic." She also lauded other characters on the show.
Stevie Nicks
Paris Museum To Reopen
Picasso
Five years after it closed for a two-year renovation, Paris's Picasso museum -- which houses one of the world's most extensive collections of the Spanish master's work -- is to reopen its doors.
The final bill for the refurbishment of the 17th-century baroque mansion in Paris's historic Marais quarter now stands at 52 million euros ($71 million), 22 million euros more than the original budget due to changes in the scope of the work.
The museum is scheduled to open to the public again in June, president of the gallery Anne Baldassari told AFP, adding that a more than doubling of the space available would allow curators to really "do justice to the collection".
The renovations will boost the exhibition space to 40,000 square feet (3,800 square metres).
Picasso
Could Find New Homes
WWE
WWE and NBCUniversal have stepped away from the negotiating table without a new licensing deal in place for "Monday Night Raw" and "Friday Night SmackDown" that air on the USA and Syfy networks through October. NBCU can still match any deal that WWE secures from other interested networks for its shows.
"WWE's exclusive negotiating period with NBCU for our flagship television programs, 'Raw' and 'SmackDown,' has now expired," WWE said in a statement. The exclusive window was available to NBCU through Feb. 15, giving the company the opportunity to accept or reject WWE's final offer.
WWE will now start negotiating with other companies, although a new deal with NBCU could still be brokered once it sees what other networks are willing to pay. WWE is considering multiple plans for its shows: airing them all with a single family of networks or splitting them up across multiple network owners.
Either way, the company is looking to significantly increase the $139.5 million in TV licensing fees WWE earns each year for its shows, and attempt to get closer to the rich network deals that sports organizations like the NBA, NHL NASCAR, as well as soccer command.
WWE
Hospital News
David Crosby
David Crosby has postponed the final dates of his solo tour in order to undergo heart surgery. The 72-year-old singer's shows in San Francisco and West Hollywood have been moved to April and he'll make up his Chicago gigs in July, but the singer plans to return onstage when Crosby, Stills and Nash kick off a month-long American tour in Richmond, Virginia on March 4th. "I am very glad that I listened to my doctors and my family," Crosby said in a statement. "It seems I am once again a very lucky man. I'm sorry to have to move the dates, but I promise the music will be good when we do play them."
According to a statement on Crosby's website, he underwent a cardiac catheterization and angiogram after receiving routine tests last Friday. "The left anterior coronary artery was found to be 90% blocked, and two stents were placed to provide blood flow to his heart muscle," reads the statement. "David is expected to have a full recovery. He did not have a heart attack, though it is certain that had he chosen to ignore his doctor's urgent recommendation, it would have led to one."
Crosby received a liver transplant in 1994. He also has diabetes, hepatitis C and has survived severe addictions to drugs and alcohol. "If there's a way to go wrong possible, I did," he told Rolling Stone in August. "I could have ea-si-ly died at so many points in my past. It happened to my friends - Jimi, Janis, Cass. Sometimes I wonder, 'Why me?' I made all the same mistakes everyone else made, and yet all these people that I loved and had immense talent are gone. I tried writing down a list of all them recently, but it was so discouraging that I had to stop."
David Crosby
New Boss, Same As The Old Boss
Jane Goodall
China is exploiting Africa's resources just like European colonisers did, with disastrous effects for the environment, acclaimed primatologist Jane Goodall has told AFP.
On the eve of her 80th birthday, the fiery British wildlife crusader is whizzing across the world giving a series of lectures on the threats to our planet.
And the rising world power's involvement on the continent especially raises alarms when it comes to her beloved chimpanzees and wildlife habitats.
During the last decade China has been investing heavily in African natural resources, developing mines, oil wells and running related construction companies.
"In Africa, China is merely doing what the colonialist did. They want raw materials for their economic growth, just as the colonialists were going into Africa and taking the natural resources, leaving people poorer," she told AFP in an interview in Johannesburg.
"China is bigger, and the technology has improved... It is a disaster."
Jane Goodall
3 Years In Prison
Sister Megan Rice
An 84-year-old nun was sentenced Tuesday to nearly three years in prison for breaking into a nuclear weapons complex and defacing a bunker holding bomb-grade uranium, a demonstration that exposed serious security flaws at the Tennessee plant.
Two other peace activists who broke into the facility with Megan Rice were sentenced to more than five years in prison, in part because they had much longer criminal histories of mostly non-violent civil disobedience.
Although officials said there was never any danger of the protesters reaching materials that could be detonated or made into a dirty bomb, the break-in raised questions about safekeeping at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. The facility holds the nation's primary supply of bomb-grade uranium and was known as the "Fort Knox of uranium."
In her closing statement, Rice asked the judge to sentence her to life in prison, even though sentencing guidelines called for about six years.
Rice is a sister in the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. She became a nun when she was 18 and served for 40 years as a missionary in western Africa teaching science.
Sister Megan Rice
Blames Europe
US
There's one big reason the United States has a dearth of execution drugs so acute that some states are considering solutions such as firing squads and gas chambers: Europe won't allow the drugs to be exported because of its fierce hostility to capital punishment.
The phenomenon started nine years ago when the EU banned the export of products used for execution, citing its goal to be the "leading institutional actor and largest donor to the fight against the death penalty." But beefed up European rules mean the results are being most strongly felt in the United States now, with shortages becoming chronic and controversial executions making headlines.
EU nations are notorious for disagreeing on just about everything when it comes to common policy, but they all strongly - and proudly - agree on one thing: abolishing capital punishment.
Europe saw totalitarian regimes abuse the death penalty as recently as the 20th century, and public opinion across the bloc is therefore staunchly opposed to it.
Pharmaceutical companies around the globe have been loath to see their drugs used in executions because the market is tiny and promises close to no financial gain, while potentially exposing them to costly bad PR.
The death penalty has been abolished or suspended in all developed economies, except for the U.S. and Japan. Execution rankings have routinely shown the U.S. in the unusual company of China, Iran, Saudi-Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan.
US
Another Compassionate Conservative
Gambia
Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh on Tuesday called homosexuals "vermin" and said his government would tackle them in the same way it fights malaria-causing mosquitoes.
The latest comments from Jammeh, who last year branded gays a threat to humanity, coincide with a renewed crackdown on same-sex relationships in Africa, where homosexuality is taboo and illegal in 37 countries.
"We will fight these vermins called homosexuals or gays the same way we are fighting malaria-causing mosquitoes, if not more aggressively," Jammeh said in a speech on state television to mark the 49th anniversary of Gambia's independence from Britain.
"As far as I am concerned, LGBT can only stand for Leprosy, Gonorrhoea, Bacteria and Tuberculosis; all of which are detrimental to human existence," he added.
Gambia
Tiptoe Around Sponsorship Ban
Olympians
Want to see the glasses and goggles that aerials skier Lydia Lassila and snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis wore at the Sochi Olympics? If you go to the website of the company that manufactures their eyewear, you might be in for a shock.
On the Australian section of Bolle.com, photos of Lassila, Jacobellis and other competitors at the Sochi Games have been digitally blurred to obscure their faces.
This isn't a throwback to the days when Soviet propaganda chiefs airbrushed people out of photos. It's an extreme application of regulations meant to make sure that companies such as Bolle, which do not sponsor the Olympics, don't get to advertise off the back of them.
So the Olympics are a Pepsi-free zone, because Coca-Cola is an Olympic sponsor. In Sochi's Olympic Park, only Visa cards work for payments or in ATMs, again because Visa is a sponsor. At one Sochi venue, an Olympic worker even slapped a white sticker over the Dell logo on a journalist's laptop, because the computer manufacturer isn't an Olympic sponsor.
For Olympians, the dense and confusing thicket of rules severely restricting advertising is a serious issue. In theory, Olympians could be disqualified if they use the games to plug non-approved brands. The International Olympic Committee even holds athletes responsible for how their sponsors behave outside the Olympic bubble.
Olympians
Surprising Results From New Study
Cat Bites
Cat lovers might want to take extra caution the next time they tempt the wrath of their favorite pet feline.
A new study produced by the Mayo Clinic has found that cat bites are potentially more serious than most individuals, and medical experts, previously thought.
In fact, about 30 percent of people seeking medical treatment for a cat bite need hospitalization to treat the wound.
The three-year study confirms what hand surgeons like Dr. Brian Carlsen have long suspected - that most people who suffer from serious cat bites simply assume the wounds will heal on their own.
"Cat bite injuries to the hand can progress to serious infection," reads an excerpt from the study. "The treatment of such infections often requires hospitalization, intravenous antibiotic therapy, and operative treatment … these findings should increase concern for a severe infection and warrant hospitalization and urgent consultation with a hand surgeon."
Cat Bites
Time To Test Imports?
Olive Oil
Need olive oil? American shoppers are more likely to pick a European brand, which is cheaper and viewed as more authentic than U.S.-produced olive oil.
But U.S. producers contend that "extra virgin" olive oil from Europe may not be as pure as buyers think. They have asked the federal government to intervene by imposing stricter standards on the imports, which now make up 97 percent of the market.
Olive oil production is steadily growing, and the domestic industry says it has gone from 1 percent of the national olive oil market five years ago to 3 percent today. Most of that is in California, though there are smaller operations in Texas, Georgia and a few other states.
U.S. producers are seeking to build on that growth in a struggle reminiscent of the California wine industry's push to gain acceptance decades ago.
They've mounted an aggressive push in Washington, holding olive oil tastings for members of Congress and lobbying for stricter standards on imports. The strategy almost worked last year when industry-proposed language was included in a massive farm bill passed out of the House Agriculture Committee.
Olive Oil
In Memory
Bob Casale
Bob Casale, the guitarist for Devo, best known for the 1980 hit "Whip It," has died of heart failure, his brother and band member Gerald Casale said Tuesday. He was 61.
Devo founding member Casale said in a statement that his younger brother's death Monday was "sudden" and "a total shock."
"As an original member of Devo, Bob Casale was there in the trenches with me from the beginning," Casale said. "He was my level-headed brother, a solid performer and talented audio engineer, always giving more than he got."
The Ohio-based Devo introduced themselves to the world in 1977 by making a frenetic version of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction." The new wave band released its Brian Eno-produced debut, "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!," in 1978 and reached platinum status with 1980's "Freedom of Choice," which featured "Whip It."
Gerald Casale formed Devo with lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh. Alan Myers, the group's drummer, died last year after a battle with cancer age at 58.
Devo is short for devolution, the idea that man was regressing into an earlier state.
Bob Casale
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