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• In the same vein as Pope Pius XII, here’s the story of how Jeremy Bentham’s head fell off.
• From Psychology Today: Why Young Single Men Are More Xenophobic.
• The psychology behind car colour choices
• Social Media Icons Pillow Designs
• Cats ‘exploit’ humans by purring
• Malmo, Sweden will no longer require women to wear swimsuit tops, since men are not required to. Explains Bengt Forsberg (the chair of sports):

“We don’t define what bathing suits men should wear so it doesn’t make much sense to do it for women. And besides, it’s not unusual for men to have large breasts that resemble women’s breasts.”

Love those Swedes.

• A Guide to Christian Clichés and Phrases
• Derek Sivers tells you to Shut up! Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them.

“Tests done since 1933 show that people who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen. Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you’re less motivated to do the hard work needed.”

• Here’s a 1985 conception of what Michael Jackson would look like in 2000. Also – “In number, his fans will have grown tenfold by the year 2000.”
• Using Legos to repair building cracks.
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Courtesy Paris Hilton:

“I don’t even know some of my friends’ names.”

Via Wikipedia’s article on embalming:

Pius XII’s (pope 1939–1958) botched embalming by a charlatan doctor—which only sped up the rate of decomposition—led to his body turning black and his nose falling off while lying in state, and the body disintegrated in the coffin. The Swiss Guards stationed around Pius XII’s body were forced to change shifts every ten to fifteen minutes since the body’s odor caused some guards to pass out. The doctor who performed the embalming had also taken photos of the Pontiff in his death throes and intended to sell them to tabloids. The Italian tabloids refused to buy the photos, and the doctor was banned from entering the Vatican City-State by John XXIII, who furthermore prohibited any photography of a deceased Pope until the body is properly vested and laid out.

And from Slate’s article ‘Why Didn’t They Embalm the Pope?’ (written after the death of John Paul II):

John Paul II will not be the first pope to decompose in public. In August of 1978, the body of Paul VI “took on a greenish tinge,” and fans were installed in the Basilica to disperse the smell. Twenty years earlier, a maverick doctor persuaded the Vatican to let him try an experimental embalming technique on the body of Pope Pius XII, with disastrous consequences—the body turned black and disintegrated in the casket.

So this shouldn’t be any surprise. But there’s something especially over the top about the quotes they printed from Tamara Beckwith in an article on her children. Here’s what she has to say about her husband:

‘Giorgio is very Italian. Apart from my daddy, I have never had an assertive male in my life that I would listen to before: although my father was not a chauvinist like Giorgio, who believes “you are a woman, you do as you are told”.

In his world, there’s one set of rules for men and another for women, and whereas previously I would have said, “Well, that’s just not the way it is,” now I am happy to accept it, because it’s one of his little quirks and it’s quite nice actually, for once, to do as you are told.’

Later, her 21 year old daughter echoes her:

‘Giorgio is creating a more stable base and my mother is enjoying becoming more domesticated, because Giorgio is Italian and he expects that of her.’

I bet the editors cackle with glee when they come across a celebrity willing to vocalize their agenda like this.

Beckwith is an English sociliate and pal of Tara Palmer Tomkinson (she of the infamously cocaine-damaged nose).

Grace Rwaramba, MJ’s employee of 17 years and nanny to his children, speaks out:

“Suddenly — I can’t remember now how it came — he received some money. Instead of buying a small house, so that we won’t go from one hotel to another or stay with friends, he told me, ‘Grace, you have to go immediately to Florence to buy antiques.’ He wanted me to spend £1m.

“I flew on my credit card. When I arrived in Florence and saw these antiques, I called him and said, ‘This is not worth anything.’ Michael never listened to me. He said, ‘Buy it. Buy it.’ We didn’t even have a home to live in so we had to put the antiques in some storage.”

PART I

I can imagine no worse curse to afflict someone, in America, than dying while famous.

He was strange to the point where he became a poster child for strange, but it was all the sadder because you could tell exactly where the trouble had come from. Since he was a child, he never once had a normal life or happy family or, apparently, any stable cadre of friends that would not defend him against his own absurdities, or screw him over for a little money. His childhood was bitter, brutal, and short. He was a superstar, and perhaps an addict. He was a dominant American force, and perhaps something malevolent. He was undoubtedly unbalanced, mentally and physically frail, maybe even insane. And he was brilliant.

F. Scott Fitzgerald could have written his life story. His was the essence of modern American fame and wealth; an icon of both the selflessly good and the shockingly bad; famous, but alone; shining genius and grotesque self-destruction in constant competition.

Even at his peak he was a tragic figure, already isolated. Wasn’t it always obvious why he used his millions to build himself a full-fledged childhood? And how sad it was that he had, apparently, nobody around who could act as an adequate foil. He surrounded himself with friends as he could, but also with fools and clowns and hangers-on.

PART II

He was like the kid from the Twilight Zone, I always thought, the one who could get anything he wanted, or wish anyone he wanted into the cornfield, and nobody would or could say a thing about it. Everyone around him seemed afraid of him, except the people who thought maybe they could use him. He was not human, not like them. And he seemed to feel it exquisitely. He mutilated himself — there was no other word for it. Over decades, he tried to turn himself physically into something else — a thing in his own image.

Michael Jackson was a dismembered soul; bits and pieces of him had been long ago sold off, and of his own volition. His physical appearance was stark, but uncannily apt, in a world where such things almost never are so literal.

He lay in death as he lived in life, alone but surrounded by thousands. Even as corpse, there are police cars and helicopters and television cameras everywhere, and all his friends (supposed and true) and business partners (close and distant) and hangers-on (of all stripes and demeanors) are on all the networks expressing their sorrow on live television.

One or two voices, mean and self absorbed, leap into the fray with the supreme confidence of an alpha vulture jumping into a flock already thousands strong. Was this one really a true friend? Was that one? Who can tell? Apparently he had about ten thousand closest friends, all of them loved, and every damn last one of them is going to appear before a television camera or do a telephoned interview while old stock footage of the person they loved gets played on a continuous loop, moments of genius and despair carved into a video tombstone.

MSNBC shows the goddamn ambulance footage — the ambulance backing up through his gate, backing into the street very slowly and cautiously to avoid the person with the video camera who is filming the unfolding tragedy and will not move farther away. And then as the ambulance drives off, the tour bus drives in, careening past the fire vehicles, blocking the driveway so the tourists can get a good view of the day and place Michael Jackson died.

Gawd, what fuckers these people are. I think if they didn’t have police protection on the hospital, people would be going in with scalpels to dismember him piece-by-piece, selling his remains as mementos. If his soul goes to heaven, it will first have to get past a hundred paparazzi with butterfly nets.

He was Norma Desmond, but played larger; he was his own Captain Ahab, seeking to find and murder himself. But goddamnit, he was brilliant too, a nuclear force of music, and no matter how his own soul failed him, that much cannot be denied. Hearing his young voice once again, touching each note flawlessly and effortlessly and with such weight, is nearly shocking. Then video of the gold and green helicopter, spiriting the corpse away. And what luck, in the control room — we have video of the corpse, unnervingly small and light, wrapped in a brilliant white.

He was loved. By uncountable millions as idol, and by some too-few friends as a person. I hope that in the end he at least knew as much, and that even the most famously, visibly, agonizingly tortured soul in the world could find a little peace in that.

Posted by Hunter in the comments at Field Negro’s MJ tribute post.

A 2007 study claimed that cute endangered species get more attention than ugly ones, which can lead to decreased funding for protecting the ugly ones.

These so-called “glamour animals” dominate fundraising campaigns and news headlines, siphoning money away from more needy — if less photogenic — creatures, according to some experts.

“Our preferences are not necessarily going to be sufficient guides to what we want to protect,” Stokes said.

With that in mind, here’s a photo from a new campaign in England that’s been launched to save the bluefin tuna.

Greta Scacchi, Emilia Fox and Terry Gilliam pose naked to save bluefin tuna.

This is not the solution.

Also -

Celebrities who have already seen the film were so shocked that many have posed naked for the acclaimed photographer Ian Rankin to raise awareness.

Strange how celebrities are always taking their clothes off in response to an issue.

(photo via @posiegirl)

We live in a time when our government is telling us some pretty profound lies. And then James Frey writes a book and it turns out some of it’s not true. No one asked for their vote back, but everyone wanted back the money they’d spent on that book. We’re in the shadow of huge lies and getting angry about the small ones.

(via)

“I’m not afraid to say I have imaginary friends.”
– Diddy, claiming he feels Frank Sinatra’s “presence,” to PEOPLE

How about you?