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In the Nation Immigration law draws Ga. protest

ATLANTA - Thousands surrounded the Georgia Capitol on Saturday to protest the state's new immigration law, which they say creates an unwelcome environment for people of color and those in search of a better life. Men, women, and children converged on downtown Atlanta for the rally, cheering speakers while shading themselves with umbrellas and posters from the blazing sun.
Capitol police and organizers estimated that 8,000 to 14,000 people filled the blocks around the Capitol.
On Monday, a judge temporarily blocked parts of the law until a legal challenge is resolved. Among the provisions blocked are ones that authorize police to check the immigration status of suspects without proper identification, allow detention of illegal immigrants, and penalize those who knowingly and willingly transport or harbor illegal immigrants while committing another crime. - AP

Lesbian Marine in sham marriage

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A lesbian Marine hatched a scheme in which she and her civilian partner entered into sham marriages with two male Marines to defraud the goverment of housing allowances, the military said Saturday. The scam was hatched when the lesbian couple decided to live together off base, according to 1st Lt. Maureen Dooley, spokeswoman at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego.
The female Marine found a male Marine willing to get married, allowing them to collect a $1,200 housing benefit, Dooley said. The civilian also then married a male Marine to collect government funds, according to officials.
The corporals, with the Third Marine Aircraft Wing at Camp Pendleton, will face fraud and larceny charges, Dooley said. It was not clear whether the civilian would face charges.
Cpl. Ashley Vice told San Diego's KGTV-TV she and her partner were forced to enter sham marriages because the military does not provide allowances for unmarried couples and they couldn't afford to live off base without the money.
- AP

Police chief quits in Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Puerto Rico's police chief resigned Saturday amid sharp criticism over a rising homicide rate in the U.S. territory. Jose Figueroa Sancha stepped down after less than three years overseeing a 19,000-strong force. He did not say why he was leaving, but Gov. Luis Fortuno said in a statement that it was due to unspecified health problems.
Figueroa was appointed chief in November 2008 after working 23 years in the FBI. His resignation comes as the island of four million people battles a soaring crime rate: 568 killings so far this year, compared with 470 reported in the same period last year.
Nearly 30 people were killed last weekend, including an 11-year-old boy. - AP

Elsewhere:

An ExxonMobil pipeline that runs under the Yellowstone River near Billings in south-central Montana ruptured and dumped an unknown amount of oil into the waterway Saturday morning.

Morrison’s life, music remembered

For Doors fans, July 3 marks the 40th anniversary of Jim Morrison's untimely death -- a day to remember his life, his music, his poetry.  For drummer John Densmore, it is perhaps a date best forgotten. And he has.  "What is it, July 3?" asks the 66-year-old percussionist. "You see, I don't even know the date. I prefer to celebrate Dec. 8, his birthday.  After all, Jim died at 27 because of alcoholism. I don't want to glamorize that. But I am real proud of Jim's music and poetry. My anger over his demise is gone. I have a deeper respect now than I did before for his vision, for what he was trying to do. He was trying to make some deep changes."  On a musical level, he succeeded. "Morrison took it to a different place completely," singer Burton Cummings says. "He opened my eyes to the fact that lyrics could go anywhere, could be dangerous and dark."  Cult vocalist Ian Astbury -- who has sung with the surviving Doors -- agrees: "The first time I heard The Doors in 1971 at age 10, all of a sudden there was a different animal in the room. This wasn't pop. This was something else -- almost scary."  Even Michael Bolton is a fan: "He was a one-of-a-kind writer and artist." The bottom line, says Doors guitarist Robby Krieger: "He was different than anybody I'd ever met. And I've never met anybody like him again."  James Douglas Morrison met the world in Florida in 1943. His father was a career naval officer and future rear admiral. The family moved frequently. The elder Morrison dressed down his children like sailors for their failings. The seeds of Jim's rebellion were home-grown and planted early.  "That's the whole story right there," says Astbury, who met Morrison's family. "The Oedipus complex, The End, the Morrison mythology. It all comes from the dynamic with the Admiral."  By the mid-'60s, Morrison was estranged from his family. He would later claim to be an orphan. He studied English, film and theatre at UCLA. His classmate was a keyboardist named Ray Manzarek. After graduation in '65, they met on Venice Beach. Morrison had been writing poetry; he recited Moonlight Drive. Manzarek heard great lyrics and suggested they form a band. They enlisted Densmore and Krieger, took their name from a Huxley novel and The Doors were born.  They spent two years in L.A. clubs honing their sound: A psychedelic cocktail of Manzarek's classical chops, Densmore's jazz grooves and Krieger's flamenco licks, centred around Jim's dark croon and shamanic intensity (at times, he claimed to be possessed by a Native American killed in a car crash).  In 1967, they released their self-titled debut LP. The Admiral heard it and wrote him, suggesting he quit music for lack of talent. Others disagreed. The single Light My Fire ignited a four-year whirlwind that produced six albums and hits including People Are Strange, Hello I Love You, Roadhouse Blues and Riders on the Storm.  "During those years, all we did was write music, record music and tour," says Densmore. "We were trying to create movies for your ears."  Fame and fortune did not tame Morrison any more than his father's discipline had. He infuriated Ed Sullivan by singing the word "higher" on live TV. He trashed a recording studio. He tangled with cops. His substance abuse increased. He literally walked on the edge.  "Jim and I used to drink a little together," recalls Alice Cooper. "People tell me stories I barely remember -- like us both hanging off of a balcony to see which one could hold on longest. That was Jim -- he didn't mind balancing on a building 6,000 feet up drunk. I can tell you 20 times he could have died."  Cummings may have witnessed one. On his first night in L.A. the Guess Who frontman ended up driving a drunken Morrison around after a party.  "He drank like a condemned man whose last meal was beer," recalls Cummings. "He was far too drunk to drive. So I volunteered, and we drove all night as he talked about Renaissance painters and great poets and writers and the universe and relativity. He was a brilliant thinker, but no good at self-preservation."  By 1969, the cracks were showing. He was late for concerts, drunk in the studio. The final straw came after a crazed show in Miami: Jim was charged with exposing himself onstage. Despite zero proof and even a letter of support from the Admiral, Jim got six months in jail. He never did time, but the damage was done.  "We were banned everywhere," recalls Densmore. "We couldn't get any gigs for a year. Personally, I was relieved because I knew Jim had a major problem." But in the era before rehab, no one knew how to solve it," Krieger says. "We actually did try to do an intervention on him at one point, but it didn't work. He was just not the kind of guy that it would have worked on."  There were more albums and tours, but the band never fully recovered.  Jim gained weight and grew a beard. After he melted down onstage in New Orleans, The Doors quit the road and hit the studio for what would be their final album, L.A. Woman. When it was done, Jim went to Paris with girlfriend Pamela Courson for an extended holiday. He never returned. On July 3, he was found dead in the bath. It's said he OD'ed on heroin. No autopsy was done; heart failure was his official cause of death. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery; his headstone bears a Greek inscription that means "True to his own spirit."  The Doors made two more albums, but by 1973 they were done. History wasn't done with Morrison, though. In 1979, The End was used in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. ("When I saw that," recalls Astbury, "it was like a religious experience.") In 1980, manager Danny Sugerman published the biography No One Here Gets Out Alive. A new generation discovered him. By 1981, Morrison was on the cover of Rolling Stone, beside the headline: "He's hot, he's sexy and he's dead."  Since then, Morrison's impact on music and pop culture have only grown. His baritone echoes in countless artists, from punk godfather Iggy Pop to Joy Division's Ian Curtis to Tea Party frontman Jeff Martin. His story has been told in Oliver Stone's polarizing biopic The Doors and the recent Grammy-winning DVD When You're Strange. Fans make pilgrimages to his grave. He was recently pardoned for whatever happened in Miami. That may have been part of the problem, suggests Cummings. "The shaman, Light My Fire, leather-clad guy -- I think he was trapped inside that image. He wanted to be Rimbaud, but fans wanted him to be the gorgeous Lizard King. It's a shame." Astbury sums it up: "If he had looked like Van Morrison, things might have been different."  Door’s music kept alive  The music's far from over.  Four decades after Jim Morrison's death, his surviving bandmates continue to keep The Doors' flame alive with archival releases and new gigs. They don't always see eye to eye, but they share a common goal: To honour their legacy.  "We have carefully orchestrated the last 20 years to make sure that anything that comes out is respectful," says drummer John Densmore.  The next offering: A 40th anniversary edition of their sixth and final studio album L.A. Woman. Recorded months before Morrison's death, the self-produced effort was a musical rebirth.  "It's my favourite album," Densmore says. "We got back to our stripped-down blues sound after the horns and strings. We went back to what we did in a Venice garage in 1965."  The reissue will include a CD of outtakes from the sessions, he says.  "You can hear songs at different tempos than you're used to. And you can hear him and I having this dialogue about whether we should put rain and thunder on this song, which turns out to be Riders on the Storm. It's touching. Listening to it reminded me of an earlier, more innocent time."  The other Doors -- guitarist Robby Krieger and keyboardist Ray Manzarek -- revisit those times onstage. They reunited in 2002 and returned to the road with Cult frontman Ian Astbury. For Krieger, "it's fun." For Astbury it was something more.  "When you stand in the space between Ray and Robby, another dimension opens up," says the singer, who spent five years with the duo.  "I went in there thinking, 'I know this body of work, I can do this.' And I got schooled immediately. With The Doors, it's about nuance and space and staying grounded -- letting the moment happen, letting it get inside of you, and then approaching the microphone to sing. It was powerful stuff."  So far, not only has Densmore declined to join his bandmates -- he took legal action to stop them from touring as The Doors. "They have every right to play Doors songs," he explains. "But without Jim? It's like calling it The Stones without Mick. Or The Police without Sting. Come on."  He plans to explain himself further in an upcoming book "about the struggle I've had between my loyalty to Jim and my loyalty to my bandmates."  Despite the difficulties, Krieger says Densmore has "an open invitation to return," and believes it will happen eventually.  Densmore won't rule out an appearance, perhaps at a charity gig. But don't expect him to join Krieger and Manzarek in Paris, where the duo are playing on the 40th anniversary of Jim's death. Not unless the supernatural happens, that is.  "If Jim shows up," he cracks, "I'll be there."

source:http://www.torontosun.com/2011/06/29/morrisons-life-music-remembered
Photo Credit:- Illustration by Pam Davies, QMI Agency

No, Helen Mirren Does Have A Great Body )

Helen Mirren's topping Google Trends in both blogs and news websites for several reasons, but a very interesting one is the reaction to her blast that she, in her view, does not have a great body. My video above is a rebuttal, made three years ago, but it's worth digging up for a repeat performance.
According to Starpulse.com, Mirren said that early last week, while informed that she made the top place in a poll of the hottest women over 50 years old. Mirren ranted "I do not have a great body. I have a c--p body. Naomi Campbell has a great body. Let's be realistic, here."
This space wants to take nothing away from the wonderfully beautiful Ms. Campbell, but there is room for more than one celebrity in the "hot church," if you will.
Besides, anyone who can make a movie, Shadowboxer, with Cuba Gooding Jr., and play lover, assassin, and confidant, and look so tasty doing it you forget she's 65 years old, deserves the title.
Helen Mirren's hot body was most recently seen with Jeremy Irons and Lorin Maazel and the Castleton Festival Orchestra at the 2011 BlackCreek Summer Music Festival at the Rexall Centre in Toronto, Canada, June 30th.
Stay tuned.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?entry_id=92438#ixzz1R31LoCwI

5 Facts about the Declaration of Independence

Here are five bits of trivia about the Declaration of Independence, courtesy of the National Archives.

1. There is writing on the back of the original, signed Declaration of Independence. But it is not invisible, nor does it include a map, as the Disney feature film, "National Treasure" suggests. The writing on the back reads "Original Declaration of Independence, dated 4th July 1776," and it appears on the bottom of the document, upside down.

2. The original was engrossed on parchment which is an animal skin specially treated with lime and stretched to create a strong, long-lasting writing support. The printed version is on paper and was read aloud from town squares throughout the colonies, so that those who could not read would receive the news about intended separation from England.

3. There are 26 copies known to exist of what is commonly referred to as "the Dunlap broadside" - 21 owned by American institutions, two by British institutions, and three by private owners. The Dunlap Broadside copies were printed on paper on the night of July 4, and thus are contemporary with the original Declaration that is engrossed on parchment.

4. Thomas Jefferson was the author of the document and was a member of the Committee of Five that was appointed to draft a statement presenting to the world the colonies case for independence. The committee consisted of two New England men, John Adams of Massachusetts and Roger Sherman of Connecticut; two men from the Middle Colonies, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York; and one southerner, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia.

5. After the signing ceremony on August 2, 1776, the Declaration was most likely filed in Philadelphia in the office of Charles Thomson, who served as the Secretary of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1789. The document probably accompanied the Continental Congress as the body traveled during the uncertain months and years of the Revolution. On December 13, 1952, the Declaration, along with the Constitution and Bill of Rights were formally delivered into the custody of Archivist of the United States Wayne Grover and enshrined at a ceremony on December 15, 1952, attended by President Harry S. Truman.