Greg Mortenson’s book a sham

Greg Mortenson, the author of “Three Cups of Tea” may have been making it all up.  In the book, Mortenson said that after an unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, he was nursed back to health by villagers in Korphe, Pakistan, inspiring him to build a girls’ school in the town.  A report on “60 Minutes” revealed that Mortenson didn’t even visit Korphe until a year after he attempted to scale K2, many of the schools he supposedly helped build are not operating and a lot of the money that was donated to his non-profit organization was spent on luxuries such as personal jets.

- The Week

Royal hats

Prince William and Kate Middleton’s marriage is getting a lot of buzz.  But one thing people might not be talking about is the number of hats that showed up at the wedding.  England is very fond of its hats, and the Queen is no stranger to this fondness. “I think the Queen of England is probably the most famous hat-wearer in the entire world,” said Hillary Alexander, a fashion director, to ABC news.  The bride herself didn’t wearing a hat on her special day, but most of the guests sported headwear of all shapes and sizes.  Spring in England is an unpredictable season, so hopefully the hat-lovers invested in hats of a waterproof variety.

- ABC News

Graffiti your grandma could do

There’s a new kind of graffiti sweeping the streets of Los Angeles, and it’s the kind of graffiti your grandma might do.  A woman that goes by the street name of “Captain Hook” is part of an international movement of “yarn bombers” taking to the streets with her crochet hook.  These yarn bombers crochet cozies for trees, sweaters for statues, scarves for parking meters, and much more.  All in the name of cheerful street art.

- NPR

Samberg to host Shark Week

Shark Week is Discovery Channel’s weeklong program about these underwater animals, and this year Discovery is bringing a new face to host it.  Andy Samberg from SNL will be this year’s Chief Shark Officer or CSO.  Last year for the first time ever, Discovery brought in a non-Discovery actor to host Shark Week to massive success.  At least 31 million people checked out the show for six minutes, and many for much longer.  Discovery thinks that Samberg will bring in an even wider audience., but Samberg thinks it’ll be all the sharks’ doing.  “Everyone loves Shark Week,” Samberg said.  “It’s the Bill Cosby of week-long television blocks dedicated to sea animals.”

- The Washington Post

Steampunk Iron Man

What if Iron Man was a steampunk superhero?  Iron Man fanboy and sculptor Jonathan Kuriscak glued together an 11-inch steampunk replica of the superhero.  The upper torso of the sculpture is made of an NFL Cletus action figure, pistons on the arms were taken from a Transformers toy, and the arms themselves are from a Hulk action figure.  Kuriscak built a set of Nazi Star Wars action figures last year, and he’s already started to work on his next project: a replica of Thor.  Those interested in Kuriscak’s work can find it on eBay.

- Wired

The particular sadness of lemon cake

New in paperback this week is Aimee Bender’s novel “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.”  9-year-old Rose Edelstein discovers a capacity for feeling other’s emotions through food. When her mother bakes a lemon cake with fudge icing, Rose can taste her mother’s moroseness amidst the lemon. Bender’s novel reveals the complicated relations between Rose, her mother, and her genius brother. The book echoes elements of Salinger’s Glass family, and Salinger fans will find familiarity in Rose’s alertness to hypocrisy and her yearning to love her brother. The real beauty in this book is the language that Bender uses to describe love, and how the characters discover it in each other.

- NPR

Paparazzi tail Bieber in Israel

Justin Bieber went on tour to Israel recently.  The young pop star comes from a Christian background and said he wanted “the chance to walk where Jesus did” in a tweet. Bieber is having some problems with paparazzi though. “You think paparazzi would have some respect in holy places,” Bieber said. “They should be ashamed of themselves.” Frustrated, Bieber tweeted that he was just going to stay in his hotel for the rest of the week.

-BBC

Not intended to be a factual statement

Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl is at the receiving end of one of Stephen Colbert’s jokes. Kyl made a remark that abortion is well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does. This turned out to be incorrect: abortion is 3 percent of what Planned Parenthood does. Kyl’s office released a statement clarifying that what Kyl said was “not intended to be a factual statement.” Since then, Colbert has been posting some not-so-factual statements about Kyl on Twitter using the hashtag #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement. “Jon Kyl once ate a badger he hit with his car,” Colbert tweets. Colbert did clarify though that was not intended to be a factual statement.

-CNN

The Book of Joel is a no go

Billy Joel was working with publisher HarperCollins to produce an autobiography.  The book was supposed to reveal previously unknown secrets about Joel. It was supposed to hit bookshelves in June, and has already been written and edited. However, Joel gave HarperCollins their $3 million dollars back and decided not to go through with the book. “It took working on a book to make me realize that I’m not all that interested in talking about the past,” Joel said.

-Boston Herald

Lady Gaga versus The Catholic Church

Lady Gaga’s love affair with controversy continues with her most recent single, “Judas.” The second single released for the “Born This Way” album expected to be released in May, “Judas” features Lady Gaga as Christ’s “hooker prostitute wench” Mary Magdalene who falls in love with Judas. The song has drawn criticism from The Catholic League and Gaga’s creative director threatened to quit in protest.

- Huffington Post Entertainment

Online dating site reunites siblings

A couple that met using an online dating site were looking for love, but ended up being long lost siblings.  Sarah Kemp hit it off pretty well with George Bentley, so she traveled to London to meet up with him.  The pair went out for drinks, and while talking about their childhoods they realized they were brother and sister.  Bentley and Kemp had been separated in the ‘70s when their mother and father split up.

- BBC

Willie Nelson avoids sentence with a song

Willie Nelson was tried for possession of marijuana in Texas.  Instead of the maximum jail sentence of 180 days and a $2,000 fine, prosecutor Kim Bramblett suggested a plea deal of $100, along with a performance of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” by Nelson instead.  “I ain’t gonna be mean to Willie Nelson,” Bramblett said.

- The Week

Barenaked Ladies are coming to Alaska

The Canadian band Barenaked Ladies have announced that they are coming to Alaska. They will be playing a show in Fairbanks on June 3 at The Blue Loon and at Chilkoot Charlie’s in Anchorage on June 4.  The band is best known for their album “Stunt,” which reached no. 3 on the Billboard charts when it was released.

- Alaska Dispatch

She kissed a girl, and mom was shocked

Katy Perry’s mother is an evangelical Christian minister, and she is publically admitting that she finds her daughter embarrassing.  Mary Perry Hudson is publishing a book where she tells readers that she has struggled to come to terms with her daughter’s racy song lyrics, marriage to former sex addict Russell Brand, and revealing outfits.  “No mother wants to see the top of her daughter’s boobs,” Hudson wrote.

- New York Post

Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe on Broadway

One of the hottest shows on Broadway right now is the 50-year-old musical, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”  The Pulitzer Prize-winning corporate satire has a fantastic score.  But the real reason the show keeps selling out might be because Daniel Radcliffe has a role in it.  Radcliffe plays J. Pierrepont Finch, a window washer who rises quickly up the corporate ladder.

- NPR

Missing cobra tweets her whereabouts

An Egyptian cobra at the Bronx Zoo went missing, but was found recently.  Those curious about the snake’s adventures can follow “BronxZoosCobra” or #snakeonthetown on Twitter. The cobra currently has over 100,000 followers, and is rapidly gaining more.  The snake seemed to enjoy her time in New York City. “On top of the Empire State Building!” it tweeted. “All the people look like mice down there.  Delicious little mice.”

The Seattle Times

Rebecca Black didn’t write “Friday”

The lyrics to the song “Friday” by 13-year-old Rebecca Black, that garnered the young girl so many negative remarks, including death threats, weren’t actually written by her. Black’s family paid Ark Music Factory $2,000 for a package including the song and the music video. Ark gave Black an option of a couple songs, and she picked “Friday” because she said it seemed the closest to her personality.  The other songs were about being in love, something Black said she had not experienced yet.

Star Tribune

A musical about Mormons

Remember that “South Park” episode that made fun of Mormons?  Well, the “South Park” creators have decided to write a musical about Mormons.  The musical will be called “The Book of Mormon,” and will be the pair’s debut on Broadway.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is neither endorsing nor condemning the show.

NPR

Lil Wayne and Paris Hilton bond over jail time

In a duo Q&A with “Interview Magazine,” Paris Hilton and Lil Wayne bonded over the time they’d both spent in jail.  “It was OK, because it just meant that I was alone with my thoughts,” Wayne said. He spent eight months in jail for a gun possession charge. “I had to do 24 nights in solitary,” Hilton said. “I know how it is.” Both celebrities were happy to get out, no matter how introspective they found the experience.  Wayne told Hilton that he couldn’t describe the feeling he had when he got out.  “I know how you feel,” Hilton replied.  “It’s the best feeling in the world when you come out.” The pair decided to collaborate on Hilton’s upcoming album.

CNN

Elizabeth Taylor dies at age 79

Elizabeth Taylor lived a full, dizzying life.  She starred in countless movies, dazzled us in glamorous photographs, sparked countless headlines for marriages and break-ups, got actively involved with several causes, and even tweeted.  She died on March 23 at age 79.  She was hospitalized six weeks ago with congestive heart failure, a condition she had struggled with for many years.  It had been hoped that her condition would stabilize and she would be able to return home. This was not the case. Taylor died in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.

CNN

Damn You, Autocorrect: The book

Damnyouautocorrect.com, the popular website that showcases the embarrassing situations the iPhones autocorrect function can cause, is releasing a book.  The website receives hundreds of autocorrected text messages a day, and Jillian Madison, founder of the site, decided it was time to publish “Damn You, Autocorrect” the book.  The book features many popular text mishaps from the website.  Things like mixing up the words fuhrer and future or arrested and rescue.  “Autocorrect has a mind of its own,” said Madison.  And now there’s a book about it.

NPR

Aretha Franklin gets ready to turn 69

Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, is bouncing back from some health problems to celebrate her 69th birthday in New York City.  Franklin underwent surgery last year, and has been recovering ever since.  Now she’s ready for the world again, starting with a big birthday bash, followed by a return to the stage in May, and a new album.

The Washington Post

Will Ferrell to ‘The Office’

As Emmy-winning actor Steve Carell counts down the days until he leaves NBC’s “The Office,” there has been much speculation as to who will be replacing him as the head of Dunder Mifflin. Stepping in as the boss for a four-episode arc is none other than Will Ferrell. Ferrell will play a branch manager brought in as Carell’s character prepares to leave.

The Huffington Post

Whitewashing the ‘Hunger Games’ heroine

The popular young adult novel “The Hunger Games” is coming to the big screen, and there’s a lot of talk about who’s going to play the lead role of Katniss Everdeen. The casting call asked for a Caucasian actor between the ages of 15 and 20, who could portray someone ‘underfed but strong’ and ‘naturally pretty underneath her tomboyishness.’ The rumor mill is saying that Jennifer Lawrence, a blonde haired blue-eyed 20-year-old, is the definitive frontrunner for the role. In the book, Everdeen is described as having ‘olive skin and dark hair,’ a description that should have left the call open to other ethnicities.

Source: Jezebel

Larry King, a Daily Show correspondent?

The Daily Show might be getting a new correspondent. Larry King has been talking to producers at the show about becoming a regular contributor. He wouldn’t be around for every show, such as Jon Oliver or Wyatt Cenac. Instead, he would be the type of occasional contributor that Lewis Black is.  Those who have never really thought of King as a comedian might want to check out his comedy tour that he’s headlining this spring, and then make up their minds about whether they want him on the Daily Show or not.

Source: Hollywood.com

Too much bacon to be kosher

A chef in downtown Los Angeles is serving matzo balls wrapped in bacon. Top Chef Ilan Hall is famous for dishes that meld Jewish and Scottish cuisine. A critic of Hall calls his food “confrontational cooking.” But Hall said it’s not for the sake of being offensive.  “Pork belly lends itself really well to sweet cooking preparations.”

Source: NPR

Spies in love

Robert and Danya Baer met at work, fell in love, and got married.  It’s a typical story.  Except for small detail of their work: Robert and Danya are spies.  The Baers met while they were a part of a covert team of CIA operatives sent into Bosnia to protect a high-ranking CIA official who had been targeted for assassination by Hezbollah.  Several months later they returned to the United States, and Robert and Danya ran into each other at the CIA headquarters.  They decided to go out to dinner, and the rest is history.  Since then the Baers have published a book, The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife-True-Life Spy Story.

Source: NPR

Online dating in India

In 2008, a group of people started Ignighter.com, an online dating site for group dates.  After about a year, the site had a decent amount of registered users, but not enough to put it on the digital dating map.  The creators of the site, Kevin Owocki, Adam Sachs, and Daniel Osit were trying to figure out what to do when they noticed they were getting a lot of traffic from Asia, specifically India.  And in January 2010, the site officially decided that they had become an Indian dating site.  Osit suspects that a part of the site’s success is due to the culture of India, and the fact that a group date is easier to sell to parents who are worried about safety.

Source: The New York Times

Julianne Moore as Palin in upcoming movie

HBO’s film “Game Change” is about John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.  The movie is based on the book of the same name by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.  It will follow everything that happened during McCain’s campaign from his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate to his defeat in the general election. Julianne Moore is set to play Palin.

Source: The Huffington Post

Bristol writes a memoir

Bristol Palin is writing a book.  “Not Afraid of Life,” Palin’s memoir, will be released sometime this summer.  It will address what it was like to grow up in Alaska and coming of age amid all the media and political frenzy surrounding her mother, Sarah Palin.  Palin’s book will also talk about it was like to be a single mom while still a teenager having her relationship with the baby’s father crumble twice.  Palin talks about her past, her present, and what she hopes for her future.

Source: Huffington Post

Things you don’t know about the Prince’s wedding

So, Prince William of the British royal family is getting married.  The wedding will be this summer in London, and the Prince will marry Kate Middleton.  Here are some things you might not know about their wedding.  The Queen sent wedding invitations by fax. A Japanese toy line has designed miniature rabbit replicas of the royal couple, and they will go on sale in the U.K. around the time of the wedding. There has been a special condom designed for the event called “Crown Jewels condoms.” Their slogan is,  “Birth control fit for a king.” And of course, Lifetime is managing to make a Lifetime movie about the royal pair.

Source: The Week

“Weird Al” is a children’s author now

“Weird Al” Yankovic has branched out from writing musical parodies into the world of children’s literature.  “When I Grow Up,” written by Yankovic and illustrated by Wes Hargis, tells the story of Billy, an 8-year-old boy who is asked by his teacher what he wants to be when he grows up. According to Yankovic, the inspiration for this story came from his childhood. When he was 8, he told his guidance counselor he wanted to be a writer for “Mad” magazine.  His guidance counselor told him there wasn’t much of a career in comedy, and tried to convince Yankovic to pursue a “real career, like architecture.”

Source: NPR

It was her bacon first

A bacon enthusiast is seeking a lawsuit against her former agent for stealing her cookbook idea.  Lisa Skye, author of “I Love Corn,” came up with the idea to write an “I Love Bacon” cookbook.  She and her agent, Jayne Rockmill, worked to come up with the book.  Over the course of the negotiations, Skye became disenchanted with Rockmill’s aggressive style and fired her.  A year and a half later, Skye found a copy of “I Love Bacon” authored by Rockmill on the shelf of a San Fransico bookstore.  Skye is seeking legal action forcing Rockmill to withdraw the book.

Source: New York Post

Mominees tweet the Oscars

The Academy Awards are going for a more family friendly approach this year.  As a part of that approach, the mothers of Oscar nominees have been asked to tweet about it.  These Moms, dubbed “Mominees” will include host James Franco’s grandmother as well.

Source: CNN

J.D. Salinger liked Burger King

Nearly a year after the reclusive author’s death, letters between Salinger and a friend shed some light on what J. D. Salinger might have been like.  Salinger liked Burger King better than other fast food chains.  He also enjoyed being a tourist, taking bus trips to Nantucket, Niagara Falls, and the Grand Canyon.  Salinger was a tennis fan, with strong political feelings.  Did Salinger dupe the media and his fans into believing he was a recluse so he could enjoy fast food and watch tennis?

Source: The Week

There are gnomes in NYC

Gnome Life sounds like your typical Tumblr.  A guy in plaid posts a lot of pictures of himself staring meaningfully into the distance.  But there’s a twist: he’s a 108 year old gnome in Brooklyn.  Every entry features a dramatic entry with a cryptic caption about the struggle of fitting into to New York while being a gnome.

Source: NPR

Cooking while looking for love

If you are a chef looking for love, you might want to look for another chef. Women like men who can cook, but chefs tend to put in 12- to 16-hour work days, six days per week. The hours are hard, said Kerilyn Russo in an interview with the Washington Post. She is an interior designer. Her husband, Peter Russo, is a chef. This is sometimes hard on their marriage, but Kerilyn Russo said they make it work. She is the creator of marriedtoachef.com, a website that works as a support system and network for those who are missing their spouse while they are in the kitchen.

Source: The Washington Post

Movie characters to remember

2010 was the end of a great decade of movies.  Here are a couple of the most enduring characters spied over the last 10 years. 2002 saw the beginning of the Jason Bourne trilogy.  In 2003, there was Captain Jack Sparrow. In 2004, there was Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ.” Then there was Heath Ledger’s Joker in “The Dark Knight” in 2008. Most recently, in 2010, Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, your favorite way to procrastinate, came to the big screen, played by Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network.”

Source: The Chicago Tribune

New movie “The Roommate” falls short

Many students have dealt with having a roommate. Hopefully their experience didn’t turn out the way the new movie “The Roommate” did. Sara, played by Minka Kelly, shows up to college ready to study fashion design. Rebecca, played by Leighton Meester, is her roommate, who seems friendly at first. As the movie progresses, Rebecca begins to show her true colors as a crazy person. “The Roommate” is somewhat of a wannabe thriller, according to Entertainment Weekly. But those of you who’ve had problems with roommates in the past might want to check it out just to remind yourself it really wasn’t all that bad.

Source: Entertainment Weekly

Sorry Palin, Montana Theater Group says

When producing “The Mikado,” a well-known Gilbert and Sullivan comic operetta, it’s common practice to change some of the lyrics by adding names of well-known people.  A community theatre in Montana suggested Sarah Palin should be beheaded in a sequence in which the lead executioner read a list of those he intended to behead.  An affronted audience member wrote a letter to the theater group, telling them to reconsider, given the current climate in the aftermath of the Arizona shootings.  The theater group apologized.  For the curious, the offensive lyrics were: “That crazy Sarah Palin needs a psychoanalyst / She never would be missed, no she never would be missed.”

Source: Anchorage Daily News

White Stripes break up

The Grammy award-winning musical group the White Stripes announced on their website on Wednesday, Feb. 2, that they have “officially ended and will make no further recordings or perform live.”  The break up is for “a myriad of reasons,” according to the announcement, but mostly because the White Stripes don’t want to ruin a good thing.  The statement continued on to say, “The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore.  The White Stripes belong to you.”  The announcement thanked White Stripes fans for all the good times.  All in all, it’s not you, it’s me.

Source: CNN

Lots of kissing in ‘J. Edgar’

Clint Eastwood is directing a new movie based on the life of J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the FBI.  Hoover had a controversial career, and was rumored to be a cross-dressing homosexual.  Hoover will be played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Clyde Toulson, the Associate Director of the FBI and Hoover’s rumored lover, will be played by Armie Hammer. “It’s not a kissing scene,” Hammer said in an interview with E! Online regarding the amount of kissing in the movie. “It’s a ton of kissing scenes.”

Source: The Huffington Post

Earn credit with Festival of Native Arts

For students interested in Alaska Native culture, there’s the Practicum in Native Cultural Expression. This class allows students to earn college credit while helping put on the Festival of Native Arts. Students can earn from one to three credits. The class meets every Monday from 4 to 5 in the Rural Student Services Gathering Room in the Brooks Building.

Source: Kay Thomas, Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development

Office star makes spirituality cool again

Rainn Wilson has produced a New York Times Bestselling book entitled “The SoulPancake Book.”  The book is a product of soulpancake.com, and was written with the help of Wilson’s co-collaborators: Golriz Lucina, Devon Gundry, and Shabnam Mogharabi.  Wilson’s goal with the website and book is to make spirituality cool again.  The book outlines life’s big questions and covers religion, war, love, sex, science, creativity, art, emotion, and many other topics.

Source: Entertainment Weekly

‘Spider-Man’ more spectacle than spectacular

Broadway’s new “Spider-Man” musical might not be everything comic book and theater enthusiasts had hoped for.  Actors are getting injured from performing the complicated aerial acrobatics required of the show, the tickets are $275, and the music is “surprisingly bland.”  Is our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man more con artist than superhero?

Source: The Week

A cheerleaderless Super Bowl

Those watching the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburg Steelers in Super Bowl XLV on Sunday, Feb. 5 might notice a little something lacking during the game: the cheerleaders.  The irony of the situation is that the game will be held in Dallas, home of the most famous cheerleaders of the NFL.  The Packers and the Steelers are two of the six teams who do not have cheerleading squads.  The Packers ditched theirs in 1988 when they found that their fans didn’t really care about cheerleaders, and the Steelers dropped theirs in 1970.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Toy Story 3 Gets an Oscar Nomination

This year’s Oscar nominations have been announced.  For the third time in history, an animated movie has made the Best picture list.  “Toy Story 3” could be the first animated movie to win a best picture award.  The other two animated films to ever come up for an Oscar were “Beauty and the Beast” and “Up.”  What’s even more rare about “Toy Story 3” being up for an Oscar is the fact that it’s a sequel.

Source: nydailynews.com.