Great Britain is holding a House of Commons election on May 6. Three debates among the leaders of the Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democratic Parties have been scheduled (one has already taken place).
On April 23, the BBC Trust, which controls the invitations to these debates, ruled that two other parties will not be included in these debates. The two parties are the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. See the story below. The BBC Trust said that only the three invited parties have a chance of winning the election. Thanks to Eric Garris for the link.
Neither the Scottish National Party, nor Plaid Cymru, have enough candidates for House of Commons to elect a majority. It is not clear if two other parties that do have enough candidates to elect a majority, the UK Independence Party and the Green Party, have also complained about being excluded from the debates.
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Entertainment
THE RISE AND FALL OF AN INTERNET SENSATION
"... it’s interesting to consider the effect mass media can have on an individual, and the process that can reduce a real person’s identity into a three-minute clip. For Bruso, the type of fame YouTube stardom brought him wasn’t something he wanted. Read the full story below."
With Thomas Bruso, known to the internet world as Epic Beard Man, Oakland had a bona fide YouTube sensation, who managed to spark his fair share of controversy. For those who may have missed it, the 67 year-old Bruso’s fifteen minutes of fame were the result of a hail of punches he landed on a younger black man, who tried to fight Bruso after being offended by what he took to be a racist comment. Amid the controversy, there was a lot to talk about: the improbability of Bruso’s impressive fighting ability, the racial dynamics of the situation, and of course, the infamous “I Am a Motherf**ker” t-shirt. Behind the viral video, lies the story of a real person, as foreign as that concept might seem.
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History - Politics
The Ides of March
by Borgna Brunner
The soothsayer's warning to Julius Caesar, "Beware the Ides of March," has forever imbued that date with a sense of foreboding. But in Roman times the expression "Ides of March" did not necessarily evoke a dark mood—it was simply the standard way of saying "March 15." Surely such a fanciful expression must signify something more than merely another day of the year? Not so. Even in Shakespeare's time, sixteen centuries later, audiences attending his play Julius Caesar wouldn't have blinked twice upon hearing the date called the Ides.
The term Ides comes from the earliest Roman calendar, which is said to have been devised by Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome. Whether it was Romulus or not, the inventor of this calendar had a penchant for complexity. The Roman calendar organized its months around three days, each of which served as a reference point for counting the other days:
- Kalends (1st day of the month)
- Nones (the 7th day in March, May, July, and October; the 5th in the other months)
- Ides (the 15th day in March, May, July, and October; the 13th in the other months)
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