Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1049

What's the Perfect Food of Summer?

The pleasures of summer dining are countless, but most of all, it's the food itself we love the most: barbecues, pole beans, popsicles, all the fresh berries a person can pick and eat, fried chicken, hamburgers, beer-can chicken, "summer pudding," hot dogs, Mister Softee, the list goes on. With the help of my Atlantic Wire colleagues, I have compiled 12 contenders for the best summer food, along with the reasons we would consume these items all year round if we had our druthers. Who is the top of the summer food pile? (For the purposes of this post, drinks count as food, because, well, lemonade, rosé, and mint juleps.) Scroll down to vote for your favorite! We will declare a winner after we're done eating all weekend.

1. A Simple Tomato Sandwich. First, of course, the tomatoes have to be good. Summer tomatoes, red and ripe and perfect. You get some good white bread and you put just a little bit of mayo on it, and you slice the tomato and sprinkle with rock salt, place between the two slices of bread, and devour. Repeat as needed; best eaten over a sink. 

[image error]2. Watermelon. You can cut it open and fill it with vodka. You can grease it and toss it in a pool and play games with it. You can use a melon scoop to make perfect little  balls of delicious fruit candy. It's hydrating, and low-calorie, and refreshing. You could eat it all day. If you swallow a seed, a watermelon tree might magically grow in your stomach, and that makes each bite a little more exiting. As Esther Zuckerman says, "Watermelon is iconic." Carrying one around means you're having a party.

3. Blackberries. Elle Reeve submits: "1. Their sweetness is cut with a bit of bitterness. 2. Each berry is a collection of dozens of tiny berry juice capsules. 3. It's almost impossible to get good ones from anywhere but off the bush on someone's farm that you've snuck onto. 4. And that means eating them has a thrilling element of danger, because you have to watch out for the horrible snakes lurking in the bushes. 5. Blackberry cobbler."

4. Bratwurst. Grilled, smoky, delicious, bun-able. "The best summer food ever is bratwurst, a German kind of sausage," says J.K. Trotter. "Per Wisconsin custom, a bratwurst link should be steeped in beer before being grilled and consumed. Should be paired with Spotted Cow, a Wisconsin-only ale so delicious that a Manhattan bar was busted for selling it in 2009." 

[image error]5. Corn. In the words of Matt Sullivan, "Corn is perfect in every way." Simple, elegant, fresh, grill-able. On the ever-so-slight negative side, though, is how it gets in your teeth. Bring floss.

6. Lemonade. I believe in drinking lemonade all year long. Why? Because it feels like summer, and it makes every day it's drunk seem a little bit brighter, somehow. Philip Bump, lemon connoisseur, dissects it further: "It's that balance – the little bit of sour, all the sweet, and the ice. There's no more important distinction in food than between lemonade from mix and lemonade made from lemons, water, sugar. No imitation food is as bad compared to the original as mix-lemonade. It is why you should NEVER buy lemonade from a kid on the street unless you see a lemon in the container. It takes a village." Esther Zuckerman adds that this is a drink "best consumed after being purchased from one of the myriad street fairs that line New York streets. It is the perfect anecdote to the steaming pavement."

7. Fried Chicken/Ceviche. A weird combination, maybe, but hear Alex Abad-Santos out: "It is my personal mantra that there is never a wrong time for fried chicken (soaked in buttermilk overnight, double-dredged in seasoned flour, pan-fried and served with Crystal hot sauce please). Funerals, winter, summer, weddings, anniversaries—fried chicken is always appropriate. And there is nothing that feels better than eating fried chicken out on a beach while reading trashy magazines. Please try this at least once in your life. 

"That said, there is nothing I hate more than cooking fried chicken in my house. It smells, it gets in your hair, you sweat, and turning on the stove transforms my apartment into a greasy sauna that smells like stale Paula Deen. Which is why I propose ceviche. In English ceviche means, 'tastes like a spicy miracle.' The most challenging part of the dish is finding room in your refrigerator to fit a bowl."

[image error]8. Popsicles. Beyond the fact that it is essentially a miracle of science that liquid can be frozen around a stick and eaten, popsicles are just the best. They are cold and delicious. They come in any variety of flavors, from mass-produced to artisanal. They can be natural; they can be less so. They are efficiency itself: You hold the popsicle stick in your hand and you eat the popsicle, and you throw the stick away or maybe compost it, and that's that, until you start over again. On the hottest summer nights, you may eat popsicles in front of the air conditioner for dinner. You can make your own, or you can buy them in a store, or from a truck. They are not a commitment. Sometimes the sticks have jokes on them. And little kids with green faces from eating popsicles are adorable.

9. A Glass or Two of Rosé. Pink and pretty and cold, with maybe just a tinge of sweetness, rosé is liquid popsicle and somehow always manages to make a night feel like an occasion. While some deem the season for the wine to be spring, summer is just as good, I think, and really, you can drink the stuff all year round. The sparkling ones are especially tasty when it's warm out.

10. Gazpacho. From tomatoes to tomatoes, with a bit of kick, depending on how you like it. "It is salty and crunchy and cool and delicious. It is affordably elegant," says Bump. Gazpacho won't weigh you down. And it's a seasonal milestone: "I like the idea of a cold soup, it seems very summer-specific," says Richard Lawson. "I like the flavor, but mostly it just communicates summer to me. When you see gazpacho on a menu, you know you've made it through the winter." 

[image error]11. The Mint Julep. Fresh-smelling green mint sprigs, cold, cold ice and even colder bourbon, a bit of sugar or simple syrup for some sweetness to make the medicine go down ... This is a perfect food, yes, and it even means you're eating (or drinking around) your greens.

12. Summer Pudding. What is summer pudding? Sullivan explains: "The American summer for me always began with summer pudding, which I'm pretty sure is English, but whatever: Our family friend, a caterer, would bring one perfectly sculpted version to our country house every Memorial Day, and it would last about as long on the picnic table as the beginning of summer ever does — as long it takes to eat something cold, something new, something borrowed, something red, white, and/or blue. And summer pudding is all of those, caterer friend or not: white bread, holding in a heap of red berries and blue berries and juice and a ton of sugar and maybe some booze, tossed onto a plate and into the fridge. See? It's American after all."

Insets via Flickr/beautifulcataya; Flickr/David Simmer II; Flickr/grebo guru; Flickr/Grizdave. Main image via Shutterstock by Brent Hofacker.

       

Sweden's Inexplicable Riots, Explained

For the fifth straight night, rioters have broken windows and set fire to cars in neighborhoods around Stockholm, Sweden. The violence fits the pattern, if not the scale, of other recent incidents in European cities, drawing renewed attention to the interplay of immigration, economics, and government.

How'd the violence start?

The galvanizing event seems to have been the shooting of an elderly man by police the Monday before last (according to the BBC). The Independent describes what happened.

[According to his brother-in-law, the man] had been eating in a restaurant, and when he returned home, he was confronted by a gang of youths, who he threatened with a knife.

When the police knocked on his door, he mistook them for the youths and didn't respond. Believing the woman in the apartment - his wife - to be in danger, the police, his brother-in-law maintains, shot him.

The man, whose name still has not been made public, was a Portuguese immigrant who'd lived in the country for 30 years. According to The Local, a Swedish English-language newspaper, the protests began on Sunday night in Husby, the same neighborhood north of the city center where he was shot.

Witnesses claim at least 100 vehicles in the area were in flames. Another fire was lit in a nearby garage, resulting in the evacuation of the apartment block. Around 50 residents were taken care of and sheltered in buses that were on hand.

The local shopping centre was also vandalized, and three police officers were injured in the fracas. Police estimate that the riots involved somewhere between 50 and 60 youths.

Why the protests began on Sunday in particular isn't clear. But over the next four nights, they spread into nearby neighborhoods and other suburbs around the city. Rinkeby, just southwest of Husby, saw two nights of rioting in 2010 as well.

How bad is the rioting?

It was inevitable that the violence would be compared to the 2005 riots in France or the 2011 unrest in Britain. The three share several common factors which are explored more thoroughly below: they began after interactions with the police that resulted in deaths; they began in low-income areas; they were reactions from members of an immigrant or ethnic minority group. Stockholm's Husby clearly fits that latter characteristic, as :

In Husby, more than 80% of the 12,000 or so inhabitants are from an immigrant background, and most are from Turkey, the Middle East and Somalia.

Rami al-Khamisi, a law student and founder of the youth organisation Megafonen, told the Swedish edition of online newspaper The Local this week that he had been insulted racially by police. Teenagers, he said, had been called "monkeys", fuelling resentment.

But in another important respect, the violence is not comparable. The Local's Oliver Gee, who's been covering the riots from Stockholm, writes:

Fifteen cars burned in the latest night of rioting, rocks thrown, the odd school or police station vandalized or burnt. The most emergency call-outs in a night sits at around 90. Witnesses estimated 100 vehicles were burnt on the first night, but that seems to have been the worst of it.

Another foreign reporter asked me if there has been looting as with the English riots, and there hasn't been, as far as I know. I heard one report of youths stealing a few cans of soft drink from a pizzeria, but that was the extent of it.

In the 2011 UK riots, by comparison, hundreds were arrested and five people were killed.

Why's it happening?

In part because of Sweden's reputation as an equitable society, news of the protests has come as something of a surprise. That reputation, however, is out of date. In recent years, the country's economics and demographics have shifted to be more in line with the rest of Europe.

Among the factors that have been cited in the violence:

Rising income inequality

In part because of the proximity of the riots to new analysis of income inequality by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development released this month, the difference in incomes among economic classes has been cited regularly. (See, for example, the Associated Press.)

PressEurop translates a story from the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet about the findings.

Sweden is the country where the level of relative poverty has increased the most since 1995 [from 4 per cent of the population to 9 per cent], which is why it has slid from first place to 14th position in the rankings, although it still remains over the OECD average of (11 per cent of the population in relative poverty).

The OECD has graphs showing that change.

As many are quick to note, Sweden still has a better ratio of incomes between economic classes than most European countries. That the difference is changing faster than anywhere else, however, suggests an economy in flux.

Immigration and political engagement

Nearly half of those seeking asylum in Sweden last year came from Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia, according to an April Reuters report. They were part of an unprecedented influx of immigration, as shown by government data.
[image error]

Sweden allows immigrants who've lived in the country for three years to vote in elections. Over recent years, the number choosing to do so has declined significantly. Again, from government data:
[image error]

Unemployment

Unemployment in Sweden continues to be relatively high, as seen in this TradingEconomics graph.
[image error]

It's not evenly distributed, however. Reuters notes that 15 percent of the population of Sweden is foreign-born, and experiences unemployment at 15 percent. Unemployment for natives of Sweden is at 6 percent. Worse still, as the Washington Post reports, "Swedish youth unemployment stands at 25.1 percent, about triple the level of overall joblessness. And much of that youth unemployment is concentrated among immigrants…"

The growth in unemployment nationally has also prompted political backlash against immigrant communities. Again, Reuters:

As unemployment has grown, the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats party has risen to third in polls ahead of a general election due next year, reflecting many voters' worries that immigrants may be partly to blame.

Social spending changes

While unemployment and inequality have grown alongside a disenfranchised immigrant population, the government has slowed its spending on social programs. Reuters notes that the country "has been reducing the role of the state since the 1990s," which in turn has helped spur that inequality. Not that the government is slashing programs too dramatically; data from the OECD shows a drop in government spending, but not a draconian one.

None of these factors is the answer in itself. For what it's worth, the cause isn't clear among Swedes, either. The Local asked five regional leaders to answer the question and got five different answers. The closest thing we have to an answer may be simply be: economic and political distance from society can spur a violent reaction to perceived injustice. As it has many times before.

Photo: Cars burn in the suburb of Rinkeby. (Reuters)

       

What Lesbians Think of Lesbian Porn

We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cellphone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today: 

This video of lesbians critiquing lesbian porn (for straight men) is probably NSFW ... which makes us wonder: Why are you still at work? Go home. Or you know, watch this video, then go home. 

Remember this guy? He went to prom last night, with this woman.

Jimmy Fallon is laughing with you, not at your crappy car. Remember that — and please, by all means, keep hashtagging: 

Here are some quotes that you're probably saying wrong. On the bright side, it's likely that no one noticed you were saying them wrong, since everyone is saying them wrong... that is, unless you decide to share this video:

And finally, here is a dog and kangaroo loving each other. Happy long weekend.

       

Jennifer Hudson Returning to 'Idol'?

Today in show business news: Jennifer Hudson might become an American Idol judge, Jon Stewart finds a leading man for his risky directing debut, and Tom Cruise walks away from a movie. 

Well, it looks like American Idol is sticking to its not terribly great plan to bring back old contestants to be judges next season. The word on the street today is that Jennifer Hudson, booted early from her season only to get the last laugh in Oscar form, is in talks to join the panel next season. There's nothing wrong with this idea, exactly, but I don't know that it will attract many people who weren't going to watch the show anyway. Unless of course they implement a rule that when they reach the Top 7 (which is when she was eliminated) she can pick one remaining contestant and take their place for the rest of the competition to see how far she gets. It'll keep the contestants on their toes and she'll get the chance to claim her long-denied crown. That would be interesting. Otherwise? Who cares. [Deadline]

Speaking of Fox reality television, the big industry news today is that Mike Darnell, who has been the head of Fox's unscripted programming for a whopping eighteen years, has decided to step down and explore other options. Darnell not only presided over the gleaming Idol age, but he also gave us the early dark days of reality TV, shows like Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire and When Animals Attack. Basically he's been running Fox's reality TV since the contemporary idea of reality TV existed. So this is in many ways the end of an era. What terrors will he unleash upon the world now that he has been released from Fox? Only time will tell. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Jon Stewart has found the lead for his directorial debut, Rosewater. He's cast Gael Garcia Bernal as a journalist who travels to Iran to report on elections only to be detained and tortured for 118 days. Bernal is an interesting actor, so Stewart chose wisely there, but this whole project still makes me nervous. If Stewart goes and makes a clunky geopolitical film, will he lose any of his ability to make fun of other political bozos? I mean, he's weathered charges of self-seriousness before, but this is a big, Ben Afflecky, going-for-broke kind of a thing. What if it's a dud? It's a scary possibility. But I guess he's been doing The Daily Show long enough that he's willing to take the risk. Good for him. Nicely chosen, Stewart. Now don't f--k it up. [The Wrap]

Tom Cruise has abruptly dropped out of Guy Ritchie's big movie version of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., saying he wants to focus on making Mission: Impossible 5. Cruise was to star in the film alongside Armie Hammer, and was going to start filming in the fall. But now Warner Bros. has to scramble to find a lead while Cruise goes back to the franchise he knows. He probably made the right choice. I mean, M:I basically is the same thing as U.N.C.L.E., so why not stick with the known property if you're going to do a gadget-y spy thing. Plus, Guy Rithcie's Sherlock movies are fun and all, but they're a little lightweight. So, who should replace Cruise? They're obviously looking for an older actor to offset Hammer's youngness, so... Hugh Jackman? I don't know if he's a big enough name, considering they first had George Clooney and then Tom Cruise. So who does that leave? Brad Pitt isn't right for this kind of a thing. Robert Downey Jr.? How many other megastars are there, really? Warner Bros. has got their work cut out for them. Maybe they could make it The Woman from U.N.C.L.E. and cast Meryl Streep. [Deadline]

Past the link is a trailer for the Cannes film Ain't Them Bodies Saints, a 1970s-set crime drama starring Rooney Mara as a woman who shoots a cop and Casey Affleck as the man who takes the rap for her. Then he busts out of jail and sets out to find her, while Ben Foster hangs around as a concerned police officer. It looks like it's gorgeously shot and Affleck and Mara are good actors, so this will probably be good, right? The Hollywood Reporter's review wasn't so strong, but that's only one person. Let's hope this is like Terrence Malick with a plot. Like Badlands, I guess. [The Hollywood Reporter]

       

Mayor Ford: I Did Not Have Smoking Relations with That Crack Pipe

Toronto mayor Rob Ford has just become the first mayor of a major North American city to officially deny smoking crack during his tenure. (Marion Barry, who somehow still holds the top Google result for "mayor crack," copped to it.)

The short version of the story so far: Gawker editor John Cook flew to Toronto to meet with drug dealers who claimed to have filmed the mayor smoking crack. Cook watched the video but didn't get a copy of it, as the dealers would only sell it for a substantial sum. Cook wrote a story about it. (The next day, the Toronto Star ran its story; it had seen the video earlier.) Given Ford's already colorful background, the internet exploded with glee / jokes. In the intervening days, Gawker tried to raise $200,000 to buy the tape and Ford stayed quiet.

Until now.

The key section:

There has been a serious accusation from the Toronto Star that I use crack cocaine. I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine.

As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist. It is most unfortunate — very unfortunate — that my colleagues and the great people of this city have been exposed to the fact that I have been judged by the media without any evidence.

An uncharitable person might note that he didn't deny that he had smoked crack, but we are not such people.

(Language note: Do we really need to say "crack cocaine"? Doesn't everyone understand what "smoked crack" refers to by now? Please fight about this in the comments, below.)

Ford may also be hiring, if you know anyone looking for an interesting job. Earlier Friday, the mayor fired his chief of staff, Mark Towhey, either because Towhey told Ford to "go away and get help — as anonymous sources report — or because "no comment" — according to Ford.

If you want to see the video of Ford smoking crack (which you haven't seen and may not exist), you can still contribute to Gawker's fundraising drive — it has so far raised over $160,000 of the $200,000 the drug dealers requested. A word of warning, however: Gawker editor Cook hasn't heard from the dealers through his liaison for about a week. Caveat Latin-word-for-a-donor-to-a-crowdsourced-campaign-to-buy-a-video-of-a-politican-smoking-crack, as the saying goes.

       

When a Blog Gets Caught in Your Throat

 "Let’s get this straight up front: I am now writing a blog post, not blogging a blog," writes Forrest Wickman at Slate, the good people who brought you the great two-spaces-after-a-period debate. Oh yes. Oh yes. They are at it again, this time with a post in which he takes on the matter of what to call this thing we do.

This is a real thing people have been known to say, calling a blog post just a "blog," you see. Usually they are your grandma, or someone who hasn't been on the Internet for very long, or somehow, maybe, they just don't have the same canny ear sense as the rest of us. Or sometimes, maybe, their ears are a bit cannier. These people (Wickman cites Roger Ebert and Amanda Palmer as examples) say "I wrote a blog," not "I wrote a blog post." And this is wrong. A blog is the big thing, the umbrella you open to keep all the little posts below from getting rained on. You don't, actually, write blogs at all — blogs are created, often with the help of several or many people, and they often involve more than simply writing. All the wee children we put forth with our minds and typing fingers are our posts. They are written. They are not blogs.

Or, as Wickman writes, "No matter what dictionary you check—online, Urban, or otherwise—you will find no definition of blog that means blog post. Saying one to mean the other is like saying magazine when you mean article. The listener or reader may get your drift eventually, but only after they’ve been thrown for a loop." He points out too that it sounds funny, silly, awkward, and may undermine the genius of what you've written. "I wrote a blog about that," someone says, and you look at them as if they're Jessica Simpson asking whether her tuna is chicken (that's a reference as old as your first blog).

In the wise words of Wickman, "This is a blog post or a post or a blog entry. It is also a piece and an article. But it is not a blog." 

But ... while on the face of things I agree with him and his blog, I do think that perhaps we've reached a time in which even saying "blog post" should be retired as well. It seems somehow dated, this two-word affectation for what is, basically, just writing a story, an article, a "piece." The need to define what that piece is based on the form in which it exists — I wrote a magazine article; I wrote a print book, I wrote a brochure column, I wrote a tabloid item — seems a little like something grandma would say, too. And there is the simple fact that the more you say "blog" and the more you say "post" the weirder both of those words begin to seem: blog, because, what heck is a blog? And post for much the same reasons. Post ... office? Post ... in the ground? Blog, of course, is short for Weblog, "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer; also : the contents of such a site." But are we all bloggers if we don't write blogs? What if we work for sites? What if we're just ... writers?

Blog. Blogggg. Blahhhhg. Blergh. Who's bloggin' now? 

On the other hand, maybe there's something a little bit endearing, a little bit unpretentious and sweet and charming, about calling your blog post a blog. One thing is certain. As long as there is blogging there will be blog. 

Image via Shutterstock by vesna cvorovic.

       

Yahoo Wants Hulu, Too

Yahoo is coming for online video — and the ads that accompany it. Days after announcing its $1.1 billion acquisition of blogging platform Tumblr, the 18-year-old Internet company has submitted a bid for the premium video streaming service Hulu, currently co-owned by NBC Universal, Fox, and ABC-Disney. According to AllThingsD, Yahoo faces competition from both Time Warner Cable and DirecTV, along with a handful of private equity firms. Given the current ownership split, it's unclear how much stake in the service Yahoo is seeking, but it certainly remains possible that Yahoo will attempt to capture a majority stake in the company. Hulu is reportedly valued at over $2 billion, and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has shown she is very willing to spend that kind of money.

This bid follows months of speculation about Yahoo's underwhelming video offerings and its lagging advertising revenue. Amidst these rumors Mayer met with Hulu's executive board in May, less than a week after Yahoo failed to secure a majority stake in the popular French streaming site DailyMotion, after the deal was blocked by French regulators. A Hulu deal makes a lot of sense: the site would make up for Yahoo's video shortcomings in a big way, given Hulu's successful advertising platform, deep library of premium content, and its built-in audience of 4 million-plus users (and that's just the ones who pay). At the same time, it would add to Yahoo's momentum, driven largely by Mayer, who oversaw the Tumblr acquisition, a major Flickr redesign, and a string of well-received smartphone apps that tap into an array of Yahoo services. And, of course, Hulu lacks the terabytes of porn for which Tumblr is famous.

No word yet on when the bids for Hulu will be considered. Hulu's current owners have been eyeing an exit for a while, though, so it's likely to be sometime pretty soon.

       

How to Spend Every Waking Moment of Memorial Day Weekend on Movies & TV

Let's face it: the weather is not cooperating in much of the country when it comes to barbecues and whatnot for Memorial Day 2013. So, obviously, you should do nothing but consume endless culture instead. And there's a lot out there! But, really, there's only so much time you have in a long weekend. We've clocked it for you.

Friday Evening 

You finish work and you immediately want something to divert your attention. Something mindless, but not totally despicable. You head to the multiplex and strap in for Fast & Furious 6. Sure, there are a lot of cars doing crazy things, but you can agree it looks pretty good nonetheless. (It's currently at 74 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.) That lasts two hours and ten minutes, so factoring in dinner, that should take you most of the evening. If if you're really giving in to this thing and your dinner consisted of popcorn and Paul Walker, maybe you catch up on Maron on IFC. That's at 10 p.m. Eastern. But you have a long weekend ahead of you. You want to pace yourself. 

[image error]Saturday

You wake up around 11 a.m. because it's a holiday weekend so you say why not. You start the morning with a little Law & Order: Special Victims Unit because there's a marathon on USA because of course there is. Presumably you will see some children around. It's a holiday so there are always children around, whether or not they belong to you. You must find something to amuse the children, so you take them to see Epic, one of the three movies battling for this weekend's crowded box office. This one does not involve a decapitated giraffe and you've already seen the one with Vin Diesel, so Epic it is. Plus, you are sort of interested in hearing what Beyoncé sounds like as the voice of a fairy. That lasts you about two hours. You are desperately in need of something a little less, well, animated, so you ditch the kids, you head to an art house theater and you go see Alex Gibney's Julian Assange documentary We Steal Secrets. You're done with that by dinner time, and you retreat home for an early night's sleep because, naturally, you have to prepare for Arrested Development. That starts at 3 a.m. Eastern, and you're going to hold off and be fresh, but first you're going to honor the 30th anniversary of Return of the Jedi opening in the U.S. by watching it on DVD. Because of course you have Return of the Jedi on DVD. Look at you.

Sunday 

You've already made your decision that you're going to wake up early and watch all of the new Arrested Development today. You wake up at 7 a.m. and start at 8 a.m. Those will last you for about eight hours. You take an hour's break around the halfway point for lunch and you are done with the Bluths by 5 p.m., but you thought that was pretty great, didn't you? Exhausted, you nap, and you wake up in time to put on HBO and watch Behind the Candelabra, which Richard Lawson liked, at 9 p.m. You follow that up with your recorded version of the latest Mad Men. Then, because you're a glutton for punishment, you go to your DVR and watch the two-hour finale of Smash. (See this tweet for how you may look after you finish that show.)

Monday

[image error]You really maybe overdid it a little with the Arrested Development and everything after on Sunday, so you wake up around noon, but somehow the sound of Megan Hilty is still ringing in your ears. You need to make it stop. You decide to need to watch something quiet and thoughtful that will begin to end your weekend on a nice note. (You've got a long way to go here, though, and you've foregone the barbecue long ago.) By 2 p.m. you're settling in for a screening of Before Midnight, ready to reunite yourself with Celine and Jesse. You can feel your heart swelling as you listen to them gab, but about two hours later the movie is over. You stick around your art house for What Maisie Knew, the well-reviewed modern-day Henry James adaptation starring Julianne Moore, which opens in a number of cities his weekend. After that's over, you stick around for one more intellectual film: the Israeli Fill the Void, about ultra-Orthodox women. (Note your ability to see the aforementioned three films depends on what city you are in. It helps if you're in New York.) It's around 7 p.m. You're time is running out and you're running out of options. You must make a decision. Your choice? The Hangover: Part III. You regret it the moment the giraffe gets decapitated, but you've made your choice. And with that, your weekend comes to an end. That went pretty fast, you think.

Have you enjoyed yourself? Please note that TV Guide has a list of Memorial Day marathons on television, which can occupy your time should rain and/or boredom really get to you despite your already busy schedule.

       

How Do You Lose 15 Kids on a Field Trip in the Woods for 12 Hours?

Chaperones at St. David Catholic Secondary School near Waterloo, Ontario in Canada watched 15 teenagers go missing on a school trip intended to teach "survival and backcountry camping" in a national park. Thankfully, the children were found Friday morning — but they were still missing for about 12 hours. Which... what?

"Ontario Provincial Police were searching for the group of teens, between 16 and 17-years-old, after they were separated from the main hiking group around 5 p.m. yesterday," reported Canada's CBC News, which updated their story to read that the high-schoolers were found around 5 a.m. this morning. 

[image error]Bruce National Park is located in Southern Ontario. And obviously, a school losing 15 of its students — even its older ones — in the wilderness for that long is cause for concern, not just for liability but, you know, because there are bears and rattlesnakes in Bruce National Park. Compared to Yosemite and Yellowstone parks in the U.S., which have seen some freak accidents and deaths last year, Bruce seems relatively safe. The biggest concern was reportedly the weather. "The source said chilly temperatures on the Bruce Peninsula is what prompted concern over the missing teens," CBC News reports. According to temperature forecasts, it's about 2°C (around 35° F) in Bruce Park, though you'd think that the teens being "missing" on the school's watch — and that the cops had to be called in for a search — would be the factor that would actually "prompt concern." 

But maybe they're built sturdier and steelier up there in Canada. Ontario Provincial Police said there was nothing to worry about the whole time, as CBC News reported:

OPP [said] they have been advised there are no concerns about the teenagers staying in the wilderness overnight because the school trip is focused on survival and backcountry camping.

All the children were found, and there were no reports of any injuries. 

       

Jon Stewart Says the DOJ Should Go After Wall Street Instead of Potheads

Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart explained that the Department of Justice is going after people whose crimes seem minor—especially when you look at them in comparison to what Wall Street executives did to create the financial crisis. To which Stewart asked: "What, none of them bought pot?"

In addition to recently monitoring journalists (Stewart defended Fox's James Rosen) and whistleblowers ("They believe in freedom of the press, just not freedom of speech for people who might talk to the press"), the DOJ is cracking down on hackers and potheads: "Basically, if you could played on a movie by Kevin Smith," Stewart said, "the feds would like a word with you." 

But how about banks? Well, Eric Holder and Co. don't seem too eager to prosecute them. 

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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