Two people named Kelly Hildebrandt who bonded over their shared name and eventually got married say they gave it their "best shot," but couldn't make it work.

Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt and Kelly Carl Hildebrandt made the "news of the weird" section three years ago after accidentally bumping into each other on Facebook and falling in love.

"She said, 'Hi. We had the same name. Thought it was cool," Mr. Hildebrandt told the AP then. "I thought she was pretty cute."

But three years and one marriage later, the couple has decided to file for divorce over "irreconcilable differences."

Namely, different states.

"She's a Florida girl, and I'm a Texas guy," Mr. Hildebrandt told an NBC affiliate in Florida. "We really did come from pretty different worlds."

If two people with the same name can't make it work, what chance do the rest of us have?

[screengrab via NBC Miami]

Last night, Jodie Foster, a famous actress who has been a famous actress for many decades, stood on stage at a glittery Hollywood awards show being broadcast around the world, and, in a lengthy, self-glorifying speech, in front of a crowd of the world's most famous people, asked for.... privacy. Is Jodie Foster clinically insane?

Jodie Foster, a famous actress, a woman who has made untold millions of dollars in the Hollywood movie industry, took the stage last night in a custom-made Giorgio Armani gown, and turned to face the room full of tuxedo-clad Hollywood power players sipping Moet, and the cameras, broadcasting to millions of people around the world, and delivered a seven-minute-long speech which has brought her great and fawning praise. It is a monument to the delusion that goes with a life lived totally inside the entertainment industrial complex. In it, she said: "Now, apparently, I'm told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance, and a prime time reality show. And you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child... If you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler; if you'd had to fight for a life that felt real, and honest, and normal, against all odds; maybe then you too would value privacy above all else. Privacy." Cue applause.

We hate to be the ones to interrupt this Jodie Foster for Nobel Peace Prize nomination ceremony, but: asking for privacy on stage at the Golden Globe Awards is intrinsically insane.

As trivial as most everything to come out a celebrity awards show is, this particular piece of boldly stated delusion has value, in that it so perfectly illustrates the extent to which America's celebrity worship will always leave us unfulfilled. Celebrities that have been as thoroughly indoctrinated into Hollywood culture as Jodie Foster are incapable of conceiving the normal world in which normal people live. (Note Foster's maudlin tribute to her bond with "the crew"—the closest thing to working class humans she ever encounters.) Jodie Foster, millionaire actress, truly believes that she has succeeded in having a "normal" life, "against all odds." Her world is so far removed from yours, and mine, and everyone's outside of a tiny sliver of Hollywood that she considers herself to be a hard-luck tale. A survivor. A triumphant role model. A hardworking mother deserving of privacy.

Here is how you can have privacy, Jodie Foster: do not attend the Golden Globe Awards. Do not walk down a red carpet in a Giorgio Armani gown. Do not give seven-minute tributes to yourself on national prime time television. Do not attend several similar high profile events every single year. And while you're at it, do not spend decades in the movie industry pursuing the conscious goal of fame and celebrity, before taking the stage to beg for your privacy. (We can, of course, see how the whole John Hinckley obsession might have made her desire a private life; but if it did, her actions have certainly not been oriented in that direction.)

Pardon us for resorting to cliche, but there is no better example of the "have your cake and eat it too" phenomenon than a famous Hollywood actress self-righteously asking for privacy on stage at an awards ceremony. One would think that celebrities would not need their own circumstances explained to them by outsiders. But they clearly do, as demonstrated by Jodie Foster and her legions of celebrity (and celebrity-worshipping) supporters. So here it is: you can be a celebrity, and have fame, and vast riches, and lots of public and media attention paid to you; OR, you can be a non-celebrity, and have no fame, and no riches, and be ignored by the media and the public. Jodie Foster falls into the first category; you, and me, and 50 year-old women who are not wealthy, famous Hollywood actresses fall into the second category. Foster's mawkish plea for privacy neatly leaves out the fact that she and her agents and managers and publicists have spent decades painstakingly cultivating the very fame she now bemoans, in order to benefit her career. What Jodie Foster and her fellow persecuted celebrities are really saying is, "We want to enjoy the vast riches that come with commanding the attention of the public, but we want to tell the public exactly when and where and how to direct that attention." You, the public, must work on behalf of the celebrities. Not vice versa. Celebrities have it hard enough already. Everyone, once you hand over your money to Hollywood, please stop paying attention to them, until the next movie comes out.

The quickest way to privacy is silence. And that is the one thing no Golden Globes acceptance speech has ever achieved.

On last night's Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Thanksgiving special (yeah, I have no idea why they did that with the scheduling — I guess this show takes months to finesse?), Mama June introduced the world to the concept of a "multi-meal." A "multi-meal" is what happens when you "just like throw whatever you have available in the cabinets in a bowl." The secret ingredient, though, is TLC's sound effects, which make June's already gross kneading ("Your hands are your best utensils") that much grosser.

Garnish with a series of bizarre sneezes and serve.

Also, she basically stuffed her Thanksgiving turkey with Country Crock.

I really have a high threshold of acceptance for these people and their ways (duh), but the culinary part of their culture (or whatever) really distresses me. My throat still closes when I think about sketti.

Last night, Hollywood had its first dress rehearsal of the awards season: the Golden Globes. As with most rehearsals, a lot of shit went wrong: audio cut out, teleprompters malfunctioned, and several women grabbed the microphone to scream crazy things into it; in another era they might have been burned as witches.

Missed the show (AND the Gawker liveblog)? Here are the seven things you need to know about it, in order to function in polite society.

1. Fey and Poehler Were A+ Hosts

America loves Amy Poehler and Tina Fey for proving, despite countless Bravo reality shows to the contrary, that white women can be friends. Celebrities love them because they're biting but not too mean. They delivered like Domino's Sunday night.

Like cool moms hosting a sleepover, Fey and Poehler popped up every once in a while to check up on the show, but mostly they left well enough alone and let it proceed as it would. A lot of their gags were strictly visual: Fey nervously clasped hands with Jennifer Lopez and Poehler nuzzled with George Clooney when they were announced as nominees for Best Actress in a TV comedy (neither won); early in the night, both women appeared separately costumed as fake actors from fake films, sitting in the audience with real nominees. Everyone had a nice time and no one had to call their mom to pick them up early.
What everyone will be talking about: The first gasp of the night came when Poehler said of director Kathryn Bigelow "I haven't been following the [Zero Dark Thirty] controversy … but when it comes to torture, I trust the lady who spent three years married to James Cameron."
What you should bring up: When a pretend-drunk and bitter Fey slurred to Lena Dunham, who had just beaten her for Best Actress "Glad we got you through middle school, Lena."

2. Jodie Foster Came Out Definitely as Bonkers, Sort of as a Lesbian

The most whatthefuckable moment of last night's show was unquestionably Jodie Foster's 7-minute ramble through a bramble patch of thoughts. She opened her acceptance speech for the Cecille B. DeMille lifetime achievement award with a quote from an SNL skit ("I'm fifty!") and went on to pretend she was going to come out as gay, then say she'd already come out, then talk about how much she loved privacy, then talk about dogs' hearing, and who knows what else. The speech was odd in that, while clearly carefully practiced, it was also utterly incomprehensible.
What everyone will be talking about: At the end of the speech, it sounded like Foster was quitting acting. ("I may never be up on this stage again. On any stage for that matter.") She later said that she wasn't.
What you should bring up: Although it sort of sounded like it from Foster's speech, Foster's mom is not a restless ghost. She is alive.

3. The Teleprompter Broke

There is no more invigorating span of seconds in an awards show than that moment when the teleprompter breaks, and the actors who normally seem so smooth are left approximating speech sounds with wide saucer eyes. "Ger…flant un a bos tum…blape." Last night's victims were Paul Rudd and Salma Hayek.
What everyone will remember: Paul Rudd eking out an awkward "Hello" in the middle of 20 seconds of nervous silence.
What you should bring up: When Salma tried to improv the dialogue. "Something about the best…" At least she knew she was giving away the best something.

4. Anne Hathaway Found New Ways to Make America Hate Her

Anne Hathaway took home the Best Supporting Actress award for her turn in Les Misérables, and people were furious at her for existing. Most of last night's vitriol was directed at her acceptance speech, which, while obviously a fastidiously rehearsed emotional monologue, seemed intended to sound off-the-cuff. She also opened it with a Liz Lemon-esque exclamation of "Blerg!" which rubbed some people the wrong way because only they are Liz Lemon.
What everyone will be talking about: "You know who I hate? Anne Hathaway."
What you should bring up: When Les Misérables won for Best Picture, Anne immediately hopped on the microphone to finish her best supporting actress speech ("I forgot to thank…"), and was swiftly thrown under the bus by her producer ("I haven't forgotten to thank anyone because I haven't started yet.").

5. Bill Clinton Was There

He took the stage to introduce Lincoln. He received a standing ovation.
What everyone will remember: "Tommy Lee Jones is not amused," a gif-able moment that occurred when Will Ferrell and Kristin Wiig did a bit that involved disrespecting the sacred art of acting.
What you should bring up: Bill Clinton was there. Al Gore's former roommate Tommy Lee Jones was there. Who didn't invite Al Gore?

6. Lena Dunham Was Less Annoying Than Anne Hathaway, But Liiiiike…

Riff raff street rat Lena Dunham took home awards for Best Actress in a TV Comedy and Best Comedy Series for Girls. Things got off to a weird start when she did an exaggerated awkward hobble to the stage, leading some to speculate she had pulled an Al Roker in her underpants, or had not practiced walking in her heels before this very moment. On stage, she read directly from a prepared speech without ever looking up. It was a nice speech, but the effect was very "My name is Lena and my report is on the Maori people of New Zealand."
What everyone will be talking about: She thanked Chad Lowe (Rob's younger brother) in her acceptance speech as a joke; Hilary Swank forgot to thank Lowe (then her husband) when she accepted her Oscar for Boys Don't Cry in 2000.
What you should bring up: Lena Dunham's brown dress was designed by her old babysitter. Zac Posen.

7. An Old Woman Hit on Bradley Cooper

Dr. Aida Takla O'Reilly, the President of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, delivered a charming, whimsical speech in which she informed the audience she soon "would be disappearing into the Delta twilight" and confirmed they didn't know who she was. Gawker's own Rich Juzwiak was mesmerized by her, as were all present.
What everyone will remember: When she located Bradley Cooper in the audience and told him "Call me maybe."
What you should bring up: When she breezily dissed DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg in the middle of her speech.

BONUS SHADE: Taylor Swift Hates Adele

This was Swift's reaction to Adele's acceptance speech, after Adele beat her for Best Original Song. (Adele wrote and sung James Bond's "Skyfall" theme; Swift contributed a tune to The Hunger Games). Adele's acceptance came off as genuinely humble and surprised, rather than cartoonishly so. Taylor Swift was furious.

[Teleprompter, Hathaway, and Aida Takla O'Reilly videos edited by Rich Juzwiak; all clips courtesy NBC // Image via Getty]

Sam Briggs is on a fast track to become the youngest Pulitzer prize winner ever — and he's still in J-school.

In landmark bit of investigative journalism, the British communications student decided — with a dollop of healthy peer pressure — to do a whole bunch of drugs and document his attempt to give random passers-by safety advice while dressed like a public works employee.

Needless to say, the advice he gives isn't worth much, but his rapid decent into temporary insanity is priceless

[H/T: Brobible]

A retired language teacher in Ohio is suing her former school for discrimination, alleging she was forced to resign over her debilitating fear of young children.

61-year-old Maria C. Waltherr-Willard claims in her lawsuit that her "pedophobia" causes her to experience a series of symptoms, including stress, anxiety, chest pains, and vomiting, when in the vicinity of children.

She says the Mariemont school district was understanding in the past, allowing her to keep her teaching position at the high school level after she asked not to be transferred to the elementary school level.

But Waltherr-Willard alleges that the district's attitude changed after she took a stand in 2009 against the elimination of face-to-face French classes, which were being replaced with an online course.

Both the Superintendent and the high school's principal admonished Waltherr-Willard, per court documents, and warned her to stop telling parents about the change or risk losing her job.

The district subsequently assigned Waltherr-Willard to teach Spanish to junior high students against her wishes.

She claims the move caused her blood pressure to become dangerously elevated, and ultimately forced her to resign in 2011.

Three of Waltherr-Willard's accusations were dismissed by a federal judge who ruled that her contract had not been violated. The three remaining claims are currently awaiting district response, and the tentative trial date has been set for February 2014.

[photo via Shutterstock]

America's unemployment crisis is so bad that even the people who work in the unemployment office are getting laid off. Each week, we bring you true stories of unemployment, straight from the unemployed. This is what's happening out there. It's not good.

The Marine

I am a single father with full custody of my 10 year old son. I hold two bachelor's degrees. I am unemployed. There is no end in sight.

I was in the Marine Corps for eight years where I was trained in a variety of Information Technology (IT) skills. I took that job with the intention of having a marketable skill once I left the military, which I did in 2007 (a decision I'm partially regretting). I was immediately hired by the Military-Industrial Complex to do the same job I had in the Marines, just now with more pay as a civilian. All was great until I decided that I really didn't want to be involved in IT anymore. I never found any enjoyment of the job and, frankly, I just wasn't into computers like my coworkers were. I had always wanted to be a teacher, so I resigned my job (a decision I'm majorly regretting), moved in with my dad and started school full time as a secondary education major with a concentration of social studies - just for kicks, I also minored in political science and history.

At the time, teaching was a pretty stable career choice. Now, like everything else, it is clearly not. I did my four years of school and got my degree. I have another bachelor's in Workforce Education which I received from an accelerated program I did while in the military. Long story short on that one: I did the 'major' classes and all I had to do was transfer in all my general education stuff in order to complete the degree requirements.

So here I sit with two degrees and no possibility of employment. Like many others in the previous Unemployment Stories, I send out resumes, I try to track down contact information to further sell myself and I call friends and their friends. All that I have left is that I'm out of money. The jobs I'm qualified for don't seem to want me for whatever reason. The jobs I'm over qualified for, but willing to do to support my son, don't want me either because I'm over qualified. The most annoying thing is not hearing back from someone who I have sent my resume to personally. Tell me the job is filled, tell me I don't qualify, tell me to go screw myself, but just tell me something. Every day I scour the job sights for training or teaching jobs. I also spend additional hours trying to get into any job that will help me pay the bills.

My girlfriend is in the same boat I am - she even has a master's degree. She asked me the other day if I could possibly reenlist. After watching so many friends go off on multiple deployments, the death of one close friend and being racked with survivors guilt, I find that I'm actually considering it. Unfortunately, I think I've passed the age limit - I'm just to scared to look.

I've spent many hours awake because I have no income and have no idea how to make any. I want to take my son to the movies. I want to take him to see hockey and baseball like my dad used to do with me. I want to buy him ice cream from time to time, but I can't. Instead I find myself slumped on the couch cursing some unknown entity for mine, and so many others, predicament. We're not lazy, we're not uneducated, we're not waiting for, nor wanting, a handout. We just want a chance to make a living.

The veteran

As days turn into nights, and nights fall again to mornings, the exhausting perpetual search for gainful employment leaves me tired and weary. After an honorable discharge from the US Navy in 2005, and being a veteran of both iraqi freedom and enduring freedom i decided to go after my dream of being a harley davidson technician. so naive was i in my almost religious fervor for all things American, i felt that my love of the road and for the great american product that is harley davidson would be a great endeavor as i was what they would call in the navy a "shit hot" mechanic. my original plan was to pursue a career in aviation but after 9/11 that industry seemed to go up in smoke as jobs were eliminated and airline after airline folded in the aftermath. no biggie, switch gears. i rode harleys and had a good repoire with my fellow likeminded bikers, so i decided to go to MMI where i was thrown into instant debt of over $25,000 for a 15 month certification program. i finished school with some of the highest marks a few of my instructors had seen. i was recently married and a new father and decided to move home to illinois from florida to be close to family should we need help with our new child. i searched for 6 months and scoured every bike shop in the area and finally got a job as a set up tech for a local dealership making a whopping 10.00 bucks an hour. after realizing that this company was never going to give me a leg up on anything i was hired at another st louis dealership for slightly more money. i worked tirelessly for these crooks for 12 dollars an hour. i stayed late and worked weekends, i trained other techs, and i always went above and beyond the call of my stated duties. the first year i was there i made $21,000. and kept telling myself that it will pay off sooner or later.

It was now 2008 and i was given a raise to 16.00 dollars an hour..........flat rate. so for every hour billed i was to recieve 16 bucks but every hour i was there that i didn't get to bill was essentially free labor to the company. i say that because as the economy wound down there was less and less work and i was not the only tech working there. as a matter of fact some of those techs that i trained that had absolutely no schooling were getting paid an hourly rate. so they were paid regardless of the work they performed. you can see where this is going right. as less and less work came in the door more and more of that work was doled out to the hourly techs. and as they raked in their 10 bucks an hour plus overtime pay i saw less work hit my lift. i once received a paycheck where i had clocked over 85 hours yet the billed time only amounted to about 265 dollars. as the second year i worked there wound to a close my W2's showed i had made 19,000 dollars, two grand less than the previous year. so much for that raise huh. well i wasnt the only one being raked over the coals. as the end of 2009 approached i was looking forward to the holiday bonus and mine was supposed to be around 2500 bucks. two days before i was to receive that bonus the GM called me into his office and told me he was letting me go for stealing. i was utterly flabbergasted and considered beating the living hell out of that sonofabitch. he said he had me on four different surveillance cameras rolling a rear wheel out to the parking lot and depositing it into the trunk of my car. which in part was true but the wheel in question was the wheel from my own 2006 HD softail. this i proved but to no avail.

I was broke and i was jobless it was christmas and my wife had left me and taken our son with her. tragedy it seemed was to be my vise. but i over came and got a hold of a friend of mine in california whom i had trained at the st louis location. he had gotton a job in temecula at a well known dealership and was making $34.00 an hour flat rate, and he said he could get me a job there in spring. so i rallied and got the money together to get to tucson arizona where another friend of mine had relocated to in response to the squaller that was the job market in illinois. i rented a 9' x16' cool box storage unit and had it dropped in my friends desert back yard and lived in it for three months. he and i would hit the alleys and bulk trash days looking for scrap and working our fingers to the bone for a few dollars a day pay, as we rolled into the scrap yard every day to turn in our previously discarded semi-precious metal treasures. i saved what i could and finally made it to california in march to stay with my harley wrenching friend. i secured a place to live, a shack of sorts and started working again for this company with a renewed excitement and ecstatic feeling of "i finally made it." i was making $34.00 an hour and loving it. a few months into the position i noticed that despite my attention to detail and eagerness to please my boss was not giving me a whole lot of work. soon i was written up for leaving a valve stem cap off a wheel then there was another for an "unsafe turn" into the parking lot, and later still, a third write up for tipping one of my co-workers a few bucks for helping me on a job. they canned me for subcontracting work. and threw me out in the street without even the ability to collect unemployment. when i went to get my tools my boss flat out told me that they couldnt afford to keep me as there wasnt enough work, and that he would give me a good reference. bullshit right?? so ..... broke again i took what i had and sold my beloved harley, shipped my belongings back to illinois and drove my car home with my tail between my legs. back in illinois i searched and searched for work, to no avail. i lived in a campground and sold weed and engaged in other nefarious activities to earn whatever i could to get by. i hunted game illegally with a pellet rifle and fished the lake the campground was on to eat. and continued searching but nothing came of it. in june of 2011, i met a guy there in that campground who had a few harleys and who needed a bit of work done so i fixed one of his bikes and to celebrate he let me ride a different bike he had and intended for me to do work on. we rode around for most of that day and on the way back to the campground the bastard crashed into me nearly severing my left leg below the knee. i stayed two weeks in the hospital and was on my haunches for nearly a year. to this day i still have not recovered fully. i have been looking for jobs everywhere and am told wherever i go that i was either their number 2 choice or that my injuries inhibit my abilities (hard to hide the limp i guess). the bottom line is i still dont have a job. and every day i grapple with the idea of suicide. i was successful at one time and on top of the world, now im broken and it seems i will end up like many other veterans of this country, homeless and on the street looking for the next big thing. thanks america, and thanks harley davidson for showing me what our country truly is about.

The illustrator

I graduated undergrad with honors from my California state university in 2008 with degrees in Graphic Design and Art History, and lucked out and got a job nearly immediately working as a designer for a large company. While working often 50 hour weeks, I also worked as a freelance illustrator, primarily editorial but also some books, and for a time also adjunct lectured at a local university, all before I was 25. I loved working in the classroom and I wanted to grow my illustration skills so I could get out of graphic design, so I applied and got into a prestigious MFA program.

Now it's September 17th, 2012, I'm 27 and I live at home with my parents. I'm over 70,000 dollars in debt from my school loans, thousands of debt in credit cards I can't pay (which were spent on responsible things, like doctor visits and books for school) and I have applied to over 100 jobs ranging from Creative Director to Waitress and as of this writing have not yet even secured an interview. I have applied both locally and nationally but it honestly doesn't seem to matter.

It feels like it all happened at one. The magazines I was freelancing for went bankrupt. Art Directors got their budgets cut. Suddenly to be a graphic designer, it wasn't enough to have a mastery in print, you also had to know web, and animation, and be able to lift 50 lbs and do video editing and make a mean cup of coffee and data entry too. All for minimum wage.

I'm running out of ideas. I've been guest lecturing without pay at local universities just to try to pad my resume. I've also volunteered to tutor homeschool kids to try to help them/stay current on writing lesson plans and to keep my illustration skills sharp, but honestly it's making me more depressed than ever. What's the use of teaching kids how to use art if all it means is an existence of constant suffering? I know that's the long running joke- artists are broke. But I wasn't always. I really thought I had the skill set and the business mind to survive and I was wrong. I am so utterly embarrassed to be living at home with my parents, and it's equally depressing when I get little notes from "fans" who say they love my work/books, asking me how to become a successful illustrator.

I feel like a failure and a loser and I really feel hopeless.

The government contractor

I've had a nice career as a government contractor. I started at the bottom of my field and steadily worked my way up. My paychecks increased with each new assignment and I loved the fact I had a job where I was in charge, wearing nice suits daily and felt I made an impact on government interests. I got a new position with one firm and reached what I thought was the ground floor with a company about to explode with new contracts. They lied. They didn't have 200 employees, they had 78, and they were losing contracts every month. I was horrified. I was totally deceived during my interview. Then they laid me off after six months. I didn't take it personally. I knew they were a dying company. They provided linguists and that business was steadily drying up. I was lucky enough to network into another lower paying position with one of their prime contract holders. Once again, I was not told the real deal about that position. I was kept on for 4 months while another employee was out on disability. I always wondered why this new employer did not want to train me in regards to their daily operations. It didn't make sense. In retrospect it does now; I was a temporary hire therefore it didn't make sense to add me to the network security administration settings, global corporate address book or building access cards.

The company decided to reorganize and I out-processed more than 40 employees on a Monday. I asked my one bosses if our department was facing cuts and she said "we are properly positioned", which set my B.S. radar off. I was let go Thursday one day before my offer letter probationary period was to end. The employee who was out on disability had returned two weeks prior and she was now up to speed on everything. I had served my purpose I guess. I was livid the day they let me go, but kept my composure. See I had two job offers when I went to their firm. The other job offer was a long drive and I choose them since they were in the same county and state. I cringe to think that I would be in much better shape had I gone with the other job. It makes me cry.

Now I feel I have a resume that screams "do-not-hire" since I have been laid off twice (one 6 month job followed by a 4 month job). Before that I was a paragon of stability. Government contracting has slowed down significantly. I'm going to job fairs where I am meeting my cohorts with similar resumes standing in line with me looking to apply to the same ONE job opening with yet another government contractor. I was an expert in what I did. I have a clearance. I'm supposed to be in high demand. If it's tough now, what's going to happen when sequestration hits and a million other government contractors become unemployed?

My friend

I'm writing this story for my friend because she can't. She shot herself.

My friend graduated with a bachelors degree in English. She and her husband moved to Northern California and between the two of them had enough money to get a comfortable mobile home. They liked dragons, tattoos and had three cats. I became friends with them because they would come into the store I worked at and we would trade stories about cats. I'm a very suspicious person and a pessimist, but they were such a good couple that it wasn't long before we were having movie night every Sunday.

Then her husband was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. My friend herself had been diagnosed with a brain tumor at age 8 and had barely survived. The human growth hormone she'd been given to try and counteract the stunting effect of chemotherapy had caused lifelong weight issues. When I met her she was 300+ pounds and that was after her gastric bypass surgery. As her husband was no longer able to work because of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, she carried the financial burden alone. The VA paid for his hospital care, but they DIDN'T pay for the gasoline they used to drive six hours to the nearest clinic... in San Francisco. They also didn't pay for the hotel rooms they had to stay in while the treatment was ongoing.

Eventually, it was determined that her husband would need Stem Cell therapy in order to bully the cancer into remission. The only clinic offering this therapy was in Seattle, and he would need a caretaker while he was there because his immune system would be too weakened for him to do things like shop for food. His mother was supposed to go, but she ended up needing surgery at the last minute (she is an elderly woman) and so my friend left her job and went to Seattle with her husband.

He had a bad reaction to the radiation therapy, went into a coma, and died two weeks later. She didn't even have the money for a decent funeral at that point. She returned husbandless, and to a job that disappeared after a month and a half. Her credit cards were maxed out, and her savings were gone. She applied for food stamps, and was denied. She recieved unemployment, but it wasn't enough to make mortgage and rent payments. Her father helped her catch up on her mortagage, but told her that this was the only time he would help her.

For the next two years she struggled along, looking for jobs, working a waitress job at a local diner when she could (small family run business, not much money), working whatever temp job came her way. She finally landed a job "babysitting" people who were mentally/developmentally impaired. She had to do overnight visits where she might not ever get a chance to sleep; and her "client" was abusive and sometimes physically violent.

She gave away two of her cats because she could only afford to keep one. She used my internet because she'd cut hers. Finally, she told my sister and me one night that she was losing her house... the mortgage was too much to pay and she was getting foreclosed on in a month. We offered her our extra room and told her we'd help her move and do whatever we could. I should have known when she said that karaoke that night would be her "last hurrah" that she had her own way out.

I won't write down all the details, I didn't find out she had died until two weeks later: two weeks of unanswered phone calls and texts. I had to find out through her Facebook page, her family didn't contact or tell anyone and there was no memorial service. They did tell me how she died, and the only good that came from that is knowing how very deliberately she planned the whole thing. There was no mistake, no second guessing, no last minute regret. She was damned if she would lose her house on top of everything else.

I pay my taxes, and I bailed out banks four years ago. No one bailed my friend out. If I sit down to think about it I'm so filled with rage that I think I'll explode. I'd like to find the bank that held the mortgage on her house and burn it to the ground; but I wouldn't stop there. I'd burn the CEO's house, and the Branch President's house until they all knew how she felt. I'd like to commit so much arson that their bank goes under and THEY have to spend months searching for a job. I want them, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and every last one of the rich SOB's that cares more about their career than about jobs for "the little people" to feel what it's like to lose EVERYTHING. I want them to be so far down that the barrel of a gun looks good. And then I'd take the bullets from them, because fuck them, they don't get to take the easy way out. I want them to live with so much fear, and anger that they can't sleep at night (I haven't slept since I found out, and I have REALLY bad nightmares). I want them to know what it's like to be haunted by the absence of someone you were close to. I want them to lie awake at 4 am and cry because the dreams are that bad. I want THEM to have to stare at the therapist that says bluntly "you exhibit all the signs of major depression. If you don't start eating and sleeping we're going to put you on anti-depressants."

Ghosts are the spaces in our lives where people used to be.

Previously
The full archive of our "Unemployment Stories" series can be found here.

[Thanks to everyone who wrote in. If you want to contact someone you read about here, email me. You can send your own unemployment story here.]

The sheriff of an Eastern Kentucky county has vowed not to enforce any new gun control laws he deems unconstitutional, calling it his "moral obligation."

Sheriff Denny Peyman, who has been Jackson County's top law enforcement official for the past two years, told reporters he had "a team of attorneys to step up with me if necessary to be sure the Second Amendment is upheld."

Peyman expressed concern over the Obama administration's gun control recommendations, which are due to be presented this week.

"We're talking about self protection here. I don't think there should be a limit," Peyman told Lex18.

During a Saturday news conference, Peyman, a member of the National Rifle Association, opined that any attempt to ban assault rifle would undoubtedly open the door to more sweeping bans.

"If they pull [AK-47s] off the market, what will they pull off next?" he said.

The Kentucky Sheriff's Association told the Lexington Herald-Leader they had no official position on gun control, but added that they "are a constitutional office and will uphold the Constitution."

[photo via Facebook]

This morning, under the shadow of controversy, the city of Dallas demolished an apartment building that was once home to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated President John F. Kennedy. The 10-unit apartment building located at 604 Elsbeth Sreet was vacant and has been for years. Oswald, his wife and his daughter lived in the building until March 1963 — seven months before Oswald would allegedly shoot and kill the President as well as Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit.

The "will they or won't they" over the demolition has been covered extensively in Dallas. History junkies in particular have expressed outrage over the implications of demolishing a home with an historic past. The home was, after all, built in 1925, about as old as it gets in a city like Dallas.

But is the rundown former home of a future presidential assassin an historical site worth saving? After all, the home hardly houses happy memories, as told by the Dallas Morning News' Gordon Keith:

Lee Harvey and Marina Oswald lived there for the worst six months of their marriage, November of 1962 to March of 1963.

Oswald beat her there. Multiple times. They argued over former lovers, baked beans, unzipped dresses and whatever other pretext could ease them into their drama. Despite a love life that was intermittent and not always consensual, Marina Oswald got pregnant with their second child there, which made her sad and him hopeful because he wanted a son. It would be another daughter.

After one fight, she tried to commit suicide in the bathroom there, standing on the toilet with a rope formerly used to hang the baby's clothes on, now to hang the baby's mother. He stopped her.

Granted, Dallas has had some trouble in the past sensitively acknowledging JFK's assassination. The memorial in his honor — which was almost never even built — was ignored for years and fell into a depressing state of disrepair before it was finally restored recently. The spot on Elm Street where Kennedy was shot is marked with a simple "X" in the road, one that frequently fades and is often barely visible. But Dallas has been planning an event to mark the 50th anniversary this November for some time now.

The building stood in a neighborhood south of the Trinity River in Dallas called Oak Cliff. As a native of the city myself, I can tell you that while the area used to be fairly rundown, several neighborhoods in that part of town, especially the Bishop Arts District and Kessler Park (no relation) have become much trendier in recent years. While it's certainly important to acknowledge and remember our history — especially the ugly parts — perhaps it's time to let this corner move on.

[Image via AP]

Here are two contextual ways to view Justin Timberlake's subdued "Suit & Tie," the first single from his upcoming 20/20 Experience album (his first since 2007's FutureSex/LoveSounds):

1. The first single featuring Timberlake as its headliner (and not its guest) since Obama took office, "Suit & Tie" is mellow to a fault — it's pleasant and hummable, its druggy intro is daring, but the overall effect is Chicago stepping fodder that R. Kelly would stick toward the end of an 80-minute album. Jay-Z's guest verse barely rouses it from its slumber. The song itself is a non-event, but there is a certain cockiness in that. Timberlake is reemerging as a solo artist after years of dragging his musical feet while starring in a string of movies that proved just how overblown the praise was for his turn in The Social Network. His presence is the event. The music is secondary. He has assumed the role of diva.

2. "Suit & Tie" may be unremarkable, but compared to the utter shite that Timbaland turned out for the bulk of last decade, his hands being used to make something that is pleasant feels like a legitimate feat. For every "Say Something" and "Carry Out" (both from his otherwise dreadful Shock Value II, the latter of which being his most recent collaboration with Timberlake), there have been several horrific experiments with EDM and otherwise unremarkable hip-hop tracks. He collaborated with Pitbull. He worked on Chris Cornell's widely-mocked Scream album, and Madonna on her widely mocked Hard Candy album. He made Ne-Yo sound like shit. He interpolated Billy Idol's "White Wedding" with his AutoTune set to "constipate" ("Raving is what we do best!" goes the first line of the first verse). He helmed two new Missy Elliott singles last year — "9th Inning" and "Triple Threat" — that were so bad, most people just pretended like they never happened because we love Missy and want her to be great.

Dude has been lost for a while. After his late-'90s/early-00's peak, which found him in the sparse elite of those able to single-handedly redefine what R&B sounded like (for this, his influence is comparable with James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Prince and Jam & Lewis), the future caught up with him. He petered out. Flashes of genius became the exception. That he started going downhill after Aaliyah's death in the August of 2001 is no coincidence. Remember Kiley Dean? Ms. Jade? Bubba Sparxxx? No one would fault you if you didn't, or if you did and would rather forget.

Timbaland's work with Timberlake (on both FutureSex and Timberlake's solo debut, 2002's Justified) found the producer reenergized, albeit less forward-thinking. Really, the most enduring accomplishment of those sessions was reintroducing pop to disco and house's four-on-the-floor beats via "SexyBack." In 2006, that song that predicted the imminent dance-music explosion we still haven't shaken. That one of the most intricately bonkers producers in the history of beat-making would achieve yet more influence with a pattern so basic and time-tested is one of pop's great ironies.

All of this is to say that by virtue of the fact that this recent Timbaland production is listenable and likeable, "Suit & Tie" is a relative triumph. The mighty have fallen yes, but you can't pioneer forever. The best we can hope for is to grow old gracefully.

[Image via Getty]

Inglewood resident Jason Lee (the Jason Lee?) got a surprise front-row seat to a police chase in his hometown last night, when officers pursuing a motorist in a stolen vehicle turned a corner outside his house.

Coincidentally, Lee happened to be watching the chase unfold on TV at the time, and captured the humorous juxtaposition on tape.

The driver — "a boy" according to police — was apprehended a short while later after a spike strip blew out his tires.

[video via Digg]

This is nothing less than a fine slice of contemporary Euro disco from the finest the genre (and Norway) has to offer. Stick around for the vocals that round out the song, if you are so inclined.

I think most critics who watch television for a living decided that Lena Dunham's second season of Girls is better simply because season one was subjected to such ferocious scrutiny. The fairness of the criticism was irrelevant, but the intensity of it must still linger. That's why when the screeners were sent to critics' homes or offices a few weeks ago inside yellow padded mailers, the contents, to many of them, were fragile. Let's revisit some of season one's real or imagined controversies and aspersions: Racism. Nepotism. Elitism. Sophism. Anti-Nazism.

What the show's detractors found most detestable was the way it showcased this notion of Millenial entitlement, born from grouchy trend-starved newspaper editors who sent reporters across America to find over-educated, yet well-adjusted, 20-somethings who chose (or demanded) a non-linear path to success and refuse unpaid internships in favor of leaching off their parent's dwindling retirement funds. So the taxpaying core of responsible adults who watch and critique television shows scolded and eyerolled Girls for this trend: How could these adult-children bequeathed with so much opportunity be so ambivalent about the responsibilities and sacrifices required of human existence? Parents shouldn't pay for their adult-children's daydreams. That's what Sallie Mae is for.

Lena Dunham, crosshaired as the most spoiledest entitledest daughter of generation unlimited Emoji sexting, had embraced and encouraged this Very Bad Notion for her first fictional HBO series. Purposely or not, Dunham's characters—her character—annoyed viewers who found her art and life equally insufferable. That is why, even though she is a 26-year-old woman of prodigious creative talent, her harshest critics sometimes dismissed her as a 12-year-old art project contest winner. From some Lake George summer camp. The contest was probably judged by nannies. Yes, the show is really good sometimes (but not quite great sometimes) so therefore it is awful. Let's just admit that Lena Dunham's art project represents America's failure to be independently progressive because, just like that fancy Lake George art camp she probably went to, Girls was devoid of black people. The nannies don't count.

Girls.

I think Lena Dunham is refreshing and talented. I like her fairytale tattoos. I applaud her willingness to go topless and muffin-topped. I like all of the characters she's created and the insincere, melodramatic, insipid, helplessly hopeful women of this certain age they represent, even if those women only exist in a snowglobe in Brooklyn. The show can only get better. Could be great, even.

Gawker recapped Girls last season. Let's do it again, but since there is a new editor, there is also a new author.

It's an honor to keep this going in a new direction. It can only get better. Could be great, even.

Intro. Outro. Skrillex.

*****

We are back in Brooklyn, borough of daydreams, and Hannah is full of sass and renewed independence because she's made it through the turbulence of her last year and now has a renewed focus in addition to a new roommate. We find her half-sleeping, half-cuddling in bed with her new roommate, Elijah, her ex-boyfriend from college who's now gay, but we can tell right away that she loves this newer, perfect, unconventional reality. She's smiling. So is he. He apologizes for his boner (he says boner) to put her at ease. No need, her eyes are still closed and she's still smiling. Hannah has changed. Hannah has figured out something. She is self-aware, and in control of this new reality where her gay ex-boyfriend is the perfect roommate. This is her bed, her ex-gay boyfriend, and she will half-sleep more content than girls in those more normal but unstable relationships. She's probably daydreaming while she half-sleeps about that one evening in the not-so-distant future when she can put on an expensive gown and uncomfortable shoes and accept an award for being true to herself. She's writing her thank you speech in her half-sleep at this time even though she knows the only one Hannah should thank is herself.

Then we're reintroduced to Shoshanna, deflowered last season by Ray, the grumpiest grump employee at Cafe Grumpy, who became enchanted by Shoshanna after she accidentally smoked crack at that infamous Bushwick loft party they both attended. She panicked and ran out of the party because hysteria had taken hold, and he chased her. He was smitten but he didn't know why. He was chasing her but she didn't know why. Then they fucked, virginity was lost, and, now, as we quickly learn from her opening scene, it didn't end up the way she wanted it to. She's chanting and burning incense things and gyrating around her room trying to curse Ray. Not for taking her virginity, mind you, but for not allowing her to feel good about losing her virginity to him because it appears, they did not become a happy couple even after initial coital engagement. Now Ray must die. There is a poster in full view in her room that says "Keep Calm and Carry On." She is not calm, though, and she carrys on in a hysterical girly way, and not in the resolute, 1939 British government way.

There is a din around Marnie, boyfriend-less still since she broke up with Charlie for being clingy and underwhelming after he put in four years of dutiful service as a professional boyfriend too good to be true. Right move, I thought, when she made it. She seems torn, but carrying onward, even though she's down on love but hey, jump in sweetheart, the water is always tepid. Cut to her walking briskly, professionally on a sidewalk after lady-lunching with her boss from the art gallery. Things are going okayish, she thinks, until her boss nonchalantly informs her that she had forgotten the main purpose of their lady-lunch: They are downsizing at the company that owns the art gallery.

"You're firing me?" she asks as a giant shoe is dropped from somewhere high above a loft in Greenpoint and onto the sidewalk in front of her where she once walked briskly. The giant shoe now lands.

Gasp now you're fired. She's not only fired, but her boss chose to fire her instead of the less competent employee who spilled YooHoo on art, something she would never do. Yes, gasp still fired. The universe is a teacher so absorb this lesson because you must or else you will never grow but for now let's smash-cut to Hannah's bedroom as she rides her new boyfriend.

"You wanted this," he says in sex voice.

"I wanted this so bad" her sex voice says.

"And now you're finally getting it," he says.

"It's about fucking time," his sex voice says.

"It's about fucking time," her sex voice says.

Her new boyfriend is black. Hey girl.

So after Lena Dunham has inserted this winking Emoji into the script to tweak her critics we can move on with the story. We see her and her new boyfriend in a small bookstore and he's giving chase, the way mad schoolchildren give chase when they are tagged and are now It. Her new boyfriend is played by Donald Glover, who is also featured in Community, and swoon, goes the internet. He is wearing a wool hat indoors because that's what people who live in Brooklyn do. I am wearing a wool hat indoors as I write this (in Brooklyn) and I will probably be wearing a different one indoors by the time this is published (on the internet). No swoons.

The next part of this scene is where expositiory plotlines are built and to let the audience know that Hannah has grown. Donald Glover says he can't run that fast because he has a boner (he says boner, too) but he finally catches up to her and pins her against a bookshelf and they giggle and stare like two people with serious crushes. But Hannah is pushing him away, refusing his affection even though it's genuine. "I love how weird you are," he says.

Hannah replies that no love is welcome here, leaned up against the bookshelf, even in a non-committal, conversational way. Poor boner. This non-committed pact is supposed to be fun and, for Hannah, love still lives at the dirty apartment of Adam, who is recovering from that time they argued at the wedding and he got hit by a truck. His leg is broken. He still needs her help. She still goes over there and changes his bedpans and sits and watches movies (possibly ironically, maybe not) with him because she feels guilty for breaking his leg or his heart or both. As they sit on his bed, Adam is still shirtless and gruff and Hannah sits on the bed next to him but at a safe enough distance to not give the wrong impression. It doesn't work. Adam still loves her, but Hannah doesn't believe this because hes still not nice to her.

"When you love someone you don't have to be nice all the time," Adam says. Hannah lets it sink in. He is not wearing a wool hat when he says this. At one point later in the show he will make her confront what a good thing they had. "You said I made your body feel like a clit." She denies this at first, then sighs, she did say that. Adam still rules. Swoon.

Now back to Marnie, who's transitioning through life and is now lady-lunching with her mother, played by Rita Wilson. (Last year Wilson would probably be referred to as "Tom Hanks' wife" in this column but this year she is "Marnie's mother." Knives in.) This conversation is important because they are drinking wine during the day. Marnie's mother attempts to offer inspirational advice and covets her daughter's friendship. Marnie needs a mother right now, for once, and isn't in the mood for her mother's YOLO attitude. Her mom is sleeping with a "cater-waiter" (right?) and insists that her daughter lighten the fuck up without actually saying that. Marnie can't handle it. She huffs. Her mom realizes her daughter is not ready for YOLO just yet. They both take sips of wine and glance sideways to avoid confrontation.

Hannah and Elijah are holding a karaoke party at their apartment that night and all the gang is coming. Hannah is thrilled with the idea. Elijah is, too, because planning theme parties is f-u-n and this is what life is supposed to be about, fuck yeah. Shoshanna arrives first and is dressed in her Audrey Hepburn hat, nervous about seeing Ray. Nobody seems to care. Elijah's boyfriend, the rich older guy who pays for everything is coming, too, and he's nervous. Nobody seems to care. The party skulks along as expected, songs are sung ironically, cool people mask insecurity by being safely aloof, potato skins and pretzels are served. Nothing moves unless it's forced or served. Marnie is there and so is ex-boyfriend Charlie and they exchange pleasantries in front of the bathroom door. Charlie blurts out that his new girlfriend is with him and Hannah said that'd be cool so I hope you don't...

"Are you waiting for her outside the bathroom?" Marnie asks Charlie, icy yet sympathetic that her ex-boyfriend's still being too good in that awful way again.

Charlie starts to stammer confidently that his new girlfriend doesn't know anyone at the party so he just didn't want her to be alone for too long....

Door flies open. Out she comes.

"I told you not to wait for me!" Of course she said that and of course Charlie didn't listen because he's just trying to be nice and girls like to be treated that way, he still thinks.

She emasculates Charlie in front of Marnie but doesn't care. Charlie reintroduces his new girlfriend to Marnie but pleasantries are not exchanged as they both are exasperated with Charlie for being so goddamn Charlie all the time.

The party carries on. Karaoke is sung. Elijah's old, rich boyfriend grabs the mic and is drunk and surly. He chastises the 20 or so people at the party for being so boring. Nobody moves. He's right about this fact, yet it still gets him thrown out of the party because his roll was in desperate need of being slowed. Later, old rich guy.

Post-party, Elijah and Marnie are chatting on Hannah's couch and trying to defuse the tension between the two of them. It's progressing nicely and then Elijah calls Marnie a bitch but not in a mean way. He also calls her pretty. New tension arises, but it's the good kind of tension, the kind that causes boners. Hard stares are exchanged and Elijah goes in for a kiss, because, you know, this tension won't break on its own. He's rebuffed at first. Then he's not. Then Marnie finds her YOLO and now she's about to fuck Hannah's ex-boyfriend who's gay but, obviously, still figuring things out and open to experimentation with girls who look like Marnie. So far on this show Marnie, even though she's the most conventionally pretty out of all the Girls, has had sex with Charlie (unsatisfactorily), her own hand in a public bathroom (passionately), the chubby guy from SNL (desperately) and now she's about to try it with a gay guy. At this rate, Marnie's next sexual encounter could be with a coatrack or a corpse. Whatever works. YOLO.

But back to gay Elijah sex. His shirt comes off. His pants come off. Marnie's top comes off and sideboob is shown because she's ready to make this shit hot. She tells Elijah to get a condom and they begin to have sex just cuz until it becomes very apparent that Elijah is still gay and Marnie is still insecure and both of their rolls need to be slowed. She puts her dress on and turns to Elijah and says, "You know, you really don't have to try to be anything that you're not," in that fucking cold-ass way that Marnie talks down to people sometimes.

A beat. He takes a sip of water still shirtless. He stares.

"Neither do you," he says. TWO-shay, bitch rag.

After all that, Marnie retreats to Charlie's because she just needs to sleep next to someone, even him, because life is hard and there safety in familiarity. They hate-cuddle.

Meanwhile, what's up with Jemima and her new banker husband, the one she married so impetuously last season? Not much. They appear to be honeymooning someplace where people don't speak English and having a fabulous time being assholes. That's it. Resolution TBD.

Meanwhile back at Donald Glover's apartment it's late at night. He's just pajama-relaxing and content, but still open to all possibilities. Later this season we will find out that Donald Glover's name in the show is Sandy and he is Republican, defying conventions, making things interesting, just cuz. There's a knock at the door. He knows who it is. It's Hannah, who doesn't want love, just fun, and he's okay with playing this game with her because he knows what she's doing better than she does.

He opens the door and she asks to borrow his copy of The Fountainhead, a handbook for young upstart Republicans, black, white, or Paul Ryan. He walks to the other end of the room to go find a copy as he's asked. He's got this all under control.

Hannah strips as he is off-camera and playing along with this silly Fountainhead game. Here is her body once again, defying convention. There are her breasts. There is her ass in a thong. Look at it for a while and then just carry on. Can you?

Resolution TBD.

[Image by Jim Cooke]

I missed this when DFA released it last month (I'm blaming the holiday crunch), but I'm so glad that I finally caught up on this seemingly "White Horse"-inspired offering from YACHT. It's hard to tell if they are merely achieving or lampooning this pitch-perfect "downtown New York" affect (made more hilarious because the band is from all over the place), but there are dozens of examples of retro-obsessed, disco-inflected songs from the past decade that wish they sounded this good. Claire L. Evans' monotone delivery giving way to that sticky hook is diabolical. And those strings. And the way that some words come with an effect to make them sound like they're being sucked into outer space. And don't get me started about the way the song fakes its own death, only to come roaring back.

This is the first song I heard in 2013 that I fell in love with.

The video above is a very brief edit of the song to go with animation collective ADHD's video. You can listen to the whole thing in the embed on the left.

Here are the three stages of discovery of the Live Action Toy Story film on YouTube:

Stage 1: Confusion
I don't get it…like, a guy recreated his favorite scenes from Toy Story in real life?

Stage 2: Wonder
Wait. It's the WHOLE MOVIE? That's awesome!

Stage 3: Confusion
Wait, is it awesome? Or is it just kind of weird and time-consuming?

In 2010, two friends, Jonason Pauley and Jesse Perrotta, started recreating, shot-by-shot, the entire 1995 animated Pixar classic Toy Story. Their version kept the original audio track, but used real people and real toys. It took two years to complete. The filmmakers, now 19 and 21, uploaded the final product to YouTube a couple days ago. People seem to love it.

"Amazing" reads one comment on the video.

"This is probably one of the most amazing things I have ever seen," another.

"Wow this is amazing!!!!!"

The amount of work that went into it is certainly mind-boggling. But how is it as a film?

It's a little chilling to see the toys, famously vibrant in the original, looking so blank-eyed and plastic and, well, like toys. A little terrifying to think that, if your toys actually sprung to life when you left the room, this is how they would move: rigidly, jerkily, unblinkingly.

It's not immersive or emotional. It's Toy Story as horror.

But the film is impressive in the same way that any labor of love, like, say, a 10' x 10' version of van Gogh's "Starry Night" rendered in jellybeans, is impressive.

"I can't believe someone took the time to do that."

"I wonder where they got all those jelly beans?"

[Live Action Toy Story Facebook page]

In what will surely go down as one of the most profoundly satisfying academic studies of the year, sociology professor Laura Hamilton has found that the more money parents pay for their kids' college educations, the worse their kids' grades are. Naturally.

From Inside Higher Ed:

This finding backs the idea that parental financial support can act as a "moral hazard" in that students make decisions about how seriously to take their studies without having personally made the investment of cash in their educations.

The impact of parental contributions on grades was lower (but still present) at highly competitive institutions. Generally the grades were lowest for students with high levels of support from their parents at private, out-of-state and more expensive colleges.

Of course, the kids with rich parents will do better in life regardless.

:(

[Inside Higher Ed. Photo: Shutterstock]

Maria Rivera says she's no art expert, but something about a painting dropped off at the Manassas, Virginia, Goodwill donation center where she works caught her eye.

"I said, ‘Wait a minute, this is the real thing here,'" she told a local radio station.

And sure enough, it was: What Rivera stumbled upon amid musty Halston dresses and yellowing copies of Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions was an original piece by 19th century Italian artist Giovanni Battista Torriglia, valued at $12,000.

Goodwill has since put the painting up for auction, with proceeds going to support its education and job training programs.

The organization expects to get calls from people attempting to claim ownership, but adds that, with no way to trace the artwork back to its donor, the untitled painting will remains in the charity's possession.

"I feel very, very proud," Rivera told WTOP, "and I know that it's going to be a very good thing for Goodwill."

HyperVocal points out that this is far from the first time a rare painting has turned up at Goodwill.

In 2012 alone, paintings and sketches by Salvador Dali, Ilya Bolotowsky, and Alexander Calder mysteriously made their way to Goodwill stores. By far the strangest find, however, was a 1,000-year-old vase that was discovered at a Goodwill warehouse in Buffalo, New York.

[H/T: HyperVocal, The Sideshow, screengrab via NBC Washington]

Deaf twin brothers Marc and Eddy Verbessem of Belgium decided to end their lives in tandem rather than go blind.

The 45-year-olds, who lived and worked as cobblers together their entire adult lives, were doomed to blindness by a genetic form of glaucoma, and couldn't bear the thought of being unable to see each other, according to their family.

Their older brother Dirk and their parents, Mary and Remy, attempted to talk them out of it, but were eventually persuaded that it was for the best.

It took the brothers two years, but they eventually found a doctor willing to perform the lethal injection.

"They were very happy. It was a relief to see the end of their suffering," said the family's physician, Dr. David Dufour. "They had a cup of coffee in the hall, it went well and a rich conversation. The the separation from their parents and brother was very serene and beautiful. At the last there was a little wave of their hands and then they were gone."

The euthanasia was a first for Belgium, which legalized the practice in 2002.

"It's the first time in the world that a 'double euthanasia' has been performed on brothers," said the euthanizing doctor, Professor Wim Distelmans of Brussels University Hospital.

Belgium requires that patients who seek euthanasia be consenting adults who make their decision in "full conscience." Also, it must be determined that patients are "suffering unbearable pain."

Distelmans said blindness "was certainly unbearable psychological suffering for them," but added that other doctors might interpret suffering differently.

Euthanasia remains controversial in Belgium, even as the socialist government moves to allow euthanasia of minors and patients with Alzheimer's.

[photo via Gazet Van]

In 1992, the sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling published The Hacker Crackdown, a riveting nonfiction book about a string of high-profile hacker busts on the early "electronic frontier" of the late '80s and early '90s. The first hacker crackdown shook the early internet to its core and helped mobilize political geeks. Today, we're in the midst of a new crackdown. And with the death this weekend of the legally and emotionally troubled 26-year-old computer genius Aaron Swartz, this one has a body count.

Before he hanged himself in his Brooklyn home on Friday, Swartz faced as many as 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines for allegedly bypassing the network security of MIT and online academic journal archive JSTOR to illegally download millions of academic articles. Prosecutors alleged that Swartz, a long-time freedom of information advocate, had hoped to release the articles for free online.

Swartz's parents have publicly blamed the federal prosecutors pursuing his case for contributing to his death. "Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach," the family said in a statement. "The US Attorney's office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims."

Though the JSTOR stunt has become his most known, Swartz was the brains behind too many projects to count: He helped develop RSS, was one of the original programmers behind Reddit, and founded DemandProgress—a non-profit that fought for internet freedom and helped defeat the terrible online piracy bill SOPA last year. But Swartz was an activist, not an entrepreneur. "Aaron had literally done nothing in his life 'to make money,'" wrote his friend Lawrence Lessig. Propelling most of his activism was the belief that knowledge is power, and that spreading knowledge as widely as possible could help bring about a more equal and just world.

In 2008 Swartz penned the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, which called for activists to "liberate" information locked up by corporations or publishers. "It's called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't immoral —it's a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy."

If, as prosecutors allege, Swartz hacked into MIT and JSTOR's network to "liberate" the journal articles, then he was one of a growing number of hacktivists—those who hack for a cause, not for money or mischief. The causes hacktivists fight for are often noble, even if their tactics are questionable. Freedom of information is a principle anyone who has enjoyed the benefits of the internet age should stand for, and Swartz's pure belief in the power of knowledge was why the entire internet seemed to mourn when news of his death broke. It's why academics have been uploading PDFs of their papers to Twitter in tribute to Swartz, why Anonymous hacked MIT's website and why a White House petition to remove U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, head of the office that prosecuted Swartz, has already garnered more than 12,000 signatures.

But for all the public admiration, Swart's motivation didn't help him when it came to his hacking case. In fact, it probably put him more squarely in the prosecutorial crosshairs: People like Swartz are the key targets in the new Hacker Crackdown. Each arrest and conviction is not just a crime punished, but an example set. Each successful prosecution another volley by the U.S. government in the increasingly heated political battle between two ideas of the internet: The cybercop's ideal of an orderly world where corporations and their customers can safely conduct business, and the free-wheeling but risky information paradise of geek idealists like Swartz.

So it is that people like 22-year-old college student Mercedes Haefer has had her life turned upside down over her alleged role in a December, 2010 distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) on PayPal. Members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, angry that Paypal shut off donations to Wikileaks, attempted to overload Paypal's servers with traffic and take its website down temporarily. This tactic causes no lasting damage and is the online equivalent of trespassing during a sit-in, but Haefer and thirteen other coconspirators face 15 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

"We want to send a message that chaos on the internet is unacceptable," the deputy head of the FBI's cyber division said last year after the PayPal hacktivists were arrested. "The Internet has become so important to so many people that we have to ensure that the World Wide Web does not become the Wild Wild West." So it is that iPad hacker Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer is headed to prison for harvesting customer data that AT&T accidentally made public themselves, then disclosing it to the press to prove a point about their lax security.

The zeal with which Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann of Massachusetts pursued the case against Swartz suggests he was keen on sending a message as well. Heymann refused any plea deal that did not include Swartz pleading guilty to all of the 13 counts against him and a prison term, according to the Wall Street Journal. This despite the fact that JSTOR, the only party which could have been substantially harmed by Swartz's stunt, declined to pursue charges after he returned the journal articles.

The vindictive nature of Swartz's persecution, more than the charges themselves, is what spurred such anger among former friends and colleagues. The U.S. Attorney's office wanted to drive home its intolerance of law-breaking dissent online by breaking Swartz. "It was a threat that had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with a broader battle over systemic power," wrote the internet sociologist danah boyd, a friend of Swartz's, in an angry blog post. She continued:

In recent years, hackers have challenged the status quo and called into question the legitimacy of countless political actions. Their means may have been questionable, but their intentions have been valiant. The whole point of a functioning democracy is to always question the uses and abuses of power in order to prevent tyranny from emerging. Over the last few years, we've seen hackers demonized as anti-democratic even though so many of them see themselves as contemporary freedom fighters. And those in power used Aaron, reframing his information liberation project as a story of vicious hackers whose terroristic acts are meant to destroy democracy.

The first crackdown described more than two decades ago by Sterling seems relatively quaint compared to what's going on today. Its focus was on a loosely connected group of underground hackers who infiltrated phone companies' networks and stole confidential documents about their systems, to publish in hacker journals Phrack, or simply keep on their hard drive like artifacts of illicit knowledge. These hackers were driven by curiosity, not politics.

But even this invoked a fearsomely paranoid response from the Secret Service at the time. In one particularly bizarre incident, overzealous agents raided the offices of a role-playing games publisher named Steve Jackson in pursuit of a hacker who had obtained a document about the 911 system. Jackson's company had recently published a hacking-themed game called Cyberpunk, and the Secret Service confiscated Jackson's computers for months, convinced the game's instruction booklet was a real-world "manual for computer crime." It wasn't the last embarrassment for law enforcement, who, as Sterling paints it, were at times comically out of their comfort zones as they chased their prey.

Hackers and law enforcement alike were burned by the first hacker crackdown, but something positive came of it nonetheless. The unjust raids, show trials, and public demonizing of hackers brought about the formation of a political vanguard for the internet age: The Electronic Freedom Foundation, an indispensable civil liberties organization, sprung from the ashes of the first crackdown and today tirelessly advocates for the rights of internet users, even those who might have incurred the wrath of the Feds. And the cyber cops began to get better, learning more about how to investigate computer crimes without causing collateral damage.

In fact Sterling ends The Hacker Crackdown on a hopeful note, with a description of "Computers, Freedom and Privacy," a 1990 meeting of the burgeoning "cyber libertarian" community, where cybercops, activists, underground hackers and came together in a sort of unlikely truce. "It is a community," Sterling wrote. "Something like Lebanon perhaps, but a digital nation. People who had feuded all year in the national press, people who entertained the deepest suspicions of one another's motives and ethics, are now in each others' laps."

Aaron Swartz's death, and the countless lives upended in recent years by hacktivist-hunting authorities, show how fleeting that moment was. But there are new calls for civility on both sides of the fight. danah boyd writes that internet activists "need to look for an approach to change-making that doesn't result in brilliant people being held up as examples so that they can be tormented by power." Lawrence Lessig has a message for those who do the tormenting: "Somehow, we need to get beyond the 'I'm right so I'm right to nuke you' ethics that dominates our time. That begins with one word: Shame."

The outpouring of grief and rage over Aaron Swartz can be boiled down to one tragic realization: That no matter how important the fight over the internet is, it's not worth even one brilliant young man's life.

Photo via AP.

What an exciting stage in Olivia Washington's life. Old enough to enjoy a glamorous 3-hour awards show without squirming. Old enough to "get" all the jokes in the monologue. Old enough to sip champagne at a table full of stars. Old enough to be mistaken as her father's romantic partner all night.

Denzel Washington made the sweet decision to bring his 21-year-old daughter, Olivia, to the Golden Globes as his date last night, then spent the entire evening explaining to people that, no, she was not his 62-year-old wife, Pauletta.

"IT'S NOT MY WIFE, PAULETTA," he warned Ryan Seacrest, before the used car salesman to the stars had even finished greeting him.

"Denzel's wife looks bored," observed Twitter.

"An earlier version of the caption with this photo incorrectly identified Denzel Washington's daughter as his wife," apologized The New York Times, "and misspelled Mr. Washington's surname." (How? Washingtonn? Ouashington?)

Luckily, Olivia seemed to take it in stride, giggling good naturedly as her father explained to Ryan Seacrest that she was not a person he had ever had sex with.

Just classic dad stuff.

[Image via Getty]