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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 23: "Rabelaisian." Searches related to the passing of longtime Senate stalwart Edward M. Kennedy dominate the listings this morning, taking the top 10 spots. As news of his death spread, those who read John M. Broder's obituary at The New York Times found a description of Kennedy as "a Rabelaisian figure in the Senate and in life, instantly recognizable by his shock of white hair, his florid, oversize face, his booming Boston brogue, his powerful but pained stride." The adjective Rabelaisian refers to Francois Rabelais, a French Renaissance writer who was known for his colorful, often grotesque characters, such as those in his masterpiece, The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel.
No. 51: "Microsoft Poland." Microsoft is catching a lot of flack today for a decision to alter a benign-looking corporate ad for use in the Polish market. In the original image, three people—an Asian male, an African-American male, and a white female—are seated around a meeting table. In the Polish version, the African-American male has been Photoshopped out and replaced with a white male—ostensibly because the Polish market is a whiter market. The Photoshoppers, however, left the body of the African-American male in the ad, altering just his face. Microsoft issued an apology tweet this morning. The Telegraph has a photo gallery of other poorly altered advertising images.
No. 69: "Chinese Valentine's Day." Today is Chinese Valentine's Day, which is known in China as the Qi Xi Festival. The holiday falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month and, according to Reuters, "celebrates the legend of the fairy Zhinu and her mortal, cowherd husband Niulang who are allowed to meet on a bridge that spans the Milky Way, only on that day." If it rains tonight, legend has it that it is the tears of Niulang and Zhinu crying for a lost year a part because the bridge could not be built. Cross your fingers—for now at least, the forecast in Beijing is clear.
Photograph of Edward Kennedy courtesy Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 18: "lbj." Searches for former president Lyndon B. Johnson's favorite drink dominated the Google Trends list this morning. LBJ's drink of choice was the $1 million question posed to Kevin Basin of Los Angeles on last night's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." According to the show, LBJ had four buttons installed in the Oval Office so he could order his favorite beverages on demand. The buttons included "coffee," "tea," "Coke," and..."Fresca"—not Yoo-hoo, which was Basin's unlucky answer. Watch the video here.
No. 36: "Acadia National Park." Searches for Acadia National Park were up this morning after several people were injured and a young girl killed when a rogue wave caused by Hurricane Bill swept them out to sea. A group of around twenty people had gathered at a spot in the park called Thunder Hole, where a small cavern forces incoming waves into a giant waterspout that can shoot as high as 40 feet during storms. The park is located near Bar Harbor in Maine and was the first national park east of the Mississippi River. Video of the rescue can be seen here.
No. 57: "Unassisted Triple Play." The beleaguered Mets were dealt an especially humiliating defeat by the Philadelphia Phillies last night when Phillies second baseman Eric Bruntlett ended the game with an unassisted triple play. After Bruntlett caught a line drive hit by Mets outfielder Jeff Francoeur, his teammate Shane Victorino started frantically yelling at him: "Touch everybody. Touch everything." Bruntlett did as his was told and made history: Only once before, in 1927, has a baseball game ended on a triple play. Watch the video here and read the play-by-play here.
Photograph of wave caused by Hurricane Bill courtesy Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.):
No. 12: "Michigan Lottery"; No. 17: "Ohio Lottery,"; No. 23: "NY Lottery"; No. 24: "NJ lottery"; No. 25: "Mass Lottery"; and No. 45: "VA Lottery." This morning's Google Trends was dominated by searches for last night's Mega Millions winning lottery numbers. As of the time of this writing, no one has stepped forward with a ticket containing the lucky six numbers. The estimated jackpot for those fortunate enough to live in a Mega Million state is $207 million. If you do buy a ticket, just don't be foolish enough to promise it away as a tip to a pretty waitress you meet, like Nicolas Cage in It Could Happen to You.
No. 31: "Hilegard Behrens." German soprano Hildegard Behrens died yesterday in a Tokyo hospital at the age of 72. With three Grammys to her name, Behrens was known for her performances of Strauss and Wagner operas. Watch her as Elektra in Strauss' one-act opera of the same name here.
No. 74: "Grotesque." Britain's film board decided today to ban the sale of DVDs of the Japanese horror film Grotesque due to the film's extreme and pointless violence. According to the Associated Press, the British Board of Film Classification says the movie is an "an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism." The movie, said to be inspired by Eli Roth's Hostel franchise, is only the third that British officials have banned since 2005. Trailers are available on YouTube for the strong-stomached.
Photograph of MegaMillions tickets courtesy of Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.):
No. 2: "Dancing With the Stars" and No. 3: "Tom Delay." No, this is not a mistake. Today on Good Morning America, Tom Bergeron, the host of the popular reality TV show, announced that former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay will be among those to try to emulate Fred Astaire this season. DeLay is the first politician to appear on the show.
No. 14: "aurora spy plane." Today, Britain's Ministry of Defense opened its secret UFO files containing the details of hundreds of sightings between 1981 and 1996. The so-called "real-life X-files" includes the report of an incident on March 31, 1993, in which more than 70 people reported seeing a large, low-flying object. Many have speculated that this was no UFO but actually a secret unmanned U.S. spy plane called "Aurora," rumored to be capable of hypersonic flight. Read the reports and judge for yourself on the Telegraph's Web site.
No. 99: "Radiohead Wall of Ice." Radiohead released a free single on its Web site today called "These Are My Twisted Words." Some have speculated that the band itself leaked the song last week, while others are postulating that the text accompanying the leak hints at the release of a full-length EP called Wall of Ice. Last week, the band followed up the release of a download-only single dedicated to Harry Patch, Britian's last living World War I veteran, by telling The Believer that it had no interest in releasing full-length albums. "None of us want to go into that creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again," frontman Thom Yorke said.
Photograph of Tom DeLay courtesy of JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.):
No. 6: "Vj Day." Today is Victory over Japan Day, or V-J Day for short. On this day in 1945, at a little after noon Japan standard time, Emperor Hirohito announced his acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, marking the official end to World War II. President Truman cautioned that "the proclamation of V-J Day must wait upon the formal signing of the surrender terms by Japan" which happened on Sept. 2, 1945—the day Truman actually declared to be "V-J Day." The day is celebrated as a holiday only in Rhode Island—if you live there, enjoy the day off!
No. 8: "Damon Weaver." In November, then-10-year-old Damon Weaver sent a message to President Obama on YouTube asking for an interview. Yesterday, he got his wish. Weaver grilled the President on how to improve education in poor communities, if it was possible for him to improve school lunches, what to do if you get bullied, and whether or not the president could dunk. He also played his sources off each other, asking the president: "When I interviewed Vice President Joe Biden, he became my homeboy. Would you like to become my homeboy?" Watch the video and read the transcript at ABC.
No. 60 "Chris Brown Changed Man." Tracks from Chris Brown's upcoming album, Graffiti, were leaked to the Internet yesterday. The biggest news is the title of the first single: "Changed Man." In the chorus, Brown promises, "I'm a make it up to you and show the world I'm a changed man/ Cuz you mean that much to me." No word yet on whether the track is dedicated to Rihanna, but Brown's public apology on July 21 and Rihanna's recent statements protesting the court's restrictive restraining order hint at a reconciliation. A low-quality version of the single is here.
Photograph of Chris Brown courtesy of Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 8 a.m.)
No. 1: "facebook lite." Wait, Facebook is actually taking features away!? After years of adding tabs, apps, and polls, Facebook has started beta testing a new "lite" version that trades Mob Wars and Superwalls for a stripped-down, quick-loading interface. Some are speculating that Facebook is making a move on Twitter; Techcrunch insists Facebook Lite is meant mainly to make the site faster for users without a broadband Internet connection. Currently, the beta test is only available to a small number of users in India.
No. 8: "perseid meteor shower." The sky is falling, and it should be spectacular. Tonight is the peak of the annual Perseid meteor showers, when 60 to 80 visible meteors per hour will shoot out of the Perseus constellation (for those able to get away from bright city lights, at least). According to NASA, the best time to catch the showers will be from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., when glare from the moon is low. Look to the Northeast.
No. 64: "Wallace Souza." Imagine if Unsolved Mysteries host Robert Stack had gone around kidnapping young women and shining weird lights in people's eyes from southwestern mountaintops. This is essentially the charge against Brazilian TV host and legislator Wallace Souza, who has been accused of commissioning at least five murders in order to cover them on his popular true crime show."To say that a program that has had a huge audience for so many years had to resort to killing people to increase this audience is absolutely absurd," Souza told the AP.
Photo of meteor shower courtesy of Flickr user Retro Traveler.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
No. 18: "paula abdul american idol." Paula Abdul's improv prose-poetry will no longer grace America's most-watched TV show. After contract negotiations fell apart, Abdul broke the news over Twitter last night: "With sadness in my heart, I've decided not to return to #IDOL. I'll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all being a part of a show that I helped from day1become an international phenomenon." The New York Post has a slide-show retrospective of Abdul's Idol career.
No. 22: "psycho donuts." The media is going "crazy" with "insane"-ly bad puns about Psycho Donuts, a mental illness-themed pastry shop in Campbell, Calif., with doughnut names taken right out of the DSM-IV. ("The Bipolar" looks pretty tasty.) Shortly after the shop opened, the National Alliance on Mental Health and the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia urged Psycho Donuts to change its name, and co-owner Kipp Berdiansky debated a mental-health advocate on local television.
No. 86: "sturgeon moon." According to The Farmer's Almanac, tonight's full moon is also known as the "Full Sturgeon Moon" because Native Americans used to catch the huge Great Lakes-dwelling fish most easily during August. Let's be thankful that it's not March, when lovers stroll arm-in-arm through the park under a "Full Worm Moon."
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 7: "Rorschach Wikipedia." Weirdly-shaped blobs throw Wikipedia into chaos! Last month, an emergency-room physician posted all 10 plates of the famous Rorschach Inkblot tests to Wikipedia, which some psychologists claim will make them ineffective, nulling years of valuable research. Wikipedians are waving the banner of free speech: "The APA it seems want to keep what they do a secret. Allowing them to carry this out on Wikipedia amounts to allowing them to censor Wikipedia content," wrote Heilman on the page's massive discussion section. (As of this writing, all 10 plates remain on the page.)
No. 15: "Niall of the Nine Hostages." Medieval Irish king, only son of Eochaid Muighmedon, fearless warrior ... progenitor of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the cop who arrested him? According to ABC News, both Gates—who is part Irish—and his arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, trace their lineage back to the 4th century king Niall of the Nine Hostages. (Researchers have found that one in 12 Irish men share genes with the king.) Only time will tell if these sons of Niall shall settle their differences at the bar stool with Obama.
No. 31: "Chester Himes." Chester Himes, the crime novelist and author of If He Hollers Let Him Go would have turned 100 today. Himes began writing while a prisoner in the 1930s and went on to become one of the more accomplished black writers of the 20th century. Set in a gritty 1960s New York, the nine books in his Harlem Detective series follow hardboiled NYPD sleuths Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. "I put the slang, the daily routine, and complex human relationships of Harlem into my detective novels," Himes said, according to NPR.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No 1: "alexis cohen death." Alexis Cohen, the 25-year-old American Idol contestant famous for flipping off Simon in Seasons 7 and 8, was killed in a hit-and-run this morning in Seaside Heights, N.J. "She had a very, very high regard for Simon Cowell ... that [ranting] was done purposely to get ratings," her mother told themorningcall.com. Idol judge Paula Abdul tweeted today: "My heart goes out to the family of Alexis Cohen."
No 19: "apple tablet." The Financial Times today confirmed the widespread rumors that Apple is launching a tablet computer in September, leading to much speculation about the device. The FT report suggests that Apple is trying to revitalize the multi-song album by letting consumers see liner notes and album art; Forbes thinks iPhone App developers will be hurt by the tablet because of the added hassle of programming for a second platform; Wired sees the tablet as a potential "Kindle killer" if it's got sufficient battery life.
"No. 35: stephon marbury." What do NBA free agents do while waiting to be signed? On Friday, troubled former Knicks guard Stephon Marbury streamed his life to the Internet for 24 hours straight on Ustream.tv. A sample of the poetry that came out of his face during that time, courtesy of Deadspin: "UStream TV, you see me. Holla back if the window is crack. Whatup, Star. Born. you know who you are. Holla. I love Canada. 'Ohhh, Canada. We'—I love that song. I love y'all's anthem. That anthem is dope. And I love when I come there and they sing it. I love hearing it. It's fresh. Now, I never suck no wee-wee before."
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
No. 25: "Obama NAACP Speech Video." Googlers were eager to watch and read Barack Obama's speech at the 100th annual NAACP Convention. Obama spoke on the themes of responsibility and individual achievement, telling his audience that there were "no excuses" for failure. Addressing black parents, he said he wanted to see more children aspiring to be doctors or Supreme Court justices because "our kids can't all aspire to be the next LeBron or Lil Wayne."
No. 74: "Billie Holiday." Billie Holiday died 50 years ago today. To commemorate the anniversary of her untimely death, WNYC's Leonard Lopate show interviewed jazz historian Dan Morgenstern on her legacy, and Baltimore sculptor James Earl Reid reinserted panels referring to Jim Crow into a Billie Holiday statue. (The panels had been removed by city officials in 1985, right before the dedication.) Watch rare footage of the lady singing the blues here.
No. 94: "Jumbo Squid." San Diego residents no longer need to go to the zoo to see mysterious creatures: Flying jumbo squid have invaded the shoreline in recent days. Known as Humbolt squid, marine bioligists have been trying to figure out what is causing the invasion—theories range from a recent earthquake to global warming. Watch a video of a dazed squid on the National Geographic Web site.
Jumbo squid photograph courtesy David McNew/Getty Images.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 16: "Basking sharks." A 26-foot, 5,000-pound basking shark washed ashore yesterday on a Long Island beach, and Googlers want to learn more before their next ocean dip. Luckily the basking shark is harmless and eats mostly plankton. Still, according to a 1894 New York Times article, the first person to describe the shark "tried to prove that this was the species of fish which swallowed Jonah ... Jonah could have lodged quite comfortably in a shark's stomach, and it would have been easier to enter that organ than to squeeze his way down the small throat of a whale."
No. 53: "how long is the new harry potter movie?" One hundred fifty-three minutes, according to IMDB. This puts the Half-Blood Prince at just over the series average of 150.3 minutes per Harry Potter film. Those with small children and/or child-size bladders will be glad to hear that the proprietor of the invaluable Runpee.com (a database that tells you the best times in a movie to take a leak) is watching the film right now, according to his Twitter status.
No. 97: "pet airways." In-flight treats are the newest luxury available to America's already pampered pets. Pet Airways is a new pets-only airline, where dogs and cats fly coach instead of whimpering in the cargo hold. Yesterday marked Pet Airways' inaugural flight when a modified turboprop plane took off from Baltimore's BWI Marshall with about 40 cats and dogs bound for Chicago. Tickets cost $150 to $299 one-way, depending on the route, and a trip from New York to L.A. takes about 24 hours. "It's a niche market, no doubt. But the pet community ... they get it," said co-founder Alysa Binder.
Basking shark image courtesy Wikipedia.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 4: "google operating system." A day after finally taking Gmail out of beta, Google announced its newest project, the Chrome Operating System. Chrome OS (not to be confused with the Google browser of the same name), will be targeted at "people who spend most of their time on the web," according to Google's official blog. Since this statement describes an increasing number of mainstream computer users, the Google system could end up in direct competition with Windows: "The Internet is Everything," writes TechCrunch.com's Michael Arrington, "all the OS has to do is boot the damn computer."
No. 28: "sevin nyne." "civil conspiracy" and "theft of trade secrets" could be the newest addition to Lindsay Lohan's impressive rap sheet: The 23-year-old embodiment of the phrase "hot mess" is being sued by a Florida chemist for allegedly filching her artificial tanner formula and passing it off as her own designer line, Sevin Nyne. The product's provenance might not be its biggest problem if this Amazon review is accurate: "It turned me orange. Enough said."
No. 68: "4chan down." 4chan.org, possibly the fourth-largest bulletin board on the Internet, has been brought down by a sustained denial of service (DoS) attack. It's just desserts for the site, probably best known as the unruly spawning ground of some of the Web's oddest pranks: In May, 4chan users bombarded Youtube with porn, and they were probably to blame when "#gorillapenis" appeared at the top of the Twitter trends list on Sunday. (An unrelated DoS attack linked to North Korean hackers was launched yesterday against the Washington Post.)
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
No. 8: "Disney Monorail Accidents." Sunday's deadly monorail accident at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fla., was the most Google-worthy fatality of a pretty dangerous Fourth of July weekend: On Saturday, four workers were killed in a fireworks explosion on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina when 40 minutes worth of fireworks exploded in four seconds; fireworks killed one worker in Eastern Pennsylvania; in Spokane, Wash., a police dog spooked by fireworks pried open the lock to its cage and escaped. (He was found the next morning.)
No. 16: "Codex Sinaiticus Online." The oldest bible in the world has gotten the Google Books treatment: Today, the British Library announced it's posting a digital version of more than half of the Codex Sinaiticus, a Bible written in Greek in the fourth century. The Codex contains uncanonical texts, which, a columnist for the Guardian writes, "point up yet again ... the erroneousness of those who insist that the current Biblical text represents the inerrant and unchanging word of God." Visit http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/ to see the Codex. (As of this writing, though, the Web site was down.)
No. 19: "Ok magazine Michael Jackson photo." Michael Jackson queries still account for a quarter of the Top 20 trending searches today. The big story, besides Tuesday's funeral, is the fracas over OK! magazine's $500,000 purchase and subsequent fronting of a photo of Michael Jackson, supine on a stretcher, maybe dead. The New York Post reports that Jay-Z and P Diddy are calling for a boycott of the magazine, but the Los Angeles Times points out that the CBS tabloid news show "The Insider" showed the photo first on Friday.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 4: “Propofol.”Developments in Michael Jackson’s death continue to be reflected in almost real time by Google Trends: Today, M.J.’s nutritionist, Cherliyn Lee, told the AP that Jackson “pleaded” for the powerful anesthetic Propofol (brand name: Diprivan), and TMZ reports that the drug was discovered in Michael Jackson’s house. Propofol can cause arrhythmic heartbeats.
No. 12: “Canada Day.” Happy 142nd anniversary of your becoming a semi-autonomous territory of the British Empire, Canada! Today is Canada Day, which celebrates the creation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. (The holiday was originally called Dominion Day but changed in 1983 to downplay Canada’s colonial origins.) Canada Day celebrations usually include outdoor barbecues and fireworks, but in Toronto,a municipal workers’ strike has put the kibosh on most of the city’s official celebrations.
No. 16: “DV 2010 results.” The Diversity Visa lottery is one of the only ways many foreign workers can hope to enter the United States legally. Today, lottery results were posted online, so would-be immigrants can see whether they qualified to receive one of the 50,000 Diversity Visas available each year. The odds are only a little better than those for the $113 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot: In 2007, just 99,600 applicants qualified for the 2009 Diversity Visa out of more than 9.1 million entries. (Not all applicants accept the visa.)
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 11 a.m.)
No. 8: "Don Cornelius." Google Trends today are full of searches relating to Sunday's BET Awards, which were retooled at the last minute as a Michael Jackson tribute. Soul Train creator Don Cornelius was just one of dozens of black entertainers who honored Jackson. Over the weekend, Cornelius told Time about the first time he saw Jackson perform in the mid-1960s: "He's only 4 ft. tall and you're looking at a small person who can do anything he wanted to do onstage—with his feet or his voice. To get to that level ... you're talking about James Brown as a performer. Michael was like that as a kid."
No. 40: "8 st 1 oz." The results of Michael Jackson's autopsy were released today, and according to reports in the British press he was bald, needle-pricked and "severely emaciated," weighing just "8 st 1 oz." That's short for 8 stone 1 ounce, or about 112 pounds. Metric is the official system for measuring weight in England, but the stone (14 pounds), is commonly used to express body weight.
No. 45: "Lynndie England." The Associated Press has interviewed former Army reservist Lynddie England, the subject of some of the most iconic pictures in the 2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. Today, England lives in West Virginia, where she's unemployed and spends most of her time in her house for fear of being recognized and harassed. England granted the interview to promote a new biography of her: Tortured: Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib and the Photographs that Shocked the World.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 85: "who died yesterday." Though far down on the rankings, this search term pretty much sums up what comes before it. About two-thirds of the list has to do with Michael Jackson, RIP, from song lyrics to the method of death to long-standing associates. Poor Farrah Fawcett was quickly buried in the rankings—but for No. 3, her playboy images, and several misspellings of her name. A confusing addition to this picture is No. 35, "Jeff Goldblum dead," which resulted from Twitter-fed rumors generated by prank Web sites that the Jurassic Park actor had passed away. He has not.
No. 2: "maria belen chapur photos." Seems like people want to know whether South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's Argentine lover was worth destroying his career for. Although The State newspaper, which publicized the pair's steamy e-mails, kept her full name a secret, Latin American news sources tracked down the 43-year-old professional mother of two and tossed her to the wolves. The actual images are so far few and far between, but go ahead and see for yourself.
No. 14: "nancy benoit hustler pics." This isn't your typical porn-star photo search—a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Hustler was wrong to print nude photos of Nancy Benoit, who two years ago was killed by her husband, professional wrestler Chris Benoit. The photos are from 20 years ago, and a suit filed by Nancy's family alleges that she asked the photographer destroy the images as soon as they were taken. A lower court originally ruled for the magazine in October 2008.
—Lydia DePillis
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 21: "tropical storm Andres." Googlers are no doubt wondering whether tropical storm Andres—just recently upgraded from a depression—is headed their way. Forecasts show this storm will stick to the Southwest coast of Mexico before heading off into the Pacific by Friday. Andres is the first Eastern Pacific tropical storm of a hurricane season forecasted to produce six Atlantic hurricanes.
No. 25: "kodachrome." Kodachrome, the 35 mm color film that made Kodak a household name, is going the way of the Polaroid after 74 years of production. According to the Los Angeles Times, digital cameras have reduced sales of Kodachrome to just "a fraction of one percent" of Kodak's still-picture film sales. The requisite campaign to keep Kodachrome alive has already launched, and Kodak is hosting a gallery of shots taken with the film.
No. 31: "Mia Wasikowska." This weekend, Disney released a photo of Johnny Depp made up like an undead hobo clown for his role as the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's upcoming remake of Alice in Wonderland. But the big news today is that Burton has chosen 19-year-old Australian actress Mia Wasikowska as his Alice. Wasikowska is probably best known for her stint on the HBO drama In Treatment. "She just had that certain kind of emotional toughness, standing her ground in a way that makes her kind of an older person with a younger person's mentality," Burton told the Daily Mail.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
"4 Calvin Klein billboard"—Depending on their tastes, New Yorkers have been either titillated or disgusted by a new Calvin Klein billboard depicting three men and a woman in a configuration that suggests nothing more or less than group sex. With its effective censor-baiting, the CK "orgy" ad could be this week's unauthorized Woody Allen billboard.
"16 Perito Moreno Glacier"—Opponents of Obama's controversial carbon cap-and-trade plan are jumping all over news that Argentina's massive Perito Moreno glacier continues to grow in the face of global warming. (They're less thrilled by this report of glaciers disappearing from Ugandan mountaintops.) Scientists are unsure why Perito Moreno continues to thrive when most of the world's glaciers are melting at an alarming rate.
"34 Antonio Castro"—The missteps of world leaders' progeny are always a hit with the Internet; now Fidel Castro's 42-year-old son, Antonio, is getting the Jenna Bush treatment. For eight months, Castro carried out an online affaire d'amour via instant message with a beautiful Colombian woman named "Claudia." But? Turned out Claudia was Luis Dominquez, a Miami-based prankster who wanted to "shatter the myth of [Castro's] impenetrable security system," according to the Miami Herald.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
No. 28: "digital converter box." If you're Googling this, chances are you woke up to find your TV has gone snowy. Congratulations: You live in one of the more than 1 million homes that are unprepared for today's digital TV switchover! (Slate's Farhad Manjoo explains what just happened to your TV, and why you should be happy about it.)
No. 59: "Banksy." No, bloggers haven't uncovered the infamous graffiti artist/trickster's identity (though not for lack of trying). All this Googling is related to Banksy's new show, which opens tomorrow in Bristol, U.K. It's the biggest exhibition yet for the artist who once sold a painting titled "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit," and in typical Banksy fashion, no one knew about it until the day before its opening.
No. 62: "Pedamundo." Yesterday, singer/songwriter John Mayer coined this word for a made-up holiday that consists of "7 days apologizing for the year's indiscretions, culminating in a nice garden salad." Less than 24 hours after Mayer posted it to his Twitter account (followers:1,299,783) "pedamundo" is strongly trending on both Google and Twitter. The Wikipedia entry for "pedamundo" has already been written and deleted (stated reason: "does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject"), but there's no Web site, yet.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 11 a.m.)
No. 9: "Prickly Shark." The prickly shark is an extremely rare shark with dual dorsal fins, and on Tuesday, scientists in Monterey, Calif., captured and displayed one for only the second time ever. A tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium was the shark's home for 15 hours before it flipped over in a "hypnotic trance," according to the Monterey Herald. This signaled to scientists that it was time to return it to the sea.
No. 21: "David Letterman Sarah Palin." Last night, Letterman responded on-air to complaints from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin that he had made "sexually perverted" jokes about "raping" her 14-year-old daughter on his show Tuesday night. (The jokes were a little perverted but they were definitely not about rape.) Letterman's unapologetic rebuttal was a brilliant judo move: "I can't really defend these: They're just jokes." Whether it satisfied Palin remains to be seen, but the controversy has been good for ratings: Letterman has been beating Conan in the numbers since Tuesday.
No. 35: "Amanda Knox pictures." Tomorrow, 21-year-old Amanda Knox takes the stand in Italy to defend herself against charges she killed her British roommate in 2007 while on an exchange program there. Since Knox was charged five months ago, the case—and its attendant sexy details—has captivated Italy. But Timothy Egan in the New York Times notes that the case against Knox "has so many holes in it ... that any fair-minded jury would have thrown it out months ago." The fact that "pictures" is appended to Knox's name suggests many Googlers are subjecting her to their own judgment—namely, whether she's worthy of the nickname bestowed upon her by the foreign press: "Foxy Knoxy."