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I’m sitting here alone, late in the night of the day the great Bo Diddley died. I don’t expect it’s going that way for you. You’re not ending your day or working through the long, slow hours before the next one rises thinking about the life and times and lyrics of Ellas Otha Bates, Ellas McDaniel, Bo Diddley, the inventor of “The Bo Diddley Beat.” But I am.
I saw him just once, at Morganfield’s in Portland, ten or fifteen years ago, that venue since closed and reopened as a different sort of club catering to a different and younger clientele with whom I have much less in common than I feel I did with that old black man who sat on a chair because his back hurt too much to stand, but who sang “I’m A Man” and “Who Do You Love” and “You Can’t Judge A Book By The Cover” and we all sang along with him, and not a few middle-aged Maine men went at last out into the night thinking for sure, “I look like a farmer, but I’m a lover,” their wives perhaps concurring, perhaps not.
June the second, 2008: the day Bo Diddley died. These events always make me spool up my mental track of Tom T. Hall’s “The Year Clayton Delaney Died,” another song you don’t much think of and may not know or have ever heard, but if you live long enough and have a soul and a heart and learn by repeated reduction the great and terrible lessons of lonely life, you’ll know how Mr. Hall could admit, “I went out in the woods and I cried” when some old drunken, “Lovesick Blues” picker passed away.
I think Bo is probably truly dead, not just hiding out in Vegas working on a second or third comeback special. In understanding this simple reality (and in some other ways, too, but not in all ways, certainly) I stand separate from the legions of middle-aged women who keep, even these thirty-one years later, wishing and hoping and a few probably actually believing that Elvis Lives. I have three plants of a Hosta cultivar called `Elvis Lives’, which is interesting but not a significant piece of information relative to tonight’s discussion. But I was not hired to teach anybody significant facts, was I? I can make more hostas by cutting apart my growing plants with a knife, but you can’t raise the dead back up when they’re in defeat.

wiscassetnewspaper.maine.com

PARIS — Well, not yet. But soon. After the U.S. men went 0-for-9 in the first round last year, they are guaranteed a second-rounder this year because Americans Robby Ginepri and Donald Young are playing each other, probably Monday.
After that, don’t expect much, though, as you know, weird things happen. Like Yanks winning on clay.
None of the 10 U.S. men entered has a more forboding task than 6-foot-6 Sam Querrey, who gets Roger Federer in the opening round. Stadium court and Q Ball has a big serve. He should go out there, have fun and let it fly.
It’s an Atlanta kind of first round with Ginepri, Young and Scoville Jenkins out there and Jenkins still not totally sure who he’ll play in the first round. He’s drawn right now against No. 14 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who has an injury and is uncertain to post for this second Grand Slam of the season.
If the muscular Frenchman withdraws before the schedule is made for Monday, Feliciano Lopez, the big-serving Spaniard, moves into Tsonga’s spot as a No. 33 seed. Between him and Jenkins, that looks like a 30-ace match.
I spent part of the morning watching one of the great paradoxes of women’s tennis — Sveta Kuznetsova. Outgoing, funny off-court and inscrubtible on-court. The talent is there. The power is there. She’s a devastating hitter off both sides and the serve is better than average. There remain, however, questions about her emotional strength in crisis.
Where are the titles? Three runners-up this year and a semifinal finish at Key Biscayne. She’s gone down in three sets to Justine Henin, Serena Williams and Elena Dementieva in late rounds.
Last year at the WTA Championships, she was 0-3 with three-set losses to Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic. The last time she won a tournament was at New Haven in 2007, a week before the U.S. Open, and she got retirements from three straight opponents right through the final.

blogs.sun-sentinel.com

The Wedding Singer. There is a prolonged debate between two of the chorus members over which side of a CD is “the side that plays,” for instance, as well as another’s gleeful description of the pleasures of sex over 70: “It gets better. It takes longer and it’s more fun.” Odd as it is to see the Ramones lyric “put me in a wheelchair” sung by an elderly man who may never rise up out of his, the specters of infirmity and death are initially well in the background.
They do not remain there long, though. In preparation for the concert, Sillman tries to bring back two former members of the chorus who had quit for severe health-related reasons. (One had been so ill he’d been administered the last rites.) With their appearance, the film acquires resonances both ominous and inspirational. The chorus members all recognize that their remaining spans are likely to be measured in years, not decades, and perhaps not even so much as that. As a result, they have a profound earnestness of purpose. Asked how it will feel if he is unable to find his singing voice again, one of the former members hoping for one last curtain call replies, “Devastating.”
Whether by chance or design (Sillman’s or documentarian Stephen Walker’s), song after song seems to underline this precariousness: “Staying Alive” plays like a happily defiant anthem; “Every Breath You Take” suddenly denotes finitude rather than forever; and the lyrics to “Road to Nowhere” seem almost a bleak joke: “We know where we’re going, but we don’t know where we’ve been … And the future is certain. Give us time to work it out.”
Indeed, not every member of the chorus lives to see the concert. The group learns of one death on the day it’s scheduled to perform at a nearby prison, and their memorial rendition of Dylan’s “Forever Young”–and the inmates’ response to it–is unexpectedly powerful, a moment of emotion neither saccharine nor sorrowful. So, too, are the later songs dedicated to departed friends: Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and Coldplay’s “Fix You,” which is sung at the concluding concert to the soft accompaniment of the soloist’s puffing oxygen tank.

tnr.com

Iraq War veteran Tomas Young views Ground Zero through the windows of the World Financial Center
The personal aftermath of the Iraq War
Phil Donahue and Tomas Young discuss their documentary, ‘Body of War’
By Sarah Norris
The superb documentary “Body of War” records the life of an Iraq War veteran, Tomas Young, in the aftermath of his paralyzing injury. Directed by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, the film tracks Young’s journey as a 25-year-old who enlisted to defend his country and returned from Iraq a paraplegic—and a very different kind of patriot. With original music by Eddie Vedder, the movie cuts between scenes from Young’s life—he gets married, plays an active role in the Iraq Veterans Against the War, and sees his younger brother off to fight in Iraq—with footage from the October 2002 debates in the House and Senate, which led to the Iraq War resolution.
Last week we sat down with Donahue and Young, in town to promote the movie, which will run in New York for one week. They spoke about what brought them together, their ambitions for the film, and the direction they foresee for the country.
How did you [Donahue and Young] connect?
Donahue: I was on the Ralph Nader bus during the 2004 election and my wife, Marlo Thomas, was going to leave me, because she felt Nader ruined the chances of a Democratic win. I got off the bus, and after that, Nader said a veteran’s mother wanted to meet me. When I met Tomas, he was not communicative due to the gravity of his injury. I thought, “People should see this.” There’s been no bite in the media here. You can’t show pictures of soldiers’ coffins. This is not the nation my parents raised me to believe in. We’re the patriots. We believe in the bill of rights.

thevillager.com

There are new classroom computers. Every classroom has at least one student station. Students are actively involved in learning computer skills daily. Fourth-graders use the program Skills Tutor to enhance their math, reading and science scores. Many also have a weekly computer time in the new computer lab. The classroom computers were purchased through a grant from Prairie Meadows.
More than 500 people attended Science Night on March 4. Students and families received free books, pizza, watched a show from Mad Science of Central Iowa. Then they participated in three activity stations to make things like slime and super balls.
Family Fun Night was held Feb 26. About 650 people played board games, bingo, Twister and basketball, bowled, danced and ate pizza. The Carver Advisory Committee planned the event and plans to host more events in the future.
On March 3, the school celebrated Read Across America Day with a celebration of literacy. Each classroom prepared for visits from family and community members. The visitors were treated to stories or poems shared by the class, either written by the students themselves or favorites that they enjoy.
The school will host an event with Safe Kids of Greater Des Moines in April. This will be an opportunity for early childhood families to learn about car-seat safety and have car seats fitted and installed on-site and inspected by certified car-seat technicians.
Conferences continue today.
On Feb. 26, kindergarten, first- and second-grade students sang several songs during their musical performance. Becky Shumaker worked hard with each class beforehand to prepare for this night. She utilized the new curriculum - Spotlight on Music - to come up with the song choices for the evening. Some students showed off their skills with the bells.
The kindergartners did some friendship writing. They drew pictures of friends and wrote about them while working cooperatively together.

desmoinesregister.com