"keeping his dark side a secret"

In the Showtime Original Series DEXTER™, Dexter Morgan spent Season 5 atoning for the death of his wife Rita. He committed to being a part of her children's lives, and entered into a deep, passionate relationship with Lumen, unlike anything he'd ever had before. But Dexter's need to kill overpowers his desire for human connection. And now that one person knows the truth about him, and a few others are close, how much longer will America's favorite serial killer be able to keep his dark side a secret?

"some places haven't had rain in recorded history"

Licancabur Volcano is located in northern Chile near the border with Bolivia. The Stratovolcano's summit is 19,409 feet (6,017 m) and towers over Chile's Atacama Desert, a place so arid that some places haven't had rain in recorded history.

The volcano summit contains the world's highest lake (5913 m). It is 90 m by 70 m wide with a temperature of 6 deg C. The lake is remarkable because it is located in the Atacama desert and is the driest place on Earth, and has remained so for at least 500 years.

"zero to 60 in four noiseless seconds"

Detroit is floundering, gas prices are rising -- now Silicon Valley is stepping in with an impractical-but-cool solution: A sexy, pricey and fast electric car that uses the same lithium ion batteries found in your cellphone or laptop.

The Tesla Roadster goes from zero to 60 in four noiseless seconds, has a top speed of 135 mph and can roam for more than 200 miles before needing a recharge.

This is not your father's electric car. The $100,000 vehicle, with its sports car looks, is more Ferrari than Prius -- and more about testosterone than granola.

"even prisoners need a little sunshine in their lives"

Alcatraz brings to mind images of hardened prisoners, tough guards and a thankless rock stuck in the middle of a rough, cold bay.

But even prisoners need a little sunshine in their lives - or, in this case, roses, fuchsias and geraniums.

For nearly a century, five beautiful gardens existed on Alcatraz, lovingly kept up, first by military families then by the inmates and staff of the federal penitentiary that was closed in 1963.

For five years, a nonprofit group has worked with meticulous attention to detail to bring the gardens back to life, using the types of flowers that could have been seen in the plots 50 to 60 years ago. They hope to finish the project by the end of 2009, but already the fruit of the workers' labor is evident in several gardens.

"Queen Anne's Revenge"

Blackbeard's facial hair wasn't the only thing the infamous pirate liked big.

Archaeologists on Friday recovered one of three giant anchors believed to be used by the 18th-century high seas bandit on his ship, Queen Anne's Revenge.

The 11-foot, 4-inch long anchor was pulled from the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North Carolina.

Scientists hoped to raise the ship's other two anchors, but they are stuck to the sunken ship.

"This is a very important piece that is on top of the wreck," Mark Wilde-Ramsing, the project manager for the recovery, told the Wilmington Star-News. "When we remove this it will allow us to see more of what's below it."

The Queen Anne's Revenge was first discovered underwater in 1996. Historians believe the ship was originally a French slave vessel before Blackbeard captured it.

Five months after the ship sank, Blackbeard's pirating days were ended when he was killed in 1718 by the Royal Navy in Ocracoke Inlet.

"Whatever else you may think about MIKE HAMMER . . . "

Whatever else you may think about MIKE HAMMER, one word may well be appropriate: extreme. The Hammer books are not only extreme in their subject matter, but they also have a tendency to provoke an extreme reaction. The first - and best known - in the series, I, The Jury, quite literally takes no prisoners. Written in six days it is a pulp classic. Avenging a friend's death, Hammer makes his mark following a code of violence which allows nothing to stand in his way. The bloody ending leaves no room for anything much, let alone subtlety. Extreme indeed but there is no questioning the impact of the book or the fact that, in picking up where Race Williams left off, Hammer was in the classic P.I. mold.

How many museums is too much and How many is enough ???

Looking to ease tensions between backers of two Los Angeles cultural institutions, the City Council delayed a planned renovation of the Autry Museum on Tuesday, requesting a new review of the $6.6 million project.

In a rare move, the City Council decided to seize authority over the project from the city's Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners, which had approved the plans two weeks ago. The Autry is seeking to add two exhibition areas and a garden space on about 18,000 square feet of space at its Griffith Park site.

Backers of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian had objected to the project, fearing it would detract from their own efforts to reopen the Mount Washington facility.

Relations between backers of the Southwest Museum and Autry executives have been strained since the two institutions merged in 2003. To the dismay of northeast Los Angeles residents, who hoped the Autry National Center would revitalize the Southwest Museum, the museum instead was closed in 2009.

A Part of Hollywood

Portrayed in films and animation almost since the beginning of film history in Los Angeles, this famous amphitheater has been part of the Hollywood landscape since 1919. Back then, Mrs. Christine Witherill Stevenson, heiress to the Pittsburgh Paint fortune, decided that Hollywood needed some cultural. She formed a group that purchased the Daisy Dell. Their idea was to put on religious plays. Unfortunately, squabbling among group members soon broke out and that idea fell by the wayside. With new partners, Mrs. Stevenson set out to build a place for public concerts and Easter Sunday sunrise services.

The dramatic clamshell concrete band shell was built in 1929. Lloyd Wright, the son of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, designed two previous structures. The Bowl has appeared in films that range from the original A Star is Born to Looney Tunes and more.

In the late 1990s, the Bowl underwent restoration and renovation of its famed band shell that still has groups up in arms over the changes to the shell that were made. A museum was added and is open to the public.

John Ford, at one time, had a house that is now where one of the Bowl’s parking lots is located

World's Largest Buffalo

Some facts about the world's largest buffalo:

Length: 46 ft
Width: 14 ft
Height: 26 ft
Weight: 60 tons
Elmer Paul Peterson, Sculptor
Erected in 1959, Jamestown, North Dakota

World Cup Interactive

There were sweaty palms and sore thumbs Thursday as four of the world's best video game players hunched over their controllers in Los Angeles to compete for soccer's Interactive World Cup.

All that was missing at the competition at downtown's Mayan Theater were the deafening vuvuzela stadium horns that drown everything out at real soccer games run by FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football.

"Ladies' Day"

BELMONT, N.Y. -- In 2007 the Belmont Stakes turned out to be Ladies' Day -- and Eclipse Award-winning trainer Todd Pletcher was off the Triple Crown schnied because of it.

Rags to Riches outdueled favored Curlin in a stirring stretch duel to become the first filly in 102 years to win the Belmont Stakes, gaining a gritty victory by a head in the final leg of the Triple Crown today at Belmont Park.

Sent off at 4-1 in the field of seven in her first start against colts, Rags to Riches overcame a stumble at the start and won despite racing wide throughout. It was her fourth straight Grade 1 stakes victory.

Pletcher, who has won the past three Eclipse Awards as the nation's top trainer, had been 0-for-28 in the Triple Crown. Tanya in 1905 was the last filly to win the Belmont Stakes. She became the first filly since Winning Colors in 1988 to win a Triple Crown race of any kind.

When fighting and romancing was not hard work

Ronald Colman in The Prisoner of Zenda: Never a dull moment, whether fighting Douglas Fairbanks Jr. or romancing Madeleine Carroll

Our troops await the withdrawal from Afghanistan

Tony Awards 2011: ‘Book of Mormon’, ‘War Horse’ take top honors; Neil Patrick Harris impresses as host

“The Book of Mormon” inscribed its own chapter of Broadway history Sunday night, winning the Tony Award for best musical as well as eight others — a formidable harvest for the irreverent songfest by “South Park’s” Matt Stone and Trey Parker and “Avenue Q’s” Robert Lopez.

“Mormon’s” bounty of nine trophies made it the top Tony-earner at the ceremony for the 65th annual awards, telecast from the Beacon Theatre on New York’s Upper West Side. Alongside “Mormon,” the Tony voters named the British import “War Horse” — a story told with life-size equine puppets — the best new play of the 2010-11 season

"a self-consciousness about conventions and assumptions"

Heroes, of course, predate comicbooks: Hercules and Robin Hood also did great deeds and assisted the weak. Superheroes, however, are a 20th century genre, through small modifications growing from simple beginnings and a juvenile audience, albeit with a wide readership. The genre developed a profitable mythology and in recent years the comicbook hero has exhibited a self-consciousness about conventions and assumptions, while reaching a knowing and critical public.

Comic books can be traced back to the cartoon stories, told in panelled sequence, published by newspapers at the end of the 19th century. Then in 1933 someone had the bright idea of bringing together a number of these strips between magazine-like covers and selling them separately. Their comic or adventurous characters caught on with an audience of all ages wishing to escape from the depression.

One source for the introduction of superheroes into this medium was radio: in the early 30s masked heroes like the Lone Ranger, Zorro and the Shadow prowled the airwaves, searching out evil forces to defeat. These masked men were often rich and used scientific gadgets benevolently to avenge the victims of crime. Then in 1938 two Cleveland teenagers, Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster, invented the first superhero, a combination of lone avenger and sci-fi alien, Superman, who, being from a planet with two suns, acquired an intensification of human powers when on Earth. He too was not an official of the law, but another lone hero tackling criminals and assisting the weak.

Review of "City of Life and Death"

It’s doubtful that there will ever be complete agreement concerning the 1937 invasion of Nanking. Just look at how many divergent opinions exist today concerning what led up to the American Civil War, and that ended over a hundred and fifty years ago. No one disputes that in 1937 there was an invasion, and no one disputes that people died. That’s what happens during armed conflicts. It’s what happened immediately after the invasion that to this day remains a source of such anger that it continues to have enormous political and social ramifications for the people of China, Japan, and Taiwan.

Chuan Lu’s City of Life and Death (also known as Nanjing! Nanjing!) is the Chinese account of the invasion of Nanking, an event that has since come to be known as the Rape of Nanking, partly due to Iris Chang’s powerful book of the same name. It is not a film for the faint of heart or the squeamish. One scene in particular demonstrates this very well. In the scene, a Japanese soldier walks slowly through the battered streets of Nanking. He passes people tied to poles awaiting execution, Japanese soldiers looting homes of anything of value, a group of young women being led away in chains, the naked and bruised body of a young Chinese woman, and men on their knees shot in the back of the head execution-style. Later, we’ll see vast landscapes filled with the bodies of Chinese soldiers, most of them shot after they had surrendered or been disarmed. Throughout the film, there are also constant reminders of the dangers that war and military occupation pose to women.

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"a delicate balance"

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The manager of most of the electricity in the Pacific Northwest is running such a surplus of power from hydroelectric dams that it put wind farms on notice Friday that they may be shut down as early as this weekend.

The Bonneville Power Administration has more than enough electricity during a cold, wet spring that has created a big surge in river flows where hydroelectric dams are located. The agency responded by announcing its intentions to curtail wind power until the grid has more capacity, in a move likely to cost the industry millions of dollars.

The decision reflects an overlooked issue amid the push to add wind farms around the country: The capacity of power grids has not kept pace

"Liberty Belle" crashes

A restored World War II bomber that was scheduled to give public flights over Father's Day crashed and burned in Illinois. Nobody was seriously hurt.

(WGN-TV, WGN-TV / June 14, 2011)

“Pieces of Me"

Soul singer Ledisi makes a basic declaration near the end of “Pieces of Me,” the title track of her new album: “I’m a woman.” She sings the affirmation a few times, for good measure: “I’m a woman” — neither shouted nor whispered, with a few notes of piano and a slight echo for minimal effect.

It’s a straightforward statement of self-realization in a song and album that are about coming to grips with the multiplicity of female identity. That simplicity renders power: Where a less disciplined artist might have gone for a full-throated, orchestral gospel exclamation, the New Orleans-born, Oakland-bred singer with the Nigerian first name makes a statement, period.

(Excerpts from a review by Evelyn McDonnell in the L A Times)