My pleasure simply doesn't come, like my mother's, from carrying a heavy pack up Mt. Everest or sleeping on a mat in a tent in the rain. Instead, it comes from dancing, Pilates, reading, and movies -- but that's OK!

This is perhaps the most honest conversation I have ever had with my mom about becoming a mother at 23, going to Mississippi in the sumer of 1964, and participating in the feminist movement, and about the legacy she hopes to leave behind.

It's impossible to decide which was the biggest love-in of the day on the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival's second Friday: 99-year-old Lionel Ferbos...

I'm lucky enough to have one of life's great blessings: I like and respect my grown kids, and the feelings are mutual. Still, we're not on a first-name basis. I want my children to call me Mother or any of its sweet variations.

SAN FRANCISCO — A California proposal to outlaw the title ingredient in shark fin soup, a traditional Chinese delicacy, has turned into a recipe for controversy in San Francisco, a city that is nearly one-third Asian and home to the nation's oldest Chinatown.

A bill moving through the state Legislature would ban the sale, distribution and possession of shark fins. State and federal laws prohibit shark finning in U.S. waters but do not address the importation of fins from other countries.

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The truth is, being a mom hasn't removed the part of me that was also a daughter, and sometimes Mother's Day is just a painful reminder of her absence. So what can one do to make Mother's Day less painful and a lot more joyful?

WICHITA, Kan. -- A first-grader on a school field trip to a zoo was mauled by a leopard Friday after the boy scaled a railing and approached the animal's cage, a zoo spokesman said.

The Wichita Eagle reported on its website that the boy received lacerations to his head and neck after the cat stuck a paw through its cage and grabbed the boy by the side of the head. He was taken to a hospital, where he was listed in fair condition.

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As compared to the mommies dearest in these pages, almost any woman can feel like Mother of the Year. A frisson of schadenfreude might be preferable to a entire bouquet of roses.

There aren't many topics like moms to really light a fire under a conversation among a few friends, or even an entire community.

MADRID -- Golf great Seve Ballesteros has died. He was 54.

According to a statement on his website, Ballesteros died early Saturday surrounded by his family at his home in the northern Spanish town of Pedrena.

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This week has overflowed with unexpected arts stories. From the breakdancing troupe in Uganda and predictions that the Street Art bubble is due to burst, to a Tony Awards ceremony with hardly a Hollywood star to be found and the sudden death of a celebrated photojournalist, the past several days have been anything but business as usual in the art world. These are our highlights of the week. What were yours?

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MEXICO CITY — The government of quake-prone Mexico City is planning to send earthquake alerts by text message and through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard says he hopes to have the system working by Sept. 19, the anniversary of the 8.1-magnitude earthquake in 1985 that killed as many as 10,000 people.

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SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- Costa Rican rescuers on Friday found the body of a third U.S. high school student who was swept out to sea while taking a beach break during a religious mission.

A coast guard patrol recovered the body of Kai Lamar in waters off Bejuco beach on the Pacific coast, said Jesus Escalona, Red Cross assistant director of operations. The bodies of the other two students, Caity Jones and James Smith, were found earlier this week.

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DALLAS — Dirk Nowitzki scored 32 points, Jason Terry had 23 and Peja Stojakovic scored 11 of his 15 in the fourth quarter, rallying the Dallas Mavericks to a 98-92 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night that puts the two-time defending champions on the brink of elimination.

Dallas trailed by seven points with 5:05 left and was getting shredded inside by a new-look Lakers lineup featuring three big men. The Mavs hadn't led since late in the second quarter and a record crowd was turning silent. Then Nowitzki hit a 3-pointer and Stojakovic followed with another, bringing the team and the crowd to life. An 18-6 rally followed, turning around the game and possibly sealing the series.

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BOSTON — Milan Lucic scored twice, Johnny Boychuk got the go-ahead goal, and the Boston Bruins stopped any chance of another historic comeback by the Philadelphia Flyers with a 5-1 win Friday night that completed a sweep of the Eastern Conference semifinal series.

In this round last year against Philadelphia, the Bruins became just the third NHL team to lose a series after winning the first three games. Boston even held a 3-0 lead at home in Game 7 before the Flyers rallied again for a 4-3 victory.

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WASHINGTON -- The wealth of information pulled from Osama bin Laden's compound has reinforced the belief that he played a strong role in planning and directing attacks by al-Qaida and its affiliates in Yemen and Somalia, senior U.S. officials said Friday.

And the data further demonstrates to the U.S. that top al-Qaida commanders and other key insurgents are scattered throughout Pakistan, not just in the rugged border areas, and are being supported and given sanctuary by Pakistanis, a senior defense official said.

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CAIRO — Al-Qaida vowed to keep fighting the United States and avenge the death of Osama bin Laden, which it acknowledged for the first time Friday in an Internet statement apparently designed to convince followers that it will remain vigorous and intact even after its founder's demise.

Al-Qaida's plots are usually large-scale and involve planning over months or even years. But Western intelligence officials say they are seeing increased chatter about cheap, small-scale attacks – perhaps by individuals or small extremist groups inspired to take revenge for the killing.

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Ed. note: This is the final edition of the Mulch. To keep up with the best environmental coverage the progressive media has to offer, follow...

ATLANTA — Derrick Rose shook off the sore ankle and that shocking loss at home. With his team scuffling through the playoffs, he decided it was time to take matters in his own hands.

The Atlanta Hawks never had a chance.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley came away impressed from her meeting with potential Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, but cautioned that the discussion was too short to fully assess the former U.S. Ambassador to China and governor of Utah.

“It was a very impressive conversation and it looks like he’s going to be a serious candidate if he gets in,” Haley, a Republican elected last fall, told HuffPost after a Republican party dinner the night before the state convention meeting.

“He was great,” Haley said of Huntsman. “What I loved was his experience that he had in seeing China and how they’re off the charts and running fast and the passion they have for economic development. He knows that we can have that here in the United States. He wants to go and look at the financial aspect of where we are in our country and he understands it’s about reducing the debt.”

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LOS ANGELES -- Former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra has been indicted by a Los Angeles federal grand jury in a bankruptcy fraud case.

The 48-year-old filed for bankruptcy in 2009, and is accused of later stealing and selling property from an $18.5 million estate.

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I will take this event as a time of reflection, a time to remember those who perished on September 11, 2001, and the many others who lost their lives to the workings of Osama bin Laden.

DETROIT — Darren Helm scored with 1:27 left in the third period, lifting the Detroit Red Wings to an elimination-avoiding 4-3 win over the San Jose Sharks in Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinal series on Friday night.

The Sharks will take their 3-1 series lead back home with a chance to advance on Sunday night to the NHL's final four.

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Florida, your long nightmare is over!

No, I'm not talking about the current reign of your grifter governor -- that's a nightmare of much shorter duration.

At long last, and on its third attempt, the Florida legislature has succeeded in passing an anti-bestiality bill. From the perspective of the folks outraged about what happened to this goat, "Osama bin Laden has been brought to justice."

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The bipartisan legislation is unique in that it carries with it the prospect of a roll call, in which every member of the House will have to choose a side: open-ended war in Afghanistan, or a clear plan for military withdrawal?

After the stroke, my mother no longer remembered all the good times we'd shared. Even though my name was the first she uttered aloud, it quickly lost meaning when she proceeded to call everyone else Padma as well.

The Supreme Court of the United States just told a sexually assaulted high school girl to shut up and go home. They didn't say it...

Whether you are a fan of paying down the debt, providing a strong national defense, or protecting social security, if money is sitting in the oil industry's pockets rather than in our national bank account, we are all out of luck.

It is time for us to engage in our own sovereign duty to protect American companies, workers and jobs from the trade manipulations and schemes others engage in.

Black Friday comes and goes and has many wondering, does this mean that U.S. Internet gaming is doomed? My answer is no, Black Friday didn't ruin the emergence of U.S Internet gaming; it actually helped it.

All that relentless touring has made Gregg Gillis very, very hungry. Last week Gillis shared some of his favorite on-the-road eats with us -- he's a regular ol' foodie.

A Los Angeles councilman introduced a motion Friday that could prohibit the sale and purchase of pets bred in puppy and kitten mills.
Councilman Paul Koretz, who represents an area that includes West L.A., Hollywood and Encino, said he introduced the motion to ease the city's pet overpopulation problem.
Some pet stores purchase animals from puppy and kitten mills or large-scale breeding operations with unsanitary and overcrowded conditions and inbreeding.

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Blake Shelton didn't mean to be homophobic and perpetuating anti-gay violence, but did those who RTed The Voice coach get that? Probably not.

Recently, More editor Lesley Jane Seymour let the world in on a little secret: Fashion editors cut the size labels out of clothes on fashion shoots, as not to damage the oh-so-fragile egos of actresses.

Recently I held a reading of a new anthology I have an essay in. I read aloud a sort of audio-word cloud of some of...

Millennials have grown up in this world of instanity, where information, photos, and prices (when they're shopping) are just one click away. They are also...

Myths and facts presented out of context are all too common in the U.S. abortion debate. Misinformation extends to even the most basic questions: Who...

Rapture and Rand: What a couple of sexy, compelling twins! Both offer unsparing moralistic revenge fantasies. Both solicit your agreement and your endorsement in exchange for your salvation.

For nearly half of the world's population, cooking at home is a deeply dangerous act. In fact, it poses one of the most serious health risks in the developing world, and it's a major threat to the environment.

NEW YORK -- In a sweltering classroom in The Mary Louis Academy of Jamaica Estates, Queens, freshman Regina Maghirang, 15, sat down at a computer, logged onto Facebook and hit delete.

More than once.

Her friends did it, too. More than 200 of them cycled in and out of the room during their free periods on Friday for Delete Day, a student-led initiative at Mary Louise designed to target cyberbullying.

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Molly Wei, the former Rutgers University freshmen accused of using a webcam to watch a male classmate's sexual encounter with another man, has been approved for a pretrial intervention program that will allow her to avoid criminal prosecution.

Under the deal with prosecutors, Wei, 18, of Princeton, N.J., pleaded not guilty Friday to two counts of invasion of privacy, according to the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office.

In September, Wei and fellow 18-year-old freshman Dharun Ravi, of Plainsboro, N.J., were charged with two counts each of invasion of privacy for allegedly using a camera to view a live image of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi during a sexual encounter. Clementi, a resident of Ridgewood, N.J., was Ravi’s roommate.

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Abigail Breslin. Portrait by Leslie Hassler. For those who best remember Abigail Breslin with her tear-away pants, gyrating to the Commodores' song "Brick House"...

The chairman of the CUNY Board of Trustees released a public statement today, calling for the board to reconsider its decision to deny an honorary degree to playwright Tony Kushner.

On Monday May 2, the board voted to "table" the awarding of the proposed degree, igniting a firestorm of controversy from around the world.

"I would not ordinarily ask for reconsideration of a decision so recently taken," Chair Benno Schmidt says in the statement, "But when the board has made a mistake of principle, and not merely of policy, review is appropriate and, indeed, mandatory."

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In a country where the greatest question people ask is "what will I eat today?", the publication of the Fidel Castro's macrobiotic diet came as a bucket of cold water.

John Norris of the Center for American Progress writes the five myths about foreign aid in the Washington Post. I would like to add a few more with brief explanations as to why I have included them.

Grasping a bottle of champagne in his left hand and the saber in his right, Julian Serrano lopped off the top of the bottle and, with the crowd applauding and cheering, champagne spewed into the air.

The president should not miss the opportunity to introduce more Americans to Professor Warren, and to have the debate that Wall Street and its congressional allies fear.

The root of the spontaneous eruption of USA! chants exhibited around the country on the news of Bin Laden's demise can be found at last year's World Cup finals.

News of a Five Guys opening in Los Angeles stirred a melee of feelings among Angelenos: intrigue, suspicion, hunger. But for In-N-Out diehards, imagine a rumbling of guffaws; puffed-up chests full of sheer loyalty to the very meaning of "animal-style." I fancy myself an In-N-Out diehard, so I took on the taste test for all my fellow burger lovers.

At the Fox Hills Mall in Culver City, the site of L.A.'s first Five Guys, the only sign of disgruntled feathers was impatience: waiting for my burger order to be called (I’m #78; they're only on #47). It opened its doors just last week, and since then, every single person inside this new in-mall eatery seemed like they've been eating burgers a la Five Guys their whole lives.

Photos by Lien Ta.

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That picture of a cat licking a lollipop you found on Google Images may be infected.

According to the SANS Internet Storm Center, a number of Google Images are actually infected with malware that misdirects users to pages that try to sell fake anti-virus scareware that and to make users believe they must download the program to avoid viruses.

These scammers use photos from third-party sites so that the images appear to be legitimate, using top search terms from Google Trends so that the content on the page also seems real.

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