With a new infusion of money, the landmark documentary Eyes on the Prize is one step closer to educating a new generation of students.

The 14-part series, which chronicles the history of the civil rights movement in America, has been blocked from television rebroadcast and DVD release by a thicket of copyright restrictions on the hundreds of photos, music tracks and video clips used in its making. But thanks to a $600,000 grant from the Ford Foundation and a philanthropist's $250,000 donation, the process of re-licensing that material has begun.

"We're up and running and we're going to move forward with rights clearances and any production work we need to do to prepare the programs for public television broadcast and distribution in the education market," said Sandy Forman, a lawyer for Blackside, the production company that created the Eyes series.

AWESOME NEWS! Eyes on the Prize is an eye opener for those who haven't seen it.

WIRED: Cash Rescues Eyes on the Prize

Classic!

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- A Kenyan says he offered Bill Clinton 40 goats and 20 cows for his daughter's hand in marriage five years ago -- and is still waiting for an answer.

Godwin Kipkemoi Chepkurgor told the East Africa Standard newspaper last week that he wrote to Clinton asking for Chelsea's hand in 2000 during the then-president's visit to Kenya.

Chepkurgor, a 36-year-old elected city councilor in Nakuru, recounted writing to the U.S president through the Kenyan government.

He described his plans for a grand wedding presided over by South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He named then-President Daniel arap Moi and the president of his university as references.

Goats, cows offered for Chelsea

Found this in the dictionary under irony...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California prison inmate has sued a Florida food packager after biting into a human fingertip in one of its packaged vegetarian meals, his lawyer said on Friday.

Felipe Rocha, imprisoned on drug charges in California's maximum-security Pelican Bay State Prison, is seeking at least $75,000 in damages from G.A. Food Services after biting into the fingertip lost by one of the company's workers in an industrial accident, said attorney Jeffrey Schwarzschild.

The St. Petersburg, Florida-based food packager could not be reached for comment.

The company has apologized for the March incident but Rocha was not satisfied, said Schwarzschild.

"He suffered mental and physical injuries because of it because Mr. Rocha is a vegetarian," Schwarzschild said. "He became violently ill and couldn't eat because of the incident and he lost 15 pounds (7 kg)."

Inmate sues over finger in veggie meal

PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- Gerry Thomas, who changed the way Americans eat -- for better or worse -- with his invention of the TV Dinner during the baby boom years, has died at 83.

Thomas, who died in Paradise Valley on Monday after a bout with cancer, was a salesman for Omaha, Nebraska-based C.A. Swanson and Sons in 1954 when he got the idea of packaging frozen meals in a disposable aluminum-foil tray, divided into compartments to keep the foods from mixing. He also gave the product its singular name.

The first Swanson TV Dinner -- turkey with cornbread dressing and gravy, sweet potatoes and buttered peas -- sold for about $1 and could be cooked in 25 minutes at 425 degrees. Ten million sold in the first year of national distribution.

It was fast and convenient, and fit nicely on a TV tray in the living room, so that you didn't have to drag yourself away from your favorite television show.

Inventor of TV Dinner dies at 83

Everybody Sing Along:
When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a Valentine,birthday greetings,
bottle of wine?
If I'd been out 'till quarter to three,would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?

Granny grows tired of prostitution at age 63

Imagine a fleet of yellow school buses speeding around the giant oval - Maybe it's the next NASCAR...

If bus drivers think they've got it bad hauling a load of squealing kids out of the parking lot gridlock after the school bell rings, they should try a Friday night at the Music City Motorplex, where eight "souped-up" (to use the term loosely) school buses crash and burn their way around the quarter-mile track.

Part short-track racing and part demolition derby, school bus racing is a sport in which bumping is encouraged and rolling someone is the ultimate challenge.

Since the 1980s, racetracks have been turning to school bus racing as a way to lure nontraditional fans to their stands.
...
"You go out there to have fun and get some aggression released," Bobo says. "You think about that little white Toyota that cut you off yesterday."

Despite the rivalries and vengeance played out monthly on the track, the drivers say injuries in the buses have been minimal.

"People worry about their kids being on a school bus and this and that," Vaughn says. "We've tried before to roll one, and there's no possible way. The only way you can do it is if you get hit by another bus.

"School buses are designed for safety, and you can tell when you take one out on the track. It takes a lot to tear one up."

School Bus Racing

Apparently, lemmings do exist... WTF?!?

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.

"There's nothing we can do. They're all wasted," Nevzat Bayhan, a member of one of 26 families whose sheep were grazing together in the herd, was quoted as saying by Aksam.

450 sheep jump to their deaths in Turkey

This week's Onion "must-read".

MILTON, MA—Tragedy was narrowly averted in the Bourke household Monday, when Harry, the family's pet hamster, was violently thrown from the 4" by 4" payload of a toy Ford F-350 monster truck.

According to reports, the toy vehicle was racing through a living-room obstacle course—which included a coffee-table-coaster slalom, a cardboard ramp, and a Dixie-cup pyramid—when it swerved out of control and crashed into a Lincoln Log structure, sending the hamster flying through the monster truck's driver-side window and knocking over three nearby Fisher-Price Little People.

The scene quickly devolved into pandemonium, with the launched hamster tumbling humorously in mid-air several times before landing at the foot of the sofa and fleeing in shock. A frantic, living-room-wide search for Harry ensued and, after extensive search efforts behind the sofa, under the recliner, and behind the bookcase, the hamster was found between the vertical blinds and the sliding glass door, shaken but alive.

Hamster Thrown From Remote-Control Monster Truck

That's a whole lot of Rubles, 8,652,743,920.61 at current exchange rates.

Astrologer sues NASA for 300M for comet blast

Oops!

A Taiwan stock trader mistakenly bought $251 million worth of shares with a misstroke of her computer keyboard, meaning her company is looking at a paper loss of more than $12 million and she is looking for a new job.

The trader with Fubon Securities miskeyed in a small order from Merrill Lynch on Monday, creating confusion when many small companies inexplicably surged past the 7 percent trading limit.

"Something like this is difficult to explain to superiors," a Fubon executive said Tuesday.

Fubon said that the trader was unfamiliar with new computer systems and will be fired. The company will also examine its procedures of placing orders, it said

Bad keystroke leads to $251 million stock buy