Phawker

NEW YORK TIMES: The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.

The payments to A.I.G.’s financial products unit are in addition to $121 million in previously scheduled bonuses for the company’s senior executives and 6,400 employees across the sprawling corporation. Mr. Geithner last week pressured A.I.G. to cut the $9.6 million going to the top 50 executives in half and tie the rest to performance.

The payment of so much money at a company at the heart of the financial collapse that sent the broader economy into a tailspin almost certainly will fuel a popular backlash against the government’s efforts to prop up Wall Street. Past bonuses already have prompted President Obama and Congress to impose tough rules on corporate executive compensation at firms bailed out with taxpayer money.

A.I.G., nearly 80 percent of which is now owned by the government, defended its bonuses, arguing that they were promised last year before the crisis and cannot be legally canceled. In a letter to Mr. Geithner, Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., said at least some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives. “We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury,” he wrote Mr. Geithner on Saturday. MORE

PHAWKER: Fuck The ‘Best And Brightest’– Where They Gonna Go? Lehman Brothers? Bear Stearns? Fuck ‘Em.

The week that was in just five minute! Hosted by a stoned daisy with the obligatory voice of gawd. Funny. Sad. Good for you. Tastes great, less filling.

CRAZY RHYTHMS: Making Time, Pure, 2:34 AM, Saturday [Photo: JONATHAN VALANIA]

FRESH AIR

Marianne Faithfull released her first album, 1964′s As Tears Go By, when she was 17. The album was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the the Rolling Stones. Faithfull dated Jagger throughout the 1960s and became a fixture on the rock and roll party scene. After struggling with an addiciton to heroin which left her living on the streets, Faithfull recovered and released several acclaimed albums, including Before the Poison and Kissin’ Time. She has also appeared onstage and in films, and she wrote her autobiography, Faithfull in 1994. Her most recent album — her 22nd overall — is Easy Come, Easy Go. Faithful sings a variety of cover songs on the album, including “The Crane Wife” by the Decemberists and “Solitude” by Billy Holiday. These interviews originally aired Feb. 6, 2003 and Sept. 26, 1994.

ALSO, In the world of hip-hop, where most music is sampled, The Roots are exceptional: They play their own instruments. Ahmir Thompson, also known as Questlove, is the drummer for the Grammy-winning group — a Philadelphia-based sextet that’s recently found a new audience as the house band for NBC’s Late Night, where Jimmy Fallon just took over for departing host Conan O’Brien. Questlove founded The Roots in 1987 while he was a student at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts. Reviewing The Roots’ 2002 album Phrenology for GQ magazine, rock critic Tom Moon wrote that “their vision for black music tears out in radical directions, encompassing jazz, trance, rock and Brazilian pop. … Their orbit has included activists, rappers and rock stars, anyone grappling with what it means to be black and alternative.” Questlove grew up around music. His father Lee Andrews led the doo-wop group Lee Andrews & The Hearts, which had the hit “Tear Drops.” He talks to Fresh Air host Terry Gross about a childhood spent backstage, about what he sees as African-American culture’s transgressive-transformative approach to language, and about what it means to bring musicianship to bear in a genre that doesn’t necessarily expect it. This interview originally aired Feb. 6, 2003.

THE ROOTS: 75 Bars

The Roots – “75 Bars” from Three/21 Films on Vimeo.

MONSIEUR VERDOUX (1947, directed by Charles Chaplin, 124 minutes, U.S.)
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (2009, directed by Dennis Iliadis, 100 minutes, U.S.)

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC

This is what happens when a director takes career advice from Orson Welles.  Released in 1947 and based on an idea that Orson Welles offered Chaplin (Welles was hoping to direct), Monsieur Verdoux found the fifty-eight year old comedian leaving behind the beloved “Little Tramp” character for the first time.  In Monsieur Verdoux the star’s bird-like grace would be put to use to lend charm to a serial killer, a Bluebeard who woos and murders women for their money.  It was “A Comedy of Murders” as the subtitle read, and the audience at the premiere hissed so much Chaplin reportedly fled the theater.  The film’s glancing political commentary made Chaplin a target of the growing anti-communist sentiment in the U.S. and ultimately led to the film icon’s leaving the States to live in Europe.

Now back in theaters in an unexpected revival, Monsieur Verdoux remains disconcerting, as we laugh along at the absurdly nimble silver-haired gentleman who mixes poisons and burns the remains of a string of French widows after WW1.  M. Verdoux didn’t start out this way, he was a nondescript banker until the 1929 crash of Wall Street left him unemployed and broke.  A comment on the inhumane nature of the banking industry, M. Verdoux comes to the conclusion that “business equals murder” and goes about his new business free of conscious. It’s the blackness of Chaplin’s vision, perhaps more than the murders, that must have unsettled audiences.  From the suspicious in-laws at the opening through a range of annoying battle-axes, Chaplin makes sure to only murder characters the audience would be glad to be rid of.  The murders happen tastefully off-screen, it is the fact that the population is so murder-able that led audiences to be suspicious of the blackness in Chaplin’s heart.

Today, with shows like the serial killer dramedy Dexter, the black comedy of murder is comfortably “cutting-edge” enough edge for TV, giving the story an unusually modern sensibility while Chaplin’s performance, filled with fussy and concise details of pantomime, at times make the film feel oddly anachronistic for 1947.  As a director Chaplin’s timing is as dead-on as ever; scenes like the one where Verdoux tries to decide how to kill the vulgar Martha Raye in a tiny rowboat still find ways to surprise us and make us laugh. Its those quick cuts to Verdoux counting the money afterward, the coldness of the transaction, that still have the ability to unnerve.   Finally confronted with his deeds Verdoux states, “As for being a mass killer, does not the world encourage it?  Is it not building weapons of destruction for the sole purpose of mass killing?  Has it not blown unsuspecting women and little children to pieces?  And done it very scientifically? As a mass killer, I am an amateur by comparison.”  From the poverty of the Little Tramp, to the Hitler parody of The Great Dictator to the post-war societal criticism of Verdoux, Chaplin specializes in comedy you can’t dismiss, even six decades later.

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Also disturbing, but none-too-surprising, is the latest horror remake; this week they’re foisting something called The Last House On Left.  The 1972 original was a sadistic and crude little quickie, famous for its grueling rape and murder of two hippie girl who catch the wrong ride to a rock concert.  The film launched the career of Wes Craven, who between the Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises is officially the Popentate in American Horror.  Last House was loosely based on Ingmar Bergman’s Virgin Spring and the opening of this remake is so lush and bucolic (with Cape Town, South Africa standing in for upstate New York) and its domestic dramatics so underplayed it hems closer to Bergman than its grindhouse namesake.  At times, the film is downright elegant, the last word that would ever be ascribed to the ’72 version.

The film lmoves along like a dreamy coming-of-age story until an attempt to score some pot brings the bad guys around; not the drugged-out pseudo Mansons of the original but your garden variety scruffy-faced white trash movie thugs.  The rape scene remains and is rough stuff but the very premise of the original, where the girl’s mother and father turn into blood-thirsty revenge-mongers, is turned into a much more conventional armed battle between a good Daddy and a bad one.  The film is undeniably effective on a thriller level but in the end Last House serves as another example of how Hollywood knows exactly how to tear the heart out of any subversive property to leave the audience with a tidy little moral homily.

BY DAVE ALLEN Opera might be stereotyped as stuffy and uninteresting, but sex, violence and mayhem have always been part of the medium. Alban Berg’s 1925 opera Wozzeck takes these traditional elements and frames them, to startling effect, in a score of dissonant but sensual and compelling music. It’s a work that has never fallen easy on the ears of American audiences, but this weekend, Philly’s famed but deeply traditional Curtis Institute of Music, in a co-production with the Opera Company of Philadelphia and Kimmel Center Presents, is putting on this revolutionary work of early 20th-century modernism and, as a friend who’s a Curtis grad put it, “stepping out of the 19th century.” Two of Curtis’ fastest-rising alumni appear in lead roles, including Jason Collins, a 2003 master’s grad from Curtis, who plays the vain, sadistic and supremely arrogant Drum Major. It’s a big leap for Collins, a friendly, modest South Carolina native who’s on the verge of making a huge splash in the opera world, and he talked with me about getting into character as a complete bastard, his alma mater engaging in some innovation, and the future of opera. Hint: it has nothing to do with monocles or evening gowns.

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Wozzeck, co-presented by the Curtis Institute of Music, the Opera Company of Philadelphia and Kimmel Center Presents, runs Friday at 8 pm, Sunday at 2:30, and Wednesday, March 18 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are stil available.

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PHAWKER: So my understanding of the role is: you’re a jerk. You seduce a man’s wife, you brag about it in front of him and his friends, and then you beat him up. So how are you rehearsing for being a jerk — are you walking around kicking puppies?

JASON COLLINS: It’s fun. It’s an adventure. I hope I’m not that kind of person on the outside. I try not to be, anyway. There’s just a level of confidence that one has to have. Y’know, if you’re going to be a bad-ass, you’re going to be that guy. He’s just that guy. You just have to step in. The way his music is written, it’s kind of balls-out… I don’t know how you can write this, but… dick-swingin’ music. It’s just kind of there. He thinks the world of himself and kind of lets everybody revolve around him. If it was ‘The Drum Major,’ it would just be about this man… It takes me a lot of focus to get into there and it takes me a lot of abandon. Like, I have to walk in and just abandon self and abandon that I’m not that kind of person, but he is, and to honorBuchner and honor Berg, I have to kind of abandon Jason Collins and kind of let this man go. Berg did a great job. His music is just right there; it’s militaristic, it’s bombastic, and it’s sexual. And when he beats Wozzeck up, it’s in the barracks when he’s trying to sleep where he’s just been in this tavern scene, and Emma Griffin is just genius, she’s painted this great picture of him going crazy watching his wife get molested. He takes her off and crosses in front of him — boom — and then the next scene I come back without my shirt, or just in a t-shirt, obviously having just had sex with his wife, and I beat him up while he’s trying to sleep. I don’t beat him up in the bar. I humiliate him, and her, too. She just thinks how he’s honored by the prince, I’m excused of all military duty. If they’d set it in this Nazi-era time, he could definitely be the figurehead of the Aryan race. He could be that guy. He’s what the prince keeps saying Ich bin ein Mann — “I am the man.” So he’s been delivered this message from the highest-ranking person, so one tends to believe that. I often feel a little self-conscious after I’m finished because I’m like, “God, did I just let go like that?”

PHAWKER: The work is really dark and filled with soul-crushing oppression and militarism. Does it get to you? Or is it your job as an actor to rise above that?

JC: It’s our jobs as actors to leave it in the room, but it’s very difficult. I talk with the Maestro [conductor Corrado Rovaris] about it, and I have to go home and sing some Mozart or some Verdi, just technically, in terms of vocal approach. It’s so angular and so angry, and it’s so dark. It’s all over. So I have to get back to some roots on that, and emotionally, it’s not so bad on the Drum Major. I feel a little guilt-ridden sometimes because he’s such a jerk, but you have to learn how to separate that. You have to be able to walk off and (whistles, wipes a hand over his face). My agent used to — when JonVickers was singing, she was his agent too — sit in the wings for the final scene of Peter Grimes, and he would just walk off and be like, “Come on, let’s go get a hamburger.” And he was able to leave it on the stage. It’s a great outlet of emotion when you can tap into that and it’s a great luxury to be able to be a jerk on the stage, and no one will hate you for it. You can leave it there. Wozzeck is a different story, butShuler is such a fantastic actor, I’m sure he’s mastered his craft enough that he can leave that behind as well. But it is our responsibility, but we all are just fried. Last night, we had a run, it was just (forceful exhale). You don’t even know what to say, because you can’t give notes. You said, “We’ll do notes tomorrow.” You just have to have a break, and I usually watch some kind of mindless TV or something to get my mind off of it. It’s just dark and just depressing.
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CONDE NAST: Coulter’s latest book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, is something of a misfire by Coulterian standards. Of course, what constitutes a disappointment for Coulter would be a mega-hit for most authors; in its two months on sale, Guilty has sold 100,500 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan (a number that only reflects around 70 percent of actual sales).

But with it moving steadily down the best-seller list, it looks certain that Guilty will fall far short of matching her earlier results. Her 2006 polemic, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, sold 279,100 copies in hardcover, according to BookScan; Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terror, published in 2003, sold 396,600 hardcover copies, and 2002′s Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, sold 333,100 copies, plus another 108,300 in paperback. MORE

NEW YORK TIMES: Tucked into an angular lounge chair in an Art Deco suite above Radio City Music Hall on Monday evening, Ann Coulter, the conservative author, was awaiting her would-be adversary, the liberal comedian Bill Maher. She and Mr. Maher had agreed to face off in a series of debates over the next three nights, and Ms. Coulter was concerned that their material might go stale from repeated performances. “Bill wants me to behave like a wife who laughs each time she hears her husband tell the same story,” Ms. Coulter said. “I told him I’m not an actress, or I’d have a bigger apartment.”

Mr. Maher, who said he still regarded Ms. Coulter as “a witty, fun drinking companion,” hoped to use the debate to challenge her views. Ms. Coulter said she agreed to participate because, she wrote, “I’m getting a private car.” Though their exchanges were often heated — provoking cheers, boos, heckling and counterheckling from audience members — the combatants could be jocular. Skeptical of Ms. Coulter’s claim that many scientists do not believe in evolution, Mr. Maher told her, “You’re just being a dunk-tank clown, looking to sell more baseballs.” And when Mr. Halperin asked Ms. Coulter to comment on the recent war of words between Rush Limbaugh and the Obama administration, she lamented, “I have a book out now — why couldn’t they have attacked me?” MORE

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Early on in the night, Halperin took a little poll. It wasn’t even close. Sure, a couple of Coulter look-alikes, with shorter legs, were prowling the lobby. But aside from a few ringers here and there, few had come to see to see the blond political assassin.

Which had the remarkable effect of actually creating sympathy for Coulter, who seemed brave, far more informed, reasonable and wonkish than the image she cultivates and, well, strangely alone up there at her lonely podium, an inscrutable warm-up act for an endlessly loquacious, and thus less-interesting, stand-up comic.

With curious liberals nervously squinting up at her during her opening remarks, Coulter delivered a little red meat, as contracted, calling the audience “stupid,” comparing Rahm Emanuel to the anti-Christ and suggesting that the current president broke bread with the Weather Underground. MORE

BOSTON HERALD: Coulter noted Obama’s admitted cocaine use; Maher said, “George Bush did a lot more blow than Barack Obama.” Coulter saluted Bush for keeping “the country safe for seven-plus years,” and Maher assailed him for keeping silent for seven minutes after hearing about the 9/11 attack. MORE

Two French photographers – Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre – trained their lenses on the spectacular ruins of the modern day Motor City. The must-see results are astonishing, depressing and altogether post-apocalyptic. Metaphors abound — the state of the auto industry, the economy, and the American Dream itself — none of which augur well for the future of the nation. Rome was not built in a day, but the Roman Empire sure did fall in one — the day that the public good was subsumed by the pursuit of private gain. After that, it was all over but the shouting. Sound familiar? Pictured above is Detroit’s Central Train Station, built in 1913 and out of service since 1988. MORE

[Dir. by SCOTT COLAN]

BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer you towards the gooey center. Why? Because we love you!

ON THE COVER

CP: Isaiah Thompson takes a deep, thoughtful look at the mission of radical Christians who have taken roots in Kensington and other troubled neighborhoods. It centers on the work of two groups, The Simple Way and Circle of Hope, whose adherents seek to live among and serve the city’s poor. It’s clear that the groups’ progressivism is deeply felt rather than knee-jerk, and, because The Simple Way first took root 11 years ago, it isn’t of a piece with the boom in megachurch evangelism associated with Bush-style Christianity.

Sometimes, The Simple Way and Circle of Hope’s missions don’t seem so different from those of other progressives. Circle of Hope visits prisoners and gives out energy-efficient light bulbs. Recently Grace’s congregation prayed in solidarity with the revolutionary Mexican Zapatista movement. Likewise, when the United States invaded Iraq, The Simple Way protested (Claiborne actually went to Iraq for the invasion). When City Council passed an ordinance allowing for more aggressive fining of the homeless, The Simple Way led the march against it.

But they’re also into Jesus, big time, and not afraid to talk about it. Secular folks — atheists, agnostics, even just people who keep their faith private (disclosure: You can place me somewhere in there) —tend to be wary of people who go around proclaiming their faith in Jesus.

Thompson comes away impressed by the willingness of The Simple Way’s Shane Claiborne and Circle of Hope’s Joshua Grace to take on tough questions and to practice what they preach, and so did I. He even keeps his skepticism on hold and references PW’s attempt to tell a similar story — a venture the author’s biases rendered pointless. One odd note: For an article that purports to show the “face,” i.e. Claiborne, of this movement, there’s actually more from Grace and Jamie Moffett, another follower of The Simple Way, than from Claiborne. Nonetheless, kudos are still due.

PW: Owen Biddle, bassist for the Roots, was met with a storm of criticism when he joined the band. Tara Murtha scopes out the man who stayed cool amid all that furor and who’s keeping things funky as the band consistently outshines Jimmy Fallon on Late Night. ?uestlove had his back the whole time, so you know he’s gotta be good.

Of course, ?uest knew something the disappointed and fickle fans would soon to find out: Biddle is one whale of a bassist. “He can bring what a lot of people would consider the feel of a black bass player, a black funk soul bass player, but that’s a whole Pandora’s box,” says Kevin Hansen, a local musician who’s worked with Biddle on the Roots and other projects, and shares a production credit with him on the track “In the Music” off the Roots’ 2006 album Game Theory. Brian McTear, Philadelphia workhorse producer and co-owner of Miner Street Studios, says of Biddle, “Owen’s simply the best bass player I have ever worked with, and maybe ever will work with.”

The bassist from Down with Webster, the Canadian band that opened for the Roots on the Montreal date where Biddle made his debut, came to Biddle’s defense, writing that he had checked out Biddle’s bass playing that night, and that it was brilliant. Others wagged their finger: Biddle may not seem the most obvious new Roots member at first glance, but since when was ?uestlove not able to spot talent? The tide began to turn as fans witnessed Biddle thump the low end live, and quickly got behind what one fan called Biddle’s “cool and quiet swagger.”

We get recollection of his Roots audition, stories from his former bandmates on the Philly scene, and some surprising testimony that Biddle might even be funnier than Fallon himself.

In an interview about the Roots’ move to Late Night, ?uestlove said, “I think the comedian now in the Roots is actually the most unassuming one, our bass player Owen. He’s … comedy tonight, that’s all I can say. He’s straight comedy.”

Sounds good enough to make me want to stay up late and watch in hopes of a Biddle comedy breakout. That, and “Slow Jamming the News.” That’s some good shit, too.

INSIDE THE BOOK
CP: In the pocket, outside the box: Beyond jazz at Chris’. The Nutter approach: “Nyah nyah, I can’t hear you!” The skills behind Explicit Ills (Webber can’t be happy about his name being misspelled on the cover, though. Tsk tsk.). Brilliant combination: Awesome singer plus adorable dog.

PW: Newspaper industry, you might as well hang it up: Steven Wells says so. Elsewhere, there’s insensitive and inane video games, a cliché-riddled guilt trip about the homeless, and Thai food so good you won’t have to spring for a trip to Bangkok.

WINNER: CP takes it, for a cover story that’s smart and inquisitive and, especially, for not sneering at the most deeply-held beliefs of a group of people doing good in this community.

BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE (1963, directed by Michael Powell, 59 minutes, Germany)
DER ROSENKAVALIER (1925, directed by Robert Weine, 73 minutes Germany)
ANDREW’S VIDEO VAULT @ The Rotunda 4014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia PA
Thursday March 12th 2009  8PM Free!

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC British director Michael Powell crafted a steady stream of masterpieces over the last century, his love of art and music informing popular classics like The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus and Scorsese favorite Tales of Hoffman.  Powell’s career went famously south after making the 1960 film Peeping Tom, a tale of a killer who films his prey that rivals Hitchcock’s Psycho in morbidity. The film caused such a scandal in England his career never recovered. Powell’s few post-scandal films have been near impossible to see and perhaps the rarest is making a surprise appearance tonight at Andrew’s Video Vault.  Bluebeard’s Castle, or Herzog Blaubarts Burg, was made for German television in 1963 and has never been released in any home video format.  An hour-long film of Bartok’s 1911 opera, Bluebeard shows Powell still at the height of his talent, conjuring magic with a tiny budget on one small soundstage.  With gorgeously surreal set design by German art director Hein Heckroth (an Oscar winner for his design on The Red Shoes) Powell glides his camera deep into the maze of Bluebeard’s murderous subconscious as his new wife (Ana Raquel Sartre, looking like horror film queen Barbara Steele)  probes his memories to learn the fate of his seven ex-wives. The natural stone formations and the nearly-garish lighting at times make the production look like a gorgeous unused set from the original Star Trek series but James T. Kirk never sang like the commanding Norman Foster nor did the Enterprise revel in such gloomy denouncements.  A prime piece of filmed opera and an important piece of Powell’sfilmography, movie buffs should not hesitate to catch this rare piece of Powell’s puzzle, as morbid as Peeping Tom, with its murderous heart neatly obscured beneath a layer of high art. Also on the bill is a silent version of Der Rosenkavalier, directed by Robert Weine (directed of the classic Cabinet of Dr. Caligari).

Andrew’s Video Vault happens the second Thursday of the month at The Rotunda

CNN: WINNENDEN, Germany (CNN) — The teenaged gunman who killed 15 people in Germany targeted young women on his shooting spree, methodically shooting them in the head, police say. Tim Kretschmer, 17, began his rampage Wednesday at a school where he used to be a student in Winnenden, a small town about 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Stuttgart. Most of the victims at the school were female — eight female students, three female teachers and one male student, said Heribert Rech, interior minister for Baden Wuerttemberg region. Rech said: “They were completely taken by surprise. Some of the victims still had their pens in their hands.” Video Watch more on probe into attack Kretschmer opened fire in three first floor classrooms, including a physics lab where a teacher was found dead behind her desk, Rech told a news conference. Rech said police arrived in minutes. “This speedy intervention means they prevented further escalation of events.”

As the first police arrived at the school, he fled and killed a person working in a hospital nearby, then hijacked a car, taking the driver hostage. He drove towards the nearby town of Wendlingen, but the car crashed on a sharp bend, Rech said. The driver escaped and called police as Kretschmer ran away and towards a car salesroom in Wendlingen where he shot a salesperson and a customer, Rech said. Video Watch the gunman’s deadly route. “Police officers in civilian clothes opened fire and shot several times. The perpetrator tried to escape and was shot at least once in the leg. … A little later he was found dead,” he added. It was not clear if he died from injuries received in the police shootout or if he committed suicide. Regional police chief Erwin Hetger said police thought he had killed himself. Kretschmer was on the loose for three and a half hours after the incident began, police said

Security at German schools has been an issue in the past. In November 2006, an 18-year-old former student strapped explosives to his body and went on a rampage at a middle school in western Germany, shooting and wounding six people — most of them students — before killing himself. In July 2003, a 16-year-old student shot a teacher before taking his own life at a school in the southern German town of Coburg. A year earlier, 18 people were killed when an expelled student went on a shooting spree at his school in eastern Germany. MORE

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Reporting from Samson, Ala. — First, he killed his mother. That, according to Alabama officials, was the first chilling act in Michael Kenneth McLendon[pictured,above]‘s trail of carnage across southern Alabama on Tuesday. He killed 10 people, injured six and left a string of small communities wondering what motivated a quiet young man to obliterate the peaceful rhythms of rural Southern life in March. McLendon took off down state Highway 52 in a little red Mitsubishi, passing bucolic scenes of ryegrass, cows and hay bales. He was wearing khaki pants and a vest with ammunition pockets. He was also loaded with weapons: two assault rifles, a shotgun, a .38-caliber handgun, a Russian semiautomatic carbine, and a military-style Bushmaster rifle. MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Here is a glance at some of the worst U.S. mass shootings in recent years:

_ March 10, 2009: Michael McLendon, 28, killed 10 people — including his mother, four other relatives, and the wife and child of a local sheriff’s deputy — across two rural Alabama counties. He then killed himself.

_ Feb. 14, 2008: Former student Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, fatally shooting five students and wounding 18 others before committing suicide.

_ Dec. 5, 2007: Robert A. Hawkins, 19, opened fire with a rifle at a Von Maur store in an Omaha, Neb., mall, killing eight people before taking his own life. Five more people were wounded, two critically.

_ April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, fatally shot 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, then killed himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

_ Oct. 2, 2006: Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, shot to death five girls at West Nickel Mines Amish School in Pennsylvania, then killed himself.

_ March 21, 2005: Student Jeffrey Weise, 16, killed nine people, including his grandfather and his grandfather’s companion at home. Also included were five fellow students, a teacher and a security guard at Red Lake High School in Red Lake, Minn. He then killed himself. Seven students were wounded.

_ March 12, 2005: Terry Ratzmann, 44, gunned down members of his congregation as they worshipped at the Brookfield Sheraton in Brookfield, Wisconsin, slaying seven and wounding four before killing himself.

_ March 5, 2001: Charles “Andy” Williams, 15, killed two fellow students and wounded 13 others at Santana High School in Santee, Calif.

_ July 29, 1999: Former day trader Mark Barton, 44, killed nine people in shootings at two Atlanta brokerage offices, then killed himself.

_ April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves in the school’s library. MORE

GUS VAN SANT: Elephant