Beastie Boy Mike D Serves Up Meals From Food Truck To Hurricane Sandy Victims (PHOTO, VIDEO)

The Beastie Boys' Mike D is fighting for more than the right to party -- he's been helping serve Hurricane Sandy victims warm meals from a food truck.

The musician, whose full name is Michael Diamond, spoke to GOOD Magazine on Tuesday about the project. Since the storm, more than 19,000 free meals have been served.

Seeing the damage to Rockaway Beach, he launched the Rockaway Plate Lunch truck with restauranteur and friend Robert McKinley.

The cooking expertise come from Sam Talbot of 'Top Chef' fame, who is working with teams at New York's Spotted Pig and Fat Radish restaurants, to serve up rice, beans, chicken and vegetables.

In the Vimeo video above, Mike D explains that a food truck allowed easy navigation through the changing post-Sandy landscape. The team feeds anywhere from 200 to 500 people daily.

"The willingness to get involved has been amazing," McKinley says in the video. "There's been no egos and everyone is working really hard."

Story continues after photo

Five months after the storm, Mike D wants to transition the project to a full-time restaurant staffed by residents.

"There’s still the need for warm food out there, but our real goal for this summer is to help revitalize the local economy," he told GOOD magazine.

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Mass Shooting Victims Seek Control Over Donations

By Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK, March 24 (Reuters) - Survivors of mass U.S. shootings have united to provide victims of future tragedies greater control over donations made after such events and to prevent nonprofit groups from holding onto money intended for families of the dead and wounded.

A group representing families of those killed at the Columbine, Virginia Tech and Aurora mass shootings wants to ensure any unspecified funds raised as a result of the Newtown shooting go directly to victims and their families.

Newtown, the Connecticut town where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, has identified more than 60 funds raising money on behalf of victims or projects related to the shooting.

The families of some mass shooting victims want a trusted, centralized authority to manage future donations.

"Going back to Oklahoma City, we've seen families who have had to endure not only horrific loss, but also the unimaginable task of wrestling with Byzantine nonprofit bureaucracies to access financial relief intended for them," the families said in a statement. "It's time to stop the madness. We cannot watch this happen, yet again, in Sandy Hook."

The informal group, so far unnamed, has initiated talks with senior White House officials and two members of Congress about establishing an official fundraising operation for such tragedies, said Caryn Kaufman, a spokeswoman for the families. She declined to name the officials out of concern it might jeopardize the project.

The group is examining whether legislation or an executive order would be needed to create a federal or nonprofit entity that would coordinate donations after any future tragedy.

The project has won initial support from Kenneth Feinberg, the influential Washington lawyer who administered funds for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and several mass shootings.

Jerri Jackson, whose son Matt McQuinn was killed with 11 others in the 2012 movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, wants it to be easier for future victims to receive aid.

"It's not a matter of if something else happens, it's when something else happens," Jackson said. "Immediately, a fund would be set up. It would be a trusted fund that people would feel they could give to and the money would go to the victims."

Jackson said she was forced to "jump through hoops in the midst of tragedy" to receive money raised in her son's name.

Nearly $5.9 million in Aurora donations were channeled to the Community First Foundation. When victims' families publicly complained about the pace of disbursement, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper called in Feinberg, who oversaw the disbursement within 45 days. The foundation was later shut down.

After the 2007 Virginia Tech University shooting that killed 32 people, more than $10 million spontaneously flowed to the university's fundraising foundation, university spokesman Larry Hincker said.

Because that foundation was only authorized to spend money on the university, an executive order from the governor was needed to disburse the funds to victims, Hincker said.

Michael Pohle, a member of the group whose son was killed at Virginia Tech, said: "What was so insulting was we had to fill out documents, have them notarized, and basically beg and apply for dollars."

Feinberg recognized some grieving survivors were upset but defended the disbursement process following both tragedies, noting the highly unusual circumstances, complex legal requirements and emotional strain on the families.

FAMILIES BAND TOGETHER

The ad hoc group of 64 people lost relatives in tragedies such as the Sept. 11 attacks, the 2008 shooting at Northern Illinois University and the Sikh temple shooting last year at Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

The group has not involved the Sandy Hook families, saying it was too soon for those still grieving. Even so, the group was concerned about the confusion caused by having dozens of nonprofit groups collecting money in Newtown, said Kaufman, the group's spokeswoman.

Some of the Newtown funds were designated for a specific purpose, such as creating a playground or scholarship. In other cases, the funds refer to more general goals of supporting the victims. The group believes that money should go to the victims' families.

Feinberg has overseen disbursements of funds following Sept. 11, the BP oil spill and several mass shootings. Though he is not affiliated with the group, he supports the concept Of having a protocol in place when a future tragedy occurs.

"I think it's a great idea," Feinberg said. "The question is: Is there the political will to do it?" (Editing by Mary Milliken and Stacey Joyce)

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Gun Violence Victims To Attend State Of The Union With Lawmakers

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to keep up pressure for new gun safety laws, nearly a dozen House Democrats are planning to bring victims of gun violence as their guests to the State of the Union later this month.

Members of Congress are each allowed to bring one guest to sit with them in the House gallery during President Barack Obama's address to the nation on Feb. 12. In a letter to Democratic colleagues last month, five House Democrats urged lawmakers to use the occasion to highlight the need for action on gun violence.

"In December, President Obama declared that addressing gun-related violence would be a 'central issue' as he opens his second term. In an effort to continue the discussion and engage our constituents in this important debate, we ask you to join us in inviting a person who has been impacted by gun violence to be your guest at the President's State of the Union address on February 12th," the letter reads. "It is our hope that their presence in the House Gallery will send a strong message that it is long past time to act."

The letter is signed by Democratic Reps. Jim Langevin (R.I.), Carolyn McCarthy (N.Y.), Keith Ellison (Minn.), Rosa DeLauro (Conn.) and David Cicilline (R.I.). All five are part of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force formed by House Democrats.

At least 10 House Democrats are planning to participate in the effort, with another five to 10 lawmakers considering it, according to a Langevin spokesman. In addition to the five lawmakers pushing the effort, those confirmed to participate include Democratic Reps. Elizabeth Esty (Conn.), Janice Hahn (Calif.), Mike Thompson (Calif.), Ed Perlmutter (Colo.) and Jim Himes (Conn.).

Notably, Esty represents Newtown, Conn., the site of the December shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"We know all too well that difficult political obstacles continue to threaten the chances of enacting responsible legislation that would better protect our communities and especially our children. However, the vast majority of Americans want us to strengthen gun safety laws," Langevin said in a statement Tuesday. "For our effort to be successful in Congress, it is critical that our elected officials hear their outcry and particularly the stories of those who have been affected by gun violence. They can most powerfully send the message that the status quo is unacceptable."

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Skulls Of Human Sacrifice Victims Found Outside Mexico's Pyramid

MEXICO CITY -- Archaeologists say they have turned up about 150 skulls of human sacrifice victims in a field in central Mexico, one of the first times that such a large accumulation of severed heads has been found outside of a major pyramid or temple complex in Mexico.

Experts are puzzled by the unexpected find of such a large number of skulls at what appears to have been a small, unremarkable shrine. The heads were carefully deposited in rows or in small mounds, mostly facing east toward the rising sun, sometime between 660 and 860 A.D., a period when the nearby city-state of Teotihuacan had already declined but the Aztec empire, founded in 1325, was still centuries in the future.

Georgia State University archaeologist Christopher Morehart, who found the skulls last year in Xaltocan, a farming village just north of Mexico City, said that between 150 and 200 adult skulls or their equivalent in bone parts have been excavated so far from fields that stand on a former lake bed.

Experts weren't expecting to find anything of this kind in the flat, undistinguished pasture land and corn fields. The site is near, but not immediately adjacent to, Teotihuacan, one of the biggest pre-Hispanic cities. It reached its height between 100 B.C. and A.D. 750 and was abandoned by the time the Aztecs arrived in the area in the 1300s.

Morehart was conducting a study of ancient agricultural patterns and human landscape uses in the northern part of the Mexico Valley in 2007, when during a walking survey of the site he started noticing looters' pits that had turned up human bones. A subsequent season of excavations in 2012 turned up dozens more skulls. The results of the 2007 dig were just published in the academic journal Latin American Antiquity.

While the Teotihuacan culture and the Aztecs were known to practice human sacrifice, and remains of hundreds of victims have been found in their pyramids or other large structures, the Xaltocan mound "is like a bump in the landscape that you could really easily walk over and not know you're standing on it," Morehart said.

"The interesting question is, why are we seeing this kind of sacrificial act that we often associate with something like Teotihuacan or a big center. Why do we see this ... in a place that's not associated with these cities?"

Physical anthropologist Abigail Meza Penaloza of the Institute of Anthropology at Mexico's National University said her team was still cleaning and assembling the skulls, but have a confirmed count of about 130 skulls so far, all of which appear to be of adult males.

Meza Penaloza said it was the first find of its kind, both because of the location – a small, artificial mound built in the middle of an agricultural field – and the kind of decapitations carried out there. She said mass sacrifices had been documented at temple inaugurations of temple closings, but not in the middle of fields.

She said it was also unusual in that the skulls appear to come from a varied population, including people who practiced cranial deformation and others who did not, as opposed to more homogenous groups of sacrifice victims found in the past.

The skulls were also found with a shorter length of vertebrae attached to the skulls than is the case of other such finds, suggesting the decapitation cut was made closer to the base of the skull.

Still other strange details emerged: Morehart said some of the skulls were found with finger bones inserted into the eye sockets. "It was common enough that it was intentionally placed there in the eye socket," Morehart said, though the ritual significance of that remains unclear.

Arizona State University Dr. Michael E. Smith, who was not involved in the project, said "this is certainly an impressive and very puzzling find," adding, "I am not aware of any other finds of mass burials or mass sacrifices outside of major settlements."

The key to the placement might be the natural springs that provided fresh, clean water in an area dominated by shallow, brackish lakes. The springs existed for centuries until they were covered and tapped by pipes around the 1950s. The ancient inhabitants of Xaltocan apparently used those springs to water lakebed farm plots. Carvings associated with the water-god Tlaloc and corn and chile plants were found at the excavation site, suggesting it may have been an agricultural shrine.

There were also indications that the site remained a ceremonial spot for centuries after the human sacrifices ended, and perhaps is still used for that purpose. Morehart said researchers found a plastic bag containing a black candle, an egg, and paper streamers wrapped around photographs of people at the site, what one local worker suggested was a form of witchcraft.

"They were attracted to this spot for some reason, and even in the colonial period people came back and did rituals there, even after the Spanish came," Morehart noted. "The spot has been integrated into something religiously significant across several centuries. It's amazing."

Smith said it is possible that, as archaeologists start excavating more ancient farm sites, they might discover more evidence of large-scale rural sacrifices.

"Very few rural areas or rural shrines have ever been located, so it is hard to say that this site represents an unusual find. It certainly is unusual for being the first such feature excavated by archaeologists, but it is possible that such shrines were more common in ancient times; we simply have no idea."

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