Mark Memmott

A video showing a 13-year-old boy's mutilated corpse has shocked many Syrians and is turning the victim, Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, into a martyr. Many of those demanding the end of President Bashar Assad's regime say his death will strengthen their resolve and inspire others to come to their cause.

Too graphic for us to post, but not hard to find, the video, as The New York Times writes:

It felt "like being bashed across the cheek with a lead pipe."

That's how Carmen Gentile, a freelance journalist who has done a lot of reporting from Afghanistan for USA TODAY, describes what it was like last September when a rocket-propelled grenade fired at U.S. troops in Kunar province caught the side of his head.

Like many of you, we hope, The Two-Way is planning to take some time off over this holiday weekend.

We may put up a post or two, and will certainly jump back in if there's major news. But the general plan is to resume blogging Tuesday morning.

The reason Americans are have a long weekend, of course, is that Monday is Memorial Day. And that's much more than just the unofficial start of summer.

From this year's presidential proclamation:

As they pledged $40 billion to help countries that make reforms during this "Arab Spring" in North Africa and the Middle East, President Obama and the other leaders of the world's most powerful nations also issued a warning to "autocratic regimes in the Arab world" and to Iran.

As The Associated Press puts it:

"They will be shut out of rich-country aid and investment," AP writes, "while new democracies are encouraged to open their economies."

The Charleston Gazette and NPR have together filed a legal motion with the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to open up records related to the merger of Alpha Natural Resources and Massey Energy, the company that operated the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, where 29 mine workers died in a massive explosion in April 2010.