The sheer quantity of tantrums, potshots and straight-up delusional proclamations that have exited Kanye West’s mouth this year have become too numerous to count. Kanye has chosen Twitter as the primary outlet for his word vomit, but a few weeks ago we actually got to hear Kanye in the midst of a meltdown at Saturday Night Live on the night of his performance. The rapper was upset that the stage design had been changed on him without notice and was understandably upset. But in his expletive-filled tirade , he called Taylor Swift a “fake ass,” shouted that he was 50 percent more influential than Pablo Picasso and Paul the Apostle and screamed “Don’t f*ck with me!” numerous times. Lorne Michaels, SNL creator and executive producer, has now broken his silence on the Kanye incident, and his response sounds a lot like the work of a seasoned PR pro. “That happened in his dressing room,” Michaels told E! News. “Kanye’s been on the show a lot of years, and it’s always different. He’s an artist, you know? A great artist.” Actually, it sounds like Kanye crafted his response. Guess he’s got Michaels drinking the Kool-Aid, too (or he’s just covering his own butt). “He just always delivers, and he’s Kanye,” Michaels added. Let’s all try this at work: throw an uncensored, no-holds-barred, spitting hissy fit, then use the excuse of “I’m an artist, and I’m me” and see how that goes over. If you’re as crafty as Kanye, your co-workers will be kissing your ass and praising your creativity in no time. Expect a promotion. View Slideshow: Kanye West Rants on Twitter, Defends Taylor Swift Lyric
On his American Family Association radio program yesterday, Bryan Fischer sought to make the case against Ron Paul on the grounds that Paul ” does not have a biblical view of the law and sexuality ,” meaning that he doesn’t believe that things like fornication and adultery must be illegal, like Fischer does : Whether it is fornication or whether it is adultery, [the Apostle] Paul says there ought… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Right Wing Watch Discovery Date : 16/12/2011 20:15 Number of articles : 2
Well, before we even get into this topic of ethnicity and African presence in the bible, we have to deal with certain regions in the bible. Once we do that, we then have to look at the climates of those regions. After looking at those two things we must then look at the people in the bible. Lastly we will look at Jesus himself. Why does this matter? It matters because there is still a detachment from Christianity that some African Americans feel because most of the art and movies about biblical characters look more Caucasian than African. This is not a new topic for me. Starting as a teenager and then moving into my young adult days I became radical thinker. If you’ve read my blogs you may have noticed that not much has changed. As a Christian I was very intrigued by other religious beliefs. In the late ’80s and early ’90s I learned a lot about my own beliefs by having very spirited yet respectful discussions with young men who were a part of the Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam is thought by some to be a hate group and by others to be an Islamic sect that strongly emphasizes African American self-esteem. Either way the guys I talked to studied the Bible a lot and challenged me to become a better Bible student. One thing that the guys from the Nation of Islam challenged me on is the topic of Christianity being a “White Man’s” religion. This was something that stuck with me. They would show me pictures of a blonde haired, blue eyed Jesus. They pointed out how Cecil B. Demille avoided having any of the biblical characters in his movies showing any hint of African lineage. If that were not enough, they then pounded me with Elisabeth Taylor playing Cleopatra. This forced me to study. I was shocked to find what I found. I came to learn that they were right about some of the distortions of historical fact. They were correct in pointing out that a lot of the biblical imagery that is portrayed in art and movies was and still is at times very Eurocentric. In the first chapter of Genesis God created everything in 6 days and then God rested on Saturday. Things get very sticky for some when we get into the 2 nd chapter. Most Sunday school lessons and Biblical commentaries omit any discussion that involves verses 10 through 14 of the 2 nd chapter. In those verses the writer of Genesis tries to give the readers the location of Eden and it’s surrounding territories. In verses 11 through 13, the writer gives a lot of detail but verse 14 is almost an afterthought. The writer describes the flow of an unnamed river that flows out into four rivers. Where this river is placed is important because it flows out to four critical locations. The main regions were named after the people who first settled those regions according to scripture. The first place mentioned is the land of Havilah. I will get back to Noah and the flood in a moment but if you look up the land of Havilah you will find that it is the name of the land now known as Arabia. Havilah is also the name of one of Noah’s great grandson. The second place mentioned is the land of Cush which the Greeks called Ethiopia. Cush is one of Noah’s grandsons. The land of Cush is on the African continent. The writer went into a lot of detail to talk about what is found in Cush and Havilah. What is interesting is the fact that the Nile flows northward, meaning, from south to north and at one point flowed to all of the regions mentioned by the writer of Genesis. Many scholars and theologians fail to mention or write about the similarities of the Nile and the unnamed river in the 2 nd chapter of Genesis. Hmm, I wonder why? In the 14 th verse Tigris and Euphrates are mentioned as after thoughts with not much detail. If we look at the way the passage says the river flowed into four heads, in order to flow to Tigris, Euphrates, Ethiopia and Arabia this river would have to flow north and not south. This puts Eden somewhere in the continent of Africa. With this being the case it is highly unlikely that Adam and Eve would be, by American standards, white or Caucasian. What is also mentioned in Genesis 3 : 8 are the words “…the cool of the day”(KJV). There is no “cool of the day” without the warm or even hot of the day. Hot and even warm means sun. To my knowledge there were no buildings in Eden, so that meant that Adam and Eve were outside all day. If you are out in the sun all day every day, it is impossible to have a light completion. One of Adam and Eve’s descendants was Noah. I know you have heard about the flood but some taught the falsehood that Noah’s 3 sons represented the three hues of man (Mongoloid, Caucasoid and Negroid). According to false teaching, a White man named Noah had a Black son named Ham, an Asian son named Japheth and a White son named Shem. It’s obvious that if Adam and Eve were dark skinned people from the continent of Africa then their descendants would be dark skinned as well. By American standards, Noah and his family including his 3 sons were all of African descent. In Genesis 10:6 we find that one of Ham’s descendants is Cush. Remember the writer of Genesis called a region Cush that was near Eden. The Greeks named the people of this region Ethiopians which means burnt faced people. The Greeks named where these people lived Ethiopia, because it was the land of the burnt faced people. In other words, these people were dark skinned Negroid or black people. In Genesis 10:7 Cush had a son named Havilah. Havilah, as a reminder, settled in Arabia. Scientists would even be hard pressed to prove that life began in Europe. What some would deem Caucasian people didn’t existed at this point in Genesis if you use Genesis as a historical guide to the beginnings of humanity. Once we get to the 11 th chapter, we reach the story of the tower of Babel. A brief synopsis goes like this; everybody on earth was in one place and decided to build a tower as high as they possibly could. God sees what they are doing and knows that it is possible as long as they were unified. In order to stop this building project God came down and caused everyone to speak different languages. At this point those who spoke Spanish found others who spoke Spanish and migrated to Spain. The same happened with English speaking people and so on and so forth. If you think about it, those who went to colder climates adapted to those climates. Over time, after many descendants, it’s safe to say they probably began to look different from the darker skinned people who remained in the hotter climates. Let’s move to the story of who is believed to be the writer of Genesis, Moses. I’m sure you know or have read about Moses being put in a basket by his Sister to float down a river to a place where Pharaoh’s daughter was bathing in Egypt. Moses was taken in by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in the house of Pharaoh as her child. There is no way Moses could have looked like Charlton Heston and flown under the radar in the house of Pharaoh. Moses had to at least resemble the Egyptians to be treated as one of their own. Keep in mind the Egyptians you see today are not the Egyptians Moses saw. In 353 BC, Egypt fell to the Persians. This fall meant that those peoples intermingled. Prior to that Egyptians looked like Ethiopians. All of them were burnt faced people, according to the Greeks. Keep in mind that this was not a derogatory term by the Greeks but merely the best description they had to describe dark skinned people. With that said the Hebrew people including Moses had to look like the Cushites or Ethiopians or as the Greeks described burnt faced people. Hold on to your hat for this one, according to American standards, Abraham and his descendants, including Moses, at the very least, looked like what Americans would describe as Negroid or black. I could go into all of the times Ethiopia and Egypt are mentioned in the Bible but to some that would seem heavy-handed. Keep in mind I am only expounding on what the Bible clearly lays out about the appearance of certain people in scripture. There is so much biblical history about Africa that it would take much longer to go into all of the facts but I will point out something else that is quite interesting. In Matthew 2:13 an angel of God tells Joseph to take his family to Egypt. The angel gave these instruction to Jesus’ earthly father because Herod was about to kill all of the boys 2 years and younger around Bethlehem during that time. We’ve already noted that Egypt was a region of dark-skinned, African people. Would God have His angel to tell Joseph to hide himself, his wife and Jesus in a region where they could be easily spotted? Can you imagine Joseph, Mary and Jesus being white by American standards trying to move about in the midst of a bunch of dark-skinned people, African people? To put it bluntly Herod would have found Jesus and killed him. Going to Egypt was smart because they could blend in. Wait a minute!!! That means, by American standards, Jesus had to be black. How do I come to this conclusion? First, he had to look Egyptian, second, he was a descendant of Abraham and third, he was in a sun drenched region that is still very close to Africa. One last thing, check out Acts 21:37-39. A Roman commander thought Paul was an Egyptian. Even the Apostle Paul looked like what Americans would call a black maan. According to Ephesians 1:7 “ He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins .” Is this passage saying that the the whole body of Christ is black according to America’s “one-drop rule”? Ok, I have now scared a lot of people so let me say here that in the Bible skin color didn’t matter. Unfortunately in a lot of art and literature skin color mattered too much. Sadly in most American churches Africa is conveniently forgotten about as it relates to biblical history. Christianity is for all people of all colors and nationalities. I just wish that the African presence in scripture was not extracted through ignorance or blatant racism. With that said, the Church should be more like the church was in Antioch. In Acts 13:1 we see that many nationalities were in this church’s congregation. This blog should help dispel the myth that Christianity is a “White Man’s” religion.
Good Friday (from the senses pious, holy of the word “good”),is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of Passover. It is also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday or Easter Friday, though the latter normally refers to the Friday in Easter week. Based on the details of the Canonical gospels, the Crucifixion of Jesus was most probably on a Friday. The estimated year of Good Friday is AD 33, by two different groups, and originally as AD 34 by Isaac Newton via the differences between the Biblical and Julian calendars and the crescent of the moon. A third method, using a completely different astronomical approach based on a lunar Crucifixion darkness and eclipse model (consistent with Apostle Peter’s reference to a “moon of blood” in Acts 2:20) points to Friday, 3 April AD 33. The Celebration of the Passion of the Lord takes place in the afternoon, ideally at three o’clock, but for pastoral reasons a later hour may be chosen. The vestments used are red (more commonly) or black (more traditionally). [ Before 1970, vestments were black except for the Communion part of the rite when violet was used. Before 1955 black was used throughout. If a bishop or abbot celebrates, he wears a plain mitre. Good Friday is the Friday before Easter, which is calculated differently in Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity. Easter falls on the first Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon, the full moon on or after 21 March, taken to be the date of the vernal equinox. The Western calculation uses the Gregorian calendar, while the Eastern calculation uses the Julian calendar, whose 21 March now corresponds to the Gregorian calendar’s 3 April. Related Stories What Is Holy Thursday? Are You Truly Living The Living Light In The World?
The alleged words to Gaga’s second Born This Way single find Mother Monster playing with themes of religion and love. By Jocelyn Vena Lady Gaga Photo: Tom Briglia/ WireImage Recently, “Born This Way” producer Fernando Garibay called Lady Gaga’s next single off her upcoming album of the same name, “Judas,” “great because it’s a serious message [and] it’s a little playful.” Well, judging by the reported lyrics that hit the Internet, the RedOne-produced track is Gaga spilling her heart out with just enough dark humor in it to keep her Little Monsters playing it over and over again. “Dear Judas/ My beloved you belong to me/ No more backstabbing please/ Your blood colored beads/ Jealousy, envy, insanity,” the opening lyrics proclaim, playing on the biblical tale of Judas — the apostle of Jesus who infamously later betrayed him — while possibly referring to a romance gone bad. On the chorus, Gaga allegedly sings, “When he comes to me, I am ready/ I’ll wash his feet with my hair if he needs/ Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain/ Even after three times he betrays me/ I’ll bring him down, a king with no crown/ Judas, look what have you done/ My heart bleeds and you think it’s fun?” The second verse continues to play with the ideas of love and the mythology of Judas. “Second verse, same as the first/ Your bible won’t save you now/ From the glares of the everlasting light, remember those hot nights where you lied and lied on my bed/ Stabbed me in the back,” Gaga supposedly sings. “Let my blood trickle on your rose thorns/ But he came and whispered in my ear and left me torn/ ‘Cause I’m just a holy fool/ Oh baby, he’s so cruel, but I’m still in love with Judas, baby.” Gaga will direct the video for “Judas” with her creative director, Laurieann Gibson, who has made it clear that the clip will certainly be over-the-top. “And ‘Judas’ is exciting for me because we had this amazing artistic approach to ‘Born This Way’ and I’m so excited for how riveting, energetic and electric the record is, something really phenomenal,” Gibson recently told MTV News. “So, visually, the dance, the costuming, the idea of how big we’re trying to go, [it’s] going to be a roller-coaster ride. “What is a traditional music video?” she added. “Even if we go with a traditional music video, the directors that we love are not traditional, so the idea that they get to collaborate with us means they too want to live outside of what people expect a traditional music video to be.” What do you think of the reported lyrics to “Judas”? Share your opinion in the comments. Related Videos MTV News Extended Play: Lady Gaga Creative Director Laurieann Gibson Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ Video Premieres Related Photos Lady Gaga And The Scissor Sisters Perform At Staples Center Related Artists Lady Gaga
Rev. Al Sharpton, last seen leading a small leftist counter-protest of Glenn Beck’s rally in Washington on August 28, complained on his radio show Friday that Rev. Terry Jones shouldn’t have gotten media attention because he’s doing “nothing but hatemongering.” (Al Sharpton, by contrast, is the Apostle of Love.) A lot of people wonder why we in civil rights get attention. Now we can produce our following and our members, tens of thousands of people at marches, all kind of stuff and we project an issue that helps people and they say we get too much media coverage. This guy in Florida is doing nothing but hatemongering, has fifty members on a good Sunday and the whole world is standing still. And y’all wonder why I say the media is imbalanced and unfair. Turning to Smokey Fontaine of the black website NewsOne.com, Sharpton complained that even Barack Obama was forced to address Jones at his press conference: But as everyone knows he has had to deal with this question of the Islamic Center that is being proposed in lower Manhattan and the threat by this Minister in Florida who I think has gotten unparalleled media attention globally. I mean now, I lead a national organization, have a national syndicated show, TV and radio and they ask why do I get press attention? This man has fifty followers and only because he’s going to burn some Bibles — I mean some Korans, which is the Bible in Islam — on hate, he gets world attention and the media doesn’t see a contradiction there. Many Americans would agree that Rev. Terry Jones didn’t deserve national attention for his stunt — and many of the same Americans would wish the same obscurity on the antics of the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Criticism is building for Craiglists' adult advertisement section on the website. The site is under investigation in South Carolina for promoting prostitution and the creator Craig Newmark was confronted by a CNN reporter about the allegations. Now in the Washington Post, an advert paid by by Fair Fund (charity which helps trafficked women) showed an open letter written by two women who were sold for sex on the website. It sounds like the letter highlighted the issues of sex trafficking of women and children on the website. Craiglist chief executive Jim Buckmaster stated they're working with police to monitor, identify for arrests of exploitation adverts on the website. “One of the women, who identified herself as MC, said she was forced into prostitution at the age of 11 by a man who trafficked “many girls my age”. “All day, me and other girls sat with our laptops, pasting pictures and answering ads on Craigslist, he made $1,500 a night selling my body, dragging me to Los Angeles, Houston, Little Rock – and on one trip to Las Vegas in the trunk of a car,” the ad said. “Craig we write this letter so you will know from our personal experiences how Craigslist makes horrific acts like this so easy to carry out … and the men who arrange them very rich.” The second woman, identified as AK, said that last year she met a man twice her age who pretended to be her boyfriend. “He put my picture on Craigslist, and I was sold for sex by the hour at truck stops and cheap motels, 10 hours with 10 different men every night. This became my life,” the ad said. “Men answered the Craigslist advertisements and paid to rape me. The $30,000 he pocketed each month was facilitated by Craigslist 300 times.” AK said she knew of more than 20 girls who were trafficked on the site: “-Guardian added by: Mcellie
Shooting her in the head rather than stoning her to death is an innovation. Nonetheless, this is yet another Sharia Alert from Afghanistan: “Taliban execute pregnant woman,” from AFP, August 9 (thanks to Kenneth): The Taliban publicly flogged and then executed a pregnant Afghan widow by emptying three shots into her head for alleged adultery, police say. Bibi Sanubar, 35, was kept in captivity for three days before she was shot dead in a public trial on Sunday by a local Taliban commander in the Qadis district of the rural western province Badghis. The Taliban accused Sanubar of having an “illicit affair” that left her pregnant. She was first punished with 200 lashes in public before being shot, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Mohammad Sayeedi told AFP on Monday. “She was shot in the head in public while she was still pregnant,” Sayeedi said…. The radical Islamists staged public stonings or lashings of those found to have committed adultery or sex outside marriage. The then-Taliban government would also chop off the hands and feet of those accused of theft and robbery. …in accord with Qur'an 5:38. “Narrated Jabir bin Abdullah Al-Ansari: A man from the tribe of Bani Aslam came to Allah's Apostle and Informed him that he had committed illegal sexual intercourse and bore witness four times against himself. Allah's Apostle ordered him to be stoned to death as he was a married Person.” — Bukhari 8.82.805 “Narrated Abu Huraira: A man came to Allah's Apostle while he was in the mosque, and he called him, saying, 'O Allah's Apostle! I have committed illegal sexual intercourse.' The Prophet turned his face to the other side, but that man repeated his statement four times, and after he bore witness against himself four times, the Prophet called him, saying, 'Are you mad?' The man said, 'No.' The Prophet said, 'Are you married?' The man said, 'Yes.' Then the Prophet said, 'Take him away and stone him to death.' Jabir bin 'Abdullah said: I was among the ones who participated in stoning him and we stoned him at the Musalla. When the stones troubled him, he fled, but we over took him at Al-Harra and stoned him to death.” — Bukhari 8.82.806 added by: crystalman
‘In every category, you’re going to miss some wonderful people,’ Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences executive director says. By Larry Carroll Farrah Fawcett Photo: Keystone/ Getty Images Two days after fans of Farrah Fawcett began complaining that the late “Charlie’s Angels” star had been overlooked by the Oscars , an Academy Awards representative is speaking for the first time about the omission, and revealing that it was done on purpose. Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences executive director Bruce Davis, speaking on behalf of the committee who assembles Oscar’s yearly “In Memoriam” segment, told the Associated Press that it was a difficult decision to omit Fawcett and that they expected some controversy. “[The committee] was kind of figuring that probably the Farrah Fawcett and Gene Barry omissions would be the ones we’d get the most comments on,” Davis said, also naming the veteran actor whose 1963-1966 series “Burke’s Law” kept him predominantly remembered as a TV star. “[We] did get one letter about Miss Fawcett.” Farrah Fawcett, A Life In Photos During Sunday’s highly rated Oscar telecast, a video tribute was shown featuring such memorable Hollywood names as Brittany Murphy, David Carradine and Patrick Swayze. But Fawcett — who had memorable turns in such films as “The Apostle,” “The Cannonball Run” and “Logan’s Run,” and who got Oscar buzz herself for a performance in the 1986 rape drama “Extremities” — was nowhere to be found. Citing the “remarkable television work” of Fawcett and Barry, the Academy ultimately decided to omit the two actors intentionally. Those playing along at home, however, might point to the fact that Michael Jackson was featured prominently during the “In Memoriam” clip, but will hardly be remembered first and foremost as a movie star. Diagnosed with cancer in 2006, Fawcett died in June 209. “In every category, you’re going to miss some wonderful people,” Davis said. “There’s nothing you can say to people, particularly to family members, within a day or two of the show that helps at all. … They tend to be surprised and hurt, and we understand that and we’re sorry for it.” Fawcett’s longtime partner, actor Ryan O’Neal, said that he was confused by the omission — a sentiment echoed by several other famous folks who knew and loved Fawcett. In past years, similar controversies have erupted concerning omitted names like Brad Renfro and Gene Siskel. Relive all the best moments from the 2010 Academy Awards with photos, interviews, blogs, post-show analysis and more, right here at MTV News. Related Photos Farrah Fawcett, A Life In Photos
