In 2009, the pop star Rihanna told ABC anchor Diane Sawyer she finally broke it off with her violent pop-star boyfriend Chris Brown. For the children, of course. “When I realized that my selfish decision for love could result into some young girl getting killed, I could not be easy with that part. I couldn't be responsible.” She added “I just didn't realize how much of an impact I had on these girls until that happened. It was a big wake-up call for me.” On Sunday night’s ABC broadcast of the Billboard Music Awards, the show began with the spectacle of Rihanna writhing around the stage floor dressed like a dominatrix in white leather. Coming up from the floor were grabby gloved male hands circling between her legs.
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The British soldiers’ deaths bring to 44 the number of Nato troops who have been killed in Afghanistan in May Two British soldiers have been killed in a bomb blast while on patrol in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said. The troops from 42 Commando Royal Marines were killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province on Friday. The deaths take to 368 the number of British military personnel who have died since operations in Afghanistan began in 2001. A British soldier from 1st Battalion the Rifles was killed on Monday by a bomb while on a patrol in another district of the province. A spokesman from the MoD said the two marines had been on patrol in the Loy Mandeh area when they were killed. The spokesman for Task Force Helmand, Major Rolf Kurth, said: “It is my sad duty to inform you of the death of two Royal Marines from 42 Commando Royal Marines in the Loy Mandeh area of the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province. “The two Royal Marines were on patrol, disrupting insurgent activity when they were killed by an explosion caused by an IED. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families and friends in their time of grief.” Their next of kin have been informed. The soldiers’ deaths bring to 44 the number of Nato troops who have been killed this month in Afghanistan. The recent violence is part of a spring offensive by the Taliban, who have stepped up roadside bomb and suicide attacks, as well as assaults on outposts in mountainous and rural areas. Afghanistan Military Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …CNN’s Don Lemon Scraps Objectivity Now That He’s Openly Gay: ‘I Hope to Change Minds’
May 28, 2011 No Comment
When CNN anchor Don Lemon announced he was gay and went on The Joy Behar Show on May 16 , he insisted I don`t think just because I'm gay that it makes, it takes my brain away. Or it makes me not be objective. I`ve been doing this job for a long time. And I've been objective and I think I've been fair.” But in a new interview with the gay newspaper The Washington Blade , Lemon took a different stand: “I hope to change minds.” Conservatives must be converted. Objectivity is naturally going to suffer when there’s a socially liberal agenda to press forward: BLADE: Being someone of high visibility — and you were honored as one of the most influential African Americans in Ebony last year and Essence this year — do you think that when public figures in the black community, like yourself, come out as gay, there’s a possibility to change minds? LEMON: I think if you come out and you’re in a position like mine, or higher, or wherever — even if you’re just in your job, and you feel comfortable to do it — I think you have the opportunity to change minds. … But I think — I have to be honest — I don’t know any high-profile African Americans who are out. And I always say, ‘name five who have come out in the last five years,’ and they look at me and say ‘well, I dunno,’ and I ask, ‘OK, the last 10 years,’ and they say ‘I dunno,’ and then I just say ‘one, and I’ll give you one,’ and I say Wanda Sykes, and beyond that, most people can’t really name any. And I think it’s different being a woman — she’s very brave. It’s a whole different nuance being a woman and an entertainer. I’m not an entertainer, I’m not a woman, I work for a very credible and influential news organization. And there, frankly, aren’t many people like me ‘out’ in general, and when you break it down into subcategories like African American or whatever, then there really aren’t any people. So do I think I can change minds? Absolutely, and that’s why I’m doing it. I hope to change minds. The Blade insisted that sexual orientation “informs” reporting, meaning it makes you a dutiful liberal. The Blade wants Lemon to “tell our stories properly,” which means “tell our stories without any conservatives ruining it with their dissent.” BLADE: Speaking of experience, as a gay newsman, your orientation informs your reporting. Do we need more openly gay journalists to help our community tell our stories properly? LEMON: Let me preface that by saying: I have been doing these interviews a lot, and people have been trying to compare me to other people and pit me against other journalists. That’s not my role here. My role here is to talk about me. I think it would be helpful in any profession if people would come out. If more people could feel comfortable in any profession, from being an attorney, to being an athlete, to being an actor, to being a garbage worker, to being a cleaning lady, to being a journalist. It would be more than helpful — the more people that come out, the better it will be for the Tyler Clementis of the world. That being said, people should feel comfortable doing it whenever they want to do it. I don’t know other people’s journeys or stories, and why they may not be choosing to come out. That’s up to them. And you’ll have to ask those people why they don’t feel comfortable coming out. But do I think there should be more openly gay journalists? I think it would help in any profession, like I said, if more people could feel comfortable coming out. And I don’t think that’s any different in the profession that I’m in. Does that make sense? BLADE: Definitely.
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Poet and songwriter was hailed as ‘Godfather of Rap’ after penning The Revolution Will Not Be Televised The musician and poet Gil Scott-Heron – best known for his pioneering rap The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – has died at the age of 62, having fallen ill after a European trip. Jamie Byng, his UK publisher, announced the news via Twitter: “Just heard the very sad news that my dear friend and one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met, the great Gil Scott-Heron, died today.” Scott-Heron’s spoken word recordings helped shape the emerging hip-hop culture. Generations of rappers cite his work as an influence. He was known as the Godfather of Rap but disapproved of the title, preferring to describe what he did as “bluesology” – a fusion of poetry, soul, blues and jazz, all shot through with a piercing social conscience and strong political messages, tackling issues such as apartheid and nuclear arms. “If there was any individual initiative that I was responsible for it might have been that there was music in certain poems of mine, with complete progression and repeating ‘hooks’, which made them more like songs than just recitations with percussion,” Scott-Heron wrote in the introduction to his 1990 Now and Then collection of poems. He was best known for The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, the critically acclaimed recording from his first album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, and for his collaborations with jazz/funk pianist and flautist Brian Jackson. In The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, first recorded in 1970, he issued a fierce critique of the role of race in the mass media and advertising age. “The revolution will not be right back after a message about a white tornado, white lightning or white people,” he sang. He performed at the No Nukes concerts, held in 1979 at Madison Square Garden. The concerts were organised by a group called Musicians United for Safe Energy and protested against the use of nuclear energy following the meltdown at Three Mile Island. The group included singer-songwriters such as Jackson Browne, Graham Nash and Bonnie Raitt. Scott-Heron’s song We Almost Lost Detroit, written about a previous accident at a nuclear power plant, is sampled on rapper Kanye West’s single The People. Scott-Heron’s 2010 album, I’m New Here, was his first new studio release in 16 years and was hailed by critics. The album’s first song, On Coming From a Broken Home, is an ode to his maternal grandmother, Lillie, who raised him in Jackson, Tennessee, until her death when he was 13. He moved to New York after that. Scott-Heron was HIV positive and battled drug addiction through most of his career. He spent a year and a half in prison for possession. In a 2009 interview he said that his jail term had forced him to confront the reality of his situation. “When you wake up every day and you’re in the joint, not only do you have a problem but you have a problem with admitting you have a problem.” Yet in spite of some “unhappy moments” in the past few years he still felt the need to challenge rights abuses and “the things that you pay for with your taxes”. “If the right of free speech is truly what it’s supposed to be, then anything you say is all right.” Scott-Heron’s friend Doris Nolan said the musician had died at St Luke’s hospital on Friday afternoon. “We’re all sort of shattered,” she told the Associated Press. Gil Scott-Heron Rap United States David Sharrock guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Some clarification on a subject that’s on a lot of our minds, via Good Environment: This incredible satellite video from NOAA shows all of the vortexes throughout April as red dots. Watch the historically unprecedented month unfold: For any concerned and conscientious soul, it’s hard to mentally and emotionally put the pieces together of these connected, but distinct, disasters. There’s the climate change question, of course, which has been answered unsatisfyingly dozens of times already. Short answer: we don’t really know. It’s complicated. Two essential reads on this subject are Andrew Freedman’s take on the Capitol Weather Gang blog , and Joe Romm’s on ClimateProgress , in which he concludes: When discussing extreme weather and climate, tornadoes should not be conflated with the other extreme weather events for which the connection is considerably more straightforward and better documented , including deluges, droughts, and heat waves. Just because the tornado-warming link is more tenuous doesn’t mean that the subject of global warming should be avoided entirely when talking about tornadoes. In other words, it’d be irresponsible to make a straightforward connection between tornadoes and climate change. But it’d also be irresponsible not to discuss the potential for a connection and to work to better understand that potential.
Continue reading …Lawrence O’Donnell was spot on with his prediction that Donald Trump would pretend he was running for president up until the date that NBC had to announce that his show would be continued in their upcoming lineup and he’s spot on here with Sarah Palin’s game pretending that she’s going to actually throw her hat in the ring for 2012 as well. As he noted, the minute she announces she’s not running, her value for speaking engagements or reality shows gets cut in half at least and there’s not a chance in hell she would hold up in a debate with the other candidates. O’Donnell also pointed out that Uncle Rupert over at Fox already cut loose any of their employees who were actually going to run like Gingrich and Santorum and it should be obvious to our beltway media that both Huckabee and Palin were never going to run since they’re both still employed by Fox. Sadly that isn’t going to keep our beltway Villagers from talking about her nonstop as though anyone should take her seriously. I don’t know about the rest of you but I for one will be really happy when Griftie-Half-Term-Governor-Quitter Palin’s way past fifteen minutes in the spotlight that she never deserved that McCain heaped upon our country along with Joe-not-a-plumber are finally over and we never have to hear from either of them again. Sadly even if she doesn’t run, and I agree with O’Donnell that she won’t, I don’t think Fox will allow that to happen any time soon. I’m glad at least to see the likes of O’Donnell call her out for what she is; a grifter that’s interested in lining her own pocket and who’s main concern is how to make Sarah Palin rich.
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A draft agreement between the U.S. and the E.U. about sharing air passenger information was leaked to the Guardian, prompting outrage over what civil liberties groups say is an invasion of privacy and what creates greater potential for data mining of sensitive information. The personal information of millions of European travelers could be stored by
Continue reading …Because Cowardly PA Pols Are So Afraid Of Grover Norquist, Services To Disabled Are At Risk
May 27, 2011 No CommentSo Grover Norquist wrote a letter to one of Pennsylvania’s Republican state senators: When is a fee a tax? When Grover Norquist says so. The Inquirer reported last week that anti-tax guru Norquist was the wizard behind the Oz-like fiscal contortions of the GOP-controlled state legislature, which has refused to consider raising revenue of any kind in the face of a massive debt. It was Norquist and his D.C.-based group, Americans for Tax Reform, who advanced the “no tax” pledge signed by hundreds of elected officials, including Gov. Corbett and 34 members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. The state House – in keeping with Corbett’s “no way, no how” to new taxes – has buried any proposals to place a levy on Marcellus Shale natural gas extraction. But this month Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) bit the bullet and offered up a shale gas “impact fee” with proceeds funneled to affected areas. Over in the governor’s office, Corbett remains unwavering in his campaign-era hard line over tax increases, but in recent months has shown some hint of openness – if not support – of the prospect of an “impact fee. ” Until now. Because Grover – arbiter of all things fiscal throughout the land – said so. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today reports that Norquist sent a letter to Sen. Mary Jo White (R., Venango) whose committee would have to consider the shale fee pronouncing it, in fact, a tax. “Make no mistake, this proposal is a tax increase based on any honest and objective analysis,” Norquist wrote. “As such, a vote in favor of Senate Bill 1100 also represents a violation of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a commitment which Gov. Corbett and 34 members of the legislature have made to their constituents to impose any and all efforts to raise taxes.” I wonder who voted for this guy. Oh, that’s right: NOBODY. He’s just the guy with all the corporate cash who can target you and take you down. So the politicians will do anything, no matter how immoral or unpopular, if Grover tells them to do it. But let’s look at the logical consequences of Grover’s famous strong-arm tactics. Because of Grover Norquist, the man who’s vowed to drown government in a bathtub, the lives of disabled Pennsylvanians are at risk. Via RIck Smith: “If disabled people are going to die without services, we’re going to do it publicly.” Those are the words of disabled activity Cassie Holdworth-James from Philadelphia who spoke to me today during ADAPT’s occupation of our capital. Watch her video. Yesterday 30 disabled citizens rolled into their capitol in Harrisburg, PA asking to meet with their governor Tom Corbett. They were ignored. In fact, they were worse than ignored. The Corbett squad saw fit to put 25 uniformed and undercover security people standing all around these citizens whose only crime was to ask their governor hear their concerns. Check out the pictures and video of them here. A wheelchair-bound spokeswoman said she believed the governor and his Republican allies’ budget is going to cost people like her their lives, and, that she was not going to die in private. She was going to die in public for everyone to see what the budget cuts did . These 30 brave activist have started down a path that we must all follow in order to protect the most vulnerable and needy in our society. Budgets have been called a moral document that shows ones priorities. This budget shows the Republican priorities, but it is not moral .For those of you outside Pennsylvania, we need to learn from these people who already are up against huge odds.
Continue reading …Ed Schultz’s Genuine Contrition on MSNBC Preceded by Churlish Non-Apology on Radio Show
May 27, 2011 No Comment
It's not often Ed Schultz earns my respect, but he did with his apology
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Soldiers’ uniforms turn purple, vegetation magenta … the infrared film used by photographer Richard Mosse forces us to see the conflicts of Congo in different ways
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