In 1979, John Lydon made an unexpected appearance on the goofy Jukebox Jury television panel show. His fellow panelists included Joan Collins and Elaine Paige!
(The expression on his face, above, sums up perfectly, I feel, what most Brits probably think about Noel Edmonds, the host of Jukebox Jury ....)
This sign, by Jason “Jay Shells” Shelowitz for his “Metropolitan Etiquette Authority” project deserves a standing ovation. Bravo!
(via TDW)
Well, this is a turn up for the books. Here is more info, via a press release from the Peter Tatchell Foundation:
Jamaican reggae singer Mista Majah P has released the world’s first pro-gay reggae album. Called Tolerance and featuring rainbow stripes on the cover, the album includes 11 songs, variously in support of same-sex marriage and adoption by gay couples, as well as attacks on homophobic bullying and the US military policy, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The tracks also feature swipes at the anti-gay prejudices of ‘murder music’ reggae singer Beenie Man and of the Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding,
Explaining why he created the album, Mista Majah P said: “I want to counter the myths that all Jamaicans are homophobic and that all reggae music is violent and anti-gay. I’m seeking to challenge ignorance and reach out to gay people.”
“My hope is that this cd, Tolerance, will break down the homophobic stance that certain reggae artists and heads of government have taken towards the LGBTQ community. Because of the hateful songs that some performers have been singing, gay people have been threatened and harmed. Some foolish people act upon what these artists are preaching because they worship these artists like gods. My music is about tolerance. It shows that reggae music can respect gay and lesbian people. Reggae music used to be about love, peace and unity. Now it is too often about bigotry and violence. I want to bring the music back to its progressive roots,” said Mista Majah P
“Since releasing the album, Mista Majah P has received numerous death threats and has been warned to not return to Jamaica (he currently resides in California). He’s undeterred and defiant, stating that ‘murder music’ has given reggae a negative image, which is bad for the music industry and for all reggae artists,” noted Mr Tatchell.
You can hear Mista Majah P’s album Tolerance (and buy it) at cdbaby. For more info visit Mista Majah P’s website. Here’s the album’s opening track:
Mista Majah P - “Love and Tolerance”
Alexey Titarenko has photographed Saint Petersburg since he was 8-years-old. In fact, he says, he has dedicated his whole life to the city. Titarenko sees his photographs as reflecting the history of his city, and Russia, over the past 20 years.
“Through the prism of my native city, I attempt to show events that occurred not only here, but throughout the country - the changes, the catastrophies, and the human tragedies, which have swept this city and the people of this land.”
In the 1990s, Titarenko was working on a series of photographs about totalitarianism, centered on the signs and statues that were crumbling around him as Soviet communism failed. Poverty spread as rationing was introduced.
“Food was rationed. To obtain food in exchange for the ration tickets, people would run from one store to another, with a desperate air, and their eyes full of sorrow. I’d place my camera at the subway entrance and take photographs.
“The activity around the station, which was located in a shopping district, overlapped with the sensations I felt when I listened to certain musical compositions, Shostakovich’s 13th Symphony in particular, the movement entitled “At the Shop”.
“The mass of people flowing around the subway station formed a sort of human tide, giving me a sensation of unrealness, of phantasmagoria, These people were like shadows, one would meet in the Underworld. I decided to express that feeling in my work, to convey my personal expressions. I had to find a visual metaphor that would enable the viewer to share my feelings as acutely as possible. That is what prompted me to try a long exposure process.”
Titarenko’s pictures were haunting, disturbing, like malevolent ghosts crowding the frame. He called the series City of Shadows,
Via My Modern Met. With thanks to Tara McGinley
More hauntings pics, and rest of documentary on Alexey Titarenko, after the jump…
Ladybird Bachmann’s taxpayer-supported counseling practice was descended upon by a flash-mob of over 100 “barbarians” this morning:
A local actor posing as Marcus Bachmann was “baptized” with glitter after dancing with the barbarians to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.”
“Let’s be clear: Marcus Bachmann is the practitioner of an unhealthy, unscientific and dangerous practice,” event organizer Nick Espinosa told Columbus Go Home.
“The American people have a right to know: does the Bachmann family profit from bogus ‘gay reparative therapy’ or not,” he added. “The medical evidence against the practice aside, the Bachmann’s subversive marginalization of the LGBT community is despicable.”
In July, a smaller group threw glitter in the lobby of the clinic after staffers said that Bachmann was not available.
The LGBT activists were inspired by Bachmann’s claim that homosexuals are “barbarians” who “need to be disciplined.”
One of the staffers at the Bachmann business was seen driving away in a purple car. Not that there is anything wrong with purple cars. Just saying…
Via Raw Story
According to Redditor I_am_Bob: “That’s how the four unicorns of the apocalypse arrive.”
Click here to see larger image.
Dangerous Minds pal Chris Campion writes: “I’ve been joking for years that Ikea is part of some kind of fascistic experiment in social conditioning. And it’s probably true!”
According to a new book about Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, his youthful dalliance with rightwing Nazi groups is more extensive than he’s admitted in the past. Sweden’s intelligence agency actually set up a special file on him. From The Guardian:
Swedish author and journalist Elisabeth Asbrink says Kamprad joined the Swedish Nazi party in 1943 when 17, prompting the security police to start a file on him the same year.
Asbrink also claims in her book, And in Wienerwald the Trees Remain, that the founder of the Swedish furniture chain was in contact with Nazi sympathisers until at least 1950 – two years longer than he had previously acknowledged.
She writes that Kamprad’s letters were secretly opened by Swedish security police and their contents, including information about his effort to recruit members, were noted on his file, in which the police wrote “Nazi”.
“They were steamed open, copied and closed again,” Asbrink states.
The intelligence agency is also said to have noted that Kamprad “had some sort of functionary position” in a youth Nazi organisation that sent him newsletters.
Per Heggenes, a spokesman for Kamprad, told the Associated Press that the Ikea founder had never been aware of the file’s existence until now.
—snip—
In 1999, Kamprad admitted his past involvement with Nazism in a book about his life and asked for forgiveness for his “stupidity.”
He also admitted to Swedish media that he had attended meetings of Nazi groups between 1945 and 1948.
Kamprad has attributed his early sympathies to Nazism to his upbringing, saying he was greatly influenced by his grandmother, a native of the current Czech Republic region of Bohemia, who introduced him to Nazi propaganda magazines at an early age.
In a statement, the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants demanded that an inquiry be opened into Kamprad’s past.
“Holocaust survivors are shocked at the reports of the depths of Kamprad’s Nazi involvement, which he previously had dismissed as mere ‘teenage confusion’,” it said.
“It is time for Kamprad to come clean. Swedish intelligence files describe his recruitment of others to the fascist movement and his involvement with it well after World War II. This can hardly be characterised as youthful confusion.”
This is one weird Russian commercial for TCS Bank.
According to a commentator on Copyranter’s website, the woman near the end of the commercial asks if we know the difference between us and them. They live in a spider web while we live in the Internet. So, from now on we will act.
“When the Tomb explodes there’s also a vocal of V.Tsoi from underground soviet era rock band Kino singing the same line ‘from now on we will act’.”
I’m not sure how mannequins and inflatable sex dolls connects to banking, but it sure is fun to look at.
Via Copyranter
Genuine unretouched photograph, copyright G.T. Meaden
Dr. Terence Meaden was surprised when a piece of toast he was about to eat in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, England, earlier this month, seemed to depict the formation of the planet:
He could barely withhold his excitement.
“I was having breakfast when this piece of ciabatta toast got burnt,” he said. “Suddenly I was aware that the pattern of light and darkness across the toast resembled what could have been a visible manifestation of primeval events at the time that planet Earth was forming four and a half billion years ago.”
Apparently Dr. Meaden was so moved by the experience that he buttered and ate the ciabatta toast after photographing it. He should have sold it on eBay! What was he thinking?!
“It is exciting because this piece of toast was absolutely genuine. No trickery. It happened, just like that” said Dr. Meaden
Read more about this amazing discovery over at Atheist Nexus.
