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Gangstarr's Guru Undergoes Surgery Following Heart Attack, In Stable Condition

xodus phoenix — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:12:58 GMT

Gangstarr's Guru Undergoes Surgery Following Heart Attack, In Stable Condition

Published 03/02/2010, by Allen Starbury

As we reported Monday (March 1), legendary rapper Guru had suffered a heart attack over the weekend, leaving him in a coma.

Here's an update...

The Brooklyn rapper underwent surgery Monday afternoon, His Gangstarr partner-in-crime, DJ Premier, revealed that the surgery was a success, and Guru is currently in stable condition.

"Good news," Premier wrote on his Twitter page (@DJPremierBlog). "Guru surgery was successful, keep sending him love."

The DJ also added, hours later, that Guru remains in a coma.

"Guru still in a med induced coma, he's breathing with machine help," he wrote.

After the news broke Sunday evening. Guru's business partner and collaborator, Solar, issued a statement asking for fans' prayers.

"Guru is struggling with a serious health issue. We, the whole 7 Grand Records family, appreciate all your love and well wishes. We continue to hold out hope that Guru will make a full recovery from this," he said. "We ask that his privacy on this matter will be respected. Again, thank you for all your support through this trying time."

Stay tuned for further updates...

Excerpt: 'The Denzel Principle'

xodus phoenix — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:15:55 GMT

Excerpt: 'The Denzel Principle'

By Jimi Izrael

St. Martin's Press

Web Resources

'The Denzel Principle': The Mixtape

In post civil rights America, seems like everyone wanted black men to be Martin Luther King Jr. Not the womanizing, chain-smoking party boy he was in real life, but the non-violent, well-spoken vessel for change. The messianic Martin is a legacy far too luminous to contend with. He is worshipped by whites and blacks alike like the second coming of Jesus himself. Blacks and whites alike quote his speeches and cast him as a superhero, never acknowledging the inherent unfairness of casting a dead man as a viable role model, and his "dream" as an attainable goal, only to fortify the folk tale by commercializing it. Young black men for years (and still some do today) grew up with pictures of Jesus and Martin the living room on the mantel. The message being Dad is obviously too human to be a role model, son. So strive to live up to the impossible. Again, White America cosigns a wounded leader. Later, they would anoint two others with the mantel of leadership

The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were once affective agents for change, but today are toothless, as they exist on the brink of self-parody. Media rain-makers, yes, sometimes they are on-message, but more often than not they subsist mainly by shaking loot from the white guilt tree at prescribed intervals. Jesse can't fight the power without some kind of bad rhetorical rap. And ever since Al's talk show antics with show host Wally George and fellow niggerati Roy Innis, cameras follows them both everywhere, eager catch their antics.

What the ideologues and the athletes have in common is the way they were created, nurtured and summarily undone by the white mainstream. They were media-created apparitions set in place to serve as examples or object lessons: stay in line, or we will destroy you too. The only viable leadership for black America — necessarily cosigned by white America — is dead leadership. Celebrity athletes can be made and unmade, and this is the kind of paradigmatic black man the mainstream prefers: one who can be built and destroyed in short order, his message and appeal easily controlled.

The paradoxically effeminate man rose up in the disco era as the new paradigm of manhood. The women's movement rejected the tough guy war hero/cowboy of the 50s and 60s in favor of men that embraced their feminine side ... aggressively. The Stonewall Riots and the gay rights movement it started also made androgyny commonplace, acceptable and in some circles, preferred. White men began to wear bouffant hairdos and in the black community the conk-the smoothed-bank straightening that became fashionable for men in the early days of the rhythm and blues era-came back with flamboyant suits, hip-huggers and platform shoes. John Shaft's black and proud Afro was rejected in favor of Young Blood Priest's flowing locks and manicured beard. So grown men sat in beauty shops everywhere with their hair in curlers getting their beards shaped up. Billy Dee Williams was the vanguard of the new black "it" man: super cool, not too dark, not too light, with a No-Lye Relaxer in his hair, he was just tough enough to open a can of Colt 45, but too soft to be taken seriously. And it wasn't: later, this image would become the sight-joke to many skits. He was probably a pretty down-*** dude, but Williams appeared on film to be the kind of guy who got sexed up in the discoteque but beat up in the street for switching like a girl. He was the chocolate John Travolta, minus the machismo. While the bald Telly Savalis, lollipop in hand (WTF?) asked a generation women "who loves ya, baby?" Billie Dee got over with an entire generation of black women who refused to date any man who could not be mistaken for a woman.

This continued on into the 80s, when men that looked like women got truckloads of pussy. Women wanted slight, effeminate men with long dripping curls and perms. Androgyny became a coveted quality in a man. I guess this explains how Jesse "Side Action" Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton, with their Jherri curls and permed-out hair could ever be taken seriously in the black community. Brothers like El Debarge, Michael Jackson, Prince and Rick James were everything everyman should be back in the day. All those men, coincidently, looked and acted like women in some way. Theyu were slightly build with a coy, feminine affect. Even Full Force, a talented group of weightlifting singer/producers who wore a lot of lip gloss, mascara eyeliner and baby-hair looked like a gang of jailhouse gorilla queers. Take a look back at rappers like Ice T, Dr. Dre and GrandMaster Flash and the Furious Five and it's clear these brothers weren't shopping in the men's department. But that's what ladies were looking for. No surprise, then, that Michael Jackson would be the megastar of this era: a racially ambiguous, sexually ambiguous singing and dancing black man sounds like an marketing executive's wet dream. I even fell into that bag in junior high-school.

When I got to school, I borrowed eye-liner and (brown) lipstick from my girlfriend, trying to be sexy, and it worked. I got a few hand-jobs between classes and even got invited to group-sex parties after school. Thank God Run DMC, came along. Before them, a lot of hip-hoppers — including myself — were sizing themselves up for lace gloves and elf boots. T'was the only way you could get any pussy. Small wonder that today's hip-hop is soaked in testosterone and prone, half-naked women. It's a natural attempt to balance to Black women's need to emasculate Black men. Because they don't really know what masculinity looks like, they've been writing their own playbook. Hip-hop culture came along, unapologetically macho, and alienated the mainstream until corporate America refined the narrative down to a message — sex, drugs and violence — that could be easily consumed and disposed of.

In the era of Eddie Murphy rose a black man who could be taken seriously. Undeniably, he owned the 80s, but with his leather pants, donkey-toothed smile and laugh to match, Murphy was that goofy black guy who loves to make you laugh and you love to call your friend, but not the one you'd invite to dinner. Denzel Washington stepped up and made his mark in the eighties. The Dizzle picked up where Sidney Poitier left off, adding sexuality to the mix in a passive-aggressive, non-threatening way. Murphy was funny, but too horny and pseudo-political to rise as a role model. Michael Jackson and Prince were too close being women. Denzel was hard on the outside, but soft in the middle: he chose roles with depth. With an easy smile and a slight over-bite, Denzel distinguished himself from the cast of TV's St. Elsewhere as the prototype of the American dream: an assimilated black man — a doctor! — devoid of anger or resentment, fully invested in the system and free of any radical politics or overt sexuality that might get him arrested.

Denzel chose roles early in his career that gave him wide appeal. In a career spent playing iconic characters (Malcolm X, Cry Freedom) flawed, talented men with the best of intentions (Mo' Better Blues, The Hurricane), streetwise detective (The Mighty Quinn, Devil in a Blue Dress) lovesick dreamers (Missisipi Masala) and ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances (Ricochet, Inside Man), he never passes up a chance to play a hero. Onscreen, he's always delivering someone from great peril (Man On Fire), or experiencing a spiritual transformation that uplifts his soul... just before he gets killed (Glory). An exceptional actor, the Best Actor Oscar alluded him for many years. After years of being nominated, Dizzle finally won for playing a character familiar and comfortable to the mainstream audience: Alonzo Harris. It's not hard to surmise why he didn't get an Academy Award until he played a villain. Up to this point, I think we assumed he was cast to type. In the mind of the movie-going public, Denzel is a hero. Sure, he says in interviews that he doesn't like being seen as a role model or the face of the race. But his humility and resistant ascent is part of what has lifted him there. Every rumor of infidelity is met with unequivocal denial as he underlines his undying love for his wife for life, Pauletta. He has managed to dodge scandal and become a success on his own terms.

He says in interviews that he doesn't choose bigger-than-life characters, that he is just attracted to good scripts. Maybe it's coincidence that he gets such damn good scripts. It bodes well for The Dizzle that in a world when black male stars have to don a dress to find movie block-buster success (Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes come to mind), Denzel has never been punked by a role: he's never played a chump. Or a villain. So playing the corrupt cop in Training Day, seemed like his most dramatic stretch to date. Small wonder he won an Oscar. He's the only Black actor with two Oscars on his dresser (he won Supporting Actor honors for his turn as escaped slavebuck-turned-patriot in the civil war drama Glory) and there is a lot of Oscar talk about his turn as Frank Lucas, Harlem drug-dealer and anti-hero, in American Gangster. Honestly, if The Dizzle did a Nationwide Insurance commercial ("Are YOU in good hands... Baby?") there would be Oscar talk. But a nomination and win wouldn't surprise me.

What's most interesting about his movies is that all that prevents Denzel's films into steeping into the realm of blaxploitation is so often just his dignity coupled with the latent politics. Think about it: Carbon Copy not withstanding (we all make mistakes), without the Dizzle, Virtuosity, Ricochet and Training Day would have been impossibly campy. Mainstream audiences prefer to see the badass nigger narrative as opposed to a layered portrayal that requires them to question their presumptions about black men. But Denzel brings his smile, his forthrightness and that innate Dizzle quality that makes the ladies swoon and the men cheer him on. He's black, in the best possible way.

The other piece of Denzel's appeal — in the black community, for sure — is this tacit loyalty to black women. The film where he came closest to this line Missisipi Masala was a sleeper art-house film that flew underneath the radar of most of his fans. This film that traced the interracial cultural mash-up of a newly divorced black carpet cleaner and the daughter of an Indian hotel owner wasn't well received. Spike Lee's He Got Game, where Denzel is paired in a love scene with Milla Jovovich, also under-performed at the box office. Like that turd of a film The Mighty Quinn, most of his fans have not seen it. White women respect his racial solidarity, and black women have come to expect it. This is the brand of true blue blackness they want in their men.

Even while rejecting it wholesale, he maintains the veneer of being the whole package, and black women claim him, and demand that their men rise to that standard, much to their dismay. This would all be bad enough, but as it turns out Denzel Washington is the perfect specimen of man. Seriously.

According to a Newsweek article, beauty is a biological trait attributable to the way your nose, eyes and mouth lays on your face. Something deep in our sub-conscious is inexplicably drawn in. That's why some people are found so profoundly attractive. As it happens, Denzel's face is faultless and symmetrical, and therefore almost universally beautiful. It's not bad enough that black women want black men to be perfect, but they want us to aspire to be like someone who is genetically predisposed to exude perfection. How can you compete with the Dizzle? Shit, what happened to the 80s, when it was easy just to get a Jheri curl to get some pussy? Now, you have to be The Dizzle to get any holla. I know, I know, man: you probably think you do ok, pussy-wise. You're wrong.

Black Writers: Where Is The Love, Communication?

xodus phoenix — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:15:24 GMT

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123645447

Enlarge iStockphoto.com

iStockphoto.com

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February 12, 2010

Valentine's Day is one of the most anticipated and dreaded days of the year, depending on whom you ask.

For some, it's a day to look forward to — with a special card, a romantic dinner. For others, it's just another reminder of what is missing in their lives.

But the day might be especially poignant for African Americans, who have some of the lowest marriage rates in the U.S. According to a 2006-08 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, 30 percent of African Americans report being married, compared with 47 percent of Latinos and 53 percent of whites.

Additionally, a 2009 Yale study indicates that highly educated black women are twice as likely to have never been married by the age of 45 as white women with similar education, and that, while black men are more likely to marry outside of their race, black women are more likely to marry outside of their education.

NPR host Michel Martin recently spoke with three African-American writers, all of whom have written books about black love and loss — regular Tell Me More contributor and freelance writer Jimi Izrael, author of the The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men; Hill Harper, actor on the CBS drama CSI: New York and author of the book The Conversation; and journalist Helena Andrews, author of the soon-to-be published Bitch Is The New Black.

Harper says his motivation for writing the book stemmed from something he noticed among his friends: a mere lack of communication between black men and black women.

"The sisters were saying, 'There are no good brothers out there,' " recalls Harper, who is single. "And the brothers were saying, 'I can't find that one sister that I want to commit to.' "

Izrael, who is twice divorced, agrees. He says the communication troubles in his first marriage are an example of the disconnect.

"As it turns out, not only were we not on the same page, we weren't in the same library," he says of his ex-wife. "We weren't reading the same book. We weren't in the same league."

Izrael: No such thing as 'Denzel'

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

Actor Denzel Washington, 55, has been married to wife Pauletta for nearly 30 years. For decades, he has been celebrated as a heartthrob and sex symbol.

In his new book, Izrael plays off a decades-long pop culture-fueled belief, held especially by many black women, that heartthrob Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington (or perhaps his clone) would be the perfect better half to any marriage.

"The Denzel principle is the belief that the perfect man — in the form of Denzel Washington — actually exists and [that] some black women actually think they can snag them," Izrael explains.

He aims to debunk that theory and suggests that many black women have impossible standards.

"I haven't necessarily found that [to be true] in my life," Andrews says.

Denzel or no Denzel, the 29-year-old journalist and soon-to-be published author says everyone has flaws, and what black women — and anyone, for that matter — want is simple.

"Everyone wants someone who is perfect for them," says Andrews, who is also single. "And you want to work on some of those flaws yourself just so you can live with yourself."

Has The Black Woman Become The Black-Male Basher?

Izrael says communication with black women might be ideal but is seldom easy.

"Whenever I get in these conversations, I get shouted down by as many black women as are in the room," he says.

Andrews says Izrael's perceptions are unrealistic.

http://nildoctrine.com/nil/

xodus phoenix — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:27:04 GMT

http://nildoctrine.com/nil/

This is a blog/video channel the Drew put me on to so....

I check this on the reg and subscribe.

Y'all should give this a look.

Nil Doctrine is the new home of Jay Smooth, who used to run a Hip-Hop videoblog named Ill Doctrine, until he was forced to close that site after Hip-Hop was irreparably destroyed by the 25th Anniversary remake of “We Are The World.”

Nil Doctrine will be a space where Jay Smooth ponders the formless malaise of a post Hip-Hop existence, while secretly plotting Pet Sematary-esque schemes to bring it back from the dead.

Opinion: If Unilever Ran the Music Business

xodus phoenix — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 05:51:35 GMT

http://melnyk-revolutions.blogspot.com/2010/02/if-unilever-ran-music-business.html

If Unilever Ran the Music Business

So what would happen if the music industry had been run like other businesses? What if music was considered to be a FMCG product? If you consider heritage, recorded music was established on similar principles - a low priced consumable that was desired - and ultimately required - by the masses. Labels produced singles at an affordable price for kids to buy with their pocket money every week. Shelf life was limited to a few weeks before the item was out of fashion and replaced.

FMCGs have been popular for as long as our capitalist system has existed - many of the same brands exist today. So what do they know that the music industry has forgotten?

What if Unilever ran EMI - what advice would they give?

Invest in R&D

Unilever products are consistent - but also made progressively better (well, so we're led to believe!). Products are incubated and developed until they are ready for market. Today artists are expected to be shipped immediately from their bedroom studios to the top ten - failure to do so means you will be dropped, and with it goes the investment in your potential. There are rarely surprises in the launch of FMCG products. I'm not suggesting labels manufacture their artists - but a little less A&R and a bit more R&D to nurture talent (a la Kate Bush's career) can go a long way.

Innovate

Do we need several variations on a theme of James Blunt/James Morrison/Jack Johnson, released by various labels? Why do you think Unilever dosen't try to make ketchup? If Heinz does it the best, why bother? The duplication strategy worked in the 60s but popular music has moved on. Redefining is critical, especially as technology has forced the industry to completely reinvent itself. If you can't innovate, you won't be in the game much longer.

Find Your Market

Unilever knows that young men will wear Lynx - not because it is the most effective anti-perspirant, but because there is a social status attached to it. Young people need music in a similar fashion. And young people have disposable income. So why does the record industry insist on alienating them rather than seeing them as their greatest consumer - and instead make them brand loyal for life?

Believe in What You Do

People who work for Unilever firmly get behind the missions of their brand family. They believe that deodorant fulfils a social need for people to feel confident. And that soup stock holds a family together by making meal times an event. It might sound like a pile of marketing bullshit, but to employees at Unilever it works. Do people in the recorded music industry believe they helping to produce brilliant music - and in doing so, entertain and make the world a better place through what they release?

Establish a Trusted Family

Unilever has realised that it is actually a family of great household brands. They are creating a connection between their products and helping the consumer to identify them under the parent label of Unilever. They do this to capitalise on trust - if I trust that Lipton tea is the best, in time I will show favour towards Dove soap. Major labels have no glue to hold their catalogue together. Niche labels (and mid-weight labels such as Def Jam) have always used this to help connect their community of listeners. What could be said, if anything, of the EMI family?

Unilever don't know anything about making music. But then rarely is this talent exhibited by major labels these days either. In the end this issue isn't about the music - its about an ever changing industry that appears to be unable to adapt. Which is a shame as there is plenty of inspiration from great, thriving businesses all around us.

Haiti Quake:

xodus phoenix — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:45:09 GMT

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/haiti-quake-first-seismic-aftershocks-then-economic-ones/19323095/

The first aftershock since Haiti's deadly earthquake last week hit Wednesday morning at 6:03 local time, and seismologists expect aftershocks to continue for around a year. The 6.1 aftershock was less severe than last week's 7.0 quake, which officials estimate killed at least 72,000 in the capital of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Earthquakes are rare in Haiti, but natural disasters are not. Haiti was hit by four hurricanes in 2008, and deforestation has made mudslides a hazard. But Haitian officials had not acted on scientists' advice to install a network of earthquake monitoring stations, and a plan to train the nation's officials in earthquake science at the University of Puerto Rico fell through.

"There are more aftershocks than would be the norm if there was a similar earthquake in California," says Jim Devine, a senior advisor to the director of the U.S. Geological Survey. Aftershocks, he adds, are very destructive psychologically to both survivors and rescuers. Indeed, CNN reports that hospital patients near the Port-au-Prince airport began praying as the ground shook this Wednesday. At least one injury was reported, though there does not appear to be any serious damage.

Seismic and Economic Aftershocks

The aftershock also underscores the multitude of challenges facing Haiti. Once the search-and-rescue efforts end, the rebuilding efforts will need to begin. Early estimates of the International Monetary Fund show that the disaster could be much larger than the 2008 hurricanes, which were estimated to have cost about $900 million.

The U.S. wants to stabilize Haiti to rebuild, which is expected to cost billions of dollars, much of it supplied by U.S. taxpayers. Both the U.S. and Haiti are discouraging shellshocked earthquake victims from fleeing to America.

The international community is also assisting. The World Bank last week said it would provide a $100 million aid package, on top of $1.2 billion in debt relief that the World Bank and the IMF provided Haiti in June. The World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank have delivered almost $900 million in additional debt relief to Haiti over the past six months. And the IMF says that further debt relief for Haiti is under consideration.

A Marshall Plan for Haiti

It won't be easy to figure out how to spend the money. Few foreign companies were investing in Haiti before the earthquake. Some U.S. companies quit Haiti in the 1990s after activists complained about sweatshops there, but with an illiterate workforce, a devastated infrastructure, and a reputation for corruption, Haiti seems to hold few attractions for outside investors.

"We need to go into Haiti, we need to work with the government to see exactly how-from their point of view and from our point of view-things can be done," IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on CNN. Haiti, he says, needs something similar to the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II. "To do that, we need to take some time."

As our year comes to a close, a few final words for 2009....................

xodus phoenix — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:47:06 GMT

All my dear friends........................

I know that this has been a difficult year for us all; many of you have suffered hardship, loss, and sacrifice. I have been the shoulder that many of "ya'll" have leaned upon. Brothers, Sisters, and all in the middle, I felt your pain, and have consoled You in Your time of need. Some of You have lost your income, lost your loved ones in passing, and some of you have lost your way, just in time..........................

A new year is approaching..................only days away..........promising what? HOPE! PROSPERITY! And a better year than the one that has passed. Please be stronger than me, and take a deep breath, and let us together, make this a year, 2010, the year that we keep our dreams, goals, and aspirations close to heart! Write down your dreams and aspirations for 2010 down on paper, put them near your alarm clock, and date them in this fashion.........

today

1 week

2 weeks

4 weeks

one month

two months

six months

one year

and, five years

As we awake every morning, we will look at these goals in which you have set for yourself, and re-inforce them with repition! Regaurdless of what they may be, by reading them every morning, You will be reminded as to where YOU want YOU to be upon the dates You have written down. It will act as a reminder as to where You are NOT, and to impower You to go out, and get those goals! So get off yr asses, and write that shit down, and lets succeed in 2010 together!

Just Plain Notes V1.184:Stop asking yourself if you can do something better than those who are successful.

xodus phoenix — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:41:59 GMT

Just Plain Quotes:

"The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live." -Flora Whittemore

"She had wit, she had grace, she had beauty; But above all, she had truth." -Leo Tolstoy writing Anna Karenina

"It isn't kind to cultivate a friendship just so one will have an audience." -Lawana Blackwell

"Stop asking yourself if you can do something better than those who are successful. Instead ask yourself if you really have something to say." -Brian Austin Whitney

My Take:

I've been suffering from a wicked case of writers block ever since the JPF awards process and our subsequent UK/Ireland tour ended in October. I usually try to use this space to say something upbeat or at least motivational in the context of our music community and the music industry which surrounds it. I've gone around and around trying to do what I think I am supposed to do and it finally hit me. I needed to stop trying to compete with all my previously successful "My Takes" and just write about something real. When I thought about it, I knew exactly what to write about today.

The world is full of people who are happy to teach you how the music business works (or at least used to work). They lay out their theories and give you roadmaps that they claim will lead you to success. Then there are others who will show you how to make better recordings so you sound as good as what is on the radio. Still more folks will examine the craft of songwriting in great detail and teach you to write in a format and style and how to use techniques that are proven to work for hit writers which we'd all love to surpass. And while all these things can be 100% correct in context, they are missing the single most important factor that all artists of all types must face and successfully overcome.

Stop asking yourself if you can do something better than those who are successful. Instead ask yourself if you really have something to say. That's the thing that very few people ever coach you on. Sure, you may be able to write the heck out of a story, but do you have a story worth telling? You may be able to sing in perfect pitch but are you getting across an emotion that is real and meaningful? You may be able to record an album that equals the best engineering feats in the world, but is there something underneath that beautiful wrapping paper that actually says something worth hearing?

I realized I was so worried about writing something that would 'succeed' in terms of this column and which would stand up to all my previous quotes and quips, that I had forgotten to ask myself if I was saying something of value in the first place. So my sage advice for today is to stop and ask yourself if you really have something to say that is honest and meaningful and which will connect to some of us out here who will recognize those little truths that make up our own lives. Tell a story, big or small, that helps the listener realize that they aren't alone in this big old world and that when they listen to your music, they really feel like we're all in this together. Accomplish that and you're a success as an "artist" no matter how the rest of it works out.

Learn, Succeed and Thrive, We're All In This Together! Just Plain Folks.

Beanie Drops New Diss 'How I Could Kill Jigga Man'

xodus phoenix — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:50:22 GMT

Philadelphia DJ Cosmic Kev debuted two brand new tracks by rapper Beanie Sigel tonight (November 21st) during his radio show on Power 99 FM. While the first track only contains one line about Jay-Z, the second track is sure to raise eye brows. On the second track, Sigel issued another harsh freestyle aimed at Jay-Z, this time dropping a verse over Cypress Hill’s hit “How I Could Just Kill a Man” renaming the song “How I Could Kill Jigga Man.” Sigel’s opening lines make use of Jay-Z’s signature battle song “Takeover,” which was originally a diss record to Jay-Z’s old nemesis, Nas and Mobb Deep. “You aint gonna say nothing boy?” Sigel says at the end of the song taunting Jay-Z. “Damn, I thought you was the boy, boy. You aint nothing but a boy, boy boy. I aint gonna stop boy.”

For the full story or to comment log on: http://www.allhiphop.com/stories/news/archive/2009/11/21/22039125.aspx

Why real men DO buy women flowers

xodus phoenix — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:58:13 GMT

Men should buy women flowers. They are colorful. They smell nice. And without them, flora would never get laid. To many, purchasing flowers is cliché or corny or tacky. And to others, it's an outdated ritual in our modern era of gender equality.

I'd like to address the men reading this (all five of you): buy the broads flowers. Trust me. And now to all the women reading, who outnumber us dudes 100 to 1: allow the dorks in your life to buy you flowers. Trust me.

Flowers are not a romantic punchline, nor are they a symbol of patriarchal dominance. Buying daisies or lilies or chrysanthemums for the woman you love is one of those things a man just regularly does. This is a lesson my old man taught me.

Maybe it hearkens back to a time when men were gorillas in gray suits and women were trophies soaking their hands in bowls of Palmolive liquid soap -- a time when flowers were employed to mend broken promises, to make up for forgotten dinner dates, or to apologize for lipstick-stained shirt collars.

Those days are in the past, of course. Flowers do not resolve conflicts, nor do they anesthetize. Now that I think about it, they never did. But my dad had a different reasoning for surprise roses. He was always buying my mom flowers, chocolates, and trinkets. Her absentminded whispers while leafing through a catalog would be heard and little surprise gifts would appear at the doorstep.

Most of what I know about women I learned from how my dad treated my mother. I'd be a better man if I followed his example more fastidiously, but I haven't, and that's partially why I've spent so many years driving relationships off of cliffs. But some lessons stick out.

Theirs was a love affair that lasted four decades. He would sing to her in public, and she'd blush and beg for him to stop. They never seemed to tire of each others' gentle words. And 45 minutes after he died, on my mother's birthday, FedEx walked into the ICU with her present -- a fancy brand-name bag that escapes me, but that I'm pretty sure is sold in piles on the streets of New York.

While my mother was in a street fight with doctors (and a dependably cruel universe) for every dwindling minute of my dad's life, he had been sitting up in his hospital bed, buying her something he knew she'd love. This was days before the awful plunge.

The Frisky: Why you should not cohabitate before marriage

My dad knew that buying a gift for that person who'll laugh at your terrible jokes, kiss you with lips and breath, and hold your hand as a needle searches for your vein is just a way of saying "I'm thinking about you when you're not here."

And that's what flowers are, just a simple, easy way of letting someone know they were in your thoughts. That's it. It's not complicated. Flowers announce: out of sight, still in my mind and heart. It is unerringly human to want to know that someone is thinking about you when you are not around.

I think women, especially, worry that all men have short attention spans and for the most part -- Oh hey! When did I buy this can of beans? -- it's not an unfounded anxiety. I know I've forgotten things like birthdays (spring?), anniversaries (Tuesday?) and eye color (mostly white?).

But if a man is in love, he carries that love under his skin like a nerve. Such is the magnificence of man, however, that we're solidly confidant that your every third thought is about us. Right? Right? Oh, sarcasm! Women are the more conscientious gender; men are the more eat-with-our-fingers gender. I think that is fair.

The Frisky: Where all the good guys are

I recently bought flowers for a lady I'm a' courting. We were set to meet at the soda jerk for a malt before skipping over for a double-feature monster movie at the picture palace. I had been thinking of her all day, anticipating the date. She's out of my league and that's how it should be. It's never too late to relearn passed-down life lessons. I was nervous, and couldn't shake her freaking beautiful face out from behind my eyelids.

So I did what my dad would have done. What a man does. I stormed into a florist's shop, picked out a bunch of suitably fragrant flowers, paid for them, and marched right back outside. A man with a bouquet of flowers is a real man.

I carried them the way you'd carry a rifle at a firing range with the barrel pointed down. I received multiple dude nods from men I walked past. They were acknowledging that I was on my way to woo a woman, which is our primary programming. I even received an approving nod from a pair of lesbians who also knew I was doing my duty.

I mean, it was just a date. And the vegetation cost me all of ten bucks. The plants would be dead within a week anyway. But at least she would know that for that day, her name barely escaped my lips.

Pardon for black boxer jailed for interracial dating waits on Obama

xodus phoenix — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:53:10 GMT

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House refused to indicate Monday whether President Obama will issue a posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson, the African-American boxing champion convicted in 1913 for dating a white woman.

Jack Johnson's 1910 defeat of Jim Jeffries, the "Great White Hope," sparked riots.

The House of Representatives on July 29 unanimously passed a resolution urging Obama to grant a pardon; the Senate passed a similar measure by a voice vote on June 24.

The push for a rare posthumous pardon has been spearheaded for years by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Rep. Peter King, R-New York, two of Congress' top boxing enthusiasts.

"It is our hope that you will be eager to agree to right this wrong and erase an act of racism that sent an American citizen to prison," they wrote Friday in a letter to Obama.

Johnson, the first African-American to win the heavyweight title, was convicted for violating the Mann Act, which outlawed the transportation of women across state lines for "immoral" purposes.

He served 10 months in prison on charges "brought forward clearly to keep him away from the boxing ring, where he continued to defeat his white opponents," McCain and King said.

Almost a century after Johnson's conviction, his compelling saga has continued to capture the interest of sports writers, civil rights activists and historians. It provides, they agree, a unique window into American politics and culture at a time when Jim Crow-style racism reigned supreme.

Johnson was first arrested for breaking the Mann Act in 1912, four years after winning the heavyweight crown. That case fell apart, but investigators soon after charged him with a similar offense involving a woman he had dated years earlier.

Justice Department lawyers argued it was a "crime against nature" for him to have a sexual relationship with a white woman.

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, later to become the first commissioner of Major League Baseball, set Johnson's bail at $30,000, the equivalent of more than $660,000 today. When a bail bondsman showed up, Landis jailed him, too, according to an account that filmmaker Ken Burns relays in his documentary "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson."

An all-white jury convicted Johnson in less than two hours.

"Mr. Johnson was perhaps persecuted as an individual, but ... it was his misfortune to be the foremost example of the evil in permitting the intermarriage of whites and blacks," one of the prosecutors later said.

Johnson's real crime, in the eyes of many, was committed on July 4, 1910, when he successfully defended his boxing title against Jim Jeffries, a white boxer who came to be called the "Great White Hope" because many white fans saw him as the best chance to wrest back a boxing title from the African-American champ.

Johnson beat Jeffries, who had come out of retirement for the fight, before a stunned, almost entirely white crowd in Reno, Nevada.

Race riots followed. More than 20 people were killed and hundreds were injured. Most victims were black.

So when they "couldn't beat him in the ring, the white power establishment decided to beat him in the courts," Burns said in his documentary.

Johnson fled to Europe in 1913 while free on appeal. But after years of fights overseas, including the eventual loss of his title in Havana, Cuba, in 1915, Johnson came home. He turned himself over to U.S. authorities at the Mexican border in 1920 and served 10 months in prison.

He died in a car wreck in 1946.

"Back then, if you were black and you were told that you did something wrong, you really had no recourse," Linda Haywood, Johnson's great-niece, recently told CNN.

"You just accepted what was done because black people were basically powerless and voiceless. Jack may have been a rich boxer, but he couldn't fight the system."

McCain and King introduced resolutions calling for a presidential pardon in 2005 and last year. McCain, who says he made a mistake by once voting against a federal holiday for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., sees the pardon as a way to right an old wrong.

"The Jack Johnson case is an ignominious stain on our nation's history," he said on the Senate floor in the spring.

"Rectifying this injustice is long overdue. [The resolution recognizes] the unjustness of what transpired, and sheds light on the achievements of an athlete who was forced into the shadows of bigotry and prejudice."

A nice chain letter about happiness

Griffin Avid — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:25:31 GMT

I hate chain letters but this one was nice.
No, don't call me about this XO.

A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud man,
who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with his hair fashionably combed and
shaved perfectly, even though he is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today.

His wife of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in
the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled sweetly when told his room was ready.

As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator, I provided a visual
description of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been
hung on his window. I love it,' he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having
just been presented with a new puppy..

Mr. Jones, you haven't seen the room; just wait.' 'That doesn't have
anything to do with it,' he replied. Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time.. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is
arranged ... it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it.

'It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed
recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be
thankful for the ones that do.

Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories
I've stored away.. Just for this time in my life. Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you've put
in. So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories!

Thank you for your part in filling my Memory Bank. I am still depositing.
'Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.

VIBE magazine has shut down

Oscar Wilde — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:05:50 GMT

VIBE magazine has shut down. The magazine was launched in 1993 by music industry legend Quincy Jones and it served as as widely revered urban magazine. "On behalf the VIBE CONTENT staff (the best in this business), it is with great sadness, and with heads held high, that we leave the building today," said Danyel Smith, former Chief Content Officer of Vibe Media Group and Editor in Chief of Vibe. "We were assigning and editing a Michael Jackson tribute issue when we got the news," Smith said in a statement released to AllHipHop.com. "It’s a tragic week in overall, but as the doors of VIBE Media Group close, on the eve of the magazine’s sixteenth anniversary, it’s a sad day for music, for hip hop in particular, and for the millions of readers and users who have loved and who continue to love the VIBE brand. We thank you, we have served you with joy, pride and excellence, and we will miss you." In the 90's, VIBE experienced meteoric success as a business and an outlet for urban journalism. It has ailed under the ownership of private equity firm Wicks Group of Companies, AOL reported.

Goodbye to PC hard drives?

P.R.O. — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:12:59 GMT

Due to the relatively short life span of hard drives these days it would be cool to not have to worry about hardware issues. Hold up for a second though. I can't say that I'm really feeling complete access to all my personal info neither. What do ya'll think?

Google's 'online' GDrive will make the PC redundant

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:20 AM on 26th January 2009

The proposed new Google GDrive could kill off the personal computer, experts have warned.

The Google Drive service, which will reportedly launch later this year, allows users to store information online on Google's own servers rather than on the hard drive.

The process has been dubbed 'cloud computing' and is being seen as 'the most anticipated Google product so far'.

The GDrive would mean users would no longer have to worry about their hard drives crashing as their data could be accessed from any internet connection, a move that could effectively make PCs redundant.
Google GDrive

The Google Drive would mean users would no longer have to worry about their hard drives crashing as their data could be accessed from any machine

However, there are concerns over the security of storing such a high degree of personal data online rather than a PC with experts warning that Google will gain unprecedented control over users' information.

Peter Brown, of the Free Software Foundation, a charity which helps defend computer users liberties told the Times: 'It's a little bit like saying, "we're in a dictatorship, the trains are running on time".

'But does it matter to you that someone can see everything on your computer? Does it matter that Google can be subpoenaed at any time to hand over all your data to the American government?'

The GDrive would mark a departure from the Microsoft Windows operating system and will enable users to treat their computer as software rather than hardware.

Dave Armstrong of Google Enterprise, said: 'There's a clear direction...away from people thinking "This is my PC, this is my hard drive" to "This is how I interact with information, this is how I interact with the web"'.

A Google spokesman refused to confirm if the GDrive was to be introduced soon.

AllHipHop.com has announced the launch of a new 24 hour Internet radio station

xodus phoenix — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:24:52 GMT

AllHipHop.com has announced the launch of a new 24 hour Internet radio station, AllHipHop Radio: Explicit Content. The new digital radio station, which launched in partnership with Goom Radio today (July 23), will provide AllHipHop.com’s millions of viewers a true HD radio experience over the Internet, with live on-air personalities, in-studio interviews and performances, unedited, uncensored music, interviews, unique radio shows and much more. AllHipHop’s Explicit Content, which is currently in beta mode on AllHipHop.com, will also allow users to create and customize their own radio stations and control the rotation of songs.

To listen to AllHipHop Radio: Explicit Content log on: http://allhiphop.com/allhiphopradio/

Adobe audition3

El Pelon — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:18:06 GMT

Hi my name is andres, i just bought adobe audition 3 for my computer, but i have used the 30 day free trial before on my lap top. i am having technical trouble i cannot dub. i record on track one then stop record go to track two start dub and it still records sound from track one. i dont undertand why. i cannot get a clean dub. has anyone els had this issue? need help bad! if you live in calgary ill smoke a phaty for you help pleas contact me at andresmartinezz@hotmail.com.

p.s

my friend say it could be my sound card. i'd like a second opinion

Yamaha Joins Forces with The Today Show To 'Lend a Hand' To Worthy Arts School

xodus phoenix — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:37:34 GMT

Yamaha Joins Forces with The Today Show To 'Lend a Hand' To Worthy Arts School


	World's Largest Music Instrument Manufacturer Donates Nearly $21,000 in Musical Instruments and Gear to Charlotte's Community School of the Arts

2009 marked the eighth consecutive year for the popular goodwill road trip.

BUENA PARK, Calif.—Yamaha Corporation of America and Yamaha Cares recently donated musical instruments valued at nearly $21,000 as part of Al Roker's Annual Lend a Hand road trip on NBC's . The company donated eight YPG635 digital pianos with benches, an assortment of violas and violins and two POCKETRAK portable digital recorders to the Community School of the Arts in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Yamaha Keyboard Division District Manager Chris Gilbert and Band & Orchestral Division District Manager Travis Goodwin joined Al Roker in an exciting segment where the school was surprised by a Penske truck full of donated products from Yamaha and other donors. Gilbert and Goodwin joined other volunteers in distributing musical instruments and other goods to thrilled faculty and students.

CSA recieved 8 Yamaha YPG635 digital pianos.

Given the state of the economy, many Americans are in need of a little help this year. That's why Today's Al Roker once again packed up the Penske truck to hit the road for the annual trip. In its eighth consecutive year, Lend a Hand continues its mission of helping small charities across the country that work toward improving conditions in their communities. Roker's 2009 goodwill road trip also included stops in Los Angeles, CA, Portland, OR, Galveston, TX and Little Rock, AR.

Eight student violins and two student violas were donated to Charlotte's Community School for the Arts

"With so many communities in need of arts education support and funding, Yamaha was thrilled to take part in this wonderful project," said Carol Baker, Vice President of Human Resources, Yamaha Corporation of America. "Yamaha has a rich heritage of community outreach and this project underscores our commitment to supporting music education at all levels."

Baker also oversees Yamaha Cares, an employee-based initiative dedicated to charitable works to promote education, arts, health and human services and community development in the areas where its employees live and work, as well as to spread the gift of music to people throughout the U.S.

Two POCKETRAK portable digital recorders rounded out Yamaha's donation

The Community School of the Arts' (CSA) mission is to provide artistic experiences that enrich lives, cultivate imagination and foster the development of healthy communities. They offer private instruction in 20 different instruments, band, orchestra, visual arts (including pottery), ArtsReach (community outreach program), Early Arts (Pre-School Art Lab, Music Together and Music Around), Music Therapy, family workshops and summer camps. Henry Bridges founded CSA in 1969 with 20 students. Bridges' vision was to provide music instruction to students who couldn't afford lessons. Today, CSA serves over 1700 students, in over 30 locations with a diverse faculty of 35 who provide the highest quality instruction. The Community School of the Arts' outreach programs are taught free of charge to 600 monthly students and their families.

The Today Show is the top-rated morning show, averaging 5,419,000 daily viewers.

For more information about Yamaha products, write Yamaha Corporation of America, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622-6600; call (714) 522-9011; email infostation@yamaha.com; or visit www.yamaha.com.

Your WARRIOR INSIGHTS® – Negativity

xodus phoenix — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:09:00 GMT

Negative emotions, such as jealousy, anger and passion are not necessarily negative in and of themselves. They are pure energy, which can be manipulated in a positive way. It can open locked doors of communication, thereby clearing the air and the path toward honesty, whether with ourselves or those around us. It’s part of what drives warriors to make positive changes.

"Warriors allow themselves to experience negativity and grow from it, however, those who remain mired in it get eaten up from the inside.

Suppose you are frustrated by your performance on a particular technique. Getting down on yourself may be viewed as negative, but it can lead to a positive state of mind by motivating you to practice and visualize your trouble spots.

Some believe that avoiding "negative energy" makes them a better person, but what it really does is make them a happy person, with their head stuck firmly in the sand. This philosophy, if followed by everyone, would just lead to a world full of happy and irresponsible people, with no martyrs, heroes or warriors to face it and make this world a better place for all to live in.

Negativity can work as a tool to help warriors overcome their shortcomings, in training, in battle and in life.

The true warrior understands how to harness the power of negativity and mold it to their advantage. "

Phil Messina

This guy is a martial arts master who kicks some ***.

http://www.modernwarrior.com/

And they got videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/BoFungDo

Just Plain Notes cool newsletter..

xodus phoenix — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:27:39 GMT

Just Plain Notes: Volume 1.178, March 31, 2009 Written by Brian Austin Whitney Visit the Website: www.jpfolks.com Mail CD's @ 5327 Kit Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46237 Copyright 2009 Just Plain Folks Productions.

Just Plain Folks Member Population: 52,120

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Would you like to join the JPF message boards? It's quick and easy. Just click this link and choose a password and user name and you'll be posting in no time! We'd love to hear from and about you.

To register: (It's a separate registration from JPF membership):

http://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?action=agree

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Just Plain Quotes:

"A hypocrite is a person who--but who isn't?" -Don Marquis

"But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time." -Mitch Albom

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator." -Sir Francis Bacon

"Evil is always present. Each generation is slow to see it while it's happening and often forgets it after it passes. When that happens we call it nostalgia. Think about it." -Brian Austin Whitney

My Take:

One of my favorite artists and fellow Indiana Hoosier John Mellancamp recently wrote an editorial lamenting the downfall of a corrupt music business and reminiscing about the good old days. It garnered a lot of attention, not from the obviousness of his main points (I mean really, we didn't know that commercial music was in decline 10 years ago?), but because he blamed it on US President Ronald Reagan. If you missed the diatribe, here it is:

John Mellancamp: On My Mind: The State of the Music Business http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-mellencamp/on-my-mind-the-state-of-t_b_177836.html

If you're like me, you probably were agreeing with much of what he was saying at first. But then, after I finished, I realized this was a case of 2 things happening, both of which are misleading and misguided. First, he has a massive political ax to grind. Second, he's got a bad case of nostalgia.

What he conveniently seems to have forgotten is that the music industry has always been a haven for corruption and cheating and evil. It's a place where starry eyed people with talent dare to venture and where plenty of big bad wolves are waiting to feast on them. Long before Reagan, his hated political opposite, there was payola, and corruption, and planned obsolescence of music delivery devices (records and tapes leading to CD's and beyond). There was rampant nepotism and favoritism and graft and every other kind of business and social evil. Artists and writers were ripped off in every way imaginable. If it wasn't their record label, it was their sleazy managers or publishers or friends or band mates or spouses or significant others. It's always been a bit of a minefield and a bit of a cesspool. But John has apparently forgotten all that evil which helped nearly (if not every) famous artist emerge and sustain their long careers.

Radio station payola didn't start after Reagan. It started probably with the first radio station in some form or another and became well known in the 50's and beyond. Even if it wasn't direct cash payments to DJ's, it was boxes of free CD's, free Concert Tickets, free trips to press events for station staff members, free big screen televisions, free "hookers and blow" (as one of my industry friends always likes to say), and so on. Each generation has had that corruption and in all the small stations that John says broke his and many other careers, it was going on in one form or another.

Evil is always present. Each generation is slow to see it while it's happening and often forgets it after it passes. When that happens we call it nostalgia. Think about it. John is nostalgic for a time that helped make him a superstar. Of course he isn't going to acknowledge all the back room deals and ethical violations happening in the industry that helped make that happen. Instead he's blaming the boogie man of his own political nightmares that oversaw an era of a diminishing of the old "rock star" ways and lifestyles. Does he really think there weren't just as many "Pop Tarts" manufactured by insiders in his era and before as now? Teen Beat magazine would beg to differ.

More great music is being made today at a higher level than ever before in history. People now have access to express themselves musically like they never did before. Instead of their being 200 massive Rock and Pop stars, there's 2,000,000 independent and current label musicians that are reaching the same and even larger numbers of fans than ever before. Instead of all that money and power being focused on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members and their corporate owners, it's dissipated among the masses. I'd think, given his left leaning politics, he'd be really happy with all of that. And even if he isn't, he better get used to it.

Mellancamp is an amazing talent. (I can already hear him saying "who the hell does this little toad think HE is?") But that doesn't make him right. In this case it seems to make him nostalgic. But the evil is still out there just like it was in his good old days. Fortunately with millions of new artists and writers flooding the market with more and more music, it will become very difficult for the corporations he despises to force feed a handful of artists down our throats as they always have before.

We're going through a large cycle right now where, for at least the short term, artists will have to count on a smaller number of patrons to help them make a "professional" living. I've written about this for years calling it my 5000 fan theory. We're back to the days of making music on our front porch for neighbors, only now we're using the Internet. And if you're a music purist, you have to ask yourself; is that a bad thing? Wouldn't it be a much better world for 10 or 100 times as many artists to make a human scale living than were ever "Rock Stars?" Wouldn't it be wonderful to put an end to that outdated ego driven world anyway?

When commercial music bottoms out and the big mega corporations no longer see it as a profit center or even a useful "loss leader" as many have for years, won't that actually be a good thing for the health of the music we love? Don't you think that more modern day Bob Dylan's or Woody Guthrie's are likely to rise up as populist phenomenon's via free play on YouTube or MySpace or Facebook than could ever thrive via a commercially strangled profit "at all costs" driven music industry of any type?

I grew up listening to John Mellancamp here in small town Indiana. I used to "park" with my girlfriend listening to "Jack and Diane" and "Little Pink Houses." Boy... those were the good old days!

Learn, Succeed, Thrive. We're All In This Together!

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Just Plain Notes Table of Contents:

01. 2009 JPF Community Partner Sponsors

02. "Write Your Songs In A Genre" by Robin Frederick 03. Brian's Big Idea Update and Call to Arms!

04. JPF Music Awards Moves To Round 3 Judging: New Judges Needed 05. 2008/2009 JPF Music Awards Show Date Set

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2009 Just Plain Folks Community Partner Sponsors!

Disc Makers: Nobody makes CD or DVD manufacturing easier and no one delivers faster. When you need CD or DVD replication, short-run duplication, complete printing and packaging options, sturdy duplicators and printers, or affordable blank CDs and DVDs look no further. They've got it. They also now handle licensed merchandise for you (t-shirts, hats etc.). Mention you're a Just Plain Folks Member and get a $50 Discount off your initial CD Orders! Sign up for a free catalog and booklet on Mastering your Music at www.discmakers.com/jpfolks

TAXI: The world's leading independent A&R company, has been successfully helping Songwriters, Artists and Composers get their music heard and signed by top Publishers, Major & Indie Labels, and Film & TV music supervisors since 1992. TAXI, is your best bet! See them at www.TAXI.com.

CDBaby: The best place to sell your CD's or music files on line. They also have the best on-line hosting service called Hostbaby. Nobody else even comes close. See them at www.CDBaby.com and www.Hostbaby.com..

OurStage: is a purely democratic, game free online competition where the fans decide who's best in emerging music and film and rewards the winners with real opportunities through their partnerships with major music festivals and touring acts. You can post songs immediately and get in the running for monthly cash prizes of $5000 (5 of the last 8 winners have been fellow JPF members!). And it's all free! Visit www.ourstage.com/go/jpf and sign up.

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WRITE YOUR SONGS IN A GENRE

by Robin Frederick, author of "Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting"

Brian's Note: Before you get to this article, I wanted to congratulate Robin and Michael Laskow of TAXI for putting out this book. It's gotten the most positive feedback of any book that has been released since we started JPF. I have a copy here but because of our current Music Awards deadlines, I have only been able to browse it so far, so I can't personally comment on it yet, but there's oodles of people already doing it and I think you should check out this promotional page that TAXI set up for Robin's book.

I think you'll be blown away by it all:

Robin Frederick's "Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting"

http://www.taxi.com/newsletter/songwriting-tip.html

Most of the time, when you start a song, you're thinking solely about what you want to say, and that's the best way to approach your songwriting. However, by keeping a little corner of your brain focused on the genre you want to write in, you can add strength and marketability to your song, ultimately helping your song find its audience.

Like ice cream, songs come in different flavors: strawberry, chocolate, peach, and rocky road. And, like ice cream flavors, there are very real differences between the four mainstream music genres -- Country, Pop, Rock, and R&B/Soul -- and each one appeals to a different audience.

So, why is this important to you as a songwriter?

When listeners tune into a radio station that plays Country music, they expect to hear a range of songs that share a certain sound. Jazz stations, for example, play music that sounds different from Country music stations. Listeners who tune in to a Country station are expecting to hear the kinds of chords, melodies, and lyrics that are characteristic of today's Country genre. If they get a Jazz song instead, they won't be happy! Radio stations need to keep listeners satisfied if they want them to stick around. If listeners are expecting to hear songs with a Country sound, that's what the station needs to play, if they're expecting Jazz, then Jazz is what the radio station gives them.

If you write a song that straddles Country and Jazz -- let's say you throw a few cool jazz chords and an abstract lyric into your Country song -- you may have trouble finding a publisher for it or an artist who will record it. Why? Because publishers, record labels and artists all know that radio airplay is essential if they want to reach their audience and sell records. Radio wants songs that are a good fit for the genre they play, so that's what publishers and record labels look for.

CHOOSE A GENRE AND GET FAMILIAR WITH IT

Spend some time listening to current hits in the genre you want to write in. If you like Country music, listen to the top 20 current Country hits and study the chords, melodies, and lyrics to see what they have in common. What is it that Country audiences are excited about right now? Whether you want to write Rock, Pop, R&B/Soul or Hip-Hop, check out the current radio airplay charts to see which songs are getting the most play. These are the ones that listeners are eating up!

In radio, genres are referred to as "formats." You can find up-to-date Radio Airplay Charts for a range of formats at http://www.radioandrecords.com. Click on "Charts" and look for the radio format you're interested in. (If you don't know which chart you're interested in, check out a few. This is essential research for songwriters!)

Make a list of the songs and artists in the top 15 or 20, then go over to iTunes or any legal download site and listen to the excerpts. Pay a couple of bucks to download the ones you like best. Don't pick the duds you don't like! Choose a couple songs that make you say, "I wish I'd written that!"

Once you've a couple of songs you like, study them. You can begin to uncover the general characteristics of your genre by asking the following questions as you listen:

LYRICS:

What kinds of situations or themes do you find?

What's the style of the language: direct, conversational, slangy, poetic?

What sorts of characters turn up in these songs, including the singer?

How does the lyric draw the listener in?

Does the lyric use physical details? Emotional details?

MELODY:

How does the melody build anticipation and release it?

How much and what kind of contrast is used between verse and chorus?

Does the melody emphasize predictable or unpredictable beats?

On what beat do the phrases start?

How much repetition is being used? When do the melody lines vary?

CHORDS:

Do you hear basic three-note chords primarily?

What other kinds of chords are being played?

How frequently are the chords changing?

How do the chords relate to the melody?

No one wants to sound exactly like everyone else but you DO want your song to incorporate enough of a genre's characteristic sound so that it will fit comfortably into a radio format. By keeping a genre in mind as you write, you'll be making your song listener-friendly and radio-ready!

Based on "Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting" available at Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0982004001

About Robin Frederick:

Robin has written more than 500 songs for television, records, theater, and audio products. She is a former Director of A&R for Rhino Records, Executive Producer of 60 albums, and the author of "Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting." Robin currently oversees the A&R Team for TAXI, the world's leading independent A&R company.

Who watches the Watchmen

Griffin Avid — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:24:44 GMT

Was worried that this one might not live up to expectations.

Excellent film.

Long, but zipped by in a flash. Heard the directors cut will be 3.5 hours.

Looking forward to that.

XO, compared to the book?

Wyclef's Hope For Haiti

xodus phoenix — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:46:43 GMT

As a child, Wyclef Jean immigrated to the U.S. and grew up to live the American dream as a gifted and famous musician. As Scott Pelley reports, Jean is now using his talents and wealth to help his native Haiti.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4713518n

OBAMMMMMMMMMAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jane Alias — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 08:31:11 GMT

Obama's victory caps struggles of previous generations

CNN) -- At a modest stucco home in Montgomery, Alabama, an unlikely presidential victory celebration is taking place this morning.

Barack Obama's election victory represents a triumph for civil rights activists before him.

Peggy Wallace Kennedy, the daughter of the late George Wallace, the Alabama governor who once vowed to maintain segregation forever, is rejoicing.

Kennedy, 58, voted for Sen. Barack Obama. She says she was "mesmerized" when she first heard him speak at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Her admiration for Obama deepened when she learned he opposed the Iraq war. She even slapped an Obama bumper sticker on her car, even though someone told her that the prospect of an African-American president would have her father "rolling over in his grave."

"I think Obama is going to be one of the best presidents we'll have," she says. "He's going to bring the freshness we need. We've just been bogged down so long. We need this shot in the arm."

President-elect Obama's victory Tuesday may be a racially transformative event. But for people like Kennedy, who came through the fires of the civil rights movement, it also represents something else -- personal triumph. Obama's win validates the risks they took years ago. iReport.com: What does Obama's victory mean to you?

Some, like Kennedy and an entire generation of white Southerners, risked social rejection for renouncing the bigotry of their parents. Others risked their lives while leading civil rights campaigns in the Deep South. Some almost lost their belief in the inherent goodness of America because they saw so many innocent people die. iReport.com: 'This is the most wonderful night of my life'

They are people like Bob Moses, who led African-American voter registration drives in Mississippi during the early 1960s. He was a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi when three civil rights workers were murdered by a group of men that included a Mississippi deputy sheriff. He also helped lead an ill-fated attempt to sit African-American delegates from Mississippi at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, which was segregated.

Moses grew so disenchanted by his experiences that he moved to Tanzania. He returned to the United States in 1976 and founded the Algebra Project, a national program that encourages African-American students to attend college by first teaching them mathematical literacy.

"We seem to be evolving..., " Moses says. "The country is trying to reach for the best part of itself."

The nation goes full circle

Obama's victory, though, wasn't just made possible by civil rights activists, some say. It was also made possible by a generation of African-American leaders who excelled in the political, sports and entertainment arenas: former Secretary of State Colin Powell, golfer Tiger Woods and pop culture figures like actor Bill Cosby and Dennis Haysbert, who portrays a black president in the television series "24."

They didn't change laws, but they did shift perceptions, some say.

"We live in a society where white voters are prepared and accustomed to seeing African-Americans in prominent positions and leadership," says Brett Gadsden, an assistant professor of African-American studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Rev. James Zwerg almost lost his life trying to usher in this new society.

Zwerg, who is white, participated in the Freedom Rides in the early 1960s, and he says Obama's victory means the country has gone "full-circle."

Zwerg was almost beaten to death by a white mob in 1961 when he dared to sit next to African-Americans on a Greyhound bus. He was part of a group of white and black college students, dubbed "Freedom Riders," who tried to desegregate interstate travel.

The photos of a bloodied Zwerg, standing next to a battered John Lewis -- who would go on to become a Georgia congressman --rallied activists across the nation. Zwerg became a civil rights hero, but his father disowned him for protesting alongside African-Americans.

Yet Zwerg became so tormented by the attention he received -- he thought he got too much credit because he was white -- that he once contemplated suicide.

Zwerg, 68, says the bond he experienced with other Freedom Riders caused the most inspiring moments of his life. Obama's campaign reminded him of that era.

"Obama's message reflects much of the same idealism that [the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.] spoke of when he talked about coming together to improve our country," Zwerg says. "He's really rekindled the same enthusiasm for change among young people, which is terrific."

Zwerg says he never thought back then that an African-American would integrate the Oval Office -- nor did any Freedom Rider.

"I don't think it really crossed our mind."

Clayborne Carson, a former activist and now a Stanford University historian, remembers getting arrested in 1965 just because he demanded the right to vote. He says it was "inconceivable" then that the United States would elect an African-American president.

"I remember how it was still a controversial act for President [Lyndon] Johnson to even select a black person for his Cabinet," Carson says.

Carson says many people forget that many African-Americans in the South were not allowed to vote until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a law passed only after the bloody civil rights campaign in Selma, Alabama, mobilized public opinion.

"America was a democracy in name only," Carson says. "It's only since the mid-1960s that we've had this experiment in a multicultural and multiracial democracy."

Carson says he sees the future of this multicultural experiment not only in Obama's victory, but also in his Stanford classroom. More than half of his students are not native white Americans but Asians, Latinos and African-Americans, he says.

He also sees a troubling future for the United States in his travels to counties like India and China. Those countries have highly educated youths who "have the sense that the future belongs to them."

"I don't know if we have that confidence," he says. "This symbolic change in leadership won't mean anything unless a President Obama can mobilize the country for the long, hard struggle to keep up with the world."

Kennedy, George Wallace's daughter, is thinking more about the past these days. She wonders how her father would have regarded Obama's victory.

She says Wallace had his own racially transformative moment. He renounced bigotry later in his life, publicly apologized for the pain he caused and was elected to his last term as governor of Alabama with strong African-American support.

Still, she doesn't know what he would say about her vote for Obama.

"I think he would be all right with it," she says. "Daddy had come full circle. I really think that he would be happy about it or at least interested in it. I'm not sure he would have voted for Obama."

Obama's victory, however, doesn't mean the politics of exclusion that her father once practiced is history, she says.

"There's racism, and there always will be racism," she says. "But this country has come a long way."

When asked how she was going to celebrate Obama's win, Kennedy gave a mischievous chuckle. She says she's going to continue to do what she and her husband, H. Mark Kennedy, a retired Alabama Supreme Court justice, have been doing the last few days since an Obama victory seemed certain:

"We've been sitting here and watching Fox News go utterly berserk."

Who is watching the debate this Thursday?

Jane Alias — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:14:06 GMT

The first debate was a romp. Obama killed him.

He's a foolish old man.

This will be worst. Anybody see SNL?

HEEEEEEElariousssss!

Sarah Palin's 9 Most Disturbing Beliefs

Jane Alias — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:04:11 GMT

http://www.alternet.org/story/97907/sarah_palin%27s_9_most_disturbing_beliefs/?page=entire

Sarah Palin's 9 Most Disturbing Beliefs

By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet. Posted September 8, 2008.

It's time to shift the discussion about Palin to what really matters: her far-right views on the issues.

Let's forget for a moment that Sarah Palin likes to kill moose, has lots of children and was once voted the second-prettiest lady in Alaska; that's all part of the gusher of sensationalist, but not particularly substantive, news that has dominated coverage of the Alaska governor's addition to the Republican ticket.

Before the next news cycle brings the shocking information that Palin was actually impregnated by Bigfoot, we need to shift the discussion to what really matters about her in the context of the White House: her dangerous views.

AlterNet has compiled a list of Palin's most shocking beliefs, ranging from her positions on the economy to her views on reproductive rights. This list has nothing to do with her personal life, her looks or her gender. It's the stuff that voters need to know: what Sarah Palin really believes.

1. Despite problems at home, Sarah Palin does not believe in giving teenagers information about sex.

The McCain campaign is spinning Bristol Palin's pregnancy as a neat, shiny example of the unbreakable bonds of family. But while Bristol's actions and choices should not be attacked, teen pregnancy is no cause for celebration, either. To state the very obvious, it is not a good thing when teenagers have unprotected sex. And U.S. teens appear to have unprotected sex a lot: The United States has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world, and 1 in 4 American teen girls has an STI.

Like John McCain, Palin's approach to the problems of teen pregnancy and STI transmission is abstinence-only education. In a 2006 questionnaire by the conservative group Eagle Forum, Palin stated: "Explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support." Presumably the programs that do find Palin's support are ones that focus on abstinence and only mention contraceptives to talk about their supposed shortcomings.

But someone already tried that. For eight years the Bush administration has thrown its heft behind Title V, a federal program that provides states with funding for abstinence-based sex education. In 2007 an expansive study proved abstinence-until-marriage education does not delay teen sexual activity.

If Palin is elected, she will continue to throw money at a policy that does little besides ensure that a larger number of sexually active teens lack information about how to avoid pregnancy and STIs.

2. Sarah Palin believes the U.S. Army is on a mission from God.

In June, Palin gave a speech at the Wasilla Assembly of God, her former church, in which she exhorted ministry students to pray for American soldiers in Iraq. "Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she told them. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

Palin talked about her son, Track, an infantryman in the U.S. Army:

When he turned 18 right before he enlisted, he had to get his first tattoo. And I'm like -- I don't think that's real cool, son. Until he showed me what it was and I thought, oh he did something right, 'cause on his calf, he has a big ol' Jesus fish!

Holy war, holy warriors.

3. Sarah Palin believes in punishing rape victims.

Palin thinks that rape victims should be forced to bear the child of their rapist. She believes this so strongly that she would oppose abortion even if her own daughter were raped.

The Huffington Post reports: "Granting exceptions only if the mother's life was in danger, Palin said that when it came to her daughter, 'I would choose life.'

At the time, her daughter was 14 years old. Moreover, Alaska's rape rate was an abysmal 2.2 times above the national average, and 25 percent of all rapes resulted in unwanted pregnancies.

If Palin's own daughter was only 14 when she made that statement, does she think any girl of reproductive age is old enough to have a child? Girls are hitting puberty earlier and earlier. What if the rape victim were only 10? 9? 8?

Palin also opposes abortion in cases of incest and would grant an exception only if childbirth would result in the mother's death. She has not made any statements yet about whether she believes a 10-year-old who was raped by her father would be able to actually raise the child once it was born. Perhaps Palin doesn't care.

4. Who's really not in favor of clean water? Sarah Palin.

As The Hill reports, "Governor Palin has ... opposed a crucial clean water initiative."

Alaska's KTUU explains: "It is against the law for the governor to officially advocate for or against a ballot measure; however, Palin took what she calls 'personal privilege' to discuss one of this year's most contentious initiatives."

Palin said, "Let me take my governor's hat off just for a minute here and tell you, personally, Prop. 4 -- I vote no on that." And what is that? A state initiative that would have banned metal mines from discharging pollution into salmon streams.

She also approved legislation that let oil and gas companies nearly triple the amount of toxic waste they can dump into Cook Inlet, an important fishery. It looks like being an avid outdoorsperson doesn't mean Palin really has the health of watersheds, natural resources or our environment at heart.

5. Sarah Palin calls herself a reformer, but on earmarks and the "Bridge to Nowhere," she is a hypocrite.

Palin says she's a "conservative Republican" who is "a firm believer in free market capitalism." She's running as an anti-tax crusader, and she did make deep cuts to Alaska's budget.

So, one would assume she is no borrow-and-spend conservative like George W., right?

Well, there was the time when she served as the mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla, Alaska. According to the Associated Press, "Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million." You'd think that $27 mil in taxpayers' funds would be enough scratch for a town with a population of 8,000, but you'd be wrong. According to Politico, Palin then "racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla -- that amounts to $3,000 per resident."

Then there's her current stint as Alaska governor, during which her appetite for federal pork spending has been on clear display. The Associated Press reported, "In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation." While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "Bridge to Nowhere."

6. Sarah Palin believes creationism should be taught in schools.

Until somebody digs up the remnants of a T. rex with an ill-fated caveman dangling from its jaws, the scientific community, along with most of the American public, will be at peace with the theory of evolution. But this isn't true of everyone. More than 80 years after the Scopes "Monkey" trial, there are people -- and politicians -- who do not believe in evolution and lobby for creationism to be taught in schools.

Palin is one of those politicians. When Palin ran for governor, part of her platform called for teaching schoolchildren creationism alongside evolution. Although she did not push hard for this position after she was elected governor, Palin has let her views on evolution be known on many occasions. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin stated, "Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."

Palin further argued, "It's OK to let kids know that there are theories out there. They gain information just by being in a discussion."

Not when those "theories" are being presented as valid alternatives to a set of principles that most scientists have ascribed to for more than a century.

7. Sarah Palin supports offshore drilling everywhere, even if it doesn't solve our energy problems.

If McCain was hoping to salvage any part of his credibility with environmentalists, he threw that chance out the window by adding Palin to his ticket. Palin is in favor of offshore drilling and drilling in the ecologically sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Miami Herald reported:

The Alaska governor has said that she has tried to persuade McCain to agree with her on drilling in the wildlife refuge. She also has said that she was happy that he changed his position over the summer and now supports offshore oil drilling.

As if that weren't bad enough, in her speech this week at the Republican National Convention, she said, "Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems -- as if we all didn't know that already." Huh. I guess drilling even when it won't help is better than working on renewable energy sources, as Palin also vetoed money for a wind energy project.

8. Sarah Palin loves oil and nuclear power.

Aside from her "drill here, drill there, drill everywhere" approach to our energy crisis, the only other things we know about Palin's energy policy, especially given her Bush-like love of avoiding the press, comes from her acceptance speech:

Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines, build more nuclear plants, create jobs with clean coal and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources.

Nuclear power plants. Interesting. As folks look for alternative fuel sources (and again, Palin loves oil first and foremost so her commitment to any alternative energy source is suspect at best), nuclear power is enjoying a return to vogue. But here's the problem: Even the U.S. government's own nuclear agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, thinks an atomic renaissance is a bad idea:

Delivered by one of America's most notoriously docile agencies, the NRC's warning essentially says: that all cost estimates for new nuclear reactors -- and all licensing and construction schedules -- are completely up for grabs and have no reliable basis in fact. Thus any comparisons between future atomic reactors and renewable technologies are moot at best.

Not to mention all the other problems with nuclear energy, such as how to dispose of nuclear waste and the possibility of a catastrophic meltdown, to name a couple. Palin has no background with nuclear energy and shows no evidence of having looked into the science behind it or the dangers that come with it.

Also, it's time for Palin to drop another Bush-like tendency: Governor, the word is pronounced "new-clear."

9. Sarah Palin doesn't think much of community activism; she'd much rather play insider political games.

In her Republican convention speech, Palin slammed Barack Obama's early political work, saying, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except you have actual responsibilities." Palin's put-down of grassroots workers, often unpaid or low-paid, demeaned an American tradition of neighbors helping neighbors, according to Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change. But more revealing is Palin's apparent lack of experience in community change and local volunteer efforts, during her years in Alaska before becoming governor.

Scores of press accounts of her early years as mayor of Wasilla omit any mention of such work. Instead, they note as mayor, and in the intervening years before running for governor, Palin gravitated to those with power, money or influence. She worked to enlarge Wasilla's Wal-Mart and build a sports center (that went over budget in an eminent domain dispute), and she hired a Washington lobbyist, directed a political fundraising committee for the state's senior U.S. senator, Republican Ted Stevens, now under indictment for corruption, and steered $22 million in federal aid to her town. While some of her early community work was undoubtedly centered on her church, perhaps this comment by a blog reader best sums up Palin's political opportunism:

So community organizers (aren't) responsible? Or caring? Or doing anything important. What a terrible insult to the greatest community organizer of all time, Jesus Christ.

You shouldn't look at this...

Griffin Avid — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:21:22 GMT

Thinking of bringing this to market.

1. included drum machine which is also a dongle for the software ala Digidesign. we partnered up with Behringer to bring you the Hammerhead Rhythm experience.

2. Bundled software, which is was downloaded from the KVR developers results page. I will highlight a ridiculous "Bundled software worth XXXX" amount to really let the customer know this has great value.

3. All-star endorsements from popular internet iconic celebrities to lend credibility. Only those with high post counts need apply.

4.It will certainly be expensive- furthering its credibilty

5. We will use phrases like Hot Urban and Banga. Our newsletters will all start with "It's ya boy.." Well hire a rock and roll cat or maybe even someone from our accounting dept to demonstrate its abilities.

6. we will release an expensive *must have* Producer Kit and use BobbleHead producer graphics to explain what the kits sound like. And ..and we'll bundle those Hollow Sun samples as our exclusive drum sounds. Long as we show a picture of a wall of crates, it won't make a difference.

Monsters! All of them!

Jane Alias — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:30:24 GMT

These men are monsters!

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.

Police chief Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf holds a book cataloging the dead.

1 of 3

The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.

"Fear, fear is always there," says 30-year-old Safana, an artist and university professor. "We don't know who to be afraid of. Maybe it's a friend or a student you teach. There is no break, no security. I don't know who to be afraid of."

Her fear is justified. Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, is a stronghold of conservative Shia groups. As many as 133 women were killed in Basra last year -- 79 for violation of "Islamic teachings" and 47 for so-called honor killings, according to IRIN, the news branch of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

One glance through the police file is enough to understand the consequences. Basra's police chief, Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf, flips through the file, pointing to one unsolved case after another. Watch Khalaf show evidence of the brutality »

"I think so far, we have been unable to tackle this problem properly," he says. "There are many motives for these crimes and parties involved in killing women, by strangling, beheading, chopping off their hands, legs, heads."

"When I came to Basra a year ago," he says, "two women were killed in front of their kids. Their blood was flowing in front of their kids, they were crying. Another woman was killed in front of her 6-year-old son, another in front of her 11-year-old child, and yet another who was pregnant."

The killers enforcing their own version of Islamic justice are rarely caught, while women live in fear.

Boldly splattered in red paint just outside the main downtown market, a chilling sign reads: "We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup. Those who do not abide by this will be punished. God is our witness, we have notified you."

The attacks on the women of Basra have intensified since British forces withdrew to their base at the airport back in September, police say. Iraqi security forces took over after British troops pulled back, but are heavily infiltrated by militias.

And tracking the perpetrators of these crimes is nearly impossible, Khalaf says, adding that he doesn't have control of the thousands of policemen and officers.

"We're trying to trace crimes carried out by an anonymous enemy," he says.

Amnesty International has raised concern about the increasing violence toward women in Iraq, saying abductions, rapes and "honor killings" are on the rise.

"Politically active women, those who did not follow a strict dress code, and women [who are] human rights defenders were increasingly at risk of abuses, including by armed groups and religious extremists," Amnesty said in a 2007 report.

Sometimes, it's just the color of a woman's headscarf that can draw unwanted attention.

"One time, one of my female colleagues commented on the color of my headscarf," Safana says. "She said it would draw attention ... [and I should] avoid it and stick to colors like gray, brown and black."

This extremist ideology enrages many secular Muslim women, who say it's a misrepresentation of Islam.

Sawsan, another woman who works at a university, says the message from the radicals to women is simple: "They seem to be sending us a message to stay at home and keep your mouth shut."

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Sawsan says, the situation was "the best." But now, she says, it's "the worst."

"We thought there would be freedom and democracy and women would have their rights. But all the things we were promised have not come true. There is only fear and horror."

Exclusive First Look at 'Watchmen'

Oscar Wilde — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:12:29 GMT

http://www.moviefone.com/insidemovies/2008/07/23/exclusive-first-look-at-watchmen/

Exclusive First Look at 'Watchmen'

We were on set of the upcoming screen version of the Alan Moore classic -- and bring you early scoop.

The news that Zack Snyder was going to tackle the epic comic universe of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' 'Watchmen' brought excitement and trepidation to the fanboy world. Snyder's the guy whose vision guided '300' to unexpected blockbuster status, after all, but '300' is no 'Watchmen' -- that is, an iconic, revered graphic novel that brings to life an intricately written alternate reality of superheroes, crime and Doomsday.

''If you filmed everything, it would be a five-hour movie,'' Snyder told us. But have no fear, ''It follows the structure really closely. We flip through it to try to find out where we are. It's super close, I think.''

Shortly before Halloween '07, when we visited, the costumes had just arrived on set, Zack was filming Rorschach's bloody prison scenes, Laurie and Dan (the second Silk Spectre and Nite Owl) were storming the jail in full force, and it was clear that this wasn't your everyday hero movie.

There was a palpable excitement -- from the eager gleam in Snyder's eye, to the chatter of the men behind the scenes. Unlike the digitally created world of '300,' there were real-world sets for 'Watchmen' on its Vancouver soundstage. The Gunga Diner, nestled on a New York street in the making, was slowly coming together with plywood. Nite Owl's ship hovered in the air, its two large eyes gleaming while it waited to be finished. Dr. Manhattan's lab loomed powerfully, just waiting for the blue hero to conduct experiments.

Topped off with actors who really become their roles, 'Watchmen' looks simply irresistible from every angle. Jackie Earle Haley has become a solid, lean mass of muscle to play Rorschach. Jeffrey Dean Morgan becomes tough and slimy in the Comedian's gear. Even Patrick Wilson, who might seem too slight to play Dan Dreiberg, becomes a different person as Nite Owl. His cap comes off, his posture straightens, and he's suddenly a man of power, ripping through prison inmates.

But this is only a teaser. Stay tuned for more close to 'Watchmen''s big screen bow in 2009.

--Reporting by Monika Bartyzel

Robot Police - Terminator meets Reality

xodus phoenix — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:41:58 GMT

Griffin, I know you gonna dig this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQX_TcVDFnI&feature=related

Favorite movie list

Jane Alias — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 02:07:19 GMT

10. Romancing the stone

9. Pretty Woman

8. Thelma and Louise

7. West Side Story

6. GI Jane

5. Sleepless In Seattle

4. Scream

3. Mississippi Salsa

2. Titanic

1. Officer and a Gentleman

Torque-movie freeze frame blooper.

Griffin Avid — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:17:10 GMT

This is an actual scene in the movie where you can clearly see the film crew on the far right. Wow.

Guilty plea to killing woman, her fetus and kids

Jane Alias — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:01:45 GMT

Guilty plea to killing woman, her fetus and kids

Deal means Tiffany Hall, 26, will avoid execution, serve life without parole

BELLEVILLE, Ill. - A woman pleaded guilty Monday to killing her pregnant friend, the unborn child and the victim's three children in a plea deal that allowed her to avoid the death penalty.

Tiffany Hall, 26, pleaded guilty to all five charges against her — four counts of murder and one count of intentional homicide in the death of the fetus — and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Hall struck her friend Jimella Tunstall, 23, on the head repeatedly with a table leg, then cut Tunstall's fetus from her womb in a bathtub, prosecutor Robert Haida said. Tunstall bled to death, Haida said. Hall then dumped her friend's body in an East St. Louis lot.

Jeff Roberson / AP

Tiffany Hall walks out of court Monday in Belleville, Ill., after pleading guilty to killing her pregnant friend, her unborn child and the woman's three children.

Hours later, Hall told police in Illinois she had given birth to a stillborn child. When police arrived, she had the dead fetus with her. She refused to be examined at a hospital.

Three days later, Hall visited the father of two of Tunstall's children and the unborn child, Haida said. The father was caring for all the children, Haida said. Hall told the father that Tunstall wanted her to pick up the children and Tunstall's vehicle, he told police.

The father told the officers that was the last time he saw his children, Haida said.

Hall then drowned the three children — DeMond Tunstall, 7, Ivan Tunstall-Collins 2, and Jinella Tunstall, 1 — in the same bathtub where she killed their mother, Haida said.

Story begins to unravel
Authorities said Hall's story began to unravel on Sept. 21, 2006, about a week after Tunstall's death, when she told her boyfriend that she killed a pregnant woman and stole the fetus. He told police.

The bodies of the three children were found two days later hidden in a washer and dryer inside the East St. Louis apartment where the children had lived with their mother.

One of Hall's attorneys, James Gomric, said he could not speak to a motive or discuss whether his client had shown remorse. He said Hall had been mentally fit to stand trial, but she also had unresolved mental health issues and had an IQ in the mid-70s.

After the hearing, some of Tunstall's relatives said they had already forgiven Hall. Sandra Myers, Jimella Tunstall's mother, said taking one life would not have been justice for losing the lives of others. "I have to forgive her," she said.

The inflation of Steve Austin

P.R.O. — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:11:38 GMT

What would the $6 Million Man cost today?
These days, six mil might not even buy a finger. Here's a look at some pop culture icons - what they went for back in the day, and how much they might cost now.

Steve Austin - 1974[img]http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/galleries/2008/pf/0805/gallery.inflation_pop_culture/images/6_million.jpg[/img]
# 1974 cost: $6 million
# 2008 inflation adj. cost: $26 million
# Actual 2008 cost: Up to $100 million

We can rebuild him, but for how much? Back in 1974, $6 million was enough to buy crashed-astronaut Steve Austin a new arm, an eye, and a pair of legs with super strength and vision.

Today, we might call him the Twenty-Six Million Dollar Man. That's the value of $6 million in 1974 dollars when adjusted for inflation using tools from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But the real cost of a modern-day cyborg in 2008 would be quite different, according to Greg Chirikjian, professor of mechanical engineering at The Johns Hopkins Institute and a big fan of the original TV show.

According to Chirikjian, research and development costs to design a bionic man would be $50 million to $100 million today. But with a completed design, production costs would only be several hundred thousand dollars per person, he said, but they'd lack Austin's super powers.

"These are not individuals who are going to jump three stories onto a building and see three miles away," Chirikjian said, noting that replacement parts "would approximate the functionality of the original limbs."

This cybernetic technology is not yet available, he said, but it is achievable: "It would require further R&D, though people are working on various aspects of it."
By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer

You are the most important factor in reaching your goals.....

xodus phoenix — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:26:38 GMT

You are the most important factor in reaching your goals.....

Objective: Personal Growth

How many of us have been inspired by the actions of others and have said to ourselves “ You know, I’ve been thinking a long time about finally taking the time to ……..” , only to file it away in our daydream cabinet moments, or sometimes days later?

Every day life consumes our thoughts and actions and distracts us from things that help us to be better to ourselves and others around us. Though not always pleasant, we prefer to stay in our own ‘comfort zones’ and make excuses as to why we can’t do those things that we’ve wanted to do.

Personal growth can include a variety of things that you would like to accomplish. Perhaps the goal is to learn a new skill, or improve on one that you already have. Maybe it’s finding time in your schedule to exercise, or changing a ‘people’ skill that would enable you to be a better leader, companion, or teacher. It could be that you’ve always wanted to volunteer and help others.

Instead of saying “I’m just not good at that” and chalking it up to being a weakness and moving on, do a little research into how to improve that particular skill. There is a huge variety of resources available even if you have little time or money to spare.

Be realistic in your goal setting. You have years ahead of you to learn or do new things. Lay out your Personal Growth outline and list the goals needed to reach that level of growth. Don’t try to do them all at once. Maybe you can listen to one self help audio book a month. Utilize time where you’re normally just ‘killing time’. Sometimes it takes only a small amount of time each day once it’s broken down into more manageable groups. What in the beginning takes discipline, soon becomes habit. There may be days where you are not able to accomplish your daily growth task. That’s OK, just don’t let that become the new habit.

Personal growth not only affects our lives, but the lives of those around us. It doesn’t even have to be shared with others or discussed, people around you will know.

If you wait too long to take those first few steps, the opportunity to do so may pass.

Be that person whose actions inspire others. Make them say to themselves “ You know, I’ve been thinking a long time about finally taking the time to ……..”, and let ripple effects begin.

Government eaves-dropping!

Jane Alias — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:20:01 GMT

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Monday urged the House of Representatives to vote on an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, saying, "If the enemy is calling to America, we really need to know what they're saying."

A temporary update to FISA permitting the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on foreigners without a warrant expired more than a week ago.

Bush has been pressing Congress to pass a permanent update to FISA, arguing that its delayed passage hurts national security.

Democrats have said the existing 1978 FISA law gives the government all the authority it needs to carry out surveillance and that passage of the final bill can wait until the House and Senate reconcile their differences.

Both the House and Senate versions of the bill would allow U.S. intelligence to tap into phone and Internet traffic overseas without obtaining a judge's warrant, even if the calls were routed through communications centers in the United States.

But the Senate version contains a controversial measure that grants legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the warrantless wiretapping program Bush acknowledged in 2005. The immunity would apply retroactively.

Critics said the program violated the law, and phone and Internet companies face as many as 40 lawsuits related to their participation. The House has balked at passing the immunity measure.

"It was a very strong bipartisan bill that passed the Senate, and it's a bill that we can live with ... and it's a bill that should be put on the House floor for a vote up or down," Bush told the National Governors Association meeting at the White House.

Bush stressed the economic impact that telecommunications companies could face if an update of the bill is not passed.

"The problem is, should companies who are believed to have helped us after 9/11 until today get information necessary to protect the country be sued? My answer is absolutely not. They shouldn't be sued."

Bush said the threat of lawsuits would create doubt among private-sector "folks who we need to help protect us" and would make it harder to convince these companies to participate in the future.

On Friday, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey sent a formal letter to the House Intelligence Committee saying the House's failure to pass the Senate bill has harmed the country.

"Our experience in the past few days since the expiration of the act demonstrates that these concerns are neither speculative nor theoretical: allowing the act to expire without passing the bipartisan Senate bill has had real and negative consequences for our national security," the two said in the letter.

But on Saturday McConnell appeared to backtrack, saying that new surveillance could begin without the legislation.

"We learned last night after sending this letter that, as a result of these efforts, new surveillances under existing directives issued pursuant to the Protect America Act will resume, at least for now," McConnell said.

The Protect America Act was the name of the temporary fix to FISA that was passed last summer.

"Unfortunately, the delay resulting from this discussion impaired our ability to cover foreign intelligence targets, which resulted in missed intelligence information," he said

FBI wants palm prints, eye scans, tattoo mapping

xodus phoenix — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 04:48:34 GMT

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/04/fbi.biometrics/index.html

CLARKSBURG, West Virginia (CNN) -- The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.

The FBI wants to use eye scans, combined with other data, to help identify suspects.

1 of 3

But it's an issue that raises major privacy concerns -- what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans.

The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information -- from palm prints to eye scans.

Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is "important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in."

But it's unnerving to privacy experts.

"It's the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Project.

The FBI already has 55 million sets of fingerprints on file. In coming years, the bureau wants to compare palm prints, scars and tattoos, iris eye patterns, and facial shapes. The idea is to combine various pieces of biometric information to positively identify a potential suspect.

lot will depend on how quickly technology is perfected, according to Thomas Bush, the FBI official in charge of the Clarksburg, West Virginia, facility where the FBI houses its current fingerprint database. Watch what the FBI hopes to gain »

"Fingerprints will still be the big player," Bush, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, told CNN.

But he added, "Whatever the biometric that comes down the road, we need to be able to plug that in and play."

First up, he said, are palm prints. The FBI has already begun collecting images and hopes to soon use these as an additional means of making identifications. Countries that are already using such images find 20 percent of their positive matches come from latent palm prints left at crime scenes, the FBI's Bush said.

The FBI has also started collecting mug shots and pictures of scars and tattoos. These images are being stored for now as the technology is fine-tuned. All of the FBI's biometric data is stored on computers 30-feet underground in the Clarksburg facility.

In addition, the FBI could soon start comparing people's eyes -- specifically the iris, or the colored part of an eye -- as part of its new biometrics program called Next Generation Identification.

Nearby, at West Virginia University's Center for Identification Technology Research, researchers are already testing some of these technologies that will ultimately be used by the FBI.

"The best increase in accuracy will come from fusing different biometrics together," said Bojan Cukic, the co-director of the center.

But while law enforcement officials are excited about the possibilities of these new technologies, privacy advocates are upset the FBI will be collecting so much personal information.

"People who don't think mistakes are going to be made I don't think fly enough," said Steinhardt.

He said thousands of mistakes have been made with the use of the so-called no-fly lists at airports -- and that giving law enforcement widespread data collection techniques should cause major privacy alarms.

"There are real consequences to people," Steinhardt said. Watch concerns over more data collection »

You don't have to be a criminal or a terrorist to be checked against the database. More than 55 percent of the checks the FBI runs involve criminal background checks for people applying for sensitive jobs in government or jobs working with vulnerable people such as children and the elderly, according to the FBI.

The FBI says it hasn't been saving the fingerprints for those checks, but that may change. The FBI plans a so-called "rap-back" service in which an employer could ask the FBI to keep the prints for an employee on file and let the employer know if the person ever has a brush with the law. The FBI says it will first have to clear hurdles with state privacy laws, and people would have to sign waivers allowing their information to be kept.

Critics say people are being forced to give up too much personal information. But Lawrence Hornak, the co-director of the research center at West Virginia University, said it could actually enhance people's privacy.

"It allows you to project your identity as being you," said Hornak. "And it allows people to avoid identity theft, things of that nature." Watch Hornak describe why he thinks it's a "privacy enhancer" »

There remains the question of how reliable these new biometric technologies will be. A 2006 German study looking at facial recognition in a crowded train station found successful matches could be made 60 percent of the time during the day. But when lighting conditions worsened at night, the results shrank to a success rate of 10 to 20 percent.

As work on these technologies continues, researchers are quick to admit what's proven to be the most accurate so far. "Iris technology is perceived today, together with fingerprints, to be the most accurate," said Cukic.

But in the future all kinds of methods may be employed. Some researchers are looking at the way people walk as a possible additional means of identification.

The FBI says it will protect all this personal data and only collect information on criminals and those seeking sensitive jobs.

The ACLU's Steinhardt doesn't believe it will stop there.

"This had started out being a program to track or identify criminals," he said. "Now we're talking about large swaths of the population -- workers, volunteers in youth programs. Eventually, it's going to be everybody."

From Kelli Arena and Carol Cratty
CNN

New Years Resolutions With a twist

Griffin Avid — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 11:37:30 GMT

Thinking about a fresh start for a new year and wondering what changes we will all go through.

1. Name something ( a habit/skill/tendency) you want to pick up.

2. Name something you want to put down and stop doing.

3. A goal for the year's end.

iSound Artist Blog: Great read

xodus phoenix — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:41:56 GMT

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007
A NEW YEAR IS THE BEST TIME TO MAKE POSITIVE CAREER CHANGES
A New Year's Resolution is simple Goal-Setting in action... and this annual ritual offers us a good opportunity to adjust our strategy for personal improvement.

The beginning of another year is always a great time to reflect on our progress and analyze the results of our efforts over the previous 12 months. The purpose of this exercise is to encourage ourselves to make better choices, set challenging goals, and develop a detailed action plan for the coming year. This article will review some practical and useful tips that I hope will help you to passionately embrace the New Year with purpose and hope.

The pursuit of excellence goes hand in hand with confidence. And, how we achieve confidence is by continually setting goals and reaching them... one little step after the other, over a period of time. There is no shortcut... there is no magic wand. I cannot overstate the importance of goal-setting, focus and commitment... these are the characteristics that are always inherent with highly successful people in every field. Goal-setting can be very intimidating for the insecure performer who is often afraid to setup any chance for failure. However, this fear can be overcome. You are unconsciously setting goals when you systematically set out to get a certain gig and get it... that is definitely achieving a set goal. Just because you don't have a written plan doesn't mean you're not setting goals. So, most of us are halfway there without even knowing it. But, writing down our goals gives us a stronger focus and a much better picture of where we're going, where we want to go, and how to get there. This step by step process will be invaluable when it comes time to prepare a full-scale marketing plan... which every career performer should be thinking about.

Whether we become world-class performers or not is unimportant, but when we begin demanding higher standards through goal-setting and personal accountability, we are giving ourselves the opportunity to develop the self-confidence necessary to advance our expectations to another level. The following tips will help you start the year in a positive direction...

1. List Failures & Achievements - If you are not already keeping a "book" of activities, dig out your date book, contract agreements, etc. and list all your performances over the past year with a brief comment about each gig. Review everything and highlight your failures first... YOUR MOST UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS ARE YOUR GREATEST SOURCE FOR LEARNING. Analyze what went wrong. What part did you play in each failure? What could you have done differently? What can you do in the future to improve your performance?

Now, highlight all your successful dates and contact each one of these buyers to remind them of your past performance and announce your availability for the coming year. You can also take this opportunity to disclose any new accomplishments, additions or changes you have made since your last engagement with them.

Satisfied customers are usually more than willing to give you a good reference. Therefore, you should encourage them to put their good comments in writing... especially the high profile engagements. Always think about adding prestigious referrals to your promotion package. These testimonials may help you move to another performance level.

2. Update Your Contact List - Review your achievements and successful gigs over the past year and go after more of the same. Check available listings of similar agents, producers, buyers, companies or venues in the telephone directory and/or other sources and prepare a target group of potential clients. Then, call to find out the name of the correct recipient for your publicity materials and send him/her a variety of promotional items that accurately represent you and your services. Be sure to reflect that past success you have had with them, or refer to a similar venue or event where you were well accepted.

Pull out all your old business card files and contact names (especially those that haven't hired you in a long time) and send them an e-mail and/or a regular mail postcard informing them of your availability and updated information. Your dead file list of old clients is the best source of future business. They may have forgotten about you, or lost your contact information... so, renew the contact and make sure they know you haven't forgotten about them.

3. Set Your Goals For The Year - Don't make the mistake of setting unrealistic goals. You're not going to go from being a club band to an international concert star overnight. Set your sights on getting better club dates, or trying to book one more special event, casino or corporate show. Try and increase revenues by making catchy t-shirts or a CD/DVD of your music (or show) that can be sold at all your performances. Make plans to promote at least one special event (on your own) to showcase your talents to prospective agents, buyers, etc. while raising your profile at the same time. A feature spot at your local fair, or an appearance at a high-profile charity function are great ways to attract some valuable attention

4. Take Care of Your Health - Success depends a great deal on our happiness - and our happiness depends a great deal on our health. All three are intertwined... when the mind and body are in balance, the things you tell yourself you are going to do become much easier to do. It has been proven that those who take care of the soul or spiritual aspect of their health are in fact mentally, if not physically, healthier than those of us that do not.

If you don't believe it, try a little experiment. The next time you see a young child in torn and tattered clothing beside a broken, destitute mother... watch the gratitude expressed when you unceremoniously give them a $20 bill just because you care. Your mind and spirit will be magnified immensely by reaching out to enrich the life of someone who needs you to make a difference in their life... and you'll feel so much better about yourself.

Miguel Cotto VERSE, Shane Mosley

Griffin Avid — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:14:02 GMT

I predict Mosley in 8. I say Cotto is hurt bad at the end of 7, but falls in 8.

Tonight’s Cotto-Mosley fight at Madison Square Garden, though well publicized, has not had the buzz of De La Hoya-Mayweather. And that is too bad, said De La Hoya, the president of Golden Boy Promotions.

Cotto and Mosley, each known for his aggressiveness in the ring, are expected to put on an action-packed show. But star power trumps punching power. So Cotto and Mosley almost certainly will play to a smaller audience than De La Hoya and Mayweather.

“Sugar Shane Mosley always makes an exciting fight,” said De La Hoya, who employs Mosley as a co-promoter with Golden Boy. “And when you pair him up with an exciting, strong, young champion like Miguel Cotto, the fight is guaranteed to be fireworks. This is what a promoter dreams of.”

Cotto (30-0, 25 knockouts) continues to build a reputation. He is fighting in the Garden for the fourth time. He has drawn boisterous crowds each time.

Cotto, who is from Puerto Rico, fought against Zab Judah in the Garden in June, winning by technical knockout in the 11th round. In that fight, Cotto, 27, displayed his persistent, move-forward attack, setting up Judah with powerful body shots before finishing him off with blows to the head.

It is an attack he said he planned to maintain against Mosley.

“I don’t think at the age of 36 years old Shane can handle Miguel Cotto,” Cotto said, adding that he did not think Mosley was as dangerous as Judah.

But Mosley (44-4, 1 no contest) is probably the most decorated opponent Cotto has faced. He has won world titles in three weight classes and is widely considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters of the last 15 years.

Mosley, who has two victories over De La Hoya, is known for his speed, which he transforms into power. Though his reflexes are not as sharp as they were when he was younger, Mosley is on a five-fight winning streak and he appears as dangerous as ever. He said he would retire if he lost.

“I think I’m the wrong fighter for anyone to step in the ring with at this point in my career,” he said. “I’m hungrier than ever.”

Though Mosley’s quickness sets him apart from Cotto, the fighters are similar in their willingness to face any opponent, as well as in their attacking styles. That, according to Cotto’s promoter, Todd duBoef, is what could set tonight’s fight apart.

DuBoef, the president of Top Rank Inc., said it was time the boxing world focused on the fights and not the names of the fighters.

“This fight epitomizes what the brand of boxing is about,” he said. “Everybody has abandoned the brand and kind of gravitated toward the names. And because of that, people would say, the sport suffers.”

The top-earning musicians

xodus phoenix — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:07:12 GMT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20944976/

By Lou Hau

Updated: 12:47 p.m. ET Sept 28, 2007

Pop music has long been a young person's game. But when it comes to pocketing the biggest returns, oldsters rule.

The Rolling Stones, Madonna and Elton John are no one's idea of fresh-faced talent. Yet they and other veterans account for most of the top-earning musicians as measured by Forbes.

From June 2006 to June 2007, the geriatric Stones earned an estimated $88 million. The Material-Girl-turned-middle-aged mom pocketed $72 million. And nearly 37 years since he first reached the American Top 10 with "Your Song," Mr. Crocodile Rock pulled down an impressive $53 million.

That's not to say that the occasional green upstart can't boast some serious earning power too. Relative youngsters 50 Cent and Justin Timberlake made our list as well, with "Fitty" earning $33 million and ex-'N Sync star Timberlake getting $20 million. Of course, smarts and business savvy help too, as in the case of hip-hop entrepreneur Jay-Z, who has enjoyed an exceptionally lucrative 12 months with earnings of around $83 million.

But at the end of the day, most of the music industry's top earners are of older vintage. At a time when the recording industry is reeling from plunging music sales and rampant piracy, how do they accomplish such commercial success? Here are a few things to consider:

Tour, tour, tour
It goes without saying that recording artists establish their fame through sales of their music. And even with all the industry's problems, established favorites can still count on strong demand for their recorded product. Country star Tim McGraw, another member of our top earners list, released his new album "Let It Go" in March and has already sold 1.1 million units in the U.S., according to Nielsen/SoundScan.

But the really serious money comes from touring. And no one can pull in the big bucks like an older, established music act. The Stones had the highest-grossing tour in North America last year, pulling in a cool $139 million. Madonna's 2006 "Confessions" tour was the biggest ever for a female artist, grossing $194 million worldwide.

Helping drive those big grosses are eye-popping ticket prices. Madonna charged an average of $183.76 during her 2006 North American tour, while tickets to the Stones' concerts here averaged $136.63 and seats to Celine Dion's "A New Day..." show at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas averaged $135.33, according to Pollstar.

How do they — or, more specifically, their concert promoters — get away with such prices? Simple: because they can. These older artists' fans aren't cash-poor college kids waiting tables to earn beer money. They're Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers who have the means to pay up to see their favorite stars.

By contrast, younger bands, even those that have enjoyed massive buzz or considerable commercial success, can't come close to commanding such prices. During the first half of this year, Arcade Fire charged an average of $30.74 per concert ticket, while the average ticket to a Snow Patrol show cost $31.27, according to Pollstar.

Be big in Japan and ...
Cracking the U.S. music market is the dream of every would-be pop star, American or otherwise. But there's no accounting for popular taste in any one country. What's hot one minute is stone cold over the next. Even platinum-selling recording artists can experience being "in" and "out" and then back "in." Just ask veteran acts like Mariah Carey or Aerosmith.

Many of top earning musicians maximize their earning potential by going out of their way to cultivate a fan base outside the U.S. as well, particularly in Europe and Asia. Madonna, Bon Jovi and Celine Dion aren't just popular musicians. They're worldwide pop stars.

'Race row' Nobel winner suspended

xodus phoenix — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:57:04 GMT

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/19/uk.race/index.html

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Nobel laureate biologist James Watson was suspended Friday from his longtime post at a research laboratory and canceled his planned British book tour after controversial comments that black people are not as intelligent as white people.

James Watson won the 1962 Nobel prize for discovering the structure of DNA.

Watson has apologized for the controversial remarks.

He failed to appear to a book signing at a London bookshop Friday afternoon, and organizers of his planned Sunday evening talk at Newcastle's Center for Life said they had been informed Watson would not appear because he was already on a flight home to the States.

The board of trustees at New York's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which Watson has led for nearly four decades, said they had suspended his administrative responsibilities pending a review of his comments.

Watson, 79, an American who won the 1962 Nobel prize for his role in discovering the double-helix structure of DNA, apologized Thursday for his remarks -- but not before London's Science Museum canceled his talk there, planned for Friday evening.

The museum said Watson's words had "gone beyond the point of acceptable debate."

The controvery began with an October 14 interview Watson gave to the Sunday Times, which quoted him saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."

Watson also asserted there was no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically, and he said that while he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."

The biologist apologized "unreservedly" Thursday for his comments and said he was "mortified" by the words attributed to him.

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"I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said," Watson said during an appearance at the Royal Society in London. "I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways that they have."

"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."

Watson was expected to sign copies of his new book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science, at Blackwell bookshop in central London Friday afternoon but failed to appear. Soon afterward, a spokeswoman for the Center for Life in Newcastle, where Watson was expected to speak Sunday night, said they had been told Watson was canceling all speaking engagements and was already flying home.

Center spokeswoman Julia Hankin said they were disappointed.

"We welcomed the opportunity to discuss his controversial comments," Hankin said. "We had hoped for a rigorous and lively debate."

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the institute on New York's Long Island which Watson has headed since 1968, confirmed it had suspended his responsibilities as chancellor "pending further deliberation by the board."

It said the board publicly disagreed with the comments attributed to Watson in the Sunday Times.

Late Thursday, The 1990 Trust, a British civil rights group, called for a boycott of Watson's books and pressure to be put on venues to cancel his planned appearances.

Watson's remarks to the Sunday Times were but the latest controversial comments from the eminent biologist.

In 1997, Britain's Sunday Telegraph quoted Watson as saying that if a gene for homosexuality were isolated, women who find that their unborn child has the gene should be allowed to have an abortion.

During a lecture tour in 2000, he suggested there might be links between skin color and sexual prowess and between a person's weight and their level of ambition.

And in a British TV documentary that aired in 2003, Watson suggested that stupidity was a genetic disease that should be treated.

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