Today’s video of the day is “Latino” by Joell Ortiz. As I mentioned before, he has one of the hottest albums of the year. Fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today’s fact of the day is that there are 9 guns for every 10 American citizens. According to a recent study, nearly 270 million guns are in circulation in the United States. Worldwide, civilians account for three-fourths of the 875 million weapons in circulation.

Yesterday, Leona Helmsley’s will was made public in surrogate court. According to official documents, the billionaire left $12 million to her dog! Even worse, the ex-con left nothing to two of her four grandchildren.

To read more, click here. 

One hundred years ago, Vogue coined the term ‘brassiere’ and launched a billion-dollar industry that changed the way women dress for ever.

A Social History of the Bra
By John Walsh

The bra was invented by an engineer of German extraction called Onto Titzling in 1912. He was living in a New York boarding house, and one of his neighbours, a voluptuous opera singer called Swanhilda Olafson, complained that she needed a garment to hoist her vast bosom aloft every evening — so Titzling obliged, using some cotton, elastic and metal struts. Unfortunately, he failed to patent the device and, in the early 1930s, a Frenchman named Philippe de Brassière began making a suspiciously similar object. Titzling took him to court, but the unscrupulous Frenchman won the day. And that’s why the garment all the ladies are wearing is called a brassiere, not a titzling.

Bette Midler sang about this court case in the film Beaches, so obviously it’s true, isn’t it? Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a total fabrication, based on a spoof 1971 history by Wallace Reyburn, and is just one of a thousand tales and myths that punctuate the history of the small double-dome of cloth that encases the female chest.

The bra is a thing of wondrous variety. It has been called the Hemispheres of Paradise and, less flatteringly, the Over-the-Shoulder Boulder Holder. Its function has been, paradoxically, both modest concealment and brazen revelation. It has been praised as a revolutionary garment that freed women from constriction, and has been (allegedly) burnt in public as an emblem of oppression.

It’s available in a riot of forms, including lacy, push-up, sporty, plunge-line, strapless, pointy, Cross Your Heart, conical, and Wonder. It’s a billion-pound industry in the UK, and a $15bn mega-industry in America. No other garment has so closely shadowed the history of the status of women. No other garment has had the power to reduce intelligent, rational men to drooling boys and awestruck slaves.

Exactly a hundred years ago, in 1907, the word “brassiere” was used in Vogue for the first time. But its evolution goes back three millennia. Historians have found that, while Roman women sometimes wore a band of cloth over their breasts, to restrict their growth or conceal them, the Greeks favoured a less uptight approach. Some enterprising designer realised that such a belt worn under the breasts might accentuate them, to pleasing effect. (In the hierarchy of ideas that have made the world a better place, this is up there with light bulbs and indoor plumbing.)

For the rest of the story, click here. 

Wives Obey Your Husbands
By Renita Weems 

Seizing on other women’s pain to make a point on my blog is not something I relish doing. But there’s a point to be made here as we watch the fall out in the media and blogosphere around the marital crises of Evangelists Juanita Bynum and Paula White. A point that’s been long time in coming. And I am a teacher at heart. So, take out your pencils and let’s get started.

The marriages of two highly celebrated women televangelists unraveled publicly last week. News broke last Wednesday about the brutal attack on Evangelist Juanita Bynum in a hotel parking lot by her husband of four years Bishop Thomas Weeks. Shortly afterwards, Evangelist Paula White and Rev. Randy White stood in the pulpit of their 23,000 member Tampa Bay, Florida church announcing the end of their 18 year marriage.

Ordinarily, marital strife (in Bynum’s case) and divorce (in White’s case) don’t make headline news. Not unless you’re a celebrity. Everybody divorces. Fifty percent of all marriages in this country go up in smoke (60% of black marriages, says some). Sad and staggering, but that’s our reality. What makes Bynum and White’s marriages attention-getting is that Bynum and White are women who have managed to climbed to the top of the otherwise male dominated profession of Christian ministry. Women who build megaministries that can rival those of the most successful men in their profession attract the best and worst attention to themselves. Their followers, those have been strengthened and helped by their ministries, urge folks to pray for Bynum and White, reminding us of their right to privacy and that they too are human. Others, those who loathe all things related to church, televangelists, and organized religion in general, take this time to blast the church, televangelists, organized religion and, those who are, according to them, their sniveling followers. Others of us believe that a window of much needed conversation has been opened up. Some good can come out of all of this, we pray.

Here’s the lesson to be gained, I believe.

Many of the news stories describe Bynum and White as fiery, gifted Pentecostal preachers who are known internationally for preaching women’s empowerment. Say what? Since when did Pentecostals preach women’s empowerment? That’s a non sequitur. You’re talking here to an Pentecostal, an ex-Pentecostal anyway. Believe me when I tell you there are things I miss about my Pentecostal past and continue to cherish about that tradition. But its teachings on women is not one of them. Bynum is a captivating evangelist. She’s talented. She’s masterful. Heck, the woman can preach! (As for Paula White’s preaching, I’ll leave that for another post.) But Juanita Bynum doesn’t preach empowerment, not outrightly, not consistently.

Since when did those who believe in women’s submission, men’s headship, and strict and proper roles for both genders start preaching women’s empowerment?
For the rest of the story, click here.