Ari Up, a Founder of the Slits Punk Band, Dies at 48

From The New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/arts/music/22ariup.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: October 22, 2010

Arianna Forster, who gained acclaim in the late 1970s as Ari Up, the singer of the exuberant and influential all-female punk-rock band the Slits, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. She was 48.

Her death was reported on the Web site of her stepfather, John Lydon, also known as Johnny Rotten, the singer of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd. The site (johnlydon.com) said that Ms. Forster died after “a serious illness.”

Ms. Forster, who was born in Germany, was 14 years old when the Slits were founded in 1976 and, like many of their punk-rock contemporaries, picked up instruments with an energetic do-it-yourself ethos but little formal training.

By 1979, however, when they released their first record, “Cut,” whose cover art showed three shirtless young women, including Ms. Forster, wearing loincloths and daubed with mud, they had forged a unique sound out of their self-taught approach. The album included songs with titles like “Shoplifting.”

“They had embraced rhythms beyond basic punk, while their lead singer, Ari Up, reveled in every quaver and yelp,” the critic Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times in 2009. “She sang mocking critiques of trendiness, romance and consumerism as the music juggled rock, ska, reggae and something like funk. The Slits came up with odd-angled chord progressions that better trained musicians wouldn’t touch.”

In the late ’70s the Slits toured as the opening act for the Clash, then the reigning protagonists of political punk rebellion. The Clash’s singer and guitarist, Joe Strummer, taught chords to Ms. Forster; the other Clash guitarist, Mick Jones, helped her band mates tune their instruments.

Continue reading at:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/arts/music/22ariup.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

Breaking News from Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/accusation-whitmans-son-hushed-up/

By David Edwards
Friday, October 22nd, 2010 — 1:07 pm

Whitman’s son had previously been charged with assaulting woman; charges were dropped

Several years after California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman donated $30 million to Princeton University, the school decided not to punish her son for an alleged rape, according to a new report by Gawker.

Gawker‘s Maureen O’Connor reports that in the spring of 2006, an unnamed classmate accused Griffith Rutherford Harsh V, Whitman’s son, of rape. By his own admission, Harsh met up with the girl after a night of partying and had sex with her.

“She awoke the next morning with a black eye, bruised face and, she told friends, with no memories from the previous night,” O’Connor writes. An anonymous friend of told the website that the girl didn’t remember consenting or having sex.

She was “terrified,” the friend said. “She didn’t want to press charges because it’s Meg Whitman’s son. She didn’t want to go through that. She didn’t go to the police. She didn’t get a rape kit.”

Continue reading at:  http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/accusation-whitmans-son-hushed-up/

What’s new about this shit?  Men get away with rape all the time.

From Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/pelosi-gop-victory-turn-america-plutocracy-oligarchy/

By Sahil Kapur
Friday, October 22nd, 2010 — 9:36 am

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday said the United States would be ceded to plutocrats and oligarchs if Republicans win next month’s election, referring to the flood of pro-GOP corporate election spending.

“This election is also about our democracy,” Pelosi said on MSNBC’s “Countdown With Keith Olbermann.” “If they win — which I fully intend to stop them from doing — but if they win, it would mean we are now a plutocracy and oligarchy.”

“Whatever these few wealthy, secret, unlimited sources of money are can control our entire agenda,” she said.

The first female speaker struck an unmistakably ominous tone about wealthy groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and Crossroads GPS spending a fortune bankrolling campaigns — overwhelmingly for Republicans — while concealing their sources of funding.

“It is essential and fundamental to our democracy that we not have it be a wholly owned subsidiary of these corporations, and as a part of the Chamber of Commerce,” Pelosi said.

Continue reading at:  http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/pelosi-gop-victory-turn-america-plutocracy-oligarchy/

Oct 21, 2010 by Nicole Neroulias

(RNS) Most Americans believe messages about homosexuality coming from religious institutions contribute to negative views of gays and lesbians, and higher rates of suicide among gay youths, a new poll reports.

While split on whether same-sex relations are sinful, Americans are more than twice as likely to give houses of worship low marks on handling the issue of homosexuality, according to a PRRI/RNS Religion News Poll released Thursday (Oct. 21).

A plurality (45 percent) of Americans, however, give their own house of worship a `A’ or `B’ grade on how it handles homosexuality.

After a recent spate of teen suicides prompted by anti-gay harassment and bullying, the poll indicates a strong concern among Americans about how religious messages are impacting public discussions of homosexuality.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans (72 percent) say religious messages about homosexuality contribute to “negative views” of gays and lesbians, and nearly two-thirds (65 percent) see a connection to higher rates of suicide among gay youths.

Continue Reading at:   http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2010-10/americans-say-religious-messages-fuel-negatives-views-gays

File this under: “How could this possibly be?”

I wonder why people would think that these organized hate groups masquerading under the disguise religion might be fomenting hatred and denial of equal rights to LGBT/T people?  Other than the fact they are doing just that.