November 26, 2009 | ||||
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Despite the fragmented and incomplete historical record, experts pretty much agree that some popular beliefs about Jewish history simply don’t hold up: there was no sudden expulsion of all Jews from Jerusalem in A.D. 70, for instance. What’s more, modern Jews owe their ancestry as much to converts from the first millennium and early Middle Ages as to the Jews of antiquity. More Here.
With expectations running higher for the new special KBS2 drama “The Slave Hunters,” scheduled to air in January next year, the latest news that its three stars will show off spectacular martial arts skills in the drama is yet another draw. More Here.
By Fiona Macrae
Last updated at 11:28 AM on 26th November 2009
As a book of record the New Testament doesn't do too well on the early life of Jesus Christ.
The large holes may explain why so many outlandish theories have been able to build up about what the Son of God got up to as a boy.
But among those myths most perpetuated is that he visited Britain - an idea immortalised in the opening lines of William Blake's Jerusalem. More Here.
Historic: But did Jesus build a chapel beneath Glastonbury Abbey (pictured here), as a new film suggests?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
A federal judge ordered the Texas Education Agency to temporarily reinstate an East Texas teacher's credentials Tuesday after she refused digital state fingerprinting, calling it "the mark of the beast." MORE HERE.
'It always makes me laugh when people say I was born a man," says April Ashley, who in 1960 became the first Briton to undergo sex-change surgery. "I was born a baby, not a man. From the year dot, I knew I was female, so as soon as I could kneel down to say my prayers, it would be 'God bless Mummy, God bless Daddy, and please let me wake up and be a girl.' " MORE HERE.
Hollywood figures quit 'rip-off' church as Australian prime minister threatens parliamentary inquiry into its activities
The exterior of the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles in 2003. Photograph: Getty Images
The security at the red-brick and glass-walled horseshoe of the John Joseph Moakley courthouse on Boston's waterfront was unusually tight. Anybody who was not a member of the city's bar association was swept with a search wand. Photo IDs were checked. Mobile phones were taken from guests, who included the Hollywood star Tom Cruise. MORE HERE.
By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 23, 2009
The calls come in at all hours: patients reporting broken bones, violent coughs, deep depression.
Prue Lewis listens as they explain their symptoms. Then Lewis -- a thin, frail-looking woman from Columbia Heights -- simply says, "I'll go to work right away." She hangs up, organizes her thoughts and begins treating her clients' ailments the best way she knows how: She prays. More Here.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
It's not your mother's vibrator, and certainly not your grandmother's.
In the Bay Area, land of high-tech innovation and groundbreaking industrial design, inventors are creating sex products for the desktop - or nightstand - that are as imaginative, nuanced and advanced as the latest rainbow colors of the iPod. MORE HERE.
 Sodomy attracts tough punishments in conservative Pakistan |
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The doves are back, and that's very good news for action movie fans.
A universal sign of peace, they are a trademark symbol in the films of mayhem maestro John Woo, so when they soar in the new Chinese historical epic "Red Cliff," it signals a return to form for the iconic director. MORE HERE.
Your search results for "red cliff" DVD
Even at the tender age of 3, children who will go on to be convicted of a crime are less likely to learn to link fear with a certain noise than those who don't. This may mean that an insensitivity to fear could be a driving force behind criminal behaviour. More Here.
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:55 PM on 20th November 2009
Peter Sutcliffe: The serial killer, who lost sight in his left eye in 1997, was stabbed near his right during lunch more here.
Four people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of killing dozens of people in order to sell their fat and tissue for cosmetic uses in Europe More here. | |
Veteran actor Edward Woodward has died aged 79, his agent has confirmed. More Here. Edward Woodward: A career in photos | |
L-R: Izumi (dr.), Nao (ba.), Isshi (vo.), Shin (gt. & koto), Akiya (gt.)
Kagrra, is possibly one of the most unique contemporary bands from Japan. With a name that means "music of the gods" (Kagrra is a misspelling of kagura, a traditional Japanese dance), they combine traditional Japanese elements with modern styles to create something wholly their own. More Here.
 Ian McKellan has played many iconic roles from Gandalf to Magneto and now he's No. 2 in the remake of "The Prisoner." (Jennifer S. Altman / For The Times) |
By Richard Shears
Last updated at 11:23 AM on 13th November 2009
For years while he was on the run, robbing banks and holding up stage coaches, police were determined to have bushranger Ned Kelly's head.
Now a farmer claims to have handed over his skull to forensic scientists in Australia, asking them to determine if it really is the head of the notorious highwayman who to this day remains an iconic figure in the country's history, literature and film.
Kelly was hanged in Melbourne on November 11, 1880, but just what happened to his remains has been a mystery down through the decades. More Here.
Bandit: Ned Kelly (left), who was hanged in 1880, wore this armoured suit (right) on his raids. A farmer claims to have handed over Kelly's skull to scientists
Women are undergoing surgery to create perfect genitalia amid a "shocking" lack of information on the potential risks of the procedure, a report says. MORE HERE. | |
 The test could help to preserve treasured books and documents |
The key to preserving the old, degrading paper of treasured, ageing books is contained in the smell of their pages, say scientists. MORE HERE.
 Courtesy of Nat'l Academy of Sciences / PNAS |
| The southeast corner of a painted pyramid excavated at a site in Mexico shows scenes from everyday Maya life in the A.D. 620-700 time frame. |
In Bolivia, the Day of the Skulls is a colourful collision of ancient ritual with Catholic belief. The BBC's Andres Schipani went to a central La Paz cemetery to find out more. MORE HERE.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Title: Chief operating officer
Company: Good Vibrations, San Francisco
Q: Going into one of your stores can feel like going into a Hallmark or a beauty supply store. What is the message the store's appearance is meant to send?
A: Sex is normal, natural, healthy. When people walk through the door, we want them to feel very comfortable and welcome, to walk in and find nice lighting and nice fixtures. Sex is just another part of life and should be treated as such. Of course, I don't want to take the sexiness and the charge out of it either - we have products for that too. MORE HERE.
In case you don't know it there's a party going on and it will last for three days. Well, for three nights at least, as Alternative Tentacles bring their roster of bands, old and new, to The Great America Music Hall in San Francisco. Each night The label's proprietor will cap off the evening with his new band, Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine.
I talked to the man...MORE HERE.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Jack Boulware might be tired. He's in the middle of Litquake, the annual eight-day San Francisco literary festival he co-founded, which would be enough to stress out any rational person. But he also has his own book to promote, freshly printed, still smelly, and his collaborator Silke Tudor is in town for a brief return to her old stomping grounds, so perhaps he can be forgiven for asking if we needed anything else while he was in "full media-slut spew mode." MORE HERE.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist whose revolutionary studies of what was once called “primitive man” transformed Western understanding of the nature of culture, custom and civilization, has died at 100. MORE HERE.
For years, the Church of Scientology chased down and brought back staff members who tried to leave.
Ex-staffers describe being pursued by their church and detained, cut off from family and friends and subjected to months of interrogation, humiliation and manual labor. MORE HERE.
Somalia is in the grip of famine and chaos but officials there are inspecting bras
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
The excessive interest in covering up women's bodies is not confined to the extremists in Somalia
(Jeremy Surron-Hibbert)
Shinya Yamaguchi with one of his creations
At the age of 18, Mitsuhiro Matsushita already has a good idea of his ideal future. After he graduates from university a few years of work will be followed by marriage to an industrious wage earner. When children arrive it will be Mitsuhiro who stays at home looking after them, baking cakes and biscuits and living the traditional life of the Japanese housewife. MORE HERE.
And another one!
August marked the 30th anniversary of the release of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”, the first single by goth pioneers Bauhaus. I knew in the back of my head that the song would hit the three-decade mark this year, but the exact date of release slipped my mind, otherwise I would’ve written a glowing tribute to the song two months ago. My forgetfulness works out all right, given that there’s no better time to ruminate on “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” than in the light of Halloween. MORE HERE!
Crackdown on music piracy could further harm ailing industry
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Yesterday, a genuinely historic moment passed with scarcely a blip of attention from the media: President Obama signed into law the nation's first genuine federal bias-crimes statute.
Everyone interested in advancing civil rights in America and defending the nation's minorities from the deprivation of their rights by terroristic thugs -- particularly their historic victims, from African Americans and Asian Americans to Latinos, to Jews and other religious minorities, to gays and lesbians and transgender folk -- have real cause to celebrate. Brian Levin has a nice collection of their thoughts at HuffPo.
Then, of course, there's the Religious Right, which is holding its collective breath and pouting over the event. Case in point: Pat Robertson at The 700 Club, ripping into the new law both yesterday and today on his show. MORE HERE.
Atheism ExaminerTrina Hoaks
