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• Poplicks.com: L.A.’S FILIPINO INV(ASIAN)? Critique of LA Weekly article on Filipino domination of the Hollywood club scene.

The Evangelical Outpost has rounded-up an excellent list of rappers who have posed as Jesus prior to this month’s Kanye West Rolling Stone cover.

So that’s why it seemed so trite. One would encounter several CD covers depicting rappers posing as Jesus while simply browsing through the used Rap section at the local Rasputin (I’d pass those up to buy though. Not my cup of tea - ‘cept for Nas).

Shock is far from what one feels when reading about the Kanye/Jesus cover. In my case, the SDA church we rent space from has had a picture of a black Jesus displayed in the lobby for several months. In addition, all the evangelical churches I have attended since my youth have always taught that the blue-eyed, flowing-haired, Scandinavian-looking Jesus depicted in pictures is so far from the real Jesus of the Bible. It’s interesting what the Scriptures does say about Jesus’ appearance:

He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

He was just an ordinary looking citizen of 1st century Palestine. Prophetic words those were though, coming from the Old Testament (Isaiah 53 is all about Jesus Christ).

One little thought that came to mind about the Rolling Stone cover was that the publication seemed to want the issue to coincide with the showing at Sundance of a South African movie depicting Jesus as a black man. But the one thing that caught my attention more than anything was Kanye West’s revelation in Rolling Stone that he was addicted to porn. He says “he remembers first seeing his father’s Playboy magazine when he was 5 years old.” He then admits, “Right then…it was like, ‘Houston, we have a problem.’ ” Hmmm, sounds familiar. We all need a Saviour, don’t we?

The breaks in between the “beautifully timed” storms we’ve had for the past couple of months have been a Godsend. The times the sun has come out I’ve been able to mow the lawn (although it’s due for another trimming), take the family out to the City, and help my wife with her bi tri-annual yard sale. A couple of weekends ago, however, at the beginning of my wife’s Spring Break we welcomed the forecast of rain showers with eager anticipation for this meant snowfall up in the mountains!

We drove up to Lake Tahoe in a rented Toyota 4Runner (a necessity, I must say). It was the first time the younger boys had seen snow, and it’s a first for me to actually see snowfall. And boy was it coming down.

Josh Levin finds similarities between rappers and bloggers. Hear him read his article here.

All of a sudden, the old “(B)link-(B)link” sidebar header for my blogger links gains some significance. (Yay, I get to keep it a little longer. No, boo. I’ll get rid of it soon. I promise.)

via DYL

There’s this Citibank commercial that cracks me up each time I see it. It shows a woman at a grocery store who mistakes a full-figured woman for being pregnant. The offending woman, embarrassed, utters a simple “thank you?” and all is fine and dandy. The voiceover goes, “It’s amazing what a simple ‘thank you’ can do.” Boy, I wish uttering those two words in real life can diffuse awkward situations just as easily.

“Thank you” songs are similar in a certain sense. There’s something light-hearted about them that takes the edge off of a stressful day. Dido surely feels this way when she sings Thank You, perhaps the most famous pop song about gratitude. Geggy Tah’s Whoever You Are, is so fun to listen to. Its chorus, “All I want to do is to thank you even though I don’t know who you are. You let me change lanes while I was driving in my car,” is a catchy little ditty that never fails to put a smile on my face. Del the Funkee Homosapien ends his 1993 underground hip-hop classic album with a tune called Thank Youse. In it, he takes time to thank his listeners, which is quite a nice departure from the rest of the album where braggadocio lyrics prevail.

Giving thanks has a way of focusing oneself towards the positive instead of the negative. And songs of gratitude, when directed towards the Creator, express the realization that every good thing is a gift from God and is not something earned.

*This was supposed to be my Thanksgiving post but it totally slipped my mind because of the busyness of the holiday.