"Shoop" by Salt N Pepa

In this landmark work of old school hip-hop feminism, Salt axes the timeless question 'What's my weakness?; Pepa's answer, naturally enough, is emphatic - 'Men!'

Ah men... I've devoted almost my entire life to the admiration of and obsession over their virile forms, and the gay ones have repaid me by aggressively ignoring me; still, it's better than the routine menacing I've gotten from the straight ones, I suppose. More importantly, I haven't allowed this combination of celibacy and terrorism to change how I feel about them*.

In honour of Spinderella's birthday then, here is a bit of fun courtesy of Salt-N-Pepa from all the way back in 1993; Shoop first appeared on the band's fourth album Very Necessary, which was very necessary listening material itself that year.

*Maybe I should have, but then again weaknesses don't exactly respond to logic...
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POPnews Extra - August 3rd

On this day in 2005, Lee Seung Seop - an industrial boiler mechanic from the South Korean city of Daegu - died of exhaustion and dehydration after playing StarCraft at an Internet cafe continually for almost 50 hours. The victim was a well-known video game addict who'd recently been both fired from his job and dumped by his girlfriend for his reluctance to put down the joystick.
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POPnews - August 3rd

[When Ralph Metcalfe, Jesse Owens, and Frank Wykoff posed for this publicity shot on-board the ocean liner SS Manhattan as part of the largest American Olympic team to date they were not only boldly repudiating the cockamamie ideas a certain sawed-off Austrian paper-hanger had about so-called 'racial purity' but confronting some pretty deep-seated prejudices from back home as well.]

435 CE - The deposed Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius - who is fortuitously considered the originator of Nestorianism - was exiled by Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II to a monastery in Egypt's Great Oasis of Hibis (also known as al-Khargah).

881 CE - Louis III, King of Western Francia, defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu, an event celebrated in the poem Ludwigslied.

1460 - Scotland's King James II died, aged only 29, when the cannon he was standing next to during a siege of Roxburgh Castle exploded; he was succeeded by his 9-year-old son, James III, who governed under the regency of his mother Mary of Guelders until her death in December 1463*. The siege, on the other hand, was continued by the late King's commander George Douglas, 4th Earl of Angus. After the castle capitulated a few days later, the widowed queen ordered it demolished.

*Following her death the regency passed to James Kennedy, Bishop of St Andrews (who had also served as regent to James II), and Gilbert, Lord Kennedy, until 1466, and then to Robert, Lord Boyd until 1469, at which time he attained his majority.

1492 - Christopher Columbus set out on his famous voyage of discovery to the New World from Palos de la Frontera.

1527 - The first-known letter from North America was sent by John Rut, who had just arrived at St. John's, Newfoundland, to King Henry VIII back in England, detailing the number and nationality of fishing vessels in the vicinity.

1645 - During the Thirty Years' War at the Second Battle of Nördlingen (also known as the Battle of Allerheim) the combined French and Weimar forces of Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, and Vicomte de Turenne scored a victory over the Bavarian Johann von Werth and Franz Baron von Mercy of the Holy Roman Empire, who died in battle.

1811 - Jungfrau - the third highest summit in the Bernese Alps - was ascended for the first time by the Meyer brothers, sons of the topographer J. R. Meyer.

1852 - The first Harvard-Yale Regatta - itself the first American intercollegiate athletic event - was held between (you guessed it!) Yale and Harvard; for the record, Harvard won...

1913 - The Wheatland Hop Riot - a labour action involving the Industrial Workers of the World - occurred at the Durst Ranch near Wheatland, California.

1914 - Germany declared war on France at the outset of what would become known as World War I.

1916 - Irish rebel Sir Roger Casement (shown, at left) was hanged at London's Pentonville Prison, having undergone the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and been accepted into the Roman Catholic faith while incarcerated at the Tower of London; Casement's legacy remains a conflicted one, since any efforts on his behalf in favour of the independence of Ireland were tainted after his death by revelations contained in the so-called Black Diaries he kept that he was not only actively but pretty unapologetically homosexual.

1923 - At 2:47 AM Republican Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th President of the United States following the death of Warren G. Harding the previous day; the presidential oath was administered by Coolidge's father, John Calvin Coolidge, Sr, who was a notary public.  The office of Vice President was left vacant until the 1924 Election, at which time Coolidge was re-elected alongside Charles G. Dawes.

 1934 - Hitler became Führer of Germany after combining the Presidency and Chancellorship.

1936 - Jesse Owens won the 100-metre dash at the Berlin Olympics, defeating Ralph Metcalfe, who was also black.

1949 - The National Basketball Association (NBA) was founded in New York City with the merger of the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL).

1958 - The nuclear submarine USS Nautilus became the first such vessel to reach the North Pole by traveling beneath the Arctic ice cap.

1966 - Controversial comedian Lenny Bruce was found dead on the floor of the bathroom of his Hollywood Hills home at 8825 N. Hollywood Blvd.; he was 40.  Although the official cause of death was 'acute morphine poisoning caused by an accidental overdose' and Bruce was known to be a heavy drug user, the legal battles he faced in his later years - brought on by obscenity charges pressed by people with little or no understanding of the First Amendment - couldn't have helped matters.

2001 - The Real IRA detonated a car bomb in the London borough of Ealing, injuring seven people.

2005 - Mauritania's President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya was overthrown in a military coup while attending the funeral of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd in Riyadh.
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