John Barleycorn Must Die

John Barleycorn Must Die is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Traffic, released in 1970, on Island Records in the United Kingdom, and United Artists in the United States, catalogue UAS 5504. It peaked at number 5 on the Billboard 200, their highest charting album in the US, and has been certified a gold record by the RIAA. In addition, the single "Empty Pages" spent eight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 74. The album was marginally less successful in the UK, reaching number 11 on the UK Albums Chart.

Background and content

In late 1968, Traffic disbanded, guitarist Dave Mason having left the group for the second time prior to the completion of the Traffic album. In 1969, Steve Winwood joined the supergroup Blind Faith, while drummer/lyricist Jim Capaldi and woodwinds player Chris Wood turned to session work. Wood and Winwood also joined Blind Faith's drummer Ginger Baker in his post-Blind Faith group Ginger Baker's Air Force for their first album.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) is a non-profit legal rights organization in the United States. The organization works to end discrimination based on sexual orientation, HIV status, and gender identity and expression. The organization primarily achieves this goal through litigation, advocacy, and education work in all areas of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights and the rights of people living with HIV. In addition, GLAD operates a legal information line, GLAD Answers, where LGBTQ & HIV+ residents of New England can receive attorney referrals and information about their rights.

Background

GLAD is based in Boston, Massachusetts, and serves the New England area of the United States. John Ward founded GLAD in 1978 in response to a sting operation conducted by Boston police that resulted in the arrest of more than a hundred men in the men's rooms of the main building of the Boston Public Library. GLAD filed its first case, Doe v. McNiff, that same year and eventually all those arrested were either found not guilty or had the charges against them dismissed. An early victory came in Fricke v. Lynch (1980), in which GLAD represented Aaron Fricke, an 18-year-old student at Cumberland High School in Rhode Island, who won the right to bring a same-sex date to a high school dance.

Amen

The word amen (/ˌɑːˈmɛn/ or /ˌeɪˈmɛn/; Hebrew: אָמֵן, Modern amen, Tiberian ʾāmēn; Greek: ἀμήν; Arabic: آمين‎, ʾāmīn ; "So be it; truly") is a declaration of affirmation found in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. It has been generally adopted in Christian worship as a concluding word for prayers and hymns. Common English translations of the word amen include "verily" and "truly". It can also be used colloquially to express strong agreement, as in, for instance, amen to that.

Pronunciation

In English, the word amen has two primary pronunciations, ah-men (/ɑːˈmɛn/) or ay-men (/eɪˈmɛn/), with minor additional variation in emphasis (the two syllables may be equally stressed instead of placing primary stress on the second). The Oxford English Dictionary gives "ɑː'mɛn, eɪ'mεn".

In anglophone North America the ah-men pronunciation is used in performances of classical music, in churches with more formalized rituals and liturgy and in liberal to mainline Protestant denominations, as well as almost every Jewish congregation, in line with modern Hebrew pronunciation. The ay-men pronunciation, a product of the Great Vowel Shift dating to the 15th century, is associated with Irish Protestantism and conservative Evangelical denominations generally, and is the pronunciation typically used in gospel music.

Amen!

Amen! is the second album by singer and actress Della Reese. The album was her second record for Jubilee Records, and her first of many records dedicated solely to sacred and spiritual material. The album features background vocals by the Meditation Singers, which she had been a part of in the early ’50s. The album also features vocals by the then unknown singer Laura Lee, who had incidentally replaced Reese in the group, when she left in 1953.

The album was released on Compact Disc, alongside her 1959 album What Do You Know About Love?, for the first time in 2008, by Collector’s Choice.

Track listing

Amen.

Amen. is a 2002 German, Romanian and French film directed by Costa-Gavras.

Plot

The film Amen. examines the links between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. The central character is Kurt Gerstein (Ulrich Tukur), a Waffen-SS officer employed in the SS Hygiene Institute, designing programs for the purification of water and the destruction of vermin. He is shocked to learn that the process he has developed to eradicate typhus, by using a hydrogen cyanide mixture called Zyklon B, is now being used for killing Jews in extermination camps. Gerstein attempts to notify Pope Pius XII (Marcel Iureş) about the gassings, but is appalled by the lack of response he gets from the Catholic hierarchy. The only person moved is Riccardo Fontana (Mathieu Kassovitz), a young Jesuit priest. Fontana and Gerstein attempt to raise awareness about what is happening to the Jews in Europe but even after Fontana appealing to the pope himself, the Vatican makes only a timid and vague condemnation of Hitler and Nazi Germany.