Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It's been awhile. Definitely the heat has died down, and I'd like to wish y'all a very happy holiday!

Bush has not commented, but his wife has!; controversial cartoon

Latest news on the Kanye West George Bush incident - First Lady Laura Bush has now come forward to defend her husband's stance at one who cares about everyone in the United States. He also claims Kanye's comments on Sept 2 "disgusting". She elaborated stating: "I think all of those remarks are disgusting, to be perfectly frank, because of course President Bush cares about everyone in our country. And I know that. I mean, I'm the person who lives with him. I know what he's like, and I know what he thinks, and I know how he cares about people."

In other "weird" news, a cartoon designed by a University of Florida student has garnered some controversy. The cartoon, playing off of West’s comments that "George Bush doesn’t care about black people," ran in the Tuesday edition of U of F's Independent Florida Alligator, featured West handing a playing card labeled "The Race Card" to United States Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice.

The artist who drew the cartoon, Andy Marlette, said the cartoon was not meant to be racist and said of the cartoon: "If anything it's celebrating a black person who has really done something great and represents the best of black culture," Marlette said referring to Rice.

Independent Florida Alligator editor Mike Gimignani said the paper has received numerous phone calls and letters about the cartoon.

"(Marlette) is very good at pushing buttons," Gimignani told the Gainesville Sun. "Unfortunately, there is a little too much tied to this word."

Members of the black student union and other campus organizations are demanding an apology from the paper.

Is Kanye alone?

More on the Kanye West George Bush incident. For starters, there is no fellow hip-hop star that does not downgrade Kanye's controversial comments from two weeks ago.

For example, this is what Jay-Z said during a recent interview with Billboard magazine: "I'm backing up Kanye 100%. This is America. You should be able to say what you want to say. We have freedom of speech."

Sharing some of West's views about the US' slow response to the Katrina disaster he said: "It's really numbing. You can't believe it's happening in America. You wonder, what's going on? Why were people so slow to react? I don't understand it."

Jay-Z also revealed that, despite having not "spoken to anyone about doing a concert event" to benefit Hurricane Katrina victims, he wants to speak with [a][/a] about setting up a fund in order to exclusively aid African-Americans in times of crisis.

He explained: "Just in case anything like this happens in the future, we can do what the elder Bush and (Bill) Clinton are doing for our people specifically."

Then Green Day's frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong, introduced their song "Holiday" as "Fuck President George Bush" during a recent gig in the Quad Cities area (IA, IL). The crowd applauded.

Sometime in between the two, President Bush did admit that the reponses from relieving teams was unacceptable.

So, was Kanye right?

Well, I'm pretty sure that Bush still loves black people.

What did Usher REALLY say about Kanye?

More on Usher and the Kanye West George Bush incident: It was recently reported by the media that Usher defamed Kanye West's criticsm of George W. Bush's "caring for black people".

But this is what the R&B idol said according to the BBC: "Contrary to false media reports, I support the personal opinions made by my friend Kanye West.

"If it wasn't for his comments, there would not be an open dialogue about the underserved people in the Gulf Region.”

He continued: “Our country is in a state of emergency - instead of the media trying to turn celebrities against one other - we should all come together as one and support the victims of this devastating tragedy."

How it started

The Kanye West George Bush incident - You probably know all about it by now.The incident on NBC's A Concert for Hurricane Relief hosted by Matt Lauer on September 2 portrayed Kanye West's anguish towards U.S. President George W. Bush in what West feels is Bush's disregard for African Americans compared with their Caucasian counterparts.

The African-American three-time Grammy-winning hip-hop phenomenon exclaimed, "I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food." While West did praise efforts put forth by the American Red Cross he was turned off with the government's unreasonable delay in aiding New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast communities battered by Hurricane Katrina. "They've given them permission to go down and shoot us," West said without specifics."George Bush doesn't care about black people." The camera cut away to unsuspecting comedian Chris Tucker shortly thereafter.

Kanye West George Bush incident UPDATE: It's almost always true

9-11-05 - It's almost always true - sad, but true. For every 1 person who will appreciate a celebrity for any big reason, there will be at least 10 or 20 people that take the opposite position.So if you're a celebrity, watch out. The people that don't care about you will really not care once you start a fire. This is what Kanye unfortunately found out in Boston during the concert for the NFL opener.Good thing, he wasn't there - the show was being broadcast in Boston out of Los Angeles.With all that Kanye remains unapologetic in regards to the Bush remarks. In fact, on the Ellen De Generes chat show on 9-9-05 he upheld his statements saying, "Back in the days when it was time to clean the kitchen, I would try to sweep the dust under the kitchen sink instead of really taking care of it," West said. "and if you spilled something on that floor all that dust came right up in front of your face. That's basically what the flood did."They have been trying to sweep us (African-Americans) under the kitchen sink and it was so in people's faces and so on TV... that they couldn't even hide it any more."Down there, people are living below the poverty level to start off with, before this happened."A year ago I was on tour with Usher and we had a hurricane hit Florida and everybody was saying, 'If this hurricane went to Louisiana, if it went to Mississippi, they wouldn't be able to handle it.' (That was) a year ago - and there was nothing done about it."West (right of picture) is shown with Mike Myers during the Telethon when his anti-Bush comments were made.

LATEST

9-07-05 - Wow, it's been a busy week for Kanye. It's been five days after his hoopla surrounding his George W. Bush remark, and he is scheduled to perform at the NFL opening kickoff concert tomorrow in L.A. He even promises to entertain... with his music this time. Meanwhile, his latest release Late Registration checked in at #1 in its opening week on the Billboard 200, selling more than 860,000 copies. In contrast, his first release, the oppositely titled The College Dropout debuted at #2 in 2004 with 441,000. That album has scanned 2.7 million copies to date.Kanye did a appear in an interview with the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday, but did not disregard his antagonizing Friday remarks.

No Diamonds in 50's club.

9-11-05 - "I feel like Kanye West is successful because of me” - says 50 Cent. "He puts together witty phrases and he's a great talent as a producer, but I still don't know who Kanye West is when I listen to him, By listening to the record, I don't know who he is - I know he's been in a car accident, that's what I know." Said 50.Why does 50 Cent think Kanye West is successful? "I feel like Kanye West is successful because of me. After 50 Cent, [hip-hop fans] was looking for something non-confrontational, and they went after first thing that came along. That was Kanye West, and his record took off."How 'bout a "Candy-Shop" cover? Just kidding, Kanye.