Etta James

• If you're bummed out at Oscar nominating five white guys for Best Director yet again, check out Cannonball's list of five women that should have been nominated instead.
• Break out your see-through visors and cigars and support this Kickstarter campaign for feminist playing cards.
• From inter-office email: "We're probably all sick of Doucho Schwyzer, but this Global Comment piece is pretty good."
• Check Colorlines' wonderful obituary for Etta James.
• We all know Pariah's pretty darn good, but did you know the twenty-year history of black lesbian filmmaking?
• Today in Rick Santorum: pregnancies from rapes are God's will. Cue the sound of a thousand long, drawn-out sighs.
• Here's what Charlize Theron was missing when she silenced Viola Davis at the Oscar roundtable last week.
• Here's something: Ice-T predicts Hillary Clinton will be president in 2016.

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Don't Explain, a collaborative effort between blues revivalists Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa, hit stores yesterday. It features a range of traditional blues, soul and even gospel classics first made famous by the likes of Billie Holiday, Etta James, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. Of course, the intention is homage, but the artists are facing criticisms about cultural appropriation.

The opening track, "Sinner's Prayer" (lyrics) was recorded by both Lowell Fulson and Ray Charles in the 1950s. Here's their version:

To commemorate the end of Bed, Bitch and Beyond and to honor those naughty Halloween costumes that currently are flying off the racks, I bring you a very special, very sultry, totally Kenny-G-free compilation of sexy jams. Turn down the lights and turn up the mood music.