Gladiators, hazing, gay spies and justice

ka-os|theory
a news compendium
with a gay bias
issue 65 | June 2010

||| Ever wonder what happened to former Gladiator Tornado (a.k.a. David McIntosh)? Of course you did. Fortunately for us, those tireless hacksjournalists at The Sun have found out for us. The big lad is a mercenary in Iraq.

||| Iran, Jamaica... and anywhere in Africa. The GBLT community is
under attack in developing countries, and it's not just because of "local culture".

||| International Mr. Leather - the largest annual leather event in the world - has this year
outlawed "marketing that promotes unprotected sex". Right, Justin Terry-Smith at the event.

||| Was everyone too quick to cry "Homophobe!" when hip-hop artist Wale cancelled DC Black Pride? Or is his
u-turn merely damage limitation?

||| These four boys - Indiana high school basketball players -
stand accused of hazing and sodomizing, while their coaches (who've now resigned) looked the other way.

||| A lesson in anonymous bloggers: When A Gay Hockey Kid
isn't.

||| US Senate committee
votes for repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Right, Major Alan Rogers, a gay soldier who sacrificed himself to save his fellow soldiers.

||| OMG! The end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell
means more gay rape in the military!

||| Maybe they should look harder at their straight soldier,
like the one who asked these innocent Iraqi boys if they were gay and had gay sex, with the sole intent of humiliating them on camera. Towleroad has video.

||| Bad ideas for gay porn movies: The CIA's Saddam Hussein skinflick.

||| 78% of Americans
support allowing gay men and women to serve in the military. One in five oppose.

||| "Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America." These are the words of Bradlee Dean, speaking for rightwing Christian group You Can Run. Christians and Muslims united against gays...

||| Too gay (left) for Details magazine?

||| There
goes the neighborhood (right)...

||| Allan Gassman, the O Boys co-founder and safe sex activist,
is dead. He was 47.

||| Malawi: Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga have been
pardoned by President Bingu wa Mutharika, following his meeting with UN chief Ban Ki-moon, and intense international pressure. Last week, the couple were sentenced to fourteen years hard labour on charges of homosexuality.

||| Malawi: Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell - who has personally supported the couple -
told UKGayNews, "Steven and Tiwonge should never have been arrested, let alone jailed for five months, convicted and sentenced to 14 years hard labour. They love one another and have harmed no one."

||| Malawi: Couple
returned to their own seperate villages and forbidden to see one another; relatives hope they have "learned their lesson".

||| Malawi: Prior to their release, South African President Jacob Zuma
condemned the couple's sentencing - but had refused to intervene. Actions speak louder than...

||| Malawi: Gay man, female or transgender?
Why we have to guess about how Tiwonge Chimbalanga identifies.

||| Gay Travels in the Muslim World: the Eastern versus Western paradigm of gender, sexuality and identity.

||| Zimbabwe:
No gay rights advance for new constitution.

||| Uganda:
Is it as homophobic as everyone thinks? Watch journalist Mariana van Zeller's documentary Missionaries of Hate to find out.

||| Uganda: The Family
and Uganda's anti-gay legislation.

||| Ugandan anti-gay bill creator wallows in the filth of his own homophobia, Alvin McEwen
writes.

||| Uganda: Germany pledges aid conditional upon no anti-gay legislation. Uganda takes the money and runs.

||| Zimbabwe: Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe staff Ellen Chadehama and Ignatius Mhambi, arrested last week on trumped up charges of possessing pornography (and insulting president Robert Mugabe),
were tortured in police custody.

||| Kenya, Malawi, Uganda... What are things like for our brothers and sisters
in Ghana?

||| And
meet Bahaa Saber (right), the Egyptian human rights activist persecuted for being gay.

||| Pushing gay sex underground is
causing HIV to sweep Africa like wildfire.

||| Homophobia in Africa is not a single story, Keguro Macharia
writes. "We must question the idea that homophobia in Africa is unique and understand it within a broader global context."

||| But Africa isn't alone in failing to get to grips with its bigots. 19 out of 48 countries in the Asia Pacific region
criminalise male-to-male sex.

||| As a result, HIV rates among gay men
are reaching alarming highs throughout the region.

||| Cape Town, the gay capital of South Africa, is flush with the "pink rand".

||| And in India, entrepreneurs
are chasing the 'pink rupee'; the High Court recently stuck down the ban on homosexual acts in place since British colonial times.

||| This is a truly wonderful story: The GBLT community in Moscow this weekend got the better of bumbling police to defy a ban on Moscow Pride by that city's homophobic Mayor. UKGayNews writes: "Activists paraded a 20-metre long Rainbow flag along a busy street in central Moscow. The police were totally outwitted after falling for all the 'mis-information' put out over the last few days. There was not a policeman in sight as the long flag was paraded for about 500 metres. One cop car arrived about five minutes after the activists has dispersed - and the media were by then doing interviews with both Russian and foreign participants." Video here.

||| Peter Tatchell was there, and he writes about our
Gay Pride triumph in Moscow!

||| But
why did the EU, UK and US all fail to condemn the ban?

||| Contrasting sharply with the "cowardice" of Western diplomats,
is the courage of our Russian GBLT brothers and sisters.

||| Romania: Bucharest holds its sixth annual GayFest. In pictures.

||| Careless pillow talk: Former German spy and his male lover
sentenced for leaking state secrets.

||| So, how did the boardroom discussion go? "Say, Bill, let's use an image of Hitler, dressed up in pink, to sell our cheap rags. The kids'll love it, and the ensuing controversy will generate bags of free publicity! It's a win-win!"

||| The first casualty of Britain's new coalition Government - the ConDems - is a weak man "terrified" of
being outed. Pathetic - and a true indication of this administration's character.

||| But something about it doesn't make sense. Of course it doesn't. It's an an excuse.

||| The British Government
opposed the promotion of "practising homosexuals" as recently as the mid-70s because they feared they were susceptible to blackmail.

||| Spandex, the gay superhero comic,
has been nominated for an Eagle Award, for Favourite British Colour Comic.

||| Thinking of travelling to Australia? Be warned. Australian customs officials
now have the right to search electronic devices (laptops, phones, cameras) for pornography.

||| An Australian court
has rejected the asylum claim by a gay Pakistani man. Australia has little tolerance for gays seeking asylum.

||| Not enough lube
on the Tube?

||| "Like a lot of gay men, I seem to be stuck doing guys I don't want to date and dating guys I don't want to do." Mike Alvear
writes about the real reason why so many gay men are single.

||| Does Gaydar
really exist? Research suggests it does: Dutch boffins have found "gays are much more detail-oriented".

||| Are you a Mummy's boy? Apparently you'll have better relationships in later life.

||| Chocolate that
fights wrinkles, aging.

||| Pun
fail.

||| Does the use of lubricants during anal sex
make it easier for HIV to be transmitted?

||| And does sunscreen actually increase the risk of skin cancer?

||| Today in shock ads:
Mom Drinks, Baby Drinks.

||| This "Dracula fish" is one of the Top 10 new species discovered in 2009.

||| Meanwhile, this lovely little bird - the Madagascar rusty grebe -
has been lost forever.

||| Polar bears and grizzly bears are
breaking all the taboos.

||| THAT volcano
blows a smoke ring. Must have been good, then.

||| The Big Picture: Oil reaches Louisiana shores, below
(38 more pictures)


||| Facebook's new privacy settings.

||| A Tupac Shakur biopic: just don't mess it up.

||| Just when you though 50 Cent couldn't get any more
ugly...

||| Still, there's always JLS to pretty up the world.

||| Who says the camera doesn't lie?
How the internet tried to turn Justin Bieber into a homophobe.

||| Spartacus: Blood and Sand
makes its UK debut. Is it the Oz for the new decade?

||| And in EastEnders
this week...

||| ...And have a butchers at former Footballer's Wives' super-bitch Zoe Lucker,
who joins the Walford soap on 4th June.

||| Coronation Street
gets a new title sequence...


||| Bonhams, the auction house, will be auctioning more Doctor Who props on 23rd June. How about the original cover artwork for The Dalek Book from 1964?

||| As Lost ends, its creators explain
how they did it.

||| Actresses Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless (or Cagney & Lacey)
reunite on the red carpet.

||| Gary Coleman, the actor,
is dead. He was 42.

||| Gay Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul
has won the Palme d'Or - the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. His film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives took the prestigious award.

||| "I'd heard that a lot of professional actors were gay. Acting seemed like a chance for me to meet like-minded people." Sir Ian McKellen
on the benefits of an actor's life.

||| The new A-Team movie's Mr T, Rampage Jackson (left): "Acting is kind of gay." Oh, so it's like that is it?

||| Blimey! I think I've found someone who hates Sex and The City more than I do! From
The New Gay: "Once again the grim spectre of Sex and The City has botoxed its way into the national queer consciousness, whether we want it to or not."

||| You might not know, and I kinda didn't, but the 2010 Blatino Awards were held last month. "I contacted Joe Hawkins, the creative force behind the Blatino Oasis Awards," Victor Hoff writes at MOC Blog, "and pestered him into giving me something, anything to report on about this year's ceremonies. He was kind enough to send me two links to videos he found on YouTube." Here's one - head over to MOC Blog for the other.


||| Say it ain't so! D.O. - the model/porn star (above left), and one of the sexiest men in the world - has allowed a beard to grow across is previously exquisite face.

||| Presented without comment, because that would be too easy: Twinklight.


||| The New York City subway map gets a facelift.

||| The monster skyscraper
due to cast a long shadow over Central Park.


||| The Big Picture: Lighter than air, above (30 more pictures).

||| Plastic boy slut
isn't happy Vanity Fair photoshopped him into a hot duo scene with fellow ball kicker Didier Drogba. Never mind, Cristiano - at least it wasn't a group scene.

||| Meanwhile Vanity Fair features Mario Balotelli - Italy's first born-and-bred black footballing superstar - on its cover
.

||| And finally, a lovely little ad from France, that'll have you reaching for a Big Mac (thanks to
Niyi Maximus Crown for the tip!)...


||| READ THE LAST EDITION

||| ka-os|theory, ONE YEAR AGO: 30.05.09

_____________________________________________________Photobucket
Issue 65 of ka-os|theory covers the period
24 - 30 May 2010 - plus some stuff I missed!


ka-os|theory is not responsible for the content
of external websites.

POSTSCRIPT
"You know, we might just as well not have bothered to come.
The whole thing's been ridiculous."

© 2010
Photobucket

8 comments:

Cup-o-Noodles said...

Lovely and informative, as always. I love these news collection of yours!

Wonder Man said...

that's alot, I feel like I missed a lot of stuff

Eduardo Guize said...

great compilation once again. In the middle of bad news for homosexuals, it's always a guilty pleasure to hear about Cristiano Ronaldo having a diva tantrum.

corve said...

The Vanity Fair feature on the footballers make for a good read.

ManFoto Fan said...

The French pro-gay McDonald's ad has caused Fox News homophobe Bill O’Reilly to choke on his McFlurry Ogre-load! I'm always suspicious of such vociferously vile bigots — what is it that they're hiding?

Urban Shotz said...

I sat back to watch Corrie only to find that the much-hyped HD title sequence was deliberately shot completely out-of-focus. What's the point?

KAOS said...

Urban Shotz - AGREED! The last sequence, showing the street in a very real location, was much better. The tinkering they've done with the theme isn't very clever either, it makes it sound like a wartime museum piece.

Unknown said...

Africa unite against what? REALLY?

 
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