#96

a news compendium

with a gay bias
issue 96 | May 2011 | FREE

<<< Zacharia, lensed by Gregory Vaughan. More manikins later...

...But first, this week's good, bad and indifferent bits.

||| Homosexuality, Catholic priest abuse of minors not linked, study finds.

||| Meet Timothy Ray Brown, the first man cured of HIV.

||| The Commonwealth is a bastion of homophobia. Peter Tatchell writes, "The Commonwealth's failure to challenge anti-gay laws and discrimination is the poisonous legacy of British colonialism." (The Guardian)

NORTH AMERICA & CANADA

||| Homosexuality: New poll shows majority Of Americans say gay is okay. (The New Civil Rights Movement)

||| "Homo hookers busted in Atlanta police sting." (That's my kinda headline...)

>>> Gay LAPD officer wins $US1 million judgment. Sgt. Ronald Crump suffered retaliation after complaining about a supervisor's homophobic behaviour.

||| In Alabama, a bill to protect teachers and other state employees from being fired because of their sexual orientation has been described as "dead".

||| Anti-bullying bill fails in Louisiana legislature...

...Whilst in Tennessee, the Senate approves the "Don't Say Gay" bill, which forbids the discussion of homosexuality in classrooms.

||| All of which is a shame, because a new study shows the relationship that homophobic bullying has to depression, suicide and increased rates of HIV in adulthood.

||| Homophobic hate crimes on the rise, UN human rights chief warns. (United Nations News Service)

||| International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia: Hillary Clinton press statement.

>>> United Airlines Ground Zero advert fail: 'You're going to like where we land'.

||| The airline had earlier been forced to apologise for reviving flight 93 and 175 - the designations of two of the planes involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

<<< The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck is getting a "brick and mortar" store.

UNITED KINGDOM

||| UK tops Europe map of GBLT equality.

||| Isle of Man homophobia "still a problem". (BBC News)

||| "Elton John meets David Cameron to discuss HIV rates." Gee, with those two on the case, we'll soon be able to declare the AIDS crisis over!

>>> Musician Morrissey criticises Queen Elizabeth and the Monarchy as she makes an historic visit to Ireland: "The very existence of the Queen and her now enormous family – all supported by the British taxpayer whether the British taxpayer likes it or not – is entirely against any notion of democracy, and is against freedom of speech. For a broad historical view of what the Queen is and how she 'rules', examine Gaddafi or Mubarak, and see if you can spot any difference. You won't be able to."

<<< Black women are less attractive, Japanese-born academic Satoshi Kanazawa claims, triggering race row. "Social scientist made remarks on his blog claiming he had analysed data from an online study of physical attractiveness." (The Guardian)

||| London's Latin Americans "face exploitation at work". (BBC News)

>>> London's British Transport Police to get armed officers as fears of a Mumbai-style terror attack on Tube and rail stations grow.

EUROPE

||| NETHERLANDS: Dutch churches sign statement condemning violence against GBLT community.

<<< NETHERLANDS: Muslim MP Ahmed Marcouch gets gay emancipation award.

||| Czech Republic denies "phallometric" porn arousal test for gay refugees is in use after European criticism. (The Huffington Post)

||| HUNGARY: German insurer Munich Re held orgy for salesmen. (BBC News)

||| RUSSIA: Amnesty International ask Moscow officials to reverse Pride ban.

>>> RUSSIA: Heavy police presence protects Rainbow Flash Mob, "an extremely rare authorized LGBT rights event", from nationalist threats.

||| SPAIN: Nearly 80% of teens support gay marriage.

||| Cyprus bottom of the list in Europe for its attitudes towards GBLT community.

<<< FRANCE: The ongoing drought is a "situation of crisis", the government declares.

LATIN AMERICA

||| Homophobia in the Caribbean varies widely, with differences greatest between Spanish-speaking and English-speaking areas.

||| JAMAICA: U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica Pamela Bridgewater writes editorial decrying homophobia.

||| TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO: Demonstration on International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia makes history.

>>> CUBA: In Havana, a march against homophobia. In pictures.

<<< Activist group All Out's campaign to support Brazil's Anti-Homophobia Law saw a photo collage projected against the National Library in Brasilia, together with candles commemorating 260 GBLT people who were murdered in Brazil last year. In pictures. (Towleroad)

>>> NICARAGUA: A boy stares at his family's statue of Our Lady of Fatima, on Friday, 13th May, after a celebration Mass.

||| The Amazonian tribe that has no abstract concept of time.

AFRICA

||| EU officials tell Africa to shape up on gay rights.

||| Anti-gay backlash threatens aid and rights in Africa. "Many countries worldwide are marking International Day Against Homophobia – but in Malawi and Uganda gay rights are being eroded in a new climate of repression." (The Guardian)

||| UGANDA: Outlawing gayness is like "straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel". "Uganda's bill to ban all forms of homosexuality contravenes basic Christian teaching." (The Guardian)

ASIA

||| TAIWAN: Taiwan hospital fined for firing transvestite employee.

||| VIETNAM: Gay rights group tackles insensitive medical care. (VietNam.net)

>>> SINGAPORE: A new film, highlighting the pain homophobia causes GBLT people, their family and friends, has been released to promote Singapore's Pink Dot festival. It's beautiful.

<<< HONG KONG: Police interrupt International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia rally, programme cut short.

>>> CHINA: Jilted bride saved in suicide drama. (PhotoBlog)

||| KYRGYZSTAN: Can a gay man get a fair trial? (EurasiaNet.org)

||| PHILLIPINES: Leftist lawmaker urges colleagues to pass bill upholding gay rights. (allvoices.com)

||| AUSTRALIA: Pro-gay marriage rally turns violent in Adelaide.

MIDDLE EAST

||| IRAN: "We are Everywhere" campaign against homophobia.

||| KUWAIT: School expels boys on suspicion of being gay.

||| Will the "Arab Spring" result in a more inclusive and tolerant region for GBLT people?

||| ISRAEL: GBLT community demands acceptance in Israel's insular Orthodox Jewish community.

<<< A Palestinian boy looks at an Israeli border police officer pointing his weapon. (PhotoBlog)

||| Israeli couple name child after Facebook's 'like' feature.

BODY & MIND

||| China cuts HIV/AIDS deaths by 60%.

||| New York City drug dealers buying, stealing and selling HIV drugs.

||| Viagra could make you deaf.

>>> You've heard of the Vajazzle. Now comes the Pejazzle. Yes, it is what you think.

||| How crossing your arms relieves pain by confusing the brain.

||| Why prostate cancer survival may be especially tough on gay men. (Yahoo! News)

||| The new gel that could solve back pain.

<<< Meet some of the bacteria that make up 90 per cent of the living cells in your body (13 pictures).

||| Why we stare for longer at people with bad reputations.

||| Why happiness can kill.

THE NATURAL WORLD

||| Animal pictures of the week (31 pictures). Left, the world's worst hunting dog. Right, a lioness strikes out at the father of her cub.

||| CHINA: Ming Ming, the world's oldest giant panda, is dead at 34.

>>> MALAYSIA: Tamed elephants help persuade wild cousin to relocate. (PhotoBlog)

||| AUSTRALIA: Koalas face extinction within 30 years; the marsupial has been hit by predators, climate change, rampant human development, infertility and a HIV-type virus.

||| Brazil: Amazon rainforest deforestation rises sharply. (BBC News)

||| The oceans are emptying fast. "We must grasp one more chance to reverse the over-exploitation of dwindling fish stocks." (The Telegraph)

||| A sloth gets wings...

WEB & GADGETS

||| Sound of sex could alert internet porn filter.

||| Depressing: Amazon announces it's selling more ebooks than printed ones for the first time.

<<< Lost a child? Get a doll made that looks just like your baby: reborn.

PRINT & VISUAL

>>> Justin B. Terry-Smith talks about I Have A Secret, the children's book he's authored about a young boy with HIV.

<<< US bookseller Barnes & Noble censors magazine because the (male) cover model looks too much like a woman.

<<< Hello Sailor! Gay Life on the Ocean Wave, an exhibition celebrating "gay subculture among seafarers", has made its American debut in Atlanta. More.

||| Tashen holds release party for The Big Penis Book 3-D; "It features classic work by such pioneering erotica photographers as Bob Mizer of Athletic Model Guild and David Hurles of Old Reliable, plus COLT Studio, Falcon Studios and vintage photos from nearly forgotten companies like Champion Studios and Sierra Domino." (Gay Porn Times)

STAGE

>>> The Normal Heart, still pumping love and fury.

CINEMA

||| Review: Going South. "An acutely observed, lushly lensed... affectingly acted piece of cinema."

TELEVISION

<<< CNN news anchor Don Lemon comes out.

>>> ABC cancels V, Brothers and Sisters. Pity. More on why V might have failed here.

||| Criminals can also sleep easy knowing America's Most Wanted has also been given the chop.

||| Darryl Stephens in Desperate Housewives finale.

||| Reviews: Doctor Who - The Doctor's Wife. Two different takes on the episode, from Cathode Ray Tube ("An eagerly anticipated episode, The Doctor's Wife manages something pretty extraordinary. It breathes new life into the origins of the mythology at the heart of the series"), and ka-os|theory ("Grubby, self-indulgent fanwank, the rape of our wonderful Doctor Who goes on, and on.").

||| Every Doctor Who villain since 1963.

||| The Flinstones gets remake, with Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane at the helm.

MUSIC

||| Eurovision Song Contest 2011: review.

||| Eurovision Song Contest 2011: Simon Webbe and Blue lose to Azerbaijan. Video.

||| Eurovision Song Contest 2011: Peter Tatchell slams winning country for poor GBLT record.

<<< Digital Spy has tracked down another couple of shots from Blue's G.A.Y. appearance last week.

||| Tone and pitch – why George Michael's the man to rewrite the rules on gay music. "The troubled singer is back, promising a 'gay collaboration' album. Here's hoping he stays true to form and delivers it loud and proud." (The Guardian)

THE SEX BIZ

>>> Adult Cares Alliance (ACA), an online fundraising campaign, has been launched to raise money for a variety of causes, from the Trevor Project to the World Wildlife Fund. It's backed by industry faces (and, ahem, bodies) like Chi Chi LaRue and Roman Heart. Make a donation here.

||| Fleshbot gives permission to HIV-positive men to have satisfying sex lives.

MANIKINS

||| Below: Angelos Siannis, lensed by Costas Avgoulis.

||| Marcus Hill, lensed by Rick Day; Brazilian model Miro Moreira; Diego Fragoso, lensed by Cristiano Madureira:

||| Bernanrdo Velasco, lensed by Rick Day; Michael McCloud lensed by Anja Boxhammer; Thiago de Oliveira and Geoffroy, lensed by Exterface:

||| Jordan and Locelyn, lensed by Alexandre Berthiaume; Roberto Maya, lensed by David Wagner; Jacob Neely, lensed by Thomas Synnamon:

||| And our last manikin this week: Tim, lensed by Eric Ganison:

SPORT

<<< Ben Cohen and Hudson Taylor: Straight athletes combating homophobia.

||| "Every two or three months, [ESPN will] bring all these people on... and they tell me how me and my team are going to respond to a gay guy. First of all, every player has played with gay guys. It bothers me when I hear these reporters and jocks get on TV and say: 'Oh, no guy can come out in a team sport. These guys would go crazy.' First of all, quit telling me what I think. I'd rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can't play." Charles Barkley on gays in sport - the media's clumsy handling of the issue. (The Washington Post)

>>> Former basketball star Will Sheridan comes out. There's a video interview here.

||| Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Donté Stallworth Tweets support for gay marriage, against homophobia.

||| San Francisco Giants accept fan's invite, agree to make video opposing anti-gay bullying.

||| Local GBLT athletes finding it difficult to come out. (The Middletown Press)

<<< Sugar Ray Leonard: "Coach sexually abused me."

||| German football captain warns gays against coming out.

||| Five trailblazing gay sportsmen. As Philipp Lahm, the captain of the German national football team, warned footballers to remain in the closet, a (short) list of professional sportsmen to have admitted their homosexuality. (The Telegraph)

>>> Olympic gymnast Louis Smith and boxing champ Anthony Ogogo get up close and personal.

||| Homosexuality in football: Justin Fashanu is the only professional footballer to have come out as gay, suffering years of abuse and eventually taking his own life in 1998. (The Telegraph)

<<< Tennis star Novak Djokovic strips for Vogue.

...AND FINALLY

<<< The new Cultural Complex Longgang District, by Dutch architects Mecanoo, in Shenzhen, China.

>>> Elsewhere in that country, the Creativity Pavilion, by London architects Plasma Studio, in Xi’an.

<<< In the Côa Valley, Portugal, Portuguese architects Camilo Rebelo and Tiago Pimentel have designed the Museu de Foz Coa, which displays local Paleolithic art.

>>> Police mugshots: The rich and famous edition. Right, Bruno Mars.

||| Everything you wanted to know about the end of the world, but were afraid to ask.

...And our favourite GuysWithiPhones from the past few weeks, after the jump - enjoy!

Issue 96: 14-20 May 2011

||| Read the last edition.

||| Remember what was going on this time last year? No? How about a reminder? Read Issue 64.

Cover photo: We originally used a picture of Dudley O'shaughnessy by Barbara Anastacio. On 17th December 2011, the photographer contacted ka-os|theory to object. We replaced the original cover with this shot of Zacharia, lensed by Gregory Vaughan.

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

© 2011