#106

a news compendium

with a gay bias
issue 106 | December 2011 | FREE

<<< Isaiah, lensed by Rick Day.

||| The day I came out: Celebrities reveal their very personal moments of truth. (The Independent)

||| 8 stories buried by the corporate media that you need to know about.

NORTH AMERICA & CANADA

>>> For Harlem gays, change: but not enough. Openly gay East Harlem rapper Ruperto, aka Loco Ninja, says: "A lot of men don't flip out on us the way we used to get flipped out on or bashed. Like five years ago, it was such a bad thing. You couldn't even be friends with gay people. It was like we were aliens living on Earth." (WPIX)

<<< Homeless for the holidays: Portraits of New York City's homeless GBLT youth. Left, "Envy", who left home when he was 11.

||| Thousands and thousands and thousands of years of bullying. (MOC Blog)

>>> The Denver Arts Center gets shafted by its own nanny software. It doesn't think the word "gay" is obscene after all.

||| Republican Mississippi mayor Greg Davis forced to come out after expense receipt reveals charges to "gay adult products store". (The Advocate)

||| Bachmann and the myth of the Kinsey report.

||| New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez: Discrimination against same-sex marriages cannot be tolerated in our society as a matter of law... (NJ.com)

...Meanwhile, Bryan Fischer - the voice of the anti-​gay hate group the American Family Association - says, "All sex not between married people should be criminalised!"

||| Could support for gay marriage be Barack Obama's secret weapon for the 2012 election?

...Maybe. Obama sends letter congratulating gay couple on their marriage...

...At least he didn't send one of his "evil, dog-themed Christmas cards".

||| Nevertheless, would we be better off under President Hillary?

||| Newt Gingrich might look good among this line-up. But that's not saying much. "As the contenders outdo each other in pandering to the cranks, voters may decide Obama's not so bad after all." (The Observer)

||| "There's nothing humble, gentle or patient about the intolerance and out-right bigotry coming from some of the presidential candidates of the GOP, the Gay-Obsessed Party," Jonathan Capehart writes for The Washington Post.

||| Gingrich details his anti-gay views. (GayStarNews)

||| 48 states now have out GBLT elected officials.

||| NBC Nightly News talks to gay soldiers in Afghanistan.

>>> Bradley Manning hearing: Pre-trial opens; charge sheet includes 23 counts against the WikiLeaks suspect, including that he knowingly "gave intelligence to the enemy". (The Guardian)

||| Bradley Manning hearing: Live updates. (The Guardian)

||| Bradley Manning hearing: Defence lawyer turns fire on military accusers. "On first day of preliminary hearing, investigating officer rejects defence's demand that he recuse himself." (The Guardian)

||| Bradley Manning hearing: A "danger to himself and others". "Defence papers tell of alleged US whistleblower's stress, poor leadership by superiors, and serious security lapses." (The Independent)

||| Bradley Manning: Did he do it 'cos he's gay? (Salon.com)

||| Bradley Manning: Hero or villain? (BBC News)

||| Bradley Manning: Dan Choi ejected from Bradley Manning trial, thrown off base. (Towleroad)

||| No jobs for young veterans returning home from the war.

<<< Douglas Williams - a Texas high school principal - has been ousted from his position after admitting "pinching" the nipples of male students.

>>> Brandon McInerney sentenced to just 21 years for killing 15-year-old Lawrence King.

<<< The LA Times had this unfortunate juxtaposition, which says everything, really...

||| The pansies won't be converted!

||| How Ayn Rand seduced generations of young men and helped make the US into a selfish, greedy nation. "Thanks in part to Rand, the United States is one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world." (AlterNet)

||| Being old and gay in the Golden State. "GBLT seniors in California get tips in new guide on how to deal with discrimination and abuse and where to find services and benefits." (GayStarNews)

<<< Is this the latest in terrorist fashion?

>>> Man dies after eating cocaine from his brother's butt.

UNITED KINGDOM

<<< Gay student Matthew Banks has been jailed for missing jury duty in order to see the musical Chicago in London.

||| In London, prison officers at the Feltham Young Offenders Institute were found to have "refused official recommendations to display Stonewall posters to inmates".

||| The Christian Institute urges Tesco boycott after one of the supermarket's executive's posted on Flickr, "I'm campaigning against evil Christians (that's not all Christians, just bad ones) who think that gay people should not lead happy lives and get married to their same-sex partners."

||| Why does Peter Tatchell want to save a homophobe's job?

>>> A footnote to the July 2010 murder of 15-year-old Zac Olumegbon. Four teenagers have been jailed for life for his stabbing death.

EUROPE

||| IRELAND: Double lives for gay teachers in Ireland.

||| Northern Cyprus to decriminalise homosexuality.

||| Can a gay socialist save Belgium?

||| Institutional Dutch Catholic abuse "affected thousands". (BBC News)

<<< DENMARK: Hans Christian Andersen gay pride plans split Danish town. (PinkPaper)

LATIN AMERICA

||| Caribbean Christians attack gay law repeal. The growing "backlash against attempts to decriminalise gay sex in the Caribbean." (GayStarNews)

>>> Fear, squalor and horror in Guatemala City. Right, a woman touches the hair of an exhumed body in the main cemetery in Guatemala City. In Guatemala, bodies are exhumed six years after burial if relatives don't pay to renew the graveyard permission. (PhotoBlog)

<<< BRAZIL: Twins born with two heads, one heart. (BBC News)

AFRICA

||| KENYA: Are gay Kenyan men really being used as sex slaves in the Middle East?

||| Africa is rising - unequally. Six of the world's fastest growing countries, millions of highly motivated entrepreneurs and increasingly prosperous consumers: things are looking up, if you're one of the lucky ones.

||| ZIMBABWE: Gay rights at the centre of constitutional debate.

||| ZIMBABWE: MP arrested for saying Mugabe is gay.

||| ZIMBABWE: The rift over Bulawayo's gay pink litter bins.

ASIA-PACIFIC

>>> MALAYSIA: The wedding in Ireland between Ariff Alfian Rosli - a Malaysian national - and his boyfriend Jonathan has caused uproar in his native country.

||| THAILAND: New airline PC Air launches with "ladyboy" flight attendants. (Bangkok Post)

<<< BURMA: A peek inside a Myanmar monastery, finding solitude, studying and smiles. (PhotoBlog)

||| AUSTRALIA: 22-year-old Umit Sengoz has been jailed for 15 years for the murder of a man he met on gay dating site GayRomeo.

||| AUSTRALIA: The Board of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras apologise for not "adequately consulting" over dropping the whole "gay and lesbian" bit, but still don't think they did anything wrong. (SameSame)

>>> CHINA: What are the mysterious white lines in the Gobi Desert?

SOUTHERN ASIA

<<< INDIA: Cold weather in New Delhi.

||| INDIA: Old Delhi, a window on India. (PhotoBlog)

||| PAKISTAN: Railways driven toward ruin. "In the three years since the current government took power the railway has retired more than half of its trains, leaving just 100 to cover a country larger than Britain and Germany combined." (PhotoBlog)

MIDDLE EAST

||| IRAQ: Activists highlight gay killings. As US forces leave Iraq, a new film shows GBLT people are worse off than before the 2003 invasion. (GayStarNews)

||| ISRAEL: Gay film thrives in Tel Aviv. The Israeli government is keen to be seen promoting liberal policies.

BODY & MIND

||| HIV vaccine approved for human studies.

||| Planes: they're flying germ factories.

||| Eating less keeps the brain young. (Medical Xpress)

>>> The "I Just Made Love" app that lets you tell the world where and when.

THE NATURAL WORLD

||| Frankincense tree facing uncertain future. (BBC News)

<<< Why the Natural History Museum of Berne is sawing this rhino's horn off.

>>> Endangered jaguars in Bolivia captured on camera. (PhotoBlog)

WEB & GADGETS

||| GayStarNews - a new GBLT news, entertainment and lifestyle website - has launched, claiming to be the "first global 24-7 gay news site".

<<< ManHunt puts sexy gay billboard in Times Square for "annoying sexphobic mommy bloggers" to complain about.

||| YouTube's top political video of the year: Zach Wahls' speech about his gay moms.

>>> Facebook: What motivates us to add friends - and remove them?

||| People more likely to lie when texting, boffins claim.

PRINT & VISUAL

||| Homophobia in the Arts. "The issue of homophobia is not something you would expect in the art world, however a recent 'work of art' in America prove this is not the case."

<<< PhotoBlog talks to photographer Alex Webb about his new book, The Suffering of Light, and shares some of the stunning pictures contained therein. Left, baseball fans in Cuba (1993).

>>> Cardinal Sin, a new sculpture by Banksy. (My Modern Metropolis)

<<< Review: Halsted Plays Himself, by William E. Jones. "Los Angeles-based artist and experimental filmmaker William Jones has brought together a variety of materials that will help, hopefully, revive an appreciation both for Halsted’s work as well as of the man himself." (Lambda Literary)

>>> Review: Gay Porn Heroes, by J.C. Adams. "It's with great respect that I looked at this luscious coffee-table tome because [Adams is] a man who knows his gay porn."

STAGE

<<< Review: Accidentally, Like a Martyr. "As you enter the tiny Paradise Factory Theatre to see Accidentally, Like a Martyr, you may think, for a brief moment, that you’ve made a wrong turn and ended up in a gay dive bar. That’s because the performance space has been transformed into a convincing facsimile of a decrepit watering hole, complete with moldy disco music. And those shadowy male figures conversing and sipping drinks? They're actors." (Gay City News)

||| There's an interview with that play's author here.

CINEMA

||| This year's best GBLT characters.

||| Good news - Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story has reached it's $US25,000 Kickstarter goal.

>>> A feature length documentary is to examine the recently closed Starlite Lounge, the oldest black-owned gay bar in New York City, which opened in 1959. Right, former Starlite staff member Willie Rowe. Support the film here. Trailer.

||| Trailer: The Dark Knight Rises:

TELEVISION

||| Clues that lead to more clues that add up to nothing: How Lost continues to destroy television.

||| Jesus, Mary and Joseph - the empty, shameless narcissism of Essex and Jersey Shore is alive and well in Ireland. With added homo-eroticism, apparently.

||| And on that note... The Biggest TV Stinkers of 2011. (AfterElton)

<<< Is sitcom Work It insulting to trans people? (The Advocate)

||| GLAAD wants ABC to pull the new sitcom. (GLAAD)

||| Help get a new series of The DL Chronicles made.

||| Absolutely Fabulous is coming back, and Pats and Eddy have the Kardashians in their sights...

MUSIC

||| Rhianna's n***a bitch incident: lost in translation?

||| Is the music over for HMV? The UK's last major record store is in bad trouble.

||| Review: Rizzle Kicks live at Scala, London. "An ebullient, impossible to dislike set."

<<< Jordan Stephens from Rizzle Kicks shows us what he's working worth.

||| George Michael is home for the holidays.

>>> Why rappers are suddenly speaking out in support of gay pride. "Hip-hop and homophobic hate speech have long gone hand in hand—but now MCs from Fat Joe to The Game are changing their tune." Has hip-hop really reached a "gay-friendly tipping point". (The Daily Beast)

||| Drake set to take Jusin Bieber in hand.

THE SEX BIZ

<<< Falcon Studios signs up the (delightfully untattooed) Micah Brandt as an exclusive.

||| Porn star Harry Louis (Men At Play, Lucas Entertainment) is banging frock-maker Marc Jacobs. (Queerty)

>>> Trey Turner and Jessie Colter: Boyfriends, porn co-stars - now underwear models too! They're living the dream, kids...

||| Talking to ka-os|theory favourite Remy Mars.

||| Gay porn really is Wild.

SPORT

<<< The NFL's thickest necks!

...AND FINALLY

||| 2011: The year when a lot happened.

>>> Mermen Christmas decorations!

||| And finally, the best Christmas song: EVER!

Issue 106: 16-22 December 2011

Visit us on Facebook.

Read the last edition.

Remember what was going on this time two years ago? No?
How about a reminder? Read Issue 41.

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

© 2011