KAOS: #111

a news compendium

with a gay bias
WEEKLY | Issue 111 | January 2012 | FREE | be.told.

OPENING SHOTS

< Terrell Owens strips for the February 2012 GQ. But ESPN asks, What did Terrell Owens not spend his millions on?

US & CANADA NEWS

> This is 14-year-old Phillip Parker. He's the latest gay teen to take his own life after a campaign of homophobic bullying at his school. And a pastor said he should "pray the devil out him, so he could be straight".

||||| Robert Champion death: Hazing or hate crime?

||||| Are the Boy Scouts of America turning over a new, more accepting leaf?

< This is Cody Renegar and Thomas Staed, a couple from Arkansas. Their local newspaper has refused to print an announcement about their commitment ceremony.

||||| Ben Jealous, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, calls for GBLT and civil rights groups to work together.

||||| Children raised by gay parents more likely to live in poverty, study finds.

||||| Starbucks pledges support for gay marriage.

||||| A 16-year-old boy claims he took part in the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl because of gay bullying.

> That decapitated head found by the Hollywood sign belonged to a gay man, named as Hervey Medellin.

||||| The American Family Association has got the hump about Indiana's GBLT license plate.

||||| The law and economics of employment discrimination.

||||| US troops in Afghanistan record It Gets Better message.

||||| Fox Nation commenters spew yet another deluge of racism at Sheila Jackson Lee.

< The shipping industry's bad year continues...

UK NEWS

> John Sentamu, the Church of England's second most senior cleric, says marriage must be between a man and a woman.

||||| Count gay suicides, Stonewall urges British Office of National Statistics.

< Peter Tatchell at 60: The first 60 years. "Tatchell's first campaign, his kiss-in success, outing the bishops, election failure and the Mugabe moment."

||||| Peter Tatchell at 60: The next 30 years. "Veteran gay activist Peter Tatchell on Africa, switching aid to punish bigots, the challenges facing LGBT rights and the power of social media."

||||| Peter Tatchell at 60: The personal cost. "Tatchell talks about the 300 attacks he has endured, the people he’s helped, why he doesn’t have a relationship and his six-pack at 60."

||||| London residents group fear Pride festival "undesirables".

||||| Homophobic teacher struck off.

< Calls to save London East End pub amateur gay strip night.

||||| Don't expect the Tories to regret this bloody battle over benefits. "Will they be embarrassed by the galloping poverty they're creating? No."

||||| "Witch torture" trial: Attack on 15-year-old Kristy Bamu was "feral".

EUROPE NEWS

||||| RUSSIA: Nationalist jogging event mistaken for gay Pride rally‎.

||||| GERMANY: Man dismembered, cooked after sex games.

> GERMANY: This is what the Memorial to all victims, planned for Munich, could look like. "The structure would commemorate all unnamed victims of war or violence in the city, specifically those caught up in conflict they didn’t choose to participate in."

||||| Costa Concordia disaster: Hopes fading for Minnesota couple Gerald and Barbara Heil.

< Costa Concordia disaster: Evacuating a cruise ship.

||||| Costa Concordia disaster: Rich Russians bribed their way onto lifeboats by stuffing wads of cash into crew members pockets.

||||| Costa Concordia disaster: Was the Costa Concordia's captain a coward?

||||| Costa Concordia disaster: Titanic, Costa Concordia, and the collapse of Western civilisation.

||||| Costa Concordia disaster: Stricken ship becomes a tourist attraction.

||||| Costa Concordia disaster: Ship had structural problems, Captain Schettino claims.

||||| Costa Concordia disaster: American Express wants you to "Immerse yourself".

LATIN AMERICA NEWS

< JAMAICA: GBLT activist Maurice Tomlinson forced to flee Jamaica after death threats; to receive first David Kato LGBTI award in London.

||||| BRAZIL: Jean Wyllys, Brazil's first openly gay MP, takes fight to the religious right. "Stance against homophobia has made former Big Brother contestant a hate figure for religious zealots, but he has vowed to keep battling."

> BRAZIL: São Paulo City Metro launches poster campaign against homophobia.

||||| ECUADOR: "Gay cure" clinics investigated, shut down by government.

||||| COSTA RICA: Abelardo Araya, one Latin America's leading GBLT-equality advocates, is dead. He was 42.

AFRICA NEWS

< UGANDA: Activists in Kampala have commemorated the first anniversary of the murder of David Kato. Call Me Kuchu, a documentary about Kato, will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February.

||||| UGANDA: Former South African president Thabo Mbeki denounces Uganda's anti-gay bill.

||||| SOUTH AFRICA: Did Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini call gays "rotten", or was it lost in translation?

> SENEGAL: Anti-government protestors in Dakar, 27th January 2012.

||||| TUNISIA: Interior Minister Ali Larayedh in gay sex prison video scandal.

SOUTHERN ASIA NEWS

||||| What's it like to be gay in Tajikistan?

ASIA-PACIFIC NEWS

< AUSTRALIA: Embarassing scenes as Prime Minister Karen Gillard flees Aboriginal protesters demonstrating for indigenous rights. Gillard was celebrating Australia Day; Aborigines prefer to call it Invasion Day.

||||| JAPAN: Big Tokyo earthquake likely within the next few years.

> PHILIPPINES: Man pours acid on cheating boyfriend, tries jumping from high rise.

||||| VIETNAM: Gay movie opening minds as well as eyes in Vietnam? "Lost In Paradise hopes to end homophobia in conservative Vietnam. But is gay equality any closer?"

BODY & MIND

||||| The invention of the heterosexual. "The history of straightness is much shorter than you'd think."

||||| Gaydar and facial symmetry: Is there a link between sexual orientation and faces?

||||| How about left-handedness and homosexuality?

||||| Latin America facing gay HIV crisis.

||||| Staying positive with sport. "How HIV positive people can improve their physical and mental health through exercise."

< New bus shelter installations target young, black gay men in New York City's Harlem and Bronx.

||||| Erectile function can be restored with stem cells.

||||| Introducing new web series ADTV RAW. In episode one, Metrell talks about being raped by his father...

THE PLANET

< Blue Marble 2012, a stunning high definition image of our planet, taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite, Suomi NPP. There's a huge 8000px shot on the NASA Flickr page.

||||| NASA have another striking image for us: 130 years of global warming, mapped.

||||| The world's biggest cities: How do you measure them?

> White blackbird.

< Abandoned pygmy elephant rescued in Malaysia.

||||| A dog park — from a dog's point-of-view. Brilliant.

WEB & GADGETS

||||| Storage sites unnerved by Megaupload action cease filesharing.

> Anti-gay Twitter hashtag hijacked by "Gaystapo".

||||| Facebook initiates mandatory Timeline roll out.

||||| Troubled Yahoo's revenue continues to slide.

||||| Vimeo unveils website redesign.

PRINT & VISUAL

||||| Another gay bookstore closes its doors for good - this time, Atlanta's Outwrite. Tragic.

||||| Joe Orton: The life and crimes of a great playwright. "Fifty years ago, Joe Orton and his partner were jailed for defacing library books. Now the dust jackets and the trial are being re-examined."

||||| Armistead Maupin confirms ninth Tales of the City book. The Days of Anna Madrigal will be published in 2013.

< Review: The Fairoaks Project: Polaroids from a San Francisco Bathhouse, by Frank Melleno. "Provocative, empowering and beautiful as these images are, they evince something of perhaps deeper importance: The Fairoaks Project helps us to remember."

> Review: Folsom Street Blues: A Memoir of 1970's SoMa and Leatherfolk in Gay San Francisco, by Jim Stewart. "Despite the compelling content, [Stewart] lacks detail that allow readers to truly experience the world he wants to show us. Ultimately, what Folsom Street Blues lacks in polished narrative, it makes up for in heart."

||||| Essential Tumblrs: All Things James Baldwin.

< Bruce Davidson's photos of teen gang the Jokers in 1950s Brooklyn.

STAGE

> Mozart's opera Don Giovanni will go gay when it premiers at London nightclub Heaven this April.

||||| "Obscene, pornographic, gay, anti-national and anti-Hungarian." Attacking the theatrical bloc in Europe.

< Review: Men in Motion, Sadler's Wells, London. "Runaway Sergei Polunin bounds all too briefly into boys-only pop-up."

CINEMA

> Yikes! Here's a Hungarian poster for sex addict flick Shame. The poster was, not surprisingly, banned.

||||| If Oscar nominated movie posters told the truth. Brilliant! Here's a few of my favourites...

< Watch clips from Love Free or Die, a new documentary about gay Bishop Gene Robinson, which premieres at Sundance this week.

||||| Review: The Love Patient. "The laughs are more sporadic than consistent, plus the pacing is ropey on occasion. That said, the film is big on entertainment, engaging turns and is crazily kooky enough to hold the attention for an hour and a half. An impressive feature debut."

||||| You Are Not Alone - a documentary on depression in black gay men - needs help. Kick start it here.

TV

< Plastic boy-man Lucien Laviscount gets naked for GayTimes magazine.

||||| The DL Chronicles tries again for funding, after failing to raise enough on KickStarter.

||||| Langford on Soaps: Hip-hop lovers on the down low on The LA Complex. Anthony D. Langford is back with his round-up of gay storylines in soaps from across the globe! Watch Tariq and Kal's sizzling story line from The LA Complex:

> There's an interview with Ben Watson - who plays Tariq - here.

||||| Gay actors say coming out affects roles they get. "Equity survey finds only 57% of gay actors feel they can be open about their sexuality to their agents."

< Blanche would be proud of ya, Rose. Betty White scores some Dan Cortese in Hot In Cleveland.

> Mario Lopez strips off on Ellen...

...And Dlisted wants you to caption this.

||||| Joan Rivers defends use of the word "tranny" and Tracy Morgan's anti-gay jokes.

||||| Robert Hegyes, the actor best known for his role as Sweathog Epstein on Welcome Back, Kotter, is dead. He was 60.

< Nick Santino, the actor best known for his roles on American soap operas All My Children and Guiding Light, is dead. He was 47. Santino committed suicide on his birthday, after being forced to euthanise his pet dog.

MUSIC

> UK boyband The Wanted target the gays of New York.

||||| Jill Scott celebrates as Seal breaks free from white whore Heidi Klum's icy embrace. (Let's hope he makes some decent music once again, 'cos the stuff he's come out with since being married has been an epic fail.)

||||| Drake wants to play Obama the movies.

||||| Gay X Factor runner-up Marcus Collins' debut single, and for your enjoyment: Ken Dahl's If This Pussy Could Talk.

THE SEX BIZ

< OMG! DeAngelo Jackson and Logan Heart. Together. On ThugBoy. Sigh.

||||| Sean Cody files first copyright infringement lawsuit for $US18 million.

||||| Ask Anthony! Romero, that is. One of porn's nice guys answers your questions.

> Here's a photo of porn God Trey Turner (far right) with some other overly-inked porn stars. Please Trey, no more ink.

||||| Mason Wyler and bareback inspiration.

SPORT

||||| Footballer Michael Ball fined for calling Coronation Street actor Anthony Cotton a "fucking queer" on Twitter (where else?) But why wasn't he sacked like Lee Steele?

< The silence over gay footballers. "There are currently around 5,000 professional footballers in Britain, but none are openly gay. Amal Fashanu, niece of Justin Fashanu, asks why no gay player has followed in her uncle's boots in nearly 25 years."

||||| There's an interview with Amal here.

||||| Football in the dark ages on gay players, Britain's leading publicist Max Clifford says.

||||| Matthew Mitcham: Gay Olympic golden boy. "Why gay diver Matthew Mitcham is one of Australia’s best gold medal hopes in the Olympics and an icon for gay sportspeople."

||||| Martina Navratilova wonders if gay hate peddler Margaret Court has "feelings for women".

||||| Did Tennis Australia censor shots of Navratilova wearing the rainbow flag at the tournament?

PARTING SHOTS

> Stone Angels wallpaper.

||||| Texting while walking: an etiquette guide, and why I will always beat you: