#117

a news compendium
with a gay bias
 WEEKLY | Issue 117 | April 2012 | FREE | be.told. 

 OPENING SHOTS 

< New Rob Evans shots, anyone? (Good to see he isn't spending all his time cosying up to fellow model Kyle Goffney...)

||||| Bayard Rustin: Honouring America's "lost prophet" on his 100th birthday.

||||| The rightwing strategy: Set the blacks and gays against each other (an idea that will find favour with numerous "prominent" black gay bloggers, some of whom have long since embraced race-baiting and separatism).

||||| Should straight people be barred from entering gay clubs?

 US & CANADA NEWS 

> "Yes, my gay son was known in our family for bringing me flowers on my birthday and Mother's Day. He also was known for careening down the rugby pitch, and, on the morning of September 11, 2001, for charging unarmed down the aisle of a doomed Boeing 757 to face knife-wielding Islamist thugs in a hijacked cockpit." Alice Hoagland, the mother of gay 9-11 hero Mark Bingham, slaps down Carson Daly's homophobic slur.

||||| Robert Champion: No justice and no arrests.

< The Dharun Ravi Verdict: Bias crimes and the changing idea of privacy.

||||| Ravi claims he's "very sorry" about Tyler Clementi.

||||| Police warn gay men in danger of being drugged, robbed in Castro bars.

> Edwin Faulkner and Juan Carlos Martinez-Herrera face court for the murder of gay Chelsea man John Laubach.

||||| Trayvon Martin: Scenes from the protests.

||||| Teachers caught taunting 10-year-old disabled boy after mother bugs his wheelchair with recording device.

< Meet John Robert Hart, and his partner Dennis Jay Mayer. They were arrested for having sex aboard a gay cruise ship docked on the Caribbean island of Dominica...

...Their fellow passengers branded their behavior "inappropriate"...

...Whilst the couple say they were "taunted" and paraded "around like we were some oddity"...

...And Queerty has this photo (right) of the moment that caused the whole hoo-ha.

||||| Meanwhile, Norm Kent of South Florida Gay News has written an editorial comparing the couple to Trayvon Martin. Really.

||||| 74% of Latinos and Hispanics, and 50% of African Americans, support legal recognition for gay couples.

||||| Progressive Muslims launch gay-friendly, women-led mosques.

||||| Former US President Jimmy Carter on gays, marriage and the Bible: "Jesus never said a word about homosexuality".

< A tale of conservatives, Urban Outfitters, and a Robert Mapplethorpe t-shirt.

||||| 5 ways 2012 Republicans resemble 1920's "Main Street".

> 71-year-old Wanda Derby arrested for beating gay neighbour Lloyd Guerrero with cane.

||||| New York bans food donations to the homeless; Mayor Bloomberg wants to monitor fat, salt and fibre content.

||||| Conservative neighbours force the closure of another New York gay bar.

< Is Fire Island in chaos?

||||| Class action brands YMCA hostels' "homosexual brothels".

> Global advertising conglomerate Clear Channel refuses to display safe sex campaign targeted at young gay African-American men.

< This is Shaun O'Brien and Cris Alexander, a New York couple of more than 60 years. They married last year, but have both died just weeks apart.

||||| Meet Brian and Alfonso, a couple of 10 years. Alfonso is threatened with deportation back to Mexico under DOMA.


> Omar Sharif Jr: Gay, half-Jewish threatened with persecution in Egypt.

||||| What it's like to start a gay-straight alliance in the South?

||||| Teacher sues university for "forcing" her to attend a gay show.

||||| What would you do? Watch as the children of gay parents are subjected to bullying: will anyone step up and stop it?

< Gay Indiana youth group rainbow license plates no more.

||||| 1 World Trade Center soon to be taller than the Empire State Building.

> Dangling locomotive sculpture proposed for New York's High Line...

...But forget the High Line for a minute, because now there's the LowLine (left).

||||| Japan tsunami "ghost ship" still haunting the Canadian coast.

 UK NEWS 

||||| SACK BORIS.

> PinkNews - which can always be relied upon for some Daily Mail kneejerking - is disgusted at Birmingham's rhinestone-encrusted sculpture of a rhinoceros, planned for the city's gay village.

||||| Gay banker and West End star in £1.4million divorce. "Gay couple's legal battle illustrate that gay splits are treated the same by the UK courts."

||||| Quakers tell Queen: We want gay marriage...

...But Muslim and Sikh leaders join the attack on marriage equality.

Commons Speaker John Bercow (and president of gay equality group Kaleidoscope Trust) has outraged conservatives (and Prime Minister David Cameron) with a pro-equality speech to the royals.

||||| Country Life magazine bombarded with complaints over anti-gay advert.

> This is Reverend Andrew Morton. He has resigned because he claims the church has become more homophobic in the debate over gay marriage.

||||| God sends mice to punish pro-gay Tesco.

< Islamic gay hate preacher Sheikh Assim Al-Hakeem barred from talking at second university.

||||| Man jailed for "grotesque" anti-gay air rage.

||||| Teacher struck off for sleeping with 15-year-old boy he met in gay bar.

||||| UK educators take their homophobia fight worldwide. "Schools Out uses educational tools to encourage debate on homosexuality in schools around the globe."

||||| NORTHERN IRELAND: Adoption ban for gays to stay in place.

> This is Maj. Archibald Butt, one of the Titanic's heroes. And this is the story of his life with lover Frank Millet.

||||| National Geographic's stunning new, unseen images of the Titanic...

...And more pictures from the new Titanic Belfast Experience.

 EUROPE NEWS 

||||| European Parliament backs report calling for full freedom of movement with legal rights for same-sex couples.

||||| IRELAND: Equal marriage moves a step closer.

> SPAIN: ...burns.

< SPAIN: Pictures from the abandoned village of Esco.

||||| TURKEY: Proving you're gay to the Turkish army.

||||| NETHERLANDS: Boys in Catholic church care castrated for being gay.

||||| RUSSIA: National anti-gay bill submitted to Russian parliament.

||||| RUSSIA: St Petersburg scene still alive and kicking despite anti-gay legislation...

||||| Yet some gay Russians are finding asylum in the United States.

||||| RUSSIA: International Olympic Committee fails to take action on Russian authorities who have outlawed Pride House from the 2014 Winter Games.

> SERBIA: Mladen Obradović, the rightwing extremist who warned "Blood Will Flow" at Gay Pride, has been sentenced to 10 months in prison.

< LITHUANIA: This is Petras Gražulis, a Lithuanian politician who has placed anti-gay legislation front and center on parliament's agenda.

||||| ALBANIA: Prime Minister Sali Berisha rebukes Cabinet colleague's call for gay parade participants to be beaten.

> GERMANY: Roller coaster, anyone?

< European delegates to Mr Gay World 2012 revealed (or should that be exposed?). Left, the United Kingdom's Samuel Mark Kneen.

 LATIN AMERICA NEWS 

> CHILE: Daniel Zamudio, the 24-year-old brutally beaten in a suspected neo-Nazi attack in Santiago on 3rd March, has died from his injuries.

||||| Chilean prosecuters have called for his alleged killers to face murder charges - rather than attempted murder charges - and hate crime law reforms.

||||| The UN is also calling for harsher hate crime laws in Chile.

||||| Thousands joined Zamudio's funeral procession...

...And thousands more marched in protest at his Zamudio's killing (video).

 AFRICA NEWS 

||||| Learning to be racist in South Africa.

< LIBERIA: Archie Ponpon - who set up the Movement for the Defence of Gays and Lesbians - has faced a massive backlash over his campaign for gay equality, with his mother's home set alight.

||||| LIBERIA: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tony Blair discuss anti-gay law – video.

> SWAZILAND: Rebuilding of ghost town offers hope in a nation of orphans.

||||| SUDAN: The north African country gets a new magazine, Rainbow Sudan.

 SOUTHERN ASIA NEWS 

||||| INDIA: Government insists that it supports the Supreme Court's decision to decriminalise gay sex.

< INDIA: Sun City, an exhibition of male nude photography, shut down in Delhi. See Sunil Gupta's Sun City series here.

 ASIA-PACIFIC NEWS 

> AUSTRALIA: This is Alan Joyce, the gay CEO of national carrier Qantas, who says his $AU5 million salary is "conservative". Sickening.

||||| PHILIPPINES: Boys banned from graduation for gay kiss.

< INDONESIA: This is 8-year-old Aldi Ilham, who has been smoking since the age of four. One in three Indonesians smoke.

||||| MALAYSIA: MP Datuk Baharum Mohamad wants gay rehab centre.

||||| Documenting China's Queer Narrative, a lecture by activist and film maker Xiaogang Wei, was held in London on 29th March.

 BODY & MIND 

||||| Why chocolate may keep you slim.

||||| Water health myths.

||||| Does a daily aspirin prevent and even cure cancer?

Rest stop confidential. "Across America, countless men are meeting up for sex in highway bathrooms. I'm one of them. Here's why."

||||| Serodiscordancy: Life with an HIV-positive partner.

What made Bob Bergeron - "a guy with seemingly everything to live for: good looks, a condo in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, semi-annual trips to Europe, parents who adored him and absolutely no history of clinical depression" - kill himself?

||||| The evolution of death. "Scientists remain surprisingly conflicted about what it means to die -- and it has big implications for us all."

||||| The Afghan girls who live as boys.

 THE PLANET 

White elephant!

||||| Rhinos extinct in South Africa by 2015...

...Maybe Africa's new international conservation area - the size of Italy - will help.

||||| The complex relationships between dolphins.

< Snake on a train: the prehistoric two-ton reptile at Grand Central Station.

||||| The amazing perpetual motion bulldog!


||||| Wooden skyscrapers: efficient, fire-safe, environmentally friendly(ier).

> Housing for the homeless: 14 smart and sensitive solutions.

 WEB & GADGETS 

||||| It Gets Better launches in Latin America as Todo Mejora.

||||| Facebook takes down picture of two men kissing.

||||| Stonewall unveils Facebook Timeline of key gay events since 1989.

||||| Sunil Babu Pant - Nepal's first openly gay politician - wants Facebook to give users the option of selecting "other" as their gender.

||||| Which search engine's users are the most racist?

 PRINT & VISUAL 

The 10 best gay romances in literature.

< Review: Faggamuffin, by John R. Gordon. "Mr. Gordon knows how to tell a story... There [are] enough plot twists to keep you turning the page well into the wee hours of the night."

< Review: What You See in the Dark, by Manuel Muñoz. "A fascinating and thought-provoking novel."

||||| Review: America Divine: Travels in the Hidden South, by Dallas Angguish. "Very good writing and very good reading."

> Review: Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality, by Hanne Blank. "An examination of the 150-year period since the coining of 'heterosexual' to identify the biologically male-female relationship."

||||| HP Lovecraft: The man who haunted horror fans.

||||| Remembering the lost art of book-binding.

< The 1850s London alphabet.

Beautifully desolate pop-up books by Andreas Johansson.

||||| The Advocate celebrates 45 years of publishing.

||||| "He Was Scum." Longform collects the most moving, delightful, and vicious obituaries ever written.

Diptychs of Mongolian nomad children .

||||| Eerie photographs of abandoned New York, Paris, and Beijing.

 STAGE 

> Shadow Boxing, a new play about a gay boxer, is to open in London later this month.

||||| Don't Ask, Don't Tell: The Musical!

||||| Coming to Broadway: Mars Attacks! the Musical.

< A preview of the "riotously raunchy" Broadway Bares, now in its 22nd year.


 CINEMA 

< The London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival: Programme covers 1986-2012.

||||| The rise of black gay cinema. This report from Channel 4 includes a video news report.

< Review: The Skinny. "The Skinny has many positives, but the script - a confused jumble of half-baked ideas, loosely strung together - isn't one of them."

||||| The Parade - a comedy that challenges the Balkan's "ethnic divide and its deeply rooted homophobia" - is the biggest box office hit in the former Yugoslavia in years.

> Review: Leave It On The Floor. "Anthemic, brilliant, and sexy, with equal parts fun and drama. You'll love it."

||||| Review: I Don't Know What To Say. "A series of shorts [dealing with adolescents] coming to terms with their sexuality."

< Review: Eating Out: The Open Weekend. "...is actually rather good."

||||| Review: Encounters. "The BFI have released a collection of little seen classic shorts by pioneers of queer cinema." CiniVue review here.

||||| Review: The Erotic Films of Peter De Rome. "Watching the films, you can't help but feel caught between two stools. On the one hand, you have what appears as little more than home movies of various nubile young men pleasuring themselves - and each other - for the camera in a collection of often bizarre situations. These could however, also be viewed as beautiful snapshots of a surreal imagination, as much there to depict the exploration of the male body and identity as for any means of erotic arousal." More at So So Gay.

< Review: Absent. "An expert thriller that is sinister and unexpected."

||||| Review: How To Survive A Plague. "[And] cry I did: at the hollowed faces of people whittled to almost nothing by a disease with an ugly arc; at the panicked voices of demonstrators who knew that no matter how quickly research progressed, it wouldn't be fleet enough to save people they loved; at the breadth and beauty and horror of the AIDS quilt..."

...Director David France talks about his film.

||||| So who's in the all-black Steel Magnolias remake?

||||| Coming soon: Anchorman 2.

||||| A brief history of big screen flops.

> Illuminating behind-the-scenes set photos from Metropolis.

||||| 12 great movies the critics got dead wrong.

||||| The 10 best American gangster movies.

||||| Spend an immersive few minutes in New York's subway.

||||| Trailer: The Men's Room. "An emotionally charged short film dealing with explicit themes of male sexuality, intimacy, and the concept of public decency."

||||| Why the best actors are British.

||||| Why are fantasy world accents British?

||||| Official movie Twitter accounts: What happens when they die?

The forgotten movie theatres of Upper Manhattan.

||||| Can watching sad movies make you happier?

> Abstract film posters by Hans Hillmann.

||||| Movies as code!

||||| The DVD packaging hall of fame.

 TV 

||||| Actor Daniel von Bargen, who played George Costanza's boss Mr. Kruger in Seinfeld, has survived a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. The actor suffers from diabetes and has had a leg amputated.

< Smash renewed for second season.

> New Bruce Weber promo for Abercrombie & Fitch features gay kiss.

||||| Torchwood revival still possible.

||||| All the latest from gays in soaps, all over the world!

||||| Outgoing Emmerdale actor Danny Miller says he won't miss gay kisses.

||||| Star Trek legend George Takei asks straight Facebook friends: When did you realise you were straight?

||||| How to drink like your favorite TV characters.

||||| Barry Humphries to retire Dame Edna.

< Mario Lopez goes for a shirtless jog on the beach.

||||| Ellen goes back to her first job.


 MUSIC 

||||| Whitney Houston's official cause of death: drowning, heart disease and cocaine use.

> Powerful portraits of hip-hop pioneers.

||||| Introducing out, gay rapper Sissy Rich.

||||| Gay hate reggae singer Sizzla's Sweden gig has been postponed after a backlash from the gay community.

JLS could care less if people think they're gay. And Oritse certainly doesn't mind an admiring gaze.

> Ricky Martin and his boo Carlos appear with their twins in Vanity Fair's Spanish edition.

||||| Just some of the worst album covers of all time:


||||| Videos: If drag queens endorse Christian-right owned Chick-fil-A, is it still an endorsement? Plus: Canadian gay rapper Man Chyna with Brokeback That Ass Up; the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus perform Testimony, It Gets Better in song; and Justin Bieber in the boxing ring. Poor baby...


 THE SEX BIZ 

< OMG! Domino Star puts Tyler Trenton in detention.

||||| Erik Rhodes: "Anyways, I was abusing meth... I was shooting up syringes full of the shit."

||||| Whatever happened to Kevin Falk?

> Barebacking Dwight: "I truly believe Jesus is my Lord and Savior!"

Talking to Randy Blue star Dante Ferraro.

||||| 2012 International Escort Awards winners announced. Colin Black was one of the winners. In pictures.


||||| Dumb gay porn stars are people, too!

||||| The never-ending legal wrangling over Lucas Entertainment's La Dolce Vita, the "most expensive gay porn film ever".

||||| Anthony Romero and Austin Wilde split. Or did they?

> OMG! Hotrod, Mr Saukei and Prince Junior!

||||| OMG! A SIMS orgy!

< Is the Fleshdrive the future for porn?

||||| MISTER: The new iPhone app to help you fuck real men with integrity!

> OMG! The dildo phone!

||||| Pedro Andreas, your dream tour guide.

||||| 69 Positions Of Joyful Gay Sex, with Bel Ami Gods Kris Evans and Dolph Lambert...

||||| Before they were famous: 10 gay porn stars who started on Sean Cody.

< Matthew Bremer, the porn star who performed as "Sean" for Corbin Fisher, is dead. He was 21.

 SPORT 

> LaRon Landry kicks off a new deal, which should mean we see a lot more of the (over-inked) giant.

||||| Gay athletes chosen to carry Olympic flame. "Chairman of London's gay rugby team selected alongside chair of Gay Football Supporter's Network from over 37,000 nominations."

||||| London 2012: 10 reasons some people will dread the Olympics.

< OMG! Tom Daley's underwear!

||||| Nepal to host Asia's first gay Olympics.

||||| Was Major League Baseball pitcher Carl Pavano being blackmailed? "Childhood friend being investigated for threatening to go public with details of what he said was a gay relationship."

||||| Another week, another homophobic slur from a football player. This time, it's American player Colin Clark, who's been suspended for three games.

 PARTING SHOTS 

||||| Different ways to cook eggs.

||||| Feeling adventurous? Get yourself some eggs soaked in virgin boy urine!

||||| Create your own cereal.

||||| Where are you on the global pay scale?

Expensive toys for kids (that are really for adults).

||||| Back to the future as DeLorean goes electric.

||||| And finally this week, a cute German girl builds a TARDIS. I think I love her. After the jump...


Issue 117: 18 March - 01 April 2012

Read the last edition.

Remember what was going on this time a year ago? No? How about a reminder? Read Issue 92.

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