Issue 168: the Prancing Elites, Philadelphia, queer millennials, Marco Rubi, MiniDisc, Mykki Blanco, Botswana, Birds of a Feather, Christ of the Abyss, and more...

the destination for the
week's essential news
and pop culture stories,
with a gay bias.

 PONDER THIS 

Coming out in 2013. Right, Darren Young and husband Niccolo Villa.

||| Gay equality in 2013: Don’t forget gains amid losses.

||| The ten craziest anti-gay comments of 2013.

> 2013's notable deaths.

||| Traditional masculine values are evolving, not dying. "Lamenting the feminisation of society is part of a wider examination of masculinity that is largely unhelpful."

||| Is it possible to be too leftwing?

||| Why we must all share the blame for our "useless" politicians.

Brainwashed by the cult of the super-rich. "Followers, in thrall to Harrods and Downton Abbey, repeat the mantra that the greed of a few means prosperity for all."

||| Boxing Day bargains? Not a chance. "The retail sector tried to promote this year's sales as something spectacular and we bought it. But don't try to ask for a refund..."

||| Or should we just spend, spend, spend, because our savings aren't worth a damn.

||| Someone needs to fight the selfish, short-sighted old. "The cost of pandering to pensioners means we are penalising our young in relation to education, healthcare and housing."

 > Why parenting may be out of reach for many queer millennials.

 U.S. & CANADA NEWS 

||| Breaking the silence on male rape in the military.

< Residents of the rural Alabama town of Semmes were "outraged" and "appalled" by kaos favourite the Prancing Elite's "vulgar" and "obscene" dance routine.


< In Texas, this gay couple were kicked out of a club for dancing to country music.

> Is this the face of America's first out, gay imam?

< Meet 17-year-old Pascal Tessier, the first openly gay Boy Scouts of America.

> Horrific: Two male nurses fondled each other and involved a 98-year-old stroke victim in sex acts. The victim was fully aware of what was happening, but unable to communicate.

||| My lesbian boss fired me for being straight!

||| Utah sees gay marriage boom, with nearly 1,000 ceremonies in a week.

||| How the state of Utah made homelessness history.

> Gay Republicans attack Obamacare ad aimed at signing up gay men.


||| Why are hundreds of people dying in U.S. jails every year?

< McDonald's warns employees: Don't eat fast food, it's bad for you.

||| Mayor Bloomberg took a bit of New York's soul. "The billionaire mayor is a series of pluses and minuses that never quite add up. Let's hope some of the city's funky grit returns."

 U.K. NEWS 

> Faggots really are f**king stupid: Gay voters are "more likely" to favour Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.

< Gay equality protestors gate-crashed a Coca-Cola Christmas PR stunt in London's Covent Garden over the global brand's sponsorship of the Sochi Olympics.

> Gay computer hero Alan Turing - the mathematician who helped the Allies win World War II, only to be convicted of having sex with another man - has finally received a posthumous pardon. But what about the other fifty thousand gay men still living with gross indecency convictions?

||| Virgin CEO Richard Branson has urged companies not to do business with anti-gay Uganda.

||| Voting is open ahead of the 2014 Out in the City and G3 Magazine Awards - "Britain's Gay Oscars" - in which the public gets to vote for their favourite lesbian and gay personalities. Vote now.


< London Underground's ancient Bakerloo line trains "are falling apart", yet won't be replaced until at least 2021. So what happens next for the world's oldest subway system?

 EUROPE NEWS 

> IRELAND: Coca Cola cuts same-sex marriage scene from the Irish version of an advert being show across Europe.

||| ITALY: Is Pope Francis as liberal and progressive as some would like to believe?

||| SPAIN: Four members of the anti-gay Occupy Pedophilia gang have been arrested for ambushing gay men in Barcelona.

||| BULGARIA: The Supreme Administrative Court rules film director Andrey Slabakov's claim that gay men are more dangerous than smoking is unlawful.

< RUSSIA: Life under Putin's "gay propaganda" ban.

> RUSSIA: Activists in St Petersburg mock Putin and other anti-gay leaders with "Golden Enema" disgrace awards.

||| RUSSIA: Vladimir Putin is outflanking the west at every turn. "The Russian president runs rings around the supposed liberal leaders of the west as he advances his authoritarian agenda."

||| RUSSIA: Opera singer Maria Maksakova speaks out against anti-gay laws.

||| TURKEY: Wanna be cured of your homosexuality? Take Homofin!

THE BIG PICTURE: A capsized navy tugboat, 23rd December 2013. Ten people died.

 LATIN AMERICA NEWS 

< JAMAICA: A kind-hearted group of volunteers provided a Christmas dinner, and gifts, for the homeless gay youth forced to live in Kingston's sewers. Maurice Tomlinson has an incredibly moving gallery of pictures from this very human act of kindness.

||| CUBA: Parliament passes historic ban on anti-gay workplace discrimination.

 AFRICA NEWS 

||| UGANDA: President Yoweri Museveni says he won't sign anti-gay law without question. The Obama administration has released an official statement condemning the bill, and the UN has urged Museveni not to sign the bill.


||| UGANDA: Gay equality organisation Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) pledges to fight "to the end".

||| UGANDA: Confessions of a naive gay cleric: "I fed and schooled Bahati".

> NIGERIA: Is there cause for New Year's optimism? "I am feeling very positive that Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan might not signed the draconian Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill (the “Jail the Gays Bill”) into law. The only reason I am feeling positive is because President Jonathan is someone who believes in the human rights and dignity of all people," writes gay equality activist Davis Mac-Iyalla. Elsewhere, he writes about the hostility he faced at a meeting for Nigerians in London.

||| ZAMBIA: Police raid "suspected gays" without warrants.

||| GAMBIA: President Yahya Jammeh calls homosexuality a "social cancer" in Christmas message.

< CAMEROON: The offices of gay equality, AIDS activists CAMEF (Cameroon Association for Empowerment Outreach Programs) were wrecked in the run-up to Christmas.

 ASIA NEWS 

> INDIA: Naz Foundation, an NGO committed to bringing down HIV, has filed a review petition against the Supreme Court's anti-gay sex ruling.

||| INDIA: AP Shah, the Delhi High Court judge who legalised gay sex in 2009, is "saddened" by the Supreme Court ruling reversing his decision.

< INDIA: Actor Imran Khan joins the campaign against the criminalisation of homosexuality, hosting a series of comedy videos in which he answers ignorant homophobes' questions about homosexuality.

> INDIA: Posters from the Indian National Party, a far-right Muslim group, call for gay people to face death penalty.

||| CHINA: One in ten university students is gay, survey shows.

||| TAIWAN: University chapel hosts first same-sex Christian religious marriage services.

||| JAPAN: The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare revises law to protect against same-sex sexual harassment.

THE BIG PICTURE: "Wishing spheres" in Singapore, 30th December 2013.

 MIDDLE EAST NEWS 

||| LEBANON: Gay Syrian refugees fleeing war, execution and torture find help with new charity Proud Lebanon.

< LEBANON: What happened seconds after they took this selfie is horrifying.

||| ISRAEL: Political parties compromise to allow equal tax breaks for same-sex parents.

 PLANET EARTH 

||| Ignore the disastrous storms in the Caribbean at your peril...

...Because it won't be long before the victims of climate change make the west pay.

||| Why you should really stop washing your hands with hot water.

||| Have we been dramatically underestimating elephant intelligence?

> Why do New World Monkeys almost always give birth to twins?

||| Dogs that look more like puppies have an evolutionary advantage.

||| Researchers teach border collie to understand sentences using more than 1,000 words.

THE BIG PICTURE: Ducks on ice, in Boise, Idaho, 15th December 2013.

 BODY, MIND & SOUL 

< Scientist admits faking HIV cure to get millions in grants. Dr Dong-Pyou Han received $US19 million to develop his "findings".

||| The big disconnect around HIV prevention. "HIV stigma and the logical dissonance between 'it's not a death sentence' and 'if you have sex without a condom, you will die'."

||| The deadliest potential pandemics facing the world right now.

||| At the end of their life, many men go back in the closet for fear of being mistreated by health care and other professionals.

||| Seventeen strange facts you might not have known about penises.




||| Why you are usually late.

||| Five mysteries of the brain.


||| Pick up a book: Brain function is boosted for days after reading a novel.


||| Just a sip? Gay men and alcoholism.

||| Seven foods and beverages made using ingredients from the human body.

||| Good news! Nut can help you lose weight. Okay, so not that kind of nut...


 INSIDE THE SPACESHIP 


||| How data thieves have captured our lives on the internet. "It's not just governments. Companies such as Google and Facebook spy on us too. We have clicked through to their 'free' digital services at the cost of sacrificing our privacy. So how do we get out?"

||| You think Facebook is free? Well, it'll only cost you your private life.


||| Dell's gift to haters: A tool to block all gay websites.

||| Facebook is dead and buried to teens as "older users saturate" the site - but that doesn't matter much, it turns out.

< Facebook bans pro-equality page "Have A Gay Day" for posting picture of two men kissing.

||| The Internet's worst things in 2013.

||| Winter-proof your gadgets: Cold can damage your gear as much as heat.

> Mass Effect, the video game with gay options, to get "beautiful" sequel.

 ART, DESIGN & CULTURE 

||| A sexy reboot of Westworld, or the heavy metal subculture of Botswana? South African photographer Franck Marshall has lensed the movement:


||| Don't miss Hungarian photographer Gergo Gosztom's strangely moving photos of abandoned Christmas trees...


< Five of the best gay graphic novels of 2013.

> The year's top ten gay moments in comic books.

||| The best 2014 calendars. Left, and right, OC 2014 by Hungarian artist Tienne.


 WORD! 


< A Ken's Happy Home, Taiwan's first picture book with gay families.


< How would various news outlets report the end of the world?

> Book review: Best Gay Erotica 2014, edited by Larry Duplechan. "None of these stories are misses. Fans of threesomes (and moresomes), bondage, hairy fellas or smooth fellas, hook-ups and long-term relationships, and lovers of a fine range of kink are all going to find something here, and it’s all done with a strong eye for flow and cadence of the tales in the greater whole."

< Book review: The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard, by Stephen Jimenez. "Today, for anyone — especially a gay man — to question 'the Matthew Shepard story' is tantamount to questioning Holocaust survivor testimony, or whether or not Jesus was the pure son of God. In The Book of Matt, award-winning journalist, writer, and producer Stephen Jimenez is the gay man who pokes at this sacred cow."

> Book review: The Red Shoes, by John Stewart Wynne. "A beautifully dark queer re-visioning of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale of the same title."

||| Book review: Pee-Shy. "Frank Spinelli's memoir is about suffering sexual abuse as a child; the rupture it caused within his family; and his journey to wholeness, a goal attained only after harrowing effort."

 AT THE MOVIES 

||| Is Hollywood's blockbuster model broken?

||| The Butler director Lee Daniels is glad he didn't commit suicide over anti-gay bullying.

||| Ever wonder why so many movies seem so similar these days?

< Forty-five captivating behind-the-scenes pictures from Back To The Future.

Looking back at Philadelphia, twenty years on.

||| It's A Wonderful Life had an FBI file.

||| Sentimental films can influence political attitudes and make you more liberal, scientists say.

||| Anchorman 2: How not to do sequels.

 T.V. 

< Don Lemon on why he waited until his mid-40s to come out publicly as gay.

> Rylan Clark - who lost The X Factor but won Celebrity Big Brother - has complained that Tom Daley is getting too much attention for coming out as gay.

Talking to Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph about the return of Birds of a Feather after fifteen years.

||| Did you ever want to know what was the most popular T.V. show set in every united state? Your prayers are answered.

||| Gays of our lives: The best and worst of 2013's gay soap stories, from Anthony D. Langford.

> Soap stunts in 2013 - in pictures.

||| EastEnders' Janine Butcher: Nine memorable moments.

< It seems that someone else has finally acknowledged that the Doctor Who reboot has little in common with Doctor Who proper. Or, plastic Dr. Who vs. the real McCoy...

...And some commentators have dared to voice the unspeakable: Matt Smith's Doctor deserved better than showrunner Steven Moffatt gave him. "Moffat's fascination for plot twists and open-ended mysteries took over the show, and the whole product suffered. There are just never any consequences for any main characters in Moffat's Doctor Who."

||| What every Doctor Who regeneration says about each Doctor's era.

> T.V. review: Doctor Who - The Time of the Doctor. "I'm not so worried about Capaldi learning 'how to fly this thing'. He'll be fine. I'm more concerned that Moffat, based on this scattershot, rambling, indulgent effort, renews his own driving licence in 2014." (Cathode Ray Tube)

||| Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The legacy of the teen heroine.

 BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE 

||| Beyonce uses Challenger disaster to sell records.


Check out Mykki Blanco's latest, Booty Bamboo.

||| Twenty great songs that you might have missed in 2013.

||| Ten "retired" musicians who broke their word.


||| And this...


 SEX 

||| Mark Wilson, the adult webmaster who outed Mason Wyler as HIV-positive, is missing and feared dead.

||| Rentboy problems: it's hard out there.

||| Falcon Studios, Raging Stallion Studios and Naked Sword Originals join forces with major U.S. TV providers to offer gay adult content under the name FalconTV.

< Dominic Ford makes first P.O.V. porn with Google Glass.

||| Dark Alley Media founder Owen Hawk on bareback sex, HIV and gay vs. straight movies.


||| Americans are watching the majority of their porn on tiny smartphone screens, apparently.

< Spectacular Latino lovely Trelino gets naked with cute as hell Jessie Lee for Peter Fever. Hot!

> Flava Works, and the sorry tale of Elmo Jackson.

||| Talking to Khalil Kane.

||| Paddy O'Brian avails himself of kaos favourite Marco Rubi (left)...

...who has been unveiled as the face of next season's Schwarzrosagold collection. (I don't know what that means.)

> Damien Crosse and Dato Foland sort out Donato Reyes.

||| In memoriam: Passings, 2013.

 ARENA 

||| Last week (THE KAOS THEORY Issue 167), we heard how Barack Obama, Joe Biden and French President Francois Hollande would be staying away from the Sochi Olympics. Now British Prime Minister has also fallen in line.

> Two key members of the 1993 Houston Oilers were gay, apparently.

||| Outsports favourite photos of 2013.

 AND WHILST YOU'RE 
 THINKING ABOUT 
 THAT, THINK 
 ABOUT THIS 

||| Ten lessons that we hope 2013 has taught the entertainment industry.

||| The thirty-eight most haunting abandoned places on earth. Right, Christ of the Abyss, San Fruttuoso, Italy...


||| Save us from panettone – the festive delicacy nobody likes. "I've never seen an Italian eat pannetone. No wonder – it's a monstrosity that tastes awful and comes in a box so big it takes up half the kitchen."

Turkey bear, anyone?


||| And finally, the fem invasion of Atlanta, the return of Martin, Andrew's resolutions, and Rogue "Marbie" Scott gives thanks.


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Thank you. Zee Jai


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Issue 168
22-31 December 2013

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© 2013

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

3 comments:

Mike said...

Can you add a "Share" option on the bottom of the posts? Especially, a twitter share option for the post?

KAOS said...

Hello Mike

That option is already available. You might not see it if you visit the main site, but if you click on an individual post, there's a bar that appears at the bottom of posts that includes Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest etc share options.

Hope this helps! :)

Mike said...

i see it! thank you!

 
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