The 27th & 28th June: Why We Fight

Posted on Wednesday 29th June 2005 by Patrick

I didn’t know that there was any significance in the time of the Gay Pride marches until just now. I didn’t know that the reason we have a parade celebrating the vibrant culture, the strength of convictions and the freedom of openness at this point in the calendar is because the date is important. On the 27th June 1969, police in New York moved to storm a prominent gay bar in Greenwich Village called the Stonewall Inn, on politically motivated grounds. The mayor wanted to display a crackdown on unlicensed bars in the city (of which the Stonewall Inn was one), cut down on crime and halt the ‘unruly’ displays going on at venues such as the Inn. Over the three days of rioting that ensued, sparked by any number of events, many people were injured, arrested and beaten by police while protestors also caused extensive property damage to the area and no doubt serious injury to police officers. The next year there was a march in NYC’s central park to commemorate the events. As a result of the original march, many cities around the world hold Gay Pride marches on the last Sunday in June. On the 27th June 1970, following the previous year’s Stonewall riots in New York City, a handful of people marched down Polk Street in South Central San Francisco. The next year the number was 50,000.
Until today I thought June was the time to march because it was hot, it was sexy and everyone could have some fun. Now I know, the reason to take to the streets in June is not just because it’s funny, not just because people can look raucous and not suffer hypothermia from the bad weather, but because we, as a cultural group, have a history to remember and to cherish. The only reason there is freedom and acceptance is because other social groups have understanding. Stonewall came about because up until that point the police only had tolerance, but tolerance wasn’t enough because tolerance relies on people holding back, on people being restrained. After Stonewall, there came understanding and ultimately, acceptance, which is a real achievement and remains something for all sectors of the community to be proud of.
I hope everyone had a great Pride this year.

Wikipedia: Stonewall riots
28th June: Have a Gay Day!

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Don’t Judge a Book by its (Doctored) Cover

Posted on Monday 27th June 2005 by Patrick

A graphic designer called Mark Longmire from Tennessee has taken apart various romance-style paperback novels that permiate the trashy end of airport bookshops and ‘I’m a desperate over-50′ section of the larger bookstores. These are the romance novels as they ought to be, photoshopped into oblivion. The very best part of these images had to be the accompanying comments that sit aside the title, with lines such as “The Love Bum” by Elaine Barbieri, Author of SHUT UP AND GET ME A BEER, BEYOTCH!

via thelast5pages.com
Longmire does Romance Novels

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To CIA or not to CIA? Where ARE you taking me?

Posted on Sunday 26th June 2005 by Patrick

Governments around the world are investigating the actions of the US Government’s Central Intelligence Agency, who’ve been accused of covertly removing their residents from sovereign soil and forcibly repatriating them to their home nations where laws on interrogation are less strict and where the local law-enforcement will participate. This stems from an Italian case where a man was repatriated from Milan two years ago to his home country of Egypt via a US airbase.

Earlier last week, an Italian judge issued arrest warrants for 13 people said to be CIA operatives involved in Omar’s abduction. Another six people – all Americans – are also under investigation. It is the first time a foreign government has filed criminal charges against US citizens involved in counter-terrorism work abroad.

Other nations have also begun to oppose Washington’s forcible removal of terror suspects. Canada is holding hearings into the deportation of a Canadian to Syria for questioning about alleged ties to al-Qaeda. German prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into the suspected kidnapping of a German man who was flown to Afghanistan. In Stockholm, a parliamentary investigator has already concluded that CIA agents violated Swedish law by subjecting two Egyptian nationals to ‘degrading and inhuman treatment’ during a rendition in 2001.

Guardian/Observer: Italians hunt covert CIA snatch squad

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Flickr Update

Posted on Sunday 26th June 2005 by Patrick

I was looking at this site on a Windows XP machine with both Firefox and IE, and for some reason that I can’t quite understand, my Flickr images that appear when rendered with my Mac’s system don’t appear at all on this alternative setup. So, while I can’t quite get it sorted out in figuring how to get the images to show every time the page loads, I now present a bit of a show of some recent (and not so recent) Flickr additions. My apologies to anyone viewing this page on a Mac, but everything looks fantastic on a Mac, so I really don’t know what you’re complaining about. You get all the features and beauty and yet you still complain about a little repetition? Give me a break, it’s 3:45 in the morning, and this code really isn’t fun! Anyway, I’ve got a bit of a backlog of Flickr images to put up there, but more are coming eventually, and when that happens the world will be a happy place again. And Mac users, remember this: it doesn’t look this good anywhere else. Really, the borders are all funny, the edges of images look strange, images don’t rotate as beautifully as they ought; it’s a complete hodge-podge out there!