A couple of hours ago, on initially seeing this image, I was startled into thinking I thought I’ve been even more out of the news that I have in fact been, managing to miss an entire G8 summit. This stunning photograph, an addition to the photostream of a new Flickr contact had me jumping onto Google News to see what the Group of Eight had been up to recently, only to dig deeper and find that the demonstration shown here took place in July 2005. Phew. This particularly resonated with me because I found out today that over the past week I’d missed the whole news about a number of British Navy Seamen being held captive by Iranian force in the Gulf. News of ‘aveux contraints’, ‘political sacrifices’, ‘la patience et la détermination’, les ‘bras de fer’ et ‘les libérations dès que possible’ all around, and me in center of European international cooperation, oblivious. Oops. Clearly I’ve been reading the wrong news. Less Sopranos, tvs and more international politics I think.
Archive for March, 2007
Who has the time for all those seasons. No matter how good it is. If you miss the beginning, there’s no chance of catching up! This should help. Plus, it’s hilarious, which is always good. I love the deadpan voiceover with the clips. Someone did a bloody good job on this. I can’t imagine having to go through a boatload of episodes to find hundreds of half second clips that show the whole timeline of the show. This had better not get pulled for copyright infringement. I’d say it’s the perfect example of a fair use. Well maybe not perfect example but it’s a good video anyway!
via Defamer: Short Ends: Seven Minutes In The YouTubes With Tony
About a year ago I posted about a little clothing brand called ‘429 Life’ whose name comes from the use of a phone’s keypad to spell out the word ‘gay’. You can read it at: 4-2-9 spells G-A-Y. I was pretty keen on them at the time, I think the idea’s pretty cool. It’s one of those ‘in the know’ kind of ideas. You either get it or you don’t. Perhaps the ‘in joke’ was just a little to ‘in’ for some people, including the company itself. In my post last year I wrote:
The t-shirts tastefully, in tiny writing, have slogans like ‘Are You 429′, ‘429 You Wish’, ‘429 Boy’, and ‘Absolutely 429′. If you’re unsure whether you’re 429 or not, you can buy the ‘premium soft cotton’ t-shirts without any label.
They don’t talk about the gay thing anymore. Now, under the ‘We Are 429′ section of their website they state, in ‘understated’ lowercase:
we like to challenge the idea of ‘labels’. so, when asked what 429 means, we can only give one answer: 429 is being confident in your own skin…
work in them, play in them, date in them … do whatever you want in them (we don’t judge).
I hate this lack of any attitude. It makes me want to despise their clothes, which isn’t as tough as it was before because they now look pretty ordinary. There’s nothing special about them. Of course they’re nice ‘premium’ shirts and such, but while last year their clothes were something remarkable, now they’re nothing more than what you could pick up at Zara with half of the price and none of the gay-shame. But they haven’t developed enough shame to stop putting homoerotic photos of muscly boys, as below, in their catalogue. Cute boys are apparently still allowed: it’s honesty and frankness that aren’t permitted. Theirs new style is like Abercrombie and Fitch but while A&F doesn’t really pretend to be anything but pretty and butch, 429 actively tries to deny its gay roots. Gross.
Last night on 60 Minutes, Katie Couric kept referring to “Some people.” She said that “some” were saying the Edwardses were courageous, and “others” were saying they were callous and ambitious. I kept waiting for John or Elizabeth Edwards to ask her who “some people” were exactly, but they didn’t. …Couric quoted John Edwards’ remark earlier in the week - that he was in the race “for the duration,” and asked him, “How can you say that, Senator Edwards, with such certainty? If, God forbid, Elizabeth doesn’t respond to whatever treatment is recommended, if her health deteriorates, would you really say that?” Thank you, Katie, for asking that question. The world could not have survived had you not asked it. Of course, “Some people” were undoubtedly thinking it. And it would have been a tragedy not to have given voice to that thought, wouldn’t it? Or would it? -Nora Ephron@HuffPost
Wayne Besen, on his blog, discusses the the idea of a Southern Baptist leader Rev Albert Mohler Jr that one day, were a genetic propensity to homosexuality ever discovered, he would condone the use of anti-gay treatments to correct these traits. The idea is interesting because it comes from a man who is clearly in a position of power in his community. He’s riding high and there are few natural predators. There’s no need to watch your back, right? But what if he did have to? What if he were to consider his stated view but from the position of a Christian who is unpopular. You go to Turkey, go to China, go to Indonesia and perhaps the idea that eradicating gays might not be quite as powerful. Why? Not that these men and women who criticise everyone else’s lifestyles would have had a change of had, not that their hatred would have diminished, but in the light of threats to their own eradication and extermination perhaps they would have less haste in persecuting others. Besen says:
Before you dismiss this question as hypothetical or academic, consider that research into the origins of spirituality is a robust field of inquiry. There are currently about a dozen studies that show shared personality traits among religious people, suggesting a genetic or biological basis. …In Mohler’s world, conservative Christians are a majority and considered a paragon of virtue. However, the late singer John Lennon is not the only person who has “imagined” a world without religion and its Inquisitions and suicide bombers. Indeed, there are prominent scholars and writers who consider religion to be little more than a psychological defect - much like the Southern Baptists now consider homosexuality.
While the right in America is strong they think of their worldview as omnipotent and supreme. But their lack of humility and their absolute faith, which often equals a disregard of and lack of respect for the views of others could be a threat to themselves. Who is to say that in some future time, our increasingly laïque and secular societies will not view religion as a greater threat to humanity than ‘alternative’ sexualities? Gays don’t start wars because other people aren’t gay, we just want to be left alone. But those crazy christians are just bringing fire onto themselves. By pushing to continually persecute gays, legislating against us, protesting against us, hating against us, praying against us, shooting, stabbing and killing us, they will eventually undermine their own position of what is for now strength. Love thy neighbor flys out the window when those neighbors are both guys. Maybe they should rethink that?
Wayne Besen: Mohler’s Slippery Slope
formerly.. Just how gay is the right?
I promise, I will. I actually have quite a lot to say.
Something I’d like to tell you about, before I say the other things I want to say, is Larry Kramer’s speech on the 20th anniversary of the foundation of the AIDS awareness group ACT-UP which he gave in New York City on Monday. I can’t help but cry when reading his words full of sorrow and pain, hope, joy, loss and a great great harrowing sadness.
via Towleroad: We Are Not Crumbs; We Must Not Accept Crumbs
These are just a few of the things ACT UP did to make the world pay attention: We invaded the offices of drug companies and scientific laboratories and chained ourselves to the desks of those in charge. We chained ourselves to the trucks trying to deliver a drug company’s products. We liberally poured buckets of fake blood in public places. We closed the tunnels and bridges of New York and San Francisco. Our Catholic kids stormed St. Patrick’s at Sunday Mass and spit out Cardinal O’Connor’s host. We tossed the ashes from dead bodies from their urns on to the White House lawn. …And of course funeral after funeral after funeral. We made funerals into an art form, too, just as our demonstrations, our street theater, our graphics, many of which are now in museums and art galleries, were all art forms as well. God, we were so creative as we were dying.
ACT UP did all this. My children—you must forgive me for coming to think of them as that—most of whom are dead. You must have some idea what it is like when your children die. Most of them did not live to enjoy the benefits of their courage. They were courageous because they knew they might die. They could and were willing to fight because they felt they soon would die and there was nothing to lose, and maybe everything to gain.
…previously: all that for nothing?
…She told a packed auditorium how the EU will convince its citizens to use low-energy lamps, and how no one will have to unscrew and throw away their existing light bulbs. Once again, the EU is fashioning one of its superb guidelines. Over time there will be low-energy lamps in every household, and no one will even have noticed. The world is being saved, and no one notices. Now that is something new. Spiegel Online: Merkel, the Queen of Europe
‘Americans for Truth About Homosexuality’
I just think it’s hilarious that there IS a group with this name. Found when reading about the recent Democrat stumbling over whether they believe being gay is immoral or not. Here’s a summary: Clinton, Obama: Homosexuality ‘Not Immoral’. There’s also a link in my Magnolia bookmarks.
From Hollywood to higher education, civil society does far more to present the United States to other peoples than the government does. State Department cultural and exchange programs help to remind people of the noncommercial aspects of American values and culture… yet the billion dollars spent on public diplomacy is only one- quarter of 1 percent of what is spent on defense. Joseph Nye
Savoir, et ne point faire usage de ce qu’on sait, c’est pire qu’ignorer.
dicocitations.com
