Fagburn: How Very Interesting

Hi!

Just letting you know there is nothing very interesting to write about today.

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'Those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War...'

Uganda: Aid

Uganda shrugged off Thursday foreign aid cuts and international criticism of its tough new anti-gay law, saying it could do without Western aid.

"The West can keep their 'aid' to Uganda over homos, we shall still develop without it," government spokesman Ofwono Opondo said in a message on Twitter...

Telegraph.

Something suggests Ofwono Opondo's twitter account may be made up.

Just a hunch...

Republic Of Telly: The Brigade Of Irish Gentlemen Opposed To Tolerance

Comedy gold!

Daily Mail: PIEgate latest!

Zzzz...

David Aaronovitch: If I Were Gay

A sub-header exposes the rather small flaw in David Aaronovitch's argument in his article in The Times.

Astonishing.

But then David thinks beastly 'backwards' foreign types can be 'civilised' by US and UK bombs.

This unthinkpiece is a reply to the editor of Think Africa Press, David Schneider's call for Western countries not to cut aid, and consider the consequences of all their actions for LGBT Ugandans.

A view supported by Frank Mugisha the director of Sexual Minorities Uganda. 

Still I bet they enjoy having an arrogant straight white Orientalist westerner like Mr Aaronovitch telling them what he thinks is best for them.

PS Loving that If I were gay... 30-day trial only £1 juxtapostion. 

Coronation Street: Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Children!

But defiant Corrie producers shrugged off the storm and vowed to continue the plot-line. 

They even have plans to ramp up the ­romance between Todd ­Grimshaw and Marcus Dent. 

An insider said: “The vast majority of the ­audience have no trouble with this. It’s real.” 

Around 100 viewers complained to Ofcom with many furious that the love scene was ­aired before 8pm when children are watching. The explosive moment showed Todd (Bruno Langley, 30) lock lips with Marcus (Charlie Condou, 41) ­after chasing him for weeks.

After the full-on snog, the pair were shown heading semi-naked to the bedroom. It is part of an ongoing plot on the soap which has seen gay ex-City worker Todd ­return to the Street after two years and make a no-holds barred attempt to bag Marcus, who has been dating Maria Connor (Samia Ghadie, 31). 

Most of the complainants say the gay kiss should not have been shown so early in the evening because it was too “sexually suggestive”, while others claim it had no place being ­broadcast at all. 
Some viewers also took to Twitter to express their outrage. 

Brooke Kelly said: “Todd and ­Marcus was a bit full on for 8 o’clock on a Friday evening.” 

Hayley Edwards added: “Feel so awkward watching Corrie with my nan when Marcus and Todd are almost shagging.”

Daily Star.

The Star claim Ofcom have confirmed they received complaints - though Fagburn suspects the 'over 100 viewers' figure is a fiction. 

Whatever, some people will be outraged by and complain about anything.

I bet Ofcom get complaints from Christian Voice whenever Dale Winton presents The National Lottery's In It To Win It. 

Similarly, Twitter has over 15million UK users, you can almost certainly find someone who's tweeted their OUTRAGE! about anything.

Fagburn's just seen someone complaining about the coffee with their hotel breakfast. 

It was DISGUSTING!!!

Dennis Nilsen: But Seriously...

The London flat where serial killer Dennis Nilsen murdered and dismembered three victims is being sold by its new owner for a £100,000 profit.

Necrophile Nilsen had already murdered 12 men, most homeless homosexuals, when he moved to the Muswell Hill attic conversion in 1981.

It is believed he butchered at least three more at 23D Cranley Gardens, using his cooker to boil the skin off body parts which he hid in cupboards and under the floorboards. He was caught because of the stench of human flesh clogging up his drains...

Agents Day Morris and Barnard Marcus are marketing the flat but with no mention of its history. Richard Evans, from Day Morris, said he had not known he was selling Nilsen’s former home, adding: “In that case I've under-priced it. No, but seriously, we were unaware. I don’t see the importance of it — something that happened 25, 30 years ago.”

He called it a “very sweet” property: “It is a very nice top-floor flat with glorious views. It is ideal for one person.”

Evening Standard. 

PS When the flat was last on the market.

The Onion: Close-Minded Man

DULUTH, KS—Claiming it is “impossible” to get him to consider different points of view, exasperated acquaintances of local man Kyle Dunham told reporters Wednesday that the 34-year-old is completely unwilling to listen to even a single argument as to why homosexuality is an abomination.

Sources familiar with the account manager’s maddeningly rigid beliefs said that no matter how patiently and logically they present the extensive evidence demonstrating that gays and lesbians are systematically destroying society, the narrow-minded Dunham simply tunes them out.

“You try to have a rational conversation with him in which you carefully explain, point by point, how the Bible reveals that homosexuality is abhorrent and dangerous, and his eyes just glaze over,” said neighbor Alex Richardson, who told reporters he has never met anyone in his life so resistant to facts that contradicted his preconceived ideas. “Even when I bring up something basic that most informed people agree on—like how a man who lies down with another man is condemned to eternal hellfire—he just shakes his head.”

“I could spend all day calmly and methodically spelling out what befell the Sodomites,” Richardson added. “But it all goes in one ear and out the other.”

The Onion.

Uganda: What We In The West Can Do

@Fagburn sanctions on politicians pushing the law
— Dr. Frank Mugisha (@frankmugisha) February 26, 2014

Someone asked; 'What would you do Fagburn?'

So I thought I'd ask Dr Frank Mugisha, director of Sexual Minorities Uganda.

PS Josh Scheinert on Slate; How Americans Can Help African Gays Targeted By Anti-LGBTQ Laws.

The Independent: Dumb Letter Of The Day

Apart from the fact this could be a counter-productive gesture, and Museveni would just say 'Bring it on!', this could prove difficult as the UK does not currently give the Ugandan government any aid.

“We ended all budget support payments to the Ugandan government last year. The UK strongly opposes all discrimination on any grounds and Justine Greening has been clear that governments receiving UK aid need to meet a specific set of principles, including human rights.”

Department of International Development statement, quoted in Pink News.

Direct aid was suspended due to fraud and misuse of funds in late 2012, not because of The Gays, btw. 

Looks like the 'debate' about gay rights in Uganda could be as ill-informed as the one about Russia.

PS Would cutting aid to Uganda achieve anything? Gaz Morris, Vada magazine.

@dex_mon I don't support aid cuts , unlike you I don't wanna create new victims
— Dr. Frank Mugisha (@frankmugisha) February 25, 2014

Dr Frank Mugisha is director of Sexual Minorities Uganda.

And as with Russia, it seems that the last people some in the West will listen to are LGBT Ugandans themselves...

Bill Hicks: 1961-1994

Bill Hicks died 20 years ago today.

Thought For The Day: Pam Ann

“My life is gay. I came up through drag venues and I live in a gated gay community. I know three straight people and they’re questionable, and that’s my mum, my dad and my brother."

Pam Ann interviewed on the Guardian' Australia Culture Blog for Sydney Mardi Gras.

Daily Mail: Sorry?

Steve Bell in The Guardian.

Does anyone honestly think that Ms Harman could ever have been some kind of a cheerleader for child-abuse? Of course not. And if we don’t think that, and if we do think that it was through inattention that, as an officer of the National Council for Civil Liberties, she didn’t spot the unwisdom of a dodgy lobbying outfit’s association with the council, then for pity’s sake what’s all the ruckus about? But lacking further evidence against her, we rant at her “refusal to apologise”.

She was silly not to apologise, but can’t you understand her sense of righteous indignation that her reputation should be impugned by the suggestion that there might be something morally suspicious about her behaviour? Her anger at these newspaper attacks stung her into playing into the hands of her tormentors by trying to tough it out and take no notice.

Easy to say, though, after the event. Sometimes taking no notice works, and it’s difficult to say when the tactic will or won’t backfire. Being attacked by the Daily Mail is rather like being mobbed by bullocks when crossing a Derbyshire field. The standard advice is to take no notice but walk confidently through the herd, which, seeing you’re unafraid, will shrink back. And (the standard advice continues) if they do run at you, run back at them, preferably waving a stick. They’ll back off. Whatever you do (the advice concludes) don’t run away or, emboldened, they’ll run after and trample you.

Matthew Parris, The Times.

Tom Daley: I Will Give You My Finest Hour...

Posted by Sophie Lee to her Instagram account, then rapidly deleted.

Thanks to QueerDiscOx for being so quick on the draw. x

PS This is not the first time we've seen Tom's little bumbum.

And this is how The Sun modestly covered it Thursday...

Tweet Of The Day: Nick Grimshaw

hey 1D fans!!!!! i never mentioned the word "Louis" on my show today so enough with the charming homophobic death threats yeh? 💤💤💤
— nick grimshaw (@grimmers) February 25, 2014

Poor Nick Grimshaw.

The Radio 1 breakfast show host incurred the wrath of One Direction fans when one of his team dared to joke about boybander Louis Tomlinson live on air today, forcing Grimmy to post a Twitter plea begging them to stop trolling him.

During his daily featurette Showquizness, Nick, 29, and his colleagues had to list people who were more annoying than singer Lorde. As you do.

While Nick listed Usher, Joey Essex and (his mate) Kelly Osbourne, his producer Ian Chaloner nominated Louis Tomlinson.

Cue an onslaught of hate tweets...

Mirror Online.

Africa: First Do No Harm

Governments have always had a grubby habit of getting involved in their citizens' sex lives. But it is relatively new to see sexuality as part of foreign policy. In the past few months we have watched the peculiar spectacle of Russia and the United States transposing their geopolitical antagonisms onto a struggle over gay rights in Russia. Now, Ugandan leaders are using homophobia to pursue anti-imperialist politics, while Western leaders are painting their criticism of this as indicative of their concern for human rights. But neither posture is genuine. There are two truths in this sad tale: mutual hypocrisy and the victimisation of Uganda's LGBTQ community...

David Schneider, Independent Voices.

But sit back and watch as certain gay media and 'campaigners' now forget all about 'uncivilised' Russia, and start obsessing over 'backwards' Africa...
These people don't play by our rules! etc etc.
Let's see how many pro-gay progressive voices from Africa are quoted.
Oh, and President Museveni doesn't give a hoot if you sign a silly online petition...

Presumably in the interest of balance, Independent Voices have also published this daft piece of knee-jerkery; LGBT Ugandans are facing a crisis - what action will the UK take?

See also: Has Britain's promotion of gay rights in Africa backfired? Telegraph blogs.

What's also worrying are the comments from Mr Museveni's spokesman when he made the announcement this morning [Monday]. The president, he disclosed, did not opt to quietly sign the bill over the weekend, while the world was distracted by the revolution in Ukraine. Instead, he wanted "the full witness of the international media to demonstrate Uganda's independence in the face of Western pressure and provocation".

In other words, this is no longer just about gay rights, in Mr Museveni's view, but about the West lecturing an African country on how to run its internal affairs, in this case on a matter of sensitive sexual morality...

The new issue of Uganda's Red Pepper

PS African LGBT campaigners queue up to condemn Peter Tatchell's interventions as dishonest, unhelpful, patronising, counter-productive... Follow @TatchellWatch

Daily Star: Same-Sex Celeb Snogs!

This is odd - this gallery of same-sex snogs in the Daily Star only features chicks, and there aren't any of dudes.
Surely some mistake?

PS The Mirror asks, Are we in the time of the celesbian?

Daily Mail: Sorry?

This is the Daily Mail at its worst.
As before, it's an old story.
And it's a non-story - there are no 'links'
It's just a smear story on Labour and Liberty.
Still the Mail Online has filed ten stories in the last 24 hours alone.
And so hypocritical as the Mail loves publishing sexualised images of young girls saying they look "all grown up".
Pathetic.

Politician slammed for links with known paedo

Harold Ramis: 1944-2014

I would love to stay here and talk with you... but I'm not going to.

Alec Baldwin: Goodbye Public Life

Now I loathe and despise the media in a way I did not think possible. I used to engage with the media knowing that some of it would be adversarial, but now it’s superfluous at best and toxic at its worst. If MSNBC went off the air tomorrow, what difference would it make? If the Huffington Post went out of business tomorrow, what difference would it make? Arianna Huffington accomplished what she wanted to accomplish. She created this wonderful thing. And what have they done with that? They want clicks, I get it. They’ve gotta have clicks for their advertisers, so they’re going to need as much Kim Kardashian and wardrobe malfunctions as possible. The other day, they had a thing on the home page about pimples. Tripe. Liberal and conservative media are now precisely equivalent.

I’m aware that it’s ironic that I’m making this case in the media—but this is the last time I’m going to talk about my personal life in an American publication ever again.

From a very, very long open letter on Vulture by Alec Baldwin, following accusations of homophobia - or rather of using homophobic language - last year, "by Andrew Sullivan, Anderson Cooper, and others in the Gay Department of Justice".

He's kinda right. Seems you can't say a bad word - like 'queen' FFS!!? - without the pink witch-hunters lighting their torches. 

NB He doesn't say he's retiring, as some have claimed.

After Sochi: Where Next?

Arizona's just legalised anti-gay discrimination - mass arrests of protesters.
Gay marriage is still illegal in 34 states.

8 States have laws outlawing giving 'gay propaganda' to minors.
Gay men are still being arrested for 'crimes against nature'.
Gay adoption banned.
It's legal to sack a worker for being gay in most states. 

Chelsea Manning imprisoned for life.
Gay teen suicides seem to never end.
Queerbashing in New York is on the rise.
The Westboro Baptist Church won't shut up.
The Republican Party is in hock to anti-gay Evangelists.
Radio talk shows are dominated by homophobic scum.
Enough!
We must make a stand.

BOYCOTT AMERICA!

IDF: Quite LGBT-Friendly (While Bulldozing Your Mother's House And Shooting Your Kids, Who May Or May Not Be Gay - But Who Cares? They're Palestinians)

Haaretz.

Just beyond...

Meanwhile some of our brave lads in the services discuss 'Which is the most homosexual branch of the military?'
This is classic.

Not that it really matters...but here are the total discharges under DADT from 1994 - 2011:

Coast Guard: 156
Marines: 889
Navy: 3,158
Army: 3,650
Air Force: 2,477

Pink News: Words fucking fail me...

The Economist have turned the survey into a handy cut-out-and-keep graph - click to enlarge etc etc.

No Homo: No Existo

The Guardian. 

BZZT!!!

No-one in the real world actually ever says; 'No homo'.
Unless they are being ironic.
It's a US sketch show trope/joke.
You clueless out-of-touch academic idiot.

Lush Cosmetics: Special Sochi Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony (PR) Campaign

After Lush asked people to draw a Nazi pink triangle on themselves 'using pink lipstick', in support of gay rights, bafflingly, then take a picture and tweet it to their shitty #signoflove, Fagburn asked if they could end the games with a SIGN OF LOVE!

RT! OR DON'T YOU CARE!!???

Thanks to Esteemed Comrade Darren. x

Queerty: Had Us Fooled!

Another day, another hoax. Every now and then a story comes along that gets everyone all fired up: A waitress receives a homophobic note in place of a tip; a president’s grandson comes out via Twitter; a lesbian claims she was denied hospital visitation rights. We go crazy, only to find later that we’ve been had. It was all a hoax.

There have been a number of gay hoaxes in the past year, and two this month alone. What’s up with this growing trend? And how many times will people cry wolf before we stop believing them?

Queerty.

Unfuckingbelievable.
How many times, indeed?
But these are just some of the many, many totally made-up stories the gay media has fallen for recently.
Here are some of Fagburn's favourites.
Maybe in future you dudes could actually try checking things you read on the internet?
You know, try to be a journalist, not a credulous fool.
Just a thought.

Africa: More Homophobic Than Antarctica

Simon Lokodo cannot imagine kissing a man. "I think I shall die," he said last week. "I would not exist. It is inhuman. I would be mad. Just imagine eating your faeces."

Lokodo is "ethics and integrity" minister in Uganda and a champion of the country's swingeing anti-homosexuality bill, which looked set to become law on Sunday until President Yoweri Museveni halted it, pending scientific advice. The delay was a small victory for activists dismayed a week ago when Museveni insisted that he would approve the legislation. That news prompted Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, to tweet: "In name of Africa culture Uganda Pres will sign anti-gay law pushed by US evangelists toughening British colonial ban."

In 140 characters, Roth encapsulated a broad sweep of history and geography and one of the central paradoxes of Africa's new war on gay and lesbian people. It is a war marked by political opportunism, biblical fundamentalism and a clash between cultural relativism and universal human rights. But it is also a measure of conservatives' anxiety that every day more and more African homosexuals are coming out and losing their fear. Western liberals eager to see the best in Africa must face an inconvenient truth: this is the most homophobic continent on Earth. Same-sex relations are illegal in 36 of Africa's 55 countries, according to Amnesty International, and punishable by death in some states. Now a fresh crackdown is under way.

David Smith, the Observer's Africa correspondent.

A lengthy, thoughtful article.

Though its main thrust - that African homophobia is a legacy of Western colonialism, that's now being stirred up by American evangelical Christians - is simplistic and has become a media trope/truism.
For they are but passive agents, and all they have was given by us?

Further, it seems odd, cruelly ironic and rather insulting, that David Smith does not interview any LGBT Africans.

They do exist, and are campaigning in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda... *

Why are they not allowed a voice, why can they not speak for themselves?

Smith does however talk to that well-known self-appointed expert on Africa, and indeed on all things gay, Peter Tatchell.

It seems the colonial mindset still has quite a hold.

'The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country's cultural standards' - Frantz Fanon.

Saint Peter has started talking up his affiliations with the UK-based African LGBTI Out & Proud Diamond Group. 
If so, why didn't he tell The Observer to talk to from someone from there?
Someone who knows what it's like to be black and African now.
Unless he just uses them for self-promoting photo-opportunities?

* Sexual Minorities Uganda. 

Paul Flowers: Gay Man Has Facebook Profile, Likes Gay Stuff Shock!

The Methodist minister has yet to ­apologise to his ­congregation for his headline-grabbing antics.

Flowers, 63, is currently suspended from the two churches he looks after in Bradford, West Yorks.

But now he has caused further upset among ­parishioners by bookmarking dozens of ­erotic pages dedicated to gay men on the ­social networking site.

Among his “likes” are Manly Men, Hot Sport Guys, Bear Magazine, XXL and Grab Mag.

Many of the pages contain pictures of male models in their underwear or ­cavorting with ­other men.

He also posted a banner saying: “Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not.”

Last night a ­parishioner said: “It is like he is just trying to shock for the sake of it.

“It is one thing looking at sleazy websites – whether they are for gay or straight people – in private but for him to be so open about it on his Facebook page is a little sad.

“It is almost like he has no thought for the people who worship at his churches.”

Daily Star.

If it's Sunday it must be time for another puny tabloid story about Paul Flowers!

Risible and hopeless attempt at 'investigative journalism' and mock outrage over nothing.

At the time of typing Paul's Facebook page is still up - though he doesn't appear to have been on it this year.

Fagburn has, but of course, sent this poor bugger a friend request.

Edit: Mr Flowers has accepted me as a Facebook friend - DAY MADE!

More Flowers-bashing in - surprise - the Mail On Sunday, masquerading as a business interview with Euan Sutherland, the new CEO of the Co-operative Group.

Apart from donations to the Labour Party, practically nothing else is mentioned apart from the 'Crystal Methodist' scandal.

HIV/Aids UK 2014: Hardship

Thousands of people with HIV have been left struggling in poverty by the Government's welfare reforms – with some unable to afford the basic food they need to fight their condition.

The situation is now so critical that in some cases doctors are having to prescribe food supplements to ensure that patients' medication works, The Independent on Sunday has learned.

A national hardship fund for people with HIV/Aids, run by the Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), registered a 63 per cent increase last year in those needing emergency help because their benefits had been stopped.

HIV experts described the situation as "truly alarming", saying it was "nothing short of a disgrace" that seriously ill patients in modern Britain were having their treatments compromised by hunger. HIV medication can be less effective if taken without food.

Changes to sickness benefits introduced by the coalition – alongside other welfare reforms such as the so-called bedroom tax – have left many HIV patients significantly worse off.

Stringent criteria for employment support allowance, assessed by the now notorious Atos Healthcare, means that many have been moved off sickness benefits altogether. The replacement of the disability living allowance with the personal independence payment is also affecting growing numbers...

Independent On Sunday.

This is in the IoS, so might be hyped up for the usual reasons.
Doesn't help that the only personal account they highlight is a woman complaining that she can't afford to shop at Waitrose anymore.
But it fits my narrow agenda, so... whatever. 

Persistent death threats against staff who decide whether sick and disabled people are eligible for benefits have forced the private company employing them to seek an early exit from a £500m government contract.
With opposition Labour MPs also stepping up criticism, Atos Healthcare said the political environment had become untenable and that it was no longer fair to employees to leave them vulnerable to attack...

Financial Times, February 20th. 

As this article goes on to say, ATOS's real problem is that they were exposed as corporate crooks, officially declared incompetent, and driven by callous targets for striking claimants off. 

Daily Mail: File Under Femail

We adore the new @BananaRepublic ad starring @jeremiahbrent and @nateberkus http://t.co/7eRX5uDLYe pic.twitter.com/zZuagLRLDK
— Daily Mail Femail (@Femail) February 21, 2014

I don't.

PS Femail's followers on Twitter think this is 'Brave & inspiring'. Eh?

Marriage: And You, You Won't Be Queen

Daily Telegraph.

Sadly, Telegraph readers can't leave comments about this medieval tomfoolery, that would have been META!
But great to see the return of the 'Gay couple's disembodied hands' stockphoto.

PS Lucky Telegraph readers are also treated to that classic straight newspaper gay feature cliché; Why does society stil have such a problem with camp men? Zzzzz...

The Spectator: Putin's Secret Plan

Now, after two decades in the economic basket, Russia is decisively back as an ideological force in the world — this time as a champion of conservative values. In his annual state of the nation speech to Russia’s parliament in December, Vladimir Putin assured conservatives around the world that Russia was ready and willing to stand up for ‘family values’ against a tide of liberal, western, pro-gay propaganda ‘that asks us to accept without question the equality of good and evil’. Russia, he promised, will ‘defend traditional values that have made up the spiritual and moral foundation of civilisation in every nation for thousands of years’. Crucially, Putin made it clear that his message was directed not only at Russians — who have already been protected from ‘promotion of non-traditional relationships’ by recent legislation — but for ‘more and more people across the world who support our position’.

He's on to something...

A pot pourri of conspiracy theory, conjecture, nonsense and non sequiturs in that noted champion of gay rights, The Spectator.
Luckily there are no right-wing New Cold Warriors in the West that ab/use the LGBT community as a soft power play.
Like by cherry-picking which countries to criticise and demonise over how they treat gay people, for example. 

This issue also contains an unwittingly hilarious article by Julie Burchill about 'intersectionality' and being accused of transphobia, which after spewing bile and insults in all directions like Regan in The Exorcist, concludes...

Here’s hoping that the in-fighting in-crowd of intersectionality disappear up their own intersection really soon, so the rest of us can resume creating a tolerant and united socialism.

Err...

Update: Paris Lees replies to La Burchill. 

Liberty: Now And Then

"We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance.
"In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship."

EM Forster, the first president of the Council For Civil Liberties.

The Guardian marks the 80th anniversary of Liberty by asking 'Edward Snowden and top writers what freedom means to them'.

PS The Daily Mail is celebrating Liberty's decades of good work by running a series of stories such as this; The Labour elite who gave succour to paedophiles.
As are the Telegraph.

Great stuff guys!

Edit: In The Sunday Times Rod Liddle wonders why this hasn't been 'in the news' [sic].
A leftist conspiracy?
Even though it's been covered by Rod, them above and in today's Observer!

It's not been in the news much as it's not actually 'news' - it's an old and distinctly tenuous story dredged up by the Mail to smear Labour and Liberty.

Thought For The Day: Rufus Wainwright

“For all the time spent writing songs, I sometimes wish I’d spent at least a quarter of that playing sports or climbing mountains, developing more of a physique. Being a gay man and hitting 40, I’ve woken up immediately to the fact of, ‘oh my God, I’m no longer this fresh-faced blushing rose’. And now I gotta get steroids!”

Rufus Wainwright profiled (badly) in The Independent.

He is currently whoring his new Best Of... album, Vibrate.

Here is an "interactive sampler".

Rufus is also doing What I See In The Mirror in Guardian Weekend...

People who wrestle with megalomania, as I do, see two people in the mirror. Depending on the day, I see myself as a 17-year-old supermodel mixed with a bit of Beethoven genius, or a disgusting 65-year-old dilettante with delusions of grandeur. Of course, in reality, I am somewhere in the middle.

Michael Lucas: Campaign Of Hate

Porn magnate and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights activist Michael Lucas is dead set on showing the world just how terrible it is to be gay in his native country.

"I want to bring attention to what is happening in Russia and I want the conversation to last longer than the span of the [Sochi] Olympics," the Moscow-born Lucas, CEO and founder of New York's largest gay adult film company, Lucas Entertainment, told The Huffington Post via email this week. "There was a lot of attention prior to the games, and that attention must continue. The world has seen bits and pieces, but we don't have the full picture of what the LGBT community in Russia is like, and what it is going through."

Hoping to fill this void, the 41-year-old porn star -- who in his early 20s fled Russia for Germany, where his porn career began -- went to Moscow last year to film a documentary about the country's abysmal gay rights record and its maligned LGBT community.

Last week he released a powerful trailer for the upcoming film, "Campaign of Hate: Russia and Gay Propaganda."

Huff Post Gay. 

Again, ask why this issue is obsessing the American Homocon/Neocon gay right?

Love Israel, hate Russia... etc etc.

PS Here's another ever-so patriotic gay American, AmericaBLOG's Michael Aravosis, making money out of anti-Russian 'protest'.
Unsurprisingly, some money goes to his fellow phoneys at Queer Nation NY...

Madonna: What's Going On?

Noted political analyst Madonna gives her two cents over on Instagram.

There's 'facism' [sic] in 'The Ukraine' '[sic] 'apparantly' [sic]...

Fagburn loves it when celebrities speak out about things they can't even spell.

Here's the slightly better-informed Seamus Milne in The Guardian, In Ukraine, fascists, oligarchs and western expansion are at the heart of the crisis.
Robert Fisk in The Independent on the Russia, Syria, Ukraine nexus.
Marc Bennetts talks to New Humanist about the reality of protest and dissent in Russia today.
And ZNet on Western media mis-reporting of Venezuela's upper-class revolt.

Should anyone be surprised which side Madonna's on?

Moral Maze: The Great Gay Cake Debate

You can reveal to yourself where you stand on this issue by considering these two questions, as I did when composing a headline for this post:

a) Should a Christian baker be able to refuse to make a cake for a gay wedding?

b) Should a Christian baker be forced to make a cake for a gay wedding?

Daily Telegraph.

Let me rephrase the question: Who cares?

PS I know this is about the broader and jolly important issue of discrimination by people who work in goods and services on the grounds of religious belief, so don't write in. 

Sochi: An American Right-Wing Gaylord Writes

Under the invisible camera, my husband and I were forced to think twice before showing affection. Would a squeeze of his arm - combined with my hat that read HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST SOCHI EQUALITY - be interpreted as propaganda? Oh, and in Russia, asking for a single bed in a hotel is most definitely a thing. Did that clerk just raise his eyebrows? Maybe he set off an alarm that rings in the Kremlin!

Bit of a classic this one - after spending five (5) days at Sochi, Mr Gaylord now considers himself an expert on Russia.

He works for a group called Human Rights First.

Motto: American Ideals, Universal Values.

Shall we have a look at their website?

USA! USA!  USA!

Why is The Guardian printing this junk?

PS If you ever want to show someone why the American far-right love banging on about gay rights in Russia, this inasane recent article from the 'Freedom Centre's' Frontpage Magazine - which claims that The Guardian, "the British left's flagship daily", is an apologist for Putin - is something of a classic of its kind.

Exactly what’s going on here? In the last few days, reading these and other peculiarly docile pieces in various left-leaning Western media – media which, until recently, could be fairly described as having been on the warpath over Putin’s assault on gays – one wondered whether some of that good old-fashioned Soviet-era Western-progressive “understanding” of Kremlin brutality had, all these years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, finally kicked back into gear. No, Russia is no longer officially Communist – but under Putin it’s close enough, perhaps, to set off the old acceptance, among leftist journalists and gay-left activists alike, of the need to break a few eggs to make an omelet...

Erm, I'm pretty sure The Guardian has only published one article questioning the current climate of hysteria.

Gay Star News: Take that Putin!

Russia: How To Make Sure Putin Pays Attention

Independence Square, Kiev, February 2013.

And how not to...

Red Square, Moscow, July 2013.

Everything's not all about The Gays, The Gays!

Film: In The Country

Gay people and the city have been a good match since Sodom and Gomorrah. From the molly houses of 18th-century London to 1970s San Francisco via prewar Berlin, the urban environment has always been the natural habitat of queer culture – a place where LGBT people can set their own rules, form their own families, be anonymous when they want to and find company when they fancy it. The countryside, on the other hand, is the place they escape from – a realm of social conformity with limited opportunities for culture, sex or socialising, and perhaps even a site of danger.

That's the stereotype, anyway, both in reality and on screen. Innumerable movies with claims to gay-classic status are inseparable from their urban settings: London has Victim, My Beautiful Laundrette and Beautiful Thing; New York has The Boys in the Band, Paris Is Burning and Torch Song Trilogy; Berlin has Cabaret and Taxi zum Klo; Philadelphia has, erm,Philadelphia. On TV, Queer as Folk was all about Manchester in its original UK incarnation and Pittsburgh in the US remake, while San Francisco is the setting for both new HBO show Looking and the literary adaptation whose title says it all, Tales of the City.

Leave town and things get less comfortable. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is wholly structured around the idea of gay people in the country as fish out of water, its basically feelgood vibe laced with moments of real macho menace directed at our drag-queen heroines. Brokeback Mountain made icons of its repressed rural protagonists, men whose inability to articulate their desires even to themselves doomed them to lives of regret...

An interesting and informed piece by Ben Walters in The Guardian.

Though it uses as its launchpad two films in your actual French, Stranger By The Lake and Tom At The Farm, only about 49 people here will see.

Apparently this contains "surprisingly graphic gay sex"

There's a great history book waiting to be written about how gay men are creatures - and arguably creations - of the city.

PS See also Let's Do It:: How sex in cinema is getting physical - Nicholas Barber, Independent On Sunday.