More and more I am wondering if it is me...

Just to start us off in a helpful manner, autostraddle.com has hotness on tap in Cobie Smulders

My claim to fame! Dear old love used my sentence!

The power of the interwebs for LGBT organising is growing! According to Bilerico

Egyptian evidence of early homosexuality puts new spin on historical homos

Perez Hilton does not speak for the LGBT community at large and Miss Cali Carrie Prejean is entitled to her views and to express them, even if they are wrong. (@Bilerico) The only problem with free speech is when a person tries to whip up violence and hatred in others - you can be a berk as much as you like, but don't try to make everyone else be as much of a loser as you are...

Make do and mend mentality was always going to be a winner for me: cheap as chips meal plans from thekitchn.com and even Wiki has a great article on Really Really Free Markets.

Titan jail warehouses plans are shelved by Jack Straw

GoogleEarth alphabet from Victoria, Australia

Printing out books in 5mins flat: how Amazon and Tesco might have met their match in Blackwell's new revolution in book supply. Out of date books (10p per page, about £30 on average); the rest are the price you would pay from the shelf except shelving costs reduced, no more carbon footprint in transporting desired books from warehouses to the shops or direct to your home.

I must, I must improve my...

Darlinks! Here are the tippity-tip-toppiest tips EVER!

Lexicon improvement from Queers United: "Gynaeotrope" is an unpopular and outdated term for a lesbian that was used in the 1940's to counter the negative connotations of the word homosexual. You learn something new every day!

More autostraddle.com goodness in the form of Ms. Beals who incidentally presented a half hour show on Pablo Neruda after the Il Postino surprise hit movie.

Gay happiness in China with supportive parents but name trouble thwarts those with individual identifying monnikers as the Chinese government was bureaucracy to deal with only a limited set of Chinese characters.

Fashionable boundaries broken in First Amendment challenge over boy wanting to wear a rainbow wrist band

Facebook feed is actually occasionally useful as it lead me to discover Spotify the shiny rival to lastfm.com

Visual display of stereotypes and assumptions

Queer is as queer does... Why the term 'bisexual' isn't for everyone

Can there be any more fabulousness in the world?

Gay penguin couple stole eggs from str8 neighbours in their bid to be parents - an extremely strong urge in male penguins, apparently. Thus they were separated from their colony. Protest ensues and the zoo backs down, giving them eggs from a couple who weren't so good at rearing the wee ones - all together now... aaahhh!

I shouldn't laugh but I did

Lady Gaga fabulousness: Video clip of tv interview where she quick-as-lightning retorts suggestions that she is in fact a man with the outrageous 'Well, I do have a really big donkey dick' in the best dead-pan this side of Jack Dee. Towleroad has the clip.

Queered disability: Event for disabled LGBT people at Harvard Law

Significant Otters from icanhascheezburger.com

Frightening breach of basic human rights in a SCHOOL - I really cannot write any more about this horrifying story because it upsets me too much.

Thanks to another Autostraddle.com link, I have discovered more visual loveliness

Monday musings

So all homo's, non-straights and other 'others' are fly-by-night, no strings-attached, on-night-stand people? Not so: the Miami Pride festival of last weekend celebrated 'legacy couples' who had been together longer than most of the attendees had been alive. This fantastic website showcases them in a series of timeline photographs; sadly there was a suspicious lack of women or transgendered people or even a bisexual couple who had happened to end up with a two-gendered partnership. Visibility much?

Now, crime prevention (more on this anon from an article in The Economist), but would be criminals are being dissuaded by photographs of what they might look like after jail time. With 25% of the world's incarcerated population in the USA, a third of whom will never be released, what one might look like after being imprisoned could be last concern of the person tempted to act illegally. I would worry about missing out on nice shoes, not seeing the latest movies, never flying to Asia, having to breach my no-public-nudity clause in the group showers. But then that's just me...

Gay marriage vs polygamy: apart from the misprint in the final paragraph, I think it a great article but which fails to note that polyamory (including polygyny and polygamy) are tricky (or wrong depending on your viewpoint) as they encourage, sanction, endorse, require sharing of one's body sexually with more than one person and your emotions, love, support, money, everything with more than one person. Now to me that seems like a whole heap of unnecessary trouble: maybe you get a few people to care for you when you are ill, but what if there is a sick person, a bereaved person, someone in labour all at the same time - who do you support? Who gets priority? There will have to be favourites, you will have to choose. Someone gets left out and pissed off. Trouble starts. Not worth it. Find one person, stick with them, make it work, good luck. Or rely on yourself, have others in your lives for the things you cannot do alone, but stay a single unit, no commitment to any one person or a group - that way madness lies.

Sunday Short-Cut

Massive deadline tomorrow... no work currently prepared - am about to get serious, but before that... two pieces of awesomeness.

Boris Johnson, Lord Mayor of London, Guru of Blonde Mane Madness, Fabulousness of fabulousnesses, has started a campaign to have pride in our fantastic language to coincide with St George's Day (Patron Saint of England) this week. See his article in the Daily Mail.

TheSmokingCocktail.com has a SUPER-EXCITING video clip about a new super-gay HSMusical style tv show. I know it seems a rip-off of H.S.Musical, Sister ActII, Grease, etc. but these are GREAT movies, so to combine them with a little gayness thrown in - what's not to love? Also, Jane Lynch, need I say more?

Have a happy Sunday!

Saturday Selection

Need faking advice? Mag Missbehave has a helpful article...

Turns out that Sarah Haskins has more up her sleeve - a movie about Women's Studies

Prince's lesbian backing singer duo interview is HOT - and makes the man himself to be a "fancy lesbian"

How to have sex in a monogamous relationship (@Bilerico)

Some good news in the war against women's bodies: agreement signed by chiefs in Sierra Leone precluding Female Genital Mutilation.

FGM happens to be one of the (many) topics that gets me on my soapbox every time. I'm planning an awareness-raising art project to combat ignorance about this terrible 'cultural tradition'.

Fellowship Friday...

Twitter much? Then Monitter.com might be useful for those wanting to check what other people are tweeting. If you miss the Fail Whale, then check out this supportive website which tells you all you need to know and provides great graphics...

Mapping out the celesbians (from Queerty)

Female soldiers at risk of rape and assault from male colleagues (@DailyMail)

Lesbian author falls in love with a gay man: modern sexuality and relationships at their flexi-best

The fabulous Susan Boyle wont be getting an L.A. make-over is Amanda Holden has anything to do with it, but she might be helping a worthy cause - 1000 CD's were bought for a charity back in 1999 - and Miss Boyle features on them singing Cry Me a River - with a very sexy voice - the Scottish newspaper the Daily Record has an exclusive player that let's you hear her sumptuous tones. That make-over presumably was to concentrate on her eyebrows, but we've read my thoughts on hirsuteness before, including a link to that razor advert, but luckily the talented Sarah Haskins has a useful video response.

Back to the idea that women are women for their own pleasure not as sex tools or toys for men (or other women!) - lads' mags are increasingly sending out the wrong vibe about women's sexuality and William Leith (@DailyMail) has a thoughtful article on the problematic issue.

Finally, Miss Drew Barrimore really might be the hottest girl on Earth right now, for rocking all these different looks recently...

Thursday Thrills...

Celebrities looking normal? Never! Well, actually, yes, sometimes:

• Barefaced cheek of celebrities to 'bravely' appear in French vogue sans fard et maquillage
• Normal-looking celebrities turn out con kiddies to study boss and founder of CAC for Easter egg hunt
• Sadly, there seems to be an expectation for women to be frightening un-hirsute - hair-free as a pre-teen - how paedophilic! Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman had hairy arms - did you fancy her less? The Muffia feminist artists explore society's disapproval of female body hair. Recently, Sienna Miller's latest movie has been panned because... she apparently needs an upper-lip wax.
• More stereotypes of accepted female personas: spinster librarians, bimbo footballer wives, etc.
  

Colourful clothes cheer up the economically depressed?

• First there were the boys in candy-coloured underwear
• Then, Su Pollard from Hi-De-Hi appeared in her usual fabulous garb
• Now, Primark are selling their Barbie-esque courts like hot little Easter pancakes
• Plus, Katy Perry is spotted again and again in tremendously cheery clobber - hooray!

(Thanks to DailyMail website for the photographs)

• Reasonable response from a transsexual woman: Calpernia Addams' informative video tells nosy-parkers all they need to know about how not to ask the wrong questions!
• This was a link from a fantastic article by a transitioning woman who had been back and forth across the transitioning spectrum: the link to her article is here (@Feministe)
  
• From HuffPo, an environmental reason not to support the ban on same-sex marriage - save trees!

Now, I know EVERYONE is posting about Susan Boyle, but I cannot help but join - she is a marvel: check out the video of her astonishing performance here. And, yes, like Kathie Lee Gifford, I cried, too.

You also have to love these cute kissing anteaters and Cat on the Prowl from AfterEllen starring Riese/Autostraddle.com's gal-pal, Haviland Stillwell.

Women taking over the world? I've written about female domination before, but now there is scientific proof via nature itself - a colony of female only ants. These Amazonian insects (well, it had to be Amazonian, didn't it?) are asexual, breeding through clones of the Queen.

Female takeover might not come quick enough for Afghan women struggling under new law that permits marital rape if wives fail to submit to new legal demands by husbands that they have sex every four days. Protesters were pelted with stones for having the temerity to object.

For those who don't know enough about queer theorist and activist, Eve Sedgwick, click on this link to see articles since her death to breast cancer.

Finally, a game of which I was only partially aware 'no homo' has been deconstructed on Feministe. Click this link to check out the useful and funny video about it.

Back to life, back to reality...

Today's queeriosities include:

1. Jezebel's guide to lesbo stereotypes and cliches
2. Twelve-year old daughter of two gay mom's presented her life facts to politicians, some of whom expressed a change of heart over their voting direction after her speech. The wee one was interviewed: check it out.
3. Jezebel's helpful recruitment guide for turning non-Sapphists into lady-lovers.
4. Frightening news from Saudi Arabia - an 8yr old girl married off to a 47yr old man to settle her father's debt has been told that her marriage cannot be annulled until she reaches puberty. This is about as far from the fairytale of a Princess being married off as a child to her future Prince Charming as you could get.
5. Three exciting women using their energy and faith to become engaged in fighting for justice and equality in a range of arenas.
6. Firoza Bibi, a brave woman from rural India, has won a local governmental election and is fighting for justice for her local community, including women who were sexually brutalised as a weapon of war.
7. Bilerico's guest blogger, Monica Helms, talks about how boring life is in binary. I like spectrum ideas, that we are a sliding scale of all types of humanity, but I worry that this somehow interferes with yin/yang, dualism philosophy of ancient cultures. Can I support a continuum whilst advocating a two-sides of the coin, together-we-make-a-whole argument?
8. Li'l Wayne has been on the Jimmy Kimmel show and revealed that he lost his viginity at 11yr old to a woman, and it sounds like rape to pretty much everyone who has seen the clip and commented on it. From feministing.com there is a link to a smart essay on it, which raises the issue of rape apologism and its meaning for women-on-men assault, and how black men are hypersexualised and therefore the host and other guest (white) felt able to laugh about it.
9. Sadly, the other news story about sexual assault that caught my attention was the disturbing story of a female Sunday School teacher who kidnapped, raped with a foreign object, murdered then put the body in a suitcase in a lake. The victim was a little girl. Paedophilic attacks are not just carried out by men.
   
10. Thanks to queerty.com, I found 2M4M.org and their fab picture
11. Clever video about wrongness of NOM claims through Towleroad.
12. A hilarious video that mocks the original NOM film (@Bilerico)
    
13. New book and online publicity drive for the femme-themed literature: Femmethology
14. The fabulous, genderfucking superstar, Peaches, has a new album I feel Cream and a single from this Talk to Me has a fantastic music video, which feels a little Goldfrapp, Ride a White Horse, which incidentally looks a little Lady Gaga: check it out via queerty.com
15. Cutest thing today - wee robot that has been helped around NY by kind citizens: an art project with humanitarian overtones - click here for the video. (@gizmodo)
16. Sadly the elderly are getting a raw deal again: a fifth are not taking meals to save money according the Daily Mail (UK).
17. But a British supermarket, ASDA, is helping the aging process by selling walking sticks and wheelchairs - no more NHS scrappy, institutional, utilitarian, stuff for you, Grandpa - a loaf of bread, a bottle of ale and a mobility aid - marvellous! (@DailyMailUK)
    

The Easter Weekend has arrived...

So, I'm heading home to spend my birthday (Monday) with my family. The sun is shining. The train is filling up nicely. I have my war paint on already in anticipation of a bit knees-up tonight con mis amigos viejos - they are not so old in age, but they are from olden times, yore and way back when.

Treats for today include:

• Feminist art exhibitionists
• Nipple-tassel malfunction Now I am not a fan of big ladies, as previously discussed, but I am a fan of bodypositivism, so whilst I do not find her appearance and routine sexually exciting, I do applaud her confidence and 'fuck you' attitude.
• Non-traditional singing sensation
• Voting for internet success: app's, links, etc.

Don't forget, you can follow me on twitter, too!

Friday Follow-through

Gay elephant disappoints its owners! Politicians in Poland are complaining that the breeding programme is an expensive failure after Ninio has shown little interest in females, preferring boy time! (@DailyMail)

Librarians fumble classification of famous archaeology text: Prof Stringer's important book, Homo Britannicus was incorrectly shelved in the LGBT/queer section! (@DailyMail)

Queerty has a fascinating article on Jesus as a Gay Man based on a new book by Kittredge Cherry - what a fabulous name for an author, and she is a lesbian, too!

Bilerico moves the debate towards racism after the writer remembered being called someone's 'perfect little geisha boy', meant as an affectionate term, but brought up the wrong sort of feelings in Jason Tseng.

Women are finding less satisfaction with their career than men - they are preferring to have a happy home life, whereas their male counterparts are prioritising their employment prospects. (@DailyMail)

Happily childfree woman has had to reconsider her opinion now that she has a puppy in her life messing up her hormones! (@DailyMail)

Google founder's wife has produced a product (with the help of her organisations) that allows a person to be genetically tested for tell-tale mutated genes, etc. that might signal a predisposition to getting certain diseases. Both Sergey Brin and his wife, Ann Wojcicki, and their child have been tested; they are especially concerned about Parkinson's Disease, since there is history of it in the family.

I think this development is wonderful and I suspect that eventually it will be common practice for those wanting to procreate to ask the other person involved in the matter (that is the other person providing the genetic material) to provide their testing results before they decide to make babies together. If you have a higher risk of creating children with dreadful painful diseases, you might decide against producing offspring together. This does conflict with my distaste for abortion and euthanasia; I think all life has value and afflicted people can teach those around them so much about patience, compassion and love. However, if the choice was available before procreating (as in the movie Gattacca) then I, and I would think countless others, would want to know what they face beforehand. Not that you can ever really prepare to parent a severely disabled child. Plus, those scientists in the article are right, chance and environmental factors are not taken into account in the testing.

Would the testing go too far... with only tall, athletic, non-disabled children being created in the ideal world? I'm not sure we can avoid selection - you might not want to marry a bald fat man with coronary disease to prevent your babies being afflicted. Mothers choosing sperm donor candidates choose ones with 'best' qualities. I surely want intelligent, healthy, blonde babies...but that might say more about my ego than my desire for the 'best' children.

Thursday Lite Bite!

Lots of lovely links:

Cynthia Nixon's Australian interview about motherhood (@Babble.au)

Boys in colourful underwear beat the recession blues (@DailyMail)

An amazing opportunity for woman anywhere in the world to attend a conference in the USA and get a scholarship to do so. Women & Power: Connecting Across the Generations, a conference to be held September 11-13, 2009.

Alex@Bilerico's report on new femme book plus a chance to win a copy of the book if you follow them on Twitter!

A fascinating map of the latest web trends laid out through a copy of the Tokyo subway map- it lists the latest significant people and places on the Internet...

I don't know how this escaped my notice but British boy band Boyzone released a music video showing a gay band member in a romantic clinch with a...man! Hurrah! See this link to watch the video - the link is from the kiddies' section of the BBC news site - progressive, eh?

Oh, I couldn't resist: Scotland's #1 male Barbie? This Aberdonian fellow is all kinds of special! The link takes you to a BBC3 video excerpt and it is fabulous!

If I have not already advised you to check out the new super-terrific e-zine for intellectual queer types, then I have been extremely remiss... Polari is smart, funny, cultural, beautifully designed, easy to navigate, with quick loading times and great links. You must read it, and join their facebook fan page!

Some excellent links...

Be Yr Own Queero has three ace articles:
Defined by your gender? You don't have to be
Questioning Maleness: Constructing Homosexual Identity
Positive Queer Role Models
Helpfully, one of the commentors on BYOQ added a link to an academic paper on Gender as Social Institution.

Also, coming out in search of a gay-friendly school: Julie Halpert writes in Newsweek about her own daughter Alyson's search for a gay-friendly college. (@Queerty from Newsweek)

Christian college provides LGBT-friendly housing: The DiversCity Q housing

Proactive support is great when you can get it but, sadly, the gaps in the system are sometimes invisible until people fall through them. Young people in the care system are finding themselves in homeless shelters as foster care ends and the global recession affects their ability to find a job and their own home, so reports the NYTimes.

Finally, get it in your diaries, girls and the girl-identified! June 12st is going to be ORGASMIC! The Big O Day project wants the women/womyn/wimmin/whatever of the world to unite in the purism of pleasure - embrace the inner goddess and do something entirely and solely pleasurable for at least 15mins that day (just 15? I'm gonna spend a LOT longer...) You can do it alone, in a group, with a special pal, in public, in private, in your head - it can be sexual, esoterical, fantastical or epicurean - the power to be pleasured and pleasurable lies in each and every one of us, and June 12st is the day to give it out to the universe!

Seriously scary...

Again another sad story of women being 'diagnosed' as problematic and requiring sedation through forcible drug administration. In this case, the women have gone onto to have children with birth defects. It might be that women who require a chemical cosh are predisposed to have children with defects, perhaps as a concomitant factor of their disruptive condition, or it might be that the chemicals administered altered had genetic affects on their children... (@ BBC)

However one courageous woman is making a stand against STDs by protecting her body the best way she knows how - - abstinence...

Crusties, porn and more

A completely barmy but well-intentioned woman, Liz Jones, writes about her hatred for crusties. " I’ve watched hippies in India actually bartering with a naked child who earns 20p a day." "How do you respond to someone who thinks poverty is OK, that the developing world doesn’t need globalisation? The crusties think they want poverty, too, only a homogenised western type so they can still dial 999 if they get in a pickle. Crusties fail to remember they are ultra privileged, and with privilege comes responsibility."

This other Sunday article about children's frightening access to porn on the internet

Also randomly I found my first fuck on facebook... weirdness

For the love of language...

Check out the Wiki article on polari, the language used by Romany and theatrical types with a huge queer slant, based on Romany and thieves' cant. How many of the words from the glossary do you use? I use LOADS! I was really surprised!

Ever wondered what would happen when the apocalypse comes, when you are really hoping for Utopia? Then utopalypse is for you! What a great word!

Too many books? Then copy this artist and make them into sculpture. The photographs are awesome...

If you have too many social media connectivity network app's then Digsby, Tweetdeck and Skimmer might be for you... I used all three, but am thinking of trying Nomee - this claims to do all the other links and SO MUCH MORE! Now, if I can get youtube, gmail, google reader, hotmail, msn messenger, facebook, LinkedIn, Hi5, Where are you now?, FriendsReunited, blogger dashboard, iGoogle, academia.edu and the other gazillion sites I meant to be a member of, then I would be sorted!

Learning to love the word cunt: a young teacher gets a lesson in language from his LGBT students

Needing help to step out of the closet? This handy-help guide is the answer.

You win some...

Surprisingly enough, some sporting stories to begin:
Ladies' Day was a typical affair ("They came in all the colours of the rainbow - but particularly orange. So once again, the aroma of fresh fake tan at Aintree must have been as heady as the thunder of hooves": Jaya Narain @DailyMail) then the Grand National race had a surprise winner - how exciting - 100/1! Mon Mome coming home! However, the side was seriously let down by celesbian, Clare Balding. Twitter was a flutter over it.

Sadly the three-day event was marred by the deaths of five horses, including Hear the Echo, a favourite, yards from the finish line. No, I am not normally an eco-warrior, vegan-loon, I think that takes it a bit far (see Facebook group PETA - People for the Eating of Tasty Animals), yet Animal Aid have it pretty accurately described. The shocking thing is that they are seen as routine and receive little media attention.

They also mention that whipping is cruel (and I think I have some BDSM pals who would agree - animals are unlikely to be so sexually complex as to get gratification from pain administration).

Scotland football captain Barry Ferguson and team mate Allan McGregor have been banned from representing their country for life (and are likely to be sacked from their club teams to boot) as a result of a series of disrespectful shenanigans. HOWEVER, am I the only one to think these signs were not just "v signs" (rude British insult, similar to giving someone the bird, but a little less serious - popular in 1970s) but meant to reflect and jeer the Iceland team since their Prime Minister is a lesbian (the first ever!)?