position:actor

#les_acteurs_que_je_sais_jamais_leur_nom : Arye Gross

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130211010215/castle/de/images/6/60/Slideshow1-Arye-Gross-03071.jpg

il est partout mais toujours discret...

Cartographie des #controverses - Tommaso Venturini
http://www.tommasoventurini.it/web/index.php?page=controversy-mapping

Tommaso Venturini, coordinateur du projet Medialab de science Po a recueilli une brassée de liens pour comprendre les controverses, accéder aux outils d’exploration - http://www.tommasoventurini.it/web/index.php?page=exploring-controversies - et à ceux permettant de les représenter : http://www.tommasoventurini.it/web/index.php?page=representing-controversies Tags : internetactu2net internetactu fing (...)

#datavisualization

A Seattle, une invasion de super-héros embarrasse la police | Big Browser
http://bigbrowser.blog.lemonde.fr/2013/05/02/justicier-a-seattle-une-invasion-de-super-heros-embarrasse-l

Affublés de capes et de masques de Superman, Spider-Man ou autres héros de la culture de masse, ils entendent compléter l’action de la police en agissant en justiciers dans leur ville. Mais à Seattle, dans le nord-ouest des Etats-Unis, la police s’en inquiète plutôt, relate un article de Slate. En témoigne un rapport indépendant sur l’action des forces de l’ordre locales, qui évoque la présence embarrassante de ces énergumènes déterminés à rétablir l’ordre public.

Seattle Is Overrun With People Who Dress Up Like Superheroes and Cause Trouble
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/05/01/phoenix_jones_rain_city_superhero_movement_seattle_is_overrun_with_people.htm

What’s that? You haven’t heard of the superhero menace? Seattle, being a somewhat silly place, is the home town of the Rain City Superhero Movement, a group of eccentric citizens who roam the streets wearing homemade superhero costumes, occasionally attempting to stop crime but mostly posing for photographs. Last year, several of the Rain City members inserted themselves into the protests, attempting to stop the anarchists from causing trouble. The independent review on May Day 2012 found that the superheroes just made things worse: “Rain City Superhero Movement individuals were allowed to participate in the melee at 1010 5th Avenue (U.S. Appeals Federal Courthouse). Their participation resulted in allegations of assaults/crimes.” That’s just what that stupid J. Jonah Jameson said about Spider-Man. At least Spider-Man gets results!

#milice

Tiens, une femme pour #les_acteurs_que_je_sais_jamais_leur_nom : Honor Blackman
http://vatzhol.perso.neuf.fr/img9/avengers169.jpg

La Catherine Gale de The Avengers !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0mTRiZGvvw

How Hollywood Accounting Can Make a $450 Million Movie ’Unprofitable’
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/how-hollywood-accounting-can-make-a-450-million-movie-unprofitable/245134

Here is an amazing glimpse into the dark side of the force that is Hollywood economics. The actor who played Darth Vader still has not received residuals from the 1983 film “Return of the Jedi” because the movie, which ranks 15th in U.S. box office history, still has no technical profits to distribute.

#optimisation #production #cinéma

Quelques sites consacrés à Jess Franco :

– In inglish : I’m in a Jess Franco State of Mind (ouh là, y’a des trucs dis donc…)
http://robertmonell.blogspot.fr

– En espagnol, l’excellentissime Franconomicon (bon sang, ceux-là aussi ils ont vu de ces trucs…) :
http://franconomicon.wordpress.com

– In ze angliche, le groupe Facebook (c’est un truc assez miraculeux, parce que c’est le seul endroit au monde où tu peux te rencarder sur Jess Franco sans jamais tomber sur une actrice dénudée) :
http://www.facebook.com/groups/324132057665522

– En français, quelques fiches de films (pas très nombreuses, mais exhaustives) :
http://jesus-franco.com

– La biographie sur NanarLand :
http://www.nanarland.com/acteurs/Main.php?id_acteur=jesusfranco

#cinéma_barré

The ’Somali pirates’ who are not what they seem - Channel 4 News
http://www.channel4.com/news/somali-pirates-journalists-jamal-osman-time-magazine-kenya

Somali pirates have kidnapped hundreds of people and cost millions in ransom payments. Jamal Osman finds journalists keen to interview them do not always get what they bargained for.

The story begins in the slums of Eastleigh, a sprawling suburb of Nairobi in Kenya and home to a huge Somali community.

There I met Adan (pictured above). He and his friends are running an industry that had been fooling some of the best journalists from around the world. Their business? Pretending to be pirates.

#pirates #somalie #journalistes #arnarque

Pump.io capitalizes on StatusNet’s large-scale decentralized social networking platform experience to reach new levels of flexibility and developer friendliness - http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/544347/d9c904117b4824d1

Congo receives £180m boost to health system to tackle warzone rape | World news | The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/26/uk-congo-tackle-warzone-rape

On a trip to Goma, William Hague, the British foreign secretary, launched the UK’s plan to help tackle the crisis, announcing £180m in new funding for the DRC health system, some of which will go to training medical staff to give proper care for rape victims.

Jonathan Lusi, a surgeon at the Goma hospital, both tends to the very serious injuries which accompany rape, and oversees his patients’ psychological recovery, training to give them independent livelihoods.

“We are in a war. It’s a legal vacuum. There is no government, no authority and no values. Rape is a warning sign something has gone very wrong.”

#viols #RDC #promesse #santé

How ’Minority Report’ Trapped Us In A World Of Bad Interfaces | The Awl (Stéphane Deschamps)
http://www.theawl.com/2013/02/how-minority-report-trapped-us-in-a-world-of-bad-interfaces

Arrêtons de consacrer autant d’énergie aux trucs qui en mettent lpein la vue : l’interface est avant tout destinée à permettre à l’utilisateur d’effectuer une action. Annotations : I spend a lot of time trying to repackage Steven Spielberg’s …

http://www.theawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Screen-Shot-2013-02-22-at-10.46.18-AM.jpg

Source : The Awl - Stéphane Deschamps

#interfaces #Minority_Report #Steven_Spielberg #The_Future #technology #John_Underkoffler #Jaron_Lanier #Christian_Brown #Columnists #Design #Film_Frets #Gadgets #Interfaces #Minority_Report #Movies #Steven_Spielberg #Technology #tom_cruise #Uncategorized

Ashley Judd Slaps Media in the Face for Speculation Over Her ‘Puffy’ Appearance - The Daily Beast
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/09/ashley-judd-slaps-media-in-the-face-for-speculation-over-her-puffy-ap

That women are joining in the ongoing disassembling of my appearance is salient. Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it. This abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women.

#femmes #média #sexisme @beautefatale

Matt Damon’s humorous video spotlights #sanitation crisis - CSMonitor.com
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2013/0213/Matt-Damon-s-humorous-video-spotlights-sanitation-crisis

“In protest of this global tragedy, until this issue is resolved, until everyone has access to clean water and sanitation ... I will not go to the bathroom.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQCqNop3CIg&list=PLHsErFFuTfjZkSymNC25ahrtBgF9p7-l9&index=1

#toilettes #eau #santé

Un personnage de Quentin Tarantino dans la réalité des Etats Unis

Chris Kyle, Author of ‘American Sniper’ Reported Killed in Texas - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/us/chris-kyle-american-sniper-author-reported-killed.html?_r=0

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/02/04/us/04author_2/04author_2-articleLarge.jpg

... two weeks into his time in Iraq, he found himself staring through his scope into the face of an unconventional enemy. A woman with a child standing close by had pulled a grenade from beneath her clothes as several Marines approached. He hesitated, he wrote, then shot.

“It was my duty to shoot, and I don’t regret it,” he wrote. “My shots saved several Americans, whose lives were clearly worth more than that woman’s twisted soul.”

Over time, his hesitation diminished and he became proficient at his job, credited with more than 150 kills. In his book, he describes shooting a fighter wielding a rocket launcher 2,100 yards away, a very long distance for a sniper and his farthest ever.

Dans son film Inglorious Basterds Quentin Tarantino décrit un jeune soldat assez sympathique qui devient la vedette des médias sous le contrôle de Goebbels. Vu qu’Inglorious Basterds est une sorte de fable sanguinaire marqué par un sarcasme omniprésent, il me semble permis de comparer ce personnage avec le vétéran américain qui vient de se faire tuer par un camarade.

Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), (is) a German sniper whose exploits are to be celebrated in a Nazi propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (Nation’s Pride), starring as himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglourious_Basterds

Mr. Kyle’s autobiography was published in January 2012 and became a nonfiction best seller. It turned Mr. Kyle into a celebrity, appearing on talk shows like “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”

The sudden success of the book surprised no one more than Mr. Kyle, the son of a church deacon who was initially rejected by the Navy when he tried to join in the mid-1990s, because of pins in his arm from a rodeo injury. His first book signing drew 1,200 people. About 850,000 print and e-book editions were sold.

In an interview with The New York Times in March, Mr. Kyle — who received two Silver Stars and five Bronze medals for valor — said he had hesitated to write about his experiences. But he was persuaded to move forward after hearing that other books about members of the SEALs were in the works.

“I wanted to tell my story as a SEAL,” he said. “This is about all the hardships that everybody has to go through to get the respect and the honor.”

Allez voir le film de Tarantino, vous y découvrirez une forte ressemblance des attitudes affichés par les protagonistes et une déscription de l’explolitation des héros par la machine de propagande nazie digne des médias du pouvoir actuel.

A lire aussi : http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-sniper-chris-kyle-investigation-20130203,0,4541295.story

Son assassin présumé ...

... Routh appeared to be one of the nation’s numerous unemployed veterans, and Kyle was one of the crop of Navy SEALs to leave the anonymity of military service and enter the public sphere.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-510ee6a5/turbine/la-na-nn-sniper-chris-kyle-investigation-20130-001/580/580x499.jpg

Tarantino s’intéresse indirectement aux conséquences de la violence, il décrit comment ses protagonistes utilisent des symboles afin de pouvoir vivre avec la violence qu’ils excercent. C’est également décrit dans l’autobiographie du tireur d’élite. D’après les reportages connus à cette heure un soldat risque de « déraper » s’il ne sait pas employer cette méthode - les mots et symboles idéologiques sont nécessaire afin de digérer la contradiction entre sa vie personelle humaine et la tâche inhumaine à accomplir.

His autobiography was unapologetically politically incorrect, reflecting the man: During one visit home between deployments, Kyle got a tattoo of a crusader cross on his arm.

“I wanted everyone to know I was a Christian,” Kyle wrote. “I had it put in in red, for blood. I hated the damn savages I’d been fighting. I always will. They’ve taken so much from me.”

Kyle won adulation and a spotlight and appeared on the NBC reality show “Stars Earn Stripes,” in which “celebrities are challenged to execute complicated missions inspired by real military exercises.”

Le résumé des événement est court : Ce sont toujours le petits gens qui paient avec leur vie pour le profit des grands.

50 Great Examples of Data Visualization
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of-data-visualization
À fouiller…

Wrapping your brain around data online can be challenging, especially when dealing with huge volumes of information.

And trying to find related content can also be difficult, depending on what data you’re looking for.

But data visualizations can make all of that much easier, allowing you to see the concepts that you’re learning about in a more interesting, and often more useful manner.

Below are 50 of the best data visualizations and tools for creating your own visualizations out there, covering everything from Digg activity to network connectivity to what’s currently happening on Twitter.

San Francisco-based Morrison & Foerster Identified as Suspect in Ongoing Attempts to Sabotage The Leslie Brodie Network In Matters Dealing with Exposure of Corruption In Re California Energy Crisis, Money Laundering, UC System; “No Longer Just SEO”

The Leslie Brodie Report’s technical team is looking into possibility that elements operating out San Francisco-based Morrison & Foerster are also responsible for the actual damage sustained by various platforms.

According to a knowledgeable source familiar with the situation, the recent attempts to compromise TLR “go far and beyond mere Search Engine Optimization.”

The source stated the unlawful conduct “requires advanced capabilities and are indicative of a high level of technical sophistication.”

Operating under the auspices of Diversity while hiding behind Asians and Africans, Morrison & Foerster and partner James Brosnahan were identified as potential wrongdoers in matters dealing with California Energy Crisis, Voice of OC, CaliforniaALL, as well as events surrounding various outfits maintained by the University of California.

For further reading about Morrison & Forester and James Brosnahan, please see @:

http://lesliebrodie.wordpress.com/category/james-brosnahan

AND @:

http://lesliebrodie.blog.co.uk/2012/07/26/amid-concerns-of-cover-up-by-doj-s-lanny-breuer-yr-submit-narra

How to sound design a character “remembering” a line of dialog without using reverb?
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/post-production-forum/786706-how-sound-design-character-remembering-line-dialog-without-using-r

I’m working on post production for a short film.
The setting is modern American street life (not sci fi).
In the last scene the main character remembers something that was said in a previous scene. For this I played back the clip of audio from the previous scene and put some reverb on it.
The director has decided she doesn’t want me to use reverb, but still “make it sound like it’s in her head”.

#mixage

Michael K Williams: my guide to being a Barack Obama-endorsed badass
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/nov/02/michael-k-williams-guide-badass

From The Wire to Boardwalk Empire to a starring role alongside RoboCop, the actor gives his tips for getting ahead in the game

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/10/31/1351693343671/Michael-K-Williams-008.jpg
#the_wire #omar

This Weekend In Gay History FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2 « MasterAdrian’s Weblog
http://masteradrian.com/2012/11/02/this-weekend-in-gay-history-friday-november-2

This Weekend In Gay History
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2012

1868 - WASSILY SAPELLNIKOFF, Russian pianist, born (d: 1941); Sapelnikov, who became one of the foremost Russian pianists of his day, knew a good thing when he saw it. His teacher was the renowned composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, twenty-eight years his senior, who was known to enjoy performing duets with his students. Natural talent notwithstanding, young Sapelnikov made his way to the composer’s bed and to instant patronage.

1906 – on this date LUCHINO VISCONTI, the Italian director and Duke of Modrone was born (d. 1976). The Italian theater and cinema director and writer was best known for films such as The Leopard (1963). It was not until his 1969 film, The Damned, that Visconti received a nomination for an Academy Award, for “Best Screenplay”. He did not win. The film, one of Visconti’s best-known works, is about a German industrialist family that slowly begins to disintegrate during World War II. The decadence and lavish beauty were archetypes of Visconti’s aesthetic. Visconti’s final film wasThe Innocent (1976), which has the recurring theme of infidelity and betrayal.

Visconti made no secret of his sexuality. His last partner was the Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who played Martin in The Damned. Berger also appeared in Visconti’s Ludwig in 1972 andConversation Piece in 1974 along with Burt Lancaster. Other lovers included Franco Zeffirelli.

1916 – on this date JOHN LYON BURNSIDE, inventor and Gay American activist was born (d: 2008). John, or as he was known in Faerie circles “n’John” for his longterm relationship with Harry Hay – as in “Harry n’John”, was the inventor of the Teleidoscope and the Symmetricon, and was the partner of Mattachine and Radical Faerie founder, Harry Hay for 39 years.

Burnside was sent to an orphanage while still a child because he was caught in sexual play with another little boy. He served briefly in the Navy, and settled in Los Angeles in the 1940s. He married, but had no children. Burnside met Harry in 1962 at ONE Incorporated. They fell in love and became life partners. They formed a group in the early 1960s called the Circle of Loving Companions that promoted Gay rights and Gay love. In 1966 they were major planners of one of the first Gay parades, a protest against exclusion of Gays in the military, held in Los Angeles. In 1967, they appeared as a couple on the Joe Pyne television show. In the late 1970s, they were instrumental in founding the Radical Faeries.

John died of brain cancer in San Francisco, where he had been tended to by members of the Circle of Loving Companions that had taken care of Harry in his final days.


1942 – on this date CASEY DONOVAN, the American Gay porno star, was born John Calvin Culver (d: 1987). In 1971, Cal played a supporting role in a low budget sexploitation thriller film, Ginger. This in turn led to an offer to appear in Casey, a Gay porn film in which Cal played the title role, a Gay man who is visited by his fairy godmother Wanda (Cal playing a dual role in drag), and is granted a series of wishes which make him sexually irresistible to other men. Cal later took the character’s name, Casey, and that of the popular singer (Donovan) to create the pseudonym under which he would appear in all his other erotic roles.

Cal first appeared as Casey Donovan in Boys in the Sand, directed by Wakefield Poole, in 1972. The film was an instant success, with even big name mainstream celebrities going to the premiere. Today the film is considered one of the great classics of male erotic cinema, although stricter obscenity guidelines in some states forced a change of the title to Men in the Sand. He was also the star of Score (1972), The Back Row, with George Payne, LA Tool & Die, with Bob Blount and Richard Locke, The Other Side of Aspen, with Al Parker and Dick Fisk, Boys in the Sand II, and Inevitable Love, with Jon King and Jamie Wingo. He also featured in a number of heterosexual porn films, notably The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1975).

Outside his adult film career, Casey Donovan had a successful off-Broadway run in the play Tubstrip, written and directed by director Jerry Douglas. He had an intimate relationship with actor/writer Tom Tryon. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to run a bed and breakfast, Casa Donovan, in Key West. By 1985, Casey had contracted HIV. He worked with many HIV/AIDS charities and counseled his fans to practice safe sex and get tested for HIV. He performed in a safe sex film for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, although he himself lived in denial that he had the syndrome, even as his health got worse. Donovan died from an AIDS-related pulmonary infection in Inverness, Florida, aged 43.


1948 - today’s the birthday of fantastic Gay rights advocate and activist MANDY CARTER.

Worked with War Resister’s League, beginning c. 1969; North Carolina Lesbian and Gay Pride marches, served on planning committees, 1986-91; March on Washington for Lesbians and Gays, national steering committee, 1987, 1993; Rhythm Fest (musical festival for southern women), coproducer; North Carolina Senate Vote ’90 and North Carolina Mobilization ’96 (initiatives to defeat N.C. senator Jesse Helms), director; Our Own Place (a lesbian center), founding member; UMOJA (black gay and lesbian organization), founding member; Stonewall 25, executive committee; Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum, board of governors; Human Rights Campaign Fund, board of directors; member-at-large of the Democratic National Committee, serving on both the DNC Gay and Lesbian Caucus and DNC Black Caucus; member of the boards of the International Federation of Black Prides, the National Stonewall Democratic Federation, the Triangle Foundation, Equal Partners in Faith and Ladyslipper Music.

Her latest work is in spearheading a commemoration of this year’s birth centennial of Civil Rights hero Bayard Rustin.


1960 – on this date Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley’s Lovercase

1961 – K.D. LANG, Canadian musician, born; Lang won the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for her 1989 album, Absolute Torch and Twang. The single “Full Moon of Love” that stemmed from that album became a modest hit in the United States in the summer of 1989 and a number 1 hit on the RPM Country chart in Canada. Her cover of Cole Porter’s “So In Love” appears on the Red Hot + Blue compilation album and video from 1990, a benefit for AIDS research and relief.

The album Ingénue in 1992, a set of adult contemporary pop songs that showed comparatively little country influence, contained her most popular song, “Constant Craving”. That song brought her multi-million sales, much critical acclaim, and the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Another top ten single from the record was “Miss Chatelaine”. The salsa-inspired track was ironic; Chatelaine is a Canadian women’s magazine which once chose Lang as its “Woman of the Year”, and the song’s video depicted Lang in an exaggeratedly feminine manner, surrounded by bright pastel colours and a profusion of bubbles reminiscent of a performance on the Lawrence Welk show.

Lang contributed much of the music towards Gus Van Sant’s soundtrack of the film Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), and also did a cover of “Skylark” for the 1997 film adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. She also performed “Surrender” for the closing titles of the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, having previously worked with Bond composer David Arnold on his album Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project.

In addition to her well-known musical talents, k.d. lang, who came out as a Lesbian in a 1992 article in The Advocate, has actively championed Gay rights causes. She has performed and supported many causes over the years, including HIV/AIDS care and research. In 1996, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. She performed Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” live at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Previously, she had performed at the closing ceremony of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Lang possesses the vocal range of a mezzo-soprano.

1975 - on this date PIER PAOLO PASOLINI, Italian film director, died (b. 1922); Pasolini distinguished himself as a philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, newspaper and magazine columnist, actor, painter and political figure. He demonstrated a unique and extraordinary cultural versatility, in the process becoming a highly controversial figure. Though openly Gay from the very start of his career (thanks to a sex scandal that sent him packing from his provincial hometown to live and work in Rome), Pasolini rarely dealt with homosexuality in his movies. The subject is featured prominently in Teorema (1968), where Terence Stamp’s mysterious God-like visitor seduces the son of an upper-middle-class family; passingly in Arabian Nights (1974), in an idyll between a king and a commoner that ends in death; and, most darkly of all, in Salò (1975), his infamous rendition of the Marquis de Sade’s compendium of sexual horrors, The 120 Days of Sodom.


2006 - on this date former megachurch pastor, counselor to American Presidents (George W. Bush) and president of the National Association of Evangelicals TED “I Am Not a Homosexual” HAGGARD stepped down amid sex allegations.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2012

1500 - on this date the Italian goldsmith, sculptor, painter, soldier and musician BENVENUTO CELLINI was born (d. 1571). Cellini may be best remembered for his autobiography (translated by the Victorian Uranian scholar John Addington Symonds). Cellini was a superb goldsmith and sculptor, whose artistic creations, like his “Perseus Holding the Head of Medusa” brought him acclaim and the patronage of popes and cardinals. He worked for the Vatican Mint under Popes Leo X, Clement VII and Paul III. During Cellini’s long life, these friendships were of great value, protecting him in many misadventures with the law. Cellini was constantly hounded by authorities on complaints of sexual misconduct and stealing from his clients. Three times he was accused of murder, and in 1557 he received a four year prison sentence for sodomy, which was commuted to be served under house arrest, so the artist would be able to continue his work on a sculpture of the Crucifixion. A great saying of his is worth remembering and noting here: “Men who want to do things in their own way had better make a world in their own way, because in this world things are not done like this.”

1933 - On this date the English actor JEREMY BRETT was born (d. 1995). Although Brett appeared in many different roles during his 40-year career, he is now best remembered for his performance as Sherlock Holmes in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a series of Granada Television films made between 1984 and 1994. These were adapted by John Hawkesworth and other writers from the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Even though he reportedly feared being typecast, Brett appeared in 41 episodes of the Granada series, alongside David Burke and, latterly, Edward Hardwicke as Dr. Watson. After taking on the demanding role, Brett made few other acting appearances, and he is now widely considered to be the definitive Holmes of his era, just as Basil Rathbone was during the 1940s.

Brett was briefly considered by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli for the role of James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service after Sean Connery quit the series in 1967, but the role went to Australian George Lazenby instead. Lazenby lasted a whole film. So much for that selection. A second audition for the role of 007 for Live and Let Die was also unsuccessful, and Roger Moore won the coveted part. One can wonder what would’ve happened if…

Brett was intensely private about his personal life. In 1958 he married his first wife, the actress Anna Massey (daughter of Raymond Massey), but they divorced in 1962 after she claimed he left her for another man. Brett was then married to Joan Sullivan Wilson from 1976 until her death from cancer in 1985. Brett also enjoyed a close relationship with the actor Gary Bond [Bond died exactly one month after Brett’s death].

Brett died in 1995 at his home in Clapham, London, from heart failure. His heart valves had been scarred by rheumatic fever contracted as a child. Mel Gussow wrote in a New York Times obituary that “Mr. Brett was regarded as the quintessential Holmes: breathtakingly analytical, given to outrageous disguises and the blackest moods and relentless in his enthusiasm for solving the most intricate crimes.” One of Brett’s dearest possessions on the set was his 77-page “Baker Street File” on everything from Holmes’ mannerisms to his eating and drinking habits. Brett once explained that “some actors are becomers — they try to become their characters. When it works, the actor is like a sponge, squeezing himself dry to remove his own personality, then absorbing the character’s like a liquid.”


1939 - the four time Tony-winning playright TERRANCE McNALLY was born on this date. Born in St. Petersburg, Florida and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, McNally moved to New York City in 1956 to attend Columbia University. In his early years in New York, he was a protégé and lover of the noted playwright Edward Albee. He would become truly successful with works such as his off-Broadway play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.

His many brilliant plays include Lips Together, Teeth Apart, Kiss of the Spider Woman (based on the novel by Manuel Puig), Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, and the controversial Corpus Christi. In March 2010, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC presented three of McNally’s plays that focus on his works involving opera. The pieces included a new play, Golden Age, Master Class(starring Tyne Daly), and The Lisbon Traviata starring Malcolm Gets and John Glover.

He has been a member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild since 1970 and has served as vice-president since 1981. McNally was partnered to Thomas Kirdahy following a civil union ceremony in Vermont in 2003, and they subsequently married in Washington, D.C. in 2010

2006 - on this date “Doogie Howser” and “How I Met Your Mother” star NEIL PATRICK HARRIS came out as a “content Gay man.” His career has simply soared!


SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2012
1896 - the influential BBC arts editor J.R. ACKERLEY was born on this date. Openly Gay at a dangerous time for open homosexuality in Great Britain. Born in London, Ackerley was educated at Rossall School, a public and preparatory school in Fleetwood, Lancashire. While at this school he discovered he was attracted to other boys. His striking good looks earned him the nickname “Girlie” but he was not sexually active, or only very intermittently, as a schoolboy.
Failing his entrance examinations for Cambridge University, Ackerley applied for a commission in the Army, and as World War I was in full swing, he was accepted immediately as a Second Lieutenant and assigned to the 8th Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment, part of the 18th Division, then stationed in East Anglia. In June 1915 he was sent over to France. The following summer he was wounded at the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916. He was shot in the arm and an explosion caused shards of a whiskey bottle in his bag to be imbedded in his side. He lay wounded in a shell-hole for six hours but was eventually rescued by British troops and sent home for a period of sick-leave. He soon volunteered to go back to the front. He had been promoted to captain by now and so, in December 1916, when his older brother Peter arrived in France, Ackerley was his superior officer. Reportedly the cheerful and kind-hearted Peter was not resentful and saluted his brother “gladly and conscientiously.” In February, 1917, Peter was wounded in action on a dangerous assignment, heading into No man’s land from a dangerous ditch (where Ackerley said goodbye to him) ominously called the “Boom Ravine.” Though Peter managed to get back to the British lines, Ackerley never saw him again. In May 1917 Ackerley led an attack in the Arras region where he was again wounded, this time in the buttock and thigh. Again he was obliged to wait for help in a shell-hole, but this time the Germans arrived first and he was taken prisoner. Being an officer, his internment camp was located in neutral Switzerland and was rather comfortable. Here he began his play, The Prisoners of War, which deals with the cabin fever of captivity and the frustrated longings he experienced for another English prisoner. He was not repatriated to England until after the war ended.
On August 7, 1918, two months before the end of hostilities, Peter Ackerly was killed in battle. His brother’s death haunted Ackerley his entire life. Ackerley suffered from survivor’s guilt and thought his father might have preferred his death to his brother’s. One result of Peter’s death was that Roger and Netta got married in 1919, reportedly because Peter had died “a bastard.”
After the war Ackerley returned to England and attended Cambridge. Scant evidence remains from this time in his life as Ackerley wrote little about it. He moved to London and continued to write and enjoy the cosmopolitan delights of the capital. He met E. M. Forster and other literary bright lights, but was lonely despite a plethora of sexual partners. With his play having trouble finding a producer, and feeling generally adrift and distant from his family, Ackerley turned to Forster for guidance. Forster got him a position as secretary to a Maharaja he knew from writing A Passage to India. Ackerley spent about five months in India, still under British rule, and met a number of Anglo-Indians for whom he developed a strong distaste. The recollections of this time are the basis for his comic memoir Hindoo Holiday. The Maharaja was also a homosexual, and His Majesty’s obsessions and dalliances, along with Ackerley’s observations about Anglo-Indians, account for much of the humor of the work.
Back in England, Prisoners of War was finally produced to some acclaim. Its run began at The Three Hundred Club on July 5, 1925, then transferred to The Playhouse on August 31. Ackerley capitalized on his success, carousing with London’s theatrical crowd, and through Cambridge friends met the actor John Gielgud, and other rising stars of the stage. In 1928, Ackerley joined the staff of the BBC, then only a year old, in the “Talks” Department, where prominent personalities gave lectures over the radio. Eventually he moved on to edit the BBC’s magazine The Listener, where he worked from 1935 to 1959, discovering and promoting many young writers, including Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Christopher Isherwood.
Ackerley worked hard to plumb the depths of his sexuality in his writings. He was openly Gay, at least after his parents’ deaths, and belonged to a circle of notable literary homosexuals that railed against the homophobia that kept Gay men in the closet or exposed openly Gay men to persecution. While he never found the “Ideal Friend” he wrote of so often, he had a number of long-term relationships. Ackerley was a “twank,” a term used by sailors and guardsmen to describe a man who paid for their sexual services, and he describes in detail the ritual of picking up and entertaining a young guardsman, sailor or laborer. My Father and Myself serves as a guide to the understanding of the sexuality of a Gay man of Ackerley’s generation. W. H. Auden, in his review of My Father and Myself, speculates that Ackerley enjoyed the “brotherly” sexual act of mutual masturbation rather than penetration. (Ackerley described himself as “quite impenetrable.”)
His sister Nancy found him dead in his bed on the morning of June 4, 1967. Ackerley’s biographer Peter Parker gives the cause of death as coronary thrombosis.
Toward the end of his life, Ackerley sold 1075 letters that Forster had sent him since 1922, receiving some £6000, “a sum of money which will enable Nancy and me to drink ourselves carelessly into our graves,” as he put it. Ackerley did not live long enough to enjoy the money from these letters, but the sum, plus the royalties from Ackerley’s existing works and several published posthumously, allowed Nancy to live on in relative comfort until her death in 1979. The annual J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography was endowed by funds from Nancy, starting in 1982
Read him.
1918 – on this date the English poet and soldier WILFRED OWEN died (b. 1893). One of the leading poets of the First World War, Owen’s shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend Siegfried Sassoon and sat in stark contrast to both the public perception of war at the time, and to the confidently patriotic verse written earlier by war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Some of his best-known works—most of which were published posthumously—include “Dulce et Decorum Est,” “Insensibility”, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, “Futility” and “Strange Meeting”. His preface intended for a book of poems to be published in 1919 contains numerous well-known phrases, especially “War, and the pity of War”, and “the Poetry is in the pity”.
He was killed in action at the Battle of the Sambre a week before the war ended. Ironically, the telegram from the War Office announcing his death was delivered to his mother’s home as her town’s church bells were ringing in celebration of the Armistice when the war ended.
Robert Graves and Sacheverell Sitwell (who also personally knew him) have stated Owen was homosexual, and homoeroticism is a central element in much of Owen’s poetry. Through Sassoon, Owen was introduced to a sophisticated homosexual literary circle which included Oscar Wilde’s friend Robbie Ross, writer and poet Osbert Sitwell, and Scottish writer C. K. Scott-Moncrieff, the translator of Proust. This contact broadened Owen’s outlook, and increased his confidence in incorporating homoerotic elements into his work. Historians have debated whether Owen had an affair with Scott-Moncrieff in May 1918; Scott-Moncrieff had dedicated various works to a “Mr W.O.”, but Owen never responded. The account of Owen’s sexual development has been somewhat obscured because his brother, Harold Owen, removed what he considered discreditable passages in Owen’s letters and diaries after the death of their mother. Owen also requested that his mother burn a sack of his personal papers in the event of his death, which she did.
1946 – ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE, American photographer was born on this date (d. 1989); Known for large-scale, highly stylized black & white portraits, photos of flowers and male nudes, the frank, erotic nature of some of the work of his middle period triggered a more general controversy about the public funding of artworks. He attended (but did not graduate from) Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he majored in graphic arts.
Mapplethorpe took his first photographs soon thereafter, using a Polaroid camera. In the mid-1970s, he acquired a large-format press camera and began taking photographs of a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, including artists, composers, socialites, but it wasn’t until he met porn star Benjamin Green that he truly became inspired to push the envelope of sexuality and photographing the human body. Mapplethorpe was once quoted as saying, “Of all the men and women that I had the pleasure of photographing, Ben Green was the apple of my eye, my unicorn if you will. I could shoot him for hours and hours and no matter the position, each print captured the complete essence of human perfection” (New York Times). It was this relationship that inspired him during the 1980s, to refine his photographs with an emphasis on formal beauty. He concentrated on statuesque male and female nudes, delicate flower still lifes, and formal portraits of artists and celebrities.
Longtime lovers (and sexual adventurer) with curator, Sam Wagstaff, of the Wadsworth Atheneum of Art in Hartford Connecticut, the two cut an erotic and artistic swath through the New York glitterati and art scene in the 1970s and 80s the likes of which have rarely been seen before or since. Wagstaff was Mapplethorpe’s senior by precisely 25 years, having been born on exactly the same day in 1921. Both Mr. Wagstaff and Mr. Mapplethorpe died of AIDS, Mr. Wagstaff in 1987 and Mr. Mapplethorpe in 1989.
1961 - today’s the birthday of JON ROBIN BAITZ, the American playwright, screenwriter, television producer and actor. Perhaps most recently well known as the creator and executive producer of the ABC drama Brothers & Sisters, which premiered in September 2006 and ran for five seasons, ending in May 2011.
Baitz was raised in Brazil and South Africa before the family returned to California, where he attended Beverly Hills High School. After graduation, he worked as a bookstore clerk and assistant to two producers, and the experiences became the basis for his first play, a one-acter entitled Mizlansky/Zilinsky. He drew on his own background for his first two-act play, The Film Society, about the staff of a prep school in South Africa. Its 1987 success in L.A. led to an off-Broadway production with Nathan Lane the following year, which earned him a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding New Play. This was followed by The End of the Day starring Roger Rees, and the Substance of Fire with Ron Rifkin and Sarah Jessica Parker.
In 1991, Baitz wrote and directed the two-character play Three Hotels, based on his parents, for a presentation of PBS’s “American Playhouse”, then reworked the material for the stage, earning another Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding New Play for his efforts. In 1993, he co-scripted (with Howard A. Rodman) The Frightening Frammis, which was directed by Tom Cruise and aired as an episode of the Showtime anthology series Fallen Angels. Two years later, Henry Jaglom cast him as a gay playwright who achieves success at an early age – a character inspired by Baitz himself – in the film Last Summer in the Hamptons; the following year he appeared as Michelle Pfeiffer’s business associate in the screen comedy One Fine Day. In 1996, he was one of the three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for his semi-autobiographical play A Fair Country.
Subsequent stage works include Mizlansky/Zilinsky or “Schmucks”, a revised version of Mizlansky/Zilinsky directed by Baitz’s then-life partner JOE MANTELLO (1998), a new adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (at L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse with Annette Bening in 1999, then at Long Island’s Bay Street Theater with Kate Burton in 2000, followed by a Broadway production with the same star the following year), Ten Unknowns (2001), starring Donald Sutherland and Juliana Margulies and The Paris Letter (2005) with Ron Rifkin and John Glover. His screenplays include the adaptation of his own Substance of Fire (1996), with Tony Goldwyn and Timothy Hutton joining original cast members Rifkin and Parker, and People I Know (2003), which starred Al Pacino.
Baitz was the New School for Drama’s’s artist in residence for the 2009-2010 school year. Recent plays include Other Desert Cities, which opened at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in New York on January 13, 2011, starring Stockard Channing, Linda Lavin and Stacy Keach. As of 2011 Baitz is reportedly set to pen the stage adaptation of film producer Robert Evans’ memoirs, The Kid Stays in the Picture and its sequel, The Fat Lady Sang, with award-winning Sir Richard Eyre set to direct.
2001 - on this date the openly Lesbian comedienne ELLEN DEGENERES hosted the Emmy Awards-TV show. It was the first awards show after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. DeGeneres received several standing ovations for her performance that evening which included the line: “We’re told to go on living our lives as usual, because to do otherwise is to let the terrorists win, and really, what would upset the Taliban more than a Gay woman wearing a suit in front of a room full of Jews?”
2008 – on this date California’s PROPOSITION 8 passes, representing the first ever elimination of an existing right to marry for LGBT couples in the United States. The vote and the proposition is winding its way through the courts still four years later.

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These dates in Gay History AUGUST 11, AUGUST 12, AUGUST 13, and AUGUST 14 « MasterAdrian’s Weblog
http://masteradrian.com/2012/10/11/these-dates-in-gay-history-august-11-august-12-august-13-and-august-14

These dates in Gay History AUGUST 11, AUGUST 12, AUGUST 13, and AUGUST 14
October 11, 2012
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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living…

from White Crane Institute
Exploring Gay Wisdom
& Culture for over 20 Years!

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AN ANNOUNCEMENT — Please bear with us today. You’ll see that we’re including not only today’s Gay Wisdom entry but this weekend’s too.
This is one of those rare occasions when both of us are completely out of pocket the next few days. Family business calls for both of us this weekend and it’s callin’ early. So we didn’t want to leave you without your Gay Wisdom these next few days. We’ll see you on the other side of the weekend. Have a great one!

This Weekend In Gay History
THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2012
National Coming Out Day

Today is National Coming Out Day!
If you’re not very out, try to come out to one person today that you haven’t already.

Already “came out” you say? Well perhaps today could be seen as a day to tell the story.

Try to find someone and share the story of how you came to discover, claim, and or celebrate who you really are. Those stories are important and we need to offer a space for folks to share them. Perhaps see if you can ask a Gay friend to tell you their story. Today’s just the day for telling our stories.

This week is also ALLY WEEK.
It’s the time to take a moment to thank our straight allies in the struggle for full equality.

1884 - on this date ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, iconic First Lady of the United States, was born (d. 1952).

One of the most influential non-elected American political leaders of the twentieth century who used her influence as an active First Lady from 1933 to 1945 to promote the New Deal policies of her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as well as taking a prominent role as an advocate for civil rights and international cooperation. After FDR’s death in 1945, she continued to be an internationally prominent author and speaker for the New Deal coalition. She was a suffragist who worked to enhance the status of working women, although she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment because she believed it would adversely affect women. During the 1932 Presidential Campaign, Lorena Hickok of the Associated Press was assigned to cover Mrs. Roosevelt. At first the business relationship was rocky. Hickok didn’t believe it was worth the paper’s time and money to report on Mrs. Roosevelt, and Mrs. Roosevelt wasn’t happy about the intrusion on her privacy. Besides that, Mrs. Roosevelt came from a high class, aristocratic background, and Hickok came from a brash and rustic one. She was at home playing poker with the guys, smoking, and drinking. In time, their friendship became very close and intimate. Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t seem to mind, as he was busy with his own romantic affairs.

Due to the public nature of Mrs. Roosevelt’s life, she and Hickok were often separated. Even so, they wrote daily letters to each other. Roosevelt wrote ten to fifteen page letters daily to Hick for a time. In one Hickok writes: “Good night, dear one, I want to put my arms around you, and kiss you at the corner of your mouth. And in a little more than a week – I shall!” and Mrs. Roosevelt writes
“Hick darling, All day I’ve thought about you & another birthday I will be with you & yet tonight you sounded so far away & formal. Oh! I want to put my arms around you. I ache to hold you close. Your ring is a great comfort. I look at it and think she does love me, or I wouldn’t be wearing it.”

In 1941, Hickok moved into the White House with the Roosevelts when she took a post in Washington. Some of the passion between the two seems to have died by this point. Mrs. Roosevelt was not able to give Hickok as much from their relationship as she wanted, yet Hickok remained because at least they had something. They remained friends until Mrs. Roosevelt’s death in 1962. Hickok destroyed many of the letters Mrs. Roosevelt sent to her and edit personal references out of many others. Those that remain still hint at an intimate love between the two women.

1918 - the American choreographer, JEROME ROBBINS, was born on this date (d. 1998). Among the numerous stage productions he worked on were On The Town, High Button Shoes, The King and I, The Pajama Game, Bells Are Ringing, West Side Story, Gypsy: A Musical Fable and Fiddler on the Roof. For much of his life, Robbins pursued a career in both ballet and Broadway theater. He lived in a world of like-minded collaborators, most of whom were his age, Jewish, New Yorkers, leftist and — among the men Gay.


1926 - today’s the birthday of American stage, television, and film actor EARLE HYMAN.

Born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina Hyman is best known for his recurring role on The Cosby Show as Cliff’s father, Russell Huxtable.

He made his Broadway stage debut as a teenager in 1943 in Run, Little Chillun, and later joined the American Negro Theater. The following year, Hyman began a two year run playing the role of Rudolf on Broadway in Anna Lucasta. He was a member of the American Shakespeare Theatre beginning with its first season in 1955, and played the role of Othello in the 1957 season.

In 1959 he appeared in the West End in the first London production of A Raisin In the Sun alongside Kim Hamilton. The show ran at the Adelphi Theatre and was directed again by Lloyd Richards.

Throughout his career, Hyman has appeared in productions in both the United States and Norway (he is fluent in Norwegian) where he also owns a home on Norway’s west coast and an apartment in Oslo. In 1965, won a Theatre World Award and in 1988, he was awarded the St Olav’s medal for his work in Norwegian theater.

In addition to his stage work, Hyman has appeared in various television and film roles including adaptions of Macbeth (1968),Julius Caesar (1979), and Coriolanus (1979), and voiced Panthro on the animated television series ThunderCats (1985-1990). One of his most well known roles, that of Russell Huxtable in The Cosby Show, earned him an Emmy Award nomination in 1986 where he played the father of lead character Cliff Huxtable, played by actor Bill Cosby despite only being 11 years senior to Cosby.

1947 - today’s the birthday of SHERIFF LUPE VALDEZ. Valdez is an Latino-American law enforcement official and the Sheriff of Dallas County, Texas. She is Texas’s only elected female sheriff, as well as being the only openly Lesbian holder of that office. Her election in 2004, combined with the fact that Valdez is female, Hispanic and a lesbian, made national headlines and was even reported overseas. She immediately faced opposition by the “good old boys” in the department who resented her election and her commitments to reforming the department.

In 2008, Valdez was re-elected Sheriff of Dallas County with 388,327 votes to her opponent’s 322,808 votes, a margin of roughly 65,500. Valdez received over 99,000 more votes than the “Straight Democratic” option as many described it during the race. She won in precincts across Dallas County, including formerly-Republican areas including Irving and Mesquite. Her opponent won most precincts in far North Dallas, Richardson, Coppell, and the southern part of Irving. She began her second four-year term in 2009.


1963 - on this date the French writer and artists JEAN COCTEAU died (b. 1889). He was many things: poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker. His versatile, unconventional approach and enormous output brought him international acclaim. In his early twenties, Cocteau became associated with Marcel Proust, Andre Gide, and Maurice Barr s. The Russian ballet-master Sergei Diaghilev challenged Cocteau to write for the ballet – “Astonish me,” he urged. This resulted in Parade which was produced by Diaghilev, designed by Pablo Picasso, and composed by Erik Satie in 1917.

Cocteau is best known for Les enfants terrible the 1929 play, Les parent terribles the 1948 film, and the 1946 film, Beauty and the Beast.

Cocteau died of a heart attack at his chateau in Milly-la-Foret, only hours after hearing of the death of his friend, the French singer Edith Piaf. He is buried in the garden of his home in Milly La Foret, Essonne, France. The epitaph reads: “I stay among you.”


1987 - The Second National March on Washington For Lesbian and Gay Rights. More than a half million people (between 500,000 and 650,000, according to organizers) descended on the capital to participate in the second national March on Washington. Many of the marchers were angry over the government’s slow and inadequate response to the AIDS crisis, as well as the Supreme Court’s 1986 decision to uphold sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick.

With the first display of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, the 1987 march succeeded in bringing national attention to the impact of AIDS on Gay communities. In the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, a tapestry of nearly two thousand fabric panels offered a powerful tribute to the lives of some of those who had been lost in the pandemic. It was the first time the quilts were displayed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It covered a space larger than a football field and included 1,920 panels. Half a million people visited the Quilt that weekend.

The overwhelming response to the Quilt’s inaugural display led to a four-month, 20-city, national tour for the Quilt in the spring of 1988. The tour raised nearly $500,000 for hundreds of AIDS service organizations. More than 9,000 volunteers across the country helped the seven-person traveling crew move and display the Quilt. Local panels were added in each city, tripling the Quilt’s size to more than 6,000 panels by the end of the tour.

The march also called attention to anti-Gay discrimination, as approximately 800 people were arrested in front of the Supreme Court two days later in the largest civil disobedience action ever held in support of the rights of Lesbians, Gay men, Bisexuals, and Transgender people.

The 1987 March on Washington also sparked the creation of what became known as BiNet U.S.A. and the National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Organization (LLEGO), the first national groups for Bisexuals and GLBTQ Latinas and Latinos, respectively. Prior to the march, Bisexual activists circulated a flyer entitled “Are You Ready for a National Bisexual Network?” that encouraged members of the community to be part of the first Bisexual contingent in a national demonstration. Approximately 75 Bisexuals from across the U. S. participated and began laying the groundwork for an organization that could speak to the needs of bi-identified people and counter the animus against Bisexuals that was commonplace in both Lesbian and Gay communities and the dominant society.

By 1987, Latino GLBTQ activists from Los Angeles, Houston, Austin, and elsewhere had been meeting for two years, discussing ways to work together to further the basic rights and visibility of GLBTQ Latinas and Latinos. But with AIDS having a disproportionate impact on Latino GLBTQ communities throughout the United States, the activists recognized the need for a national organization and met at the March on Washington to form what was then called NLLGA, National Latina/o Lesbian and Gay Activists. Renaming themselves LLEGO the following year, the group has since expanded to address issues of concern to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Latinas and Latinos in other countries.

Along with the formation of new national groups, the most lasting effects of the weekend’s events were felt on the local level. Energized and inspired by the march, many activists returned home and established social and political groups in their own communities, providing even greater visibility and strength to the struggle for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender rights. The date of the march, October 11th, has been celebrated internationally ever since as National Coming Out Day to inspire members of the GLBTQ community to continue to show, as one of the common march slogans proclaimed, “we are everywhere.”

Speakers at the rally included former National Organization for Women president Eleanor Smeal, union president and Latino civil rights figure Cesar Chavez, actor and comedian Whoopi Goldberg, and activist Jesse Jackson.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2012
Today is NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY in the United Kingdom.

Today’s also FREETHOUGHT DAY, the annual observance by freethinkers and secularists of the anniversary of the effective end of the Salem Witch Trials. The seminal event connected to Freethought Day is a letter written by then Massachusetts Governor William Phips in which he wrote to the Privy Council of the British monarchs, William and Mary, on this day in 1692. In this correspondence he outlined the quagmire that the trials had degenerated into, in part by a reliance on “evidence” of a non-objective nature and especially “spectral evidence” in which the accusers claimed to see devils and other phantasms consorting with the accused.

1875 – on this date the English occultist and author ALEISTER CROWLEY was born (d. 1947).
Crowley is best known today for his occult writings, especially The Book of The Law, the central sacred text of “Thelema,” an initially fictional philosophy of life first described by Francois Rabelais (16th century) in his famous books, Gargantua andPantagruel. Other interests and accomplishments were wide-ranging — he was a chess player, mountain climber, poet, painter, astrologer, hedonist, drug experimenter, and social critic. Crowley was a highly prolific writer, not only on the topic of Thelema and magick, but on philosophy, politics, and culture. He left behind a countless number of personal letters and daily journal entries. He self-published many of his books, expending the majority of his inheritance to disseminate his views.

Within the subject of occultism Crowley wrote widely, penning commentaries on magick, the Tarot, Yoga, Qabalah, astrology, and numerous other subjects. He also wrote a Thelemic interpolation of the Tao Te Ching, based on earlier English translations since he knew little or no Chinese. Like the Golden Dawn mystics before him, Crowley evidently sought to comprehend the entire human religious and mystical experience in a single philosophy.

Crowley gained wide notoriety during his lifetime, and was infamously dubbed “The Wickedest Man In the World.” There is little wiggle room with Crowley. Either you consider him to be nuts, bonkers, loony, albeit brilliant, fascinating and perhaps a touch of con-man – or you are completely in his thrall. Much depends on how you feel about his central thesis: Do whatever you wish. No wonder he was so popular in the 1960s. Crowley also wrote fiction, including plays and later novels, most of which have not received significant notice outside of occult circles. In his The Book of Lies, the title to chapter 69 is given as “The Way to Succeed – and the Way to Suck Eggs!” a pun, as the chapter concerns the 69 sex position as a mystical act.

Largely despicable, and larger than life, the hashish-smoking, yoga-practicing, occult-preaching, self-described religious prophet probably would do even better today. The man knew how to cause a stir. To say he slept around is to practice understatement that borders on the naive. He was an outspoken racist an anti-Semite and sexist. To give the reader a sense of his contradictory and maddening character, Crowley, according to his biographer, Lawrence Sutin, used racial epithets and brutal verbal attacks to bully his Jewish lover Victor Neuburg. And while he slept with men, women, and virtually anything that moved, his background was distinctly pederastic. His writings reveal this nature with, for example, a poem beginning “I was bumming a boy in the black-out…” Known his whole life for a cutting wit, once, when a woman asked him which American college would be most suitable for her daughter he replied, “Radclyffe Hall.”

1942 - the gay rights advocate and author ARTHUR EVANS was born on this date (d. 2011). Born in York, Pennsylvania, Evans was most well known for his book Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture (1978).

When Evans graduated from public high school in 1960, he received a four-year scholarship from the Glatfelter Paper Company in York to study chemistry at Brown University. While at Brown, Evans and several friends founded the Brown Freethinkers Society, describing themselves as ‘militant atheists’ seeking to combat the harmful effects of organized religion.

The society picketed the weekly chapel services at Brown, then required of all students, and urged students to stand in silent protest against compulsory prayer. National news services picked up the story, which appeared in a local York newspaper.

As a result, the paper company informed Evans that his scholarship was cancelled. Evans contacted Joseph Lewis, the elderly millionaire who headed the national Freethinkers Society. Lewis threatened the paper company with a highly publicized lawsuit if the scholarship were revoked. The company relented, the scholarship continued, and Evans changed his major from chemistry to political science.

Evans withdrew from Brown and moved to Greenwich Village, which he later described it as the best move he ever made in his life. In 1963, Evans discovered gay life in Greenwich Village, and in 1964 became lovers with Arthur Bell who later became a columnist for The Village Voice. In 1966, Evans was admitted to City College of New York, which accepted all his credits from Brown University.

Evans participated in his first sit-in in 1966, when students occupied the administration building of City College in protest against the college’s involvement in Selective Service. A picture of the students, including Evans, appeared on the front page of The New York Times. In 1967, after graduating with a BA degree from City College, Evans was admitted into the doctoral program in philosophy at Columbia University, specializing in ancient Greek philosophy. His doctoral advisor was Paul Oskar Kristeller, one of the world’s leading authority on Renaissance humanist philosophy. Kristeller had studied under Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger in Germany but fled to the US after his parents were killed in the Holocaust.

Evans participated in many anti-war protests during these years, including the celebrated upheaval at Columbia in the spring of 1968. He also participated in the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. While at Columbia, Evans joined the Student Homophile League, founded by Nino Romano and Stephen Donaldson, although Evans himself was still closeted. On December 21, 1969, Evans, Marty Robinson, and several others met to found the early gay rights group Gay Activists Alliance.

In November 1970, Robinson and Evans, along with Dick Leitsch of the Mattachine Society, appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, making them among the first openly gay activists to be prominently featured on a national TV program. In 1971, Evans and Bell separated. Bell died from complications of diabetes in 1984.

By the end of 1971, Evans had become alienated from urban life and the academic world. With a second lover, Jacob Schraeter, he left New York in April 1972 to seek a new, countercultural existence in the countryside.

Evans, Schraeter, and a third gay man formed a group called the ‘Weird Sisters Partnership’. They bought a 40-acre spread of land on a mountain in Washington State, which they named New Sodom. Evans and Schraeter lived there in tents during summers. During winter months in Seattle, Evans continued research that he had begun in New York on the underlying historical origins of the counterculture, particularly in regard to sex. In 1973, he began publishing some of his findings in the gay journal Outand later in Fag Rag. He also wrote a column on the political strategy of zapping for The Advocate, the gay newspaper.

In 1974, Evans and Schraeter moved into an apartment at the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets in San Francisco, in which Evans remained until he died. Schraeter returned to New York in 1981 and died from AIDS in 1989.

In the fall of the 1975, Evans formed a new pagan-inspired spiritual group in San Francisco, the Faery Circle. The Circle combined countercultural consciousness, gay sensibility, and ceremonial playfulness. In early 1976, he gave a series of public lectures at 32 Page Street, an early San Francisco gay community center, entitled ‘Faeries’, on his research on the historical origins of the gay counterculture. In 1978 he published this material in his ground-breaking book Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture. It demonstrated that many of the people accused of ‘witchcraft’ and ‘heresy’ in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance were actually persecuted because of their sexuality and ancient pagan practices.

Evans also was active in Bay Area Gay Liberation (BAGL) and the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club, which later became the vehicle through which Harvey Milk rose to political prominence.

In the late 1970s, Evans became upset at the pattern of butch conformity that was then overtaking gay men in the Castro. Adopting the nom de plume ‘The Red Queen’, he distributed a series of controversial satirical leaflets on the subject. In a leaflet entitled Afraid You’re Not Butch Enough? (1978) he facetiously referred to the new, butch-conforming men of the Castro as clones, initiating use of the now widely used term ‘Castro clones’.

In 1984 Evans directed a production at the Valencia Rose Cabaret in San Francisco of his own new translation, from ancient Greek, of the Euripides play The Bacchae. The hero of Euripides’ play is the Greek god Dionysos, the patron of homosexuality. In 1988, this translation, with Evans’ commentary on the historical significance of the play, was published by St. Martin’s Press in under the name of The God of Ecstasy.

As AIDS began to spread in 1980s, Evans became active in several groups that later became ACT UP/SF. Evans was HIV-negative. With his close friend, the late Hank Wilson, Evans was arrested while demonstrating against pharmaceutical companies making AIDS drugs, accusing the companies of price-gouging.

In 1988, Evans began work on a nine-year project on philosophy. Thanks to a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission, it was published in 1997 as Critique of Patriarchal Reason and included artwork by San Francisco artist Frank Pietronigro. The book was an overview of Western philosophy from ancient times to the present, showing how misogyny and homophobia have influenced the supposedly objective fields of formal logic, higher mathematics, and physical science. Evans’ former advisor at Columbia University, Dr. Kristeller, called the work ‘a major contribution to the study of philosophy and its history’.

Diagnosed in October 2010 with an aortic aneurysm, Evans died in his Haight-Ashbury apartment of a massive heart attack on 11 September 2011.


1946 - today’s the birthday of U.S. educator, activist, and award-winning poet, essayist, and theorist MINNIE BRUCE PRATT.

Pratt was born in Selma, Alabama, grew up in Centreville, Alabama and graduated with honors from the University of Alabama and received a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina. She is a Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University where she was invited to help develop the university’s first Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Study Program. She emerged out of the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s and 1980s and has written extensively about race, class, gender and sexual theory. Pratt, along with Lesbian writers Chrystos and Audre Lorde, received a Lillian Hellman-Dashiell Hammett award from the Fund for Free Expression, an award given to writers “who have been victimized by political persecution.” Pratt, Chrystos and Lorde were chosen because their experience as “a target of right-wing and fundamentalist forces during the recent attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts.” Her political affiliations include the International Action Center, the National Women’s Fightback Network, and the National Writers Union. She is a contributing editor to Workers World newspaper. Pratt’s partner is author and activist Leslie Feinberg.

Her latest book, Inside the Money Machine is one of the best new books of poetry to come out this year.


1971 - the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs recommends the repeal of a city law banning homosexuals from working in or going to bars.

1998 - MATTHEW SHEPARD died on this date (b. 1976). Shepard was an openly Gay American student at the University of Wyoming who as we noted last weekend, was attacked near Laramie, on the night of October 6th in what was widely reported by international news media as a savage beating because of his sexuality. Shepard died from severe head injuries at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, on October 12, 1998. His murder brought national attention to the issue of hate crime legislation at the state and federal levels. His two assailants were convicted of the crime and imprisoned. One is currently serving two consecutive life sentences and the other is serving the same but without the possibility of parole. After his death, Shepard’s parents became full-time advocates for the passage of hate crime legislation that would include sexual orientation.

The Matthew Shepard Act (officially the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act”), was a bill in the United States Congress that expanded the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. After years of attempting to pass the act, on October 22, 2009, the act was passed by the Senate by a largely party line vote with Republicans opposing the Act and Democrats supporting it. During debate in the House of Representatives, Republican Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina called the “hate crime” labeling of Shepard’s murder a “hoax.” Shepard’s mother was said to be in the House gallery when the congresswoman made this comment. President Obama signed the measure into law on October 28, 2009. Proving once again that elections do matter.



SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 2012

1307 - on this date – Friday, October 13, 1307 (a date sometimes linked with the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition) the French king Philip IV ordered all French TEMPLARS to be arrested. The Templars were charged with numerous heresies and tortured to extract false confessions of blasphemy. The trials were based on these confessions, despite having been obtained under duress, caused a scandal in Paris. After more bullying from Philip, Pope Clement then issued the bill Pastoralis Praeeminentiae on November 22, 1307, which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets.
Brian Lacey, in his wonderful book Terrible Queer Creatures: Homosexuality In Irish History writes about the use of same sex male relations in the purging of the Order of the Knights Templar.

The respect for same-sex male relationships, which Lacey paints as characteristic of the pre-Christian era in Ireland and which carried over well into the Christian epoch, began to wane as the power of the Catholic Church grew. The first known homosexual purge in Ireland concerned the Order of Knights Templar, established in Ireland in the 1170s under the auspices of the English King Henry II.

The purge had its origins in the desire of the impoverished 14th century French King Philip le Bel (the Fair) to get his hands on the Templars’ wealth. Philip engineered the election of the bishop of Bordeaux to become Pope Clement V on condition that he put an end to the Templars, and Clement duly set up an inquisition in which allegations of homosexuality against the knights were in the foreground. “They were said to have included homosexual acts in their private rituals and to have insisted on sexual intercourse with new recruits,” Lacey wrote. “It is an indication of the negative feelings against homosexuality in that period that this could be made as one of the principal charges against such a powerful institution.”

The homosexual English King Edward II was ordered by Pope Clement and pressured by the French monarch to seize the Templars’ extensive holdings in Ireland, and the Irish Knights Templar were arrested en masse in February 1308. The inquisition opened its trial of the Irish Templars in January 1310 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. While only a few of the Knights confessed to the charges of sodomy, the order was abolished and much of its property expropriated.


1929 - today’s the birthday of distinguished American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator RICHARD HOWARD.

He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and is a graduate of Columbia University, where he now teaches. He lives in New York City. Howard had a brief early career as a lexicographer. He soon turned his attention to poetry and poetic criticism. He has won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, the PEN Translation Prize, and the American Book Award. Howard was a long-time poetry editor of The Paris Review and is currently poetry editor of The Western Humanities Review. A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, he is Professor of Practice in the writing program at Columbia’s School of the Arts.

In 1982, Howard was named a Chevalier of L’Ordre National du Mérite by the government of France

1966 - the American actor, dancer and singer CLIFTON WEBB died on this date (b. 1889). He was best known for his Oscar-nominated roles in such films as Laura, The Razor’s Edge, and Sitting Pretty. In the theatrical world he was known for his appearances in the plays of Noël Coward, notably Blithe Spirit.

The never married Webb lived with his mother until her death at age ninety-one in 1960, leading Coward to remark, apropos Webb’s grieving, “It must be terrible to be orphaned at 71.”

Actor Robert Wagner, who co-starred with Webb in the movies Stars and Stripes Forever and Titanic and considered the actor one of his mentors, stated in his memoirs, Pieces of My Heart: A Life, that “Clifton Webb was gay, of course, but he never made a pass at me, not that he would have.”

1967 - today’s the birthday of ARTURO BRACHETTI, the Italian transformation artist and director, born in Turin. In theGuinness Book of Records 2006 and 2007, he is described as the fastest quick change artist in the world. Quick-change is a performance style in which a performer or magician changes quickly within seconds from one costume into another costume in front of the audience.

You can watch him in action on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4XUvWwaPFI

SUNDAY, AUGUST 14, 2012

1856 – the French Victorian writer VERNON LEE was born on this date. Also known as Violet Paget, she was responsible for introducing the concept of “empathy” (Einfühling) into the English language. Empathy was a key concept in Lee’s psychological aesthetics which she developed on the basis of prior work by Theodor Lipps. Her response to aesthetics interpreted art as a mental and corporeal experience. This was a significant contribution to the philosophy of art which has been largely neglected. She fell in love with three women in succession, and fully expected, being the Victorian she was, to live out her life with each of them, falling swooning into her fainting bed each time the friendship ended. She kept a faded portrait of her first love over her bed. Her second love announced her marriage to (horrors!) a Jew, which required liberal application of smelling salts and her third simply drifted away.

1888 – the New Zealand born author KATHERINE MANSFIELD was born on this date.

Considered to be the British Chekhov and her quiet stories are painful commentaries on the inadequacy of human relationships. Although she had many affairs with men and was married to John Middleton Murry, her diaries and letters reveal her to have been a Lesbian, and a troubled one at that, with a “slave” by the name of Ida Baker.

1959 - the swashbuckling acting legend ERROL FLYNN died on this date (b. 1909).

1977 - on this date Minneapolis Gay rights activist THOM HIGGINS threw a banana cream a pie into the face of Anita Bryant during a news conference in Des Moines, Iowa. The former beauty queen (Bryant) was in the middle of a nationwide campaign to criminalize Gay behavior and overturn the few Gay rights ordinances in the country.

1979 - The First Gay Rights March On Washington D.C. was held on this date and called for “an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of Lesbian and Gay people.” Marking the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall riots and coming in the wake of the lenient jail sentence given to Dan White for the assassination of openly Gay San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk, the First National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights on October 14, 1979 was an historic event that drew more than 200,000 people from across the United States and ten other countries.

In the wake of the Milk/Moscone assassinations, the Anita Bryant campaign to roll back protections extended to sexual orientation, and years of community building around the nation, the support for a massive demonstration in the nation’s capital grew. There were strong reservations on the part of those who worried that anything less than massive numbers would negate the demonstration and undermine political activism. However, by the late summer of 1979 it was clear that the March would be a large media event. Locally, the National Coalition of Black Gays and the DC Coalition of Black Gays supported the March from the beginning.

Both groups were also involved in planning and holding the first Third World Conference, held at Harambee House on Georgia Avenue. The Third World Conference concluded with a march by persons of color down Georgia Avenue to the Mall where they joined the March on Washington. This walk down Georgia Avenue was the first public demonstration by Lesbians and Gays in the heart of the African-American areas of the city.

The plans for the 1979 March were determinedly more inclusive of persons of color and the Transgendered. The souvenir booklet for the March includes an article by Jim Kepner summarizing GLBT activism leading to the March and an article by Brandy Moore detailing the preparations for the March. Speakers included Richard Ashworth and Adele Starr (PFLAG) Marion Berry (then D.C. mayor), S.F. Councilman Harry Britt, Lesbian feminist theorist, Charlotte Bunch, poet Alan Ginsberg, activists Flo Kennedy, Morris Kight, poet and activist Audre Lorde, musicians, Robin Tyler and Tom Robinson, Leonard Matlovich, Arthur McCombs (Gay Atheist League), feminist theorist Kate Millett, Rev. Troy Perry (listed as a “cameo” appearance”!), Juanita Ramos (Comite Homosexual Latinamericano), Betty Santoro (NY Spokeswoman for Lesbian Feminist Liberation), Eleanor Smeal (N.O.W.) and labor activist, Howard Wallace. Recordings of speeches, including Audre Lorde’s keynote address to the masses on the Washington Mall, and Alan Ginsberg reading his poetry and warning Congress can be heard here:http://www.rainbowhistory.org/mow79.htm And a wonderful collection of photos from the events can be seen here:http://www.queermusicheritage.us/march79.html

1990 – LEONARD BERNSTEIN, the American composer and conductor, died on this date (b. 1918)

2006 – on this date the Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts GERRY STUDDS died on this date (b. 1937).

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Stephen Fry slams Church of England for spreading lies about gay marriage | Gay Star News
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/stephen-fry-slams-church-england-spreading-lies-about-gay-marriage05101

Stephen Fry slams Church of England for spreading lies about gay marriage
Gay British broadcaster accuses religious leaders of trying to appease the ’extreme end’ of their membership
05 October 2012 | By Joe Morgan
Gay TV presenter Stephen Fry has slammed the Church of England for spreading lies about marriage equality.

Gay broadcaster, actor, author, presenter and wit Stephen Fry has slammed the Church of England of caving to extremists who have spread lies about marriage equality.

The atheist QI presenter said religious leaders who oppose same-sex weddings are trying to appease the ‘extreme end’ of their membership.

Fry reiterated the UK government’s continued declarations which say no one will be forced to carry out gay weddings if it is against their religious beliefs.

In a video for the Out4Marriage campaign, he says: ‘Those who are against gay marriage are somehow spreading this disinformation that we are going to say “You, you Reverend so-and-so, are forced to hold this gay marriage in your church”.

‘It’s not true! People who run churches, synagogues or mosques are not forced to marry previously divorced people, for example.’

Fry then turned on the Church of England, which is currently deeply divided over the issue.

‘It’s wrong, in a country like ours, which has an established Church, just because their more extreme end is screeching with outrage at the idea of this, that we are not allowed to be married,’ he said.

‘It’s unfair on plenty of other religious people and it is misrepresenting what we require, which is only the same as anybody else, and that’s to express our love in the fullest possible way of commitment.’

Fry, who is currently starring as puritan comic villain Malvolio in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, said while gay people used to be known as ‘bohemian and outrageous’, they are really just human beings who want to be loved just like everybody else.

The Out4Marriage video ends with a final argument, where Fry finishes: ‘At least 270 species of animal have been noted exhibiting homosexual behavior but only one species of animal ever, so far as we know, has exhibited homophobic behavior – and that’s the human being.

’Ask yourself what is really natural.’

The UK government is expected to release the findings of their consultation on marriage equality soon.

Watch Stephen Fry’s Out4Marriage video here:

Rupert Everett calls gay marriages ‘beyond tragic’ | Gay Star News
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/rupert-everett-calls-gay-marriages-%E2%80%98beyond-tragic%E2%80%9929091

Rupert Everett calls gay marriages ‘beyond tragic’
Gay actor calls Anglican church ’crusty, old and pathetic’, saying: ’Why do queens want to get married in churches?’
29 September 2012 | By Joe Morgan
Gay actor Rupert Everett has called same-sex marriages ’beyond tragic’.

In another instance of foot-in-mouth disease, gay actor Rupert Everett has called marriages between same-sex couples ‘beyond tragic’.

In an interview with The Guardian, he said: ‘Why do queens want to go and get married in churches?

‘Obviously this crusty old pathetic Anglican church – the most joke-ish church of all jokey churches – of course they don’t want to have queens getting married.

‘It’s kind of understandable that they don’t; they’re crusty old calcified freaks. But why do we want to get married in churches? I don’t understand that, myself, personally.’

More background on “Innocence of Muslims”

Inside the strange Hollywood scam that spread chaos ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/13/egypt-libya-hollywood-film

Produced and promoted by a strange collection of rightwing Christian evangelicals and exiled Egyptian Copts, the trailer was created with the intention of both destabilizing post-Mubarak Egypt and roiling the US presidential election. As a consultant for the film named Steve Klein said: “We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen.”

Friends of ’Sam Bacile’: A Who’s Who of the Innocence of Muslims Film

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/09/13/friends-of-sam-bacile-a-whos-who-of-the-innocence-of-muslims-film-project/#ixzz26e2mnU00

In 2010 [Nakoula Basseley Nakoula] ... was charged with bank fraud, to which he pleaded no contest and was ordered to pay $790,000. He was sentenced to 21 months in a federal prison and banned from using computers or the Internet for five years. The Daily Beast discovered Friday that Nakoula was previously arrested in 1997 and charged with the intent to manufacture meth. After pleading guilty, he served a year in L.A. County Jail and served three years of probation upon release. But when he violated that probation in 2002, he was sent to jail for another year.

#Go_Daddy planté, une des plus grosses pannes dans le DNS : Go Daddy est de loin le plus gros bureau d’enregistrement de .com et de nombreux autres TLD. Il sert aussi d’hébergeur #DNS. Ce soir, tous leurs serveurs de noms sont injoignables, entraînant l’impossibilité de joindre des millions de noms de domaine, et donc les serveurs situés derrière. C’est l’une des plus grandes pannes qu’ait jamais connu le DNS. Elle illustre une nouvelle fois l’importance de s’assurer de la résilience de son service DNS, notamment par le biais de la redondance.

http://www.bortzmeyer.org/go-daddy-down.html

“Vampires” and smokers fume in Lebanon’s smoke-free air
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/vampires-and-smokers-fume-in-lebanons-smoke-free-air

In one protest in north Lebanon, cafe and shisha shop owners held up plaques that read: “Smoking Forbidden. Kidnapping Allowed.” They were taking a jab at the recent string of kidnappings in Lebanon that led to some deadly fights, and threats to the international airport.

Syria arrests filmmaker, actor who helped crackdown victims
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/25/us-syria-crisis-filmmaker-idUSBRE87O02H20120825?irpc=932

Arwa Nairabiya - who founded the “Damascus Dox Box” documentary film festival - was arrested at Damascus airport on Thursday evening before boarding a plane to Cairo, fellow filmmakers and relatives said.

Secret police agents also raided the home of Mohammad Omar Oso, an actor who had starred in several popular television series, and took him to an unknown destination, the Damascus Media Centre activists’ group said in a statement.

Thirty-five year-old Nairabiya was part of a new generation of Syrian filmmakers who had defied a state ban on independent film production even before the revolt against Assad began 17 months ago.