Gay N Gay: November 2010

The United States of Hysteria

It's been entertaining to watch the Obama administration's reaction to the latest batch of Wikileaks material, predictable though it is. This irresponsible behavior will cost many lives! Wait, diplomats' lives? They aren't usually on the front lines of battle. But this lie, that the material Wikileaks has released has somehow led to the death of our accomplices and collaborators, plays so

The United States of Hysteria

GOLD023: PENGUIN PRISON

2010 has been a big year for Neon Gold replete with releases were extremely proud of, so it's fitting we bring the year to a close with the third single from an artist who has quickly become one of our flagship acts, the inimitable Penguin Prison. "Golden Train" was the first song we ever heard from the Penguin and remains one of his most essential tracks to date, coming off like Justin

Finally Made Youtube Partner...well with my Second Channel

It only took 2 fucking years, but I finally made Youtube Partner. Well, not for my primary GayComicGeek Channel, but I did for my secondary GayGeekyVlogs channel. Who'd a thunk? I barely pay attention to that channel to begin with. It would have made more sense for my primary GayComicGeek channel to be made partner. Oh well, I'll definitely be posting a lot more vids on it now. Can anyone use

Finally Made Youtube Partner...well with my Second Channel

"Member-designated" benefits may expand to meet the needs of openly gay servicemembers (and others!)

The long-awaited Defense Department report on issues associated with repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) is now out. One of its tasks was to address the impact of repeal on various benefits available to servicemembers.The report takes great pains to explain the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which requires federal law to recognize as married only different-sex couples. (A footnote in the

Gold In Cataclysm- Part II - AH- The 1%ers

Ok, ok. I know that most of you are selling anything and everything in your bags before Cata hits this next week. STOP NOW! Why you ask? If nothing for the main reason that 75% of regular players are going to be leveling to 85 on their main (hitting the AH for new gear/blues/epic drops *all CATA), then onto their alts to do the same. 15% will instantly reroll a goblin or a worg (buying gear for

South Africa to benefit from new hotels

Two new major hotels are planned for South Africa in response to strong demand. The Rezidor Hotel Group has confirmed that it will open new developments one in Cape Town and one in the country's Kruger National Park.It is expected that the Radisson Blu Safari Resort Kruger Park will be open for business in 2013 and will be in the southern area of the Kruger National Park and close to the

Gold in Cataclysm- Part I

Ok, so here's the start of new content that I will be doing. I am a Type A personality, so I need control, and to have things in order, or planned, and I will be sharing with you my plans on rolling into Cata. So I would advise you to click on follow for this blog, add me to favorites on your browser, whatever you need to do to remind you to check here before logging into WoW, as I update

VANILLA CHESTS ARE BACK, BABY! Sturdy Treasure Chests- Rare BOE's!

Well, another find while running around checking out the new content (yeah, I know I am a bit late, but hey, better late than never!)I ended up in the famed Eastern Plaguelands (The Fungal Vale, 36.4, 49.1) and what do I see? A WORLD CHEST?! Rogues rejoice! We are once again needed! *then I get to it and realize that anyone can open it, as it isn't locked. Who in their right mind would leave a "

The Book Snob's Big 100

If you're on Facebook, you've probably seen this list. A number of my friends have 'done' it. One of them complained about strange repetitions, such as Shakespeare's Complete Works (14) and Hamlet (98). That and the way it was written reminded me of netlore and the popular "99 out of 100 people won't have the guts to put this in their status - will you" that turns up on Facebook so often,

The Book Snob's Big 100

UPDATE- HOTFIXED- Cata content in 4.0.3 - Pristine Hides

To start off, I am back from a long hiatus from WoW. I had alot of "real life" stuff going on, so my WoW took a back seat for a bit. Now that I am back, the Shattering has occurred, and just like back when WoLTK hit, I decided to log on some little used toons to level up a bit....and I ended up here:So without too much delay, let me get to the point of this blog. Swimming with the sharks, killing

Conference to examine the "New Illegitimacy"

On March 25-26, 2011, I will be hosting a conference at American University Washington College of Law, co-sponsored by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and by our Journal of Gender, Social Policy, and the Law. The conference is entitled: "The 'New Illegitimacy': Revisiting Why Parentage Should Not Depend on Marriage."The impetus for this conference -- actually the last straw -- was the

Dubai airport sees traffic growth

Dubai International Airport handled more than four million passengers during October as it continues to see an increase in people taking flights to Dubai.Traffic data show a total of 4,013,127 passengers passed through the airport last month - 14.8 per cent more than in October 2009 and is the second time in its history that more than four million travellers have been handled in one month.Paul

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

I have no idea why I got so little done the past several days, despite a four-day Thanksgiving break. As usual when a holiday approaches, I had grandiose plans for reading, writing, watching movies, and visiting friends. I did manage to visit friends, which is probably the best use I could have made of the time, but that's about all. I watched the pilot episode of Glee and decided it was worth

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

The Spirit of the Season

Today I had some business to transact at my bank, which gave me occasion to deal with a teller. She was wearing a printed card above the nametag on her uniform shirt that said, "Happy Holidays." I thought about it while I was making the deposit, and made a decision: I told her that I appreciated the bank's decision to make it "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas," since I knew there

The Spirit of the Season

Indian airline plans new flight agreement

Indian airline Kingfisher Airlines is to form a new code-share agreement with American Airlines in 2011.The deal means that American Airlines will be able to put its code on Kingfisher Airlines domestic flights within India as well as on flights to Delhi and Mumbai from London Heathrow.In return, Kingfisher Airlines will be able to code-share on American Airline flights to Delhi from Chicago and

HAPPY WITHOUT YOU.

As the year winds to a close, Patrick Wolf's comeback single "Time Of My Life" stands out as a late entry to our singles of the year race and the most exciting thing we've heard from the British troubadour since 2007's The Magic Position. While we can't share the original ahead of its December 6th release date, we've got the next best thing for you in the form of yet another immense Leo Zero

I Was a Teenage Closet Case

Another good bit from Alan Sinfield's Cultural Politics - Queer Reading on gay neuroscientist Simon LeVay:The drawback is illustrated in an exchange between LeVay and his father -- who is entirely persuaded by his son's work. So how does LeVay senior see gay men now? He says he regards Simon as he would a child born with spina bifida, a hare lip, or some other developmental deficit. LeVay

I Was a Teenage Closet Case

SKIN IS ON FIRE.

We won't front like we're overly familiar with San Franciscan nightcrawler oOoOO - or anyone else from that whole witch-house/drag scene for that matter - but his rework of Marina & The Diamonds' destabilizing anthem (and vintage Neon Gold single) "Obsessions" just arrived on the scene and it's nothing short of amazing. Haunting and emotive, oOoOO's remix underscores the intense drama of the

When I Hear the Word "Pistol" I Reach For My Culture

Alan Sinfield is one of my favorite academic critics, and I'm currently reading his Cultural Politics - Queer Reading (Minnesota, 1994, though there's apparently a second edition out, which includes these words in its new foreword:"The reader" is a coercive construct, designed to disqualify rival views. Its menu of exclusions is familiar. Othello should not be played by a black actor, A. C.

When I Hear the Word "Pistol" I Reach For My Culture

Qantas Grounds Airbus A380 Fleet

The Qantas A380 that made a lucky escape and made an emergency landing in Singapore could have ended up exploding in the skies revealed media reports. The A380 was flying from Singapore to Sydney. Qantas has 6 Airbus A380s in its fleet and these planes use the Trent 900 engines of the London-based Rolls Royce fame. Investigators revealed that there was an oil leakage and the leaking oil caught

Of Course You Realize This Means War!

I'd been wondering vaguely when the first salvo would be fired, and then I came across this photoblog post. The War on Christmas Season is once again upon us! (And we haven't even had Thanksgiving yet.) There's also a link to this subliterate piece by a writer for Advertising Age, on how "Happy Holidays" has been relegated to the dustbin of history, comrades.According to its caption, the photo

Of Course You Realize This Means War!

Kudos to American University for expanding domestic partnership benefits to include different-sex couples

It's no surprise to readers of this blog (or my book) that I dislike domestic partner benefits extended only to same-sex couples. The first employer-provided DP benefits were for same- and different-sex partners, and the theory behind them was that "marriage" was too narrow a category for what counted as family and that a couple should not have to marry for one to be able to protect the economic

WE CAME TOGETHER.

Savoir Adore are quietly becoming one of our favorite bands in New York City, as they continue to rise to prominence as one of this town's best up and coming live acts and purveyors of the highest standard of boy-girl fronted indie pop. Having first hooked us with 2009's In The Wooded Forest LP and it's triumphant single "Bodies", the Brooklyn four-piece continue to shine on new single "Loveliest

Don't Humiliate Good Americans -- Just Bad Ones and Foreigners

Here's a good supplement to what I was trying to talk about yesterday. Glenn Greenwald linked to this story in his Twitter feed today, with the comment:A new daily horror RT @andylevy: Add "being covered in urine" to the list of small prices we're being asked to pay by TSAFor a moment I thought some traveler had been covered in someone else's urine -- treated like a prisoner in one of our

Don't Humiliate Good Americans -- Just Bad Ones and Foreigners

Don't Touch Your What?

There's evidently reason to doubt the effectiveness of the full-body scanners that have been installed in many American airports, enough reason that the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly last December against funding them. The ACLU and the National Rifle Association (!) backed this decision. The TSA responded by using stimulus funds to purchase the machines. According to the GAO,

Don't Touch Your What?

Jump Off The World Highest Bungy! (Macau Madness)

These are few pictures i haven't share while i was doing my Hongkong-Macau trip. I did manage to do one of my bucket list, jump off from the highest bungee in the world. Not that i intend the "world highest" part, but it just happens to be there. And like people said... the "first" always be the unforgettable! i want to do it again!!Staring to the "landing" area 233 meters below, its a long way

Hot Sand Merapi 100 Degrees Celsius

Radius beware Merapi in Sleman reduced from 20 km to 10 km to the west of the Kali Boyong and 15 km east of Kali Boyong. Residents and visitors are also not advisable to do any activity, especially in areas covered with volcanic material (debris) because it is still hot.According to the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), at a depth of 20 centimeters from the surface of the debris, hot

What Was She Doing Behind a Video Game, Anyway?

What perplexes me about things like this is what they're supposed to prove. Why was the Virgin Mary hiding behind a video game? Was she waiting to be found, and what was supposed to happen then? What would have happened if Mr. Rivera hadn't moved the game and she'd just stayed back there in the dark? And why does the newscaster keep mispronouncing Mr. Rivera's name as "Riviera"? There are

What Was She Doing Behind a Video Game, Anyway?

The new federal hospital visitation rules: "Conscience clauses" do not apply .. and what else the final rule does or does not cover

Of the 78 page publication available today from the Department of Health and Human Services, only 4 contain the actual regulations that will become effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. The gist of those four pages is simple. Hospitals governed by the rules of the Medicare and Medicaid programs must tell each patient that s/he has the right to receive the visitors she

Hongkong Here i come! (Day1)

Thanks to Cathay Pacific and Petrochina Intl' (where i work), i got discount for corporate secretary (this sound very lovely) for flight tickets to Jakarta-Hongkong return.The fare that i have to pay is US$ 250 for return ticket Jakarta-Hongkong. Isn't that cool?So, October 26, 2010 with Batavia air i fly from Jambi to Jakarta at 5.05 pm and arrive nearly 6pm at Soekarno Hatta-Jakarta. I had some

Correction

I may have made a mistake on Monday when I wrote about Obama's political rhetoric and the recommendations of his Catfood Commission:Certain "choices," like cutting back on his wars and his surveillance state, are not going to be involved.Overall, I think that's probably still a safe bet, but today Glenn Greenwald linked to a report thatIn a draft proposal presented to the 18-member debt

Correction

Apocalypse Right After I Get My Social Security Check!

If I had any sense I'd be in bed now -- I have to be up early tomorrow -- but I have no sense. Besides, my right-wing acquaintance, RWA1, posted a link on Facebook to this review of a forthcoming book by Reid Buckley, a brother of the late "fons et origo of the Right" William F. Buckley Jr. (According to this rightblogger, the 80-year-old Reid is "an analog conservative in a digital age.")The

Apocalypse Right After I Get My Social Security Check!

Scaling In and Signing Off

Scaled into long-term, near-the-money GDXJ calls with an expiration date of 2013 heavily

DADT hurts gay parents and their children

On The Nation website today, National Center for Lesbian Rights attorneys Ilona Turner and Daniel Redman write about the impact of DADT on servicemembers with families. The article contains numerous examples of servicemembers subject to a form of blackmail by ex-spouses who fight for custody of children born during prior heterosexual marriages. It doesn't matter whether the lesbian or gay

GOLD022: MR. LITTLE JEANS

Mr. Little Jeans was one of our most cherished additions to the Neon Gold roster in 2010, so it's with great pleasure that we announce her hotly-anticipated sophomore single on our little label this month. A significant departure from the roaring guitars of debut single "Angel", "Rescue Song" is her most intimate track yet, all soft tones and wintry comforts as the Norwegian chanteuse draws the

Think of the Starving Children in Africa Who'd Love to Have That Catfood!

If I still needed a reason to consider Barack Obama a congenital cheap pig*, I'd have it in the now well-circulated remarks he made last week about negative reactions to the draft report of his Catfood Commission:"Before anybody starts shooting down proposals, I think we need to listen, we need to gather up all the facts," Obama told reporters.He added: "If people are, in fact, concerned about

Think of the Starving Children in Africa Who'd Love to Have That Catfood!

NEON GOLD PRESENTS: THE NAKED & FAMOUS.

After storming through London last week, our Kiwi heroes The Naked & Famous make their way to New York for their debut US shows this week, lighting up an already sold out show at the Mercury Lounge on Friday before taking it across the bridge to Brooklyn Bowl on Saturday. We're thrilled to announce we'll be putting on the latter (in affiliation with Filter and GBH), complete with Savoir Adore

What We Talk About When We Talk About Books

Band of Thebes had a post this past week about the decline of print.Did you buy a physical book in September? Was it a lonely experience? The Association of American Publishers announced their September results, showing drastic declines in printed book sales, whether purchased in a store or online. Electronic book sales have nearly doubled.In addition, phone companies are phasing out physical

What We Talk About When We Talk About Books

How I Spent My Saturday Night (Slight Return)

Well, I'm getting into Armistead Maupin's new novel Mary Ann in Autumn (HarperCollins 2010), so I don't feel like doing a lot of writing tonight. It's been a busy day, with a run out to the Mall for some necessities that I hope will make it possible to install some more RAM and a new hard disk in the laptop, then watching Lee Chang-Dong's most recent film Poetry with a Korean friend, then a dash

How I Spent My Saturday Night (Slight Return)

Think of the Starving Children in Appalachia!

Roy Edroso gave some coverage to a rightblogger who was up in arms about the notion of "white privilege." Edroso remarked:Actually, I find it useful to contemplate my white privileges, and any other privileges into which I was born, like being a citizen of the richest country on earth, and did not obtain for myself. In fact, when I was growing up, it was customary for adults to remind

Think of the Starving Children in Appalachia!

Lesbian mother vs. convicted murderer father is the subject of an upcoming documentary

I spend a lot of time writing about gay couples having children and their ensuing legal issues. But I never forget about the gay and lesbian parents who defend their right to their children against heterosexual ex-spouses or other relatives. Filmmakers are preparing a documentary about one such case, Ward v. Ward, decided in Florida in the mid-1990's. Mary Ward lost custody of her 12-yr-old

SOMEBODY SAVE ME.

We've been meaning to write about London's FOE for so long it's not even hilarious, but fortunately the British chanteuse writes the kind of haunting torchsongs that refuse to fade with time. Together with her writing partner in crime Entrepeneurs, FOE pens the kind of eerily mesmerizing ballads that recall early Florence & The Machine, before the major label budgets and popstar makeover brought

Saved

I'm still reading James Baldwin's The Cross of Redemption, and while I think there's a good reason many of these pieces remained uncollected so long -- they're just not his best work -- they still make interesting reading. Take "To Crush a Serpent," published in 1987, the year Baldwin died. It's partly autobiographical, telling of Baldwin's brief career as an adolescent preacher and how it

Saved

Supreme Court -again- turns back Lisa Miller

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Vermont Supreme Court upheld a trial court's ruling that custody of Isabella Miller-Jenkins should be transfered to her nonbio mom Janet Jenkins. Isabella is, of course, the child at the center of the longest running dispute between lesbian ex-partners over custody of the child they planned for and raised together. Bio mom Lisa Miller has lost in the courts of

OH LORD.

We've been remiss in not showing more love to Entrepreneurs to this point, especially after he's worked such wonders on remixes of Neon Gold alums Penguin Prison and Marina & The Diamonds, but it's high time we rectified that situation. With no idea of what to expect heading into the self-described "karaoke set" he dropped at our London Neon Gold party with The Knocks on Wednesday, we were blown

National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study reports findings on 17 year old children of lesbian moms

Earlier this year, I wrote about the well-being of the 17 year old children of lesbians in the US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS). Now there's more data on these children, this time published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. The current article examines the sexual orientation, sexual behavior, and sexual risk exposure of seventy-eight 17 year olds whose mothers enrolled in

What Speaking Truth to Power Looks Like

I'm feeling better, though still kinda crummy, so I've been reading more of this posthumous collection of James Baldwin's prose, The Cross of Redemption. Today I read Baldwin's 1979 remembrance "Lorraine Hansberry at the Summit", which in addition to paying tribute to Hansberry, is an account of a May 1963 meeting between then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy several African-American activists

What Speaking Truth to Power Looks Like

This child has two fathers....sort of...and this is not a story about gay dads

A California appeals court has provided us with yet another story of complex family life to which law must respond. The case is Citizens Business Bank v. Carrano. Doesn't sound like a family law case, does it? Turns out it's a case about inheritance, specifically about the terms of a trust. The law of wills, trusts, and estates is often really family law....it's just that someone is dead.In this

Service Advisory

Sick as a dog. Flu? Cold? I don't know. Anyway, I'm taking a day off. Back soon.

Service Advisory

Sick as a dog. Flu? Cold? I don't know. Anyway, I'm taking a day off. Back soon.

The Scent of Lilacs

The Promiscuous Reader will try almost anything once, so it should come as no surprise that I recently made my first venture into the murky world of Christian women's inspirational fiction. I'm not sure why Ann H. Gabhart's The Scent of Lilacs (Revell, 2005) caught my attention in the library display -- maybe it's because we had lilacs in our yard when I was growing up -- but it did. It turned

The Scent of Lilacs

Creating "truth" through reciprocal citation practices dates back before the internet and cable news

A lengthy segment on The Rachel Maddow Show (I am a huge fan) last Thursday focused on the creation of "truth" through simply repeating falsehoods espoused by others and using those other sources as evidence of the facts asserted. Naturally, Fox News and the internet play large roles in the story.The segment made me think of a phenomenon first identified by the sociologist Judith Stacey in a 1994

The Straight Problem

But what is really much worse is the system of lies, evasions, and naked oppression designed to pretend this isn't so. It is one thing to trample a kid half to death or to death -- that is bad enough -- but it is quite another thing to then be told by the agents of that oppression, "Be patient; we will do better tomorrow." The question will cross your mind just for a moment: "You will do what

The Straight Problem

I Don't Know How You Were Inverted

But back to Thomas Serwatka's Queer Questions, Clear Answers, as I promised. I read it all the way through, though I admit to skimming at times. I had to keep reminding myself that although most of what Serwatka writes is familiar to me, it won't be familiar to some (most?) of his other readers, who may not have read a book on this subject before. But that makes Serwatka's errors and

I Don't Know How You Were Inverted

Redefine Happiness

MeShell Ndegeocello was there before, if not first. This video is from 1996. Bronski Beat, of course, was there a decade earlier. (This post is actually from about two weeks ago, but I fiddled with it and am posting it now.)Some people I know are a bit excited because President Obama posted a video to the It Gets Better Project channel at Youtube. (First link is to the White House website,

Redefine Happiness

This Man Must Be a Half-Prophet

From a comment I posted to John Caruso's blog A Distant Ocean on February 29, 2008 (yes, before Obama was even the Democratic presidential candidate):I would expect that if we get a Dem in the White House, and he or she fails to deliver the change he or she has promised, we'll get a Republican Congress in 2010 -- just as we got in 1994, thanks to Clinton/Gore's pushing NAFTA through, and a

This Man Must Be a Half-Prophet

More conservative state supreme court judges could hurt LGBT family law

By now everyone knows that the three Iowa Supreme Court justices up for a retention election all lost their bids to remain on the court, the result of a coordinated, highly financed campaign to send a message against their vote for marriage equality. In a segment on Democracy Now this morning, Adam Skaggs of the Brennan Center for Justice puts the Iowa vote in the larger context of judicial

That's Totally, Totally Gay

Oh Hell, why not:I think this will do more good than all the pious, self-congratulatory "It Gets Better" stuff. (Except for that awful chirpy music at the end, which nearly drives me to suicide. Who really likes that kind of stuff?)

That's Totally, Totally Gay

Inappropriately Touched By Iowa

Nobody deflates a pompous politician like Whatever It Is I'm Against It. He just demonstrated his filleting skills on Obama's post-holocaust press conference. My favorite:WHAT THERE IS A INHERENT DANGER IN: “There is a inherent danger in being in the White House and being in the bubble. I mean, folks didn’t have any complaints about my leadership style when I was running around Iowa for a

Inappropriately Touched By Iowa

India Travel Menu

The exotic land of India with deep jungles, meandering rivers, looming mountains, time forgotten villages, haunting historical buildings, colonial architecture, countless vernaculars and excellent cuisines offers a bewildering array of exciting vacationing activities. If you are addicted to skiing and other winter sports, visit Gulmarg during December to April and at a fraction of the cost that

Wire Money from Abroad to Indonesia Bank

This is for my fella traveler friends who needs Indonesian Bank Code for wiring money from their country... well you will need this in case if you're running out of money and you need someone to send you money... you might need a local bank account/Indonesia bank account number.To deposit or withdrawal using Wire Transfer (also known as telegraphic transfers), you will need the code SWIFT (

Leave Lilly Alone!

After a fairly hellish day at work, on top of getting up at 7 to speak at an 8 a.m. class, I can only agree with this great lady. (The original version is on Youtube, but with embedding disabled.) I'll try to get myself in gear soon.

Leave Lilly Alone!

NEON GOLD + THE KNOCKS HIT LONDON.

So it's been a long minute since we've been back to our second home across the pond, but we're pleased to announce we'll be making our triumphant return to London this week with our dudes The Knocks in tow. To celebrate, we're throwing down at XOYO next Wednesday the 10th with The Knocks debut London show, complete with our beloved Spark and the mesmerizing Entrepreneurs supporting. Doors are at

I Got Plenty of Awful

I paid as little attention as possible to the election returns, and then to avoid going to bed early tuned in to my community radio station at around 11:30. They were hooked up to Pacifica's postmortems, which featured Laura Flanders, Michael Moore, and some other folks I couldn't identify by voice. Looks like the Democrats got what they wanted: we've gone from a Congress controlled by

I Got Plenty of Awful

O Waily Waily Waily, The Only Hope of America Has Fallen!

If I had a magic wand, or three wishes from a genie or Faery godmother, I'd quietly arrange for the Democrats to trounce the Republicans in tomorrow's elections. Right now it looks to me as though the Democrats have already given up -- they've been working themselves into a snit for months, and won't it be nice for them to stop even pretending to try? They can blame the Republicans, and the

O Waily Waily Waily, The Only Hope of America Has Fallen!

Vermont Supreme Court agains rules in Janet Jenkins' favor

In an opinion dated last Friday, the Vermont Supreme Court has upheld the order of a family court judge transferring custody of Isabella Miller-Jenkins to her nonbiological mother, Janet Jenkins. Isabella (identified as IMJ in the court rulings) has been underground with her biological mother, Lisa Miller, since the court ordered the custody transfer. This latest opinion does nothing in any

GOLD021: SPARK

We like to think we have a fairly rich pedigree of female pop talent here at Neon Gold, as we gaze fondly at the busts of Marina & The Diamonds, Ellie Goulding and Mr. Little Jeans lining the halls in the pantheon of Neon Gold leading ladies. So it's with great pleasure that we pass the torch on to a special newcomer by the name of Spark, who's enchanting sophomore single "Revolving" will bear

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