03/23/2006
Gays and lesbians will now be protected in Taiwan under the Domestic Violence Prevention Law. "Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Kuo Lin-Yung said that homosexuals had long been neglected in a society where heterosexual marriages were dominant. 'They [homosexuals] have been derided, persecuted and constrained in the past, but now they have begun to speak out, allowing their problems to surface and be known,' he said. 'Therefore, they must now be equally protected by the law.'" And if you had any doubts about whether or not that Ang Lee film has made any ripples in the world's social fabric, "Two lawmakers cited the movie Brokeback Mountain in arguing for the change."
If you can believe it, there's been another violent gay bashing on London's Clapham Common. This one took place last Saturday and was reportedly "yards away" from where barman Jody Dobrowski was beaten to death in another attack last October. The new attack follows another incident a week earlier in which a gay couple was jumped as they left the Two Brewers bar in Clapham, leaving one unconscious. Last Saturday's fresh attack left the victim, a 40-year-old man, with a broken leg. Police report that his attacker had also tried to strangle someone the same evening. No arrests have been made yet. Clapham Common, a well-known cruising area, is obviously not the safest place to be after dark.
Posted 8:56 AM EST by Andy Towle in Elsewhere | Permalink
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When Europeans discuss "classism" - all eyes point to the UK. Yes, other constitutional monarchical democracies exist in Europe, but no one operates like the Brits.
The key is found in life peerages and knighthoods. Very few men or women resist such honours - even when are honourary and do not come with titles.
Nowhere else in the world, do you hear the speaker begin with, " My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen."
Since the Victorian era and Oscar Wilde, the stereotype of the gay male is foppish, middle to upper class, public school bender vs. the straight labourer working class.
Self-loathing hatred is such a powerful emotion to overcome.
Posted by: Raymond | Mar 23, 2006 9:08:17 AM
Ang Lee's accolades were enhanced at the Toronto Film Festival. We saw it then.
Posted by: Raymond | Mar 23, 2006 9:10:11 AM
Here's an idea for all the people who insist on cruising at Clapham Common: bring a mini baseball bat. If someone approaches you threateningly, beat the ever-living shit out of them.
Problem solved.
Posted by: Tread | Mar 23, 2006 10:43:22 AM
Strange thing to see this on the news. I used to live in Claphan Common 24 years ago when I was a student in London. Back them Claphan was considered a working class neighborhood where a lot of younger people moved because, although not cheap, the rents were more reasonable and there were several subway stations. Claphan was right next to Brixton, which at the time was considered one of the most problematic neighborhoods, and it was not uncommon for Brixtonians and Claphanias (if there is such a thing) to go into each other's main street.
Twenty some years ago, I didn't think Claphan was much of a gay neighborhood, so I find it interesting to see that Claphan appears to have a large concentration of gays these days (from what I've been reading on the news lately). Although I have not visited the area recently, I suspect that the area has become somehow gentrified, and that a lot of the people committing violence against gays are under-employed or uneducated folks (what in the US we call "losers") who see how "their" neighborhood is being taken over by strange rich guys who sit at these trendy bars sipping strange colored drinks while driving the rents through the roof.
London did not seem particularly anti-gay some twenty years ago, so I imagine, it is much less now.
Posted by: Rey | Mar 23, 2006 11:22:40 AM
Greg Palast is an American who works for the BBC in London. He wrote this lately:
Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools
THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCCOMPLISHED
by Greg Palast
for The Guardian
20 March 2006
Get off it. All the carping, belly-aching and complaining about
George Bush's incompetence in Iraq, from both the Left and now the
Right, is just dead wrong.
On the third anniversary of the tanks rolling over Iraq's border,
most of the 59 million Homer Simpsons who voted for Bush are
beginning to doubt if his mission was accomplished.
But don't kid yourself -- Bush and his co-conspirator, Dick Cheney,
accomplished exactly what they set out to do. In case you've
forgotten what their real mission was, let me remind you of White
House spokesman Ari Fleisher's original announcement, three years
ago, launching of what he called,
"Operation
Iraqi
Liberation."
O.I.L. How droll of them, how cute. Then, Karl Rove made the
giggling boys in the White House change it to "OIF" -- Operation
Iraqi Freedom. But the 101st Airborne wasn't sent to Basra to get
its hands on Iraq's OIF.
"It's about oil," Robert Ebel told me. Who is Ebel? Formerly the
CIA's top oil analyst, he was sent by the Pentagon, about a month
before the invasion, to a secret confab in London with Saddam's
former oil minister to finalize the plans for "liberating" Iraq's
oil industry. In London, Bush's emissary Ebel also instructed
Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, the man the Pentagon would choose as post-OIF
oil minister for Iraq, on the correct method of disposing Iraq's
crude.
And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq's oil? The answer
will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish
and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted
blogger. The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq's oil
secretly drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a
copy; how, doesn't matter. The key thing is what's inside this
thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil
company that will "enhance its relationship with OPEC."
Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government
of the United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil
cartel which is strangling our nation with outrageously high prices
for crude.
Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a
lid on Iraq's oil production -- limiting Iraq's oil pumping to the
tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.
There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil -- not to get MORE
of Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing TOO MUCH of it.
You must keep in mind who paid for George's ranch and Dick's
bunker: Big Oil. And Big Oil -- and their buck-buddies, the Saudis
-- don't make money from pumping more oil, but from pumping LESS of
it. The lower the supply, the higher the price.
It's Economics 101. The oil industry is run by a cartel, OPEC, and
what economists call an "oligopoly" -- a tiny handful of operators
who make more money when there's less oil, not more of it. So,
every time the "insurgents" blow up a pipeline in Basra, every time
Mad Mahmoud in Tehran threatens to cut supply, the price of oil
leaps. And Dick and George just LOVE it.
Dick and George didn't want more oil from Iraq, they wanted less. I
know some of you, no matter what I write, insist that our President
and his Veep are on the hunt for more crude so you can cheaply fill
your family Hummer; that somehow, these two oil-patch babies are
concerned that the price of gas in the USA is bumping up to $3 a
gallon.
No so, gentle souls. Three bucks a gallon in the States (and a quid
a litre in Britain) means colossal profits for Big Oil, and that
makes Dick's ticker go pitty-pat with joy. The top oily-gopolists,
the five largest oil companies, pulled in $113 billion in profit in
2005 -- compared to a piddly $34 billion in 2002 before Operation
Iraqi Liberation. In other words, it's been a good war for Big Oil.
As per Plan Bush, Bahr Al-Ulum became Iraq's occupation oil
minister; the conquered nation "enhanced its relationship with
OPEC;" and the price of oil, from Clinton peace-time to Bush war-
time, shot up 317%.
In other words, on the third anniversary of invasion, we can say
the attack and occupation is, indeed, a Mission Accomplished.
However, it wasn't America's mission, nor the Iraqis'. It was an
Mission Accomplished for OPEC and Big Oil.
**********
On June 6, Penguin Dutton will release GREG PALAST'S NEW BOOK,
"ARMED MADHOUSE: DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT LINES OF THE CLASS
WAR." Order it today -- and view his investigative reports for
Harper's Magazine and BBC television's Newsnight -- at
www.GregPalast.com.
Palast returns to the pages of the Guardian today with this column.
Catch his commentaries weekly.
Posted by: Raymond | Mar 23, 2006 2:43:22 PM
Interesting story about Taiwan/BBM. Gives us a new perspective on all those jaded queens who couldn't wait to label BBM as promoting traditonal gay sterotypes.
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Mar 23, 2006 7:37:35 PM
Isn't it interesting to note that our rightwingnuts would tell their sheeple that it is mainland China who would permit same-sex rights, while those right wing Taiwanese (ROC) would not.
The opposite is true of course.
Posted by: Raymond | Mar 23, 2006 9:37:21 PM
"The opposite is true of course."
Isn't that usually the case with rightnut gaybats?
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Mar 23, 2006 9:45:31 PM
>>And if you had any doubts about whether or not that Ang Lee film has made any ripples in the world's social fabric, "Two lawmakers cited the movie Brokeback Mountain in arguing for the change."
It's fascinating that some people think that years of fighting for Gay rights have done less to change society than BBM. World leaders are being moved by it's message. Amazing! It's a nice movie, but it would never have been made without all that went before it.
Maybe it's just that Ang Lee finally mangaged to get all that bitter medicine into a palatable little pill.
Thank you Ang!
Posted by: Jay Croce | Mar 23, 2006 10:11:02 PM
Has anyone seen the new National Rent A-Car commercial and are you offended by it or do you see it as the further broad influence of BBM?
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Mar 23, 2006 11:33:04 PM