 |
Joe |
Saturday, June 4, 2016
You'll Laugh, Then Cry at These Vintage Pride Photos
From: Advocate
 |
| Los Angeles Pride, June 1987 |
Time travel to Pride in the ‘80s in L.A., S.F., and Chicago! Alan Light’s detailed record of vintage Pride celebrations is fun for laughing at big hair and curiously short shorts, but for many of us, it is a bittersweet record of the many friends and lovers we lost to AIDS.
Yes, This New Ad For Male Wipes Features Whistling Balls
Their lips ain't movin'.
From: NewNowNext
From: NewNowNext
Summer is here and you know that certain areas can get a little sweaty when you’re out in the sun all day.
Don’t worry if you don’t have time to run home and freshen up because Nadkins are here to make your balls fresh and clean.
The wipes are 100 percent natural, non-toxic and combine a mixture of ingredients like aloe vera, vitamin E and grapefruit essence to keep you fresh.
The individually wrapped travel size towelettes hit stores earlier this year, but now the company has released an ad with-whistling balls?
You have to see for yourself:
Vandals Pelt Rainbow-Colored Equality House With Feces And Urine
Planting Peace's building is across the street from the main Westboro Baptist Church compound.
From: NewNowNext
From: NewNowNext
Situated across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church compound in Topeka, Kansas, Equality House is a bold statement against intolerance.
After all, it’s pretty hard to ignore the rainbow-colored building, opened by Planting Peace director Aaron Jackson in 2013.
“I honestly thought the house would be attacked—spray-painted with profanity and/or burned down,” he posted on Facebook. “In fact, Davis Hammet and I created an escape route out of the back of the house in case someone lit the house on fire while we were in it.”
Jackson says aside from a few people yelling “fag” at him while he mows the law, it’s mostly been “smooth sailing.” Until this week, when vandals pelted the house with urine and feces.
“They ruined our rainbow-colored ’Little Free Library’ that is there for children within the neighborhood to take books for free,” he wrote on Facebook.
Jackson has filed a report with police, but its unlikely the culprits will be found. Hopefully, this ugly incident will help draw positive attention to Planting Peace, which has sponsored charity drag marches and a symbolic wedding between Gandalf and Dumbledore on its front lawn.
While this is the first time the Equality House has been attacked, vandals defaced a billboard Planting Peace sponsored decrying North Carolina’s HB2.
Planting Peace works on a broad number of initiatives, including launching anti-bullying programs, finding homes for HIV-positive orphans in Haiti and getting anti-parasite medicine to children in Guatemala.
VA Proposes Lifting Ban on Gender-Confirmation Surgery
Activists have long lobbied for such surgery to be included in the health care provided by the Veterans Administration.
From: Advocate
From: Advocate
The Department of Veterans Affairs has proposed something transgender activists have long called for: allowing the VA and its hospitals to provide gender-confirmation procedures.
VA officials revealed the proposal in response to a query from Time magazine, which reported on the matter today. They would not say when it was first proposed, but said the VA has been working on it since 2014. Information on pending rule change has now been published on the VA’s website.
Gender-confirmation surgery has been banned at VA facilities since the early 1990s; it also cannot be performed at other facilities if the VA is paying for it. In 2011 the agency announced a standardized policy of equal access to medically necessary health care for transgender veterans — with the exception of transition-related procedures. The VA called such surgery “cosmetic,” although the American Medical Association and other health care groups have said it is a therapeutic treatment and medically necessary for many transgender people, even though not all of them seek surgery.
A VA official said the proposal to lift the ban reflects new medical knowledge and improvements in transition-related surgery. When the ban was put in place, “some of these surgical procedures were not as well developed as they are now,” Jillian Shipherd, a codirector of the VA’s LGBT health care program, told Time. “The science about what the international standards of care are was very different from where we are today.”
Transgender veterans, represented by Lambda Legal and the Transgender Law Center, had petitioned the VA to end the ban. "We definitely welcome the news," M. Dru Levasseur, director of Lambda's transgender rights project, told The Advocate. He was encouraged, he said, that the VA acknowldged that serious consequences, including suicide, can result from the denial of surgery, and that surgical procedures have evolved.
Lambda and the Transgender Law Center are representing two individual plaintiffs and one group, Transgender Veterans of America, in their action, and since the petition was filed, one member of the vets' group has ended her life, Levasseur said. Every day the ban stays in place, he said, is potentially harmful. "We hope the VA acts quickly to remove this discriminatory exclusion," he added.
There is a long process ahead before the ban is lifted. The federal Office of Management and Budget will review the proposal’s language, and if it approves, the VA will take public comment on the matter before finalizing the new rule. All this could take up to 22 months, Time notes.
Lambda and the law center are prepared to take further action if the new rule does not go through, Levasseur said, but for now they are hopeful. He noted that the VA has taken other positive actions regarding transgender vets in recent years, such as the 2011 policy.
Other LGBT groups welcomed the news as well. "We're very excited to see that," Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, told The Advocate. She called the ban an "old-fashioned, nonsensical exclusion."
She also pointed out that the process will take a while — the VA has made clear its intention to change the rule, but hasn't submitted the actual rule change for commentary and approval. "We're not quite at the stage that everybody thinks we are," she said.
Keisling is optimistic that the VA will make good on this, though. The agency already covers all pre- and post-surgery care for trans vets, including hormone treatment, she noted.
The American Military Partner Association, which represents the partners of LGBT service members and vets, also praised the VA's move. “This is incredibly welcome news for so many transgender veterans and their families," said Ashley Broadway-Mack, the group's president, in a press release. “So many veterans rely on the VA for important medical care that they have earned serving our nation, including transgender veterans. Gender confirmation surgery is often a critically important and medically necessary treatment for transgender veterans, and lifting this ban is long overdue.”
The Groovy List celebrates Anderson Cooper's 49th birthday
From: Deep Dish
The Groovy List is a weekly Top 10 of recommended videos featuring pop culture, politics and gorgeous guys:
1)
Groovy 45th President: Hillary Clinton
She earned rave reviews for her June 2nd speech on foreign policy and Donald Trump.
2)
Groovy Birthday Gal #1: Rosalind Russell
The actress, who left us in 1976 at age 69, was born on June 4, 1907. Below you can watch her as the Mystery Guest on What's My Line? on January 4, 1953 (beginning at 16:31).
3)
Groovy Birthday Gal #2: Joan Rivers
The comedian, who left us in 2014 at age 81, would have celebrated her 83rd birthday on June 8. Below you can watch her as a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on May 20, 1975, and in two 2013 interviews on Show People with Paul Wontorek and Theater Talk (in which she reviews the Broadway season with fellow critics Ben Brantley of The New York Times and Peter Marks of The Washington Post).
4)
Groovy Birthday Guy #1: Anderson Cooper
To celebrate the TV journalist's 49th birthday, below you can watch him as a substitute anchor on ABC's World News Now in 1999 with his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, and comedian Barry Mitchell.
5)
Groovy Birthday Guy #2: Harvey Fierstein
To celebrate the Tony Award-winning actor's 62nd birthday on June 6, below you can watch Barbara Walters interview him on ABC's 20/20 in 1983.
6)
Groovy Birthday Guy #3: Robert Preston
The actor, who left us in 1987 at age 68, would have celebrated his 98th birthday on June 8. Below you can watch him as the Mystery Guest in two episodes of What's My Line? on March 3, 1963 (beginning at 15:26), and March 13, 1966 (18:28).
7)
Groovy Birthday Gal #3: Sandra Bernhard
To celebrate Sandra's 61st birthday on June 6, below you can watch her sing "Me and Mrs. Jones" in her 1990 film, Without You I'm Nothing, and serenade Boy George on her A&E talk show, The Sandra Bernhard Experience, on August 28, 2001.
8)
Groovy Broadway Gals
The Hollywood Reporter's 2016 Tony Awards Roundtable includes THR's Awards Analyst Scott Feinberg and actresses Laura Benanti (She Loves Me), Cynthia Erivo (The Color Purple), Megan Hilty (Noises Off), Jessica Lange (Long Day's Journey Into Night), Jessie Mueller (Waitress), Lupita Nyong'o (Eclipsed) and Michelle Williams (Blackbird).
9)
Groovy Broadway Guys
The Hollywood Reporter's 2016 Tony Awards Roundtable includes THR's Awards Analyst Scott Feinberg and actors Reed Birney (The Humans), Alex Brightman (School of Rock), Danny Burstein (Fiddler on the Roof), Gabriel Byrne (Long Day's Journey Into Night), Jeff Daniels (Blackbird), Zachary Levi (She Loves Me) and Leslie Odom, Jr. (Hamilton).
10)
Groovy Underwear
In the Season 3 premiere of Boxers or Briefs?, Kevin Spencer, the Style Reporter for The Underwear Expert, interviews two shirtless Parkour Athletes.
That Time Anderson Cooper Swallowed A Massive Gummy Python
"It's called a party python!"From: NewNowNext
Here’s something you don’t see every day: On Anderson Live, Anderson Cooper and BFF Andy Cohen whipped out a massive gummy python and snacked on it in front of his studio audience.
Are you guys sure you never hooked up?
As Anderson’s producer tells us, the “Party Python” weighs 36lbs, contains 36,000 calories and comes in two flavors.
See, now that’s a neat trick!
More Than 200,000 Attend Tel Aviv Pride
“Everyone should be able to live as they want to live."From: NewNowNext
More than 200,000 people crammed into the streets of Tel Aviv today to celebrate at the largest Pride parade in the Middle East.
Streets were shut down as drag queens, community leaders, political groups and more marched along the beach to Charles Clore Park, where musical acts performed well into the evening. This year’s Pride celebration included a film festival, forums and the first Miss Trans Israel pageant.
Tel Aviv has become a major gay travel destination, with popular nightclubs and an unofficial gay beach. But some activists complain the government touts the city as an LGBT tourist destination while Palestinians are still discriminated against and same-sex couples cannot have their relationships recognized.
More than 200,000 people crammed into the streets of Tel Aviv today to celebrate at the largest Pride parade in the Middle East.
Streets were shut down as drag queens, community leaders, political groups and more marched along the beach to Charles Clore Park, where musical acts performed well into the evening. This year’s Pride celebration included a film festival, forums and the first Miss Trans Israel pageant.
Tel Aviv has become a major gay travel destination, with popular nightclubs and an unofficial gay beach. But some activists complain the government touts the city as an LGBT tourist destination while Palestinians are still discriminated against and same-sex couples cannot have their relationships recognized.
Security at this year’s event was heightened after an Ultra-Orthodox Jew, Yishai Shlissel, attacked celebrants at Jerusalem Pride last year. Sixteen-year old Shira Banki died as a result of the attack. (The Tel Aviv parade began with a moment of silence for Banki.)
Organizers had tried to told the Times of Israel. “It started out as just a thing for the gays, but now you can see so many groups, including political groups like Meretz and Peace Now. That’s nice to see people getting involved.”
