General

Courtesy of The Guardian.

Mr Topp’s bottom lands him in Greek police cell

what search strings caused people to find your site, I give you:

Disturbing Search Requests

1. Boondocks comic strip
2. Pedophiles against gay rights

In Alabama this weekend:

An evangelist who was asked to sing at his wife’s uncle’s funeral claims he had a revelation from God that led him to insult mourners and say that the dead man was damned.

Orlando Bethel said he spoke words that “the Lord revealed to me.” Preaching over a microphone at the Greater Pine Grove Baptist Church, he told some 100 mourners they were “fornicators” and “whoremongers.” He said the deceased, Lish Devan Taylor, had gone to hell.

How depressing! I’ve been relying on the English version of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung for news of Germany, and in general, a view from “the continent” of world news. They’ve decided it no longer makes economic sense to publish it, so yesterday was the last day.

Interesting item from my web statistics…

Given that I’m very unhappy about the behavior of Israel towards the Palestinians and the Occupied Territories, it’s funny that my site shows up first on a Google search of sexy israelis.

NY Diocese Made $997,500 Sex Abuse Settlement

The confidential $997,500 settlement, the latest revelation in the sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church, fell just short of the $1 million ceiling above which the Albany diocese would have been required to get consent of its finance council, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

While talking about the Dixon Place Queer Hot Festival, I mentioned that Armen Ra was one of the performers. (See Musto on her.) She performs on the theremin, which is a pretty fascinating instrument invented in 1919.

While contemplating that such an amazing piece of musical technology was invented so long ago, I started to think about the conundrum that is America. What has made us great is the ability to ignore history and forge ahead, more than any culture in history. However, I think this “ahistorical” attitude is also our biggest weakness. We’re like children, thinking that each thing we discover is the first time anyone ever thought of it. If we had any idea what other cultures have accomplished, from the Romans, to post-war Europe, which created great welfare states capable of providing basic healthcare for everyone (in countries devastated by war), we could learn from those achievements and build on them.

My mother learned that her birthday (July 6) is shared with our duly selected president. She has announced:

I refuse to celebrate July 6 anymore.