 |
| Tempus Fugit by Henry Stacy Marks |
 |
| Elijah Boardman, 1789, by Ralph Earl. Click to enlarge. |
Holy and gracious Father: In your infinite love you made us
for yourself, and, when we had fallen into sin and become
subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent Jesus
Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human
nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you,
the God and Father of all.
What if I say I believe the story happened, but I can't prove it? What if I say I believe because it's a lovely story?
My evidence is in my heart, in my change from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. My evidence is how I live my life because I believe the story. Not that I'm good or holy, because I'm not, but that I'm a far better person because I believe the story. The story changed my life. That is my evidence.
In Anthony Harvey's THE LION IN WINTER, Katharine Hepburn won her third Oscar and Peter O'Toole his third nomination, for playing the same character he'd played in BECKETT. Set during a Christmas in the 1100's, King Henry (O'Toole) and his former wife Eleanor Of Aquitaine (Hepburn) , must decide which of their three sons is to be the future King of England. Taken from the award winning play by James Goldman, it features a stellar cast including Timothy Dalton and Anthony Hopkins in his first movie role as Prince Richard. It's a nasty family reunion filled with plots, lies, betrayals and revelations of scandalous secrets to rival those of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? You won't want to miss it for the world! Happy Holidays!
This is the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture. “Hide/Seek” considers such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern America; how artists explored the fluidity of sexuality and gender; how major themes in modern art—especially abstraction—were influenced by social marginalization; and how art reflected society’s evolving and changing attitudes toward sexuality, desire, and romantic attachment.
The exhibition begins with late nineteenth-century works by Thomas Eakins and John Singer Sargent and charts the twentieth century with major works by such American masters such as Romaine Brooks, Marsden Hartley, and Georgia O’Keeffe. The exhibition arcs through the postwar period with major paintings by Agnes Martin, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol. It continues through the end of the twentieth century with works by Keith Haring, AA Bronson, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres about life, love and death during the AIDS crisis, and charts the vigorous reassertion of lesbian and gay civil rights in the twenty-first.
As the homecoming drew near, the crew and ship’s family readiness group sold $1 raffle tickets for the first kiss. Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta bought 50 - which is actually fewer than many people buy, she said, so she was surprised Monday to find out she'd won.
Her girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, was waiting when she crossed the brow.
They kissed. The crowd cheered. And with that, another vestige of the policy that forced gays to serve in secrecy vanished.
 |
| Bishop George Packer being arrested in Duarte Square on Sunday, December 18 |
 |
| "Madame X" by Claire B. Cotts |
 |
| 1925 cover by the magazine's art director, Rea Irvin, who based it on an 1834 portrait of Alfred, Comte d'Orsay, show below |
 |
| "Ode on a Grecian Tilley" by Michael Clayton |
 |
| "Tilleyangelo" by Tim Lemire |
 |
| "Tillo Marx" by Noah Diamond |
 |
| "A Dandy Map of New York" by Dave Hoerlein |
In a fortified concrete courtyard at the airport in Baghdad, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta thanked the more than one million American service members who have served in Iraq for “the remarkable progress” made over the past nine years but acknowledged the severe challenges that face the struggling democracy. . . .What the troops think about the end of the war:
The muted ceremony stood in contrast to the start of the war in 2003 when an America both frightened and emboldened by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, sent columns of tanks north from Kuwait to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
As of last Friday, the war in Iraq had claimed 4,487 American lives, with another 32,226 Americans wounded in action, according to Pentagon statistics. . . .
The war was started by the Bush administration in March 2003 on arguments that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and had ties to Al Qaeda that might grow to an alliance threatening the United States with a mass-casualty terrorist attack.
As the absence of unconventional weapons proved a humiliation for the administration and the intelligence community, the war effort was reframed as being about bringing democracy to the Middle East.
 |
| Source: BBC |
 |
| Source: BBC |
 |
| Source: Prose before Hos |
 |
| Prince Philip in his studly younger days; you can see why Elizabeth fell for him, can't you, boys? |
Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman tug at your heartstrings in Mervyn LeRoy's adaptation of James Hilton's classic wartime love story, RANDOM HARVEST. Colman plays Smithy, a war casualty suffering from amnesia, who is taken in and falls in love with a lovely actress (Garson). They marry, have a child, and then through an accident, he regains his former memory and identity and forgets Garson completely. Can she get him to recall their love and come back to her? Filled with MGM glamour, a top-flight cast, including Oscar nominated Susan Peters as Coleman's other love interest, and the sweet melancholy that was found in Hilton stories, from Lost Horizon to Goodbye, Mr. Chips, RANDOM HARVEST is a four-hankie classic that's perfect to snuggle up with on a wintry afternoon.
 |
| The shining moment that was Camelot: the Kennedys at a state dinner in the White House for French cultural minister André Malraux in 1962 |
 |
| The Blue Room as redone by Jacqueline Kennedy and designer Stéphane Boudin |
 |
| A photograph of A Tour of the White House with Mrs. Kennedy and CBS newsman Charles Collingwood; alas, color television was still a rarity in most American homes in 1962, and like most other programs at the time, the special was filmed only in black and white. |
Homosexual acts are illegal in most African countries, including key Western allies such as Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and Botswana.
Reacting angrily to Mrs Clinton's speech, Ugandan presidential adviser John Nagenda told the BBC: "That fellow [Mr Cameron] said the same thing. Now this woman [Clinton] is interfering.
"If the Americans think they can tell us what to do, they can go to hell."
 |
| Corvette Sting Ray circa 1965 from a Chevrolet photo gallery at the Daily Beast |
The list of countries that recently declared war on sexual minorities include: Russia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Iran, and Zimbabwe. For the contemptible despots who run these underachieving nations, fomenting homophobia makes political sense. By turning homosexuals into bogeymen these rulers can conceal their corruption and appear moral through the blessings of craven clergy. . . .
But today’s actions by the administration and Clinton’s speech were different. The words were spoken with true vision and encrusted in values. There was clarity and passion, and no one was left wondering where our country stood on the rights of LGBT people.
This was one of those times where our nation demonstrated true international leadership and made me incredibly proud to be an American. It was stirring to witness our country act decisively as a force for moral good. There was no patronizing that relegated the LGBT community to the role of liberalism’s unwanted stepchild. There were no carefully crafted and focus grouped code words that sugarcoated the abuses – just the honest truth spoken from the heart. . . .
The stunning events in Geneva mark the moment Barack Obama secured a national LGBT vote for his 2012 re-election campaign. Today we felt hope – but more importantly, we witnessed monumental change.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
When I was a kid, three men on television hinted at the world I would one day enter. Dr. Smith (Lost In Space), Uncle Arthur (Bewitched), and Alan Sues. All of them were silly sniggering clowns, but that's how Hollywood used to do it. Some would say nothing has changed on that front, but I fondly recall all three.
 |
| Would a pink house be too gay, ya think? |
Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli make movie magic in MGM's loving and nostalgic tribute to by gone days: MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944). Shot on authentic-looking sets in spectacular Technicolor, it includes a memorable score by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Filled with such eventual Garland standards as "The Trolley Song," "The Boy Next Door," and the holiday classic, "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," it's a Thanksgiving feast for the whole family!
 |
| Useless concept of dirigible-with-airport-on-top from about 1930 |
 |
| Atomic-powered dirigible from 1956, with detachable (!) exhibition hall. Click to enlarge this goofiness. |
But I didn’t expect that she had thirty-two hours of jail time ahead of her, and I had thirty-two hours of trying, mostly in vain, to find out where she was and what was going to happen to her. . . .
[After her daughter was finally released:] On our way home, Lilah told me that when she was arrested, she had simply been standing in the street. She was asked to move, but she couldn’t, because it was packed with people and there was no room. She was shoved backward with a nightstick poke to the stomach. Then she was pepper-sprayed. Then she was forced to the ground, zipline cuffed, and pulled by her wrists so hard it felt as if her shoulder was about to dislocate. She was given no information about her charge or her status for the thirty-two hours she was in custody—not a thing, not until she walked into her arraignment.
After we got home, Lilah went to the doctor. She has nerve damage to her wrist. She’s wearing a wrist brace. She has bruises all over her arms. So she has her battle scars. Lilah’s great-grandmother marched as a suffragette, her grandmother marched against the Vietnam War, I got arrested protesting nuclear weapons, her sister has attended every OWS protest in New York. We’re a traditional family.
