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An in depth look at the anti-gay bill in Uganda: (from Vanguard Documentaries)

Rainbow Ch00nage part 1

I am completely addicted to the Internet and spend way too much time clicking links of links of links till I can’t click anymore. I also have a compulsion to find new music because my music library of over 60 gigabytes is like so five minutes ago. As such I have an account on Pandora, Last fm, subscribed to numerous YouTube channels relating to music; also I come through the iTunes music store like I am trying to find the secrets of the universe. As such I have become acquainted with several not big time artists of the queer orientation and/or who appeal to a queer audience. so I have decided to feature them in a multi-part blog post so here are the first three on my list of rainbow ch00nage.

First off there is Cazwell; this old school rapper/hip-hop artist of the homosexual persuasion spins some wicked tunes. he is based in New York City and has been central to the underground dance scene; he has even co-stared with Lady GaGa while she was still just a quirky student at NYU. When I first listened to him I could of sworn he was a British rapper, or from the early 90’s but he , by his own admission part of the old school; which for me is a plus. Most rap and hip hop of current makes me want to cry for their trite puns overtly sexual in nature and mind numbing repetitions nature behooves me greatly. Yet with Cazwell I can listen to his entire album with out the least bit of a complaint. He is also awful sweet and his lyrics are either ridiculously funny or sexual in a way that doesn't make you feel sleazy for listening to it, good music all a round.

Second There is his friend Amanda Leopore, who is the world’s self-proclaimed number one transsexual; the embodiment of fierceness pulled though the glamor of Marilyn Monroe with a fantastical dosing of Jessica rabbit I might say. though music is not here main career focus she as dabbled in music scene with the help and collaborations of others. She has been the cover girl for MAC and other cosmetics companies and has lost count of all the surgeries she has had in the pursuit of fabulousness. Her fame is mostly due to her staple presences in New York night clubs. She is heading Mardi Gras in Australia this year.

Third there is Cameron Carpenter, he doesn't like labels and is firmly in the whatever-sexual category. He would be some geeky/OCD version of a cross between Adam Lambert and Johann Sebastian Bach. He is the only person who I can say shreds hardcore on an organ; seriously this guy is like inhuman with a keyboard. Watching his hands and for the matter, feet, fly adroitly over the bazillion buttons and keys of an organ makes me think that someone needs to have is babies to ensure the fate of humankind. On a side note he sewed one by one , by hand, the sequence on that shirt of his, just for your information.

watch his other video here (embedding was disabled from the site)

one somewhat honorable mention would be the Electric Six’s song I Want to Take You to a Gay Bar that has the best music video in terms of visual sexual entendres, metaphors and/or allusions.

gAy D (H) D

This is more of a random assortment of ideas that were too small to be a full blog post yet something that I really wanted to share.

Well first tangent is a moment of disbelief, a moment of awesome, is because of Henrietta Lacks’ contribution to science. Ms Henrietta lacks should probably have here name sewn in on the AIDS quilt. Her flesh literally is responsible for advancements in AIDS research. This prodigal woman died in 1951 of cervical cancer. Before she died, this black woman from the south had a biopsy of her cervical cancer tumor taken without her consent. Her cells are still alive, well actually they are by all scientific and medical standpoints, immortal. Now referred to as the HeLa cell line, they were the birth of the modern biotechnology industry with over 60,000 scientific papers published due to research on her cells. Companies have been producing , growing, and selling Ms. Lacks' flesh in high volume to laboratories for such research. The life cycle of HIV was studied in death with HeLa cell lines. Well that's enough on Henrietta - click here and here for more info.

I have to say I there have been a lot of LGBT coverage in the media lately. From Clair Bennett’s "it's complicated" lesbian-ish relationship with her roommate Gretchen on Heroes; the premier of RuPaul's Drag Race season 2; the Super Bowl ad for Mancrunch that was pulled (read more here and here), to President Obama’s State of the Union declaration to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (read more here). On a side note, the last novel I read was the latest installment to the Stardoc series by S. L. Viehl (read her blog).

Third tangent: the series could be described as Grey's Anatomy/ER in space crossed with super cheesy romance movie like The Notebook and some mixture of Star Trek and Star Wars. What's interesting is that unlike other sci-fi works where the romance is obviously heterosexual or implied as such, Stardoc has homosexual relationships and gender bending and alternative families. *Begin spoiler* The main character is the feminized clone of a mad geneticist who almost rapes her to impregnation *end spoiler*. There is also a species of humanoid that link biochemistry with their mates to marry for life, opposite marriage of course. Yet one of the male folk of said-species falls in love with another man, a human bird hybrid; so excommunication ensues. A whole host of other things happen like interplanetary slavery and inter-dimensional stepmothers that try to rewrite your memories for the fate of the universe. (I know that makes it sound like a B-movie SF flick but it is one of my favorite series a if this was a sci-fi blog I would have a full critique in praise of it.)

That's all for my tangents. (Now would be a great time to lay off the caffeinated products.)

This Is What Happens When You Switch Your Major From Engineering To Linguistics…

I have recently decided to change my major from Biomedical engineering to a double major in Linguistics and Neuroscience. Excited to actually study something that I find enjoyable, I have been spending every minute of my day procrastinating by trying to memorize what Wikipedia has to say about linguistics and neuroscience. Also I have been reading and have finished In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language by Arika Okrent. An astoundingly interesting book and a must read for anyone with a slight flair for language. My further meanderings into procrastination led me to attend UNC Chapel Hill’s LGBT student group’s meeting last Thursday where the topic was Trans 101 (I have to express my dearest apologies for I have forgotten the presenters surname, first name is Mandy). After which I felt that using gendered pronouns was now akin to hate crimes.

Yet instead of being inspired to fight for and rally for LGBT equality with civil disobedient vigor, I couldn’t help wondering that explicitly asking if one preferred male or female pronouns was a bit long-winded. Then a small voice inside my head uttered "the neuter case!" (which is common in the other Germanic languages). We would simply need to turn back the clock to old English where there was a plethora of pronouns. So just as we might say the gendered 'he' or 'her' we would say neutered 'hit.' We could even introduce different new and artificial pronouns for gender identity and expression; as well as transitions and intersexes and so on. There by mapping the English language to the current need for equality and representation.

Though ultimately this would not bring about equality though language, like Ludwik Łazarz Zamenhof hoped to do with his Esperanto, but it would make the tool that is language more, in a way, ergonomic. Yet such an overhaul is simply a flight of fancy; I do not expect nor actively entertain the idea that grammarians could be the new LGBT activists though I will certainly be a linguist of the movement. So now I leave you dear reader to write your next rally speech in old English.