W_L

Zombie, I think I will call you "Mr. Chips", since you obviously have a love of English diction and an aversion to stream of consciousness My first post on the subject of gender roles was circling the subject. Gender roles are a learned behavior to conform to gender norms, i.e. Boys wear shirts and pants/girls wear dresses, boys like activity/girls like tea parties , and boys go to the boy's bathroom/girls go to the girls bathroom. There's nothing inherently right or wrong with gender roles, but it makes alien behavior less desirable in the developing mind of kids. I did mention gender roles as a follow up point to Aditus Kids are not taught to hate gay boys from a young age, but they are taught to define themselves as boys, which means "girly" things are wrong for them.The effeminate image of gays make the logical next step as homophobia, unless they know gay guys who are different from their perceptions. ---------- As for you mentioning "Gender Politics", we have a different definition of what "gender Politics" if what we heard was true about the other boys asking questions and he was trying to argue contrary thoughts. Gender roles are definedas this : While gender politics is defined from the Collins English Dictionary: They had a debate on the subject of perception of self image; though, it was an impasse. Progress is made by opening questions, even if the answers are not what we want. ------ Anyway, just want to write an extra long post to explain my views better. I am not against effeminate guys; I just think if boys at a young age meet average/relatable non-effeminate gay guys and learn that boys can like boys without being weird or alien to a gender role, then homophobia's development can be halted. Gender roles must be taught with an open mind and a like mind, you need to reach a touchstone.

Gender roles is not the same as a glass ceiling argument Interest is not needed

Damn you Banger! That's actually a good point against being vegan and gay .... Nah, the lynch mob will catch up to you between Park Street and Copley, so you will get thrown in a pot of New England Clam Chowder on the Common In Boston, Sports fans in this city are extremely fanatical, but New York teams seem to push the thing in high gear. Yankees, Giants, and Rangers are big rivals here. (As for the NBA, the Knicks are crap even compared to a much depleted Celtics bench, so we let them pass and focus on the Lakers instead ) And I almost forgot, one last New England Delicacy: Lobster Rolls:

We need more open minded gay jocks , just saying The problem from the gay effeminate stereotype is that boys are taught to have an aversion to feminine side of things at a young age, not merely because they are taught to hate gays, but that they are taught that gender roles is what defines you. These kids aren't homophobes, yet, they are just anti-feminine. If there were a few butch gay jocks around, I think the issue around this nascent gender role problem would be solved more easily.

Note to self: high school needs more butch gay jocks A few decades ago, he'd be beaten up for wearing a dress no questions asked. Now, at least there is Q&A. That is progress.

Treason! Hang him! Next thing you know, you will be showing us a selfie with a Yankee's Jersey at Fenway

There's also another question: How many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered advocates take the time to know their opponents? We have our problem of propagating a stereotype that we believe homophobes are a monolithic (how many stories and movies have you read recently or watched where the parents, friends, or strangers all say the same things about gays), heavily religious (I can probably quote leviticus and Romans in more languages and versions than any one should), and unyielding hatred (They're evil! That's it!). In truth, homophobia is not an inflexible concept, it has degrees as much as our sexuality is not uniform. What I am saying is, both sides need to learn from one another; it can't be a unilateral push by us to educate homophobes; it has to be collaborative and a true open exchange that breaks down bigotry from decades of entrenchment. Sure, you will have some people that you cannot convert over to be PFLAG moms or have old gay liberation guys that can never forgive their treatment during the AIDS scare of the 1980's, but you will get a measure of tolerance and probably faster acceptance with newer generations. The true crusaders for gay rights are not those marching on the streets anymore, they are your friends, your co-workers, and members of your family that have accepted you and you have accepted them into your life. What I want to say as a gay man and a gay author is that we are not alone anymore.

....At a Buddhist restaurant Matt, think about it this way, you get a few pounds tofu and split peas in a cheap supermarket for under 2.00, but a vegan goes to an all Organic place that charges them 10.00 for the same amount of food (Does not mean they don't use fertilizers or will get transplanted pollen from their all natural bees ). Youldn't shun them, but pity them fo getting ripped off by their grocers ----- As for the suggestion of Chowda', You can't get better Chowda' than up here in New England, where we do it just right. New Orleans has their delicious seafood gumbo and New York has their monstrosity Manhattan chowder (Yuck, tomato were never meant to go with clams): New England Choeda': New Orleans Seafood Gumbo And dead last Manhattan Chowder:

You'd love a New England clam bake Steamed seafood is fine, I love raw oysters on the shell as well, but I also love fried oysters too. For people, who don't like fried seafood, one of the things I noticed in traveling for work and pleasure is that a lot of the seafood people eat around the country is frozen and re-fried. Fried clams in other parts of the country taste like cardboard compared to New England Fried Clams. The best lobster shacks and restaurants in New England are only open during the summer season, when fresh seafood can be procured, so when they fry it, it is fresh and there is no lost in taste or texture during the frying process. I got my parents to try fried clams the other day and being traditionally Chinese, they prefer their seafood "fresh" or in their words "sien". Even they liked it and were surprised at how fresh it was. Of course I paid around $50 for 2 large baskets of Fried Clams and $30 for a large fried Oysters, but it was worth every penny. Despite the costs, the line was stretching outside the door into the parking lot and it was a cash only business (No credit card processing, so any family eating there had to have at least 100.00 in their wallet).

I love french films; their movies provide great characters and intricate plots. Here is the simple plot: Laurent is a closeted gay boy attending college and studying agricultural engineering. His family is deeply homophobic and have inclinations toward exiling gay family members, like Laurent's dead cousin Marc, who died of Hepatitis (probably not from sexual activity based on the film's scenes, maybe drug use though). Laurent was close with his cousin and his cousin's boyfriend Alain. Laurent was on a self destructive path after the loss of his cousin, who's death he blamed on his family's homophobic attitudes and actions of throwing him out. What he doesn't know is that his uncle and aunt have regrets over their actions, but don't know how to express it. (That scene hooked me to the movie, finally a gay movie with some meat and some humanity, but not outright Gay Pride or PFLAG message support like the American "Prayers for Bobby") Laurent is living with his best friend and fag hag Carole to hide his sexuality during his time at college. Carole has a problem of falling for men that are absolutely wrong for her. After some soul searching, Carole asks Laurent if he could move out as she can no longer handle being with him. (Underneath her calm demeanor is a woman trying to help a friend, but I can tell she does love him and it hurts for her to imagine that he is with other men, despite knowing he's gay and accepting he will never love her. I love this layering of acceptance and desire.) At around the same time, Laurent's father had an accident and Laurent discovers despite his distate with his family's homophobic attitude, he still doesn't want to abandon them by revealing his sexuality. Enter Cedric, a brilliant agricultural researcher, who has his own complicated set of issues. His mother, Emma, accepts that her son is gay, but has problems with expressing her suppressed dislike of it. Eventually, Laurent moves in with him as a kind of live in boyfriend. Laurent still keeps a lot of his family history hidden from Cedric, until Cedric had enough of Laurent's double dealing with his "fake" girlfriend and his parents. I won't bore you with a lot of plot points, the customary "outing", and problems between the couple, but suffice to say there is a lot of plots and subplots that evolve the story. Basically, Cedric's mother outs Laurent and Laurent in a fit of anger tries to have sex with Carole, but Carole knows that he doesn't love her and he stops. Then, Laurent over drinks and Emma brings him back to Cedric's home. Eventually, Cedric comes back and learns of his mother's actions. He reaffirms his love for Laurent, who goes back home and confronts his father. Laurent has a semi-happy/open ending in this movie, but he at least came clean and his parents need time to come to terms. Cedric has learned a lesson in caring and understanding about the people he loves far more, including his mother, who has not completely gotten over her own issues with his sexuality Fin. -------- C'est tres bien! One problem with a lot of gay films is motivation, which I am glad this film does not fall short on. Yes, a gay teen might be bullied at school or he's facing homophobia at home and the plot evolves from his angst. He finds a supportive boyfriend and lives happily ever after..... I have no problems with any of that, but tell me, what are the parents motivations that make them homophobic? Does the boyfriend have issues in his/her life that motivate him, too? What motivates this relationship to form, get challenged, and become a true partnership? First, the parents, I can see the old traditionalist culture being a problem, but beyond that, there is doubt in their motivations. That is something I absolutely love to see in homophobic characters, despite how monolithic gay films make homophobes as or evil, they do have doubts and uncertainty, because they are human beings. On the flip side, Cedric's supportive mother has doubts as well; she is not a PFLAG poster mother, she has her bigotries and problems with tolerance versus acceptance. That is really new to gay films, I prefer it that way as well, because it shows realism. Our parents aren't going to completely support our sexuality, especially after centuries of cultural traditions and heterosexual norms. Even when they do attempt to accept us, they will need time to come to grips with a foreign concept. Second, Carole as the best friend, who loves Laurent, but has conflicting issues with him over her desire to be with him and her need to be loved by a man that loves her as well. Fag hags are people too and I like her character evolution in this movie, she is motivated by loce and desire, which are extremely primal emotions, but she rationally knows Laurent will never love her. Lastly, I want to talk about Laurent and Cedric. A partnership is not just a relationship, where one guy is a giver and the other is a taker, it is a mutual engagement of two people, personal, social, and professional. Marriages fall apart for the simplest reasons that somewhere along the line both people lose touch with one of those areas being an equal balance. I am not a relationship expert, I failed at a lot of relationships and am lonely myself, but one huge issue I see from films and I hope it does not get into LGBT culture is this "social settlement" for what is available rather than finding someone who is willing to travel the journey of life with you. In heterosexual terms, simply put, gay films create "marriages of convenience", just enough chemistry to be sexually attracted to one another and not enough motive to actually be together. Laurent wants to be with Cedric and Cedric wants to be with Laurent, they have a professional union, a social union, and a physical union as time passes. They can be playful, but the slow development of Laurent's interest in Agriculture (a boring major of study, but done well in this movie to show how even an unattractive field has merits). Cedric also learns some hard truths from this movie, he knows that his mother has issues, he knows he love Laurent, and overall I think Laurent has also ignited his own need to grow as a person. At the start of the film, I think Cedric has been depicted as falling into a rut of mediocrity, which is slowly turned around through the film's development as he begins to be challenged by Laurent and his life challenges. Without personal conflict, character evolution would not occur. Unlike American films like "Shelter", which I love as well, most of the characters in this movie are developed into human beings with flaws and strengths. I give this film 10 out of 10 rating Any other suggestions?

For the fried fish lovers here, I suggest trying fried flounder. It's a really juicy fish Here's a Before and After image: (I hate the little mermaid by the way ) Chinese Fried Flounder, we call it the dragon fish, which you can eat bones and scales with the method that we deep fried it.

I get that, I am just a pessimist. Some people live life happily, but some like me see storms on every horizon.

I know the British are famous for their Fish and Chips, but how many people have had perfectly fried clams, fresh and succulent fried oysters, and Fried Lobster that can only be from a New England joint. While steaming seafood is well known and accepted part of New England restaurants, Fried seafood is more of an acquired taste. Now I know some of you are healthy eaters or think I am a barbarian for dismembering an innocent lobster (I saw the movement of his pincers, he'd claw my balls off if given the chance ) However, seeing is believing, so I give you some pictures of Fried seafood: Tell me this doesn't make your mouth water

I don't doubt that there is life in the universe, nor do I doubt that we have much to learn from these unexplored worlds. However, I doubt how we measure the concept of intelligence or sapient behavior within species, because our sociological and environmental theory has an underlying self-consistency issue that would prevent intelligent life from maintaining itself without interference. I am speaking of Darwinian natural selection and conflict. Species grow in population, develop new skills to make them better survivors, and begin conflicts with other species to garner territory and resources. That line of reasoning has been true for nature (human nature as well despite what humanist want) for eons. Once you reach our level of advancement, nuclear and potentially Anti-matter based weaponry, what is the chances that such a civilization based on conflict would not destroy itself eventually before developing interstellar propulsion or interstellar communication? Can intelligent life develop without that? If measured in human contexts, I highly doubt it is even possible. We will likely destroy ourselves due to the same issues that have brought us our modern world and technologies. Maybe the reason we cannot find others like us in the universe is because our model of development remains too destructive in its nature to support itself over a long period of time. Any type of alien species that have gone past our level of development, would likely have to abandon this model in order to remain effective.

Malaysian Flight 17 has gone from human tragedy to something I can't put into words with this revelation. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/aids-conference-says-100-researchers-may-have-been-on-board-crashed-plane Yesterday, I thought this was a human tragedy. Today, I imagine not only those who have died on that plane, but the millions of people around the world, who may die, because such great minds were lost. There are many in the gay community, who are positive, so it is relevant to ponder what was lost to our community as an effect of this event. I am going to keep my blog short out of respect for an additional loss to our community.

US Intelligence believes that Malaysian flight 17 was shot down by a SAM (Surface to Air Missile): Confirmation of Missile strike on Malaysian Flight This is a horrendous act that has not been seen in European air space for a decade, according to the Gaurdian the last flight to be brought down was also near Ukrainian air space. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/17/history-of-airlines-shot-down-malaysia-airlines-mh17 I am not blaming either side for this senseless use of military weaponry on a civilian target. If this was intentional, no nation on earth should be allowed to be held unaccounted. Civilian targets are illegal under the Hague Conventions after World War II. The last couple of downed civilian aircraft have been "accidents" according to the involved nations, including the US, Russia, and Ukraine. However, with modern technology and new international standards on Civilian plane transponders, I highly doubt the perpetrator can claim ignorance or accidental firing without a great amount of incredulous fortune. No matter, who perpetrated this, it's tragedy of human nature. Whether it is the Ukrainian's overzealous need to protect their border or Russia's arrogant push to reclaim its "former glory" or rebel groups seeking to make a "point" to the world community, our human nature was at the heart of the story. As long as mankind lives, works, and strives, conflict is unavoidable; we can create laws, international groups, and hold protests all day long, can we change human nature? What is the point of it all, if mankind wants to knock off each other in some Darwinian joke that is life (if the meaning of life is in order to be sufficiently intelligent, you must kill your own kind until you destroy your entire species)? I just find the world to be considerably tragic and it's mostly our own fault, because we don't consider each other in our actions. Maybe that's just me, a selfish man, who as he grows older is becoming less selfish (Maybe, I'll vote Democrat one day at this rate. ) I am just reflecting and trying to find meaning in a world that doesn't seem to offer any.

I will neither concede nor continue the point of argument. Validity is as worthless as pride, because we still have people out there arguing over the validity of other historical events' importance for hunsreds of years after the fact. I am older and mature enough from the past experiences to know that pointless arguments are not worth the time as we will not agree. I have pointed to the facts and testimonial claims, which were reported to show it existed in 1912 public consciousness. However, racism and anti-immigrant sentiment were still quite strong. The conclusion reached were injust, but that was how the world worked. Trurh is in the beholder, my job is not to sway you. Btw, what happened to your review

Can we make an exception on the "clothing rule" for Male Athletes, Actors, and Musicians/singers? Nudity would be a privilege, not a taboo if we had that Honestly, social norms are a funny thing, we want some social norms and conventions. However, as a minority population, we don't want social norms to limit our social mobility and potential. Also, this is not something just Americans have problems with; Europeans have had the same issue with neighboring countries and African immigrant cultures for decades. (Zombie should look up the topic in the UK, though we can't discuss those points here in the Lounge due to its political nature) Social norms are relative to an individual, but a society as an aggregate is far more reserved to changes or new social acceptance of outside beliefs/personal attitudes, i.e. boys wearing dresses, gay marriage, or woman wearing a veil.

First about my movie reviews, I have decided to review the gay themed movie Juste une question d'amour, Expect to see that this sunday (I have decided to do my reviews on Sunday, so I don't over do it). As some of you remember, who know me over the years at GA, I can speak and write in french, so it's not a huge issue for me to review and watch French films Personally, I prefer them and German films to a lot of American gay themed movies. I also watch a bit of Chinese gay themed movies as a native Chinese speaker and Japanese BL films and Anime Now onto the main attraction of this blog: Food Porn, which unlike gay porn, I can show pictures Just thought I'd livin' up my blog with my other interest outside of Politics, movies, and business; I am an avid foodie. Some people prefer a slow migration towards meat, but I prefer skipping the appetizers and foreplay, so we can get to the good stuff: Perfectly cooked meat paired with a great sauce and wine is orgasmic And for the man who loves twinks, what is a good meaty course without a dessert: Remember to pack some antacids for protection

Good for the UK to put an extra long runway, but now you boys need a steam powered rocket ship

You have your opinion and I have mine By the way If you read the British reasons for ruling out the third class passenger claims, you would find some overt racism (Brits blaming "foreigners" for being ignorant and afraid to lose their luggage for so many staying in teerage deck). Americans like Britain was also unsympathetic to these new immigrants; though, they had advocates. While Dickens' characters were impoverished anglo saxons, a lot of the poorest laborers of industrial age were foreign migrant workers.

Aww, but I had a servants outfit fitted out for you (PS I challenged your point back in my other review with proof from the British Inquiry. You can disagree with me, but I doubt we will come to terms.) As for Queen Victoria, She was the Grandmother of Europe, so we can blame everything on her

Well, 1st to counter your argument that there, "The "crew atrocities" on the Titanic only came to light in the latter part of the 20th century", the testimony was heard by the both Inquiries, though the British Inquiry deemed it untrue http://www.titanicinquiry.org/BOTInq/BOTReport/botRep3rdClass.php As I said, they both heard the testimony, but it does not mean they acted on it. Still hearing it at least brought a light onto an existing issue. (Where do you think some of the later questions of crew mistreatment came from, wonder where the testimonial evidence came from ) As for the an example of an important change in the new recommended regulations was: So my point is "baby steps" toward progress and continued to be made as the stories began to filter into the mainstream from the eyewitnesses. So I have disproved your point that the testimony were not known back in 1912 and showed a slight improvement in safety conditions for third class passengers, who were the poorest segments of society. World War I did not end the old class system that existed at the time, it took 30 more years and another war to do that. Now I dare you to prove that World War I ended the British Class System and show proof

Well, it is more than a social change on a little island that had some big ships. The whole world saw new thoughts come out of world war I. Nationalism and skepticism rose to challenge imperialism and hierarchy. As for your fair isle, the most important immediate impact was the rise of Irish nationalism and colonial resistance to British rule. After the war, the class system still remained intact in England, but questions began to emerge challenging the established order. it was not an all out rebellion against British society (unless you count the Irish war and union unrest, whichr grew violent but the union issue left no immediate impact and the Irish war was settled with issues left for northern Ireland), but the real change was a slow social revolution of thought. One of the last nails in the coffin of old British class system was actually the American Great Depression, which compounded the existing social and ideological changes. So Zombie, you owe the US for screwing up the world the first time around for not being some aristocrats bottom servant boy .

Aww, you old Zombie, you'll live to see an English World Cup win, you're practically immortal Honestly though, there is a chance.