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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > Looking at news....
Looking at news....  [message #59926] Wed, 02 December 2009 19:54 Go to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



As part of my planning I started to look at 365gay.com. What I think everyone will not remember is that ages ago iomfats.org used to carry a gay wire news service on the home page. There were, in those days, some technical issues that meant we removed it. And I think it may well have been from this site.

I found myself substantially at odds with the editor in chief editorially (gosh doesn't that sound grand! I just mean I disagreed with her take on a story) a day or two ago, at http://timtrent.blogspot.com/2009/11/adam-lambert-kisses-keyboard-player.html where I think she got it hugely wrong, but that doesn't mean that the site carries poor news.

Today I saw something that horrified me: http://www.365gay.com/news/government-backed-chinese-gay-bar-stays-empty/ is the article. It speaks of a government sponsored gay bar in China. That sounds superb, a government sponsored gay bar. Progress in a previously antagonistic régime is to be thankful for.

But be careful.

Do some research to 1930s Germany about Jewish social clubs, clubs where Jews were encouraged, clubs where membership was prized, clubs sponsored or encouraged by the ruling power of the time. And why was that?

If you want to annihilate a group of people it makes your life far easier if you know where they are.

I'm putting these two articles in front of you for a reason.

I don't much care if you agree with my viewpoint on my blog, or Vanasco's. I don't much care if you agree with my take on the Chinese gay club or think I'm barking up the wrong tree. What I care about is whether you find this type of thing interesting. I care about it having value to add here. I care that it allows you to know about other things, that you might choose to care about.

That doesn't mean I want to patronise you by teaching you things. I have very little that I can teach you. It means that I want to be able to present stories like this for you to comment upon, for you to judge, for you to interest others in, and, most importantly, for you to ignore whenever you want to.

But I would like reactions to this post, please. or reactions to the stories, or comments, or anything, really. Smile



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Looking at news....  [message #59928 is a reply to message #59926] Wed, 02 December 2009 20:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
saben is currently offline  saben

On fire!

Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537



I don't trust most western governments so I'd be highly suspicious of anything "pro-gay" the Chinese government did.

If I were Chinese I'd stick to cruising parks.



Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
Re: Looking at news....  [message #59929 is a reply to message #59926] Wed, 02 December 2009 22:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
NW is currently offline  NW

On fire!
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1558



Yup, I am interested in the Chinese story, and especially the parallel you draw to Jewish clubs. This is something that has a relevance to any of us who have ever voluntarily worn the pink triangle.

I confess to having read the Adam Lambert (who he?) story on your blog: it was for me so uninteresting and unmemorable that I had to re-visit your blog to check whether or not I'd previously read it. It failed to speak to me on any level.

It may well, of course, be completely the other way round for other people.



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Re: Looking at news....  [message #59932 is a reply to message #59929] Wed, 02 December 2009 22:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



That says to me perfectly reasonably that one story is immediately ignorable. So what we need is a presentation mechanism that allows that story to be both displayed and then easily ignored while recognising that a different reader from you has different requirements.

[And I have no idea who Lambert is either. I just found the article I commented on to be one that annoyed me Smile]



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Looking at news....  [message #59938 is a reply to message #59932] Wed, 02 December 2009 23:37 Go to previous message
NW is currently offline  NW

On fire!
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1558



I suspect that's going to be difficult within a page, but I hope I'm wrong!

For me, the ideal is something like InfoRSS - scrolling new RSS headlines, pop-up window when I hold the mouse over a headline showing first few lines of post, right-click to bin, left-click to open article in new tab.

Alas, as you say, it's in the browser, not in the screen, so not the kind of thing that would work here. But thoroughly recommended for anyone interested in rolling news updates!



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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