From the ‘Calling-All-Bears’ file: The Chicago Sun-Times (6/16) tells us that Lloyds of London, THE insurance underwriters of the rich and eccentric are offering to cover … loss of chest hair. ‘As with all policies, the small print is important. Hair loss from nuclear contamination, terrorism, mass destruction, war, invasion or revolution is not covered, nor is loss from skin-diving, hunting on horseback or hang-gliding. Fire-eaters are specifically excluded.’ How about sling chaffing? Perhaps that’s covered under hang-gliding.
The NY Times (6/14) reports that Sen. Kenneth S. Wherry (died 1951) has been nominated to Nebraska’s Hall of Fame. Wherry was a follower of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his specialty was removing gays from the federal government in the 1940s and 1950s. Malcolm X (born in Omaha) was the runner-up nominee.
The Chicago Tribune (6/16) highlights a new comic book series ‘Y: The Last Man’. All male mammals, except one Yorick Brown and his pet monkey die. The comic explores the implications of this idea (done before in Phillip Wylie’s novel The Disappearance) by asking what happens to the army, the government, business. Left unasked in the article is: what happens to romance? Does lesbianism become rampant (or even worse, ordinary)? Many interested parties are waiting for the bound issues to be sold as graphic novels. And here’s a little tidbit to chew on till you get a copy: a group of performers travel the (transformed) U.S.A. calling themselves the Fish and Bicycle Theater Troupe.
Not that it’s terribly edifying or a good role model, but the London Review of Books (6/3) informs us that there certainly have been same-sex marriages in the past. Fik Meijer’s new book, Emperor’s Don’t Die in Bed, is a brief history of the Roman empire structured around its leaders’ deaths. Emperor Heliogaballus married a man (and also three women) but was bumped off when he was 18.
The Independent (6/15) reports on the Hindu extremist group, activists from the student wing of the far-right Shiv Sena party are attempting to stop the screening of a Bollywood lesbian-themed movie Girlfriend. The movie treats lesbianism as a psychopathic illness and is not likely to be a favorite of India’s gay community. Besides, the Independent adds, the conservative Hindu party lost national elections and the government is now unlikely to support this censorship.
An article on African gays in the Chicago Tribune (6/9) points out, among other things, a paradox involving Namibian gays: a decade ago it was common and accepted to see gay men holding hands in Windhoek (the capital of Namibia). Lesbians were accepted by some ethnic cultures. In a bid to be modern, though, national leaders have turned anti-gay. One government official has written a treatise on ‘curing’ homosexuals by sawing off the top of their skulls and washing the brain with a chemical solution.