Tag: interviews

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Save the Whales

Today on CNN, they’re talking a lot about the Japanese having responded to protests about their planned whale hunt; that is, for the first time ever, the Japanese government has agreed not to hunt humpback whales. But they’re still planning on hunting more than a 1000 other wales, including Fin Whales, which they’re doing with the bullshit explanation that the hunt is for “scientific purposes.”

On CNN they interview some Joe who says, “Well eating veal could be considered cruel too, so where do you draw the line?”

The line is that whales can’t be raised domestically as a food source. They are only wild, and they are endangered. Veal are not. Would it really be that hard for CNN to find someone who is born a carnivore & a concerned animal lover to make that point?

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Gibson Girl

When I spoke at Columbia a while back, students were utterly convinced that we are making progress. They were specifically talking about gender issues and fashion, and I had to disagree with them, at least about clothes, since there were more ways to play with sartorial gender in the ’70s and especially the ’80s than there are now.

But it cracked me up to see William Gibson, of all people, talking about exactly how much progress we haven’t made:

In the past ten years, we’ve seen incredible advances in nanotechnology and synthetic biology. Does any of it amaze you?

My assumption has always been that at some point we would lock on to a literally exponential increase in human knowledge. That was my best guess, somewhere back in the Seventies. There hasn’t been anything that made me sit back and say, “Golly, I would never have imagined that.” The aspects of recent history that have caused me to do that have been, in every case, manifestations of retrograde human stupidity.

How do you mean?

It’s been an extraordinarily painful decade or so. I just never in my wildest dreams could have imagined that it could get as fucked up as this guy [George Bush]. It still amazes me how dumb so much of our species can manage to be. But that’s kind of like being amazed at life.

There you have it, folks: manifestations of retrograde human stupidity, indeed.

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The First Man-Made Man

So I read The First Man-Made Man by Pagan Kennedy not long ago, and I’m going to ‘fess up: this book really bothered me. The research seemed solid. The topic was interesting & book-worthy. But it was also somewhat repetitive, and I felt the plot arch was mis-played; you find out too much of the story upfront, & so there isn’t so much story to keep up the second half of the book.

But that’s not what bothered me so much: the tone of the book was remarkably condescending. The interview with the monk at the end just felt like a dick joke. & A lot of the time, the narration made me so uncomfortable I really just wanted to read the actual manuscript the first trans man wrote, instead. (Although from what I hear, no one seems to know if a copy exists at all anymore, or not.)

Don’t get me wrong: this is a valuable & interesting book & really gets at how remarkably new the tech was; I especially enjoyed the section on the early practitioners of plastic surgery. But it just felt to me that the author never really believed he was a guy at all, which strikes me as a remarkably unsympathetic way to write about not just transness, but about a trans man who was so inexorably alone as a trans person. Michael Dillon strikes me as a remarkable soul who had a tremendous amount of integrity and bravery, and frankly, this book gives you just enough about him to know that the book didn’t do him justice.

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Up Closer & More Personal

As she promised on the air during our last interview, Bonnie Graham of WGBB’s Up Close & Personal is having us back on her show to talk some more about relationships, change, & gender. Do tune in as we’ve got the whole hour, from 6-7 PM.

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Carnival of Bent Attractions

This month, I get the pleasure of hosting the ongoing Carnival of Bent Attractions, and there’s a nice sampling of interesting LGBT Bentness to be had:

First, an interview with no other than sex-positive educator Susie Bright from the financially-minded set at Queercents, where we find out Ms. Bright worked in a cathouse but wasn’t getting paid for sex amonst other things;

Then, a review of a Thursday night Transvestite party in Buenos Aires, written by Oliver Hartman and posted on the Argentina’s Travel Blog site. Mr. Hartman didn’t know what to expect, and didn’t seem to know what was what (or who was whom):

I’m not entirely sure when the show ended, but there was some sort of conga line and crazy swan costume involved.

I wonder if it wasn’t a chicken.

Further still, a commentary on Craig’s wide stance on The Agonist, which tries to understand the likes of Craig and how they can claim not to be gay:

Perhaps it’s because many or most of them, like Craig, genuinely think they aren’t gay, despite enjoying gay sex?

& Finally, to wrap things up, SF Brawny Bear answers the question, “What does Bear Pride Mean to You?” on the blog Bear Bones. (But who does Bear bone, exactly?)

Nice roundup. Next month, our various Bent Attractions move on to a new ride at the Carnival.