Monday, May 28, 2007

And One Wonders Why People Tell Polish Jokes...


Poland Investigates Tinky Winky For Homosexuality
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: May 28, 2007 - 4:00 pm ET


(Warsaw) The Polish government has reportedly begun an investigation to determine if Tinky Winky and other Teletubbies are promoting homosexuality to children.

The Reuters news service reported Monday that the government's watchdog for children's rights has asked a panel of psychologists to investigate the popular children's television series. Ewa Sowinska said she was concerned the popular show promoted homosexuality to unsuspecting minors.

Her remarks were immediately likened to those several years ago of the late US evangelist Jerry Falwell who accused Tinky Winky of being gay because he carried a purse. Falwell's remarks were largely dismissed at the time by even most of his evangelical supporters, but Poland's actions are the latest in a series of anti-gay moves that have European civil rights advocates concerned about a potential pogrom.


©365Gay.com 2007

R.I.P. Charles Nelson Reilly


That man has give me so many laughs in my life that I could not let his passing go by without a little tribute at FHP.

Thanks for the fun Charles.

Charles Nelson Reilly, Tony Award-Winning Broadway Actor and Comic, Dies at 76

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

Charles Nelson Reilly, the Tony Award winner who later became known for his ribald appearances on the "Tonight Show" and various game shows, has died. He was 76.

Reilly died Friday in Los Angeles of complications from pneumonia, his partner, Patrick Hughes, told the New York Times. Reilly began his career in New York City, taking acting classes at a studio with Steve McQueen, Geraldine Page and Hal Holbrook. In 1962, he appeared on Broadway as Bud Frump in the original Broadway production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." The role won Reilly a Tony Award. He was nominated for a Tony again for playing Cornelius in "Hello, Dolly!" In 1997 he received another nomination for directing Julie Harris and Charles Durning in a revival of "The Gin Game."

After moving to Hollywood in 1960s he appeared as the nervous Claymore Gregg on TV's "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" and as a featured guest on "The Dean Martin Show."

He gained fame by becoming what he described as a "game show fixture" in the 1970s and 80s. He was a regular on programs like "Match Game" and "Hollywood Squares," often wearing giant glasses and colorful suits with ascots.

His larger-than-life persona and affinity for double-entendres also landed him on the "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson more than 95 times. Reilly ruefully admitted his wild game show appearances adversely affected his acting career. "You can't do anything else once you do game shows," he told The Advocate, the national gay magazine, in 2001. "You have no career."

His final work was an autobiographical one-man show, "Save It for the Stage: The Life of Reilly," about his family life growing up in the Bronx. The title grew out of the fact that when he would act out as a child, his mother would often admonish him to "save it for the stage." The stage show was made into the 2006 feature film called "The Life of Reilly." Reilly's openly gay television persona was ahead of its time, and sometimes stood in his way. He recalled a network executive telling him "they don't let queers on television."

Hughes, his only immediate survivor, said Reilly had been ill for more than a year. No memorial plans had been announced.




Yabba-Dabba Science



I am intrigued by this new museum in Kentucky (where else would it be?) known as The Creation Museum. It posits that the Earth was created 6,000 (that's right... six thousand) years ago and that men and dinosaurs roamed the Earth together. An editorial in the LA Times sums it up best:

Yabba-dabba science

Note to would-be Creation Museum visitors: the Earth is round.

May 24, 2007

THE CREATION MUSEUM, a $27-million tourist attraction promoting earth science theories that were popular when Columbus set sail, opens near Cincinnati on Memorial Day. So before the first visitor risks succumbing to the museum's animatronic balderdash — dinosaurs and humans actually coexisted! the Grand Canyon was carved by the great flood described in Genesis! — we'd like to clear up a few things: "The Flintstones" is a cartoon, not a documentary. Fred and Wilma? Those woolly mammoth vacuum cleaners? All make-believe.

Science is under assault, and that calls for bold truths. Here's another: The Earth is round.

The museum, a 60,000-square-foot menace to 21st century scientific advancement, is the handiwork of Answers in Genesis, a leader in the "young Earth" movement. Young Earthers believe the world is about 6,000 years old, as opposed to the 4.5 billion years estimated by the world's credible scientific community. This would be risible if anti-evolution forces were confined to a lunatic fringe, but they are not. Witness the recent revelation that three of the Republican candidates for president do not believe in evolution. Three men seeking to lead the last superpower on Earth reject the scientific consensus on cosmology, thermonuclear dynamics, geology and biology, believing instead that Bamm-Bamm and Dino played together.

Religion and science can coexist. That the Earth is billions of years old is a fact. How the universe came into being and whether it operates by design are matters of faith. The problem is that people who deny science in one realm are unlikely to embrace it in another. Those who cannot accept that climate change may have caused the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago probably don't put much stock in the fact that today it poses grave peril to the Earth as we know it.

Last year, the White House attempted to muzzle NASA's top climatologist after he called for urgent action on global warming, and a presidential appointee in the agency's press office chastised a contractor for mentioning the Big Bang without including the word "theory." The press liaison reportedly wrote in an e-mail: "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA."

With the opening of the Creation Museum, young people will be getting another side of the story. Too bad it starts with "Yabba-dabba-doo!

If this doesn't alarm you, it should. The fact that these right wing nuts running for President said that they don't believe in evolution, during a nationally televised debate... where everyone can hear them say it, shows just how dangerous these people are. Just think about that one for a while.