Remembering 9/11

There is no need to retell the horrible trail of events which came to be at this very day, five years ago. A day in which many people sacrificed their lives. Office workers, security guards, firemen, police officers and many many more.
For them I will keep this post short, and hold my silence for a few minutes to honor those that passed away on that unlucky day...
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One of the center questions will always be 'Why?' And 'How?'. And I can be certain when I say that these questions will remain to haunt our everyday lives, unless we find an answer. And to find an answer, one must go out and search. But, however much so many of us would like to know the truth, it is beyond most of our means to do so. It is not a lack of will, but a lack of resources.
Fortunately, there are those that do have the resources. And they investigated, coming up with what could be seen as one of the most important wake-up calls one could imagine in this day and age. To all these lines reach, I implore you to go in search of a documentary called "Loose Change". If you cannot find it, go to the following page, where google has so kindly hosted the entire documentary. [url=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5946593973848835726]Google Vids[/url], or simply search the videos of google for "Loose Change" or 9/11 or something like that.
The documentary contains shocking imagery and a substantial amount of proof (or, if not valid enough to be considered as such, plenty of damn good reasons to make one question the events) about the real goings on during those hours on 9/11. Not everything they present may be feasible, not every single thing may seem legit, but there is plenty in there to set your mind to work. I hope many, many people will see this documentary and use their own heads, to think for themselves and do take a stand for if what this documentary shows is true, it should not be tolerated.

Like I said, I cannot be certain of the legitimacy of anything, but I can say that the fact that there is so much to be seen there, along with some pretty impressive proof that cannot have been faltered with, makes it very believable.

In the honor of those that perished on 9/11/2001, let us for once look at the facts stalled out before us and take action. If this documentary rings true, then terrorism is far nearer than we would be made to believe.

(There are no pictures in this post because I believe nobody needs visual affirmation of the events of 9/11 because it has been etched into our memory for a long, long time)

THINGS THAT JUST DON'T WORK...

Oh, I know where to start!
A rant!
A rant, yes, about nothing less than last Saturday's (The 26th of August) big happening in Europe. Gay-wise, that is. Yes, it was finally time for the prestigious (...), long awaited (...) Mr. Gay Europe award!

Now, I must admit myself to be someone who barely ever watches the news, or reads a newspaper, but somehow I always seem to get my information passing by televisions which happen to be showing the news, or listening to the radio which happens to be broadcasting it at that time, or even just surfing on the web or talking to some people.

Yet, in this 'hug-the-homo' tolerant country of ours (excuse my cynicism), I heard nothing. At all. Well, not from the news, anyway. Apparently, it's been on one news show or another, but between the so many different ones that are all on tv at the same time, that just really doesn't help. I had to find out when I surfed in on the site that usually keeps me a little bit up to date on these things (in addition to flooding me with useless information) and there it was, ads everywhere...buy tickets here, go see it there, there's so much to do, it's going to be a huge event, et cetera et cetera.
Now, don't get me wrong. Any excuse to watch me a few rather good-looking boys/men (it seems the definitions are a bit widely scattered among the world population on those) in swim suits or otherwise minimal clothing I'll gladly take. And enjoy it, obviously. No such luck. I couldn't even find the channel it was on...so much for media coverage... -_-.
But, I don't want to rant on about just that, it's more the Award itself, and the whole busybody party around it that caught my interest. Somewhere some apparently important person for the gay world in our country said, that 'to make the issue of homosexuality something people can discuss in stead of suppress, we must be seen clearly.' Obviously, 'we' referred to the gay Europeans. For once, I actually agree with a politician-like figure and what he's saying. Well, ok, I agree with politician-like figures a whole lot, usually...
Anyway, as usual when politics are involved, it goes terribly wrong. Yes, we must be seen. I'm all for that. If we show our undeniable prescence, if we show that we're there even though they (the oppressors) try to deny it, we might get some form of action. However, what kind of action that would be...that would depend at least a little on the kind of way we let ourselves be seen. Is a beauty queen pageant really the best way to begin visibility in Europe?
Quite honestly, I think it had more to do with the city of Amsterdam. For years, it had been the so-called Gay Capital of Europe, because it was a city supposedly filled with tolerance, and lots of places to have a good time for gay people. However, in the last few years it's been declining and other European cities have been on the rise, placing Amsterdam no longer at the top of the list. And now, in this down-time, there just happens to pop up a Europe-wide gay event, right in the middle of the city! How convenient! 'See? See how we're so good and tolerant and great around here that we can have a fabulous Mr. Gay Europe Award party here? Aren't we great?' I can practically see the mayor and his council of suits with brains, gloating...
Meanwhile, the Macedonian contestant in the Awards program was threatened in his home country before he came out here! He was approached by several people of the press (after it became known that he was going to participate in this Awards thing), whom threatened with publicising information about him to the national press. Might not seem like a big deal, depending on where you;re from, but in Macedonia, making it public one is gay equals something they like to call 'social suicide' (which is technically wrong anyway since he's not the one publicising his own information...), or as I call it 'social murder'. But, the kind gentlemen of the organisation (which happened to be dutch, and you can bet your ass one of them was on the board of whatchamacallits in city hall, or at least connected to one of those) assured him nothing was going to go wrong and he would be protected.
Well, if you ever needed proof this was just a publicity stunt for Amsterdam...putting some pageant's perfection above the physical (and mose likely mental) health of anyone is just plain ridiculous. But, he came, and the pageant was a succes (well, succes meaning there was nobody killed or severly injured, and there were no French people present. Oh, did I mention I dislike the French? Nothing personal...). The winner, Mr. Gay Europe 2006, is Nándor Gyöngyösi, a 29-year old guy from Hungaria, shown to your right. I'd have personally gone for someone else but he obviously deserves his title. (To clarify, this wasn't just some barbies-prancing-on-stage pageant. There were actual debates held that greatly influenced the outcome of this ceremony) One of his reactions was the following: 'I want to fight for gay rights. Europe needs a gay rights movement. That's what I'm going to fight for.'
A very admirable goal. No sarcasm intended. He's perfectly right, of course. At the moment, tolerance in the best countries means that you won't get beat up on a daily basis for what you are. Imagine most of the countries to the east, like aforementioned Macedonia, in which the situation of gay people is so bad that they probably wander the streets thinking nothing but 'if only they knew...' (and I have to say, I've walked around like that for a while, I know there are more that have, and it's not something I'd recommend. Ever.).
They need someone that speaks up for them, they, no, we, as Europe, need to speak up. And we need to do so with people that are generally interested in liberating the gays of Europe, and nothing else. No political or financial plans behind the scenes because that crap really pisses me off. And I personally don't see much of this 'Mr. Gay Europe' stuff in the near future if you really want that.
You don't get accepted because you just smashed their windows with a sledgehammer. I really don't think the anti-gay (I mean the group of people that's not accepting of homosexuality) community is just bouncing on it's chair and tuning in on the Mr. Gay Europe 'Pageant' to see what kind of hunky flesh is parading around in a bathing suit/speedo. Of course, you say, but that's not all it is. You're right, it's not. But it's the one thing they will see, remember and condescend on anyway. What we need is a way to show that gay people really arent that much different from nongay people. (Don't ever try using the word normal as opposed to gay when you're talking to me. It pisses me off royally) What they need to see is that the sports star they've been adoring for years just happens to be gay. That the nice man at the grocery store that always helps the old ladies get things off the top shelves just happens to be gay. That the man who's saved a life or two just happens to be gay, et cetera et cetera.
Sure, it won't be a miracle cure. Things won't change overnight. This kind of thing takes a long, long time, and the fact that the dutch seemed to have started tolerance so early is that over the long years the country had just developped a habit. One that may come back to slap us in the face, but a good habit overall. People need to accept that most countries have an antigay state of mind imprinted on them. It's been like that for decades, centuries. That doesn't just wash away.
So, for the time being, I really hope Mr. Gay Europe 2006 can push through and start something upon which a future can be built. I just hope they realise that ramming through the front door or parading around being flashy and begging attention just isn't going to work...People need to stop looking short-term and start thinking long-term. A ten-year plan that gets over 50% over is by far better than a one or two-year campaign that barely manages to raise an eyebrow or two.

To the antigay people in the world, I just leave this final message.(In case you're blind: Respect Diversity. Walk a mile in our shoes.)
Source (of the facts in this article): Gay.nl

Well, this is my blog. To warn you, I can be quite lazy. Ok, really lazy. But that also sort of depends on what I have to do so never mind.
I'm terrible in thinking of things to write for a blog, which is pretty ironic considering one of my greatest hobbies is writing novels and I always have an opinion about something (which is, mostly, elaborate and well-formulated, if the matter interests me enough).
So, I thought about the concept of writing about what other people think are thinking about. So, I will take requests from anyone about matters which they would like to hear about. I can't promise to grant every request, nor can I guarantee that everything will be top notch. There's a lot of stuff which I dont know about, but things can be taught, and the internet is a welcome means of acquiring information.
However, until I have actually gotten requests, I will simply look around, read and watch and listen the news, and post a bit about that. Maybe once a week, maybe more often. It depends on how many interesting issues there are.

If you want to know anything about me, my profile should tell you a little. Scientific subjects will not be a problem for me, since I am a bit of a scientist. Of course, I'm no rocket scientist (Though, I have to wonder whether they would really require so much knowledge...), but I get around in the world of science fairly well.

Well, that's it. I will start watching the news and such, and hope for someone to request something. If not, I'll just keep on writing about the news. Cheers.