Gay Pride March in Delhi yesterday

Report from Queer Media Watch:

For a city of 14 million people, a gathering of a couple of hundred may seem miniscule. But for Delhi’s gay community, the turnout at their first-ever Queer Pride this Sunday was beyond belief. Over 500 marchers carrying rainbow-colored flags and ‘Queer Dilliwalla’ banners marched to bhangra beats, breaking into Bollywood-style pelvic thrusts and bust-heaving from time to time.

It took years of activism and advocacy — particularly fervent over the last few years — to make Delhi’s Queer Pride possible. In 2004, Voices Against 377, an umbrella group of 12 NGOs working on a range of issues from women’s rights to HIV/AIDS, was formed to file a case in the Delhi High Court against Section 377. (The case will have its final hearing on July 2 this year.) In 2006, celebrated author Vikram Seth wrote an open letter against Section 377, which was signed by the likes of Nobel-laureate Amartya Sen. “We just felt the time was right and Delhi was ready,” says Gautam Bhan, a city planner and gay activist, “We have come a long way from the ridiculous attitude that there are no gays in India. With this march, we hope to move from saying ‘Hey, we exist!’ to issues like respect and dignity.” A steady gay scene has slowly evolved in most metro cities including Delhi, and mainstream magazines like Time Out list gay socials. “Even smaller cities have a thriving gay scene today,” says Monga, “It happens on the quiet, but it’s there. Attitudes have definitely changed. If you don’t wave your sexuality in people’s faces, they let you be. There are jokes sometimes, but no organized anti-queer violence as in the West.”

The Times of India reports here.
"I could not imagine this kind of response 10 years ago. This march is a message to the political class of the country to give legitimacy to the community," said well-known gay rights activist Ashok Row Kavi.
Here are their pics.

Private Passions of the Archbishop of Canterbury

You still have a few hours to listen to the music choices of Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, interviewed by Michael Berkeley on Radio 3's Private Passions.

Update: Kate Chisholm also listened in for the Spectator and opines that the program produced a fascinating discussion between Williams and Berkeley about the inevitable conflict between belief and artistic expression. How can you reconcile the constraints of faith, the belief in God, and all the rules and boundaries that implies, with the imperative to question, to probe, to explore that is the essential driving force behind all creative endeavour?

So how does he resolve the conflict between being an artist and a believer?

Williams hesitated. ‘Faith,’ he began, ‘is not a mechanical, unquestioning obedience to something.’ Before going on to explain, ‘It’s almost thinking, well, here’s a structure, a vision, which gives me so much freedom I can test the boundaries as much as I like and somehow something is going to hold me up...Things are dissolving, the words aren’t holding up, and yet I can push the boundaries because there is...a voice.’

She continues:
Williams in conversation is like a poet, shaping and moulding words as if he were a potter with a lump of clay. Every sentence is qualified by the next, nothing is concrete; meaning fluidly segues from one thing into another. It’s all very well if you have the brain and hard drive of someone like him; not so easy for the rest of us, who need more help if we are to hold on to faith when in extremis. There’s a wonderful cerebral quality to Williams’s thinking; a daring to confront the abyss within, the darkest of human truths. And yet there was something also a bit dispiriting about listening to this conversation.

Perhaps it was because there was so little light relief, no admittance of the absurd and banal with which most of our daily lives are occupied. For sentimental music, Dr Williams chose Schumann’s piano concerto. An emotionally Romantic work, and yet still one step removed from the ephemeral laughter and tears which help us to get through the daily vicissitudes, the everyday crises which punctuate our lives.

Tom Ehrich on Anglican Bishops and Gay Pride

I'm in agreement with The Rev. Tom Ehrich who writes in the Indy Star about two groups of Anglican Bishops meeting presently in Jerusalem and Canterbury who will talk about little but sexuality, as if joblessness, warfare, surging inequalities, environmental destruction, tribal mayhem, mounting despair and fragile joys had no place at God's table. They will talk as if all God cared about now is sexuality, as if the entire Christian universe turned on whether men make love to men, and women to women, as if the provocative Gospel of Jesus Christ -- two-thirds of it about wealth and power, virtually none of it about sex -- were irrelevant to the 21st century.

As they do, their openly gay colleague from New Hampshire, whose consecration as bishop five years ago stirred the storm, will stand politely outside the circle, unwelcome. I wonder if any of our American bishops will have the courage to stand outside with him.

I'll take the parade. Not just its few hours of affirming dignity, freedom and acceptance, but its perspective.

He concludes by imagining where Jesus would be on Gay Pride day (celebrated in many cities tomorrow):

I think I know where Jesus will be next Sunday afternoon: marching for dignity, freedom and acceptance. But I know for sure where Jesus will be Monday morning: loving the lost, healing the sick, sustaining the hopeful, comforting the afflicted and inviting us to join hands in circles of faith.

Mandela's great legacy--Mugabe, are you listening?

At his 90th birthday bash in London, Nelson Mandela gave a speech to the crowd:
"We say tonight, after nearly 90 years of life, it is time for new hands to lift the burdens. It is in your hands now. I thank you."

Learning the ropes (baby hairy woodpeckers)

First, follow Dad and Mum encouraging them to continue feeding you. If not, try to feed yourself. Preferably from a steady food supply. But balancing on a feeder can be tricky.


Best of all, how about having your cake and eating it too?? That is, feeding yourself at the feeder and --at the same time--having Dad make sure you have enough. (BTW, these are different hairy woodpecker members of the next generation.)

From the AP comes alarming news:
The U.S. government secretly gathered personal data on more than 130,000 immigrants in the run-up to the war in Iraq, according to a purported FBI document attached to a lawsuit filed Tuesday demanding more detail about how the information was gathered and used.

The New York Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit against the Justice Department alleges that federal authorities may have violated the privacy of the immigrants under a previously undisclosed FBI program the document refers to as "Operation Darkening Clouds."

Obviously, there's more to follow.

Penitent Magdalene by Titian

Milan's Ambrosiana Library reports that a painting of Mary Magdalene has revealed the signature of Italian master Titian after a film of dirt was peeled away. 'This is a very important discovery,' said Msgr Franco Buzzi, head of Milan's Ambrosiana Library where the picture has been kept since the institution was founded in the early 17th century by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, the Milan archbishop immortalised in Manzoni's Promessi Sposi. Up till now the painting of Mary Magdalene was believed to have been painted by one of Titian's apprentices.

Morning Walk in June

Its one of those perfect Maine days--blue sky, fresh breeze and clear air. Reuben and I had a lovely long walk this morning.
Lupins and Queen Anne's Lace in a field look and smell good. A phoebe caught the morning sun on a wire. Telegraph poles and electrical wires still adorn our roads. Then a flicker flew onto the top of a nearby pine tree probably for the sun and also the view. We enjoyed our own view of the sea into the rising sun. Whether that's a loon or not is known only to God.

The birth (and death) of John the Baptist

We are all familiar with the account of the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus in Luke's gospel. But there are two other sources for information about JB outside the New Testament. In an interesting extra-biblical account, Josephus, the first century historian reports the death of John the Baptist in Jewish Antiquities, 18. Today is the feast of the birth of John the Baptist celebrated six months before Dec 25th, the birthday of Jesus, according to tradition. Josephus' account of JB is much less problematic than his account of Jesus, the Testimonium Flavianum. John is probably known to the Mandaeans, according to an essay by Prof Jorunn Buckley of Bowdoin College, "Turning the Tables on Jesus" in Christian Origins, A People's History of Christianity ed. Richard Horsley (2006).

Lantana and Reuben

Is this lantana not exquisite? And here's our surviving dog Reuben. This morning the sun appeared so he and I weeded and planted.

Tonight is Midsummer Night's Eve, also called St. John's Eve. St. John is the patron saint of beekeepers. Here's Gordon and Merlin getting ready for Midsummer Night's Eve by sniffing the Gloxinia.


It's a time when the hives are full of honey. The full moon that occurs this month was called the Mead Moon, because honey was fermented to make mead. That's where the word "honeymoon" comes from. Midsummer dew was said to have special healing powers. Women washed their faces in it to make themselves beautiful and young. They skipped naked through the dew to make themselves more fertile. It's a time for lovers. An old Swedish proverb says, "Midsummer Night is not long but it sets many cradles rocking." Midsummer Eve is also known as Herb Evening. Legend says that this is the best night for gathering magical herbs. Supposedly, a special plant flowers only on this night, and the person who picks it can understand the language of the trees.

BTW, I know this isn't the solstice anymore but its when Midsummer is celebrated by Europeans and Brazilians.

Speaking about cradles rocking, here's a new generation of baby hairy woodpeckers still being fed suet by Mama.