The Wheel and Axle

Laugh and cry at the same time: this is an amazing story from last month about an amazing friendship between a comedian and a 14-year old boy, perhaps one of the bravest boys in the world. This is strength. This is resilience. This is hope. ❤️

P.S. NSFW language and some visuals. Because: human dildos and stuff.

It’s IDAHOT once again, that is, the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia. And like I once said, everyday shoud be IDAHOT because our struggle is everyday.

That said, today is a special day to raise further awareness across the globe about the issues and hatred that the LGTB community continues to face. There has been traction in various legislations as well as social acceptance, but we still have a long way to go.

May 17th is a particularly relevant choice for IDAHOT. It was chosen because this was the day – back in 1990 – that homosexuality was removed by the World Health Organization (WHO) from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).

In other words, it was the day that somehow – even though it should have been a given from the onset – validated that we are not a plague upon humanity.

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Yes, that’s my beautiful mother when she won her crown.

I’ve always been a Mama’s Boy. Now, as I’m all grown up and adulting, I may not be as clingy as I was when I was a little boy who absolutely could not go anywhere without his Mama.

Still, how could I ever not love the woman who not only gave birth to me but who raised us all as a working mom?

That, and the fact that she won a beauty pageant when she was in high school.

Okay, granted it was a local one.

But as a friend once accurately put it, a crown is still a crown. Haha.

Also, beauconera si mudra. Alam na. Haha.

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Leave it to the Europeans to creatively put the Orange Monster in his place.

This had me in stitches, and by George! I have no idea why I just couldn’t stop laughing.

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Today is May Day, an ancient spring festival for the Northern Hemisphere that had pagan roots (the Roman Floralia and the Germanic Hexennacht. However, as with many such ancient festivals, it has become both Christianized (with Catholics beginning May-long Marian devotions and celebrations) as well as secularized (with Western countries crowning the May Queen, among others).

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Yesterday, being a member of Babaylanes, Inc. (the alumni organization of UP Babaylan), I joined a meeting of various LGBT groups and allies. A number of these groups were part of the umbrella LGBT network Lagablab, including my two aforementioned orgs, although there were also plenty of representatives from non-Lagablab groups. There were also non-affiliated individuals. We all had one goal.

The meeting was held as a forum on what we as a community can further do to lobby support for the Anti-Discrimination Bill. As I’d previously noted, this important piece of legislation has been in congress for some time now, and the most recent version is the furthest the bill has made it so far. Of course, this being Philippine politics and all, interpellations kept on getting delayed and delayed until Congress went on hiatus in March.

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And these taxi companies have the gall to say Uber and Grab are taking away business from them. Reality check: TNVs provide the service that taxis have been unable to.

If the idiot taxi operators want their business to go up again, then they better start ridding themselves of these thugs and hooligans.

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I confess that I have never really read Margaret Atwood, not in full at least. My friend Deo is of course a fan, and he already piqued my interest when we first met in Jessica’s workshop a few years back. I still never got around to it, though.

This will soon change, I believe, after seeing the trailer for Hulu’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale. Just watching the trailer gives me goosebumps, especially given how relevant the story still is for the current global political climate despite having been written in 1985. And now, I definitely need to read the book before I jump into this series.

I get the feeling I’ll be in for a cross-media treat.

This is old but still hilarious AF. What’s even more hilarious is how some people thought it was real. Parody generally isn’t for the brain-deficient, though to be fair, we’ve seen beauty pageant contestants talk about opposite sex marriage and “Iraq, everywhere like, such as,” so can we blame those who actually believed there were anti-Math advocates?

Especially when you consider the very real video being parodied and how moronic some of those real life contestants were.

Lord save us from the idiots.

She may have been a polarizing political figure, but former Australian Prime Minister – and the first female head of state of the country – Julia Gillard was at least on point almost five years ago when she gave a scathing, powerful, and historic speech condemning misogyny and sexism.

It remains relevant to this day and needs to be reflected upon by all.

Here are highlights of the epic take down of a misogynist.