вторник, 20 юли 2010 г.

Хомосексуалните мениджъри в Германия все още се крият

Гей по месторабота

Проклятието  да си различен

Проклятието да си различен

Гейовете и лесбийките в Германия редовно стават жертва на дискриминация по месторабота. Има дори случаи на физическа агресия. Но положението им постепенно се подобрява, за което допринасят техните организации.

В така наречения „Кръжец от Фьолклинген” са обединени над 800 хомосексуални мъже, които заемат ръководни позиции или пък са частни предприемачи. Кръжецът следи за случаи на дискриминация срещу хомосексуалните. Неприкритата дискриминация намалява, но скритата все още е широко разпространена, особено в селските райони и във фирмите с особено консервативни шефове.

Хомосексуалността - аморална за 20 процента от германците

Хомосексуалността - аморална за 20 процента от германците

Между 2 и 4 милиона са хомосексуалните германци

Агресията срещу гейовете и лесбийките често пъти се изразява в подмолни интриги, в намеци и инсинуации, срещу които е трудно да се съпротивляваш. Жените с хомосексуална ориентация също вече имат своя организация, която се бори срещу дискриминацията на работното място. В нея членуват 190 икономически активни жени.

В Германия хората със хомосексуална ориентация са между 2 и 4 милиона, твърди техният официален съюз. Според едно независимо проучване на университета в Кьолн сред 2.230 респонденти, на работното си място близо половината гейове и лесбийки крият този факт, близо две трети от тях са преживявали случаи на дискриминация по месторабота, 10 процента дори са били жертва на физически посегателства. Например, някой уж случайно ще ти подложи крак или ще те цапардоса със затръшнатата врата.

Кръжецът от Фьолклинген на всеки две години присъжда наградата „Макс Шпор” на мениджъри, които полагат специални усилия за равнопоставеността на различните малцинства в своите фирми. Наградата е посветена на лайпцигския книгоиздател Макс Шпор, който в края на ХІХ-ти век активно се бори за еманципацията на сексуалните малцинства, издава над 120 книги по тази тема и в крайна сметка дори попада в затвора с присъда за „разпространение на развратна литература”.

Журито за наградата взима под внимание грижата за правата не само на хомосексуалните хора, но и на други жертви на дискриминация: жените, чужденците, социално слабите. Досега наградата е била присъждана на такива известни фирми като САП, Фолксваген Банк, Дойче Бан (германските железници), Форд и Дойче Банк.

Мнозина все  още се крият...

Мнозина все още се крият...

Гейовете не стават за шефове?

Кръжецът от Фьолклинген установява, че - когато става дума за отношението към работници и служители с хомосексуална ориентация - има огромна разлика между големите международни концерни и средните преприятия. Някои от големите фирми дори са изградили вътрешнофирмени мрежи за хомосексуалните. Например GL@D в Даймлер, Рейнбоу Груп в Дойче Банк или ХомоСАПиенс в САП.

Първопроходник в това отошение е концернът Ай Би Ем, чиято вътрешноведомствена мрежа Ийгъл обединява вече над 1.000 хомосексуални служители. В тези вътрешнофирмени мрежи все по-често се включват и хора на ръководни позиции. Доскоро това почти не се случваше, защото темата беше табу сред големите началници. Сред мениджърите представата за мъжа-началник все още е твърде архаична: той непременно трябва да е набъбнал от тестостерон и непреклонно да преследва успеха. Не пасваш ли в това клише - значи не ставаш за шеф.

Ето защо хомосексуалните мениджъри в Германия все още се крият: един ще доведе някоя братовчедка в ролята на съпруга на официалния обяд, друг ще се снима на плажа с близка позната и после ще окичи бюрото си с тази уж семейна фотография...


Радио "Дойче веле" / Space4men

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Bg man cock


събота, 17 юли 2010 г.

RUMI

RUMI

Another Male's Love Inspired Persia's Mystic Muse

1207 --1273

By Warren D. Adkins

The world's great mystic poets have indeed been a select bunch. Many, if not true-blue homosexuals, were at least homoerotics or homophiles. Its hard to say exactly where the great Persian poet, Rumi, fits onto such gay-male scales, but its certain, at least, he loved�passionately-- a particular man�a man who inspired most of his greatest poetic work from start to finish.

Rumi clothed devotion to God, as did his father, in sensuous language, making references to every day events and celebrating fleshly beauty. Present-day scholars are often shocked by the references that flowed like rivers from his uninhibited pen.

Rumi was born (September 30, 1207) in Balkh, now part of Afghanistan, but in those years a part of the Persian Empire. In 1215, when a child, his family whisked him off to Turkey, in flight from Mongol armies that had invaded their home region. The poet's new home�in those days�was called Roman Anatolia, thus inspiring the young mystic singer's chosen name, Rumi.

In some respects, perhaps, Rumi followed in the footsteps of his father, Bahauddin (Light of the Faith) Walad, a mystic too, but also a jurist and a theologian. Upon this elder's death, Rumi became a sheikh, instructing a learning community of dervishes. Such dervishes were much given to ecstatic experiences, mind-states in which they attained what they believed to be absolute personal union with God, a concept that remains heretical in many Islamic and Christian circles.

Life for the young Rumi was typical for religious scholars in his time, and consisted of helping the poor, spending hours in focused meditation, and teaching the rudiments of mystical spirituality to aspiring students.

But in 1244, a wandering dervish, the legendary mystic, Shams of Tabriz, entered Rumi's never-to-be-the-same existence. Shams, it is said, had crossed and re-crossed the Persian Empire seeking Allah's help in the finding a friend who might be able to "endure" his companionship.

After traveling afar a voice came to Shams in a vision asking him what he was willing to give up in return if he were granted the companionship of such a friend. "My head," he replied.

The voice sent him thereafter to the town where Rumi resided. The two men united, the legends tell, after it was clear to each that neither would cease their journeying toward the divine by assuming it found in its entirety. One taste of the divine seemed, for most mystics, sufficient. But for both Rumi and Shams, "the way was always unfolding."

They became inseparable.

Coleman Barks, translator (with ineffable grace) of the great Persian poet's works, writes:

"Their Friendship is one of the mysteries. They spent months together without any human needs, transported into a region of pure conversation."

This relationship, according to Barks, "caused difficulties in the religious community" Other men, to whom Rumi had been close, felt neglected. In the midst of such controversies, Shams suddenly disappeared, leaving as unexpectedly as he'd arrived.

Following this first departure, it is believed, Rumi's transformation into an artist- mystic began. He sang with gusto, danced in the realm of the spirits, and began to write poems that would last through the centuries ahead, inspiring not only his Persian countrymen, but men and women in faraway lands who generally described themselves as dumb-struck with awe at the insight and beauty his words conveyed.

But Rumi missed Shams terribly. He discovered that his friend had gone to Damacus, and begged that he return. When they became reunited for a second time, the legends say, they fell at each other's feet so that "no one knew who was lover and who the beloved." Though both men were married (Shams married a young girl who'd been sheltered in Rumi's home) their relationship became so intense with its celebrations of mystic communication-- that jealousies�as once before�erupted.

One night�in their room�on December 5, 1248, as they embraced with communicative fervor, Shams went to the back door where he'd heard a knock. He never returned to that room where his beloved waited, and, tragically, was never seen again.

It is believed that Shams was murdered by a jealous rival. Rumi, overcome by intense grief, went searching in Syria for his friend. His entire world, it seemed, had disappeared with his great love. In Damacus, however, he came to a realization that became encapsulated in a single verse. Readers who have lost their lovers in other circumstances may well-understand what Rumi meant when he said:

Why should I seek? I am the same as he.

His essence speaks through me.

I have been looking for myself.

Thus did the union of these two men take place. Translator Barks calls the illumination Rumi experienced in Damacus fana , or "annihilation in the Friend." In the wake of this annihilation, Rumi called a collection of his many poems The Works of Shams of Tabriz.

A second great love entered Rumi's life, a goldsmith, Saladin Zarkub. Rumi then addressed his poetry to this man with a tender intensity.

But Saladin died too and Rumi took a third lover, Husam, claiming that he understood the "secret order" of the Mathnawi which Rumi's translator calls "that great work that shifts so fantastically from theory to folklore, to jokes, to ecstatic poetry." All six volumes of that work were dedicated to Husam, with whom he lived until December 17, 1273. It was on that day that Rumi passed into the eternal realms.

Suggested reading: The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, HarperSanFrancisco, 1996, paperback, 310 pages, $12.

http://www.gaytoday.com / Space4men

Sufism

The rising popularity of Rumi among the glitterati in New York and San Francisco has its flip side as well. They read Rumi’s life in the light of their decadent cultural norms. His friendship and adoration for his friend and mentor, Shams Tabriz, has been interpreted as gay love, and overnight Rumi had become a gay icon. The distortion, of course, reflects more the confusion in American society than the life of the great poet.

>>>

Sufism - Rumi a Salon Saint?


by Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr

What makes the 13th century Persian poet-mystic Jalaluddin Rumi so significant to the quirky materialism of this century?

Move over Nostradamus. Jalaluddin Rumi is here. Through the 1990s, the great 13th century Persian poet-mystic has become literary delight, a fashionable name and an undefined spiritual solace to many among the confused middle classes in the United States. Some of the most educated and most aware men and women of the sole superpower in the world are seeking refuge in the musical words of the Muslim theologian-turned-Sufi.


There are Rumi circles where his poetry is read and discussed, there are musical groups where his poetry is sung, and the tradition of ‘whirling dervishes’ started by the Mevlevi order set up by Rumi, is re-enacted in American salons. Fashion designer Donna Karan has based one of her creations on the Rumi theme. The popular spiritual physician Deepak Chopra has released a CD with Rumi’s poems set to music for calming the frayed nerves and buffeted souls of some of the Americans living in their materialistic paradise.

The rising popularity of Rumi among the glitterati in New York and San Francisco has its flip side as well. They read Rumi’s life in the light of their decadent cultural norms. His friendship and adoration for his friend and mentor, Shams Tabriz, has been interpreted as gay love, and overnight Rumi had become a gay icon. The distortion, of course, reflects more the confusion in American society than the life of the great poet.

But sober Rumi scholars and admirers in the US have recognised that the learned Sufi is read differently in the Islamic world, especially in Persian speaking circles. His famous epic poem, Mathnawi, has been described by Jami, one of the great Persian poets, as the ‘Koran in Persian’

Though Rumi was born in the province of Khorasan, which now lies in modern Afghanistan, he was constantly on the move through his childhood, travelling to Mecca and Jerusalem before settling in a place called Konya, which is now in modern Turkey. His father, Bahauddin, was a respected Islamic scholar, who taught theology and law. When he died, Rumi inherited his scholarly mantle, and established himself as a reputed scholar and interpreter of The Koran.

At the age of 37, Rumi encountered the wandering mystic, Shams, who completely changed his life. Shams was both a dear friend and spiritual mentor for Rumi, and this relationship became an eyesore for both friends and family members of Rumi. It is narrated that Shams disappeared from Rumi’s life for a while, and the poet’s sorrow was boundless. The second time around, Shams is said to have been killed by one of Rumi’s sons. There is a whole Divan, which expresses Rumi’s sorrow at the separation from his friend and mentor. Rumi uses the traditional love metaphors to describe the friendship, and this has led to misinterpretations among modern Americans. But in the Islamic world, there is no such confusion.

The literary traditions are well known, and it is also recognised that Rumi’s love poetry, like that of all mystics in all religions, uses the language of physical love to talk about love for God, and the desire of the soul to be one with God. Literary critic Fatemeh Keshavarz seems to have caught the real significance of the impact of Shams on the life of Rumi.

She says: “Shams awakened in Rumi the wayfarer who had to free himself of rational and speculative knowledge to seek new horizons.”

It is this aspect of Rumi, which is of supreme importance for all readers of Rumi. He would have probably remained a great scholar, as much respected if not adored as he is today, because of his amazing literary creation. There would have been no Rumi poetry without the experience of the mystical bliss.

So, we find Rumi’s life progressing through three phases. The first is that of the scholar and the intellectual. The second is that of the humble mystic, who suddenly realises that rational knowledge is too narrow. Then emerges the great poet who uses poetry, music and dance to express the mystical experience. What makes Rumi attractive to the weary souls of the modern world is this brave new world of poetry, music, dance and spiritual truth.

Keshawarz translates one of the poems which speaks of this union of spirituality, poetry, music and dance, that reveals the irresistible beauty of Rumi’s poetry and message:

...what is sam? A message from
the fairy, hidden in your heart;
with their letter comes serenity to
the estranged heart.
The tree of wisdom comes to bloom
with this breeze;
The inner pores of existence
open to this tune.
When the spiritual cock crows,
the dawn arrives;
When Mars beats his drum
victory is ours.
The essence of the soul was fighting
the barrel of the body;
When it hears the sound of the daf
it matures and calms down.
A wondrous sweetness is
sensed in the body;
It is the sugar that the flute and
the flute-player bring
to the listener.

Rumi is not really the typical anti-intellectual, who turns away from rationality and knowledge to seek higher truth. He uses his knowledge and creative genius to reveal the divinity and beauty hidden in the universe lying before our eyes. He does not deny life. He affirms life. That is why he seems to draw modern people, who are in love with the world they experience with their senses, and who are forever afraid of losing it.

Rumi shows through his poetry that it is possible to experience great joy that lies beyond the physical world by experiencing the beauty of the world around us.

And he sounds an absolute contemporary when he writes in the Mathnawi:

Passion makes the old medicine new:
Passion lops off the bough of weariness.
Passion is the elixir that renews:
how can there be weariness
when passion is present?
Oh, don’t sigh heavily from fatigue:
seek passion, seek passion,
seek passion!

A TASTE OF RUMI

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, ‘How much is that’
Oh, I’m just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put
them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two
eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass sud-denly in
that moment,
in that shop.
***
When someone mentions the
gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this.

If anyone wants to know what
‘spirit’ is,
or what ‘God’s fragrance’ means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.
***
We are as the flute, and the music
in us is from thee;
we are as the mountain and the echo
in us is from thee.

We are as pieces of chess engaged in
victory and defeat:
our victory and defeat is from thee,
O thou whose qualities are comely!

Who are we, O Thou soul of
our souls,
that we should remain in being
beside thee?
***
Make yourself free from self at
one stroke!
Like a sword be without trace
of soft iron;
Like a steel mirror, scour off all
rust with contrition.

And Rumi loudly proclaimed what every mystic of every religion knew in his or her heart. He is shouting from the rooftop as it were in these lines:

What is to be done, O Moslems?
for I do not recognise myself.
I am neither Christian, nor Jew,
nor Gabr, nor Moslem.
I am not of the East, nor of the West,
nor of the land, nor of the sea;
I am not of Nature’s mint,
nor of the circling heaven.
I am not of earth, nor of water,
nor of air, nor of fire;
I am not of the empyrean, nor of the
dust, nor of existence, nor of entity.
I am not of India, nor of China,
nor of Bulgaria, nor of Saqsin
I am not of the kingdom of Iraqian,
nor of the country of Khorasan
I am not of this world, nor of the next,
nor of Paradise, nor of Hell
I am not of Adam, nor of Eve,
nor of Eden and Rizwan.
My place is the Placeless, my trace
is the Traceless;
’Tis neither body nor soul, for I be-long
to the soul of the Beloved.
I have put duality away, I have seen
that the two worlds are one;
One I seek, One I know, One I see,
One I call.

It is interesting that when Rumi died at the age of 66, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Greeks, Arabs and Persians formed part of the funeral procession. It is also revealing that his second wife was a Christian.

Rumi then is both a great Muslim scholar and Sufi as well as the truly cosmopolitan intellectual and universal mystic. It is easy to understand him as well as misunderstand him. Rumi, however, will survive the fickle fashions of the time, and to anyone seriously interested in religion and philosophy, and to anyone interested in the visible and the invisible world, he will remain a subtle guide who, through his beautiful poetry, points to divine beauty.

http://www.lifepositive.com / space4men

четвъртък, 15 юли 2010 г.

Аржентина узакони гей-браковете

Аржентина узакони гей-браковете

15 юли 2010

Буенос Айрес,Аржентина

Аржентина легализира еднополовите бракове, съобщи Ройтерс. Хомосексуалните двойки ще могат да осиновяват и деца. Така Аржентина стана първата страна от Латинска Америка, признала гей-браковете.
Решението мина изключително трудно в разцепения сенат и бе съпътствано с улични протести. Защитник на правата на сексуалните малцинства стана държавният глава Кристина Фернандес, а сред най-яростните опоненти бе католическата църква.

Последните проучвания на общественото мнение показват, че мнозинството от аржентинците подкрепя еднополовите бракове. Правото на гей-двойките да осиновяват деца обаче има далеч по-малка привърженици.

Аржентина се нареди сред малкото държави в света, където гей-сватбите са позволени. Сред тях са Холандия, Швеция, Португалия и Канада, същото важи и за пет американски щата.

четвъртък, 8 юли 2010 г.

Сътвориха женска мишка-лесбийка

Сътвориха женска мишка-лесбийка

Всяка една женска мишка може да стане лесбийка, ако й бъде "изтрит" ген в ембрионалния период, посочи южнокорейско проучване.

Учените от Дайджонския технологичен институт установиха, че чрез съвсем проста процедура могат да накарат женските мишки да отблъскват мъжките си партньори и да се “сприятеляват“ с женските. Южнокорейските изследователи достигнали до този извод, след като открили, че премахването на гена “FucM”, който влияе на нивата естроген, води до обръщане на сексуалната ориентация. “Женската мишка, която тествахме, бе подложена на променящи еволюцията процедури на мозъка, които правят сексуалното й поведение като на мъжките мишки“, заяви ръководителят на проучването професор Чанюй Парк. Учените по целия свят отдавна търсят генетичното обяснение за хомосексуализма, но според южнокорейците, методът от тяхното изследване не би могъл да се приложи при хората. /БГНЕС

Сеул / Южна Корея

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