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Cruise Ship Sinks Off Greek Coast

Two Tourists Missing After Cruise Ship Sinks
By DEREK GATOPOULOS
AP

ATHENS, Greece (April 6) - A Greek cruise ship that struck a volcanic reef and forced the evacuation of hundreds of tourists sank on Friday, 15 hours after it began taking on water off the coast of a Mediterranean island. A Frenchman and his daughter were missing, officials said.



Passengers on Thursday climbed down rope ladders to coast guard boats below in a three-hour rescue that involved Greece's military, commercial ships and local fishermen from the island of Santorini. Passengers on the cruise were mostly American, and also included groups from Canada and Spain.

Authorities said two French passengers -- a 45-year-old man and his 16-year-old daughter -- had still not been accounted for, and lists of rescued passengers were being rechecked.

Tourism Minister Fanny Palli Petralia said she had spoken with the missing passenger's wife.

"The lady said her cabin filled with water when the ship struck rocks and that she narrowly escaped," Petralia said. "She was not sure whether her husband and daughter made it out because things happened so suddenly ... in a few seconds. Her other child was up on deck and was evacuated safely."

Those rescued said most people remained calm though there were some tense moments.

The Sea Diamond struck rocks in the sea-filled crater formed by a volcanic eruption 3,500 years ago. Tourists gathered on clifftop towns and villages to watch the rescue.

"We realized there was a serious problem ... We exited our cabin and it was tough to be able to walk out of the ship. A lot of people were very emotional over it, upset, very frightened," said Stephen Johnson, a Canadian passenger.

An Australian passenger, Katie Sumner, said the early stages of the rescue were chaotic. "We heard a big shudder and then the whole boat started to tilt," Sumner said.

"All of our glasses were sliding everywhere and our warning that the ship was sinking was some of the staff running down the corridor screaming out 'life jackets' and banging on doors, so we got no time to, sort of, get ready or anything, we just left as we were."

The 469-foot Sea Diamond was operated by Louis Cruise Lines, part of a Cyprus-based tourism group. The Merchant Marine Ministry said 1,195 passengers and 391 crew members were on board.

"Whoever is responsible for this will be held accountable in the strictest way," Petralia said. "Greece is a major tourism destination and incidents like this must not be allowed to occur. ... Authorities handled the rescue very well."

Most of the rescued passengers arrived at Athens' main port of Piraeus Friday on a chartered ferry and a Louis cruise ship.

Authorities on Santorini said they were working to contain a small oil spillage from the sunken ship.

The Sea Diamond's captain and three officers were being interviewed Friday by coast guard investigators who flew to Santorini.

More than 300 rescued passengers arrived at Athens' main port of Piraeus early Friday on a chartered ferry, and more were due to arrive later in the day on another Louis cruise ship.

The Sea Diamond was built in 1986 and refurbished in 1999.

Associated Press writer John F.L. Ross and AP television staff contributed to this report.

Posted by Mike at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments

Brokeback Mountain + Hurt

Brokeback Mountain + Hurt

Duration: 03:59 Taken: 11 novembre 2006 Location: France

Posted by Mike at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments

Star Trek's Gay Episode Finally Gets Made



by Greg Hernandez, AfterElton.com


Posted: March 16, 2007 - 6 pm ET


(New York) When David Gerrold left Star Trek: The Next Generation back in 1988, it was with a bit of a broken heart. He had penned an episode called "Blood and Fire" which dealt with an epidemic caused by a blood-borne pathogen that was an allegory for AIDS. The episode was to have featured the first openly gay couple in Star Trek history, something that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was said to fully support.

Gerrold was with Roddenberry at a Star Trek convention when Roddenberry was asked whether there would be gay characters in Next Generation. Gerrold recalls him saying, "You're right, it's time we do that."

But Roddenberry was in fading health by that time, and he had less to do with the show's day-to-day operations than he had on the original Star Trek series that ran from 1966–69. So after reviewing Gerrold's completed script, the show's producers got cold feet.

"This script was written as a promise," says Gerrold, an associate producer on Next Generation who was largely credited with mapping out the new series. "There was a subtext that they were gay, but we treated them like they were really good friends. But someone does ask them: 'How long have you been together?' Well, a few people in the office went ballistic! A memo came down that said, 'We don't want to risk the franchise by having mommies calling the station because they saw gay people on Star Trek.'"

Frustrated by office politics and upset that the gay-themed episode had been shelved, Gerrold left the franchise that had meant to much to him. "I walked away disappointed at the stories that weren't going to be told," he says. "I wanted to recreate the spirit of the original series. The episode where you are up against some terrible threat [and] as long as you were fighting it and seeing [it] as an enemy, you were going the wrong way. The only way [to succeed] was to stop resisting and learn how to be friends."

Gerrold never forgot the episode that didn't get made, but he moved on to other things as the Star Trek franchise continued to thrive through the successful runs of Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager as well as feature films with the cast of the original series.

But with no Star Trek series on the air since the cancellation of Enterprise in 2005, several fan websites have helped to keep the Star Trek franchise alive by shooting their own episodes that are available for download. Among the most successful is Star Trek: New Voyages which has already shot three episodes; the most recent one features original cast member George Takei reprising his role of Capt. Sulu.

New Voyages is gearing up to begin filming its fourth episode in June, and it will be an updated version of Gerrold's "Blood and Fire." The gay characters in this version are Capt. Kirk's nephew, Peter Kirk, and his boyfriend, Lt. Alex Freeman.

"I knew about the script and the story, and I approached David [Gerrold] with an idea of using it in our series," says James Cawley, executive producer for New Voyages. "A few of the original elements were kept intact but changed to make it relevant to 2001 as opposed to 1987. I really feel this is something Gene Roddenberry wanted to do. He had promised there would be gay characters. That was the episode that was going to deliver. They never had the guts to tackle the issue, which is a shame. If we don't pick up his torch, it's never going to happen."

In addition to a revised script by Gerrold with Carlos Pedraza, also involved in the production will be D.C. Fontana, an associate producer from Next Generation, and Darren Dochterman, who was behind the visual special effects for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

"Producers did not want to address homosexuality in Star Trek even though the original series talked about race and war and drugs and hippie culture; they addressed all that stuff," Cawley says. "All the subsequent shows have been adventures in space. We have dared to [do] something that the franchise holders would never do. We are including an openly gay couple in the Enterprise, showing the world that it is a totally acceptable thing … in the future. The prejudice and the bias will be gone."

Cawley describes New Voyages, which he and Jack Marshall created in 2003, as "this fan project that has grown to enormous proportions." The most recent episode has been downloaded more than 30 million times. It is designed as a continuation of the original series with Cawley stepping into William Shatner's shoes as Capt. Kirk and Jeff Quinn as Mr. Spock, the role originated by Leonard Nimoy.

"I grew up when the only Star Trek was Kirk, Spock and McCoy, and they were being neglected," Cawley says. "I thought the property was like James Bond or Batman and Superman. It's not so much the actors but the characters. I think Star Trek has that universal appeal to everybody. To me the hook was … that we have a future that is worth getting to."

Paramount Pictures owns the legal rights to the Star Trek franchise but has traditionally allowed the distribution of fan-created material as long as there is no attempt to profit from it. New Voyages, which recreated the show's original sets, falls under this area.

For the young actors portraying the gay couple, they have the advantage of not having to recreate an iconic role made famous by another actor. Bobby Rice, 23, was cast as Peter Kirk after Cawley saw his performance on another web-based Star Trek project: Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, which is set in The Next Generation era of Star Trek. (It should be noted that Hidden Frontier has also included gay characters and story lines.)

"How cool is that?" says Rice. "It's pretty wild. I never thought I'd be a Kirk. I feel like what we are doing is fantastic and groundbreaking. It takes place in the future, and homosexuality should be generally accepted in the future. Star Trek has always been about tackling these kinds of issues, so it's a great place to have this story. The gay fan base has had a really positive reaction."

Although the episode has yet to shoot, Rice has already met his on-screen love interest, Lt. Alex Freeman, who will be played by 22-year-old Evan Fowler, when the two got together for a photo shoot.

"When I first read about the audition, I didn't even notice it was a gay role; I just saw Star Trek and thought it sounded cool," says Fowler, who beat out hundreds of other actors for the role. "But it being a gay part made it more intriguing. As an actor, you are always looking for more complex characters and to do something groundbreaking."

Fowler admits that he was far from a Trekkie before landing the gig, but he is making up for that now. "The more I ask people about Star Trek, the more I hear about the social undertones regarding race and social issues," he says. "The original script was very realistic but a little docile. The new one is up a notch, and the issues it tackles are even more prevalent today than when we wrote the original."

Fowler, who graduated last year from Loyola Marymount University with a degree in history and European studies, says he is quickly learning just how powerful being involved in the Star Trek franchise can be for an actor.

"People are taking notice of it and for me — being so new and not having much experience — it's the best situation you can put yourself into," he says. "The fans are so loyal and so interested in what's happening. You don't get that much in Hollywood."

For Gerrold, New Voyages is providing him with an opportunity to give his original script more edge. "Can we go places we couldn't go in 1987?" he asks. "Yeah. At one point they are talking about getting married, and at one point they actually kiss on-screen. But we are not going any place that's thematically out of place in Star Trek. I'm enormously proud of how far we have come in such a short time and that I get to live long enough to see this episode be shot."

He adds: "New Voyages doesn't have time limits. If we were doing it for prime-time TV, we'd have to tell the story in 44 minutes. The script is probably twice as long as it should be so it's going to be a long episode, almost the equivalent of a short movie."

It is also providing him with an opportunity to renew his sometimes bumpy love affair with the Star Trek franchise. In 1967, as a young unknown writer, he submitted an episode for the original series called "The Trouble With Tribbles" — which got made.

"I was 19 and was an enormously big fan of the original show," he remembers. "I really like the original vision of Star Trek: to boldly go where no one has gone before. When you tell those stories of exploration, you are telling the real story of what it is to be a human being. There was a naiveté about it, a simplicity, but also a spirit of questioning. You go back to Kirk and Spock, and there was a relationship there: logic versus compassion. Kirk gets to learn something in every episode, stand up for the human race. That's something that has been left out of some of the later iterations of Star Trek."

Gerrold was later hired as an associate producer on Star Trek: The Next Generation and had high hopes for the show. "It wasn't Kirk and Spock, but the idea of that series was to do Star Trek again with a bigger budget, more effects, and they wanted more issue stories," he says. The show went on to have a successful six-year run and is now a feature film franchise.

Since then, Gerrold has been anything but idle. He has written episodes for over a dozen different television series, including Star Trek: The Animated Adventure, The Twilight Zone, Land of the Lost, Babylon 5, Sliders and Logan's Run.

He has also published more than 40 books since 1967, including a novelization of "Blood and Fire." Some of his other novels include The Man Who Folded Himself, When Harlie Was One and The War Against the Chtorr series. His autobiographical tale of his son's adoption, The Martian Child, won several prizes in 1995 and has been made into a feature film due to be released later this year.

Despite all he has accomplished, finding himself unexpectedly reliving an experience that, this time, he is confident will have a happy ending, is enormously gratifying.

"I think this is history making, and it proves that the original Star Trek is still going strong," he says. "I thought I was done with this a long time ago. The idea that it is going to be done now is very sweet."

Posted by Mike at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments

Too Young!

Posted by Mike at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments

The Money Shot Report
Opening Segment...

Posted by Mike at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments

Sad, but True...
We're Just a Continent Away!


This clip was posted on YouTube by Yours Truly! My very first contribution to YouTube.

Posted by Mike at 5:49 PM | Permalink | Comments

Does this bring back the memories of job interviews...
Help Wanted

2369 Ratings

Posted by Mike at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments

This was too funny and crazy to pass up...
Peter Griffin Gets a Prostate Exam

Posted by Mike at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

Mad TV - Gay Straight Guys

Posted by Mike at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

The Robot Bartender

A man walked into a newly opened, intimate bar in an upscale neighborhood. As he sat down on a stool, he noticed that the bartender was a robot.

The robot clicked to attention and asked, "Sir, what will you have?"

The man, without hesitation, replied, "A martini please".

The robot clicked a couple of times and mixed the best martini the man had ever had. The robot then asked, "Sir, what is your IQ?"

The man answered, "Oh, about 164."

The robot then proceeded to discuss the theory of relativity, interstellar space travel, the latest medical breakthroughs, etc...

The man was most impressed. He left the bar, but thought he would try a different approach. He returned and took a seat.

Again, the robot clicked and asked what he would have.

A Budweiser, "please."

The drink was poured with a perfect head in a chilled mug and set on the bar in front of the customer.

The robot again asked, "What is your IQ, sir?"

This time the man answered, "Oh, about 100." So the robot started discussing NASCAR racing, bass fishing and what to expect the Steelers to do that weekend.

The guy was really impressed, and had to try it one more time. So he left, walked around the block, returned and took a stool. He ordered a wine spritzer.

The robot placed a perfectly prepared drink of vintage wine and soda in front of him and, again, asked the question, "What is your IQ?"

This time, the man, in his ultimate test of the robot, promptly responded, "50."

The robot clicked, then leaned close and very slowly asked,
"A-r-e y-o-u-r p-e-o-p-l-e r-e-a-l-l-y g-o-i-n-g t-o
n-o-m-i-n-a-t-e M-c-C-a-i-n?

Posted by Mike at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments

Jimmy Kimmel George Takei answer to Tim Hardaway racist rant...



Who KNEW Sulu would have such a wicked sense of humor -
"...where no man has gone before..." ?? LOL

Posted by Mike at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments

My neighbor's kid has just discovered himself...

Matt is a great looking heartthrob turning everyone’s head as he walks down the street and has had no problem attracting girlfriends. In the last couple of years I’ve seen Matt with at least 7 or 8 different girls.

What’s driven me crazy is having Matt live next door and I was further exasperated when Matt asked me if he could do my lawns and general yard trimming to earn some extra money. He was doing a fantastic job but just about 6 months back when I needed more extensive yard-work Matt admitted he could not find enough time to do it. Just watching him shirtless working in the yard was more than anyone should endure and would drive me up the wall.

Matt would still drop by and ask if he could take a dip in my pool, which might have had an alternative motive, even back a year ago. Over this last weekend Matt came over and asked if he could discuss a sensitive subject he didn’t feel comfortable discussing with his parents. Sure, I said. We sat in the yard each having some cookies and milk trying to put us both at ease; as I had some special insight as to what Matt wanted to discuss. Matt had never discussed any personal aspects of his life before so I figured this had to be serious or at the very least important.

Matt had a difficult time getting started, but when he realized I would not be judgmental he spilled the beans. I think I like guys, Matt stammered. Showing no emotions on my behalf he asked, aren’t you surprised? It was tough skirting around the truth that I had been observing him for as long as I had known him and thought he might be gay. Then we discussed the age thing and I made it very clear that by virtue of him only being 17 which he had just turned this month, there could be no intimate relationship between us but we could still remain friends. I could see the expression on his face there was some disappointment in what I had just said. Matt went on to say he was fearing ridicule if his friends found out but I assured him if they had not already done so there was no reason for them to do so now unless he suddenly changed his persona and to just keep his cool.

All this time Matt is playing footsie under the table with me. I assured Matt that if he continued to act as he always has, his friends and family will be no wiser as to his recent discovery, and it would be wiser at this point in time not to announce he has come out. I told Matt there is plenty of time for that after a year or two when he has reached a legal age here in California. I also discussed the dangers of contracting diseases if he becomes sexually active and does not use proper protection. This of course led the way or opened the discussion to intimacy which I also discouraged not wanting to open the door to a subject that might get us both in trouble.

I asked Matt when he had actually made the discovery that he was different from other guys, and/or decided he was gay. I got the old historical reply that he had known since he was somewhere around 11 years old and that he got an erection in the school locker-room every time he would observe the other guys naked in the showers. He was pretty sure a lot of the other guys as well had the same feelings, but were uncomfortable in discussing their feelings openly.

I expressed my overwhelming pride and reliance Matt has in his earnest trust confiding in me and gave him a great big hug as he was about to return home. I also extended the invitation to confide in me if there was anything else troubling him that he felt uncomfortable discussing with his parents.

Posted by Mike at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments

Reporter- Now, let’s go back in your adult career. I know you started in the mid 80’s, how did you get into the business back then?

Posted by Mike at 9:13 AM | Permalink | Comments

How to stop a Lesbian Smoking!

Posted by Mike at 7:48 PM | Permalink | Comments

Mardi Gras 2007
Only 3 days left...

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18
Orleans / Jefferson
• Okeanos - Uptown, 11:00 a.m.
• Thoth - Uptown, 11:30 a.m.
• Adonis - West Bank, Noon
• Mid-City - Uptown, 2:00 p.m.
• Bacchus - Uptown, 5:15 p.m.
• Napoleon - Metairie, 5:30 p.m.
St. Tammany
• Tchefuncte - Madisonville, 10:00 a.m.

LUNDI GRAS, FEBRUARY 19
• Proteus - Uptown, 5:15 p.m.
• Orpheus - Uptown, 5:45 p.m.
• Zeus - Metairie, 6:30 p.m.

MARDI GRAS, FEBRUARY 20
Orleans / Jefferson
• Zulu - Uptown, 8:00 a.m.
• Rex - Uptown, 10:00 a.m.
• Elks Orleans - Uptown, 11:30 a.m.
• Crescent City - Uptown, follows Elks
• Argus - Metairie, 10:00 a.m.
• Jefferson Trucks - Metairie, follows Argus
• Elks Jefferson - Metairie, follows Jefferson
• Grela - West Bank, 11:00 a.m.
• Choctaw - West Bank, Noon
St. Tammany
• Lions - Covington, 10:00 a.m.
• Covington - Covington, follows Lions

Posted by Mike at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments

Sooner or Later (I always get my Man)! Poem

Sooner or Later (I always get my Man)!

Sooner or later you're gonna be mine,
Sooner or later you're gonna be fine.
Baby, it's time that you face it,
I always get my man.

Sooner or later you're gonna decide,
Sooner or later there's nowhere to hide.
Baby, it's time, so why waste it in chatter?
Let's settle the matter.

Baby, you're mine on a platter,
I always get my man.

But if you insist, babe, the challenge delights me.
The more you resist, babe, the more it excites me.
And no one I've kissed, babe, ever fights me again.
If you're on my list, it's just a question of when.

When I get a yen, then baby, Amen.
I'm counting to ten, and then ...

I'm gonna love you like nothing you've known,
I'm gonna love you, and you all alone.
Sooner is better than later but lover,
I'll hover, I'll plan.

This time I'm not only getting, I'm holding my man.

Posted by Mike at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments

Love Thy Neighbor...

Posted by Mike at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments