Some people are gay. Get over it!

No, Princess Diana was not a closet lesbian - but that doesn't disqualify her from being a gay icon.

LONDON, UK - At the National Portrait Gallery in London, 10 famous homosexuals were each asked to choose 6 ‘Gay Icons’ who were inspirational to them in their struggle for dignity, respect, and equal rights regardless of their sexual orientation.

The result?



Some of what you would expect. Homosexual icons: Ian Roberts, a professional Australian rugby player; W.H. Auden, the British poet; Harvey Milk, the assassinated San Francisco mayor; and Virginia Woolf, who is known to have had a lesbian lover despite being married.

One man, Peter Tatchell, is depicted with his mug shot from a police station, underneath which the police officers in charge have stuck on the label “QUEER TERRORIST,” in big white letters, as part of Tatchell's criminal description. He was arrested for holding up a banner that said, “Charles can marry twice! Gays can’t marry once,” at the wedding procession in Windsor, England for the newlyweds, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker.

Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer of the United States army, a Vietnam war-veteran and a Bronze Star recipient, is one of the less well-known yet highly respectable and indisputably heroic gay icons in the exhibition. After being discharged from the army for admitting she was a lesbian, she filed a lawsuit in a civil court, which ruled both her discharge and the ban on homosexuals unconstitutional. The colonel then returned to the National Guard until her retirement in 1997. She was one of the only accepted openly homosexual officials in the United States army, before the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

But other ‘Gay Icons’ include straight people: CNN reporter, Christiane Amanpour; South- African president, Nelson Mandela; English rose, Princess Diana; and renowned Pulitzer Prize winning author, Maya Angelou.

You don’t have to be gay to be a gay icon. In the fight for LGBT rights, two groups have lost the dignity that makes one human: the homosexuals because of their sexual orientation, and the heterosexuals who have allowed their fellow man to be judged so arbitrarily – not by the content of his character, but by the gender of his partner. The ‘Gay Icon’ exhibition highlights the “human” in human rights: the fight for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights (LGBT) does not only concern the LGBT community itself, but also those who are not judged by their sexuality and discriminated against accordingly – those with the most power to change the status quo.

Click here to visit the website for the exhibition 'Gay Icons.' The exhibition is on at the National Portrait Gallery in London until October 18, with reduced admission for students.

Palestinians on the Plane?

by Mahdi Sabbagh

As I enter the gate area in order to board, I am welcomed by the El Al Airlines’ lady standing in front of the entrance. She looks at my boarding pass and Israeli passport and tells me to go towards another lady standing in front of a different line. “It’s for standard security check” she says politely. “I already went through airport security” I respond.

She laughs and says: “This is Israeli security, it’s much better!”. I laugh along and proceed to hand the other lady my papers. The lady smiles and asks: “Where did you fly from?” I reply: “New York. It’s written on the plane ticket you’re holding” “And your final destination is Tel Aviv” “Yes.” She pauses, smiles again, and asks: “Where do you live in Israel?” “I live in Jerusalem”. She pauses again, continues “Where in Jerusalem?” I respond “Beit Hanina, in East Jerusalem”. She flips through my passport, asks me to wait on the side, takes my papers and walks to an area sealed off from the main sitting lounge with movable dividers.

The gate area fills up as more and more people check in and sit around in the waiting area. The lady comes back with my passport and asks me to follow her into the small room. She tells me that they are going to quickly scan my bags. I sit on a chair awkwardly positioned between a table and one of the dividing walls, start reading the wallpaper* magazine I had just bought, waiting for them to finish up. Three El Al staff come towards me and state that they will take my bags and jacket for a security check while one of them will give me a body search. No one had mentioned a body search when I was first told to proceed to the backroom but I play along regardless, and move into a tiny cubicle. The security man starts searching me, my arms, back, legs. He then asks me to take my shirt, shoes and belt off. He runs the cold plastic beeper around my waste and pants. The fake metallic buttons on my jeans make his machine beep. The security man gives it another try but the beeping persists. He tells me to wait, goes outside and comes back with his supervisor: “His trousers are causing a beeping, I think it’s ok”. The supervisor’s dark piercing eyes glare at me and says:

“Well, if it’s beeping, make him take his jeans off!”

The supervisor exits. The security man hesitates, but says: “I am sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to take your pants off.”

I recall friends going through similar experiences in the Tel Aviv airport but I never imagined myself in such a situation and not even in Israel or the Occupied Territories… I was still in Heathrow Airport, London! I stood still not really knowing how to respond to such a command. Should I accept the situation and comply? Is ‘please, take your pants off’ equivalent to ‘can I have your boarding pass please’ in the context of an airport security check? I start unbuttoning my pants and stop at the first button. Tense, light headed and realizing the absurdness of the situation, I look at the security man and say “This is unbelievable, are you seriously asking me to pull my pants down?” He responds very calmly: “This is just my job.” I reply: “But of course this is your job, I don’t see you asking every passenger to do the same.” He doesn’t respond. I bring myself together and think of the flight I have to catch in 30 minutes now. I focus on the systematic physical movement of unbuttoning my jeans; pulling them down for a few seconds and then pulling them back up. The operation goes by in no time. I collect my cloths and proceed into the room where my bags were being scanned. First glimpse towards my bags I realize that they had also gone through a similar experience. When I was told ‘a quick scan’ I expected someone to put my bags through an x-ray machine but instead, a lady was going through every compartment of my bag, taking out clothes, books, drawing pencils, electronics, and what have you, and dumping them into a large container. She had emptied my bag completely while I was being strip-searched.

As I approach to ask what the purpose of this procedure was, I notice the other security lady playing with my Ipod. She sees me and quickly places it down on the pile of things. The supervisor appears again with my coat and informs me that I cannot carry it with me on the plane. He says I have to leave it in my suitcase that I check in New York when I first departed. Curious about why one was not allowed to take a jacket onto an airplane I ask for an explanation. He stares at me, turns around and leaves. After a minute he comes back with my laptop stating that I also have to leave my laptop, camera and cellphone in the checked-in suitcase. I fly internationally very often and am usually aware of the typical procedures, but for a moment I wondered if there was a new law preventing me from taking anything but my clothes? Surely not. There was no way I was going to leave my laptop behind!

“I am sorry but I will not leave my laptop here. My suitecase isn’t even in the terminal yet because of the delay.”

“I’m sorry that’s how it works.”

I try to stay patient knowing that nothing I say will change the stubborn Israeli security supervisor.

“I don’t see you asking any other passenger to leave their electronics or coats behind. I don’t understand why I am going through this procedure and why I can’t keep my computer with me.”

“These are the laws, either you leave it with us and we put it in your suitcase when it arrives or you don’t get on the plane.”Several arguments later, (with the supervisor, the person who turned my bag upside down, and the person who stripped me) we do not reach an argument and the lady sitting at the entrance to the gate calls on the last passengers to board.

My flight leaves in 2 minutes. Do I do what feels right, which is to question the legality of their actions, whether this is just or ethical? Do I confront them individually? Do I ask to see a higher supervisor? Do I leave my belongings in Heathrow airport and board the plane?

I decide to end the humiliation and tell them that I would rather stay behind and catch a later flight with another airline than accept their unjust conditions and leave my belongings with them. With this decision, the questioning ends, they grab my belongings, dump them into my bag, hand it to me and send me off to the terminal. As the supervisor walks me to the exit I decide to give him a piece of my mind: “This system is unbelievably unjust. I am an Israeli citizen going back home! Out of all the Israelis going on that plane, you pick the only Arab one and make him miss his flight!” He doesn’t reply and escorts me to the exit.

I find myself walking away from the gate, towards the terminal, the ‘Departures’ screens with “Tel Aviv Flight Closing” shinning in bright red.

I walk slowly but steadily, no destination in mind. Walking as far away from the El Al staff as possible was the only thing on my mind. As I approach the main terminal, a bitter taste in my mouth, I try to assess what had just happened and realize that I put myself off that plane; that out of basic principle I had decided to end the nightmare and walk away. I had succeeded in that I was able to make a decision for my own and there was nothing they could do about it. Why did they pick me out of the line of people? Are the three staff seeing sense in what they had done? Do they truly think that pulling down my pants, checking the songs on my Ipod and asking me to leave my coat behind contribute to the ‘security’ of the airplane? I decide to keep the thinking for later and to try to catch the next flight.The British Airways staff tell me the ‘misunderstanding with El Al Airways’ was not their fault but mine because I had chosen not to depart and that there’s not much they can do but put me on stand-by for the next British Airways flight to Tel Aviv, in 12 hours!

I felt humiliated and terribly alone. There was no one I could turn to and nothing I could do in order to deal with the situation. What was I supposed to tell the British lady sitting at the counter: “I decided to get off the plane because I’d rather keep the little dignity that was left in me” “I can’t afford to leave half of my belonging behind”. “They wouldn’t let me on the plane because I am Palestinian?”

Watercolour landscape then return to caricatures

This is a painting of Kensington Bridge I did for the Stowe exhibition. It's a subject I want to do in more detail and with some people in the foreground. I had to repaint it quickly as I wasn't too happy with the original and I was running out of time. (I'd already submitted the title!) It's OK but the more I look at it the more I see bits that need working up and defining more... I can see the paints coming out again on Wednesday after the exhibition.
I've now returned home, and with the exhibition and RA entry out of the way I've started a caricature. I need to re-discipline myself. I don't want to rush it and I'm struggling with a setting idea but I've got the likeness - Matt Damon again. I just seem to be stuck on the old action hero type image. Not sure if I should go with that or if inspiration will strike. We'll see! I've looked up hobbies - politics and philanthropy! Yawn! I'm not inspired.

Soooo tired!

Yesterday was a strange day. Spent the day in London as Siobhan plus approx 1700 other children from Buckinghamshire performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Time for a very proud Mum moment. In the big picture below, she's in purple on the right , very back row next to the gap. This was the balloon release at the end. The picture on the right was taken just as we arrived at 11.30am. often school performances can be dire but this was a really slick performance which was very entertaining. A very long day for all we left at 9.40am and returned at 00.40am the next day.
I went along for the chance for a completely child free day. Left them on arrival in London, saw them once or twice in Kensington gardens and joined up at the end of the performance.

I had a very busy day with lots of drawing done around the Albert memorial and Kensington Gardens. Also took lots of photos, some of which will get posted once I can figure out how to put watermarks on. Rather, when I find the time as I've a lot to do today and that painting won't finish itself! Here are some of my sketches. This first one was a five minute figure sketch, the plan is to include it in a painting.

The next is obvious, Albert hall from the Albert memorial -I spent longer on this one - about 45 minutes. I'm still fighting with my phobia of buildings. I get so daunted by the prospect and often feel overwhelmed by all the clean lines which have to be reproduced precisely if the image is to be effective. This one got a bit smudged in the drawing book.
This next one (right) is a detail from a marble statue. It looks a foreshortened, probably due to the angle it was taken but the sun was starting to get to me by this one so who knows. I know, there was sun!!!!!!!!
The last one is an ink sketch drawn from the cafe in the Albert Hall looking out the window. There is a fascinating, almost maze like garden, which caught my eye. I really think this one worked despite some - to my eye- major flaws - I won't draw your attention to them as you might not have noticed.
I've had a few onlookers, but not as many as I feared there might be, and all were very encouraging. With the photographs and sketches I've got plenty to keep me going for a while. I'm quite taken with the images I took of Princess Diana Memorial Fountain and I've some ideas for abstracts.