Prince Harry and HIV Awareness Campaign
Prince Harry always seems to be doing something worthy, and this is one of his best so far.
Prince Harry has met with gay men and other minorities living with HIV for an awareness campaign.
The 32-year-old royal is carrying on with his mother’s work after spending time with London sexual health charity Naz, a group made of sexual and racial minorities aiming to help people ‘live life to the fullest’.
Read more here, and there’s a video. He actually gets tested for HIV in the video and they show the process, with Harry asking questions. It’s a good read.
Ricky Martin’s Getting Married
I know a lot of people start to roll their eyes when they see these things now. But seriously. Did you ever think you’d see the day that Ricky Martin would tell people he’s marrying a man? And he did it on The Ellen show. Back in the 90s no one would have predicted that an openly gay pop singer would sit down with an openly gay woman who has one of the most popular talk shows on TV and talk about legal gay marriage.
The single dad of twin eight-year-old sons recently proposed to partner Jwan Yosef, a London-based artist.
Martin shared with Ellen how they met: ‘He’s a conceptual artist and I’m a collector. So I started looking for art and I saw his art and I went crazy because I really love what he does, really original, and I contacted him.’
Bob Dylan’s a No Show At the Nobel Peace Prize
This story has been riddled with question marks since it was announced. First, Bob Dylan wins the Nobel for literature, and he’s a musician/song writer not a novelist. Second, he doesn’t acknowledge the award for weeks. Third, now Dylan is not going to receive the award in person. I have seen mixed reactions to this from all over. Most of those in the more serious writing communities are a little shocked. I was shocked. (You don’t see any novelists winning a Grammy.) Those who aren’t that familiar with publishing and serious writing circles and only know Dylan as a pop icon are thrilled.
But as Elizabeth notes, Dylan took his time acknowledging the honor. Late in October, the committee still hadn’t heard from him (although a line on his website did mention the award) and called him “impolite and arrogant.”
The rest is here. The article goes on to mention that Dylan is expected to give a lecture sometime in the next six months. That’s a requirement. I hope he at least does that. And, in the past one winner actually didn’t show up to receive the award in person because of a social phobia. I fully understand that, and I get why someone with a social phobia wouldn’t go. But this thing with Dylan makes me wonder a little too much about him, and the awards themselves, with respect to literature.
Side note: The winner of the Nobel gets a diploma, a medal, and a nice big check for around one million dollars, US. You can be damn sure I’d show up.
