Gay News, Dame Marie and Deviants

She has been one of the most loved reps of Her Maj : Dame Marie Bashir the retiring Governor of NSW.  Last night it was time to honour the Governor herself at Parliament House at a dinner organised by the Gay & Lesbian community- the LGBTI Community Tribute Dinner for ( we love her full title) Her Excellency Dame Marie Bashir AO CVO.
Pictured right is Adrian Bartels and a pal with Dame Marie. Bartels was just pipped at the post at the last state election by current MP  Alex Greenwich. also openly gay.
Aren't we lucky in the Eastern Suburbs ?. A choice between the very David Beckham style Bartels or our favourite descendent of Russian Nobility Alex !

## also pleasing to see Sydney Councillor Christine Foster ( PM Tony Abbott's sister ) at the St Vincent de Paul sleep out in Redern  helping to raise awareness for homelessness.

Dame Marie was described by the LGBTI as a "powerful advocate for the powerless" and this has been evident on so many occasions as evidenced by our exclusive pic taken at the mansion Boomerang at a fundraiser for the Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross. Marie was only too happy to chat to former Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks (left).

Dramas in the world of Opera as a twitter outrage grows over Georgian soprano Tamar Iveri, scheduled to sing Desdemona in Otello for Opera Australia in July and Tosca later this year in Melbourne
Iveri has been condemned for an open letter she wrote to the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in May last year. In the lengthy diatribe, posted on her Facebook page, she describes LGBT people as “deviants” and suggests that homosexuality is part of the “faecal mass” being foisted on Georgia by the West.
Iveri was commenting after LGBT activists marched to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) in the city of Tbilisi. The marchers were attacked by thousands of fundamentalist Christians (?) with some barely escaping with their lives. The loopy soprano said she was “proud of the fact how Georgian society spat at the parade” and that  “often, in certain cases, it is necessary to break jaws in order to be appreciated as a nation”. Charming! She really is coming to the wrong town. Somehow I think Ms Iveri's visit may be cut short.
Below is a video from the march-what a contrast to the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras !

Hick's Prosecution Dropped

Hicks at Boomerang

 NEWS THAT the Federal government has dropped the case against David Hicks over his book Guantanamo, My Journey under proceeds of crime legislation complicates the claims used against him the US Military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay where the incarcerated Hicks entered an Alford plea, a US technical device where the accused admits the prosecution has enough evidence to find him guilty. In that way, the evidence is never tested in court.

In return Hicks was immediately repatriated to Australia after years of being held in jail on no charge.

NSW Governor Marie Bashi

Hicks was castigated by then PM John Howard   and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as being the "worst of the worst", an ironic charge from 2 politicians who failed to notice under their watch the Australian Wheat Board was illegally bribing Saddam Hussein with over $200M.
The Shuttle met David Hicks and his wife at a cocktail party in 2010 at the Sydney harbourside mansion Boomerang (where Mission Impossible 2 was filmed) and it was difficult to reconcile the dastardly image painted by politicians with the polite young man. NSW Governor Marie Bashir also chatted to the couple in a friendly manner.

An opinion writer of the right leaning IPA 'think tank' who contributes to the ABC's The Drum also attacked attendees of the 2011 Sydney Writers Festival  for listening attentively to Hicks tale about his treatment at Gitmo where he says he was drugged and tortured. In this piece published in the SMH, "Audience on their feet for a fraud"  he calls them 'incredulous fools".
 The Shuttle tangled with that writer via email but thankfully he has now gone to the bosom of Opposition leader Tony Abbott as an adviser. That's the same Abbott who was also a Minster in Howard's government where he also apparently over-looked a stream of emails indicating that against UN sanctions, the AWB was sending hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks to the Saddam regime. Despite the mass of evidence produced during an investigation and Downer's evidence he couldn't 'recall' seeing memos about the scandal, no-one was every charged (or required to enter an Alford plea).
Incredulous fools indeed!.

Boomerang, A Swell Party and the Guantanamo Bay Inmate

"The Worst of The Worst" was how the former Foreign Minster Alexander Downer described him.



Alexander ' worst of the worst' Downer

The  pillar of the Adelaide Establishment who once famously posed on a TV chat show in stilettos and net stockings was speaking of the hapless David Hicks who spent years incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay  after the Northern Alliance pounced upon him in 2001 at a bus stop in Afghanistan and handed him over to the CIA for a $1000 bounty.

 In the hysteria following 9/11 Hicks spent the next 6 years at Gitmo chained to the floor of a cell for 22 hours at a time under fluorescent lights before finally being sent back to Australia after pleading guilty to the trumped up charge of "providing material support for terrorism".

The US chief army prosecutor later claimed Hicks should never have been charged and said the whole case was dominated by political interference from George W.Bush and PM John Howard.

 




David Hicks and wife Aloysia

  Hick's autobiography Guantanamo: My Journey is a harrowing read in which Hicks describes being tortured and beaten while blindfolded and handcuffed, forced to take unidentified medication, regularly forced to run in leg shackles causing ankle injury and being waterboarded by US agents.

Boomerang the amazing Spanish style mansion nestled by the harbour in Elizabeth Bay is far cry from Cuba.

It's owned by the billionaire trucking magnate Lindsay Fox who threw the doors open for a party last night.  Hicks and his wife Aloysia were guests for the launch of the book Stories from the Wayside.

The Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross is a ministry that was begun by the saintly late Reverend Ted Noffs in 1964 and continues to assist the down and outs of the Cross, drug addicts and anyone else in crisis.



Boomerang beauties: Samantha Harris & Jessica Gomes



Current minister Rev Graham Long has gathered together some amazing sucess stories from over the years along with some brilliant photographs by four leading fashion and advertising photographers.

 The concept of Sydney art director Andrew Henderson, Stories from the Wayside celebrates the chapel, the people who work within its walls and the visitors for whom the Wayside is a welcome support system, as well as as a place where all are welcome 'just to be'.



Boomerang



Built in 1928 at a cost of $28000 for music publisher Frank Albert, Lindsay Fox purchased the Hollywood style Boomerang in 2009 for $21M from society hostess Julie Schaeffer who had paid $20M for the house from the Shuttle's favourite former Hong Kong banker Duncan Mount and his wife Sally.

The house featured in Mission Impossible 2 and the film's star Tom Cruise tried to buy the house as an Aussie base for he and then wife Nicole Kidman.

David Hicks is about 5'5", shy and well mannered. He says he met Osama Bin Laden twice but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He also fought for the Kosova Liberation Army.

Hicks chats to NSW Governor Marie Bashir

 Alexander Downer comes from a wealthy and privileged South Australian political family. His father Sir Alec Downer was High Commissioner to the UK, his grandfather Sir John Downer state premier twice. When he was Opposition Leader Alexander Downer dropped a clunker in a speech when he guffawingly referred to domestic violence as "the things that batter". When he took the Foreign Ministry he declared the UN an "out of date" body although that was forgotten when he beat the war drums for the disastrous Iraq Invasion. He was positive that WMD would be found.

I think we'd rather share a drink with David Hicks.