When I read the news reports about the beating of Kevin Aviance over the weekend, there was casual mention of another gay bashing in Astoria, Queens. While I have yet to find any kind of official report on it. Here’s a first-hand report, however, from one of the victims in the attack: “Once we escaped the scuffle we were chased down the block by one of the guys wielding a baseball bat. My friend was struck in the head with the bat and fell into the street. His cell phone and eyeglasses were destroyed. We ran to the St. James Deli on the corner of 34th ave and 34th street but were refused entrance to the deli by the clerk only to be told ‘This is your fight. They will destroy the place.’ Because of this, my friend was again struck with the bat.”

About 100 books in the gay and lesbian section and African-American section of the John Merlo Branch Library in the Chicago Public Library system were destroyed by fire on Tuesday. Police are investigating the blaze but are not currently treating it as a hate crime. Proceed at your Own Risk offers up a short history of book burning.

The return of the short-sleeved dress shirt: “It’s a particular look. You can look very cool in it, but you’re never going to be chic. It’s easy to slide into schlumpy office worker.”

Openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson pleaded with the Episcopal General Convention on Wednesday to not impose a moratorium on electing gay bishops: I am not an abomination before God. Please, I beg you, let’s say our prayers and stand up for right.”

A guide to this weekend’s Pride parties in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

A gay cast member on the upcoming Real World, now shooting in Denver, has changed his name for the show: “Whatever his real name is, he’s a smart guy, perhaps guessing that he won’t want to be known as ‘so-and-so from The Real World’ the rest of his life. Instead, he’ll just be known as ‘the guy who looks a lot like Jeremy from The Real World.'”

Anderson Cooper gives woman a boner. Cooper: “Haha, i’m scandalized!”

LOGO unveiled a new slate on Wednesday: The Service, “a one-hour drama that looks at the lives of enlisted LGBT men and women at a military base, where they covertly combat rising persecution under new commanders,” Sordid Lives: The Series, “a half-hour comedy that follows an eccentric Texas family whose intertwining off-kilter lives ultimately lead to the death of the family matriarch,” and the That Gay Ghost, “a half-hour sitcom pilot that centers on the members of a conservative family whose lives are changed when they discover that a gay ghost named Cosmo is living in the closet of their new home.”