The Fourth of July is upon us, the time when jaded queers all over the United States get to take a vacation from their studied ironism and indulge in those two most potent and unfashionably sincere of guilty pleasures: nationalism and Katy Perry. It’s also a chance for Young Americans to ask themselves the kind of fundamental questions too often ignored in the miasma of politics-as-usual : Have we really ordered our society, government, and economy in such a way as to guarantee equality and liberty for all? Are we truly living up to the promise of radical democracy implicit in our nation’s history? Ain’t there a child I can love without judging? Ain’t there a pen that will write before they die? Ain’t you proud that you struck our faces? AIN”T THERE ONE DAMN SONG THAT CAN MAKE ME BREAK DOWN AND CRY?

It’s refreshing, every once in a while, for the thin veil of tolerance to be drawn back and people’s resentments to be aired honestly. And it’s downright inspiring when a hateful rant is this cattily alliterative: “Gays, Grannies, and Grandes” sounds less like hate speech and more like an excitingly inclusive indiequeer party. As TNG starts scouting for go-go dancing talent at nursing homes and KFCs, check out some highlights from this week’s content:

Riding high on our 11,000th facebook like, TNG is proud to another of this week’s blog benchmarks: our first unsolicited hate mail! A certain Mike Worley took time out of what was certainly a busy workday to send us this message, packed pipe bomb-like with wholesome Christian love:

your “kind” is a filthy, nasty, sickening, immoral, hellbound bunch of diseased lower life forms that are a waste of air. your “kind” makes me want to puke! God has judged your type to HELL.

Turns out our (eminently Googleable and technologically naive) friend Mr. Worley is, by trade, and accomplished crafter of Amish horse harnesses. Come to think of it, I think I recall his handiwork from a smart little basement bar just off the Paul-Robesonstrasse in Berlin, where I learned the fun way that, pound-for-pound, the average Czech teenager canters smoother and longer than a thoroughbred ever could. And all without the benefit of one of Mike’s lovingly handmade cruppers! Drop him a line in the testimonials section of his site to let him know how much you appreciate his craftsmanship, his evangelism, and his concern.

Those of you who make a habit of reading DC insider blogs/ following national politics/ watching television at all/ drawing breath are already painfully aware of the latest blow to America’s confidence in electoral democracy: Rep. Anthony Weiner’s unflattering dick pic scandal has compelled the nation to sober up from it’s carefree socioeconomic boom-time and ask itself tough questions: How many more cock shots does Andrew Breitbart have on his Iphone? Does circumcision make all bulges look that small, or just liberals’? And, most importantly: Do you have any idea what this country could do if it were run by shamelessly sex-positive queers who didn’t get hung up on this shit? As visions of heroically uninhibited totalitarian orgies dance in your head, check out some highlights of this week’s content:

June is upon us, and as the glittering cumulonimbus of Pride month looms on the horizon, queers all over the world scramble for cover like Haitians before hurricane season. As a veritable monsoon of booze, hormones, and other less hygienic fluids brews somewhere in the cultural stratosphere and you add the finishing touches to your vodka-proof plywood window covers, take comfort in the knowledge that TNG will remain your safest alternative shelter from the mainstream storm. Check out some of the highlights from this week’s content:

With the Memorial Day weekend just over the workday horizon for readers in the USA, TNG tips its hat to the Reason for the Season: The American Civil War, the queerest armed conflict in world history! Five bloody years saw Abraham ” Sometimes an all-male sleepover is just an all-male sleepover” Lincoln tightrope-walk a nation from the brink of dissolution, Confederate President Jefferson Davis flee Union troops in drag, and Walt Whitman hook up with more bearded 20-somethings than I have. While you’re gearing up for your beach parties and barbecues, and longing for the days when treasonous, backwards racist rednecks got faces full of grape shot instead of Fox News airtime, check out what you might have missed this week:

May 21st is hours away, and if a small but vocal band of American evangelicals have done their eschatological math correctly, this is the last Week in Review I’ll ever have to put together. Plagues, social collapse, and city streets swollen with tangled, shrieking bodies are certainly ahead of us: if the world doesn’t end this weekend, Pride month is just around the corner.

Friday the 13th is upon us, TNGers – that weird, sporadic, pagan remnant half-holiday that compels us to be a little more delicate around ladders, salt, broken glass, and graveyards. I can’t imagine how frustrating this day is for the more aggressive kinds of kinksters out there. As you’re waiting for the metaphysical luck-storm to pass and licking your wounded libido (or something more darkly literal,) check out a week’s worth of super content:

Mother’s Day is just around the corner, TNGers, the day we celebrate the first and last pair of vaginal lips many of us ever parted. While you recover from the sudden psycosexual trauma of that realization, check out another week of stellar content

From our mixed feelings toward Sir Elton John to our vocal criticisms of Lady Gaga, TNG has always prided itself on a principled queer anti-royalism. Which is why, if you’r reading these words, it’s probably not with eyes fogged from late-night Royal Wedding watch party-induced exhaustion. Good for you – you’re a freedom-loving American, and you know, like us, that the only kind of Queen worth drooling over has body hair and an impressive falsetto range.