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Weekend
I'll state the thesis up front: this diary is a plea for people to go see Andrew Haigh's film Weekend, which will be opening to a very limited release over the next week or so. At the screening I...
View ArticleA Bitter Anniversary
November 10, 1898 is a day that should live in infamy. It marks the only time in our nation's history when an elected body government was successfully deposed by force, with new officials appointed...
View ArticleA quick primer on Russia's elections/protests
You may have noticed that there are protests going on in Russian right now over the results of their latest round of federal legislative elections. It may not be Greece, but these protests signal an...
View ArticlePhotos and stories from Russia's protests
Tons of photographs and stories from the protests going on in Russia right now. I don't want to copy and paste other people's photographs, so I'll drop some links and explain what it is you're seeing....
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Why subscribe?
From the Daily Kos Community Quilt I was part of the wave of new users who came here looking for information during the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. You'll still find a bunch of us,...
View ArticleLiterature for Kossacks: Vaclav Havel
With the passing of Václav Havel goes one of the greatest figures of my lifetime, and I say that without a shred of hesitation or caveat. Few people have sacrificed so much of themselves, and to so...
View ArticleUpdate on LGBT issues in Russia
It's been a busy month. The fine folks at the Russian LGBT-network have put together a handy guide to existing and proposed laws banning homosexual "propaganda" in front of minors, a scary bit of...
View ArticleRussia and its LGBT problem
Hoooooo, boy, has it been an interesting week or two on this front. For those of you new to this story, I've been following the recent policies in Russia to stifle its LGBT community (see here for a...
View ArticleThursday Classical Music OPUS 70: the sound of Ecstasy
Greetings, music lovers! Dumbo has kindly lent me an installment of this great series to use any which way I like, so...Is music capable of bringing us to ecstasy? ... I don't mean just the state of...
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The most important Coming Out story of the year
I wanted to supplement a mostly unread diary by RVKU yesterday, because this issue is too important not to give it its due. On Tuesday night a young singer named Frank Ocean posted a story about the...
View ArticleSome thoughts on the recent meta...
Bear with me, and I promise to keep this short and sweet:
View ArticleFormer NFL player out of the closet
and not in the best way. Some of you may remember offensive tackle Kwame Harris from his five years with the 49ers, and a brief stint later with the Raiders. Harris has been an inactive free agent...
View ArticleRIP Chinua Achebe - some thoughts on his legacy
At the age of 82, Nigeria's preeminent English-language author and one of the best-known writers in the history of African literature, the Eagle on the Iroko himself, has passed. A lot of people are no...
View ArticleWrite On! The Sense of an Ending
Greetings, fellow writers and writing-curious! SensibleShoes is out for the week, leaving me with the unenviable task of trying to fill her... er, sandals. Okay. Let's start with a quiz: what do all...
View ArticleScience, Advocacy, and GMOs
As I write this there's a diary on the Rec list arguing that a recent paper in The Organic Systems Journal has published a "significant finding" to the effect that consumption of GMs did greater harm...
View ArticleRadio DJs call for "open season on lawless animals"
The bottom of the rock station DJ barrel, Louisiana's Walton and Johnson, just posted the following on their (incredibly racist, awful) Facebook page, regarding the post-Zimmerman protests (emphasis...
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Understanding Russia's homophobia
Because there's been so much discussion about Russia lately, and because I've written quite a bit about the immediate context of Russia's anti-gay laws and political difficulties (most recently 1, 2,...
View ArticleBoom! Victorious American athlete stands up for equality... in Russia!
Oh, man.. This made my week. For all our talk about the upcoming Winter Olympics, another event that's largely flown under the radar is the World Athletic Championships, taking place in Moscow as we...
View ArticleRussia, activism, chaos
This is gonna be a depressing essay.In my past writing about Russia and political activism, I've tried to keep an even keel and survey the issues without giving away too much of my own feelings about...
View ArticleAsk us anything: Ukraine edition
With apologies to the FP for stealing their title series, I thought it'd be useful to bring together some of the users who can offer some clarity on the situation in Ukraine, either by virtue of being...
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