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What will it take, besides gumption, to make a post-gay military film? An exceedingly profitable and prominent, military-approved drama, the recently released Act of Valor, doesn’t make much of the death of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Instead, it singles out straight fatherhood as a motivating force for soldiers. At a time when photographic evidence of same-sex soldierly partnerships are circulating widely and without threat of official reprisal, such a representational tactic seems, at best, regressive.
However, as the worldwide grosses of Act of Valor approach the $100-million mark, we might pause to reflect upon the film’s significance for the post-”don’t ask, don’t tell” armed forces. A feature film rooted in comprehensive reenactment (or so its spectator is told), Act of Valor would seem to support an assumption central to the controversies surrounding the life, and recent death, of the aforementioned policy: namely, that the survival of same-sex desire in military settings makes questions of status (what one “is” sexually) inseparable from questions of conduct (what one “does” militaristically).
Proponents of the policy once suggested that, in the American armed forces, to self-define as gay (or lesbian, or bisexual, or transgender) would be to achieve a measure of liberation and autonomy that, while well-suited to pride parades, contradicts martial

Two years ago, a fellow teacher, Tamara Walker, asked if I would be interested in co-teaching NFTE’s business class. She had watched a documentary about NFTE called Ten, Nine, Eight and found herself enamored by this entrepreneurship program for at-risk youth. Now, I find myself reflecting back on the whirlwind adventure that this current year of teaching NFTE has been. And to think, it all started with fast food and a formidable dream…
Last fall, when my NFTE students and I were eating lunch at a McDonald’s, following a field trip to a local business, our discussion took an interesting turn as we began to ponder ideas for an end-of-the-year NFTE

Interest rates on subsidized government student loans are slated to double to 6.8 percent in July. That would add up to $1,000 to the burden of students dependent on loans to help pay for their education.
Not surprisingly, President Barack Obama has called on Congress to sustain the lower rates. When Mitt Romney agreed, House Republicans reversed their previous position and passed the extension. Now, the Senate and House are descending into a nasty debate about how to pay for the extension, not whether to do

A New York Times editorial on April 27 continued the paper’s ongoing campaign over the years to end the death penalty in the United States.
The editorial points out that only 33 states retain the death penalty. New York is not one of them. Wikipedia notes how that came to

Today we face many tough issues as a society and much work is being done to address them. Let’s look at a slice of one such challenge — health.
Diabetes and prediabetes affect 105 million people in the United States. More than half of all Americans could develop these conditions by 2020, at a cost of $3.35

When was the last time you heard about Republicans and Democrats agreeing on something?
Recently, the Center for Public Integrity reported that on April 3, Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President George W. Bush sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urging her to use Clean Air Act to prevent chemical disasters.
Yes, you heard that right, in a world where Newt Gingrich is calling for the abolition of the EPA, there is common sense bi-partisan support for the EPA using its authority to make us safer. Governor Whitman can speak with authority about this issue because she, as EPA chief under President George

Asparagus, dandelion greens, rhubarb. It’s late April and this is what’s in season near me. How do I know this?
As is increasingly the case, there is an app for that. No, it’s not

Frankie Rose is going through a bit of a musical transition these days. With her second solo album, Interstellar, it marks her progression away from the lo-fi retro girl group sound she was tied to in the past as the drummer in bands like Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls, and the Vivian Girls. Interstellar is her search for creative freedom and to make the record that she truly wants to make, and she felt she got it.
With Interstellar, Frankie Rose sought out to create what she envisioned as a true dance record in her mind. It isn’t a dance record in the sense of electronic club music, but more in the spirit of Depeche Mode, The Cure, or The

Last summer I described the then three pending free trade agreements (FTAs) with South Korea, Panama and Colombia as “clunkers” (see here). Each failed to meet the only standard which matters: Is it in the best interests of American workers and the U.S. economy? Regrettably, these three agreements won Congressional approval last October, despite the fact that the promises of job and net exports growth from all eleven previous FTAs, dating back to the first one in 1985, have proven to be empty ones indeed.
Now the

We all know the feeling. Each of us, at one point or another, has leafed through a daily metro newspaper, surveyed the most popular blogs, or flipped through the television channels only to be let down by the lack of diverse images in the media.
Whether your beef is with CBS, “the most watched network,” and its continued lack of regular characters who are LGBT (according to GLAAD’s 2011 Where We Are on TV report, of 134 regular characters, only one was LGBT), or with the media in both North Carolina and Maryland and their refusal to acknowledge that African-American community leaders have stepped to the front of conversations that affect the lives of LGBT Americans, the truth remains that we all want and deserve a media landscape that accurately reflects the diversity of our communities and tells the full story.
According to the most recent Census, there are more than 100 million Americans who identify as black (or African American), Latino (or of Hispanic heritage), or Asian, accounting for some 30 percent of the

Kate and William may be having a small, intimate celebration to mark their first anniversary — but that’s no reason to stop you having a proper feast.
Here’s one inspired by the main players in their big day.
Links to recipes can be found below the slide show
Mint Middleton Cocktails
There’s the classic British Airways gin and tonic from Carole Middleton’s days as a flight attendant for the national carrier – which is where she met Michael. Add to that some flirty passion fruit and a good mash of mint and you’ve got a drink that’s as much of a breath of fresh air as a lass from the middle class joining the world’s most famous monarchy. (Novelty umbrellas available through the Middleton’s party supplies company ‘Party Pieces‘)
Full description and recipe here
Her Majesty’s Cucumber Chicken Crowns
A twist on Coronation Chicken, presented on cucumber

How will I get into college? How will my family pay for college? How will I find something to do with my life that really matters to me?
These questions have become increasingly stressful for teens and families in the past decades as the college application process has become more competitive, the cost of college has skyrocketed out of control, and the economy seems to inspire little confidence that decent jobs exist even for the vast majority of those succeed at these first two challenges. The worry depicted in the movie Race to Nowhere personalizes these concerns, showing how they warp the process of schooling from a focus on learning and personal growth into a focus on earning the best grades and test scores. Ironically, one simple solution exists to address all of these worries, albeit highly counterintuitive: stop attending school.
I discovered this odd reality after a highly successful school and college career involving Shaker Heights High School, Amherst College, and Brown University. I enjoyed school, and chose to become a teacher based on my own positive

WROCLAW, Poland — For some reason, and I’m trying not to read too much into it, my wife thought she ought to share with me yesterday a HuffPost story about a Polish woman who yanked all the teeth out of her ex-boyfriend’s unconscious mouth. No fooling. I was watching fishing or the UFC, I can’t remember which, and the missus calls from the other side of the room, “Listen to this… ” and proceeded to fill me in on the details in an episode of misanthropy so grisly even Eastern Europeans seem to disapprove.
Evidently one Marek Olszewski went to see his ex-girlfriend, Anna Mackowiak, a 34-year-old dentist in Wroclaw, to be treated for a

We’ve been waiting for this moment.
We’ve watched the days get lighter, felt the sun get warmer. We’ve been going to the farmers’ market, eagerly grabbing (and gobbling) those hallmarks of spring: ramps, artichokes, and now, asparagus!
Here, then, are seven ways to use our favorite spring vegetable: in salads, side dishes, soups and main courses. Stock up, and eat up — soon, it will be summer!
Check out more spring vegetable recipes on Food52.
Make the most of spring’s bounty with our Light Greenmarket Feast.
Got a question in the kitchen? The Food52 Hotline is here to help!
Absurdly Addictive Asparagus
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The recipe is supposed to serve four, but we could easily imagine polishing off an entire pan by ourselves.
read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com

“Unanimity” – An artwork in a Havana gallery. Photo: Yoani Sanchez
The last time the Plaza of the Revolution was full, crammed with people, was when Benedicto XVI offered his homily in Havana. The television broadcasters repeated, with a strange insistence, that attending this Mass were “believers and non-believers.” To ears not trained in Cuban official discourse, that affirmation might sound like a gesture of inclusion and tolerance. But, it was more a clarification — and not subtle in the least — that not everyone in the multitude was Catholic, nor could the pope count on such a large flock among

When a global crisis strikes a region on Earth that doesn’t have the resources to recover on its own, the international community comes together in an effort to rebuild the devastated region and provide assistance to those most affected. Similarly, this past month, high school students from across the United States came together at Concern Worldwide US’ Global Concerns Classroom annual workshop to discuss how they would respond to the needs in the Horn of Africa, if they were in charge of rolling out emergency response programs.
Whether you have heard it on the news, read it in a newspaper, or are learning about it now for the first time, the extreme drought, poor harvests, and volatile food prices all contributed to a wide-reaching food crisis that reached famine levels in some parts of East Africa. Over 13 million people that depend on livestock and annual rains for their livelihood and survival suffered when rains failed for the second year in a row, killing pastures and huge numbers of livestock, and leaving them with no source of food or income.
During this year’s Global Concerns Classroom Annual Workshop, high school students explored the underlying causes of the drastic devastation that the drought has caused in the region. The task given to the students was simple — to create a proposal that would solve the drought crisis in an assigned country (Kenya, Ethiopia or Somalia) given a $5 million budget.
Solving a crisis such as drought and famine is quite daunting and not as easy as it may

On our second trip together to Africa last Thanksgiving, we decided to go to the place where the deadliest war in the world was occurring: the Congo. The entire time we were there, we traveled with an extraordinary Congolese guy named Fidel Bafilemba. His video profile is the first in a new video series being launched by the Enough Project, called I Am Congo.
Most of the stories we hear about Congo are of rape, conflict, and exploitation. Those stories are real and we saw plenty of evidence of them.
But that’s not the whole story of

by guest blogger Wendy Gordon, pioneer in the green consumer movement
It’s well known that a poor diet and physical inactivity are the main contributors to obesity, now an epidemic that afflicts 17 percent of America’s children. But why would the rate be higher–closer to 25 percent greater, according to a new study conducted by the Columbia University Center for Children’s Environmental Health–among children living in inner-city neighborhoods? The statistic seems particularly strange for a city like New York, where most of us walk or take public transportation to get about. Could there be other factors to consider?
Indeed, the Center’s study strongly suggests that a common urban air pollutant, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, PAHs for short, could be playing a role. PAHs are released into the air from the burning of coal, diesel, oil and gas, and other organic substances like

An avalanche of reactions, readers’ letters and commentaries followed my last column.

So, let me make things clear.
The Front National is not a party of the right, but of the extreme right.
Between the right and the extreme right, there is the same difference of nature, the same barrier of species that we once argued opposed the left and the extreme left, or, as the dissidents of Central Europe once put it, the moderate left and the totalitarian left.

The left almost died — and, from Barbarism with a Human Face to Left in Dark Times, I have never ceased to repeat it — from its proximity, even if only in terms of semantics, with a communism Camus was already saying was, for half of humanity, another name not for “hope” but for a “burn” and an “insult.”

The matrix of its faults, the constant source of its blindness (and, for a long time, its dishonor) was this tenacious idea of a great family, “the” left, of which social-democracy was one branch and Stalinism, Leninism, totalitarianism, was another.

Well, mutatis mutandis, the same applies, today, to the right.

It is the same fight to the death with the successors (and proud to be so) of these other totalitarians who once founded the FN on the ruins of Vichyism.
It is the same merciless combat with the dauphine of an old chief whose antisemitism, racism and hatred of democracy, culture and intelligence have been (and remain) an intense and morbid fixation.
And it is the same fatal trap, from whatever angle you look at it (and I’m not talking about an alliance or a contract in due form — the simple rhetoric is enough, or the appeal to lost votes, or even the simple gesture consisting of adding in the same ‘block of the right’ UMP voters and those of the ‘navy blue wave’*). It is the same fatal trap, then, when one gives the impression, merely the impression, that there might be an affinity, or a broken affiliation, or a community, however vague, of origin and heritage between the civilized right and the obsessions of a candidate who, by inheritance, the logic of her entourage, or temperament, is pursuing no other goal but the “recomposition” or, to put it clearly, the destruction of the liberal, republican right.

Heritage: the fascist tradition that Madame Le Pen defends, loud and clear, when questioned about the crimes of Vichy’s collaboration by Ha’aretz journalists, exclaiming that she does not wish “to speak evil of her country.”
Entourage: the crowd of advisors, party cadres, old and young prominent figures, who affirm their proximity, one with negationism, the other with Hiterism, a third with the Nazi founding fathers of the dynasty that, for all intents and purposes, reigns and has for half a century, in Syria.
Finally, temperament: this factious fiber that, like nature, comes roaring back when she announces her intention, should she enter Parlement, and just like the good old days of antirepublican poujadism, to “break everything.”
There’s no appealing the law.
read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com

When I wrote a book proposal outlining my plan to heal from a panic disorder that had plagued me for decades, I did so partially to get out of a book tour that had taken me to 60 cities in three years. I was exhausted and anxious, tired and wired. And I thought I was the only person in the world who felt that way.
My plan worked. I learned how to meditate and process disturbing memories and

In the Native American tradition May is called the month of the flower moon. It is said that the flowers dance at night under this full moon.
In the Celtic tradition, the festival of Beltane on May 1 marked the midpoint between spring and summer. Fires were lit and the cattle that survived the winter were driven between the bonfires as a symbol of purification. The Ancient Romans celebrated the festival of Maia, whence the name May originates — as well as Florifertum, which was dedicated to Flora, the goddess of the

Good news! A special planetary configuration is bringing a fertile field for us to build something solid in our lives through the entire month of May. Financial matters can perk up, fortunate opportunities can materialize and resources can flourish. This is especially due to the sun and Jupiter transiting the money sign of Taurus. I’m calling it “The Taurus Growth Spurt.”
Expansion can happen in a few areas of your life

Even as I waded into the water, peeling seaweed off my crispy skin, stepping on rocks and stubbing my big toe, I knew I needed it.
It had been four months since my last vacation. I know what you’re thinking, and I thought it, too, until I realized just how much I needed a break. A break from computer screens, murky city streets, constant noise. I needed a time

I recently came back from Honolulu, where I was attending events that His Holiness the Dalai Lama spoke at. My heart is full and my spirit is high; I feel so validated by the message His Holiness shared, of warm heartedness as the key to inner peace and happiness.
From personal experience, I have felt how true that is, but it took years to know that that in itself is enough. I used to think that there was something far more important that I could do than being a warm-hearted