Art: China’s Revamped National Museum

Spring flowers bloomed and soldiers could be seen goose-stepping across Tiananmen Square as I walked through the recently renovated National Museum in Beijing. A new exhibit, “The Road of Rejuvenation,” promised to highlight “the glorious history of China under the leadership of the Communist Party.” So what’s included in a permanent show that contains 2,220 “First-Rank Cultural Objects” and occupies roughly one-fifth of the massive museum’s exhibition space

Share

The Battle Over Gay Teens

In May, David Steward, a former president of TV Guide, and his partner Pierre Friedrichs, a caterer, hosted an uncomfortably crowded cocktail party at their Manhattan apartment. It was a typical gay fund raiser–there were lemony vodka drinks with mint sprigs; there were gift bags with Calvin Klein sunglasses; Friedrichs prepared little blackened-tuna-with-mango-chutney hors d’oeuvres that were served by uniformed waiters.

Share

The Pioneer HARVEY MILK

After Harvey Milk became the first openly gay man elected to any substantial political office in the history of the planet, thousands of astounded people wrote to him. “I thank God,” wrote a 68-year-old lesbian, “I have lived long enough to see my kind emerge from the shadows and join the human race.” Sputtered another writer: “Maybe, just maybe, some of the more hostile in the district may take some potshots at you–we hope!!!” There was a time when it was impossible for people–straight or gay–even to imagine a Harvey Milk

Share

Afghanistan and NATO: Why Europe May Not Be Up to the Fight

Barack Obama arrived in Strasbourg on Friday for this weekend’s NATO summit enthusing about the military organization, which he described at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy as “the most successful alliance in modern history.” That it may have been. But Obama’s praise contrasts starkly with the scathing assessment of the state of NATO, now 60 years old, by European military analysts, who say that the gap in military capability between the United States and Europe has grown so big that in some places battlefield communication between NATO forces and their US allies has become difficult

Share