Earlier this week, I (and some Russian dissidents) got into a conversation with a Ukrainian man. He suggested something I heard before, and he was fairly polite and conciliatory about it, in the "I know I may be asking a lot, but hear me out" kind of way. And what he suggested was a valid perspective - if you're a Ukrainian. But I'm not, and since ( Read more... )

On September 11, 2002, as TV networks recalled the terror attacks from last year, showing the scale of destruction and remembering the victims, my mom made a prediction. It won’t be like that for long.

She recalled the first celebration of what was then known as the State Sovereignty Day, which commemorated the beginning of the Soviet ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago, my sister posted an Instagram story touching on atrocities against Native Americans/First Nations and saying something to the effect of "I used to think that this doesn't affect me because I'm an immigrant, but I don't anymore."

Which got me thinking why I don't feel that way, at all.

( I am still not sure - but here are some of my thoughts on the subject )

As 2017 drew closer and closer to the end, I kept hearing people talking about how awful 2017 was, and how they couldn't wait for it to be over.

And I kept thinking that I just couldn't agree with that.

( Seriously - hear me out )

Last Friday morning, I was in Park Ridge, a suburb just outside Chicago's northwest city limits, covering the ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks for the Niles Bugle.

A year earlier, the city unveiled a 9/11 memorial. Its centerpiece was a beam from the ruins of the World Trade Center, and it was meant ( Read more... )

I first started seeing comments about it on Wednesday evening, but it wasn’t until Thursday morning that it was rocketed into the realm of national news.

In a welcome letter to the incoming freshmen, John Ellison, the University of Chicago’s Dean of students wrote that they should not expect “trigger warnings” or “safe spaces” on campus because ( Read more... )

I was looking at the Livejournal front page, and I saw that omonatheydidnt had not one, but two posts about social attitudes toward lesbians in South Korea.

First, nana_the_dwarf posted a KoreaTimes article about how an online drama series depicting a lesbian romance earned an ire of ROK regulators.
( The repost of the article under the cut )

Whenever I come across a “these are the hot Chicago neighborhoods” article/blog post, I usually just sort of glance over them. They are all the same, talking about the same "hip," popular neighborhoods, and they don’t really have anything new to say.

But every once in a while, an article throws me for a loop. Like this recent Chicago Tribune piece ( Read more... )

In a recent piece for the Washington Post, University of Chicago grad student Daniel Hertz raised a provocative question - are the people who are opposing gentrification essentially arguing that neighborhoods should remain segregated?It's not that he's arguing that people who oppose gentrification are entirely in the wrong. He readily acknowledges ( Read more... )

In March 2012, my home city of St. Petersburg adopted the law prohibiting "gay propaganda" - a little over a year before the Russian government adopted a similar federal law. AN LGBT rights organization Vyhod (Exit) commissioned a survey to measure the city residents' attitudes toward homosexuality. Given the law - and Russian state media ( Read more... )