Hrag Vartanian

In Quebec’s federal by-elections yesterday there was a lot of controversy over whether Muslim women should be required to show their faces as proof of their identity, The Toronto Star reports:
Controversy in the lead-up to the vote over a decision by Elections Canada to allow veiled women to vote without showing their faces, which all [...]

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Images like these make me miss Toronto.

{courtesy the amazing Toronto photo blog Daily Dose of Imagery}

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Nothing is more contentious nowadays than oil. Wars are fought over it and economies are dependent on it like heroin addicts looking for a fix.
Wired just published a great interview with YES MEN’s Andy Bichlbaum who, along with fellow Yes Men member Mike Bonanno, impersonated oil industry officials and announced a plan to turn human [...]

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My article original printed in the Brooklyn Rail (June 2007).
When I was in college in the 1990s, there was an emerging movement called Gay Art; it was akin to Feminist Art, but focused on radical Queer Theory and its impact on male gay identity. Gay Art embraced everyone from photographer Robert Mapplethorpe to artist Keith [...]

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The Royal Ontario Museum (known as the ROM by natives) is Toronto’s archaeological and historical museum that has a fantastic collection of Chinese art and dinosaur fossils.
In the midst of the University of Toronto campus, the ROM was a favorite place of mine to wander and spend time. Now the new $270 million addition by [...]

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