Sixty percent of Americans now say they have a close friend or family member who is gay, an 11 percent jump from 2010. In the 1990s, most Americans said exactly the opposite.

Essentially, a progressive societal shift has taken place — what was once considered taboo has now become polite dinner table conversation in a good number of American households. And while civil rights advancements almost always provoke some societal tension, this trend toward a humanization of the subject may largely insulate the LGBT equality movement from the setbacks that have sometimes befallen the reproductive rights movement.

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JK: When did you first go to the Taksim Square? What did you see?

GK: The events started not in Taksim Square but in the neighboring Gezi Park on May 28. As construction was continuing on a project to create a pedestrian area around the park, activist groups were upset by trees being cut down and removed. Four sycamores were destroyed and uprooted by a backhoe, and the first to notice were members of Taksim Solidarity. They’re a group of urban activists who since 2011 have been fighting the government’s attempt to raze the park and resurrect the 19th Century Ottoman-era Artillery Barracks which had been there.

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The massive Domino Sugar Factory that faces the East River with its iconic yellow sign is expected to soon be dwarfed by towering skyscrapers. However, there are some supporters who are rallying to get public support to turn the old factory into a cultural center.

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On the political junkie side of this chasm are those of us who follow politics and social issues closely. We typically get our information through niche media, email newsletters, membership organizations and the attendant social media feeds. The media that serves this audience seems perfectly happy to commodify dissent by providing niche content that speaks only to a narrow audience -- and nobody else. To many looking in from the outside, that creates the image of a holier-than-thou insularity that is, to say the least, off putting. Ultimately, from within this bubble, "activism" becomes narrowly defined as a grinding project of political work trying to somehow convince A) politicians to do things their donors don't want them to do or B) the larger politically disengaged world to do stuff that can seem too difficult (door knocking, phone banking, etc.) or wholly futile (signing petitions, sending a letter to a lawmaker, etc.).

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On the night it happened, my partner of sixteen years, Tony, and I were up the street having dinner with a friend. After dinner, we wandered over to a neighborhood gay bar for a quick drink. We then left our friend and walked arm-in-arm, arriving back home around midnight. The same time that Mark Carson was being assaulted and fatally shot just a few yards away.

He had been followed for several blocks by a man taunting him, yelling out “faggot” and “What are you, a gay wrestler?” When they reached the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, his attacker spat out his final threat, “Do you want to die here?” before shooting Mark in the face with a .38 caliber gun. Mark Carson’s body lay dead just a couple blocks from the Stonewall Bar, the birthplace of the gay rights movement.

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Organizers say that two million people marched in protest against seed giant Monsanto in hundreds of rallies across the U.S. and in more than 50 other countries on Saturday.

"March Against Monsanto" protesters say they wanted to call attention to the dangers posed by genetically modified food and the food giants that produce it. Founder and organizer Tami Canal said protests were held in 436 cities across 52 countries.

Genetically modified plants are grown from seeds that are engineered to resist insecticides and herbicides, add nutritional benefits, or otherwise improve crop yields and increase the global food supply. Most corn, soybean and cotton crops grown in the United States today have been genetically modified. But some say genetically modified organisms can lead to serious health conditions and harm the environment.

The use of GMOs has been a growing issue of contention in recent years, with health advocates pushing for mandatory labelling of genetically modified products even though the federal government and many scientists say the technology is safe.

The "March Against Monsanto" movement began just a few months ago, when Canal created a Facebook page on 28 February calling for a rally against the company's practices. "If I had gotten 3,000 people to join me, I would have considered that a success," she said Saturday. Instead, she said, two million responded to her message.

Together with Seattle blogger and activist Emilie Rensink and Nick Bernabe of Anti-Media.org, Canal worked with A Revolt.org digital anarchy to promote international awareness of the event. She called the turnout "incredible" and credited social media for being a vehicle for furthering opportunities for activism.

Despite the size of the gatherings, Canal said she was grateful that the marches were uniformly peaceful and that no arrests had been reported.

"It was empowering and inspiring to see so many people, from different walks of life, put aside their differences and come together today," she said. The group plans to harness the success of the event to continue its anti-GMO cause.

"We will continue until Monsanto complies with consumer demand. They are poisoning our children, poisoning our planet," she said. "If we don't act, who's going to?"

Monsanto, based in St Louis, said on Saturday that it respects people's rights to express their opinions, but maintained that its seeds improve agriculture by helping farmers produce more from their land while conserving resources such as water and energy.

The US Food and Drug Administration does not require genetically modified foods to carry a label, but organic food companies and some consumer groups have intensified their push for labels, arguing that the modified seeds are floating from field to field and contaminating traditional crops. The groups have been bolstered by a growing network of consumers who are wary of processed and modified foods.

The Senate this week overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would allow states to require the labeling of genetically modified foods.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization, a lobbying group that represents Monsanto, DuPont & Co and other makers of genetically modified seeds, has said that it supports voluntary labeling for people who seek out such products. But it says that mandatory labeling would only mislead or confuse consumers into thinking products weren't safe, even though the FDA has said there is no difference between GMO and organic, non-GMO foods.

However, state legislatures in Vermont and Connecticut moved ahead this month with votes to make food companies declare genetically modified ingredients on their packages. And supermarket retailer Whole Foods Markets Inc has said that all products in its North American stores containing genetically modified ingredients will be labeled as such by 2018.

Whole Foods says there is growing demand for products that don't use GMOs, with sales of products with a "Non-GMO" verification label spiking between 15 percent and 30 percent.

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Kinder Morgan’s decision to walk away from the Columbia came after months of steady grassroots opposition, and the company made the announcement two days after locals turned out in large numbers at a hearing to oppose the project. For environmental groups in the region, this looks like the culmination of a well-coordinated effort to protect communities along the Columbia from coal pollution.

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The court ruled in favor of the prosecution, who argued that the anti-Kremlin activist has "systematically disobeyed prison authorities and failed to repent for her crime" according to reports of Russian media.

The ruling from the Russian court comes despite a plea from Paul McCartney to release Alyokhina and fellow member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who was denied parole last month.

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Alekhina watched the trial via a video link from prison in Berezniki, a small city in the Urals. At the end of the proceedings on Wednesday, she declared a hunger strike, ordering her defense lawyers "not to take part in this court trial" because the court was violating her rights. "Let the troika sitting here – the judge, the prosecutor and the colony employee – decide my fate," she said.

The parole hearing has been postponed until Thursday.

Alyokhina is expected to be released next March, along with fellow Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who was denied parole last month.

Sentencing for the third member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was suspended in October.

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The New York Times explains the video and lyrics, whose translations are too vulgar for reprinting in the newspaper:

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Now Koch -- my longtime friend, Jerry -- faces up to a year and a half in jail himself. He is the latest anarchist in the U.S. to have been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury. He will not cooperate and his silence could land him months in federal custody, without charge or conviction for a crime. I have written at some length in recent months about the federal grand jury system, which I describe as one of the blackest boxes in the judicial arsenal. I noted, for example, how four anarchists in the Pacific Northwest were jailed for resisting cooperation with a Seattle grand jury, believed to be investigating property damage wrought against the city on May Day 2012.

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In his diatribe, Morrissey singled out Prime Minister David Cameron for only caring about "his personal gain," the BBC for its censorship of "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead," a song that rose in the U.K. charts upon Thatcher's death, and the government for using public funds to finance a lavish funeral, taking place today.

He compares the biased coverage to censorship normally associated with tyrannical governments, writing, "BBC News will scantily report on anti-Thatcher demonstrations as if those taking part aren't real people. Lordly scorn is shown towards North Korea and Syria, and any distant country ruled by tyrannical means, yet the British government employs similar dictatorship tactics in order to protect their own arrogant interests."

His note begins:

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That’s the conclusion of a Stanford University research team, which found invoking the idea of interdependence undermined the motivation of European-American students to take a course in environmental sustainability.

The researchers, led by MarYam Hamedani of Stanford’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, argue that in mainstream European-American culture, independence functions as a “foundational schema” — that is, an underlying design or blueprint that guides behavior.

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The heavily redacted 252 pages of documents add to findings already made by the PCJF about coordination and intelligence monitoring by the DHS, the FBI, the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies and the private sector of Occupy and related protests.

"Taken together, the two sets of documents paint a disturbing picture of federal law enforcement agencies using their vast power in a systematic effort to surveil and disrupt peaceful demonstrations. The federal agencies’ actions were not because Occupy represented a 'terrorist threat' or a 'criminal threat' but rather because it posed a significant grassroots political challenge to the status quo,” stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF.

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The U.K.-based Gamma Group markets and sells the software to law enforcement ostensibly with the sole purpose of lawfully monitoring the computers of criminals -- including pedophile rings, human traffickers and organized crime syndicates. The tool has, as Citizen Lab found, been put to broader and more nefarious uses by governments in countries including Bahrain, Ethiopia and Vietnam with "strong indications of politically-motivated targeting."

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The project was borne out of Ai's highly publicized 81-day-long detention in 2011. "When I was arrested, they (his guards) would often ask me to sing songs, but because I wasn't familiar with music, I was embarrassed," the artist told Reuters via telephone. "It helped me pass the time very easily.

"All I could sing was Chinese People's Liberation Army songs," Ai said. "After that I thought: when I'm out, I'd like to do something related to music."

Ai's album, "Divina Commedia," named after Dante's poem, is also a an allusion to his Chinese nickname, "Ai God" (As Reuters explains, "God" in Chinese is "Shen", while "Divina Commedia" in Chinese is "Shen qu"). He has written the lyrics and sings on the tracks, saying, "I really loved it. I had to make so much effort; I have never known music before. I'm really very passionate."

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Another young woman, 24-year-old Leah Lynn Plante, was also taken into federal custody last year when she refused to talk. Unlike Olejnik and Duran, however, Plante was released after one week. Anarchist networks following the case feared that Plante's resolve broke and that she had agreed to cooperate when faced with the reality of a potential 18 months or more in prison -- the details of Plante's case remain unknown. Both Olejnik and Duran maintained their resistance and walked free Thursday without having shared information with the authorities on other Northwest activists. Their release came after a federal judge agreed to a request for release issued by Olejnik and Duran's attorneys.

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