“The report concluded that there were no ‘relevant chemical agents’ present that could be related to Mr. Neruda’s death and ‘no forensic evidence whatsoever’ pointing to a cause of death other than prostate cancer.”
Category: people
Sir Ben Kingsley Is Not An Easy Interview
“What is the most important lesson life has taught you?”
“The pattern of light and shade.”
If You’re Sabotaging Your Greatest Artistic Success, Just Stop Talking
Cannes Palm d’Or-winning director Abdellatif Kechiche “could have turned down the heat on the controversies, [but] he instead reacted with petulant outrage. He was betrayed, he said, and people were plotting against him.”
Qatari Poet To Serve 15-Year Sentence For Pro-Arab Spring Verse
“Qatar’s Supreme Court last month upheld a 15-year prison sentence handed to poet Mohammed Al-Ajami for reciting a poem in support of the Arab uprisings on YouTube.” He has been held in solitary confinement for two years.
What Won’t Cher Say?
Not much, it seems. She tells Rebecca Nicholson about vocoders, Miley Cyrus, Sonny, how bad some of the things she’s sung and acted in are, gay fans, and the incident with Salvador Dalí the chocolate clocks and the fish-shaped vibrator.
Valery Gergiev’s Credibility Is Shot Over His Political Statements
“In my day-job reviewing CDs, I’ve given at least one glowing accolade to a disc of Gergiev conducting Shostakovich. But now I believe his credibility as an interpreter of Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky, the two composers around which his reputation is built, has been shot to pieces.”
Why Attacking Gergiev Over Anti-Gay Putin Is Misguided
“The protesters have an overwhelmingly powerful case, but it is not one that they need to make to Gergiev. He has made his position clear; now they should lay off him.”
Conductor Valery Gergiev Defends Himself
“It is wrong to suggest that I have ever supported anti-gay legislation and in all my work I have upheld equal rights for all people.”
Did Bill Gates Equate Funding Museums With Blinding People?
“Citing Peter Singer, ethicist of choice for under-thought yuppie sanctimony, Gates offers a seemingly reasonable but logically incomplete equivalence between donating money to a museum for a new wing and culpability for the consequences of those funds not being spent on more fundamental human needs elsewhere in the world.”
Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Shipped To Siberia
“Tolokonnikova’s husband, Petya Verzilov, said he had received ‘100% reliable’ information that she was being moved to a prison in the Krasnoyarsk region, four time zones and 2,000 miles from Moscow. … Verzilov said he believed the move was punishment for Tolokonnikova’s public statements, and decision had been taken to remove her from the media spotlight as much as possible.”