Read it:

“I’m a 34-year-old N.B.A. center. I’m black. And I’m gay.”

The gay part will now define him, in the public eye, more than any other. It will be the prompt for the loudest cheers he basks in and the nastiest jeers he sloughs off.

But in the opening paragraph, it comes after his age and occupation and race, getting no more space, in that one passage and for that brief moment, than other aspects of his identity. It’s a detail among many, but not the defining one.

That’s the integrated way that things should be, the unremarkable way a person’s sexual orientation ought to be lived and perceived.

It shouldn't have to prompt a phone call from the president, Bruni adds. (Or a Tweet from Michelle Obama.) But since it still does, consider for a moment how remarkable it is to have a president and first lady willing to tell Collins: "We've got your back!"

Everyone is talking about how China is making big investments in Africa...

A joint expedition of scientists led by Chapurukha M. Kusimba of The Field Museum and Sloan R. Williams of the University of Illinois at Chicago has unearthed a 600-year-old Chinese coin on the Kenyan island of Manda that shows trade existed between China and East Africa decades before European explorers set sail and changed the map of the world.

"Zheng He was, in many ways, the Christopher Columbus of China," said Dr. Kusimba, curator of African Anthropology at The Field Museum. "It's wonderful to have a coin that may ultimately prove he came to Kenya," he added.
Dr. Kusimba continued, "This finding is significant. We know Africa has always been connected to the rest of the world, but this coin opens a discussion about the relationship between China and Indian Ocean nations."

• FELKER HOUSE, SEATTLE'S FIRST HOTEL That woman in the doorway on the second floor—a stout figure in voluminous petticoats—might be Mother Damnable, but we don't know for sure.

This week in The Stranger, writer, researcher, and corpse expert Bess Lovejoy looks into the fantastical piece of Seattle folklore about Mary Ann Boyer, aka Mother Damnable, so nicknamed because she "cursed constantly in five languages." She also kept rocks in her apron to throw at people. As Lovejoy discovered, "There are two main stories told of her life, and both involve her yelling at men."

Anyway, the oft-repeated fantastical story is that she turned to stone after she died. Lovejoy expertly sorts out the facts from the fiction. You gotta read this.

The oldest dictator in the world is getting lonely...

But despite the God given old age, Mugabe says he is getting lonely, as all his peers and family are dying before him.

"In my small way, this is the task the Lord might have wanted me to fulfill among my people and as I carry the burden of fulfilling it, it being a divine task, I read it as a bidding of God," the State controlled newspaper, quoted the veteran leader as saying.

"A commandment that this is how you serve your nation."

As Mugabe celebrates his 89th birthday, he says he is raring to go, as he readies himself for an election that could see him being president of Zimbabwe until he is 94.

Let us celebrate with the classic song by Dina Martina.

The second Iraq war was neoliberalism's abandonment of the New Economy narrative and, in the face of deepening economic crises, its turn to Keynesian militarism (rather than a reversion to its economics—the program it began replacing in 1973) as a way to survive the collapse of its legitimacy, which eventually happened in 2008. But the war failed because, one, it never stopped being a war (the persistence of insurgents) and, two, it also lost legitimacy (no WMDs).

Drones can be seen as capitalism's response to the collapse of the 30-year neoliberal project and the decline of Keynesian militarism (which began with the end of history—1989). Drones present power with a form of control that's difficult for the institutions established by mass society (institutions that were key to the formation of state military power—which comes down not to governing a massive population but increasing the speed that it can be transformed into a massive army) to check or disrupt. Because they can operate outside of politics, drones connect with the logic capitalism. But it's precisely by this connection that this form of crisis management has access to and pervades all of the spheres of our market-oriented social production:

A tiny new open source drone kit made by Bitcraze is buzzing its way to market this spring, targeted at hackers and modders who want to explore droning indoors as well as out.

Marcus Eliasson, Arnaud Taffanel, and Tobias Antonsson are the engineers behind the Swedish startup now accepting pre-orders for a palm-sized quadcopter called the Crazyflie Nano. (Not to be confused with the Norwegian-made nano-copter used by British troops in Afghanistan.)

The trio used only open source material for the project, from mechanics to hardware and code. Not only was it a nod to the open source mantra, it saved them a ton of time; all three have day jobs and have spent the last three years working evenings on the Crazyflie Nano.

And what is the meaning of this?

Which band are YOU most excited to see on the Mark McGrath and Friends Cruise? More information and a very important quiz, over here!

Here's a cool history lesson:

That narrow building rising all by itself, then the second tallest in New York City, is the just-finished headquarters of The New York Times newspaper. Its publisher, Alfred Ochs, had successfully lobbied city leaders to change Longacre Square's name to Times Square earlier that year. He then resolved to throw a New Year's Eve celebration that would be the talk of the town. "An all-day street festival culminated in a fireworks display set off from the base of the tower," according to an official history published by the Times Square District Management Association, "and at midnight the joyful sound of cheering, rattles and noisemakers from the over 200,000 attendees could be heard, it was said, from as far away as Croton-on-Hudson, thirty miles north."

An annual event was born—but two years later, the city prohibited the fireworks display. "Ochs was undaunted," the official history continues...