NEWS: United States Places First In International Mathematics Olympiad

The U.S. team won first place at the 59th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), which took place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania on July 3-14, with 116 countries and 615 students participating. The USA Mathematical Olympiad Team cosisted of: Adam Ardeishar, Andrew Gu, Vincent Huang, James Lin, Michael Ren, and Mihir Singhal.  Individually they also took home five gold medals (Lin scored a perfect 42) and one silver medal. Gu, Huang, and Lin are returning IMO team members from 2017. Teams from Russia and China placed second and third, respectively

Hat/tip to American Mathematics Society and Mathematical Association of America.

WARNING: Russian Teams Dominate Collegiate Prestigious International Programming Contest Standings

Things that make you go hmmmm! The ICPC 2018 (ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest) was just held last week and the results could be ominous for future technological success by the United States.

The top 2 places were taken by two teams from Russia: Moscow State University (#1) and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (#2). Teams from China, Japan and South Korea rounded out the rest of the top 5. The highest an American team placed was #10 (University of Central Florida), which just edged out #11, which was from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Of the 13 teams in the top tier, 4 were from Russia and 3 were from China.

Jus' saying...

2017 INDIAN WELLS: Federer-Wawrinka, Kuznetsova-Vesnina Finals

The finals of the 2017 BNP Paribas Open are now set. On the men's side it will be an all-Swiss affair, with Stan Wawrinka and Roger Federer. The two last met in the semifinals of the 2017 Australian Open, where Federer defeated the higher ranked Wawrinka in 5 tough sets on his way to winning his long-sought 18th major title. Federer is playing in his 43rd Masters final (now tied with Novak Djokovic) while Wawrinka is playing in his 4th. The two compatriots have played 22 times before and Federer has only lost 3 times, all on clay. I expect Federer will win this match tomorrow.

On the women's side the WTA tour has been devastated with World #1 Serena Williams' withdrawal from the Indian Wells and Miami tournaments. New World #1 Angelique Kerber lost early to Elena Vesnina, and although Venus Williams took the momentum from her first-round escape against Jelena Jankovic to reach the quarterfinals, she lost against Vesnina who is now playing the best tennis of her careers in her first Premier Mandatory final. The Russian will face another compatriot, 2-time major champion Sveta Kuznetsova, who last reached the final here twice before (2007 l. Daniela Hantuchova and 2008 l. Ana Ivanovic). For the second time this year, a final will be contested between two female players over age 30. Kuznetova is 31 and Vesnina is 30. The two are tied 1-all in their head-to-head. I'm rooting for Kuznetsova to win!

Carlsen Retains World Chess Champion Title By Winning Tiebreak

Wow! On his 26th birthday, Magnus Carlsen was able to defend his world chess championship title over a challenge from Russian Sergey Karjakin by winning the 4-game rapid chess (25 minutes plus 10 seconds per move) match 3-1 today. After two draws, Carlsen won the last two games, finishing the very last game with a flashy Queen sacrifice which forces mate in two moves! (Do you see it?)

2016 World Chess Championship Tied At 6-All; Tiebreaker Games To Be Played Wednesday

The 2016 World Chess Championship is going on right now in New York City. The current champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who turns 26 on Wednesday while the challenger is Sergey Karjakin is already 26 and was born in the Ukraine but is representing Russia.

After 12 games (with only 2 decisive games, Karjakin won game 8 with Black while Carlsen won game 10 with white) the two are tied with 6 points each. On Wednesday, they will play in several short tiebreaker games to decide who the new World Champion is. Carlsen is expected to have the slight edge, since he has won the World Rapid Championship twice.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Czechs Triumph, Federer Ends Djokovic's Streak!

CZECH REPUBLIC WINS FOURTH FED CUP IN FIVE YEARS DESPITE SHARAPOVA'S 2-0 PRESENCE
The Czech Republic was able to win a dramatic 3-2 tie versus Russia with the help of Karolina Pliskova this weekend despite the presence of Maria Sharapova playing for Russia and her defeats of Pliskova and Petra Kvitova. This was the fourth win in five years (2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015) for the Czech Republic.

FEDERER GETS REVENGE AGAINST DJOKOVIC IN LONDON, ENDING WORLD #1'S 23-MATCH WINNING STREAK
Roger Federer ended Novak Djokovic's 23-match winning streak in fine style at the ATP Tour Finals by winning in straight sets, 7-5 6-2. Federer's win gives the him the 22-21 edge in their head-to-head and assures that he will be playing in the semifinal round on Saturday. Almost certainly, the two will be facing again in the championship match, unless the two players who advance from the other group (likely to be Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray) disrupt this narrative. Interestingly, Federer was also the last person to beat Djokovic before the win streak began (in the 2015 Cincinati Masters final in August).

As Sochi Olympics Start Google Doodle Supports LGBT Equality

The controversial Sochi Olympics have started and Google has taken a stand in support of LGBT equality in Russia with today's Doodle.

Hat/tip to TowleRoad

QUEER QUOTE: 8 U.S. States Have Explicitly Anti-Gay Laws

Yale Law Professors Bill Eskridge and Ian Ayres published an editorial today in the Washington Post which compares the official homophobic public policy of Russia with the official homophobia of multiple states in our own country.

Eight U.S. states, and several cities and counties, have some version of what we call “no promo homo” provisions. Before the United States condemns the Russian statute’s infringement of free speech and academic freedom, it should recognize that our own republican forms of government have repeatedly given rise to analogous restrictions. 

It is no coincidence that these examples focus on what must and must not be said to children. An explanatory note accompanying the 2013 Russian legislation makes clear that the statute seeks to protect children “from the factors that negatively affect their physical, intellectual, mental, spiritual, and moral development.” Proponents of the U.S. statutes have offered similar justification. And, like Russian President Vladimir Putin this month, the U.S. laws warn gay people and sympathizers to “leave kids alone, please.” 

The underlying ideology of these statutes is the same: Everybody should be heterosexual, and homosexuality is per se bad. This ideology has never rested on any kind of evidence that homosexuality is a bad “choice” that the state ought to discourage. The ideology is a prejudice-laden legacy of a fading era. (In fact, the strategy is daffy: Even if homosexuality were a bad lifestyle choice, state laws are not an effective way to head off such a choice.

The authors include excerpts from the homophobic legislation they are referring to:

“Materials adopted by a local school board . . . shall . . . comply with state law and state board rules . . . prohibiting instruction . . . in the advocacy of homosexuality.” 

“Propaganda of homosexualism among minors is punishable by an administrative fine.” 

“No district shall include in its course of study instruction which: 1. Promotes a homosexual life-style. 2. Portrays homosexuality as a positive alternative life-style. 3. Suggests that some methods of sex are safe methods of homosexual sex.” 

“[I]nstruction relating to sexual education or sexually transmitted diseases should include . . . emphasis, provided in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense.”

 The second of these is from the Russian law that went into effect last year after President Putin's signature, the others are from actual laws in effect in Utah, Alabama and Texas.

If discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation must receive heightened scrutiny then it is hard to believe these kinds of laws can survive any kind of judicial review.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Brian Boitano, Olympic Figure Skater, Comes Out As Gay

Brian Boitano is a former Olympic figure skater who won the 1988 Gold medal in Men's Figure Saking and was named this week by President Obama to a delegation to the Winter  Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The Sochi Olympics are becoming a media controversy because they are being held in a notoriously homophobic country so it was notable that the American delegation did not include any high-ranking elected or appointed officials but did include two openly LGBT individuals: tennis great Billie Jean King  and hockey player Caitlin Cahow.

Boitano, 50, was also named to the Sochi delegation and although his sexuality had long been gossiped about, Boitano made it official that he is a gay man by releasing this statement:

I am currently skating in Europe but want to provide a statement regarding my appointment to the Olympic delegation. I have been fortunate to represent the United States of America in three different Olympics, and now I am honored to be part of the presidential delegation to the Olympics in Sochi. It has been my experience from competing around the world and in Russia that Olympic athletes can come together in friendship, peace and mutual respect regardless of their individual country's practices. 

 

It is my desire to be defined by my achievements and my contributions. While I am proud to play a public role in representing the American Olympic Delegation as a former Olympic athlete, I have always reserved my private life for my family and friends and will continue to do so. I am many things: a son, a brother, and uncle, a friend, an athlete, a cook, an author, and being gay is just one part of who I am. First and foremost I am an American athlete and I am proud to live in a country that encourages diversity, openness and tolerance. As an athlete, I hope we can remain focused on the Olympic spirit which celebrates achievement in sport by peoples of all nations.

So, now there are three openly gay members of the delegation to the Sochi Olympics. This should get interesting!

Queer Quote: Russian Lawmaker Wants To Ban Gay Parenting

Alexhei Zhuravlev is a member of the lower house of the Russian Parliament and last week proposed a bill that would allow authorities to terminate the parental rights of gay and lesbian parents and remove their kids from their homes.

Zhuravlev is quoted making this astounding statement::

"We view Europe as Sodom and Gomorrah. Europe must not tell us how to live. The Europeans can live any way they like, but they mustn’t tell us what to do. Of course [a gay mother] should definitely be deprived of her rights to the child. Homosexuals must not raise children. They corrupt them. They do them much more harm than if the child were in an orphanage. I am deeply convinced of this."

This incredibly ignorant sentiment is today's Queer Quote. It should be noted that Russia also bans adoption of Russian children to any country that has marriage equality. It is estimated that there are at least 700,000 children in Russian orphanages and another 3 million living on the street.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

TV Star Wentworth Miller Comes Out, Rejects Russian Invite

Wentworth Miller is best known as the smouldering sexy star of the Fox hit television series Prison Break from a few years ago (2005-2009). Now 41, Miller is making headlines this week for coming out as a gay man as he publicizes his declination of an invitation to visit Russia in protest of its notoriously homophobic and unwelcome atmosphere for openly LGBT individuals.

Miller wrote a letter which GLAAD publicized on its blog:

August 21, 2013

Re: St. Petersburg International Film Festival / "Guest of Honor" Invitation

Dear Ms. Averbakh:

Thank you for your kind invitation. As someone who has enjoyed visiting Russia in the past and can also claim a degree of Russian ancestry, it would make me happy to say yes.

However, as a gay man, I must decline.

I am deeply troubled by the current attitude toward and treatment of gay men and women by the Russian government. The situation is in no way acceptable, and I cannot in good conscience participate in a celebratory occasion hosted by a country where people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly.

Perhaps, when and if circumstances improve, I'll be free to make a different choice.

Until then.

Wentworth Miller

Member, HRC
Member, GLAAD
Member, The ManKind Project

It will be interesting to see if this move by Miller will encourage other closeted celebrities to come out of the closet to publicize the extreme homophobia being exhibited in Russia.

Obama Denounces Russia's Anti-Gay "Propaganda" Law

The President appeared on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night and made some news when he was asked about tensions with Russia. He commented on the current controversy about Russia's anti-gay propaganda law and the implications for the presence of LGBT athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The law subjects anyone who makes public statements in support of LGBT equality on Russian soil liable to hefty fines and time in jail.

LGBT Think Progress has the relevant transcript:

OBAMA: I’ve been very clear that when it comes to universal rights, when it comes to people’s basic freedoms, that whether you are discriminating on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, you are violating the basic morality that I think should transcend every country. And I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them.

Now, what’s happening in Russia is not unique. When I traveled to Africa, there were some countries that are doing a lot of good things for their people, who we’re working with and helping on development issues, but in some cases have persecuted gays and lesbians. And it makes for some uncomfortable press conferences sometimes. But one of the things that I think is very important for me to speak out on is making sure that people are treated fairly and justly, because that’s what we stand for. And I believe that that’s a precept that’s not unique to America, that’s something that should apply everywhere.

It is good that President Obama has spoken out about Russia's homophobic law; this makes it clear that such policies are well outside of the expected norms of behavior by civilized countries.

Queer Quote: Tilda Swinton Shows Support For LGBT Rights in Russia

Tilda  Swinton, Oscar-winning actress (for Michael Clayton), showed support for LGBT equality while in Moscow today by appearing with a rainbow flag near the Kremlin. Just this week, President Vladimir Putin signed into law a measure which basically puts the state's seal of approval on official homophobia in Russia.

Via her agent Christian Hodell on Twitter, Tilda gives our Queer Quote for today:

"In solidarity. From Russia with love."

Hat/tip to TowleRoad

Putin Signs Virulently Anti-Gay "Propaganda" Bill Into Law

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a virulently anti-gay bill that would purportedly "protect minors" by banning "gay propaganda." The bill had previously passed the Russian legislature with almost no opposition, including near unanimity in the Duma, the lower House of Parliament, (436 to 0 with one abstention).

The Associated Press reports:

The lower house of Russia’s parliament unanimously passed the Kremlin-backed bill on June 11 and the upper house approved it last week.

The ban on ‘‘propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations’’ is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values over Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church see as corrupting Russian youth and contributing to the protests against Putin’s rule. 

Hefty fines can now be imposed on those who provide information about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to minors or hold gay pride rallies. 

The Kremlin announced Sunday that Putin has signed the legislation into law.

The Washington Blade reports on opposition to the legislation and places its passage into the context of homophobia in Russia:

Putin signed the bill into law against the backdrop of growing concern over anti-LGBT discrimination and violence in Russia.

Two men in Volgograd and on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East in recent weeks have been killed during what local authorities have described as anti-gay attacks.

[...]

The State Department, the European Union and retired tennis champion Martina Navratilova are among those who have criticized Russian lawmakers and Putin over their opposition to LGBT rights in the country.

[Nikolai] Alekseev [of Gay Russia, an LGBT advocacy group] ]and a growing number of other LGBT rights advocates have also called for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2018 World Cup that will also take place in Russia.

“[They are] a very good opportunity to raise particular concerns,” Alekseev told the Blade earlier this month. “One of the ways for many countries would be to boycott these international sporting events because they take place in a country which doesn’t respect basic human rights.”

Gee, how many years behind the rest of the world is Russian on gay rights? 25 years? 30 years? Still thinking that telling kids about homosexuality or restricting access to information about gay rights will have any influence whatsoever on a child's sexual orientation isn't something I haven't thought about since the odious Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and his "no promo homo" amendments in the mid 1990's or Margaret Thatcher's Tories supporting the infamous Clause 28 from the 1980's in Great Britain.

It will be very interesting to contrast the Winter Games in 2014 and World Cup in 2018 in an officially homophobic country like Russia with the World Cup in 2014 and Summer Games in 2016 in Brazil, which will have almost certainly enacted full marriage equality by then.

MOVIE REVIEW: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

The Other Half and I were feeling like watching something not too serious for the last weekend of the year and since Brad Bird is one of our favorite directors (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant) we decided to go see his lastest film, even if it is the 4th installment in the Mission Impossible movies starring Tom Cruise.

Also influencing our decision to see the film was the fact that it was sporting a surprisingly positive rating on rottentomatoes.com of 93%, pretty high for your typical mindless action flick. The third one (2006's Mission Impossible III) had been produced and directed by JJ Abrams and had (somewhat ineffectively, in my estimation) combined numerous action sequences with intricate, highly charged emotional scenes between Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

This fourth outing stars Cruise again (now 49 years old but astonishingly still able to maintain his credibility as male action hero) as well as Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), Paula Patton (Déjà Vu, Precious) and Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, The Town). (Spoiler alert! Tom Wilkinson has a literally short-lived cameo as the Secretary of Defense and Anil Kapoor (the TV host in Slumdog Millionaire) shows up late in the film as comically randy billionaire.) Looks like actor Josh Holloway (Sawyer on Lost) is starting to get some work in movies although his part is also pretty small.

I would talk about the plot of the movie but it is typically simultaneously indecipherable and non-sensical. What is most important in this kind of movie are the shooting locations, the fancy gadgets and the overall production values and on this level Mission Impossible IV does not disappoint.

The movie begins in Budapest, Hungary (the second film I have seen in little over a month to do so: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy also begins with a pivotal scene in this apparently gorgeous city) and then movies on to The Kremlin in Moscow, then the tallest building in the world (Burj Khalifa), located in the United Arab Emirates and then ends in Mumbai, India. It really is quite thrilling to get a close-up look at the interior an exterior of the Burj Khalifa, as well as the view from 130 stories.

There are all sorts of fanciful gadgets used by the "Impossible Mission Force," even the much-maligned, (frankly ridiculous) full-face masks introduced in the very first edition of the series which basically allows anyone's face to appear on anyone else's body (perfect facial impersonation). However, here the writer (or director) do themselves a favor by making fun of the face masks, while still deploying them in a way which forwards "the plot."

The production values are frankly top-notch throughout and though the film is well-over 2-hours it never seems to slow down and due to the penchant for killing characters played by major actors the viewer really does have a sense that perhaps this time the bad guys will actually win and that any member of the team can be killed at just about any moment.

Except for Tom of course. After all, there is the inevitable Mission Impossible V  to look forward to!

Title: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
Director: Brad Bird.
Running Time: 2 hours, 13 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence.
Release Date: December 21, 2011.
Viewing Date: December 30, 2011.

 Plot: C.
Acting: A-.
Visuals: A.
Impact: A-.

Overall Grade: B+ (3.33/4.0).

Kasparov Arrested In Russia

Former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov was arrested in Moscow on Saturday at an anti-government rally for the second time this year. He was sentenced to serve 5 days in jail.

Kasparov has emerged as a leading opposition spokesperson and is the official candidate for President of Russia of the Other Russia political party coalition. He is widely regarded as the best chess player of all time and is well-known to citizens of the former Soviet Republics as a national hero for his chess prowess.