TENNIS TUESDAY: Dimitrov Wins First ATP Title In Stockholm

Bulgarian wunderkind Grigor Dimitrov won his first ATP Tour title in Stockholm, Sweden. Dimitrov defeated World #3 David Ferrer in the final 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. Dimitrov is 22 years old and will rise to a career high rank of #22 in the ATP World ranking on Monday.

Serena Wins 53rd WTA Title in Bastad, Sweden

Serena Williams won her 53rd WTA Tour title in Bastad, Sweden this weekend. She defeated hometown favorite Joanna Larsson 6-4 6-1, coming back from 1-3 down in the first set and won 9 of the last 10 games in the match.

The Swedish Open is Serena's 4th clay court title this year and 53rd of her career (tying her for 9th all time with Monica Seles) having finally won Roland Garros again  last month as well as Madrid and Rome in May. She has now won 28 clay court matches in a row and is 51-4 for the year going into one of her strongest periods of the year, the U.S. hard court season which culminates in the US Open where she is the current defending champion.

GRAPHIC: Marriage Equality Throughout Europe

With England's completion of the enactment of same-sex marriage earlier this month, it's instructive to review the geographic distribution of marriage equality throughout the European continent. The above map indicates that Spain, Portugal, France, England, Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and Norway are all dark-blue marriage equality states. Additionally, there are many other states in Europe which have other forms of legal recognition for same-sex couples. Of the dark-blue marriage equality states only Iceland and Norway are NOT members of the European Union.

There are ten European countries (in red) which have constitutional bans prohibiting recognition or legalization of same-sex marriage: Belarus, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia and Ukraine. Half of these countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland) ARE members of the European Union.

It will be interesting to see how the European Union will resolve the question of marriage equality. I would guess that the EU will have uniform laws recognizing same-sex couples well before the United States does.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

GRAPHIC: Countries With Marriage Equality

With the passage of marriage equality in Uruguay, the above graphic is floating around the Interwebs. It is very soon to be out of date, because in addition to the imminent case of France, Great Britain will almost certainly enact marriage equality by the end of the year.

Spain's Top Court Upholds Marriage Equality Law

Good news! When the conservatives in the Popular Party (PP) won Spain's parliamentary elections last year they vowed to overturn the country's marriage equality law which has been in effect since 2005. They first did so by appointing conservative judges to Spain's high court which has been considering an appeal to the law's constitutionality that was filed shortly by the PP after the law went into effect more than 7 years ago.

Today comes word that by a vote of 8-3 the law was upheld by Spain's Constitutional Court in Madrid:

Spain’s Parliament passed the gay marriage law in 2005 when it was Socialist-controlled, with Popular Party deputies opposed. The Popular Party took power late last year after the Socialists were ousted over their handling of the economy. 

The gay marriage law angered the predominant Roman Catholic Church but opinion surveys showed most Spaniards backed it. Belgium and the Netherlands approved gay marriage laws before Spain. 

More than 22,000 gay marriages have taken place in Spain.

The PP could still try to pass a new law through Parliament repealing marriage equality in the country, but since then other countries in Europe have also ratified marriage equality, including neighboring Portugal in 2010, Sweden in 2009, Denmark in 2012 and Norway in 2008. In 2010 fellow Spanish-speaking country Argentina enacted marriage equality and France is poised to consider legislation to do so soon, although the political debate and religious opposition is growing more fractious as the possibility of marriage equality becomes more realistic in that country.

Regardless, today we can celebrate that Spain has marriage equality, which is one of the reasons why my husband and myself spent a week visiting the country (Barcelona and Madrid) earlier this year!

STOCKHOLM 2012: Berdych Edges Tsonga To Win

Getty

For a set and a half Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was the better player in the final of the Stockholm Open, losing less than a handful of points on his serve to Tomas Berdych. The crucial point came at 6-4, 4-2 with the tall Czech player struggling to hold his serve against a furious attack from the Frenchman. Somehow Berdych was able to serve his way out of trouble and the momentum shifted to his side. This was the first game in a sweep of 5 in a row which garnered Berdych the second set and dashed Tsonga's hope of winning his 10th career title (now 9-7 in finals). Berdych ended up winning the match 4-6 6-4 6-4.

With Berdych's win over Tsonga he claimed his 8th career ATP Tour title (2nd of 2012) and improved his finals record to 8-all. Berdych also improved to a 3-1 career head-to-head over the Frenchman, winning both the matches the two have played in 2012.

More importantly, Berdych is now #6 in the race to qualify for the ATP World Tour finals, with Juan Martin del Potro also winning a title (in Vienna) on Sunday at #7 and Tsonga at #8. There are only two weeks left to gain points before London where only the Top 8 players are invited to play, with most of the top players competing in Basel, Switzerland this week and then the BNP Paribas Masters in Bercy, Paris the following week. Roger Federer is the defending champion in both tournaments and needs to repeat that performance this year if he is to have a hope of keeping his hold on the #1 ranking through the end of the year.

GRAPHIC: Interactive Map Of Global Marriage Equality

France is poised to join the list of countries in which same-sex marriage is legal by 2013, and in light of the debate which is about to start in that country when the marriage bill is introduced in Parliament in October, the news service France24 has published an interactive map demonstrating the countries around the world which allow full marriage equality or civil unions.

hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Denmark PM Sets Date Marriage Equality Legalized

Excellent news! As I blogged about last October, the Government of Denmark has announced that it will be enacting marriage equality in the near future, and today comes word that the date will be June 15th, 2012.

At her weekly press conference, Tuesday, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said the government is putting the finishing touches to a bill that will come into force on June 15th, allowing homosexuals and lesbians to walk down the aisle in the church of their choice – if they can find a priest who’s willing to conduct the ceremony.

“It will always be up to the individual priest as to whether he or she is prepared to bless gay couples but this legislation provides homosexuals with the same rights as heterosexuals,” said the PM.

Way back in 1989, Denmark was the very first country in the world to have state-sponsored recognition of same-sex couples when they enacted registered partnerships, which was essentially what we would now call civil unions or comprehensive domestic partnerships. Now, there are well over a half-dozen countries which have full marriage equality, led by the Netherlands in 2000 and followed by Canada, Argentina, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Sweden and Norway.

Denmark is a European country of 5.5 million people, about the size of Minnesota or Wisconsin. When Maryland and Washington defend their marriage equality laws at the ballot box later this year, even more people (5.8 million and 6.8 million, respectively) will gain access to marriage equality.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Monfils Beats Nieminen For 1st 2011 Title

Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images

Frenchman Gael Monfils won his first title of 2011 in Stockholm today by beating Finnish lefty Jarkko Nieminen 7-5 3-6 6-2. Monfils is ranked #10  in the world but has only won 4 career ATP despite playing in 16 ATP Tour finals.

Federer Wins 64th Tour Title; Tied With Sampras At 4th Most All-Time

Roger Federer won the 2010 Stockholm Open over Florian Mayer 6-4 6-3 to tie Pete Sampras for 4th on the all-time list of ATP tour titles won at 64. Jimmy Connors leads with 107, followed by Ivan Lendl at 94 and John McEnroe at 77.

Federer's career record is now 64 wins and 28 losses in finals, which is significantly better than his 2010 record in finals which is 3-4 (losses to Rafael Nadal in the Madrid Masters on clay, to Andy Murray in the Toronto and Shanghai Masters on hard courts and to Lleyton Hewitt in Halle, on grass).

Federer is now 29 years old but has promised to play through thw 2012 Olympics in London, which will be held on grass. He won the Gold medal in doubles but Nadal won the Gold in singles in Beijing in 2008.

I predict Federer will surpass McEnroe's total by the time he retires  but Lendl's total is safe. Another record Federer would dearly like to have, is the most weeks at #1, where he is exactly one week behind Sampras' record of 286.

BOOK REVIEW: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

The third (and final?) book from Steig Larsson is The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which follows in the footsteps of the publishing sensations The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire.

The books are set in Sweden and revolve around the character of Lisbeth Salander, one of the most celebrated anti-heroines in all of fiction. Salander is a boyish-looking, multiply pierced, very short woman with an eidetic memory and world-class computer hacking skills.

The other main character of what is now known as the Millennium trilogy is Mikael Blomkvist. He is a crusading investigative reporter, 40-something and devastatingly attractive to women.He is clearly a proxy for the author, who was editor-in-chief of an alternative magazine in Sweden for years before dying suddenly of a heart attack shortly after delivering the manuscripts for the first two books.

Both The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire are intensely suspenseful novels that became blockbuster bestsellers in Sweden and around the world. They have been turned into Swedish-language films with a major Hollywood version on the way.

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is a fitting third chapter in the Millennium trilogy but is not the best book of the series (it's hard to choose between the first two books but  I think I'd have to give an edge to the second one for sheer suspense, although the plot and atmosphere of the first is compelling). Although familiar themes of misogyny and little guys fighting the big guys crop up again in Hornet's Nest, for some reason it's not as gripping as the first two novels even though the stakes involved get higher and higher. This is probably primarily because the book has no central mystery any longer, it devolves more into a police procedural combined with a courtroom thriller. These are not bad aspects, but they are not exactly the same elements which made Dragon Tattoo so enthralling. For the first time I noticed the somewhat leaden dialogue, as well as the multiple shifts to first-person narrative, often to secondary characters.

Overall, I'm glad I read the trilogy and would heartily recommend to anyonje who likes mystery or suspense to read either of the first two. I really can't imagine anyone having done that not completing the entire series, despite the diminished return of the third book.

Author: Stieg Larsson.
Title: The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.
Hardcover: 563 pages
Publisher: Knopf.
Date Published: May 25, 2010.

OVERALL GRADE: A.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: The Girl Who Played With Fire

The sequel to Stieg Larsson's amazing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is The Girl Who Played with Fire.

As I mentioned in my review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the book was nearly impossible to put down. It's sequel is even more addictive. The third book in what is now being called the Millenium series was released on Tuesday May 25th and is called The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

The first book really doesn't treat Lisbeth Salander as the main character, even though she is clearly the title character. The second book is clearly all about Lisbeth Salander. The book begins with her, the plot centers around her back story and the book ends with her.

There is another mystery in Fire, of course; this time it's a brutal double murder of a couple that occurs the same night (probably in the same hour) as the torture-murder of someone who had abused Lisbeth.

The reader's loyalties are severely tested--could the hyper-intelligent, violent, socially unaware, sexually ambiguous, titular Girl also be a murderer? Mikael Blomkvist, the true main character from Tattoo, returns and is basically the only one who believes in Lisbeth's innocence after she becomes Sweden's #1 Most Wanted criminal, blasted on the front page of every media outlet in the country.

Another interesting feature of Fire is that it includes the internal details of the police investigation to solve the double murder as well as an inside view on the manhunt to track down Lisbeth.

The resolution of the mysteries are skillfully done and by the end of the book we find out a lot more about Lisbeth, especially her family background. But to get there the reader is taken on a nail-bitingly suspenseful ride which is well worth the price of admission: cracking open the book.

Author: Stieg Larsson.
Title: The Girl Who Played with Fire.
Paperback: 656 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition.
Date Published: March 23, 2009.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

Portugal President Enacts Marriage Equality

Portugal will become the tenth jurisdiction in the world (sixth country in Europe) where marriage between same-sex couples is legal after President Anibal Cavaco Silva agreed to allow the measure become law today, the International Day Against Homophobia, despite direct lobbying from the Pope, who had decried gay marriage when he visited the country last week.

The bill was a priority of Portugal's recently elected prime minister Jose Socrates who had included the measure in his election portfolio. However, to become law the measure needed the assent of the President.

"I feel I should not contribute to a pointless extension of this debate, which would only serve to deepen the divisions between the Portuguese and divert the attention of politicians away from the grave problems affecting us," Cavaco Silva said.

He said that, in ratifying the law, he was setting aside "personal convictions."

Elsewhere in Europe, gay marriage is permitted in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Norway.

Five U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriage, as have Canada and South Africa.

Portugal is nearly 90 percent Catholic. However, only around 2 million of its 10.6 million people describe themselves as practicing Catholics and in recent times Portugal has drifted away from the church's teachings.

The current Socialist government has defied the church before. It passed a law in 2007 allowing abortion. The following year, it introduced a law allowing divorce even if one of the spouses objected. It has argued that the legislation is part of Portugal's "modernization."

The new law removes the previous legal stipulation that marriage is between two people of different sexes.

Portugal's Constitutional Court validated the bill's legality last month.

[...]

Portugal lifted a prohibition on homosexuality in the early 1980s. In 2001, it passed a law allowing "civil unions" between same-sex couples, which granted couples certain legal, tax and property rights. However, it did not allow couples to take a partner's name, nor inherit his or her possessions or state pension.

Congratulations! Anyone fancy a trip to Lisbon to celebrate?

BOOK REVIEW: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson has become a publishing phenomenon. It's a contemporary mystery novel set in Sweden (Stockholm, mostly), written by a debut novelist who died suddenly before his books were officially published.

Happily he wrote three books before he died, and the third book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest will be released in May 2010. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has also been made into a major (Swedish) motion picture which was released in the United States in March 2010.

The book is centered around Lisbeth Sander, an anti-social hacker with a photographic memory who works with a corporate security form on private investigations of people, as well as Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist/publisher who loses a libel case against a prominent Swedish businessman. The story is set in Sweden, mostly Stockholm and the fictional Hedestad Island.

The plot is incredibly complex, built around three compelling mysteries: solving a disappearance of a 16-year old girl from a remote Swedish island over forty years before, unearthing the truth about the complicated business deal which caused Blomkvist to commit libel and fiiguring out what makes Lisbeth Salander tick.

Salander is one of the great characters in the mystery genre; it is no wonder that Oscar-nominated British actress Carey Mulligan has aggressively gone after (and apparently won) the role, with David Fincher directing.

Despite a viciously negative review from The New York Times, the novel has gone on to become a publishing sensation in several countries and won multiple awards. This is not surprising to understand. Once begun, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is almost impossible to put down. I got it for Christmas last year and had finished it and the sequel before New Year's Eve!

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Author: Stieg Larsson.
Title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Paperback: 608 pages.
Publisher: Vintage.
Published: June 23, 2009.

OVERALL GRADE: A.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

Eye Candy: Martin Elkholm

There has been quite a buzz about the multiracial model Martin Elkholm, who is of Swedish and Jamaican descent, on lots of the "eyecandy" blogs.

I'm sure you can appreciate why. Enjoy!

Eye Candy: Daniel Norell

Smoking hot photographer and model Daniel Norell is a pulchritudinous specimen of multiracial and Swedish ancestry. It's surprising someone this good looking would want to spend time behind the camera instead of in front of it, but apparently Daniel is "quite versatile." Gosh, I hope so!

Sweden Becomes 7th Country To Legalize Marriage Equality

On May 1, 2009 Sweden will become the seventh country in the world in which marriage is a gender-neutral contract between two individuals after a vote in the Swedish Parliament on Wednesday. The vote in the Riksdag was 261 to 22 with 66 abstentions.

From The Advocate's website:

Gender-neutral marriage licenses will begin to be issued starting May 1, replacing a civil union option that has been offered since 1995. Religious institutions will not be compelled to perform ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples. A majority of bishops in the Church of Sweden said that churches should not be allowed the task of handling legal registrations of marriages.

The Netherlands (2001), Norway (2008), Belgium (2003), Spain (2005), Canada (2005), and South Africa (2006) already allow same-sex marriage.

Hmmmm, as evidenced in the links above I notice that 5 of the 7 countries which have legalized gender-neutral marriage have done so since this blog came into existence in January 2005. Coincidence or cause and effect?