Rolling Stone Digs Deeply Into MSNBC Anchor Rachel Maddow & Her Dogged Pursuit of Trump Truth

Beware of women wearing pearls! Calif. Dem. Senator Kamala Harris reinforced that message last week (and Tuesday June 14, 2017) when she grilled Trump administration cabinet members in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. 

This Vassar-ready blonde has morphed into the woman today known as Rachel Maddow, the openly-gay Rhodes scholar who arrived on the MSNBC cable news scene via progressive Air America Radio. 'The Rachel Maddow Show' is now the number-one prime-time news program on cable TV, a notable achievement for the woman who leads the resistance in the Trump era with a firm commitment to "increase the amount of useful information in the world". 

Rolling Stone makes Rachel Maddow their cover girl, writing that in mid-May, 'The Rachel Maddow Show' was "second only to the NBC playoffs as the most-watched program on cable, period."

 On the whiteboard behind Maddow's desk is a running, if haphazardly diagrammed, list of the stories she's thinking about, with the most important circled in blue marker. Perpetual favorites like Flynn and Trump's ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort hold a prominent place. Another name floating in its own blue circle: Viktor Medvedchuk, "a superclose-to-Putin oligarch" whose name recently turned up in intercepts for having had contact with the Trump campaign. "But we haven't talked about the fact that he was [also] one of the first individuals sanctioned by the U.S. government after the Crimea thing," says Maddow. "And so what is that guy doing talking to the Trump campaign during the campaign when he is one of the sanctioned individuals?"

We all know the truth: Rachel Maddow is relentless on the hunt to uncover all the relevant facts about connections between the Trump Administration and Russia. 

 

'Gaysi': Sakshi Juneja's Queer Blog Thrives In India's Illegal Queer Scene

Mario Testino Captures Marjan Jonkman & Nora Attal In 'Role Play' For Vogue India May 2017

Posting Testino's 'Role Play' for Vogue India, AOC discovered 'Inside Gaysi: the blog transforming India's queer scene', appearing Monday in The Guardian'. Charukesi Ramadurai shares writes that the zine's content includes pieces of fiction, photo-essays, personal narratives, illustrations and how-to guides on the theme of sexual desire, from A Quick Guide to Scissoring to evocative verse on Love in the Age of Surveillance.

Gaysi – a portmanteau of the words gay and desi (desi is Hindi slang for south Asian) – first appeared as a blog almost 10 years ago. It has since developed a zine that retails at major bookshops across the country, hosts open mic events, book clubs and, most recently, India’s first drag king show. “We needed stories we could all relate to, and we needed an honest documentation of the livedGaysi – a portmanteau of the words gay and desi (desi is Hindi slang for south Asian) – first appeared as a blog almost 10 years ago. It has since developed a zine that retails at major bookshops across the country, hosts open mic events, book clubs and, most recently, India’s first drag king show. “We needed stories we could all relate to, and we needed an honest documentation of the lived realities of desi queer folks," founder Sakshi Juneja explains about her 10-year journey writing about gender and equality.

Mario Testino Sells 400 Works To Benefit Peru's Museo Mate & Promote Peruvian Artists

Jackie Hoffmann, Iliana Lolas, Karen Miter, Naomi Campbell and Mario Testino at the MATE Museum

Master photographer Mario Testino, known for his glam shots of supermodels and fashion editorials for the world's leading magazines. Over the years, Testino has become a buyer of fine art, with 500 works from his collection going to auction this fall. The sale, slated for September 13-14 in London, will benefit the Museo Mate (Museo Mario Testino) in Lima, Peru, a nonprofit that aims to bring Peruvian artists to world attention. The sale is expected to raise in excess of $10 million.

Testino is a fan of beauty, talking about his first photography purchase in the 1980s, a picture of actor Vivien Leigh by the surrealist photographer Angus McBean. 

"Beauty today is considered a bit banal and a bit empty and a bit superficial. In the art world you probably can't mention that word, because it's not interesting or not deep enough. But I'm just always amazed by it," the BBC quotes the famous photographer. 

Prior to the Sotheby's sale, Testino will take over Sotheby's London galleries to curate an exhibition featuring a "series of talks by friends and collaborators from the worlds of fashion and photography. "

The collection represents artists of 45 nationalities, including Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman. The collection is particularly rich in Latin American art, with works by the Argentine artists Pablo Bronstein and Amalia Pica, the Colombian Oscar Murillo and, not surprisingly, Peruvian artists such as William Cordova.

Testino has accumulated more than 1000 works without ever selling a piece. The decision to sell almost half the collection has been 'hard'. 

"It's sad to part," he says. "I've never sold anything. I've been too attached to my collection."

But he says: "I have a mission."

"I'm selling because I have a unique opportunity to change something in the country I come from," he says.

Testino addes that he can't maintain the museum "with the money I have. I can't carry on worrying every month if I have the money or not".

He says "getting sponsors today is quite difficult" so he wants to create an endowment to ensure the centre has financial security in the future.