What NORMAL, usual Russian neighborhood looks like
Buddhism in Russia (Snelling)
(Arisha in Russia) Buddhism is the third-largest religion in Russia, behind Christianity and Islam. As of 2025, it was practiced by approximately 1.4 million Buddhists, representing about 1.0% of the country’s total population [1].
In America we misuse the term "White Russian" as if that were the exception, when it is the largest of Russia's 93 ethnicities. Russia is massive and includes many indigenous peoples from Northern Europe to the Arctic Circle.
We have so many Russian ethnicities! (Eli)
Buddhism is considered one of Russia's traditional religions -- with the only indigenously Buddhist region in the world in Kalmykia -- and is legally a part of Russian historical heritage [2]. Russian dictator Vlad Lenin, a disaffected Christian who became a nominal/official communist-atheist, had at least one indigenously Buddhist relative.
I'm very Asian and 100% Russian
Historically, Buddhism was incorporated into Siberia in the early 17th century [3]. Besides the historical monastic traditions of the Buryats, the Kalmyks (Kalmykia being the only majority Buddhist republic in Europe), the Tuvans, and a part of the Evenki people (in Buryatia) [4], Buddhism is now spreading all over Russia, with many young ethnic Russian converts [5, 6].
Ancient Tartaria/Tartary was probably in Russia.
The main form of Buddhism in Russia is Vajrayana, particularly the Gelukpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, to which the Dalai Lama belongs, informally a tradition known as the "Yellow Hats" [6, 7] with other minority Tibetan and non-Tibetan Buddhist schools, such as the Mongolian.
Although Tibetan Buddhism is most often associated with Tibet, it spread into Mongolia. Via Mongolia, Buddhism spread into Siberia before spreading to the rest of Russia.
In the early 20th century, the famous Datsan Gunzechoinei in Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) was the northernmost Buddhist temple in Russia. More
Enjo kōsai: "compensated dating" (pre-tachinbo work) In Japan, the media shows it in a negative light, the typical scenario involving a girl desperate for money deciding to partake. Only later does she stop when friends or family intervene and inform her of the risks and consequences.
“Tachinbo” (立ちんぼ) means standing in a public place, such as a street, to look for paid sex customers. Around Ōkubo Park, some young women are reported to stand at night and wait for men to approach them. It is a form of street-based prostitution with contact directly in public instead of through a service. Under the Prostitution Prevention Law, sexual intercourse in exchange for money is illegal in Japan. And openly soliciting customers in public can violate local public nuisance laws... More
Understanding 'masculinism,' a movement to restore the primacy of men
(Fresh Air) June 24, 2026: Terry Gross interviews Helen Lewis. Masculinism is a belief that feminism emasculates men [making them less masculine], and men should be in control while women stay at home [barefoot and pregnant or] raising children. The Atlantic writer Helen Lewis says the movement is becoming mainstream. More
In his ideal system, “we would do it in our politics the same way we do it in our church structure,” he told me recently. “And that is, we vote by household.”
Wilson is a co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, based in Moscow, Idaho. Over the past five decades, he has built a small empire there, dedicated to disseminating his theocratic vision for the United States: a publishing house, a school, a liberal-arts college, and a video-streaming service.
His denomination, which has about 170 affiliated churches, counts [macho drunkard] Defense SecretaryPete Hegseth as a member, and Wilson was invited to lead a prayer service at the Pentagon in February. So when the pastor casually suggests disenfranchising half of America, people listen.
When I asked him about this position, Wilson said it wasn’t his top priority—“We have bigger fish to [kill and] fry”—but something he sees happening in perhaps 200 years’ time.
I found this intellectual footsie maddening. “If I said to you, ‘I think all white men should be put in cages—but not now; it’s not my aspiration for now,’” I suggested, “then you wouldn’t be interested in a single other thing that I had to say at that point.”
Wilson chuckled. “Oh, I know you’d probably have all my attention.”
Bibi meets Petey to talk about more genocide.
This is twinkly, avuncularDouglas Wilson, the guy who joined a hippie congregation fresh out of the U.S. Navy because he liked to play guitar and ended up leading church services once the regular pastor moved on. This is the same guy who once went on a multicity debating tour with the New AtheistChristopher Hitchens, and bonded with him over their shared love of... More
(Alex Meyers) May 2026: Off Campus is my kind of trash! Yeah, Off Campus, that's right. So I made an animated commentary analysis of it. Here's a full breakdown of this Prime Video TV show, a romcom that is so basic, it's kind of not the worst thing out there.
Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love
(Leo Price) ...If life means nothing, then only pleasure is worthwhile. Or if life has meaning and we cannot get at it, then still only enjoyment matters.
This is the view of not only brutes but some sophisticated philosophers.
It slips into our unconscious by default when we hold no other. However, we are reluctant to entertain it.
Oh, Ro-Ro! - Oh, Jewels!!
We would rather, if we question ourselves about it at all, take as our "purpose" the
support of family,
search for truth or beauty,
improvement of society,
fame,
self-expression,
development of talent...
It might be fair to say that apart from these or beneath these, for many of us our fundamental purpose is the search for love, particularly romantic love.
The love of one person for another is often the floor onto which we fall after the collapse of other dreams.
It is thought of as solid when nothing else is, and although it frequently gives way and dumps us into a basement of despair, it still enjoys a reputation of dependability. No matter that such a reputation is illogical—it still flourishes and will continue to flourish regardless of what anyone says.
Love, or the MYTH of love, is the first, last, and sometimes the only refuge of uncomprehending human beings. What else makes our hearts pound? What else makes us swoon with tingly feelings? What else renders us so intensely alive, aching, pining, yearning, wishing, hoping, craving?
The SEARCH for love—the sublime, the nebulous, the all consuming—remains sacred in a world that increasingly despises the sacred.
When the heroic and transcendental are only memories, when religious institutions fill up with bureaucrats and social scientists, when nobody believes there is a sky beyond the ceiling, then there seems no other escape from the prison of self than throwing ourselves abandon into love.
With a grey age of spiritual deadness upon us, we love. We beg for love or grieve for love. We have nothing higher to live for.
Indeed, many take it on faith that romantic love is the highest thing to live for. Movies, popular literature, art, and music all relentlessly celebrate it as the one "truth" accessible to all.
This kind of love obliterates reason, as poets have long sweetly lamented, and this is part of its charm and power. Why? We want to be swept up and spirited out of our calculating selves. "Want" is the key word because in the spiritual void of modern life, the wanting of love becomes increasingly indistinguishable from love itself.
So powerful, so insistent is it that we seldom notice that the gratification it tempts us with is rare, yet the craving is relentless. Love addiction? Love is mostly in anticipation; it is an agony of anticipation; it is an ache for a completion not found in the dreary round of mundane routine. That we never seem to possess it in its imagined fullness does not deter us. It hurts so bad that it must be good. Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love
Viva Las Vegas. Nevada is the only U.S. state where prostitution is legally permitted in some form. Prostitution is legal in 10 of Nevada's 17 counties, although only six allow it in every municipality.
Six counties have at least one active brothel, which mainly operate in rural, isolated areas [1].
The state's most populated counties, Clark (where Las Vegas is) and Washoe (which contains Reno), are among those that do NOT permit prostitution. But they do permit "escorts" that may trick tourists into believing they are accessing legal prostitution.
It is also illegal in Nevada's capital, Carson City, an independent city. The vast majority of prostitution in Nevada takes place illegally in the metropolitan areas of Las Vegas and Reno.
About 66 times more money is spent by customers on illegal prostitution in Nevada than in the regulated brothels [2]. More
Laurie Bag' and Susie Lee began a movement. Earlybirds Club, a party for women who want to dance and get to bed on time, is headed to Philly.
Many describe that party -- which ends at an appropriate 10:00 pm -- as a form of therapy and a rare chance to exhale and reconnect.
Can I bring my dad, Elon Musk? (Vivian Wilson)
Going out to a club and dancing until 3:00 am is an early 20’ right of passage. For many women and queer folks, the ritual usually involves putting on a slightly too tight outfit, wearing heels that just may kill feet, drinking cheap alcohol without any regard for the next day’s hangover, and sleeping in well past noon.
But then the years pile on, and so do responsibilities -- as careers, partners, and kids get in the way. The time for such shenanigans tends to fall by the wayside. Still, shouldn’t those carefree, joy-filled nights of dancing stay on the table, no matter what our age?
Smiles and bubble guns can be expected at Earlybirds parties (Meagan Shuptar/billypenn.com)
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Start bi, leave gay? Happy Pride Nights
That’s where Earlybirds Club is swooping in to fill the void. The concept, dreamed up 18 months ago in Chicago by friends Laura Baginski and Susie Lee, is a series of dance parties for GenX and Millennial women, lesbian, trans, and nonbinary people (LGBTQIA+), where drinking is optional, one can wear whatever one wants (orthopedic sneakers and fanny packs welcome), and leaving well before midnight is encouraged.
It's not lesbianism...Why does it need a label?
Already, the club has spread into multiple cities with sold-out tickets in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island.
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