Happy Harpies

Melanie Asmar at Denver Westword: Gay immigrants need asylum from persecution at home

Though she dressed as a boy, kept her hair short and went by Rafael, Kassandra knew always — siempre — that she should have been born a girl.

Joe Eskenazi at SF Weekly: Brokeback Festival: How Financial Mismanagement Marched Pride to Brink of Disaster

Throwing spectacular, well-attended events — and losing money prodigiously — has become a recurring Pride motif.

Brantley Hargrove at Nashville Scene: A dispute goes public over an actor dismissed from a local production of Rent

Yet the most recent blow landed on Kaine Riggan, owner of the popular Printer’s Alley playhouse, when the male lead portraying the HIV-positive character Roger claimed he was dismissed from the production in late March because — in the cruelest of ironies — he actually is HIV positive.

Valerie Wells at Jackson Free Press: MPB: Public Servant?

The staff and the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television board, which oversees MPB, worry about budget-cuts from legislators suspicious of MPB.

Steve Bogira at Chicago Reader: A Convict’s Odyssey

“You spent 28 years in prison?”

“Yes.”

“For a crime you didn’t commit?”