Ames snarls for the cameras on a GritTV panel hosted by Laura Flanders, with guests Daphne Eviatar, Legal Correspondent for The Washington Independent, and Kate Clinton.

Nikolai Usatykh, serving 22 years in Arkhangelsk (or is he just 22 years old?)

Twitter may be all the rage here in the United States, but social networking over the World Wide Web has just jumped over a 15-ft. fence and, barely missing a few coils of barbed wire, landed in the middle of Russia’s brutal penal system. These scary-looking, chronically underfed, TB-infected criminals may be serving twenty to life, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have one.  With the democratizing power of Internet technology, even the most downtrodden have a voice!

Now, you don’t want to know how they snuck these photos out of their cells or what they did to smuggle the cameras in. Main thing is that once you get an account at Odnoklassniki.ru, you’ll be able to “friend” your favorite zek and start a friendship that will last a decade, at least. Some are somber and introspective, others pretty and simple-minded, while a few, like Dima Khrulyov below, are born with a natural gift with words and philosophy. But don’t expect quick replies to your private messages; it might be a few months or a year or more before you hear back from your new buddy. Sure, they don’t call them Gulags anymore, but visitation hour is still a 72-hour train ride away.

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In New York, on Friday, April 3, a man burst into a community center and started shooting, killing 15 people before blowing his own brains out. The gunman, 41-year-old Jiverly Voong, was instantly branded as a maniac by the media: an “angry loner who loved guns, hated America and talked about assassinating the President.” But who was he, really? Ames tries to answer that question on KPFK radio.

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Juan Jose Luna was an early contender for to the “Class War Hero” category. Judging by the mug shot, the Ivy Leaguers would have nothing to do with him, but he was smart enough to see the crash coming way before anyone else did and took no time deciding to do something about it, too. His plan was simple:  burn down his foreclosed home and collect fire insurance.  All this was back in the summer of 2007. But the plan backfired, literally. (more…)

A 58-year-old Wal-Mart employee who said he “couldn’t take it anymore” lit himself on fire outside the Bloomingdale store where he worked late Thursday night and was later pronounced dead at a hospital, authorities said this morning. (more…)

A “Westerner’s” severed head was found in a plastic bag hanging from a rope from a bridge in Thailand on Monday. Turns out he wasn’t murdered, he was just depressed. And he wasn’t just any ol’ Westerner: he was a 53-year-old Italian named Maurizio Tosadori. So he tied a rope around his neck and jumped from the Rama VIII bridge, leaving nothing behind but an indecipherable note that one Italian embassy official believed had coded messages indicating a “Russian mob-style execution.” Now why would they go ‘n say that, huh? Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black: an Italian holding racist views about Russians all being mobsters! Everyone knows that Russians are peaceful, conscientious citizens of GAIA.

Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, here are a couple of photos you can load into your grandmother’s digital photo frame for Mother’s Day.

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The reigning czarina of Russian sluts, the ever-ambitious Karina Barbie, released a poorly-edited video of herself practicing her poledancing moves when she was 17. Note that she’s poledancing in her parents’ home, with her babushka walking back and forth sans underwear (like babushka, like Karina). That’s right, mom and grandma bought their little baby Karina a pole and set it up in the middle of their provincial apartment living room so that their daughter could practice sliding around on it. Ah, the Third Rome, where would we be without it… (more…)