ON MAY 7, 2004, in Krakow, skinheads from a far right parliamentary party, the League of Polish Families, attacked a peaceful demonstration of gays, lesbians, and their supporters with slurs and stones and caustic acid. On November 20, in Poznan, skinheads of the League fired teargas at the feminist and anti-homophobic March of Equality. Assaults on women and minorities have risen since Poland joined the European Union on May 1, 2004. Poland’s joining the EU was seen by the League of Polish Families as a national humiliation, and support for the League has been growing in the intervening year. …

Gay scholar and poet David Bergman called him the gayest poet of World War II, and National Endowment for the Arts chief Dana Gioia called him the best Catholic poet of the latter half of the 20th Century. This is Dunstan Thompson, who has always been one of my favorite poets. But, today, who has ever heard of him? …

LAURA J. MERRELL’S response to my review of Beyond Shame, by Patrick Moore, in the January-February 2005 issue of this journal was in several ways so strangely unmeasured a rejoinder-half the length of my entire review-that I felt that it deserved attention and response. …