This Week in the Voice: Dan Choi, Bad Lieutenant

​Lt. Daniel Choi resembles so many other American soldiers in many, many ways: as a late-20s West Point grad who loves his country, a born-again Christian, as a soldier who's served two tours in Iraq, and as a soldier who's been kicked out of the military. But even that isn't the distinction that's made Lt. Dan Choi a national name. It was when he went on television and outed himself as an active gay member of the U.S. Military, setting off a firestorm of controversy, and helping to change an entire American population's standing in this country in the process. He is Bad Lieutenant, Dan Choi.

Elsewhere in News, we know a renegade when we see one:

• Just because they're a renegade doesn't mean they're particularly great for anything. Or as Voice news columnist Tom Robbins points the case of sad, stabby, side-dealing state senator Hiram Monserrate's Cheating Ways, anyone, either. Let alone themselves.
• Meanwhile, our own original renegade, Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto, finds some of his own type at the Paper Nightlife Awards. What happens when Countess LuAnn Meets Pee-wee Herman? He obviously found out.

Also this week, The Fall 2010 Village Voice Education Supplement. In the words of KRS-One, YOU. MUST. LEARN:

• For the Early-College High School Initiative, Success Is More Than Just a High School Diploma. It's true. Sarah Butrymowicz reports.
• Neil deMause finds the One Standardized Test to Rule Them All, and it isn't the SATs.
• Ask yourself: Can an Arts School, a City College, and a Christian Institution Realistically Share a Dorm? Then ask yourself if you've ever read Lord of the Flies. Reporter Michael Rymer probably has.
• Get this: A New CUNY Community College Is Opening in 2012. But, Brenda Iasevoli reports, there's a catch.
• You think college is a typical, easy road? Maybe for you. But For Unemployed Students with GEDs, College Can be a Rough Road, explains Rob Sgobbo.
• Finally, special to the education supplement, Voice theater critic Alexis Soloski has some Class Action Listings for this week. Click 'em. Do 'em. Learn stuff.

In Food this week, we're schooling you on where to go and what to order when you get there:

• Voice food critic and de-facto outer-borough explorer Robert Sietsema makes his way out to Floral Park, Queens, to find some of the finest Punjabi cuisine this side of, well, India at Sohna Punjab.
• And a sad, sad goodbye to Voice food critic Sarah DiGregorio, who's closing out her tenure with us with her review of the new Bowery hot spot from the guys who brought everyone and their visiting-in-town-mother Freeman's the southern-fried "upscale counter" cuisine joint that is Peels.

In Film, we're learning what makes some frames fly, while others tick by :

• Doug Block wanted to know more about how his parents' 54-year marriage worked, and his daughter, who was about to go to college. What'd he do? Made documentaries about them. And you try making a documentary about your parents or your teenage daughter. Anthony Kaufman reports as The Kids Grow Up's Doug Block Talks Personal Docs.
• Did you know that there's a "Chekhov of Softcore"? According to Nick Pinkerton, he's real, and he has a name. Yes, everyone, get to know Joseph Sarno, the Chekhov of Softcore.
• Legendary Voice film critic J. Hoberman reports on two masters of suspense marking special occasions: Psycho Turns 50 and Claude Chabrol's newest film Inspector Bellamy hits theaters.
• Elsewhere in film, Dan Kois reports that Kristen Stewart doesn't get her blood sucked by James Gandolfini, a documentary on the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt reveals that he's as Stephin Merritt-y as ever; Melissa Anderson reports on The Girl Whose Story We Cannot Follow in Hornet's Nest, Melissa Anderson is also Scraping By with Barbara Loden's Wanda at MoMA, New York artist Vik Muniz is followed home to Brazil in documentary Waste Land, and finally, a paparazzo boy meets an idealistic girl in the alien love story Monsters.

In Arts, the creative renegades of the city keep creating. Hopefully we don't shatter their dreams:

• Theater: Michael Feingold checks into bittersweet fables The Language Archive and Driving Miss Daisy; the New York Neo-Futurists and the air traffic controller room of MTC's Beau Willimon play Spirit Control get landed on by Alexis Soloski; La Mama's new play Bong Bong Bong Against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in Our Heads makes Eric Goode cry for his mama; William M. Hoffman's noted AIDS play As Is gets a New York revival; and a show of solo performances called The Pumpkin Pie Show is...called The Pumpkin Pie Show.
• Art: Martha Schwendener checks out Paul Thek's big Whitney retrospective; Ben Davis gets to Williamsburg to see new paintings from Chino Amobi and his Day-Glo Brooklyn, and Robert Shuster checks out Knox Martin at Woodward Gallery, Robert Wilson at Paula Cooper, Charlotte Schulz at Smack Mellon.
• Dance: Finally, Deborah Jowitt seeks out Ivy Baldwin, DD Dorvillier, and Alain Buffard Exploring the Art World, Technology, and the Exposed Body.

All that, plus more Music, Art, Theater, Film, Books, Dance, Restaurants, Michael Musto, Free Will Astrology, and Dan Savage. And then some.

Here at the Voice, we know a Real American Hero when we see one. Sometimes, they even come from New Jersey. It happens.

[fkamer@villagevoice.com]