Soon after the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001 several of the movie's actors were interviewed on Charlie Rose's Journal on PBS. Viggo Mortensen wore a tee shirt with a homemade slogan written in black and red magic marker. It read "No More Blood For Oil ( Read more... )

Many people, myself included, have been intrigued by the story of Thomas Beatie, Nancy Roberts, and their new daughter. When the couple decided to have a child and that they would like that child to be biologically connected to them, Thomas elected to become pregnant and carry their daughter since Nancy was unable to ( Read more... )

I heard this poem read aloud by two women in Portuguese and English at an event sponsored by the Brazilian Women's Group of Greater Boston recently. It was a powerful experience, and I asked them for the English version ( Read more... )

Ok, I usually just ignore the Southern Baptists. I think of most of them as a bunch of knuckle-walking bigots. This pronouncement by the former national head of the Southern Baptist Convention, though, was just too much to let it go by without notice...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pastor asks followers to pray for his ( Read more... )

Selling Indulgences

The trade in carbon offsets is an excuse for business as usual

The Guardian18th October 2006 ( Read more... )

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

- Benjamin Franklin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Democracy's new dawn is on CCTV: the security state as infotainment

So keen are America's leaders to hear dissent they're videotaping the dissenters. Welcome ( Read more... )

I used to watch Boston Legal on television. One of the attorneys in the law office that was the focus of the show had an argument that he called his "United States of America" speech. He would get up in front of a jury and say "My client was subjected to thus-and-such treatment while in police custody. This just cannot happen. You cannot allow ( Read more... )

Click to view

This is the trailer for a three-part documentary on terrorism made by the BBC in 2004. American broadcast and cable television networks have consistently declined to show it ( Read more... )

It's a good thing for everyone to let their hair down from time to time. Just kick back and let it all hang out. Or so I thought before reading a report from The Independent's Johann Hari, who went on a pleasure cruise with readers of the conservative flagship The National Review"Shouldn't oughta" comes to mind. It would, perhaps, have been ( Read more... )

There is a lot of theological discussion of the wonders of "market forces" today. But who knew that you could hire market forces to fight your wars? Multinational military corporations hiring themselves out as private armies used to be the stuff of cyberpunk science fiction. Now they make up more than 50% of the troops that the US has deployed ( Read more... )