Today's
Stories
December 24/25,
2005
Ralph Nader
Talkin'
About the "I"-Word
December 23,
2005
John Ross
The
Corrido of Death Row: Mexico Ends the Death Penalty
Chris Floyd
Gospel
Truth: Bush Hypocrisy, Radical Holiness and Woody Guthrie
Lawrence Mishel
/ Ross Eisenbrey
The
Economy in a Nutshell
Joanne Mariner
Bringing
Torture into Court: the Loopholes in McCain's Bill
Eric Johnson-Debaufre
The Trew Law of Free Democracies?
Ray McGovern
Cheney the Bully; Rockefeller the Coward
J. L. Chestnut,
Jr.
What
White America Doesn't Hear
Website of
the Day
BB King: What I've Learned This Year
December 22,
2005
Ingmar Lee
The
Citizen's Metamorphosis: I Awoke an Object of Suspicion
Elisa Salasin
Classrooms
in Cages
Christopher
Brauchli
Absolut Bush: "I Swear to Upturn and Rear End the Constitution
of the United States"
Robin Blackburn
Rudolf Meidner, a Visionary Pragmatist
Evelyn Pringle
Dan Olmstead, Autism & the Dangers of Thimerosal
Amira Hass
A 14-Year Old's Prison Journey: "I Refused and He Hit Me"
Francis A.
Boyle
Iraq and the Laws of War: US as "Belligerent Occupant"
Stew Albert
The
Spies Who Thought We Were Messy
Website of
the Day
How to Reach a Human Voice
December 21,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
One
Nation, Under Prosecutors: Presumed Guilty
Lila Rajiva
A Short History of Radio Free Iraq
Joshua Frank
Nancy Pelosi's Truth
Dave Zirin
The Bray of Pigs: Bush Nixes Beisbol Cubano
Ramzy Baroud
US Image Problem Rooted in History, Not Media
Sonia Nettnin
Connect the Dots: Decoding Bush's Mumbo Jumbo
Ben Saul
Torture as Calculated Policy
Jonathan Cronin
Anniversary of a Handshake: Cherry-picking History in Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
Election Spells Total Defeat for US
Website of
the Day
Nixon on Presidential Power
December 20,
2005
Jackie Corr
Natural
Gas: a Montana Tragedy
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Nothing
New About NSA Spying on Americans
Michael Donnelly
"Eco Terrorism": Cui Bono?
Gian Paulo
Accardo
Empire of Shame: a Conversation with Jean Ziegler
Pierre Tristam
Trifler, Fibber, Sophist, Spy: How Bush Flouted the Constitution
Norman Solomon
The Foulest Media Performances of the Year
Sen. Robert Byrd
No President is Above the Law
Dave Lindorff
Missing
Black Boxes in WTC Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by
NTSB, Concealed by FBI
Website of the Day
FBI's Spy Files: Got Yours Yet?
December 19,
2005
Mike Marqusee
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Gary Leupp
Feds Ask Student: "Why are You Reading that Little Red Book?"
Ron Jacobs
The Antiwar Movement, the Democrats and the Delusions of Bushworld
John Blair
Stealing the Golden Shovel: Lessons on Civil Disobedience
Gideon Levy
Sadism at the Qalandiyah Checkpoint
Kevin Zeese
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Missy Comley Beattie
Warnings from a Military Man and Dad
Don Santina
Ride 'Em Brush Cutter: Cowboy Imagery and the American Presidency
Website of the Day
A Call for Justice in Palestine
December 17
/ 18, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Time-Delayed
Journalism: the NYT and the NSA's Illegal Spying Operation
Gabriel Kolko
The
Decline of the American Empire
Susan Alcorn
Texas: Three Days and Two Nights
Werther
The Democrats are an Impotent and Tolerated Opposition Party
Ralph Nader
The Senator Without Guile: Proxmire of Wisconsin
Patrick Cockburn
Counting Ballots and Bodies in Baghdad
Fred Gardner
When Prosecutors Deceive: Did the Feds Frame Bryan Epis?
Dave Lindorff
Spy Scandal Far Larger Than Just NSA
Ned Sublette
Essence is Gasoline
Lee Sustar
The Class War Economy
Jason Leopold
Did Karl Rove Destroy Evidence in Plame Case?
Laura Carlsen
Report from Hong Kong: Deciphering the Language of Globalization
Jeff White
Teacher Fired for Talking About Peace?
Ray McGovern
Torture Between the Lines
Chris Floyd
Pale Fire: the White Death of Fallujah
William Loren Katz
Remembering the First Quagmire at Xmastime: Zachary Taylor vs.
the Seminoles
Rose Miriam
Elizalde
Mashenka and the Bear: a Tale for Our Time
Greg Moses
Pinter's Provocation: Self Love in America
Heather Gray
Privatizing the Social Contract
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience: the Sequel
St Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Landau, Engel and Albert
Website of
the Day
At Least Homeland Security Believes that Mao Still Matters
December 16,
2005
Tom Kerr
CNN's
Goddess of Vengeance: What's Not to Love About Nancy Grace?
Mark Engler
The
WTO in Hong Kong: Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty?
John Bomar
When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Votes; Now What?
Pierre Tristam
Iraq, Ourselves
William S. Lind
The Fine Art of Withdrawal
Cyril Neville
Why I'm Not Going Back to New Orleans
Robert Jensen
Monkey See, Monkey Do: Reason, Evolution and Intelligent Design
Saul Landau
Bolivian
Democracy and the US: a History Lesson
Website
CounterPunch & Dr. Price Vanquish Anthropologist Spies
December 15,
2005
Oren Ben-Dor
The
Ethical and Legal Challenges Facing Palestine
Stan Cox
"Agroterrorists"
Needn't Bother
Joshua Frank
Organic Inconsistencies: Federal Food Politics
Ben Terrall
Waivers for State Terror: Bush and the Indonesian Generals
Patrick Cockburn
Silence Descends on Baghdad
Monica Benderman
What Peace Needs
Walter A. Davis
Fear and Loathing in San Quentin
Vijay Prashad
Our
Torture Problem
Website of
the Day
Hourly Wages After Four Years of "Recovery"
December 14, 2005
Patrick Cockburn
Iran
Poised to Win Iraqi Elections
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lethal
Developments
Lawrence R. Velvel
A Bore Called Bob: On Trying to Read Woodward
Wayne Garcia
The Summer of Sami
John Sugg
Preach Peace, Sami; Get Truthful Prosecutors
Gary Leupp
Bush and the Constitution: "Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper"
Ray McGovern
Torture: a Defining Moment
Alan Maass
They Murdered a Peacemaker
April Hurley, MD
NPR Swallows Bush's Guestimate on Iraqi Dead
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Richard Pryor's Mirror on America
December 13,
2005
Stephen T.
Banko, III
Heroes
Patrick Cockburn
America's
War So Far: 1000 Days of Getting It Wrong
Laura Carlsen
What's at Play at the WTO
Karl Grossman
Nuclear Routlette in the Troposhere: Another NASA Plutonium Launch
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Original Sin
Kevin Zeese
Report from the International Peace Conference in London
Norman Solomon
At the Gates of San Quentin
Michael G.
Smith
Ending the Death Penalty
Stew Albert
California Killers
Bob Dylan
Song for Tookie: George Jackson
Phil Gasper
California Murders Tookie Williams: a Report from San Quentin
Website of
the Day
Boot Hill
December 12,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Defenders of Torture
Lawrence R.
Velvel
George the Disconnected
Jessica Stewart
My Husband is at the Gates of Gitmo
George Bisharat
Busharon: a Fusion of Like Minds
Nate Mezmer
Killing Tookie Williams: If a Black Man Dies in America, Does
It Make a Sound?
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Richard Pryor Wasn't Crazy
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience
Seth Sandronsky
Thank You, Richard Pryor
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq:
the Beginning of the End
Website of
the Day
Wrestling for Peace
December 10 / 11, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
All
the News That's Fit to Buy
Landau / Hassen
The Condemned of Nablus
Ralph Nader
The
Widening Wasteland of American Media
Linn Washington, Jr
The Philly Media and Mumia: When They Don't Bash, They Ignore
Bill Christison
Apathy, US Culpability and Human Rights Day
Mike Ferner
The Courage of Jim Loney
Elizabeth Schulte
Abortion and the Bush Court
Neve Gordon / Yigal Bronner
Murder in Jerusalem
Linda S. Heard
Saddam's Trial: Grandstanding in the Theater of the Absurd
Ingmar Lee
A Kayak Journey to Vancouver Island's Wildest Forest
Ray McGovern
Lies, Torture and the Six Blind Mice
John Chuckman
Torture and White Phosphorous: the Moral Hell of Condi Rice
John Ryan
An Honorary Degree in Child Sacrifice?: Madeleine Albright and
US Foreign Policy
Dick J. Reavis
From Waco to Baghdad
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Hired Pens
Behzad Yaghmaian
Trapped at the Gates of the European Union
Aseem Shrivastava
The Winter in Delhi, 1984
John Ross
Bushlandia in Black and White
Ben Tripp
War, What is It Good For?
St. Clair / Pollack / Vest
/ Despair
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Hassen, Bear Dog, Ford, Mickey Z, Albert & Engel
Website of the Week
Burn a Brick for Bush
December 9,
2005
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Roots
of Gitmo Torture Lie Close to Home
Dave Zirin
/ Mike Stark
On
Seeing Wesley Baker Die
Patrick Cockburn
Blair
Tries to Cover Up $1.3 Billion Iraqi Theft
Alexander Cockburn
Murtha Returns to Attack; Flays Bush
Lila Rajiva
Shooting the Mentally Ill
Gary Leupp
White House Liars on the Defensive
Jason Leopold
Rove Running Out of Answers, Time
Bruce K. Gagnon
So These Are the Democrats?
Andrew Cockburn
Meet
Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats' New Gatekeeper
Website of the Day
"X-mas Time for Visa"
December 8,
2005
Kathy Kelly
Blessed
are the Merciful in Baghdad
James Petras
The Venezuelan Election: Chavez Wins, Bush Loses (Again)
William S.
Lind
Questionable Assumptions: Dissecting the Stategy for Victory
Laura Carlsen
The Strange Mission of Vicente Fox: Free Trade and Mexico
Justin Akers
Bush's Border War
Thomas Graham, Jr
A Nuclear Pearl Harbor in Outer Space?
Norman Solomon
Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam
Tariq Ali /
Robin Blackburn
The
Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
Pigs at the Trough of War
December 7,
2005
John Ryan
Dershowitz vs. Chomsky: a Review of the Harvard Debate
Gary Leupp
Suicide
Before Dishonor in Occupied Iraq
Fran Quigley
How the ACLU Didn't Steal Christmas
Jeremy Brecher
/ Brendan Smith
Bush
War Crimes: the Posse Gathers
Joshua Frank
Bird Dogging Hillary
William W.
Morgan
Rendition, Torture and Democracy
Dave Lindorff
A Stunning Win for Mumia Abu Jamal
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam: "Come Visit My Cage"
Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture
Website of
the Day
Witnesses to Torture
December 6,
2005
Ron Jacobs
No
One is Illegal; No One is an Infidel
Patrick Cockburn
Inside
Saddam's Trial: Tales of the Human Meat Grinder
Yifat Susskind
Death, Politics and the Condom: African Women Confront Bush's
AIDS Policy
Mike Whitney
How Greenspan Skewered America
Pat Williams
Public Land Should Stay Public
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
to Europe: Trust Us
Website of
the Day
Debunking Woodward
December 5,
2005
John Walsh
The
Lies of John Edwards: What Did the Democrats Know and When Did
They Know It?
Brian Cloughley
The Poor Dead: the Relative
Value of Human Lives
Mokhiber /
Weissman
The Corporate Crime Quiz
Robert Jensen
How Big Money Eviscerates the First Amendment
Norman Solomon
Hidden in Plane Sight: US Media Ignores Iraq Air War Plan
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to the Justice Department: Pfizer May Have Violated
Federal Laws When They Fired Me
Lila Rajiva
The
Torture-Go-Round: CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons
Website of the Day
National Day of Counter-Recruitment
December 3 / 4, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
The
Revolt of the Generals
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Iraq,
Brains and Lies
Rev. William Alberts
The Forgotten Christmas Story: Saying No to King Herod
Saul Landau
Latino
Troops Have Parents
Ralph Nader
Consumerama
Paul Craig
Roberts
Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts
Mike Whitney
Blood Feast: Celebrating Executions in America
Allan Lichtman
The DeLay Scheme: Blatantly Buying Our Government
Dave Lindorff
A Sudden Rush for the Exits?
Brian Concannon,
Jr.
Haiti's Elections
Fred Gardner
Oregon NORML Honors Growers
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
On Freeing the CPT
Carol Wolman
Remembering the 60s
St. Clair /
Vest / Walker / Pollack
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Free the CPT
December 2,
2005
Stan Goff
An
Open Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad
Mike Ferner
Beware Iraqization: Melvin Laird, Vietnam and Christmas Bombings
Over Baghdad?
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Constitutional Kamikazes: Padilla's No-Win Dilemma
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Questions
for the President
Manuel Talens
The Chávez Theorem
Peter Phillips
Death By Torture: Media Ignores the Hard Evidence
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Alabama's
Taliban: Judge Roy Moore, Preachers and Dixie Hypocrisy
Website of
the Day
Support the Hampton University Peace Activists!
December 1,
2005
John Walsh,
MD
The
God Gaps
Ron Jacobs
Hard Rain: Toward a Greater Air War in Iraq?
Jenna Orkin
EPA's
Latest Betrayal at Ground Zero
Joshua Frank
Howard Dean's Blunt Message: Forget Palestine
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
Rank and File Resistance to Delphi
Missy Comley Beattie
Home on the Range: Where the Fear and the Animus Play
Eli Stephens
The Reed and Kerry Show
Elaine Cassel
A Government Game of "Gotcha" with Jose Padilla
Website of
the Day
Rare Erotica
November 30,
2005
Allen / D'Amato
Incident
at Oglala 30 Years Later: the Long Struggle of Leonard Peltier
Mike Whitney
The Cheerleader at Annapolis
Kevin Zeese
The Hallucinations of Joe Lieberman
Norman Solomon
Colin Powell: Still Craven After All These Years
Ramzy Baroud
Sharon's New Party
Dave Lindorff
What Happened to All Those Bush/Cheney Bumperstickers?
Stephen Soldz
Mental
Health Workers in Iraq
November 29,
2005
Phil Gasper
Live
from Death Row: an Interview with Tookie Williams
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Ghost of Sangatte
Joshua Frank
Jack Abramoff's Bi-partisan Sleaze
Walter A. Davis
Life on Death Row: a Monologue
Gary Leupp
Bush the Dupe?
Len Colodny
Woodwardgate: Still Protecting the Rightwing
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The
Duke and the Enterprise: Randy Cunningham's Crash Landing
Bill Quigley
Human Rights Leaders Call for Release of Haiti's Political Prisoners
Website of
the Day
Watch Chomsky vs. Dershowitz Live, Tonight at 7PM, EST!
November 28,
2005
Chris Reed
The
"Bomb Al Jazeera" Documents Trial
David Isenberg
Cooked
Intelligence: the Dog that Didn't Bark
Ron Jacobs
Contraindications: a Review of Blood on the Border
Norman Solomon
The
Woodward Scandal Must Not Blow Over
Justin E.H. Smith
Schwarzenegger's Curious Power
Mickey Z.
Abbie Hoffman at 70: Steal This City
Mike Whitney
The Pentagon's Domestic Spying Operation
David Swanson
Is Impeachment an Election Issue?
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Grave Threat of the Bush Administration
Website of
the Day
"Don't Bomb Us!": a Blog by Al Jazeera Staffers
November 26
/ 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
How
the Democrats Undercut John Murtha
Saul Landau
Who We Are: Torture and the Empire
Ralph Nader
Junk Television: Excluding Voices That Save Lives
Brian Cloughley
What Are They Dying For?
John Ross
When a Language Dies
Gary Leupp
The Nepal Pact
Fred Gardner
Dr. Denney Goes to Arkansas
Christopher Brauchli
Compassion for Corporations: Northrup Grumman and Katrina's Victims
Dave Lindorff
US War Crimes List Keeps Growing
P. Sainath
See, Neoliberalism Really Works: Net Worth of India's Billionaires
Soars!
Timothy J.
Freeman
The Price of Freedom
Lila Rajiva
Of Mice, Men and GM Peas
Eric Ruder
Beat the Needle: Saving Tookie Williams
Seth Sandronsky
Working Toward Whiteness: an Interview with David Roediger
Joaquin Bustelo
What Really Happened at Mar del Plata
Lewis Alper
Is the President's Soul in Jeopardy?: an Evangelical Christian
Looks at Bush's Skull and Bones Initiation
Will Youmans
In Search of Paradise
Phyllis Pollack
The Stones' Rough Justice in Bush Time
St. Clair /
Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Barbara LaMorticella
Poetry and the City of Ideas
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Buknatski, Engel, Albert and Davies
Website of the Weekend
NLR: The Chequered Rainbow
November 25,
2005
David Price
How
US Anthropologists Planned "Race-Specific" Weapons
Against the Japanese
Brian McKenna
Will
Bush Miss the Next Bhopal?
Jeff Halper
Peretz or Bust?
Ray McGovern
Will
the US Seize the Opportunity for Troop Withdrawal?
Leigh Saavedra
Thanksgiving at Camp Casey
Ingmar Lee
How Have the Mighty Fallen?
Website of the Day
Saving Cathedral Grove
November 24,
2005
James Petras
How
to Think About War and Peace
Bob Shirley
Thanksgiving
Torture: What the Puritans Fled
Mike Fox
Torture
Survivors Speak for Themselves
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Adrift?
Perhaps. A Draft? Never!
Greg Moses
Thanksgiving Delayed: TX High Court Blesses Inequality
Alexander Cockburn
Turkeys
in the Larger Scheme of Things
November 23,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
The
Great Gaza Border Deal: What Does It Mean?
Mike Whitney
Bush, Padilla and Thomas More
Stan Cox
Red, White and Blue Dawn: What a Bad Hollywood Film Can Teach
Americans About Life Under Occupation
Linda S. Heard
Targeting Al Jazeera
November 22,
2005
Kevin Gray
/ Mike Hersh
Maxine
Waters, the Real Leader of the Anti-War Caucus
Ralph Nader
What Do Dems Stand For?
Michael Donnelly
The "Vetting" of Bernard Kerik
Mike Ferner
The CIA's "Torture Taxi" in the Spotlight
Pierre Tristam
The Justice Deficit
Marshall Auerback
Bush's "Compassionate Conservativism": Neither Compassionate
Nor Conservative
Website of
the Day
I Don't Like Geldof
November 21,
2005
Mike Marqusee
Clinton's
Hypocrisies on Iraq
Josh Frank
Democratic Hawks: the Avian Flu of the Antiwar Movement
Mike Whitney
Hugo Chavez vs. the King of Vacations
Norman Solomon
Getting Out of Iraq
Russ Baker
Woodward's Weakness
Robert Jensen
A National Day of Atonement
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lies
and Official Secrets
November 19
/ 20, 2005
Fred Gardner
The
Raid on MendoHealing
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
The House GOP Has Done a Heinous Thing: Stop Playing Politics;
Get the Troops Out Now
Ron Jacobs
A Pathetic Congress: If It Walks and Talks Like a Withdrawal
Resolution, Why Won't You Vote For It?
David Vest
The Politics of Surrender: It's as American as Robert E. Lee
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Condi Rice's Disdain for the Civil Rights Movement
John R. Bomar
Staying the Course on "Freedom's Frontier": a Vietnam
Vet on Iraq
John Ross
The
Dragon Flies High, But Not Over Mexico
Phillip Cryan
Colombia: "Political Kidnapping" and Murder in Cauca
Dave Lindorff
RIP In These Times
Dick J. Reavis
The Future of the Daily Press
Jeremy Scahill
Vegetarian Between Meals: This War Can't Be Stopped by a Loyal
Opposition
Dan Wright
Cleaning Up Alaska's Scan Bay
John Stanton
Scowcroft Talks Turkey; Edmounds Fights Fascism
St. Clair / Vest / Walker
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Phyllis Pollack
The Stones: Rarities
Dr. Susan Block
Our Night of Weimar Love
Poets Basement
Albert, Engel, Ford, Harley and Louise
November 18,
2005
Michael Neumann
The
Palestinians and the Party Line
Dave Lindorff
Murtha and the L Word
Michael Donnelly
Black November 15
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Uncrucify Them
Don Monkerud
A Decent Workplace
Tom Kerr
Grant Clemency to Tookie Williams
Trish Schuh
Faking
the Case Against Syria
November 17,
2005
John Walsh
A
Fractured Anti-War Movement
Rep. John Murtha
Iraq Must Be Freed from the US
Occupation
Brian J. Foley
We Are All In GITMO Now
CounterPunch
News Service
Guardian
Apologizes to Chomsky; Publishes Total Retraction of Brockes'
Slurs
Dave Lindorff
In Post-Saddam Iraq, There are No Civilians
Mark T. Harris
Coming Out in an Up-and-Coming Sport
Cockburn /
St. Clair
From
Reporter to Courtier: the Decline of Bob Woodward
November 16,
2005
John F. Sugg
Al-Arian
Speaks: In His First Interview Since the Trial Began, Al-Arian
Talks About What the Jury Didn't Hear
Noam Chomsky
Putting Out the Englightenment
Dave Lindorff
Shake
and Bake: Pentagon Admits Using Phosphorous Bombs on Fallujah
Evelyn Pringle
Laurie Mylroie's War
Sam Husseini
Trying to Look a Female Suicide Bomber in the Eye
Pierre Tristam
Toturers' Theater
Greg Bates
Waffling Alito Charms DiFi
Farrah Hassen
Moustapha
AkkadDavid Lean of the Middle East Killed in Amman Blast
Bill Christison
Evidence
Mounts That Bush Wants New Wars
Website of
the Day
Violent Oscillations
November 15,
2005
Todd Chretien
My
Evening in the No Spin Zone; Or Why Bill O'Reilly Hates San Francisco
Leah Caldwell
Death
of the Jailhouse Press
Frederick Hudson
Rosa's Wreath: Miss Parks and Robert Williams
Harry Browne
Bush-Linked Judge Bows Out: Another Mistrial in Irish Ploughshares
Case
Jason Leopold
Secret CIA Testimony: Iraq Posed No Threat
Ingmar Lee
Logging Lackies vs. Canada's Most Endangered Species
Diana Barahona
Showdown on the Silver Coast
Tom Andre
New Orleans, Two Months Later
Website of the Weekend
Ernest Crichlow: 1914-2005
November 14,
2005
Diana Johnstone
The
Origins of the Guardian's Attack on Chomsky
Paul Craig Roberts
Power Over All: Unlimited Detentions and the End of Habeas Corpus
Conn Hallinan
Provoking
Syria: Cambodia All Over Again?
Joshua Frank
Off She Goes: Hillary in Israel
Christopher
Reed
The
Persistence of Racism in Koizumi's Japan
November 11
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
First
the Lying, Then the Pardons
Gwyneth Leech
Cross Connections: a Painter Reimagines the Passion of Christ
in the Wake of Abu Ghraib
Elmas Mallo
Chillin' in the Blazin' Texas Sun: Inside the Texas Prison System
Michael Neumann
The Rebel King of Bluegrass: Jimmy Martin, an Appreciation
Saul Landau
Leakgate: the Screenplay
Sam Husseini
Bush and Zarqawi Bomb Because We Let Them
Brian Cloughley
Sleaze, Deceit and Torture
Ron Jacobs
Rep. McGovern's Withdrawal Resolution: a Step in the Right Direction?
Lila Rajiva
Dover Bitch: the Curses of Pat Robertson
Michael Donnelly
Hypocrisy Watch
Joe Allen
Murder in El Salvador: Who Killed Gilberto Soto?
Roland Sheppard
Lessons from the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Justin E.H.
Smith
Another Monkey Trial?
Ben Tripp
The Cost of War
St. Clair /
Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Jones, Louise, Ford, Smith, Albert and Engel
Website of
the Weekend
Iraq Vets and Against the War Need Your Help!
November 10,
2005
Peterside,
Ogon, Watts and Zalik
Delta
Blues Again: Ken Saro-Wiwa, 10 Years Gone
Pat Williams
Will Alito Cost the Republicans the Senate?
Steve Higgs
Bush Crony Targets Indiana's Forests: 400% Hike in Logging
Jimmy Massey
Is Ron Harris Telling the Truth?
Lucson Pierre-Charles
Haiti: Insanity Takes Over
Anthony Newkirk
Syria in the Crosshairs
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Why Did Libby Lie?
Website of the Day
Imperial Margarine
November 9,
2005
Gary Leupp
The
Niger Deception / Plame Affair: an Incomplete Chronology
Tariq Ali
Blair Defeated on Terror Laws
Chris Floyd
The
Philosopher's Stone
Elaine Cassel
The
Shocking Trial of an American Citizen: the Case of Ahmed Abu
Ali
Joshua Frank
Sen. Max Baucus's NASCAR Pay Day
Alison Weir
Memo to Jon Stewart: Glad You're Against Torture, So Why'd You
Give Israel a Pass?
Diana Johnstone
Rage
in the Banlieue
November 8, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Still
No Jobs
Roger Burbach
Bush
v. Chavez: the Imperial President Meets the Bolivarian Democrat
Ron Jacobs
An Interview with Behzad Yaghmaian on the Paris Uprising
Ralph Nader
"The Worst Marketed Disease on the Planet"
Jim McGrath
Voter Beware: a Cautionary Tale for Election Day
David Bloom
McCain, Israel and Torture: Setting the Record Straight
Stan Goff
Jimmy Massey, Ron Harris, and Ambush Journalism
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Weekend
Edition
December 24/25, 2005
Hot Holiday Sex to Chase
Away the Winter Blues
Merry XXX-mas!
By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK
Tis the holiday season, so here's wishing
you one that's merry and bright, with not too much in the way
of holiday blues, but lots of good cheer, good works and good
sex to chase the blues away. This is not as unholy as you
might think. In ancient pagan times, before anyone even conjured
up Christmas, Hannukkah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day (the Buddhist
winter holiday), Pancha Ganapati (the Hindu version), holiday
sales, on-line shopping, faith-based mega-malls, before they
even invented the Wal-Mart, people throughout the world celebrated
the cold, dark period surrounding the Winter Solstice with great
festivals of fire to chase away the cold, light to chase away
the darkness and fun to chase away the blues.
And SEX--lots of sex. To honor
the icy season, our polytheistic forebears would feast and fornicate
for days of nonstop bacchanalian orgies that would make Jenna
Jameson pee in her g-string. Over 2000 years before Christianity,
Mesopotamia's Winter Carnaval featured mummers-style parades
with floats carrying glorious scenes of Sex among the Gods. The
Greek Winter Festival celebrated another Son of God with a human
mother, who worked miracles, was associated with wine, and miraculously
resurrected after death; His name was Dionysus. The Roman Saturnalia,
presided over by Old Father Time (a kind of Santa Claus with
balls, chortling "Ho, ho, ho Saturnalia!"), included
the first Xmas Carols which were truly X-rated, as the carolers
would sing in the nude
Winter Solstice or "Sun Birthday" was and is when the
sun, after being at its lowest, is "born again," as
the days begin to get longer. To the ancients, Winter Holiday
Sex was more than just a personal pleasure or a cool way to keep
warm. It was an ecstatic communal coming together, celebrating
the erotic fecundity of life in the dead of winter, red hot hope
in a season of cold blue despair
Which brings us to this winter,
which sometimes feels like a Super-Sized Season of Cold Blue
Despair, and I don't mean the weather. I mean, just look at us
noble Americanos, having been cheer-leaded into Perma-War by
a Chickenhawk Pussy named Bush and a Dickless Dickhead named
Dick, now doggie-paddling through a blood-drenched Mesopotamian
quagmire of Big Lies, body bags, torture, no WMDs (except the
ones we brought with us), but plenty of apocalyptic destruction,
mutilation, burgeoning religious extremism and death, death and
more death. America's Guernica, America's shame. And nobody
wins, but Iran.
Meanwhile, back in the Homeland,
we've got massive debt, debt and more debt (what do we owe, $8
trillion?) due mostly to China and Japan. Then we've got the
Katrina debacle, the Patriot Act(s), the Plame Affair and the
President's creepy confession that he's been spying illegally
on American citizens in a manner reminiscent of another Dick
(Nixon).
Then, there's the bulldozing
of sweet reason by wrathful religion, with crusader-style fundamentalism
exerting unprecedented, abusive power at the highest levels of
American government, even as faith-based terror wreaks havoc
upon the world. Some offshoots of the domestic religiosity boom
are a War of Hypocrisy on Consensual Adult Pornography (quickly
turning into a frighteningly censorious War on Art), a War on
Women's Rights, and a resurgence of Crazed Homophobia, all sprouting
like bright dandelions of hate in the cultivated gardens of the
major monotheistic religions (despite the interesting fact that
most of their esteemed leaders dress like funky drag queens).
Add to this season's holiday
blues bouillabaisse a corporatized mainstream media that gives
prostitution a bad name (ho, ho, ho's all of 'em - Fox,
CNN, the New York Times), and a so-called opposition party whose
positions are virtually the same as the power party. Stir into
the cerulean mix the stepped-up War on Drugs (that is, natural
drugs), with over two million people imprisoned in the bloated
US gulag (in which the state sponsors murder and calls it execution),
coupled with Big Pharma's perfectly legal drugging of America,
not to mention the sacking of America, the poor getting poorer
while Bush & Dick's cronies get richer especially the
Arms Makers, the Death Machinists, the Military Industrial Complex
that old Ike once warned us about. We are shooting ourselves
in the foot and the eyes and the brains and the heart with our
fancy phallic guns, as Osama sits back like a Mafia sheik, watching
America get hoodwinked by hoodlums world-renowned for putting
human beings in hoods. Meanwhile, the Mother of Us All, our beautiful
blue planet Earth, suffers and sputters, consumptive over the
consumption of Her Children. Who knows if we are "One Nation
Under God?" What we do know is that we are under one big
honking hole in the Ozone Layer. .
So goes our current Winter of Despairwhich gives us all the more
reason to come together to beat those holiday blues and the whole
damn dehumanizing desexualizing System of Perma-War, by beating
our drums and our buns and our jingle balls, shaking up the toxic
status quo, conjuring up the red-hot power of pleasure, hope,
love, creativity, science (bless you, Judge John E. Jones!),
the Bonobo Way, the power of warmth and sex over the forces of
coldness and death. This is just what we at the Dr. Susan Block
Institute did at our Winter Solstice XXXmas-Saturnalia Celebration,
and (in your own orgiastic way, of course), so should you.
The ancients believed that
Holiday Sex encouraged crops to grow (hey, it's less of a stretch
than belief in virgin motherhood) and productivity to increase.
Of course, America's once-vaunted productivity has long gone
to China. But a little Holiday Sex can still heat things up,
melting winter's despair, releasing frustrations, igniting personal
revolutions, stirring up ch-ch-ch-changes between the ears as
well as between the legs. This is why the authorities try to
confine sex to procreation because recreation leads to
revolution. Because sex is knowledge, sex is Eve's first bite
of that deliciously forbidden apple, sex is the small precious
truth behind the Big Lie.
As such, sex, specifically
holiday sex, can be a deeply spiritual experience, even when
it's more *naughty* than nice. This is within the Winter Solstice
tradition, to be a bit naughty, a bit bacchanalian, to make the
fool into a king (well, unless the fool already is the king),
to crack the cold blue ice of authority, to "break on through
to the other side" and assert the wild, righteous power
of Eros over Thanatos. Sex over Death.
Don't hurt anybody now!
But do go on a holiday
sex adventure... Whether you prefer tantric monogamy, a Dionysian
orgy under the mistletoe, a hot tub lit by Hannukkah or Kwanzaa
candles, breaking Ramadan fast with delicacies consumed from
the intimate crevasses of your lover's succulent body, a round
of naked Saturnalian choruses of "Come All Ye Faithful,"
suffering for the sins of our Torturer-in-Chief by getting your
naughty ass whipped on the Bondage Cross (of which U.S. Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales is sure to disapprove because it's consensual),
or just a Holidazed Wank for Peace in between eggnogged rounds
in the Nuclear (Family) Pressure Cooker Whatever your pleasure,
enjoy it and infuse it with a sense of *sacred* solstice power,
a vow to overthrow the deadly status quo of Perma-War and Power-Grabs,
and a passionate commitment to love.
Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, host of The Dr.
Susan Block Show and author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure.
Visit her main website at http://www.drsusanblock.com
Send all comments, love letters,
hate mail, questions, confessions, endorsements, enticements
and testimonials to her at liberties@blockbooks.com
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