I see a clear ethnic double standard in how sex, drugs and violence is viewed and addressed. This discussion becomes even more important as 50 Cent is being castigated as a promoter of violence and gunplay in his new movie "Get Rich or Die Tryin'."

If the brutality and violence in gangsta rap was truly the real issue, then shouldn't a series like The Sopranos be held to the same standard?

If we are so concerned about bloodshed, then how did movies like "The Godfather," "The Untouchables" and "Goodfellas" become classics? How did these films escape the wrath of righteous indignation?

I tried imagining Ice T, Ice Cube or NWA, in their heyday, being asked (in the same lighthearted fashion as the above-mentioned talk show host): "So who are you going to 'smoke' on your next album?" Somehow I couldn't imagine that happening.

Bill O'Reilly aimed his media WMDs at the hip-hop artist Ludacris when Pepsi made him a spokesperson for their soft drink.

O'Reilly encouraged all people concerned with Ludacris' unflattering characterization of women as sex objects and his potential to "further negatively" impact our nation's young people to boycott Pepsi.   more »

Harold Pinter wrote these lines about the Gulf War:

We blew the shit right back up their own ass
And out their fucking ears.
It works.
We blew the shit out of them,
They suffocated in their own shit!
We blew them into fucking shit.
They are eating it.
Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.   more »

IT WAS A GREAT YEAR for labor — if you worked at a call center in India, made your living as a CEO or sold real estate to big-box stores.

But deep in Cubicle Nation, the average American worker remained on a fast track to the Industrial Revolution, with soaring workweeks, declining wages and health, pension and vacation benefits vanishing faster than you can say job security.

Add to the siege outsourcing, cutbacks, the dismantling of ergonomics rules and forced overtime — all while business is racking up historic profits — and even a nearsighted dingo could see that the trends are unsustainable for families, personal health, company medical plans or an informed and involved citizenry. And completely unnecessary.

As all the productivity research shows, we can get the job done without finishing ourselves off. So let's fire some of the worst habits that got us here and ring in resolutions for a "Sane Workplace in 2006":

• Restore the 40-hour workweek. Almost 40% of us are working more than 50 hours a week, not exactly what the Fair Labor Standards Act intended when it set the 40-hour workweek in 1938.

Chronic 11- and 12-hour days result in lousy productivity, expensive mistakes, burnout, triple the risk of heart attack and quadruple the risk of diabetes — and families without a quorum for dinner.   more »

This was the year the "war on terror" - an obnoxious expression which we all parroted after 11 September 2001 - appeared to be almost as endless as George Bush once claimed it would be. And unsuccessful.

For, after all the bombing of Afghanistan, the overthrow of the Taliban, the invasion of Iraq and its appallingly tragic aftermath, can anyone claim today that they feel safer than they did a year ago?

We have gone on smashing away at the human rights we trumpeted at the Russians - and the Arabs - during the Cold War.

We have perhaps fatally weakened all those provisions that were written into our treaties and conventions in the aftermath of the Second World War to make the world a safer place. And we claim we are winning.

Where, for example, is the terror? In the streets of Baghdad, to be sure. And perhaps again in our glorious West if we go on with this folly. But terror is also in the prisons and torture chambers of the Middle East.

It is in the very jails to which we have been merrily sending out trussed-up prisoners these past three years.   more »

Gazprom, the Russian oil and gas giant which owns 16 percent of the world's proven natural gas reserves and controls 20 percent of its global production, has become a decisive geoeconomic actor.

Following the European Union's decision to give Ukraine the status of a "market economy" last month, the Russian corporation made a distinction between Ukraine and Belarus (with Belarus still being a state-administered economy), claiming that Ukraine must pay for gas supplies as much as international markets indicate.

According to Moscow, politically-driven low prices are not relevant when conducting business with market democracies.

Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Romania already pay US$230 per 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas to Gazprom. During last year's Russian-Ukrainian talks, Kiev claimed it should pay a lower price due to its proximity to Russia and its special role of being a bridge between Russia and the West since the majority of Russia's natural gas pipelines pass through Ukrainian territory.

As the crisis became more acute, Kiev declared last week that it is ready to pay market prices for gas, but asked Gazprom to only progressively raise the price, which the Russian corporation refused to do, instead offering just a three-month delay to implement the price increase.   more »

The war against Iraq, the assault on its people, the occupation of its cities, will come to an end, sooner or later. The process has already begun.

The first signs of mutiny are appearing in Congress. The first editorials calling for withdrawal from Iraq are beginning to appear in the press. The anti-war movement has been growing, slowly but persistently, all over the country.

Public opinion polls now show the country decisively against the war and the Bush Administration. The harsh realities have become visible. The troops will have to come home.

And while we work with increased determination to make this happen, should we not think beyond this war? Should we begin to think, even before this shameful war is over, about ending our addiction to massive violence and instead using the enormous wealth of our country for human needs?

That is, should we begin to speak about ending war—not just this war or that war, but war itself? Perhaps the time has come to bring an end to war, and turn the human race onto a path of health and healing.   more »

2 DECEMBER

Maureen Dowd: Sex, Politics & Pulp Fiction

"Syriana" - A Movie About America's Oil Wars

Russia & Gazprom: Ukraine Pays High Price for Buying into Capitalism

US Troops on Home Leave Ordered to Promote Iraq War

America! Resist the Move Towards a Totalitarian State

War Is Big Business...The Expansion of Capitalism

War on Iran? Is Bush Planning Military Strike?

John Dean: The Impeachable President