Here's a brief description of the quintessential Larry Clark scene, from the quintessential Larry Clark movie, Ken Park, his 2002 study of sex, drugs, and teenage anomie in the suburbs, still unreleased in the United States:

A young man named Tate (James Ransone), lanky and handsome in a heroin-chic sort of way, lies naked on the floor of his bedroom, watching Anna Kournikova grunt her way through a televised tennis match.

Tate's grandparents are in the room next door, but that doesn't stop him from locating a belt, tightening it around his neck, and slowly choking himself as he masturbates.

Clark's camera watches all of this with a just-another-day-at-the-office detachment, even as Tate starts gasping for air and his face begins to turn blue.

And then—as we're wondering if this kid is going to strangle himself to death—he delivers a decidedly voluminous money shot. Ron Jeremy would be very proud.   more »

In February this year, a secretive meeting took place in west London, attended by a group of British radicals in thrall to the Orwellian politics of Kim Jong-il and members of the North Korean ruling elite at the Saklatvala Hall in Southall – a venue used for rallies by British radical left organisations.

At the gathering – entitled A Celebration Of The Successes Of The Korean Revolution Under The Leadership of Comrade Kim Jong-il – the delegates discussed the latest, and one of most dangerous, developments in North Korea’s radical communist ideology.

Significantly, this new twist in North Korea’s political philosophy underpins the reason for Kim Jong-il’s decision to test-fire dummy nuclear weapons, with a range capable of reaching India and the US, over the Sea of Japan on Wednesday.

The speaker who outlined Kim Jong-il’s new political philosophy was “Comrade Dermot Hudson”, the representative of the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) in the UK.   more »

There could be no justification for George Bush’s aggressions, without the underlying assumptions of racial superiority. Bush has committed multiple crimes against peace – a capital Nuremburg offense for which a number of Nazis were hanged.

He is a war criminal, many times over. However, he will never be prosecuted in the United States, because of the pervasive ideology of imperialism, which is racist at its very core: it dehumanizes the victims.

Race is, indeed, a construction – a very convenient one when you want to take someone else’s property, or kill them, or enslave them. It is this construct that animates the American debate about foreign policy – or even domestic policy when it comes to “aliens” of one kind or another.

But it is deadly. It swarms countries, and consumes cities. Fallujah was flattened, with its main hospital the first target. Three hundred thousand people are now refugees in their own country, because of US actions, and an unknown number are dead.   more »

For Benjamin the arcades of Paris were a microcosm of capitalism. They ­represented both historical potential and disappointment - a promise of abundance and betrayal of that promise.

An international architectural form, they were crammed with colonial plunder, the raided booty of wealthy nations.

The empire aided commodity production, providing sources of raw materials which could be worked over and sold off in newly established markets.

Imperialism unified the world through trade, but equally it divided peoples, setting them against one another as workers and as soldiers.

The world exhibitions, another 19th century architectural form devoted to commodity display, were similarly contradictory.

Victor Hugo’s introduction to the 1867 Paris World Exposition catalogue is a call for the unification of peoples - he talks of “the world as neighbours” who come together to “compare ideals”.

But in reality, the displays were organised along the dividing lines of nation. And commodities were placed on pedestals, erasing the labour of the workers who had made them.   more »

An Italian lip-reader last night claimed to have deciphered the words Marco Materazzi said to Zinédine Zidane that provoked the French captain into butting him in the chest during Sunday's World Cup final, the great midfielder's final act before a red card ended his career in top-level football.

According to the BBC, Materazzi said, "I wish an ugly death to you and all your family," and then told Zidane to "go fuck yourself".

A Paris-based anti-racism group, SOS-Racism, earlier said that "several very well informed sources" had suggested Zidane was called a "dirty terrorist".

But though video evidence is being used to judge Materazzi, it was not used by match officials to condemn Zidane.   more »

9 JULY

Porn with Everything

21st Century Blockbuster: "Capitalism Unleashed"

Celebrity Worship: The New Opium of the Masses

Cheney Says: "Let's Cut the Crap...America Needs a Dictatorship"

Israel and "The Big Lie"

Frank Rich: All the News That's Fit to Bully

The New American-Driven Cold War