The lap dancing club was all plush and dark red, almost like being inside a womb. This was my first visit to such a club, a research trip to gather data. Men were sitting in chairs being straddled by half-naked young women.

It looked deeply uncomfortable, claustrophobic. The men couldn’t move, couldn’t touch, had to sit there being tantalised in public, helpless.

It didn’t look erotic. For the men, with these strong women towering over them, it looked like they were being constrained, almost trapped in a box.

Where sexuality is concerned in our society, it can sometimes seem like we’re all trapped. No matter what people do in or out of their bedrooms, someone will comment, complain or judge.   more »

In particular, as he puts it in Capitalism Unleashed, "having beaten off the challenges of the 1970s the capitalist system in the North has not reached the 'end of history' where growth and stability are assured."

He singles out three major problems for world economic growth over the next few years. Firstly, productivity growth is likely to slow over the next few years with the secular shift towards services where it is more difficult to innovate. An ageing population compounds the problem.

Secondly, there are likely to be increasing environmental constraints on the world economy. Already there is evidence of this in rising oil prices and depletion of other essential materials.

Thirdly, the benefit to the North from low wage production in China will decrease as wages inevitably rise in China, as the precedents of history suggest always happens as labour reserves dry up.

These three factors presage very slow rises in average living standards. Slower economic growth, especially when combined with growing inequality in incomes, could generate much increased conflict over distributional issues.   more »

Celebrity worship is like a national religion in the US. It's one of the country's most invasive and dubiously valuable exports. It is the fast-burning fuel for a relentless, corrosive media machine that infects most every part of our culture.

There is a wider point to make about celebrity in America and thus inevitably in the wider world. It is everywhere.

It has become a cult of the famous in which ordinary Americans, big business and politicians are indulging themselves in equally destructive measure.

Celebrity dominates newspapers and TV shows. Even at a time of war it is the travails of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson that still obsess the media.

During the recent finals of American Idol, more Americans voted in the TV contest than had for either 2004 presidential candidate. Amazingly, the show promoted this as a Good Thing. Celebrity magazines are booming.   more »

Cheney is a vile, indeed evil, influence in American political life. He uses the fear of terrorists as a pretext to advance his agenda of an all powerful president, a military dictator. So long, of course, as he is a Republican.

The United States is caught up in a new campaign for a military dictatorship -- rule by a military chief with absolute power.

The White House, inspired by Vice President Dick Cheney, has argued that in time of great danger, the president has unlimited powers as commander in chief.

If he cites "national security" he can do whatever he wants -- ignore Congress, disobey laws, disregard the courts, override the Constitution's Bill of Rights -- without being subject to any review.

Separation of powers no longer exists. The president need not consult Congress or the courts. Moreover the rights of the commander in chief to act as a military dictator lasts as long as the national emergency persists, indefinitely that is and permanently.   more »

As Goebbels famously insisted, the art of propaganda is to “lie big” and “stick to it.” There is no bigger lie than turning reality on its head.

To claim that Israel is responding to Palestinian aggression requires more than a gross exaggeration of the threat posed by the crude rockets possessed by Hamas. It means ignoring everything that went on before Tuesday night.

Israel has been waging an unequal and increasingly bloody campaign against the Palestinians since it first invaded Southern Gaza on June 28 on the pretext of securing the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit.

The rocket attack on Ashkalon came after a week in which Israel had made clear it intended to bring about the downfall of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority and inflict collective punishment on the Palestinians in order to end all resistance to Olmert’s plan to annex close to half of the West Bank.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have rounded up eight Hamas ministers, fully one-third of the Palestinian cabinet, and nearly two dozen lawmakers in the West Bank. Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres has said they will be put on trial for terrorism.   more »

Since 2000, these new cold war policies have only taken a turn for the disastrous. From its first moments in office, the Bush administration, made up almost solely of rabid former cold warriors, has been focused with an unprecedented passion and intensity on what can only be called a "rollback" policy.

Defined a little more precisely, what they have pursued, as Cohen makes clear, is a policy of "destabilization" with every means at their command -- and, until recently, with some success.

The top officials of this administration are remarkable gamblers and optimists. They have also proven remarkably single-minded in playing the destabilization game.

If they are in the Roman-Empire business, don't think Augustus, think Caesar's Palace. Like so many gambling addicts, they've never run across a situation in which they're unwilling to roll the dice, no matter the odds.

They just give those dice that special little rub and offer a prayer for good luck, always knowing that this just has to be their day.   more »

8 JULY

Where Have All the Sperm Gone? The Infertility Crisis

Maureen Dowd: A Tale of Two Rachels...The Summer Trends

The Almost Dead President

Americans Are "Fire-Eating War Junkies"

Ignorance Fuels Islamophobia

World Cup: Does Football Now Need Two Referees?

Give America Back to the Rightful Owners