As a one-off foray into public service journalism, the column this week stoops to address the most prevalent problem in the mailbag.

To summarise: I simply cannot go about the business of my daily life - meeting the obligations of my public-sector job, working out what to do with the remnants of something called a "veg box" - unless I know the state of play with the celebrity holy trinity that is Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Of course, many of these correspondents are New Labour drones who remain sexually unfulfilled by the Project and simply want weblinks to the latest upskirt shots. But to the less hopelessly lost, here is the news on Lindsay, Paris and Britney.

I'm afraid the situation is desperately grave. It's basically like the end of the first Lord of the Rings movie, when the Fellowship is scattered across Middle Earth, and you're kind of feeling really unoptimistic that they'll get it together and return the ring whence it came before the refund period expires, and their only option is a credit note or whatever.   more »

The engine that drives the radical Christian right in the United States - the most dangerous mass movement in American history - is not religiosity, but despair.

It is a movement built on the growing personal and economic despair of tens of millions of Americans, who watched helplessly as their communities were plunged into poverty by the flight of manu facturing jobs, their families and neighbourhoods torn apart by neglect and indifference. They eventually lost hope that America was a place where they had a future.

This despair crosses economic boundaries, enveloping many in the middle class who live trapped in huge, soulless exurbs where, lacking any form of community rituals or centres, they also feel deeply isolated, vulnerable and lonely.

Those in despair are the most easily manipulated by demagogues, who promise a fantastic utopia, whether it is a worker's paradise, liberté-égalité-fraternité, or the second coming of Jesus Christ.   more »

From the slums of Kenya to the streets of Washington there is disgust at George Bush and Tony Blair's "war on terror".

Pentagon figures released last week revealed that the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are costing the US government a staggering $320 million a day.

This is money that could be spent on fighting poverty and saving lives. Instead it is poured into death and destruction.

So far the US has spent $500 billion on war. That's enough to wipe out the entire debt of the world's poorest 54 countries.   more »

Here are some of my contributions, specifically tailored for the ongoing assault on Iraq, to the “Doublespeak Dictionary” of American “State Terrorism”

“Terrorism,” Literal Definition: the use of violence and/or the threat of violence to achieve political ends.

Imperial/Orwellian/Iraq War Usage: refers to violent and officially inexplicable resistance to an inherently benevolent U.S. occupation.

Does NOT refer to the American Empire’s use of massive state violence (and the threat thereof) to sustain an illegal, mass-murderous and imperialist occupation:   more »

Bosses and neoliberal ideologues tell us modern capitalism has changed our lives and the way that we work.

According to them, the world of work has changed dramatically since the years of poverty, lack of control and constant work that characterised the lives of workers at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

But the world of work hasn't changed that much, as many workers could testify.

How many of us have had to put up with Human Resource Management? Workers have become used to "key performance indicators", "team working', "appraisals" and a whole battery of measures that go under the rubric of "flexibility" and "modernisation".   more »