I think back to the seventh grade when Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera hit the scene. We were all just hitting puberty and had easy-access fantasies of what the perfect girl should be - and personality had nothing to do with it.

This mindset that I grew up with is terrible. It's abominable and inexcusable, yet I am having great difficulty trying to shake it.

As I type this I look up at my wall and see my poster of Jessica Alba in "Sin City" tacked to it. I think, "Now that's what a woman should be."   more »

Still, we cling to the nice story, the hopeful one about luck and pluck and individual sacrifice. It's a story that is repeated and reinforced on a continual and perpetual basis in American society, rooted deeply in our sense of who we are.

In feudal Europe, peasants knew exactly where they stood in relation to kings and the landed gentry. Those class divisions were decidedly unsubtle. Nasty, mean, and brutish, in fact. No pretension was necessary.

I'm not a fan of feudal Europe, but class matters are indeed muddled in highly developed, consumer-driven societies like Western Europe and the United States.

The magical and rare beauty of our narrative of the classless society is its subtle power and its ability to structure society without blatant force.

Thoughts, ideas, hopes and dreams, cultural identities and social habits hold the superstructure in place.   more »

President Ahmadinejad announced the release of the 15 British naval personnel like a card player flinging down his hand to scoop the pool.

Iran had good cards and played them well.

It made its point about defending its borders, dominated international television with pictures of its prisoners and their "confessions" and, when it perhaps judged that it had got as much as it could expect to out of the confrontation, ended it with a flourish.

Iran can project this as a victory (the medals given publicly to the officers who led the operation was an immediate example) against a country still viewed with suspicion in Iran because of its past interventions.   more »

Demonstrating her appeal to the financial oligarchy which dominates official American politics, Senator Hillary Clinton reported raising $26 million in campaign contributions in the first quarter of 2007, nearly three times the previous record for any big business politician, Democrat or Republican, at this stage in a presidential campaign.

Clinton confirmed her position as a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in the “primary” that really counts: the contest for the support of the billionaires and millionaires, as well as business lobbyists, Hollywood moguls and the trade union bureaucracy.

While first-quarter reports are not legally required to be filed with the Federal Election Commission until April 15, the Clinton campaign released its report as early as possible, in an effort to intimidate rivals and win favorable media coverage.   more »

The Bush Regime has used propaganda to impress its policies on the American people.

They have utilized one of the most easily-controllable human emotions - fear.

They have used fear to overstate terrorists threats, driving American taxes into defense contracts, while at the same time ignoring relevant issues on home soil (see Hurricane Katrina).

They have even used fear to engage in a war which is of no benefit to United States safety or diplomatic relations.

The administration has manipulated its citizens' fear of death and has unjustly used it to promote its agendas, hiding behind a guise of patriotism.   more »