Movies, porn, music, fashion, and glossy magazines fixate on the sexualized woman.

All that advice on how to be more attractive, how to give great blow jobs, and how to be good in bed, sexuality and sexual pleasure are still defined on male terms.

Sex is over when the man ejaculates; blow jobs are less gross than “carpet munching;” and sexually experienced men are virile, whereas experienced women are sluts.

Under such slanted expectations and double standards, women are seen not as autonomous sexual actors but as passive sexual objects.

By objectifying women and defining them by their chosen sexual activity, pop culture conflates sexual acts with the entirety of sexuality.   more »

The freedom of the market that Bush proclaims

as the high point of human aspiration

turns out to be nothing more than

the convenient means to spread corporate

monopoly power and Coca-Cola

everywhere without constraint

   more »

Keywords: capitalism, injustice, exploitation, cocacola

All the candidates believe in the manifest destiny of white men to do whatever the hell they want, namely keep brown people and women under control.

If the Democrats are frightening because they are compromised and craven, the Republicans are frightening because they are true believers, the real McCoys. They openly indulge in their love of racism, violence and control.

The media allow them to make up nonsense without so much as a decent follow-up question, and that is the most frightening prospect of all.

The media will take their cues from the Republicans and do their bidding. It is not inconceivable, despite the nearly universal scorn for George W. Bush, that one of these horrible men will be the next president of the United States.   more »

Definitions of terrorism never take into consideration motivating circumstances such as military invasion, resistance to military occupation, or acts that are distinctly intended to retaliate against a nation itself engaged in killing innocent civilians, from which the so-called “terrorists” emerge.

Today, these circumstances apply to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and while such acts may indeed be “unjustifiable,” the question of whether suicide bombings should be regarded as “terrorist” acts needs to be asked.

Especially, in the case of “retaliation,” where an eye for an eye may apply toward a state (Israel) that is involved in killing (Palestinian) civilians in order to enforce a military occupation or to quell any resistance to it.

The importance of getting it right is necessitated by Israel’s use of Palestinian suicide bombings during the second Intifada in its propaganda campaign to label Palestinians as terrorists in order to justify its military occupation, in spite of the fact that it has been going on for 40 years.   more »

It's a good thing the Berbers of the Rif have their illicit cannabis crop or they would be largely reduced to penury.

According to the Moroccan government's cannabis cultivation estimates, cannabis takes up one-quarter of all cultivated land in the region and 12% of irrigated land.

And as the government noted, "half of the low annual income or two-thirds of the rural population of the region" are dependent on the cannabis crop for an income.

Mohammed pulls out a pipe and packs it with hash. He lives in the centre of the Rif mountains, the world's biggest hash-producing area, the vast proportion of which is sold in Europe.   more »