A photograph by a controversial American artist which is part of Sir Elton John's private collection has been seized by police from a gallery on suspicion it may have breached child pornography laws.

The image, which featured two young girls one of whom was sitting down with her legs wide apart, was taken by the renowned photographer Nan Goldin.

The shot, from the artist's Thanksgiving series, was to be exhibited at the Baltic Modern Art gallery, Tyneside, this week along with some of her other work. But the day before it was due to be viewed by the public, police came and removed the image over fears that it might be breaking the law.   more »

First, knowledge and truth. Where modernism thought it could know things objectively about the world, postmodernism has reminded us that there is no such thing as neutral knowledge.

Everybody has a point of view, and that point of view distorts. Everybody describes things the way that suits them. There is no such thing as objective truth.

Likewise, there are no such things as objective values, only preferences.

Opinions have become more important than facts. Attitude more important than truth. This means the collapse of modernity. We're on our own now. No more meta-narratives. Each of us constructs his or her own 'text.'

The cultural symbols that encapsulate this revolution are the iPod and a billion bloggers. Everyone creates their own private world.   more »

It is misleading to talk about the "daily grind" when the grind is not "daily" but eternal. In fact, the grind is almost everything: one's daily job takes up more time that any other part of the twenty-four hour cycle, and certainly more time than any other phase of one's life.

Perhaps some well-paid industrial psychologists have looked into the question of making the grind even more pervasive. (For those who have jobs, of course - for a large number of people, ironically, there is the vast emptiness of unemployment.)

If the research and development of sleep were ever left to large corporations, they would do their best to reduce human slumber to zero.

After all, sleep is a big waste of time, a third of a human life, and that time could be devoted to increasing production of goods and services, increasing the Gross Domestic Product, increasing corporate profits.   more »

If Blackwater, with an assist from the U.S. government, beats back the attempt by the Iraqis to regulate the firm's activities -- as now appears likely, considering Friday's report that the firm has resumed guarding U.S. State Department convoys in Baghdad -- we will have all the confirmation that is needed of the great truth of the U.S. occupation of Iraq:

This is a colonial endeavor no different than that of the British Empire against America's founding generation revolted.

But even if Blackwater loses its fight to stay, even if the corporation is forced to shut down its multi-billion dollar, U.S. Treasury-funded operation in Iraq, the brief "accountability moment" may not be sufficient to open up the necessary debate about Iraq's colonial status.

The danger, for Iraq and the United States, that honest assessment of the crisis will lose out to face-saving gestures designed to foster the fantasy of Iraqi independence.   more »

Many believe the Bush Regime will go down in history as one of the worst, and they cite the Iraq fiasco and his assault on civil liberties and the Constitution as the reasons.

But long after the ramifications of those admittedly egregious crimes have subsided, the effects of global warming will still be with us.

Future generations will know that there was a critical time when we knew we had to act, and when we had the time to act to avoid global catastrophe, but that one man failed to exercise the leadership needed.

They will know that man’s name, the way we know Nero’s, and they will spit on his memory.   more »