Borat’s Myspace page declares, “I make a movie film. Please you come see November 3. If it not success, I will be execute.” Hard to argue with that, isn’t it? read more »

It’s like going into a neighborhood video store that just happens to have a huge porn room in the back. Kelly Rued is the founder of Black Love Interactive and is launching Rapture Online, an alternative to Second Life, in 2007. “Our design team is all women,” Rued says, “so that might explain the broad, multi-faceted view of eroticism in Rapture Online. There will be plenty of romance, fantasy and story, which is rare in explicit sex gaming.” read more »

For the last 25 years, right-wingers have been hectoring America’s poor to stop depending on government handouts and be self-reliant. read more »

After a debate that ground on mind-numbingly, for years, Congress in August birthed one of the most momentous pieces of domestic policy legislation in decades. read more »

A reality show that features Tyra Banks putting a group of wannabe models through fashion boot-camp hardly seems a likely candidate to be at the center of a potentially industry-altering movement. Yet it is. read more »

I spent most of Lebanon’s month-long war in the southern coastal city of Tyre working as an interpreter for a British television station. Media from around the world resided at the Resthouse, a comfortable beach/hotel compound on the southern end of the city. read more »

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nevada—“Welcome home!” He shouts. We hug and I look at Burning Man, a city rising in the vast Nevada desert. I came here to pour out the last water from New Orleans. A year of rage and sadness sloshed inside me and I hoped the desert would soak the last of it away. read more »

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 40 percent of El Barrio’s residents live below the poverty line. It is here that the Movement for Justice in El Barrio (MJB) is emerging. The radical reference point and inspiration is no longer the Black Panther Party but the Zapatistas – an indigenous-based rebel army in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas that has evolved over the past 12 years into a grassroots, social movement that espouses “leading by obeying.” read more »

“We got to get a message to that son of a bitch! We are serious about this! No more killing!” said Marie Runyon, 91. The silver-haired, longtime activist and former Assemblywoman is now a member of the Granny Brigade for Peace. Last fall, she was one of 18 “peace grannies” arrested when they tried to enter the Times Square recruiting station. read more »

The Oaxacan state government, which has been controlled with mafia-like efficiency since 1929 by the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI), has been able to force allegiance by a policy of repression or reward in which those who obey receive economic perks and those who disobey go to “jail or the cemetery.” read more »

“What we hope for is to improve Mexico,” she said, “to no longer be trampled on by the rich, those that invalidated our votes. We want the people to choose their government. Without the people, a president is nothing.” read more »

"That's where we go wrong, believing that simple shit," Shakur said on Aug. 29. "The system is on track...it's on track to ride over us." read more »

Radical city councilperson Charles Barron narrowly lost to 12-term incumbent Edolphous Towns in a hotly contested Democratic primary in New York’s 10th Congressional District. Barron, a former Black Panther, quickly vowed to run again in 2008. read more »

When anti-war candidate Jonathan Tasini soundly lost his Sept. 12 primary bid to unseat Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton – and yet still managed to double his expected percentage of the vote with 17 percent – most of the liberal blogosphere reacted with a giant yawn. read more »

Maverick journalists are uncommon in U.S. history. By 1950, most had become domesticated, falling into line as publicists for official policy and the corporate mass media. They traded in what may have remained of their independence for pay raises, benefits, and social status. read more »

Everybody lost this war. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was quick to admit he did not expect Israel to react as hard as they did. This concession allowed the Israeli government to announce victory over Hezbollah – shortly followed by the Israeli confession of defeat... read more »

On Jan. 1 the Zapatista Army of National Liberation set out from the Lacandon Jungle for the second time since they rose up in arms on Jan. 1, 1994, the day that the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect. This time their military chief, Subcomandante Marcos, traded his assault rifle for a notebook and pen; clad in his trademark black ski mask, boots and fatigues, the rebel leader and scribe hit the road on a national listening tour, a rugged journey through Mexico’s most marginalized rural villages and big-city slums to gather stories of social rebellion from the underdogs (los de abajo) of the Mexican Left. read more »

Three decades after its storied meltdown, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) is back. And it’s reemerged into a country that looks strangely the same. The United States is bogged down in another unpopular war, the corporatization of the university continues, people of color are fighting to be treated as full citizens. read more »

From April 23-27, 1968 — Columbia Strike Protesting both the university’s close ties with the Pentagon and its racist treatment of residents of the Morningside Heights neighborhood, 700-1,000 rebellious students take over and occupy a number of campus building for five days before they are violently cleared out by 1,000 cops. National SDS proceeds to issue a public statement calling for “two, three, many Columbias.” read more »

Israel is close to implementing a long-term plan to transform the demographic structure of annexed East Jerusalem. Policies to revoke the residency permits of Palestinian Jerusalemites and to Judaise the city have been described as ethnic cleansing. read more »

Old Joy is the story of two friends who embark on a weekend camping trip to escape from their everyday lives in present-day Portland, Oregon. Kurt, played by alt-country singersongwriter Will Oldham, is a carefree drifter-type for whom this trip is an opportunity to reconnect with his old friend Mark (Daniel London). For Mark, the trip is a temporary retreat from his suburban life and imminent fatherhood. read more »

(One can imagine Nixon watching Lennon at peace rallies and on TV while remembering a pasty, sweaty visage that literally paled in comparison to JFK’s brill cream glow in 1960). Thankfully, the obvious connection to Patriot Act surveillance is mostly unspoken, save for condescending doc whore Gore Vidal who thinks we’re too dumb to catch on. Smartly folding concrete peace slogans into catchy melodies while staging (with Ono) unforgettable “performances” like the legendary bed-in, Lennon deserves a considerably more provocative film than this crowd-pleasingly safe one. read more »

It's Fall! Things are Happening! read more »