It’s just been reported that the children of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are more likely to suffer child abuse. Is this finding not terrible enough for their parents to take heed and refuse to to be ordered there?
 
All soldiers going to Iraq and Afghanistan doom themselves to exposure to Depleted Uranium. Does it give anyone pause that they are dooming themselves and their families to certain ill-health? They’re not making a selfless sacrifice, they’re sacrificing their kids.

Read more »

Gordon Brown has met the Bush-Cheney team and it is to be more of the same. Despite some empty rhetoric about world poverty and rethinking British role in Iraq, Brown has deliberately refused to order British withdrawal from Iraq.

Read more »

The war crimes courts await several generations of uniformed Americans.

A friend of mine is a restauranteur who by his own admission doesn’t know much about wine. Never the less his wine rep was bringing over a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem for some occasion. I asked my friend if he’d read up on Sauterne vintages, the better to appreciate it. He looked at me quizzically. I persisted, thinking something along the lines of Tom Wolfe’s Painted Word, that you had to know about the theory of abstract art to appreciate what you saw. I didn’t get far because my friend was attuned to the un-abstract measure of his customer’s palate. Did they taste a distinctive quality? That was enough. You don’t need a text to appreciate pre-abstract art. Epicure likewise is not abstract.

Read more »

Why on earth do governments charge riders for taking public transit? What a defeatist system! This service needs to be free in every city of the country and paid for by other taxes, like road taxes for example.

Read more »

What exactly is commemorated in this moment? Apparently it’s iconic enough to merit a stamp. NYC firefighters raise a flag amid the ruins of the WTC, meaning what exactly?
 
The photographer recounted recognizing this Iwo Jima moment in the making. Does it give you a lump in your throat as well? The Marines at Iwo Jima had just captured the island after suffering some of the heaviest casualties in the Pacific Theater.

Read more »

Brent’s going to be taking all of his animated films on tour this fall! Here are the dates- more are being added- but this is the idea. We hope you can get out to one of these shows:
 
August 11- Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum
August 15- LA- The Silent Movie Theatre
August 16- Las Vegas
August 17- Phoenix- Modified Arts

Read more »

The spectacular triple-murder-rape invasion of the Petit family home in Cheshire Connecticut drew comparison to the brutality of the supersexed ruffians from A Clockwork Orange. Sam Peckinpaw’s Straw Dogs was released the same year, banned in the UK until only recently, and depicted the similar rapist bogeyman but focused on cultured man’s incapacity to safe-keep his house and blonde.

Read more »

I have become my dad. I remember when he thought my interests too extreme, when decorum appeared all but lost on my generation. What were the offensive bits? I don’t remember. Comic books? TV? Mr. Bill?

This is one of a popular series on YouTube, and the dead-pan stupidity is pretty funny. It doesn’t work for me when it’s a sniper talking to himself.

Read more »

Bush, Karl Rove and Joe Liebermann were in a National Guard helicopter surveying the disaster scene after Katrina…

Read more »

A broad spectrum of national groups have united to mobilize for a massive fall anti-war mobilization called the Days of Action. Sept 15-21 will be a major showdown in Washington DC at the very moment that the Petraeus Report is released and Congress takes up spending over $100 billion to prolong the war. Led by veterans who have returned from Iraq, there will be seven days of actions to send a shockwave through Washington and the nation with the reverberating demand: End the War Now!