The last day & it's raining.
We hear it on the tin roof--
soft as the tap of the questing sticks
of blind martyrs.

"The rude boy's back in town," booms Michael Franti at the beginning of his new album. He's talking about his return to Kingston, Jamaica, where he recorded the politically incendiary Yell Fire! two years previously.

Synopsis: A bizarre allergy to sunscreen has caused vampire Dennis Spectre to lose his taste for blood. Instead, Spectre must consume vegetables, fruits, and plants in order to survive.

A jazz version of Rage Against the Machine, Minnesota-based Junkyard Empire blends jazz instrumentals, hip hop, and socially consciously lyrics to create a fresh sound.

Perhaps a couple of decades from now we will all be praising the mainstream media for the wonderful work they have done reporting on our collective insanity.

Two major labor organizations, the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) teamed up with Brave New Films this week to promote a new video titled "McCain's Mansions: The Real Elitist," which links John McCain's personal wealth to his basic misunderstandings of the economic crisis facing working families.

In 1962, Stalinism was given a name: Ivan Denisovich. Six years earlier, Nikita Khrushchev, behind closed doors and at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, revealed the magnitude of Stalinist repression and crimes.

The curtain will come down on the Beijing Olympics on August 24. The Paralympics will then commence. When they conclude the world will be left to consider the full impact of the Games – the spectacle, the competition, the reputation of the host country in light of what has taken place during the weeks of awe-inspiring televised sporting performances.

I am very proud of what I did at Halliburton. And the people of Halliburton are very proud of what they've done. --Dick Cheney 2000. Billions in no-bid contracts and massive corruption – of course they're proud.

Every time someone complains about ideas that fall outside an arbitrary and narrow circle called “common sense” (also known in English as “horse sense”), they do so by brandishing two classic arguments: 1) the philosophers live in another world, surrounded by books and eccentric ideas and 2) we know what reality is because we live in it.

One of the most remarkable television series released, in the British tradition, in five numbered series had its last episodes broadcast last month on PBS stations. Little has been written about this series, Foyle’s War, a well-acted powerfully written and directed, and beautifully photographed historical series.

As you may have noticed, PoliticalAffairs.net has a new “culture and values” page for the purpose of dealing with just what the title suggests. We’re dedicating ourselves to searching far and wide, dredging the nether-reaches of the internet and other strange realms for artistic media so you don’t have to.

If you have been watching TV recently, it is very likely that you will have seen the new TV ad from the Pfizer drug company for their erectile dysfunction drug, “Viagra” – an ad campaign produced in conjunction with a print ad in Golf Magazine.

Since the first detainees were transferred there from Afghanistan on January 11, 2002, Guantanamo Bay has become the most notorious prison on earth.

Attention all Marxists! If you thought class struggle was the motive force of history, as certain manifesto writers have claimed, you are sadly mistaken. A new book by Daniel Lord Smail ("On Deep History and the Brain", California, 2007) has come up with the true motive force.

Global warming is a huge social problem that requires many different levels of action. Right-wing ideologues long ago convinced themselves that global warming isn't real.

Jonah Goldberg's regular column in the LA Times is usually an awkward grab bag of right wing talking points backed by knowledge of history that would shame a poodle, although a poodle would never be so pompous.

A friend of mine called me a few days ago to comment on a scene he didn’t like on the Cuban soap opera presently being aired on television (Polvo en el Viento) in which some criminals hired by a dishonest female cashier beat up a couple as revenge for having reported her.

The mention of screenwriter John Howard Lawson conjures up images of a dauntless, spirited genius, Dean of the Hollywood Ten, a leader among artists determined to defend himself and his colleagues in the face of one of the worst, most repressive campaigns against free speech in American history.

They lasted longer than Bell-Bottoms (11 years), Zoot Suits (15-20 years) and if they are still being worn, you better believe it's for a reason other than fashion-related.