Silvio Berlusconi isn’t known to be a Black Sabbath fan. A recording artist in his own right, the musical preferences of the Milanese media magnate lean more towards cruise ship favorites like “What’s New Pussycat?” than they do “Iron Man.” Not that it’s unreasonable to conjecture. Particularly following Il Cavaliere’s infamous flashing of the corna (horns) behind the head of Spain’s foreign minister, during a 2002 photo op. (More…)
You Can’t Be President, by Harper’s publisher John R. MacArthur is an epistolary analysis of exactly what that electoral process entails. The first line of the first chapter sets the tone: “Despite what you learn in school of in Junior Scholastic magazine, you can’t be President.” (More…)
For a world without borders and jails.
As a generation that only knows the domination of capital, every day we roam the landscapes of a world that constantly declares its own justification. While the ubiquity of the commodity seems to repress poverty (as lack of the means of survival,) misery spreads (as dispossession of our dreams.) (More…)
It took Michel Foucault to reinsert Nietzsche into leftist analyses of power. Although the German philosopher’s influence has been felt among Marxist, anarchist, and anti-market thinkers, his influence is rarely accorded its due. Like pornography, Nietzsche is often hustled in through the backdoor, and with a vague sense of shame. (More…)
On August 3rd, Israel’s Channel 10 News released poll results that shocked Israelis. Conducted on July 29 and August 2, the results suggested a major loss in public confidence for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing party. Center-left daily Ha’aretz immediately championed this line, contending that it was a sign Israelis had finally become alienated by Bibi’s policies. (More…)
Documentaries featured prominently at this year’s Jerusalem Film Festival. The two award winners, Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi’s Five Broken Cameras, and Ran Tal’s The Garden of Eden, were decidedly deserving. Similarly contending with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they could not be more different. Not just in terms of perspective, but in the correspondence between their respective production values, and their subject matter. (More…)
On June 12th 2010 we want to hit the streets with you to call for a different way of organizing the city, one with more self-determination, and for a different society as well. And we don’t want to stay stuck on demands for affordable rents, a “social” city politics or other State-sponsored measures, but rather wish to demonstrate for our vision of a beautiful life (More…)
“Sport has established itself as the spearhead of an army in battle order, which crushes anyone who is stupefied by it,” writes Marc Perelman in Barbaric Sport: A Global Plague. Fittingly, for a project rooted in Adorno and the France of May 1968, Perelman’s concern is with sports as a mass phenomenon, one he locates at the core of capitalist society. (More…)
Alongside the Olympics, London is currently bursting with activity celebrating the 50th anniversary of Jamaican independence. The all-star mega-big Respect Jamaica 50th Festival enters its second week at the nearby Indigo2, sporting a roster that includes everyone from Jimmy Cliff and U-Roy to Maxi Priest and Shaggy. (More…)
Calling Owen Hatherley’s A New Kind of Bleak a book about architecture is like saying Orwell’s Animal Farm is a book about a farm. Yes, it’s about Hatherley’s travels through the United Kingdom, in which he analyzes edifices ranging from the National Space Centre in Leicester, (affectionately called “The Maggot,”) to Preston’s bus station. However, it’s also about gathering the evidence necessary to indict British urban planning. (More…)
Israel’s “…presence in all of Judea and Samaria — not just in the so-called settlement blocs — is an irreversible fact. Trying to stop settlement expansion is futile, and neglecting this fact in diplomatic talks will not change the reality on the ground; it only makes the negotiations more likely to fail.” (More…)
I’ve spent years trying to convince the world of metal’s radical potential. I’ve followed the obscure byways of obscure extreme metal genres in search of the avant-grade potential of this most degraded form. My heart has swelled with satisfaction as – finally – The Wire, The Quietus and other bastions of elite musical opinion have begun to embrace the metallic dark side. (More…)