Peace and the New Corporate Liberation Theology
By Arundhati Roy, Converge.org
Arundhati Roy, author and human rights advocate, delivered the 2004 Sydney Peace Prize Lecture on November 4, 2004 at The University of Sydney. The U.S. media, unfortunately, was too focused on the presidential election to showcase her eloquent and scathing critique of neo-colonialism. -- Martin Brown
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/aroy1104.htm

French Viewers get a Gay TV Channel
By Amelia Gentleman, The Guardian
'Pink TV' is anticipating an audience of 180,000. Queer as Folk reruns, late night 'Porn on Pink' broadcasts, and a transgender sports commentator are just a few of the new channel's draws. -- Martin Brown
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1336079,00.html

Geishas Go Gangsta
By Noy Thrupkaew, American Prospect
White Americans aren't the only privileged group fascinated with American culture. Japanese youth have stepped up to the cultural buffet line with 'ganguro,' or 'blackface,' a subculture obsessed with imitating black America's most recent cultural exports. While most observers would spot a blend of homage and appropriation in young Japan's blackface drag, artist Iona Rozeal Brown sees a cultural continuity with the mythologized 'floating world' of geishas, samurai, and hedonism that graces traditional Japanese prints. Fusing the geisha and gangster idioms in 'remixed' Japanese prints, Brown creates a cultural hall-of-mirrors in which authenticity and identity are relative and performance is the only standard. -- Brendan Themes
http://tinyurl.com/4gavt

National Museum of the Middle Class
By Staff, The Onion
Like the dinosaurs and disco, the sun has set on the middle class. Now that the national experiment in white-bread, widespread prosperity has failed, the wealthy and poor alike can visit the National Museum of the Middle Class, where sitcoms and the eight-hour day collect dust next to tubes of cookie dough and economy cars. Take a trip back in time to peruse the quaint habits and modest comforts of these armchair enigmas and ponder what might have been. -- Brendan Themes
http://theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4044&n=1