Ezra Alexander writes:

"Thrashin' of Jesus The Christ"

Ezra Alexander,

Mel Gibson is an anti-Semitic asshole. Or... he's a genius...

First Jew shot you get is of slow-mo silver sheckels being thrown at a money grubbing, sniveling Judas by a pack of bloodthirsty Rabbi's.

Jesus gets the shit kicked out of him by the Temple guards and the Rabbi's want him to suffer... why? The movie doesn't give you a clue. (Score a point for Mel if his aim is to get people to read the Bible because I will now just to see what the fuck happened in the book) As for the non-stop shit kicking... the Bible reads that he got slapped. Once.

"Twilight of the Neocons:

Richard Perle Has Begun to Panic"

Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke

Reviewing An End to Evil by David Frum and Richard Perle, Random House, $25.95

Since 9/11 a cascade of books purveying instant analysis on the ramifications has hit the bookstores. A deep fault line runs between them. Those with "evil" or "jihad" in the title lie on one side of the divide; those with "empire" or "lies" are found on the other. Their mutually antagonistic readerships snarl at each other across the chasm. So it is with David Frum and Richard Perle's new book An End to Evil: What's Next in the War on Terrorism, in which they reinforce the thesis -- now usually described as neoconservative -- that American interests and values are best pursued with a maximum of military stick and minimum of negotiating carrot. It makes little difference whether the issue is Libya, Iran, or North Korea. The authors believe market-democracy is best delivered on the back of a Tomahawk missile.

"Bakhtin as Anarchist"

Caryl Emerson

[An excerpt from "Bakhtin After the Boom: Pro and Contra," Journal of
European Studies, March 2002 v32 i1 p3(24).]

[T]he question of Bakhtin's Russianness is highly contested, and in
closing I will touch only on two areas where I think he partakes of a recognizably
mainstream Russian tradition.

First, there is much in Bakhtin's thought that is anarchist. By which I mean:
if Bakhtin can dispense with an institution, an impersonal norm, a mechanical
causality, he will do so. For all his formal style as a professor and for all
the reverence with which he approached the culture of the past, he had a
powerful animosity against 'official life', 'officialese', lobbying for
hierarchical recognition, all of which he perceived as cowardly alienation
and
irresponsibility. This animus fed both his fondness for carnival and
sustained
him during his long years of not being read and not being heard.

"Did Somebody Say Slavoj?"

Carlos Pessoa

Reviewing Slavoj Zizek, Did somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the (Mis)use of a Notion. London: Verso, 2002.

Slavoj Zizek has become known for writing on the 'postmodern condition' and its implication for a radical political project. Although Zizek's Lacanian analysis (with a Hegelian impulse) can intimidate certain readers, his comical and entertaining writing enables a reading of key contemporary political issues. Although taking a critical stand to postmodern thought, I would argue there are postmodern aspects in Zizek's work that in the end make it postmodern radical chic.