On 22 July 2011 a Norwegian neo-Nazi stunned the world with his cold-blooded slaughter of 77 people. Another 242 were seriously injured, many permanently disabled.
Most victims were members of the Norwegian Labour Party at a Workers Youth League camp on the tiny island of Utoya. Eight of the deaths plus most casualties were caused by his van-bombing of a government building in Oslo earlier the same day.
Nick Grant contrasts two new films on the neo-Nazi atrocity in Norway in 2011.
On 22 July 2011 a Norwegian neo-Nazi stunned the world with his cold-blooded slaughter of 77 people. Another 242 were seriously injured, many permanently disabled.
Most victims were members of the Norwegian Labour Party at a Workers Youth League camp on the tiny island of Utoya. Eight of the deaths plus most casualties were caused by his van-bombing of a government building in Oslo earlier the same day.
I am puzzled by a kink in the otherwise fine fabric of Andrew Jones’s review of the excellent Dorothea Lange exhibition at The Barbican (July/August SR).
This Is My Country. People Get Ready. We’re A Winner. Mighty, Mighty (Spade and Whitey). Keep On Keepin On. Future Shock. We Gotta Have Peace. Power To The People. Ever since the Middle Passage, African-American struggles for freedom, justice and dignity have had a soundtrack.
At first it may only have been patterns beaten on a resonating surface and field songs of cruel Southern plantation work. But their steady elaboration into country blues, urban jazz and Sunday gospel forms became electrified after millions migrated north before and during the Second World War.
Neal Curtis
You might recognise Neal Curtis' exasperation that: "Privatisation and the associated practices of deregulation, competition, and marketisation have achieved such ascendancy that it is almost impossible to challenge this discourse without seeming to be out of touch, backward, romantic, or even politically sectarian, unwilling to bend the knee to corporate absolutism"
We do indeed face idiotic politicians - like UK ministers George Osborne and Michael Gove. They dogmatically impose mean, whimsical, unworkable, wasteful and regressive policies.
Today Ken Loach is an internationally feted filmmaker. But he was also once a prophet in his own country. Working with a generation of radicals, he excelled at what became known as the drama-documentary - a TV genre that was socially engaged, aesthetically experimental and politically influential. It made working class people the subject of public service broadcasting. This essential collection has many of the key works which now deserve the widest rescreening for their enduring relevance and artistic courage.
Dexter Whitfield
Understanding the real reasons for the assault on public sector workers is a first crucial step in calibrating our best response, especially if we hope to win some battles in this prolonged war.
Dexter Whitfield, Spokesman Books, £18
Anyone working in, or dependent on, education, health, housing, transport, civil and social services knows the negative impact that privatisation has wrought on pay, jobs and the quality of these vital services.
At best, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and their variants like Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) have become code words for cheapened services benefiting only the private part of these lopsided "partnerships". Wags among you will have much ruder interpretations of the PPP and PFI acronyms!
I recently read Stephen Jay Gould's essay on "Natural Selection and the Human Brain", from his collection, The Panda's Thumb.
It outlines the rift between Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace on this question, one which persists as the key ideological battleground between science and religion today, and accounts for recent polls suggesting that no more than a quarter of Britain's population "believe" in Darwinism.
In Gould's explanation Wallace was an arch-proponent of what we now call "intelligent design" the notion that Darwin did god a massive favour by demonstrating the coherence of his grand and beautiful works.
Director Steven Soderbergh; Release date: out now
In 1960 Cuba's rebel leaders were fighting for their political lives, a year after ousting US stooge President Batista.
Sabotage took many forms. On 5 March the arms-laden La Coubre exploded in Havana dock, killing hundreds. At the next day's funeral gathering a young photographer, Alberto Korda, captured an image that would become one of the century's greatest.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara's portrait spoke volumes to subsequent generations and was reproduced billions of times worldwide.
