Watching Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper (2015) reminded me of Sunday nights spent in front of the television with my parents in the late seventies and early eighties. It was a time before the plethora of viewing options available now and the Sunday movie was a big deal, sometimes the highlight of the week’s viewing.

More than a decade has passed since the September 11 attacks occurred and the subsequent War on Terror was launched. In that time, 12 sovereign nations have been subject to military invasion or interference, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and injured and millions displaced, and an unprecedented amount of laws have been proliferated radically expanding state and police powers, including intense surveillance of communities and zones of exception such as Guantanamo Bay.

At time of writing there’s still no further information on either the Boston marathon bombing, or the Texas fertiliser plant explosion (yet another C and W song title in waiting) and it would be foolish to build a firm case on ‘what-ifs’.

Two books came lovingly wrapped to the breakfast table on Father’s Day. The first was Joe Bageant’s Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir and the other was Natasha Vargas-Cooper’s Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America. At first glance the two books appear to have very little in common. I am a fan of the […]