The other day I sounded an excessively gloomy note about the non-implementation of the Pope's instructions regarding the return of the Traditional Latin Mass. But now I've caught up with a wonderful essay entitled "Rediscovering Traditionalism" by the Cambridge don John Casey on the openDemocracy website, which puts Summorum Pontificum in historical context and reminds us that this Pope has already worked wonders.

Monday, October 13, 2008 Washington and Latin America: Farewell, Monroe Doctrine By Juan Gabriel Tokatlian

So starting out on the pathway to enlightenment, which is less dark than totality but less light then the brightness of the sun doth shining upon solar reflecting mirrors, I put my ignorance to work for me and found the first name that I would never, ever think of when looking at Kenya. Really, there is no one I expected less to show up than Dick Morris (via opendemocracy.net). Mr. Schmoozer showing up in Kenya? WTF?But, when Raila Odinga, the man who lost the election folks think he should have won, was looked at

The UK government has frozen the UK assets of the Icelandic bank Landsbanki under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act passed after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA. This is an outrageous and deeply worrying perversion of the intent of the Act. The UK government may have a financial dispute with the Icelandic government, but not even the most paranoid denizen of Whitehall would be able to find a link between Icesave and Landsbanki and terrorism. It would be farcical - true political vaudeville worthy of a tin-pot dictatorship - if it weren’t part of a worrying pattern of executive encroachment on our basic freedoms.

Sovereignty, status and the humanitarian perspective, Mary Kaldor.

Following up on this previous post, here is part two of the series "The War on Terror, Seven years On":The war on terror: seven years on (part two)By Paul Rogers

Herbert Bix: The Russo-Georgia War and the Challenge to American Global DominanceSource: Japan Focus (Click here to see pictures accompanying this article.) (10-10-08)[Herbert Bix, author of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, which won the Pulitzer Prize, teaches at Binghamton University, New York, and writes on issues of war and empire. He is a Japan Focus associate.]

Returning to a one of the main themes of this blog, read here an excerpt from an interview with Elena Panfilova published at openDemocracy:  High stakes in Russia’s corruption battle.

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The Left Should Not Be Allied with Islamic Extremists Posted Monday, October 06 2008 @ 09:05 PM PDT Left Progressive Social Theorist Fred Halliday criticizes the tendency of some on the Left to become apologists for forms of Islamic extremism that are quite regressive. [At a time when Muslims are subject to discrimination and attack in the U.S., it's natural for many of us to want to protect the Islamic community. Fred Halliday's piece does not in any way challenge that instinct to side with those who are facing discrimination based on race, religion or national origin, but only insists that we distinguish between our opposition to discrimination and opposition to American imperialism in the world, on the one hand, and on the other hand the mistaken policy of being supportive of reactionary and violent tendencies in the Islamic world (just as we at Tikkun insist on distnguishing between forms of Judaism and Chrisitianity that preach love and forms that teach hatred or ultra chauvinst nationalism).]

The anti-democratic sentiment wasn't just confined to superstar American columnists. At the ironically-named OpenDemocracy, a British site funded by the Ford Foundation, the editor-in-chief patronized the bailout objectors by calling them "principled but mad." See how you're not permitted to both rational and disagree? (The site has argued before that people are too stupid to be trusted with democracy).

COLOMBIA'S GUERRILLAS Colombia's guerrillas: between past and future Ana Carrigan The struggle of Colombia's Farc guerrillas has lasted more than four decades. But the pressures the movement is now facing - symbolised by the death of its legendary co-founder Manuel Marulanda - present the Farc with a historic choice, says Ana Carrigan. (This article was first published on 16 June 2008)

An essay from Tom Nairn. Wouldn't it be refreshing to see some of our Cornish academics producing similar literary dynamite? More of his work can be found here on the Open Democracy website.

Clothed in Shame  page 1 of 2    by TOL 3 October 2008Uzbekistan has always shooed away critics of forced child labor, but now faces the massed ranks of major retailers.

The war on terror: seven years on The George W Bush administration's answer to the attacks of 11 September 2001 was to launch a global "war on terror". Two weeks after 9/11, Paul Rogers began to track that war in a weekly openDemocracy column. In the second of a two-part retrospective, the author reflects on the last seven years and assesses the prospects for change in the next

"If the third week of September 2008 was (as Ann Pettifor described it in openDemocracy) 'the week that changed everything', the fourth was the week when Wall Street met democracy. What is remarkable is that, after a fashion, democracy has won.

The people of Ecuador are rising up to refound their country as a pluri-national homeland for all. This inspiring movement, with Ecuador's indigenous peoples at its heart, is part of the revolution spreading across the Americas, laying the groundwork for a new, fairer, world. Ecuador Rising aims to bring news and analysis of events unfolding in Ecuador to english speakers.

Another Good Article on the Return to Traditional Catholicism Rediscovering TraditionalismOne year after re-introducing the Tridentine Mass and two years after the Regensburg address, Benedict XVI's popular new traditionalism has re-ignited the Catholic culture wars.

Reading matters The revenge of ideas: Karl Polanyi and Susan Strange, by Fred Halliday: Open Democracy

When fact and fiction get it on and do the nastee OpenDemocracy's SWISH reports are often remarkably prescient wrt Iraq & Afghanistan. Here's the latest.