I can't get it out of my head. Amy Winehouse and her cover of the Toots and the Maytals 'Monkey Man' (with the arrangement borrowed from The Specials' version) on the Jools Holland Hootenanny show, over New Year... The legs, the dress almost falling off, the totally skank rhythm... thank you God!

January 5, 2007
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Denying the Facts, Finding the Truth

By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
London

In a similar way, Saddam Hussein’s regime was an abominable authoritarian state, guilty of many crimes, mostly toward its own people. However, one should note the strange but key fact that, when the United States representatives and the Iraqi prosecutors were enumerating his evil deeds, they systematically omitted what was undoubtedly his greatest crime in terms of human suffering and of violating international justice: his invasion of Iran. Why? Because the United States and the majority of foreign states were actively helping Iraq in this aggression.And now the United States is continuing, through other means, this greatest crime of Saddam Hussein: his never-ending attempt to topple the Iranian government. This is the price you have to pay when the struggle against the enemies is the struggle against the evil ghosts in your own closet: you don’t even control yourself.

So, whats all this about? I'm really not sure if he is saying Marx is dead and long he should remain so - or that the emergent Marx today wold not sit well with the original scholar.

Any thoughts anyone?

Behold Marx's twitch
By John Thornhill
Published: December 28 2006 02:00 | Last updated: December 28 2006 02:00
What does it take to kill an idea whose time has passed?

However, Marx would surely have been grumpy about his new-found status as an analyst of our times rather than as an agitator for revolutionary change. "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it," he wrote.