MOST PEOPLE have a favourite soul singer. For many Otis Redding was without peer. Others cite Sam Cooke and Ray Charles as the originators, and James Brown still remains the Godfather. In my opinion Solomon Burke should be included on that list. You may not have heard of him, but his musical influence runs deep.
IN JAMES Bond films the villain always has a plan to dominate the world. Usually this is something that he reveals in private, in some secret hideout far from the everyday world. Not so the United States under George W Bush. A fortnight ago his administration published The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.
NEWSPAPERS REPORT that we are eating fewer potatoes. The British Potato Council says sales of fresh potatoes fell dramatically in the past ten years. At the start of the 1990s 80 percent of potatoes were bought as nature intended. Today only around half of all the spuds consumed in Britain come as real potatoes.
THE RE-ELECTION of Gerhard Schröder as German leader on Sunday was bad news for George Bush and the warmongers. Schröder staged a remarkable recovery to narrowly clinch the election for one central reason - his stated opposition to a US war on Iraq, even if it gets the blessing of the United Nations.
THE EARTH Summit in Johannesburg is generally agreed to have been an enormous flop. There is also widespread agreement about the cause. The United States and the other leading capitalist states refused to budge from their free market agenda.
There is a road near where I live that is a monument to the achievements of capitalism. It was once a terrace of shops with flats above. It was built in the 1820s, nothing grand.
THE CURRENT state of British politics is weird. Successive governments have enjoyed majority support for the wars they have waged over the past 20 years, from the Falklands onwards. But now we find public opinion lined up overwhelmingly against the war that George W Bush and Tony Blair are determined to prosecute against Iraq. The opposition stretches right across the political spectrum.
"WE MAKE the music, they own it," is an old saying jazz musicians often quote. "They" are the record companies. Music is big business. Sony Music sold in excess of $14 billion worth of music last year. Five major corporations control 94 percent of all records sold. But according to City analysts the good times may be coming to an end for music retailers like EMI, Sony and Capitol.
WHAT A difference a year makes. In the aftermath of 11 September last year, the world's ruling classes rallied in solidarity with the United States. "We are all Americans," declared the Parisian daily Le Monde. Contrast the situation today. As the leading figures in George W Bush's administration prepare to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein, they find themselves largely isolated internationally.
THE ISRAELI novelist David Grossman has described the "depth of internal poison that our huge use of violence causes us". That poison is now sapping the confidence of Jewish communities outside Israel, resulting in mainstream British Jewish leaders speaking out with unprecedented vigour.
HOW BIG a threat are the Nazis in Europe today? Many liberal establishment commentators dismiss groups like the British National Party as nasty but marginal thugs who have no chance of ever getting near power. This position has become much harder to sustain, especially since Nazi Jean-Marie Le Pen beat prime minister Lionel Jospin into third place in the first round of the French presidential elections on 21 April.
"IS ANY child safe?" the Daily Express thundered last week. In the wake of the tragic murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the tabloids are seeking to boost circulation by playing on parents' fears. The News of the World is planning a repeat of the "name and shame" campaign against paedophiles it ran two years ago.
