To the credit of producers Guy Jacobson and Adi Ezroni, “Holly” is not “Pretty Baby.” Although it’s a movie about child prostitution, there’s no nudity, sex, or violence or Hollywood glitz. The gritty and realistic feel of the movie and the sordid world of child sexual trafficking results from the fact that it was shot on location in Camodia, with many scenes filmed in actual brothels.

The story itself concerns Patrick (Ron Livingston), a ne’er-do-well low-grade card shark who works on the side in stolen artifacts, until he meets the 12-year-old Holly (Thuy Nguyen). Holly’s been sold by her impoverished Vietnamese peasant family and smuggled into Cambodia. Her initial market value is tied directly to negotiating the price of her virginity a la “Pretty Baby,” but that’s where the similarities end.

Funny how we can’t seem to hear the truth until it’s uttered by a professional liar.

Thus Scott McClellan, who was George Bush’s press secretary for three years, beginning shortly after we invaded Iraq — the very Scott McClellan who personified lock-step obedience to the cause — has acquired sudden street cred as Someone To Listen To, as he tells us what we already know. Our society may not convene truth commissions, but it does publish tell-all books by ex-aides of the powerful, which feed us pieces of truth in the form of scandal.

McClellan has given the country a bit more (unwanted, embarrassing) self-awareness than it had a week ago, prior to the release and subsequent media splash of “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.” His book raises a lot of questions, but only one that matters: Now what?

The United States maintains secret prisons on ships in the ocean in order to detain people outside the reach or even the knowledge of any system of law, the better to torture the ever-living cheney out of them. Over at the Black Commentator, Glen Ford (now at the Black Agenda Report) has been calling the Bush Cheney gang pirates for years. And the point is not just that they're criminals, but that they are outlaws, killers, and thieves who operate outside any national allegiance or system of laws or morality.

The torture ships are in the news of late, at least in England, thanks to the work of an attorney and author named Clive Stafford Smith and his organization: Reprieve ( http://reprieve.org.uk ). A report just released by Reprieve has resulted in news reports in The Guardian, Associated Press, and Reuters.

In politics, as in so many other aspects of life, anger is a combustible fuel. Affirmed and titrated, it helps us move forward. Suppressed or self-indulged, it’s likely to blow up in our faces.

With the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination coming to a close, there’s plenty of anger in the air. And the elements are distinctly flammable. As Bob Herbert wrote in the New York Times on June 3, "the Clinton and Obama partisans spent months fighting bitterly on the toxic terrain of misogyny, racism and religion."

Herbert doesn’t spread the blame evenly. And, as an elected Obama delegate to the national convention, I don’t either. But at this stage in the nomination process, the returns of blame aren’t merely diminishing -- they’re about to go over a cliff.

The anger that’s churning among many Hillary Clinton supporters is deserving of respect. For a long time, she’s been hit by an inexhaustible arsenal of virulent sexism, whether from Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh or Chris Matthews.

If Barack Obama were facing defeat now, his supporters might be more inclined to dwell on the thinly veiled, and sometimes unveiled, racial

BANGKOK, Thailand -- After extending Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest for one year, Burma's military junta on Thursday (May 29) blamed her political party members, and fake donors, for inciting Cyclone Nargis survivors to riot.

Washington, London, Paris and other foreign governments blasted Burma for extending Mrs. Suu Kyi's house arrest on Tuesday (May 27) for another year, after detaining her without trial as a "security threat" for more than 12 of the past 18 years.

The U.S., Europe and other countries said international relief was a priority, however, and aid efforts would continue, mostly through countries friendly to Burma, the U.N., and non-governmental organizations.

The U.S. has been allowed to send more than 70 C-130 cargo flights -- carrying plastic sheets, water containers, hygiene kits and food -- from Thailand to Burma's commercial port of Rangoon, but the trickle is not enough, U.S. officials said.