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Newest Blog Entries:
Suppressing Research: Eight Ways Monsanto Fails at Sustainable Agriculture
Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, February 9, 2012NYT Op-Eds (3)
"We need a national conversation about the dimensions of poverty or a chunk of working-class America could be calcified into an underclass" (Kristof); "The issue of covering contraceptives in health care plans has Catholic bishops in an uproar. Let’s try to talk through this in a calm, measured manner" (Collins); "Haiti’s culture of impunity must end with the prosecution of Jean-Claude Duvalier" (Guest Op-Ed)Posted by Ian Alterman, Thursday, February 9, 2012
NYT (5): National News
Finally, a "bailout" for homeowners; Washington effectively becomes 7th state to legalize same-sex marriage; House passes insider trading bill, despite G.O.P. excising of important provision; G.O.P. sees birth control as new "cultural wars" wedge issue; As youth watch less TV (but more media in general), older people watch more.Posted by Ian Alterman, Thursday, February 9, 2012
Diet Drinks: America’s Passion for Poison
Posted by Michael Butler, Tuesday, February 7, 2012NYT (5): National News
Initially opposed to it, Obama, seeing reality, relents on SuperPAC; GOP sees politics in Chrysler Superbowl ad, but Eastwood says "balderdash"; Cuomo decision on fracking likely to be postponed; Georgia Supreme Court ruling on assisted suicide likely to rekindle debate; NYS Senate moves to reinstate church services in schools.Posted by Ian Alterman, Tuesday, February 7, 2012
NYT (5): National News
Ron Paul sets off firestorm with religious requirement for caucus; Colorado moves to undermine fed law on environment; School-based congregations bemoan new NYC law; NYC defends "scary" health ads; Giants win the Superbowl.Posted by Ian Alterman, Monday, February 6, 2012
Cancer Clusters in America
This is an interactive map from Worldlifeexpectancy.com showing cancer rates by county and state - Black cancer cluster areas cover the south from Virginia to North Florida to Oklahoma to Louisiana. Maine also fares poorly as does Montana, Alaska and Ohio. The group says, "We believe there are many lifestyle factors that contribute to America's cancer problem, but if there were no environmental factors cancer death rates would be more evenly distributed across the country than they are. We [believe] environmental factors have been poorly investigated in the past and strongly support more rigorous testing in the future" - mab .. read morePosted by Mike Blaxill, Monday, February 6, 2012
The Cancerous Politics and Ideology of the Susan G. Komen Foundation | Common Dreams
Posted by Michael Butler, Sunday, February 5, 2012The Health Care Racket – Ralph Nader
Posted by Michael Butler, Saturday, February 4, 2012Obama’s Support for Natural Gas Drilling “A Painful Moment” for Communities Subjected to Fracking
Posted by Michael Butler, Saturday, February 4, 2012NYT Op-Eds (2)
"Mitt Romney said that he was concerned about 'middle-income Americans.' He certainly has a funny way of showing it" (Blow); "With that big political dust-up about breast cancer this week, we’ve clearly hit the point where there’s nothing that can’t be divided into red state/blue state" (Collins)Posted by Ian Alterman, Saturday, February 4, 2012
NYT (6): Int’l Affairs
Post-soccer violence continues in Egypt for third day; Russia and China veto U.N. bill re Syria, right after attack that kills 200; Hacker group "Anonymous" hacks an FBI-Scotland Yard phone call about... "Anonymous"; E.U. looks to create roadblock re Google's new privacy rule; Putin aide says roots of protests are "foreign"; U.N. says Somali famine is over, though violence continues.Posted by Ian Alterman, Saturday, February 4, 2012
Marcy Wheeler: I Always Hated Pink, Anyway
Wheeler ..Komen just pretended to reverse its decision defund Planned Parenthood’s cancer screening services (it promises only to consider Planned Parenthood applications in the future, not to fund them) .. But now that everyone has become aware of Komen’s sleaziness, it’s time to look at what they – and the cancer industry – do more generally. They fund efforts to diagnose and find a cure but they work against things like prevention. They also tend to push back against research that shows we’ve been over-diagnosing and over-treating breast cancer .. We ought to use this scandal to examine more closely where cancer money gets spent – on treatment, turning cancer patients into customers – and rarely on prevention. While I appreciate the gesture, pink ribbons to me have come to symbolize cancer patients as profit centers, both for consumer goods capitalizing on an association with the goodwill (and Komen), as well as for ungodly expensive drugs that don’t always provide better outcomes.. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Saturday, February 4, 2012
NYT Op-Eds (3)
"Mitt Romney has said that his comments about not caring about the very poor were taken out of context. But the more context you give them, the worse it gets" (Krugman); "At a time when political leaders never admit fault and rarely accept responsibility, Komen did both, and that's worth celebrating" (Rosenthal); "The viral phenomenon of 'Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus' and the debate that it prompted have a fogy offering advice on how to beat the fogies" (Brooks)Posted by Ian Alterman, Friday, February 3, 2012
Why Are US Health Costs So High? Follow the Bills | Common Dreams | Ralph Nader
Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, February 2, 2012NYT (9): National News
SuperPac secrecy - the spawn of Citizens United; Indiana gov signs "right to work" bill; Washington to become 7th state to approve same-sex marriage; Keystone pipeline is central to GOP economic argument; Three states order insurers to have climate change responses; Despite directive, pot arrests are up again in NYC; "Pink ribbon" breast cancer org finds itself red-faced as it ends funding for Planned Parenthood; NRC rejects Indian Point fire safety plan; Company behind exchange students who filed lawsuit re working conditions is barred from further biz.Posted by Ian Alterman, Thursday, February 2, 2012
At Hearing on “Fracking,” Capitol Police Arrest Director of “Gasland”
Sari Gelzer at Truthout ..On Wednesday, House Republicans ordered Capitol police to arrest Josh Fox, director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary "Gasland," along with his crew. The group was attempting to film a meeting of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment that was to discuss hydraulic fracturing, also known as "fracking" .. Fox faces a court hearing on February 15 on charges of "unlawful entry." As an independent filmmaker, Fox called on congress to make all meetings and hearings accessible to independent journalists. "The truth that fracking contaminates groundwater is out, and no amount of intimidation tactics - either outright challenges to science or the arrest of journalists - will put the genie back in the bottle," he stated.we're being China-fied in the US - mab .. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Thursday, February 2, 2012
Pesticides Blamed for Bee Decline
Jonathan Owen reports in The Independent ..Compelling new evidence from the US government's top bee expert that modern pesticides may be a major cause of collapsing bee populations led to calls yesterday for the chemicals to be banned. A study published in the current issue of the German science journal Naturwissenschaften, reveals how bees given minute doses of [Bayer's] widely used pesticide imidacloprid became more vulnerable to infections from a deadly parasite, nosema. Bee experts described this as clear evidence of the role pesticides play in the plight of bees. Although research into the furry insects may seem like a very academic exercise, bees are vital to human survival. More than 70 of the 100 crops that provide 90 per cent of the world's food are pollinated by bees, and Albert Einstein once predicted that if bees died out, "man would have no more than four years to live.".. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Wednesday, February 1, 2012
NYT (3): Foreign Affairs
Worst-ever drought plus massive cold snap in Mexico affecting millions; General strike over austerity measures paralyzes Belgium; Wherewith Tunisia, first of the Arab Spring countries?Posted by Ian Alterman, Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Adbusters: Spiritual Insurrection, the Ultimate Culture Jam
We awoke one morning to the dark realization that humanity is being dragged into a black hole of ecological, financial and spiritual catastrophe … that our democracy has been seized by a corporatocracy … that every day two hundred species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become forever extinct … that a deluge of advertising is sleepwalking our civilization to the brink of insanity … and that unless we fight back in the most visceral and creative way possible all will be lost.- Adbusters
And yet, what sets our struggle apart in 2012 is that we are not fighting to save a distant future. We are not trying to prevent some terrible event that is still to come. This is not about our unborn grandchildren. Instead, many of us sense that the threshold has already been crossed; the tipping point has already happened and what we are fighting for is our present. We are living in that tragic moment of eerie stillness where the fatal damage has been done, widening cracks can be seen, yet the edifice still stands and business as usual continues … but for how much longer?
Our days may be shadowed by this dark realization, but there is reason to be deeply optimistic for “where danger is, grows the saving power also.” Never before has the tantalizing possibility of a Global Spring, a worldwide people’s insurgency for democracy, seemed as close. For perhaps the first time in human history, we just might be on the edge of an everywhere-at-once revolution against the financial fraudsters, corporate lackeys and the ideology of consumerism that has brought the Earth to the precipice of collapse.
In this, the era of the total and transcendent indignato swarm, we look to each other, not to the masters above, to find out what it will take to pull off the ultimate culture jam: spiritual insurrection.
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Tuesday, January 31, 2012
FOCUS: Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice
Posted by Michael Butler, Saturday, January 28, 2012FOCUS | Clean Water Safeguards Headed Down the Drain?
Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, January 25, 2012NYT (4): Foreign Affairs
Muslim Brotherhood and military move toward agreement; Protests against temporary Libyan gov't grow; Sectarian violence returns to Iraq; China reports 2nd case of bird flu.Posted by Ian Alterman, Monday, January 23, 2012
Doctor Calls Police, Child Services on Mother Who Refuses to Vaccinate Son
With so many decisions being made emotionally these days, even the informed look defenseless at first glance. This is due to the fact rational thought and analysis is not being done. Still the only real course of action is to be informed to protect yourself and loved ones, and be responsible for them. Of course, once there is attention on someone in a position of power making an emotional and/or illegal action they will suddenly become 'mis-understood' and deny everything. Look for who is passing the blame, or not taking responsibility, to find much of the guilt these days......b.a.Posted by Michael Butler, Sunday, January 22, 2012
NYT Editorial, Op-Eds, Letters (11)
"Americans spend more than patients in any other country, but with very mixed results" (Editorial); "Drones are blurring the civilian and military roles in war and circumventing the constitutional mandate for authorizing it" (Guest Op-Ed); "If only a presidential candidate would adopt this four-part agenda, he would surely be the winner on election night in November" (Friedman); "'Porgy and Bess' supplies a prism through which African-Americans have viewed their history" (Nocera); "No longer will only men be allowed to sell a bra to a woman clothed head-to-toe in an abaya" (Guest Op-Ed); "Could 2012 be a race between two powerful victims yearning to be lonely at the top?" (Dowd); "In both parties, there is a long tradition of underwhelming nominees" (Douthat); "If liberals care about middle-class salaries, public education and other state-funded services, they need to care about controlling health care costs as much as conservatives do" (Guest Op-Ed); "Lessons from Paula Deen on indulgence and its consequences" (Bruni); "It's 2012, and let's face it, the old way of sizing up candidates on the left-to-right spectrum just will not do" (Guest Op-Ed); "Sunday Dialogue: State Laws on Unions" (Letters)Posted by Ian Alterman, Sunday, January 22, 2012
