w h o a r . c o . n z

“..Veteran Frontline producer unearths the hidden history of the nation’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

At the center of it all he finds Brooksley Born ..

.. who speaks for the first time on television about her failed campaign to regulate the secretive, multitrillion-dollar derivatives market ..

.. whose crash helped trigger the financial collapse in the fall of 2008..”

go to source/story>>  The Warning : Information Clearing House -  ICH

“..Behind a generation’s iconic images..”

(there is some very cool stuff in this one..)

recommended-look..)

go to source/story>>Who Shot Rock & Roll | Who Shot Rock & Roll | Mother Jones

“..Mark Twain wasn’t just a riverboat pilot, a raconteur, a mustache pioneer, and one of the great early American celebrity-authors:..

.. He was also an animal rights activist.

The new Twain compilation Mark Twain’s Book of Animals (University of California Press) explores Twain’s treatment of animals —

- in literature and in life—throughout his career ..

.. and arrives at an inescapable conclusion: He was a softie when it came to the beasts.

Twain may have come to largely despise what he famously called “the damned human race,”..

.. yet he turned into a puddle of mush at the sight of a kitten.

In her introduction, editor Shelley Fisher Fishkin traces Twain’s sympathy for animals to his youth ..

.. and especially to his mother, who kept a house full of cats with names like Blatherskite and Belchazar ..

.. and once soundly berated a man in the street for beating his horse.

Fisher Fishkin also digs up evidence that a formative experience for Twain was his shooting of a bird as a child ..

.. an act he deeply regretted.

In the previously unpublished “Family Sketch,” he writes:

. . . ‘I shot a bird that sat in a high tree, with its head tilted back, and pouring out a grateful song from an innocent heart.

It toppled from its perch and came floating down limp and forlorn and fell at my feet, its song quenched and its unoffending life extinguished.

I had not needed that harmless creature, I had destroyed it wantonly..

.. and I felt all that an assassin feels, of grief and remorse when his deed comes home to him ..

.. and he wishes he could undo it .. and have his hands and his soul clean again from accusing blood’.

Fisher Fishkin goes on to follow the threads of Twain’s animal fascinations and sympathies in his writings ..

.. from his early celebrated story “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” ..

..to his “Letter to the London Anti-Vivisection Society,” which is perhaps the best known expression of his views on animal cruelty.

“From 1899 until his death in 1910,” writes Fisher Fishkin,

“Mark Twain lent his pen to reform efforts on both sides of the Atlantic and became the best-known American author—

- and, indeed, the most famous American celebrity in any field—

- to give outspoken, public support to agitation for animal welfare.”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>Mark Twain, Animal Rights Activist

“..There is a craftsperson in everyone, according to Richard Sennett.

But don’t spend too much time plumbing your psyche for a latent woodworker, quilter, or metalsmith.

Craftsmanship, according to Sennett, a sociologist at New York University and the London School of Economics, both includes and eclipses the endeavors that might jump to mind.

It is an “enduring, basic human impulse .. the desire to do a job well for its own sake,” he writes.

It’s also an impulse that contemporary culture, with its obsessive embrace of efficiency, financial reward, and the bottom line ..

.. has devalued—to its own detriment.

Since the 1990s, Sennett has worked to dissect and illuminate how capitalism affects us.

His latest book, The Craftsman (Yale University Press), explores how “making is thinking,” ..

.. and what is lost in a society that fails to recognize craftsmanship .. and what is learned through using our hands.

The author sees in craft and craftsmanship the development of critical thinking, imagination, the ability to play, a source of pride ..

.. even validation of our existence.

And there may be no better time than now, as people are engaged in a broad discussion of “what next,” to take heed of his ideas.

One emerging theme of the post-financial-meltdown world is that many of us do not wish to return to the way work was..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>Crafting a New World

“..The essay is in a bad way.

It’s not because essayists have gotten stupider.

It’s not because they’ve gotten sloppier.

And it is certainly not because they’ve become less anthologized.

More anthologies are published now than there have been in decades, indeed in centuries.

The Best American Essays series, which began in 1986, has reached 20 volumes.

The problem is that anthologies end up in the basements of our local libraries ..

.. where they sit until they are released gratis to used-book stores ..

.. that, in turn, will sell them for a buck apiece to college students ..

.. who’ll place them next to their dorm beds .. and dump them in an end-of-semester clean-out.

Is it our fault?

Are we, as readers, responsible for the decline of the American essay?

Have we become lazier, less interested, less educated?

Attention spans, to be sure, have shortened.

Gone are the days when people pored languorously over periodicals during transatlantic crossings.

But this is not the reason why essay collections gather dust .. and why essayists so often count themselves “second-class citizens” ..

.. (in the words of E.B. White).

If the genre is neglected in our day, it is first and foremost because its authors have lost their nerve.

It is because essayists—and their editors, their anthologists, and the tastemakers on whom they depend—

- have lost the courage to address large subjects in a large way.

“The essayist is at his most profound when his intentions are most modest,” declares Joseph Epstein, the editor of The Norton Book of Personal Essays and the author of at least a dozen books of autobiographical essays.

The essay is a “miniaturist” genre, intones another anthologist; it is “in love with littleness.”

Sound ingratiating? Sweet? Self-deprecating?

It is.

It is also eye-crossingly dull.

The essay that is considered “literature” in our day is not an ambitious or impassioned (if sometimes foolhardy) analysis of human nature.

It is not an argument, or a polemic.

It is not a gun-blazing attack on a social trend, a film, a book, or a library of books.

Those sorts of pieces, sniff the anthologists, are mere journalism..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>Why Essays Are So Damned Boring

i’d like to go out on a limb here…and present what i think is obamas’ plan to prevent what is looking like a trainwreck of a mid-term election..

one that threatens to derail his presidency..forever..

there is one certainty around any predictions about the ’secret-plans’ of the obama team..

..that is that they will have to be radical .. to stop the current slide..

just to back up for a minute..what got me thinking about all this was an item buried on the business page of the new york times earlier this year.

..(and not commented on/examined in the american media since then..)

..that item was that obama had issued a presidential order/decree of sorts to the management of the (govt-run/owned) fannie mae..and freddie mac..mortgage companies..

that decree was that the previously-mandated limits on the monies the mortgage-companies could call on the federal government for were to be removed..

..and not only that..but that in the future there would now be no ceiling/limits on the amount of monies the companies could ask for…

now..that got me scratching my head..

..why was this done..?..

..there is/was no obvious answer that explains such a radical move..(more on that later..)

..my wondering/pondering on this was in conjunction with another examination of what obama has/has not done…

what brought this on..was that having published/linked to the earliest critiques of oama..(during the messianic-stage)..

..i now found myself running with the pack..on obama..

..and running with the pack makes me very very nervous..

..as the pack as usually way way behind the/any actual game..

so..i started looking at what obama has done..from a different perspective..and that proved to be somewhat revelatory..

the perspective i took was based on some givens:..

the first was the (prevously-noted) trainwreck destination…(unless radical plans are enacted..)

the second was the political ’smarts’ of obama..(and how he can not fail to see this..)

..the third was that those political smarts were earned in one of the most brutal/cynical political machines in america..

..the chicago/illinois democrat party-machine..

i then moved to the history of democrat administrations…and what has traditionally knobbled/castrated them..

..and all of this led me to the conclusion that obama is one smart cookie..who is playing a ‘long game’…

..and that we are now (only) just past the end of year one of that eight-year game-time/plan…

and let’s look at what obama has done/achieved in that year..

two of the power-blocs in america that have traditionally opposed democrat presidents..are the military-hawks/industrial-complex…

..and wall st/’the banks’..

..and (however wrongly implemented)..obama has silenced both..for the seeming duration of his presidency..

..however you argue the rights and wrongs of the wars…

..their engagement there takes the military-industrial complex (sorta) out of any serious oppositional role against obama..

..(they are ‘too busy’..as it were..)

and as for wall st/the banks..?

once again..however arguably ineptly executed..obama inherited the world that bush jnr left him..and had to stop the collapse of the global financial system..

and in that execution..the banks/wall st have been given enough greed/corruption-rope..to hang themselves..

..and hang themselves they have..

..(is anyone else surprised at the rapid changes in reputational-fortunes of the (former) ‘masters of the universe’..?

..from hero to below zero..in the snap of a crash..)

the banks/wall st/financial establishment have..given the ‘bank’ of hatred they have built up..

..totally disempowered themselves for the duration of obamas’-game..

..and are now low hanging fruit..unable to mount a single moral argument against serious regulatory-reforms of their industries..

..so..at the end of year one..of eight..obama has emasculated/castrated two of the traditional anti-democrat power-blocs..

..no mean feats..!..eh..?

and feats..i would submit..that only strengthen my long-game thesis…

so..what will obama do..?..to ’save’ the midterm elections..?

one plan he has up his sleeve is a green-stimulus package..

(he still has most of his stimulus-money left..so i think it is a no-brainer that a ‘grand green stimulus plan’ will be announced pre-midterm..)

the other move he will make will not be less ‘grand’..but perhaps less obvious..

which brings us back to that fannie mae/freddie mac item/news from earlier in the year..

..now..we all know that nothing happens for no reason..esp in the world of politics..

..so..my conclusion/prediction is that obama will use those govt. agencies as the vehicles for a radical defacto nationalisation of the american mortgage industry..

..one of the main criticisms of obama to date has been that everything has been done for wall st..

..and nothing for the struggling american working/middle classses…

so..any move..to have any hope of success..must directly answer/deflect those valid criticisms..

..so what obama will do..

..is that he will tell all of those americans facing foreclosure/losing their homes..

..that they will be able to transfer their mortgages to fannie mae/freddie mac..

..and re-negotiate those mortgages to reflect their straightened economic circumstances..

..and i see this as being somewhat of a ‘brilliant stroke’ by obama..

..for two reasons…

..he ends those ‘nothing for main st’ criticisms ..in a spectacular manner…(back to hero..from zero..)

..and the cherry on this cake..is that he need not go near the (possible roadblocks/spoilers) senate/congress for any approval..

..he can just tell fannie mae/freddy mac to ‘just do it’…

..and the answer to ‘why that piece in the nyt?’..

..is that that is/was just the preparing of the ground…

(and those who would scoff at any ‘nationalisation-idea’..

..should maybe ponder the fact that due to the govt taking over the assets of banks as they crash..

.that the american govt is already the largest real landlord/’owner’ of private property in america..

..expanding the roles of fannie/freddy in a ’saviour-deal’ is not that much of a step further..)

..obama the man..wants to be bigger than fdr/’the new deal’..

he still has seven years to achieve that in..

..and if the ‘long-game-thesis’ holds true..

..is firmly on-track..

(sorry..!..having started with a train-pun/metaphor..(i couldn’t resist returning there for a full-stop..eh..?..)

now..i don’t know about you..but i am a big bill nighy fan-boy…

and here he does a clever turn..

..as a shifty banker..

..trying to wriggle his way around/out of any idea of a ‘robin hood tax’..

(this is an ad made for british tv..we should also run it here..

..a seemingly complex/obscure idea/proposal..

..is made blindingly obvious…

mmm!!!..i do so love the smell of sucessfully brewed fresh agit-prop..first thing in the morning..

..don’t you..?..)

(recommended-watch..)

go to source/story>>YouTube - Bill Nighy video backing Robin Hood tax on banks

“..If you’re new to a vegan diet, do you need to get rid of your favorite cookbooks?

Not necessarily.

On this week’s episode, “Favorite Cookbooks Turned Vegan: Martha Stewart Put to the Test,” Food for Life TV co-hosts Susan Levin, M.S., R.D., and Jill Eckart, C.H.H.C., give you simple tips to transform old favorite recipes into low-fat vegan meals.

They also look to Rip Esselstyn’s vegan Engine 2 Diet cookbook for guidance on how to transform your favorite recipes..”

(recommended-watch..)

go to source/story>>PCRM >> Health >> Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes >> Food for Life TV: Interactive Wecasts for Anyone Who Wants a Healthier Diet

“..Writing for Toronto’s Spacing, Joe Clement shares a genuine community-building super story: ..

.. the organic transformation of the city street he grew up on into a robust gardening district.

Clement himself got the ball rolling.

As a young gardener who quickly “outgrew” his parents’ yard, he began asking neighbors if he could help them convert their front lawns into cultivated spaces.

What happened over the next 20 years ought to inspire novice and pro gardeners alike—anyone planning on putting seeds in soil this spring:

Slowly but surely more and more neighbors began relinquishing their prized turfs in exchange for a garden ..

.. and that’s when something very interesting began to happen.

The neighbors began interacting with each other beyond the perfunctory hello and goodbye while coming and leaving.

The gardens were acting as social facilitators, bringing people out of their homes to tend to their yards and discuss gardening tips and strategies for expansion or plant sharing.

These conversations continued and expanded into broader social interactions.

Soon neighbours were helping each other tear up their lawns, till the soil, and reconfigure their yards for both flower and produce production.

Many of the not-yet-converted yards began sprouting carrots and corn and eggplant along with the foxgloves and dahlias..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>An Organic Community Transformation

“..Calculating the real value to society of different professions

This report takes a new approach to looking at the value of work.

We go beyond how much different professions are paid to look at what they contribute to society.

We use some of the principles and valuation techniques of Social Return on Investment analysis to quantify the social, environmental and economic value that these roles produce –

- or in some cases undermine..

Our report tells the story of six different jobs.

We have chosen jobs from across the private and public sectors .. and deliberately chosen ones that illustrate the problem.

Three are low paid – a hospital cleaner, a recycling plant worker and a childcare worker.

The others are highly paid – a City banker, an advertising executive and a tax accountant.

We examined the contributions they make to society, and found ..

.. that, in this case, it was the lower paid jobs which involved more valuable work..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>A Bit Rich | the new economics foundation

“..Invented more than five decades ago, the modern shipping container is the linchpin in our global distribution network of products.

In the containers go toys from China, textiles from India, grain from America, and cars from Germany.

In go electronics, chocolate, and cheese.

While a number of resourceful people have converted shipping containers into make-shift shelters at the margin of society for years ..

.. architects and green designers are also increasingly turning to the strong, cheap boxes as source building blocks.

Shipping containers can be readily modified with a range of creature comforts ..

.. and can be connected and stacked to create modular, efficient spaces for a fraction of the cost, labor, and resources of more conventional materials.

Discover some of the exciting possibilities of shipping container architecture ..

.. from disaster relief shelters to luxury condos, vacation homes, and off-the-grid adventurers.

See what makes them green .. as well as cutting edge..”

( i was recently talking with a person who detailed the plans he has for the six shipping containers he has just purchased..

..at a cost of $3,100 each…delivered..

..said plans were/are impressive…

..and as he noted..

..there is a world-wide glut of shipping containers..

..(something to do with the collapsing economies..i think..)

so their use as a building block makes perfect sense..

..and..people living in 17 ft caravans think/dream of 30 ft containers…(’..mmm!!..thirty feet..!’)

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>Twelve amazing shipping container houses | Yahoo! Green

“..E.O. Wilson has a dream.

In 2003 the eminent Harvard biologist sketched out his vision for what he called “a single-portal electronic encyclopedia of life.”

This encyclopedia—a website, essentially—would grant each of the documented 1.8 million species on Earth its own page featuring a detailed summary of everything known about it: its scientific name, habitat, and geographic range and distribution; what it eats and is eaten by; and where it fits on the evolutionary tree of life.

It would be freely accessible to everyone everywhere, scientists and laypeople alike.

That dream is well on its way to becoming reality.

Launched in 2008, the Encyclopedia of Life is online (www.eol.org) with 170,000 species pages and—

– as it continues to form partnerships with taxonomists, libraries, and biodiversity databases—counting.

The encyclopedia’s sophisticated technology allows it to pool and sift biological data from everywhere..

.. in a manner that will change the quantity and quality of what both scientists and casual viewers can learn about life on Earth ..

.. and the manner in which they do so.

Never mind evolution; this is revolution..”

(recommended-resource..)

go to source/story>>The Encyclopedia of Life

“..We’ve now lost 8.4 million jobs in this recession, and a vast majority of them are gone for good.

The politicians are clambering aboard the jobs bandwagon, belatedly..

.. but very few are telling the truth about the structural employment problems in the U.S…

.. and the extremely heavy lift that is necessary to halt our declining living standards ..

.. and get us back to an economy that is self-sustaining.

We don’t hear a lot that is serious about the sorry state of the nation’s infrastructure ..

.. or the trade policies that crippled so many American industries ..

.. or our inability (or unwillingness) to compete effectively with China when it comes to the new world of energy for the 21st century ..

.. or our abject failure to provide a quality public education for the next generation of American workers, scientists, artists and entrepreneurs.

Speaking at a conference here on Wednesday, Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania said that if we don’t act quickly in developing long-term solutions to these and other problems..

.. the United States will be a second-rate economic power by the end of this decade.

A failure to act boldly, he said, will result in the U.S. becoming “a cooked goose.”

Neither the politicians nor much of the mainstream media are spelling out the severity of these enormous structural problems or the sense of urgency needed to address them.

Living standards are sinking in the United States, and there is no coherent vision or plan for reversing that ominous trend over the long term.

The conference was titled, “The Next American Economy: Transforming Energy and Infrastructure Investment.”

It was put together by the Brookings Institution and Lazard, the investment banking advisory firm.

When Governor Rendell addressed the conference on Wednesday, he used words like “stunning” and “unbelievable” to describe what has happened to the nation’s infrastructure.

His words echoed the warnings we’ve been hearing for years from the American Society of Civil Engineers..

.. which tells us: “The broken water mains, gridlocked streets, crumbling dams and levees, and delayed flights that come from failing infrastructure have a negative impact on the checkbook ..

.. and on the quality of life of each and every American.”

The conference was sparked by a sense of dismay over what has happened to the U.S. economy over the past several years and a feeling that constructive ideas about solutions were being smothered by an obsessive focus on the short-term in this society..

.. and by the chronic dysfunction and hyperpartisanship in much of the government..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>>  Time Is Running Out      : Information Clearing House -  ICH

“.. An animation by Pedro Cruz, Visualizing empires’ decline, charts the rise and fall of four European colonial empires during the 19th and 20th centuries; ..

.. it’s not strictly cartographic, but it is fun to watch—

–colonies become independent by bursting from their mother countries’ bubbles.”

Watch this one in full screen mode.

Things start getting interesting around 1940.

So long as you don’t let the pretty colors and the bubbly animation obscure the bloodshed and suffering represented here..

.. it’s a great little snapshot of history..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>Animation: Watching Empires Disappear

“..The environmental movement is divided over the importance of small steps—

– are they a critical starting point .. or a distraction from needed policy and institutional changes?

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but will small changes add up to the kind of massive shift needed to bring us toward sustainability?

We say sweat the small stuff—but not because small decisions add independently to big change.

Rather, because societal change isn’t just additive like stair-climbing, it’s transformative like metamorphosis ..

.. and small actions play a crucial role.

Practiced consistently, small steps facilitate both gradual evolution and rapid revolution for positive lasting change.

Of course institutional and policy change is crucial, but it doesn’t happen on its own; it happens when people fight for it, motivated by their values.

And if structural change happens without support from people’s values, then people resent it and resist or revolt.

So it’s not a choice between small stuff or large, it’s a question of how we can integrate the two to get value change that also motivates broad action.

The abolitionist movement in England in the 1800s was bolstered by personal actions, such as hosts refusing to serve sugar.

Not only did this small step give participants, primarily women, a feeling of virtue or self worth ..

.. but it became a way to demonstrate their values .. and instigate dialogue about slavery with those in their inner circles.

These “small” actions empowered women ..

.. and transformed them into activists who played a pivotal momentum-building role in the fight against slavery..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>How personal actions can kick-start a sustainability revolution | Grist

“..It’s clear from the outcome of the Copenhagen talks that the world’s political leaders are not going to lead the way in fighting climate change.

What is needed instead, Fred Branfman writes in Sacramento News & Review, is a broad-based “human movement” ..

.. in which ordinary people recognize the urgency of acting now to avert catastrophe.

Branfman’s essay, “Do Our Children Deserve to Live?,” was in fact written and published in early December, before the Copenhagen summit began ..

.. yet the writer boldly—and correctly—predicted the talks would fail.

He already recognized that there simply wasn’t enough societal pressure and self-awareness of our grim predicament to effect broad change:

Our basic problem is that the sudden advent of the human climate crisis invalidates our basic beliefs about humanity built up over millennia.

We cannot yet see that we are no longer who we think we are.

That today:..though we believe we care for our offspring .. we do not;

though we wish to be remembered well .. we will be cursed;

though we believe we love life .. we embrace death;

though we hope to make history .. we are annihilating it;

.. and

though we seek to contribute to our communities .. we are destroying them.

Our greatest challenge is to adjust ancient belief systems to the new climate realities that have undone them.

If we can break through our fog .. and clearly see the existential threat we pose to our children ..

.. presently unthinkable actions to save them may become possible.

But if not, we will remain locked in our cognitive cattle cars ..

.. moving inexorably toward the loss of everything we hold dear..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>A Human Movement Against Climate Change

“..Corporate forces, long before the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, carried out a coup d’état in slow motion.

The coup is over.

We lost.

The ruling is one more judicial effort to streamline mechanisms for corporate control.

It exposes the myth of a functioning democracy .. and the triumph of corporate power.

But it does not significantly alter the political landscape.

The corporate state is firmly cemented in place.

The fiction of democracy remains useful, not only for corporations, but for our bankrupt liberal class.

If the fiction is seriously challenged, liberals will be forced to consider actual resistance, which will be neither pleasant nor easy.

As long as a democratic facade exists, liberals can engage in an empty moral posturing that requires little sacrifice or commitment.

They can be the self-appointed scolds of the Democratic Party ..

.. acting as if they are part of the debate .. and feel vindicated by their cries of protest.

Much of the outrage expressed about the court’s ruling is the outrage of those who prefer this choreographed charade.

As long as the charade is played, they do not have to consider how to combat what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of “inverted totalitarianism.”

Inverted totalitarianism represents “the political coming of age of corporate power and the political demobilization of the citizenry,” Wolin writes in “Democracy Incorporated.”

Inverted totalitarianism differs from classical forms of totalitarianism .. which revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader ..

.. and finds its expression in the anonymity of the corporate state.

The corporate forces behind inverted totalitarianism do not, as classical totalitarian movements do ..

.. boast of replacing decaying structures with a new, revolutionary structure.

They purport to honor electoral politics, freedom and the Constitution.

But they so corrupt .. and manipulate the levers of power as to make democracy impossible.

Inverted totalitarianism is not conceptualized as an ideology .. or objectified in public policy.

It is furthered by “power-holders and citizens who often seem unaware of the deeper consequences of their actions or inactions,” Wolin writes.

But it is as dangerous as classical forms of totalitarianism.

In a system of inverted totalitarianism, as this court ruling illustrates, it is not necessary to rewrite the Constitution, as fascist and communist regimes do.

It is enough to exploit legitimate power by means of judicial and legislative interpretation.

This exploitation ensures that huge corporate campaign contributions are protected speech under the First Amendment.

It ensures that heavily financed and organized lobbying by large corporations ..

.. is interpreted as an application of the people’s right to petition the government.

The court again ratified the concept that corporations are persons, except in those cases where the “persons” agree to a “settlement.”

Those within corporations who commit crimes can avoid going to prison by paying large sums of money to the government while ..

.. according to this twisted judicial reasoning ..

.. not “admitting any wrongdoing.”

There is a word for this.

It is called corruption.

Corporations have 35,000 lobbyists in Washington ..

.. and thousands more in state capitals ..

.. that dole out corporate money to shape and write legislation.

They use their political action committees to solicit employees ..

.. and shareholders for donations to fund pliable candidates..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>> Democracy in America Is a Useful Fiction : Information Clearing House - ICH

“..Just about everything you’ll need to start appreciating the plant-based life

If it seems like veganism is catching on .. maybe that’s because it is.

Hey, when a writer at Forbes.com declares, “My health care plan is a vegan diet,” .. it’s time to wake up and smell the tempeh.

After all, it’s not like the basic four food groups scheme was carved in stone on Mount Sinai ..

.. (in fact, it was invented by the USDA in 1956 .. under the watchful eyes of the meat and dairy industries).

In other words, there are plenty of excellent reasons to choose the vegan lifestyle…

.. at least 101 of ‘em, for sure.

Plus, for those of you who go for that sort of stuff, there’s also the celebrity appeal:

* Natalie Portman
* Alicia Silverstone
* Woody Harrelson

Jocks, take note:

* A vegan football player
* A vegan hockey player

Bible Thumpers?

* Maybe one day, The Pope

WATCH VIDEO: Whale Wars: Vegans on Board

You may already know that factory farming sucks while Isa’s cookies rock.

But just in case, here’s a comprehensive list to aim you in the direction of vegan bliss.

7 Core Reasons to Go Vegan..”

(recommended-read..)

(ed note/disclaimer:..i am vegan..have been for ten+ years..

..and i have vegan dogs..one of them a second-generation vegan dog..

so..y’know..!..)

go to source/story>>Vegan 2010: Cookie Recipes, Protein Myths, Non-Leather Boots, & a Darker Shade of Green : Planet Green

“.. The curious thing about money is that as much as we covet it, obsess about it and chase after it, most of us have a hard time understanding it.

At any level above a basic household budget, money becomes an abstraction swimming in a sea of acronyms ..

.. operating according to laws harder to fathom than the fundamentals of theoretical physics.

Quite a few of the people in charge of managing money at that level — for the sake of simplicity, let’s just call them bankers —

– don’t understand the more complex and immaterial financial products they deal in; ..

.. that’s one of the many underlying causes of the current economic crisis.

If bankers don’t know exactly how collateralized debt obligations and the like operate .. what hope is there for us civilians?

While there are many new books about the crash of 2008 and the government’s attempts to clean it up (Andrew Ross Sorkin’s “Too Big to Fail” is probably the best-known) ..

.. most focus on blow-by-blow, name-and-date-heavy narratives of the collapse ..

.. that can be hard to parse if you’re confused by the difference between equity and equities.

That’s because these books are written by business journalists who, while they know a lot about the story and the players, are also accustomed to writing for a readership of initiates.

When the public radio show “This American Life” produced an episode designed to explain the subprime mortgage mess to its lay audience (”The Giant Pool of Money”), the program quickly went viral ..

.. generating 10 times the usual amount of listener feedback, winning Polk and Peabody Awards ..

.. and spawning three more explanatory episodes on the economy as well as a daily podcast (”Planet Money”).

Now there’s a reader’s equivalent of “The Giant Pool of Money” in John Lanchester’s “I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay” –

– witty, lucid, solicitous of the average person’s difficulty in grasping the conceptual underpinnings of international finance ..

.. and minus the faux naiveté that can sometimes make “This American Life” a bit trying..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>Laura Miller - Salon.com

“..Brand Obama makes us hopeful.

We like our president and we believe he’s like us.

But we’re being duped into doing a lot of things that are not in our interest.

Barack Obama is a brand.

And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government ..

.. while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, armies of corporate lobbyists grease the palms of our elected officials ..

.. our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia, and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East.

Brand Obama is about being happy consumers.

We are entertained.

We feel hopeful.

We like our president.

We believe he is like us.

But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising ..

.. this product is duping us into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.

What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us?

His administration has spent, lent, or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks ..

.. in a doomed effort to re-inflate the bubble economy ..

.. a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe ..

.. and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis.

Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending .. and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq ..

.. where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next fifteen to twenty years.

Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, increasing the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan ..

.. which have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months.

Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans.

And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush’s secrecy laws and restore habeas corpus.

Brand Obama offers us an image that appears radically individualistic and new.

It inoculates us from seeing that the old engines of corporate power and the vast military-industrial complex continue to plunder the country.

Corporations, which control our politics, no longer produce products that are essentially different, but brands that are different.

Brand Obama does not threaten the core of the corporate state any more than did Brand George W. Bush.

The Bush brand collapsed.

We became immune to its studied folksiness.

We saw through its artifice.

This is a common deflation in the world of advertising.

So we have been given a new Obama brand with an exciting and faintly erotic appeal.

Benetton and Calvin Klein were the precursors to the Obama brand ..

.. using ads to associate themselves with risqué art and progressive politics..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>>The Obama Brand: Feel Good While Overlords Loot the Treasury and Launch Imperial Wars | Media and Technology | AlterNet

“..A Kentucky farmer passes on his wisdom to other gardeners who want to grow organic.

Implementing organic gardening methods will make your garden’s vegetables healthier, tastier and heartier, says organic farmer Jerome Lange.

If the next step in your gardening adventure is to grow organically .. then your goals are within reach.

Jerome Lange, a vegetable farmer in Casey County, Ky., has been gardening for more than 30 years ..

.. and in the past decade or so has been honing his organic technique.

Through a trial-and-error method in his 2½-acre garden in Mennonite country ..

.. he attempts to garden in a way that feeds the earth that nourishes our food.

“My uncle once said, ‘We remembered the corn, but we forgot the fish,’” Lange recalls.

Alluding to the proverb “Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime,” he means that the agricultural methods that have become commonplace in the U.S. have literally destroyed the farm and garden ..

.. stripping the soil of its nutrients .. and robbing crops of flavor and nourishment.

Everything he learns, he intends to pass on to other gardeners..”

(recommended..)

go to source/story>>7 Keys to Organic Gardening - Hobby Farms

“..Neal Barnard MD discusses the science behind food additions.

Willpower is not to blame: chocolate, cheese, meat, and sugar release opiate-like substances.

Dr. Barnard also discusses how industry, aided by government, exploits these natural cravings ..

.. pushing us to eat more and more unhealthy foods.

Dr. Barnard shows how a plant-based diet is the solution to avoid many of these problems.

Neal Barnard MD is the founder of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)..”

(recommended-watch..)

go to source/story>>Chocolate, Cheese, Meat, Sugar: Physically Addictive Foods - Vegsource.com

“..Holy smoking Jesus, America is losing its middle class!

“We’re taxing the middle class out of existence,” charge the conservatives.

“The middle class is being hollowed out,” wail the liberals, pouring forth great mock turtle tears ..

..(although one wonders how such a vacuum as middle class life in America could be further hollowed).

For both political camps, high dudgeon over “the vanishing middle class” is supposed to represent some sort of “new populism.”

Not that the populace disagrees with them, mainly because the populace, if we are referring to the genuine America populace ..

.. hasn’t the slightest notion of the definition of populism.

But the word sounds like it has to do with popularity, the highest virtue in the American mind ..

.. and can even lead to the celestial heights called celebrity.

So what the hell, they’re willing to run with it.

In any case, much overwrought political theater is being dedicated to the subject of the middle class’ demise.

If demise is the right word for losing its ability to engorge on commodities at obscene levels.

A month or so ago I watched news footage of some fat guy being interviewed inside the three-car garage of his $300,000 cardboard house.

The poor fellow was about to lose his bass boat, and maybe his home too.

From the looks of it, I’d say the bass boat was a Ranger X520.

Now these babies start at $45K, not to mention the $30K for the four wheel drive usually seen pulling.

Looked like it was sitting on a 20-plus foot Hurricane boat trailer, another $4K or $5K.

My wife, who was watching the show with me, turned and said, “What class is this man supposed to be in?”

“I don’t know, they say middle class.”

“Hmmm. Whatever it is, we’ve never been members.”

George Jones and Tammy Wynette said it all when they sang:

No we’re not the jet set

We’re the old Chevrolet set

Our steak and martinis

Is draft beer with weenies

Indeed, we are witnessing the death of the American lifestyle, bass boats and all.

Unless of course, the Chinese banksters will keep on loaning us enough dough for one more fix ..

.. one more snort of crank to keep the American lifestyle from going into withdrawal.

Yeah, sure.

That does not keep both political parties from assuring us that, “The great American middle class lifestyle is not negotiable,” then proceeding to negotiate the hell out of it.

God save the middle class!

Whatever the middle class is, they have the assurances of every administration of its eternal preservation.

When asked exactly what constitutes being middle class, most typical Americans, which is to say working class Americans, talk in terms of income.

Better educated and more erudite Americans mumble some vague litany about college and home ownership, etc., ..

.. then attach an annual income number about twice as high as the average working mook’s.

Neither of them ever comes close to a real definition.

Nevertheless some 300 million Americans fancy themselves as middle class, chiefly because they: ..

.. (A) own microwaves and a car with plastic bumpers; ..

.. and (B) live in perpetual hock to MasterCard and Visa.

Debt, stress and insecurity being the only observable characteristics of middle class America ..

.. they rally round those things in a show of class solidarity.

“Hell no! Our pointless stressful lifestyle is NOT NEGOTIABLE!

o goddamned socialist is gonna take away my constitutional right to medical bankruptcy.

God bless the middle class!”

In essence, preservation of the American middle class is an assertion that we are entitled to waste as least as much of the earth’s limited vital resources as our fathers and grandfathers did ..

.. preferably more.

Political assurances of the sanctity of the middle class come down to promising that the 6 percent of the world’s population called Americans may continue to rip through 36 percent of the earth’s resources ..

.. in its endless pursuit of obesity and carcinogenic intake.

Not to mention taking everybody else out with us in the process through ecocide.

Nobody but an unmitigated psychopath would even make such a case .. much less hawk it to the American people as being in their best interests.

In their best interests to wipe out our dwindling planetary sustenance and to piss off the rest of the world enough ..

.. that a significant number are willing to strap on explosives and buy a plane ticket for the States..”

(recommended-read..)

go to source/story>> The Battle for the American Soul is Over and Jay Leno Won : Information Clearing House - ICH

“..What are we to make of the failed Underwear Bomber plot, the Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Bottled Water Bomber plot, and the Shoe Bomber plot?

These blundering and implausible plots to bring down an airliner seem far removed from al-Qaida’s expertise in pulling off 9/11.

If we are to believe the U.S. government, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaida “mastermind” behind 9/11, outwitted the CIA, the NSA, indeed all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies as well as those of all U.S. allies including Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, Airport Security four times on one morning ..

.. and Dick Cheney ..

.. and with untrained and inexperienced pilots pulled off skilled piloting feats of crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers ..

.. and the Pentagon .. where a battery of state of the art air defenses somehow failed to function.

After such amazing success, al-Qaida would have attracted the best minds in the business, but, instead, it has been reduced to amateur stunts.

The Underwear Bomb plot is being played to the hilt on the TV media and especially on Fox “news.”

After reading recently that The Washington Post allowed a lobbyist to write a news story that preached the lobbyist’s interest, I wondered if the manufacturers of full body scanners were behind the heavy coverage of the Underwear Bomber, if not behind the plot itself.

In America, everything is for sale.

Integrity is gone with the wind.

Recently I read a column by an author who has a “convenience theory” about the Underwear Bomber being a Nigerian allegedly trained by al-Qaida in Yemen.

As the U.S. is involved in an undeclared war in Yemen, about which neither the American public nor Congress were informed or consulted..

.. the Underwear Bomb plot provided a convenient excuse for Washington’s new war..

.. regardless of whether it was a real attack .. or a put-up job.

Once you start to ask yourself about whose agenda is served by events and their news spin, other things come to mind.

For example, last July there was a news report that the government in Yemen had disbanded a terrorist cell, which was operating under the supervision of Israeli intelligence services.

According to the news report, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told Saba news agency that a terrorist cell was arrested and that the case was referred to judicial authorities ..

.. “for its links with the Israeli intelligence services.”

Could the Underwear Bomber have been one of the Israeli terrorist recruits?

Certainly Israel has an interest in keeping the US fully engaged militarily against all potential foes of Israel’s territorial expansion.

The thought brought back memory of my Russian studies at Oxford University where I learned that the Tsar’s secret police set off bombs so that they could blame those whom they wanted to arrest.

I next remembered that Francesco Cossiga, the president of Italy from 1985-1992, revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, a false flag operation under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

The bombings were blamed on communists and were used to discredit communist parties in elections.

An Italian parliamentary investigation unearthed the fact that the attacks were overseen by the CIA.

Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated in sworn testimony that the attacks targeted innocent civilians, including women and children ..

.. in order “to force the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security.”

What a coincidence.

That is exactly what 9/11 succeeded in accomplishing in the U.S.

Among the well-meaning and the gullible in the West, the supposition still exists that government represents the public interest.

Political parties keep this myth alive by fighting over which party best represents the public’s interest.

In truth, government represents private interests ..

.. those of the office holders themselves .. and those of the lobby groups that finance their political campaigns.

The public is in the dark as to the real agendas..”

go to source/story>>Is Anyone Telling Us The Truth? : Information Clearing House - ICH

“..The American Scholar Winter 2010Last August William Zinsser gave a talk, “How to Write English as a Second Language,” to incoming international students at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Reprinted in The American Scholar, his advice on how to write well is shrewd and funny—

– and just as apt for native English speakers .. even non-journalist types.

Read the whole piece—Zinsser gives vivid examples of great writing, plus all the elements of a perfect sentence—but here’s a sample.

He has just railed against Latin words, generally “long pompous nouns that end in -ion,” and is moving on to what pleases him:

So if those are the bad nouns, what are the good nouns?

The good nouns are the thousands of short, simple, infinitely old Anglo-Saxon nouns that express the fundamentals of everyday life: ..

.. house, home, child, chair, bread, milk, sea, sky, earth, field, grass, road . . .

.. words that are in our bones .. words that resonate with the oldest truths.

When you use those words, you make contact—consciously and also subconsciously—

– with the deepest emotions and memories of your readers..”

go to source/story>>How to Write a Perfect Sentence

“..I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but David Brooks actually had an excellent column in yesterday’s New York Times that makes several insightful and important points.

Brooks documents how “childish, contemptuous and hysterical” the national reaction has been to this latest terrorist episode ..

.. egged on — as usual — by the always-hysterical American media.

The citizenry has been trained to expect that our Powerful Daddies and Mommies in government will —

– in that most cringe-inducing, child-like formulation — Keep Us Safe.

Whenever the Government fails to do so, the reaction — just as we saw this week —

– is an ugly combination of petulant, adolescent rage and increasingly unhinged cries that More Be Done to ensure that nothing bad in the world ever happens.

Demands that genuinely inept government officials be held accountable are necessary and wise ..

.. but demands that political leaders ensure that we can live in womb-like Absolute Safety are delusional and destructive.

Yet this is what the citizenry screams out every time something threatening happens: ..

.. please, take more of our privacy away; monitor more of our communications; ban more of us from flying; engage in rituals to create the illusion of Strength; imprison more people without charges;..

.. take more and more control and power ..so you can Keep Us Safe.

This is what inevitably happens to a citizenry that is fed a steady diet of fear and terror for years.

It regresses into pure childhood.

The 5-year-old laying awake in bed, frightened by monsters in the closet, who then crawls into his parents’ bed to feel Protected and Safe..

.. is the same as a citizenry planted in front of the television .. petrified by endless imagery of scary Muslim monsters ..

.. who then collectively crawl to Government .. and demand that they take more power and control in order to keep them Protected and Safe.

A citizenry drowning in fear and fixated on Safety to the exclusion of other competing values can only be degraded and depraved.

John Adams, in his 1776 Thoughts on Government, put it this way:..”

go to source/story>>Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

“..Food for Life TV is a weekly nutrition webcast designed to improve and maintain your health.

Tune in each week for nutrition lectures by health experts, such as PCRM president Neal Barnard, M.D., as well as cooking demonstrations, nutrition tips, and group support on the Get Healthy Club message board.

Happy New Year’s Eve!

Watch the ball drop tonight.

Then watch your weight drop over the next 21 days!

It’s easy.

Watch the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart invitation now to find out how to get daily e-mail message ..

.. that provides an all-access pass to live celebrity chat sessions, nutrition webcasts, an interactive vegan restaurant guide, a 21-day meal plan..

.. and much more!..”

go to source/story>>PCRM >> Health >> Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes >> Food for Life TV: Interactive Wecasts for Anyone Who Wants a Healthier Diet

“..In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell described a superstate called Oceania ..

.. whose language of war inverted lies that “passed into history and became truth.

‘Who controls the past’, ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’.”

Barack Obama is the leader of a contemporary Oceania.

In two speeches at the close of the decade, the Nobel Peace Prize winner affirmed that peace was no longer peace ..

.. but rather a permanent war that “extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan” to “disorderly regions and diffuse enemies”.

He called this “global security” and invited our gratitude.

To the people of Afghanistan, which America has invaded and occupied, he said wittily:..

.. “We have no interest in occupying your country.”

In Oceania, truth and lies are indivisible.

According to Obama, the American attack on Afghanistan in 2001 was authorised by the United Nations Security Council.

There was no UN authority.

He said the “the world” supported the invasion in the wake of 9/11 when, in truth ..

.. all but three of 37 countries surveyed by Gallup expressed overwhelming opposition.

He said that America invaded Afghanistan “only after the Taliban refused to turn over [Osama] bin Laden”.

In 2001, the Taliban tried three times to hand over bin Laden for trial, reported Pakistan’s military regime .. and were ignored.

Even Obama’s mystification of 9/11 as justification for his war is false.

More than two months before the Twin Towers were attacked, the Pakistani foreign minister, Niaz Naik, was told by the Bush administration that an American military assault would take place by mid-October.

The Taliban regime in Kabul, which the Clinton administration had secretly supported ..

.. was no longer regarded as “stable” enough to ensure America’s control over oil and gas pipelines to the Caspian Sea.

It had to go.

Obama’s most audacious lie is that Afghanistan today is a “safe haven” for al-Qaeda’s attacks on the West.

His own national security adviser, General James Jones, said in October that there were “fewer than 100” al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

According to US intelligence, 90 per cent of the Taliban are hardly Taliban at all ..

.. but “a tribal localised insurgency [who] see themselves as opposing the US because it is an occupying power”.

The war is a fraud.

Only the terminally gormless remain true to the Obama brand of “world peace”.

Beneath the surface, however, there is serious purpose.

Under the disturbing General Stanley McCrystal, who gained distinction for his assassination squads in Iraq ..

.. the occupation of one of the most impoverished countries is a model for those “disorderly regions” of the world still beyond Oceania’s reach.

This is a known as COIN, or counter-insurgency network, which draws together the military, aid organisations, psychologists, anthropologists, the media and public relations hirelings.

Covered in jargon about winning hearts and minds .. its aim is to pit one ethnic group against another and incite civil war: ..

.. Tajiks and Uzbecks against Pashtuns.

The Americans did this in Iraq .. and destroyed a multi-ethnic society.

They bribed and built walls between communities who had once inter-married, ethnically cleansing the Sunni .. and driving millions out of the country.

The embedded media reported this as “peace” ..

.. and American academics bought by Washington .. and “security experts” briefed by the Pentagon ..

.. appeared on the BBC to spread the good news.

As in Nineteen Eighty-Four .. the opposite was true.

Something similar is planned for Afghanistan..”

go to source/story>> Welcome to Orwell’s world 2010 : Information Clearing House - ICH

“..More people are becoming aware of the atrocious conditions that factory farmed animals live in, as well as the shocking cruelty inflicted on them.

This is largely due to revelations in the media showing what really goes on behind the closed doors of intensive animal farming.

Authors including Jonathan Balcombe and Jeffrey Masson have documented the emotional lives of farmed animals ..

.. demonstrating beyond a doubt that they experience grief, pain and pleasure .. and form deep social and familial bonds with each other.

Now Australia is to get its first political party dedicated to toughening animal protection laws - the Animal Justice Party -

- whose concerns include the welfare of farmed animals.

Many consumers are also deciding not to support the factory farm system, in which thousands of animals are kept confined in tiny spaces ..

.. often in dark sheds, with no opportunity to engage in their natural behaviours.

Instead they are seeking out ‘’organic'’, ‘’free range'’ or ‘’humane'’ meat.

On the surface then, it may appear things are looking up for the non-humans with whom we share the earth.

The focus on so-called ‘’humane'’ methods of farming - in which consumers are led to believe animals live a ‘’happy'’ life ..

.. that they’re eating ‘’happy meat'’ -

- is being hailed as a revolution by the animal welfare movement.

For instance, the RSPCA in Britain has gone so far as to introduce a ‘’Freedom Foods'’ scheme designed to assure consumers that an animal’s life -

- and death - is “governed by strict and compulsory RSPCA welfare standards”.

Even the ethics professor Peter Singer - dubbed the father of the animal rights movement after publishing Animal Liberation in 1975 -

- has argued you don’t have to be a “fanatical vegan” to eat ethically: ..

.. you can be a “conscientious omnivore” by eating a “moderate” amount of “humane”, organically raised animals.

But the rise of the ‘’happy meat'’ movement is not good news for animals.

Far from being revolutionary, it is a giant step backwards.

Many people who used to be vegetarian in protest against factory farming are now becoming what they call ‘’ethical carnivores'’.

They believe it is acceptable to consume animals ..

.. provided they lived ‘’happy'’ lives before being transported en masse to an abattoir .. where they are slaughtered.

By Singer and the RSPCA giving their stamp of approval to ‘’humane'’ meat (as well as dairy and eggs) ..

.. they are doing animals a huge disservice ..

.. because it has resulted in a shift in cultural consciousness from a focus on animal use .. to that of treatment.

But there is no such thing as happy meat or humane slaughter.

These are terms used by the meat, dairy and egg industries to appeal to an elitist group of consumers ..

.. who can afford to pay extortionate prices to make themselves feel more comfortable about animal exploitation..”

go to source/story>>Call meat happy, but it is never humane

the cartoonist tom tomorrow gives his take on 2009..

go to source/story>>This Modern World - Salon.com

check out the transformation..!

..whoar..!

go to source/story>>YouTube - Dr. Oz Turns Meat-Eating Cowboy Vegan

“..Long ago — the 90s — the word “viral” applied strictly to illness ..

.. and we had only an inkling of how awesome it is to dance at weddings, defy gravity .. and laugh at the funny things cats and toddlers do.

This decade changed that.

Though we never want to hear words such as “Miss South Carolina,” “inspirational comedian” or “Numa Numa” again ..

.. and while we sometimes wonder if those hours spent engrossed in “Planet Unicorn” were hours squandered ..

.. we fully cop to a deep, abiding love for viral video.

And what’s not to love?

t’s a few moments of the crazy, the joyous and the jaw-dropping plopped into our daily grind ..

.. minutes made all the sweeter for their “You have GOT to see this” power to bring people together.

These are the ones that made us click Replay again and again..”

go to source/story>>Best of the Decade - Salon.com

“..Excuse the gloom in the holiday season,” writes Tom Engelhardt in the latest essay at his site, TomDispatch.

The gloom is thick as he revisits the history of his site in his final post of 2009.

It’s a look back at a decade of war in Afghanistan.

There’s a gravity to Engelhardt’s essay that is missing from much of the Afghanistan coverage in the mainstream media.

Obama’s surge is being spun as the beginning of the end .. and at least 58% of the American public is buying that narrative.

Engelhardt is not.

He sees endless war .. and no end in sight for TomDispatch, his outlet for reportage and essays ..

.. that chip away, week after week, at the arrogance and tragedy of empire.

Here’s an excerpt from his essay, In Nightmares Begin Responsibilities:..”

go to source/story>>Chronicling of the Arrogance and Tragedy of Empire

“..Oh the joys of enumeration.

In the recent issue of Bookforum, Albert Mobilio waxes poetic about the benefits of lists and list-making ..

.. with the sort of reverence only a true list lover could put forth.

He touches on Umberto Eco’s book, The Infinity of Lists, but Mobilio’s own musings are surely worth the read if you’re fond of the subject.

Herewith, some favorite excerpts:

“The mind’s associative reflex is as rapid as it is circuitous .. myriad things and things-to-do always unspooling in the brainpan.

If you get out of bed, though, and grab a pen, you can at least slow it down by making a list.

You can rank items in importance, annotate, categorize, and subcategorize—

– in short you can give some material shape to and make some order of what Samuel Beckett dubbed ‘the big blooming buzzing confusion.’

So somewhere between penciling ‘pick up prescription’ .. and ‘live a more examined life,’ a portion of calm might be found.”

“A list is an intimation of totality, a simulacrum of knowing much, of knowing the right much.

We select our ten best big-band recordings, all-time basketball starting fives, mysteries to read this summer; ..

.. add up the people we’ve slept with .. or people we wish we had;

.. index our movie-memorabilia collection; ..

.. count our blessings; ..

.. list reasons for not getting out of bed.

We jot these accounts on envelopes, store them on hard drives, murmur them under our breath as we ride home from work—

-it’s no accident that many prayers are really nothing more than lists.”

go to source/story>>Umberto Eco and the Love of Lists

“..Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) recently sat down with reddit.com to answer 10 questions from website visitors.

The 28 minute interview included topics on gun control, health care, voter reform, and special interest groups.

Finally the congressman answered a question that we have all pondered of our political officials ..

.. “If you were made the absolute dictator of the U.S. for one day, what are some of the things you would do?”

“I think I would order everyone to have vegan chocolate chip brownies.” Kucinich dramatically paused then continued.

“Now why would I do that?

Well I have been a vegan now for…. well since 1995…. that would be more than 14 years.

As a result I’ve had tremendous health.

I have had great energy, clarity.

I have had the ability to be able to connect my dietary choices with my health.

“I had Crohn’s growing up and had a pretty serious bout with it throughout my 30’s and 40’s.

When I changed my diet the symptoms began to disappear.

I started to understand also how the choice of diet affects the environment, resources, energy.

It’s a spiritual choice as well.

“So if I had one day to make an imprint on the nation .. I’d look at the choices that we make in respect to food.

Also the matters of compassion towards living creatures who become food.

We need to be more thoughtful as a nation about the choices that we make and the food we consume.

“Now I am not someone who believes that you can truly dictate to people what food they should eat ..

.. but I thought it was a great opportunity to bring in the potential of diet for transforming individual health ..

.. and for transforming the nation in some powerful and positive ways.”

go to source/story>>Rep. Dennis Kucinich would order U.S. to eat vegan brownies

“..Since then, Bhutan has enshrined the concept in its constitution and looked for ways to operationalize it and measure it.

A highlight of the conference was Karma Ura, director of the Center for Bhutan Studies and one of about a dozen Bhutanese in attendance ..

.. who explained that, over time, the Bhutanese have identified nine aspects that factor into analyses of happiness.

They include: psychological well-being; good health; time use (work-life balance); community vitality; education; cultural preservation; environmental protection; good governance; and financial security.

They have developed questionnaires by which they assess life satisfaction in each of these areas and which they use in regular polls of the Bhutanese people.

Included are such questions as: How safe do you feel from human harm?

Rarely? Usually? Always?

Bhutan uses the results of its indicator questionnaires to guide public policy.

Each decision is based on assurance that it will not lower—and should raise—overall life satisfaction.

One such analysis led Bhutan’s government to decide not to join the World Trade Organization..”

go to source/story>>A highlight of the conference was Karma Ura, director of the Center for Bhutan Studies and one of about a dozen Bhutanese in attendance.

“.. Since the US pays its debts in its own currency–it can print as many dollars as it pleases.

Of course, if boosting the money supply triggers inflation, the Fed has to withdraw liquidity and raise interest rates.

But that’s not the problem at present.

The problem is how to zap the economy back to life.

The problem is how to get 16 million people out of unemployment lines and back to work.

That’s the real challenge.

The problem is political not economic.

Obama is surrounded by industry reps who are trying to scare him about the size of the deficits.

But deficits aren’t the problem; unemployment is.

Once people get back to work and build their savings, their creditworthiness will improve, and the next economic expansion will begin.

When more people are paying into the system, the deficits will come down.

But the deficits won’t come down if tens of millions of people are still on the sidelines and forced to cut their spending.

Judging by last Thursday’s speech at the “Jobs Summit” ..

.. Obama still doesn’t grasp this:..

“But I want to be clear,” Obama boomed.

“While I believe that government has a critical role in creating the conditions for economic growth ..

.. ultimately true economic recovery is only going to come from the private sector.

We don’t have enough public dollars to fill the hole of private dollars that was created as a consequence of the crisis.

It is only when the private sector starts to reinvest again, only when our businesses start hiring again and people start spending again and families start seeing improvement in their own lives again that we’re going to have the kind of economy that we want.

That’s the measure of a real economic recovery.”

This is nonsense.

When Obama says “We don’t have enough public dollars to fill the hole of private dollars that was created by the crisis.”

He’s just flat wrong.

The government can print as much money as it wants; it’s not “revenue constrained”.

What keeps the Fed from printing its way out of every jam, is the fear of inflation.

But, consider this: inflation fears never stopped Fed chair Ben Bernanke from hosing down the entire financial system with $11.4 trillion, did it?

Also, the Fed never hesitated to bulk up excess reserves at the banks by $1 trillion so bankers could shove it into high-risk assets and make windfall profits for themselves .. while the real economy drifted into coma.

The only time the Fed’s “inflation alarm” goes off is when there’s the remote chance that someone on the low end of the economic food-chain might benefit from a government jobs program.

Then the trumpets blare, the lights blink red, and Bernanke scuttles up to Capital Hill with dire warnings of impending doom.

It’s all politics.

Bernanke’s world view is shaped by institutional bias, the same as Summers and Geithner.

Regrettably, Obama has aligned himself with this swarm of rogues..”

go to source/story>> Larry Summers is steering the economy towards “Structural Adjustment” : Information Clearing House - ICH

“..(Christopher King says that the United States has gone beyond lawlessness and inhumanity into pathologically vicious means of waging warfare. It has experienced blowback from its past actions and can expect more from its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pearl Harbour attack was blowback and current Japanese objections to US base arrangements might be the commencement of blowback from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)

The Obama surge

December 08, 2009 “Redress” — We have entered a period of government lawlessness, led by the United States ..

.. with inevitably serious consequences for everyone.

Nuclear war is a possibility.

With climate change threatening the planet itself .. we do not need this as well.

Europe must cease supporting this berserk state.

It needs to recover the vision, the spirit of goodwill and humanity that laid the foundations of the European Union.

In following America, Europe has lost its way.

American behaviour extends beyond inhumanity into viciousness.

The character of Barack Obama, which in dealing with non-Americans is no different from that of George W. Bush ..

.. also shows the American characteristic of cruelty without limits.

It is said that the Afghan surge is Obama’s defining action .. which is probably true politically.

He revealed himself much earlier however, in April, at the time the Maersk Alabama’s captain was held by three teenaged pirates.

The pirates were in a boat tied to a US warship and were attempting to negotiate for their lives.

The captain was in no more danger than he had been for days .. but Obama approved killing the men who held him.

It was not a firefight.

It was cold-blooded murder by trained snipers – hailed in the American media as heroism.

That defined Obama as I said at the time.

His approval of the Afghanistan surge was inevitable.

Beyond inhumanity in Afghanistan

Speaking of Afghanistan, it is not that invading other countries, massacring their inhabitants and stealing their resources is unusual.

Men have been doing it for millennia.

Nor is it that trampling international law by kidnapping, torture, failure to prosecute torturers and dispensing with the oldest, most critical guarantee of freedom – habeas corpus – is particularly unusual ..

.. although we had hoped that these practices were past.

What is unusual in Afghanistan is the detached murder of individuals, families and gatherings by drone aircraft ..

.. whose pilots are hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles away.

This “murder on suspicion” has by other means, hitherto only been practised by the secret police forces of despotic regimes.

America has made it an army procedure in which anyone’s behaviour, as viewed from the air or on the word of informers ..

.. can make one liable to instant assassination.

Even the Nazi Gestapo, Iranian Savak under America’s puppet Shah and Soviet KGB had the good grace to torture confessions from their victims.

Drone assassinations on suspicion are America’s unique contribution to terror..”

go to source/story>> : Information Clearing House - ICH

“..Beginning a four-part series of essays to mark 10 years since the dawn of the 21st century ..

.. Rupert Cornwell argues that America’s response to 9/11 spelt doom for the world’s only ‘hyper-power’–

– and paved the way for a turbulent new era

How will the world remember this century’s first decade .. which is now drawing to an end?

For once alliteration works well.

The ‘decade of disorder’ perhaps, reflecting the fragmentation of power into what historians of the present call a multipolar world.

Or how about the ‘decade of drift’ .. in which huge global problems went untackled?

Or one might describe it as a ‘decade of destruction’ – not in the sense of annihilation, but as a period of necessary creative destruction ..

.. in which many comforting props of the past disappeared .. in order to permit a new equilibrium.

As for the country that not long ago informally ruled the world .. another alliteration might apply.

For the United States of America, briefly the hub of a unipolar world, this has been a decade of disaster.

The rise and decline of great nations may be relative.

But the defining event of the last 10 years has been the rise of other countries, above all China .. at the expense of the United States.

When the century opened, America, whether one liked it or not, was in charge.

Now, no one is.

Not long ago, a President in Washington talked of a ‘new world order’.

Today, there seems less order than ever, merely an array of jostling states and collections of states, whose interests on occasion coincide, but more often do not.

Nature has seemed increasingly ungovernable as well: ..

.. huge earthquakes, lethal heatwaves, and the deadliest tsunami in recorded history.

These calamities may or may not be related to climate change.

Suffice it to say that the failure to agree, let alone implement, co- ordinated steps to tackle climate change is as good a measure of the vacuum of global governance as any.

And then of course, almost at the start of the decade, the Twin Towers fell.

As the image of the decade, that one wins without argument.

The photographs of that brilliant September morning, of the skyscraper emblems of New York transformed into monstrous smoking pyres before collapsing,

.. are seared into our collective memory.

The attacks on the financial and political capitals of the US were the watershed event that truly started the 21st century ..

.. after its predecessor concluded – in terms of history, if not the calendar – with the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day 1991.

Between the collapse of Communism and the perfect autumn morning of 9/11 we lived locust years.

Pax Americana prevailed, organised by what one French Foreign Minister described not as a superpower ..

.. but a ‘hyper-power’..”

go to source/story>>New world disorder: The age of uncertainty - Rupert Cornwell, Commentators - The Independent

“..Staff at Remarkables Primary School are set to adopt some remarkable job titles when it opens next year.

Teachers will be known as “expedition leaders” ..

.. while the school receptionist will become the “director of first impressions”.

Principal Debbie Dickson said the staff had been given titles that reflected the school philosophy of teaching and learning.

“Through our curriculum the children are going through learning pathways … and as learners there are many pathways –

- the expedition leaders guide them through that learning.

“The director of first impressions is Angela (Murray) ..

.. in the sense that she will greet most of the visitors into the school and so we wanted to give her that title.”

Head teachers Melissa Mitchell-Bain and Grant Hammond are to be “learning community leaders”, and will each oversee a group of four classrooms ..

.. known as a “learning pod”.

Job titles for Ms Dickson and deputy principal Sarah Graham are still being worked on.

It had not been decided whether pupils would address their expedition leaders using traditional honorifics or their first names.

“We need to talk about that as a whole staff. At the present time it is conventional names but it’s something we will discuss further ..

.. as we journey forward.”

(i dunno about you..but that last ‘journey forward’ has me screaming..and running head first into a wall..

and the thing is..that people like this actually talk like this..and are deadly serious about it..

..this never ceases to amaze me..and usually just leaves me at first gape-mouthed..

wit the next instinct being ..’run..!..run for your life..!’..)

go to source/story>>Remarkables School, remarkable titles | Stuff.co.nz