From Life Positive:
The greatest truths are simplest. Profound insights lurk in everyday occurrences. To discover them we need not trek to mountaintops or explore caves, but just open our ways of seeing by being aware that in the ordinary lies the extraordinary. Like nectar in a flower or oil in the infinitesimal mustard.
I recently came across a simple stone bench in a manicured garden. It rested on bricks that functioned as its support. Its naturalness fascinated me, a stark contrast to the contrived perfection around it. Its utter simplicity and un-self-consciousness seemed intrinsic. Its essence permeated its entire being and the stone seemed aware and alive to the presence within it. The stone celebrated its ordinariness. Something stirred within me. In contrast, unlike the stone I camouflage myself through wearing myriad masks that distance me from my Essence and thereby from others too.
Paradoxically, as we move into a state of awareness and begin to peel away our lifetimes of masking, life becomes simpler and joyful. Benjamin Hoff in The Tao of Pooh writes about the wisdom of learning from ordinary everyday events and occurrences that have hidden messages for our souls – the P’u or the Principle of the Uncarved Block.
From Science Daily:
A new report appearing in The Journal of Leukocyte Biology argues that human missions to Mars, as well as all other long-term space flights might be compromised by microbial hitchhikers, such as bacteria. That’s because long-term space travel packs a one-two punch to astronauts: first it appears to weaken their immune systems; and second, it increases the virulence and growth of microbes.
this is the feast of the dead, the night of the ever-turning year wheel. the gates between the worlds are open this night. the footsteps of my ancestors rustle in the fallen autumn leaves. the winds carry their voices into this world. all those who wish me well are welcome within this sacred circle….life is an unending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. those who are called to the Otherworld are never lost to us forever. for this i give them honor and love. — wiccan prayer
Continue reading about Happy Samhain/Feliz Dia de Los Muertos
Happy Samhain and Happy Halloween to all! Yesterday I made my famous butternut-squash macaroni (and I confess I have been delinquent in updating my fall recipe collection on this site as promised). I’ll be adding that recipe here later today. Times are especially tough right now and I have been trying to come up with new, creative ways of making hearty, peasant food. Not that I don’t have plenty of practice in this department, mind you. But I figured I would try to brush up and enhance my repertoire. So, yesterday I googled “poor man’s meals’ and I came across the delightful Clara of “Great Depression Cooking.” I fell in love and you will too.
94 year old cook and great grandmother, Clara, recounts her childhood during the Great Depression as she prepares meals from the era. Learn how to make simple yet delicious dishes while listening to stories from the Depression.
Below are a couple of her episodes, but in the next few days, I’ll be adding “poor man’s meals” from my own repertoire.
Check out her youtube channel for more!
Happy Samhain!
From the WSJ:
Lawyers for years have added language to some contracts that stretches beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. But more and more people are encountering such everywhere-and-forever language as entertainment companies tap into amateur talent and try to anticipate every possible future stream of revenue.
Experts in contract drafting say lawyers are trying to ensure that with the proliferation of new outlets — including mobile-phone screens, Twitter, online video sites and the like — they cover all possible venues from which their clients can derive income, even those in outer space. FremantleMedia, one of the producers of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent,” declined to comment on its contracts.
The terms of use listed on Starwars.com, where people can post to message boards among other things, tell users that they give up the rights to any content submissions “throughout the universe and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or hereafter developed.”
Lucasfilm Ltd., Star Wars creator George Lucas’s entertainment company that runs the site, said the language is standard in Hollywood.
[...]
Some legal experts rail against such language as imprecise and unnecessary. Ken Adams, a Garden City, N.Y., attorney and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School who advocates for clarity in contract language, says references to outer space and the end time are silly.
That kind of language could even be a way of drumming up business, he says. “It adds an aura of magic — you’re dabbling in the occult and you of course need a lawyer to guide you through the mysteries.”
Read the rest of the article here
Continue reading about Lawyerese that stretches beyond Earth’s atmosphere
From the New Geography:
Among the media, academia and within planning circles, there’s a generally standing answer to the question of what cities are the best, the most progressive and best role models for small and mid-sized cities. The standard list includes Portland, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis, and Denver. In particular, Portland is held up as a paradigm, with its urban growth boundary, extensive transit system, excellent cycling culture, and a pro-density policy. These cities are frequently contrasted with those of the Rust Belt and South, which are found wanting, often even by locals, as “cool” urban places.
But look closely at these exemplars and a curious fact emerges. If you take away the dominant Tier One cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles you will find that the “progressive” cities aren’t red or blue, but another color entirely: white.
In fact, not one of these “progressive” cities even reaches the national average for African American percentage population in its core county. Perhaps not progressiveness but whiteness is the defining characteristic of the group.
A new report by the Center of New York City Affairs finds that half of the children housed in New York’s juvenile correctional facilities suffer from mental illness, yet there is not one psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse on staff at the state Office of Children and Family Services which runs the facilities.
Read the full report here [PDF]
Continue reading about Reforming New York’s Juvenile Justice System
Donna Smith from commondreams.org writes:
Why does H1N1 call for a Presidential designation as a national emergency while the preventable deaths of 45,000 Americans every year (122 every day) is not?
Swine flu leads the news. You can die from swine flu, or should we say H1N1, even if you have no underlying health conditions. Young people have died, and pregnant women are at risk. People are lining up to be vaccinated. Health professionals are at risk due to poor preparations at some health facilities. As many as 1,000 deaths have occurred due to this flu outbreak. It’s scary out there.
But the swine flu is no match for the killing going on at the hands of the for-profit healthcare system in these United States. We bury kids, pregnant moms, babies, teens, young fathers, mid-lifers and older folks too without even batting an eye in the chambers of power in this nation.
Read the rest of this piece here.
Continue reading about Why Isn’t 122 Dead Americans Every Day a National Health Emergency?
The Obama admin has switched from a proprietary content management system in favor of open-source Drupal software. “Open source is a great form of civic participation,” the White House’s new media director Macon Phillips said. Dries Buytaert added, “this is a clear sign that governments realize that Open Source does not pose additional risks compared to proprietary software, and furthermore, that by moving away from proprietary software, they are not being locked into a particular technology, and that they can benefit from the innovation that is the result of thousands of developers collaborating.”
Read the rest of the piece here.
Continue reading about White House Website Switches To Open Source
International News agencies have been following the aftermath of the brutal killings in Conakry, and Secretary of State Clinton has spoken out strongly against the violence.
Here is the background on the events of Sept 28th, in a stadium in Conakry, Guinea.
Read the rest of this information-rich piece here.
Continue reading about Women gang raped by soldiers are speaking out
Being a woman is NOT a pre-existing condition.
From Robin at the National Women’s Law Center:
Written by Judy Waxman, Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights,
National Women’s Law CenterI don’t deserve health care that meets my needs.
I shouldn’t demand fairness in my health care coverage.
I can’t do anything about it anyway.That’s what the health insurance profiteers want you to think.
They aren’t thinking about the mother who is struggling to find insurance because she had a Caesarean section. Not the woman who survived domestic violence and now must face rejection by an insurance company for having a so-called “pre-existing condition.” Not the woman who pays more than a man for the same health coverage, even when maternity care isn’t covered.
Being a woman is NOT a pre-existing condition.
Being a woman is NOT a pre-existing condition.
Continue reading about A woman is not a pre-existing condition
From the Albany Times Union:
As the fate of state Sen. Hiram Monserrate moved from the courtroom toward the Senate chamber, Friday brought a flurry of news releases from his Democratic colleagues. Most of them called for him to resign or — if he refused — for the chamber to boot him from his seat.
The Queens Democrat was found guilty Thursday of misdemeanor assault despite being acquitted of much more serious felony charges stemming from a December 2008 incident in which his girlfriend’s face was slashed by a broken glass.
After the verdict in the non-jury trial, Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson released a statement saying that the majority Democrats were exploring their options for taking action against Monserrate.
On Friday, a half-dozen members of Sampson’s conference became much more vocal about what that action ought to be.
“Being an elected official is an honor and a privilege, not a right,” said Sen. Liz Krueger of Manhattan in a statement. “As a state legislator, the voters give you the power to decide what laws all 19 million of us live under. And as such we are obligated to hold ourselves to the highest standards of our laws.
” … The Senate is exploring our institutional legal options now that the courts have ruled, but haven’t yet issued a sentence,” Krueger continued. “For me, the length of the sentence does not matter – domestic violence is domestic violence, guilt is guilt.”
“We, the Senate, have been through so much this past year,” said Sen. Neil Breslin of Bethlehem. “It is time for us to take the steps necessary to earn back the public’s trust. Hiram Monserrate remaining a member of the Senate contradicts this effort.”
“I have followed the developments in the domestic violence abuse case … and been disgusted by what I have seen and heard,” wrote Sen. David Valesky of Oneida. “Domestic violence is a serious matter and a violent crime that cannot be ignored or dismissed.”
From nojojojo over at Angry Black Woman:
“…25 million Americans are underinsured and I know full well I’m not the only brown one of those. Consider the number of us who are disproportionately affected by poverty, and compare that against the fact that health insurance premiums keep rising by as much as 150% per decade while wages remain essentially flat (note: PDF). Consider how little media attention, medical research, and government funding is accorded to health issues that primarily or disproportionately affect people of color, like sickle cell anemia. Consider also how the intersection of race with gender or other factors, and the lingering effects of colonialism, cause literal epidemics of poor health care, addiction and/or violence in some PoC communities, like ongoing rape and involuntary sterilization among American Indian women. (See also unusualmusic’s insightful linkspams on women in prison, intersexed women of color, and more.)
This is killing us. It is killing us. The current health care system of the US kills people across the board, yes. But it’s killing more of us. And it’s leaving a greater proportion of us in abject poverty or lifelong trauma if we survive.
So we, especially, need to fight back.”
From the Chicago Tribune:
Like many recent college grads, Steven Lee finds himself unemployed in one of the roughest job markets in decades and saddled with a big pile of debt. He owes about $84,000 in student loans for undergrad and grad-school costs.
But what Lee’s angry about isn’t the slings and arrows of an outrageous economy, and it isn’t the idea that he owes a ton of money for all the learning he’s received. It’s the interest rates on his government-backed student loans, which range from 6.8 percent to 8.5 percent.
“The rate for a 30-year mortgage is around 5 percent,” Lee said. “Why should anyone have to pay 8.5 percent?”
Well, because a deal’s a deal, and that’s the rate Lee accepted when he received his loan.
“I disagree,” he replied. “The government has bailed out homeowners. It’s bailed out big businesses. Why can’t it also help students?”
Vita Brevis at DailyKos writes:
Being half of an interracial couple, news items related to this subject tend to catch my eye. I had to do a double take on this one as well as check my calendar to make sure that some rip in the time space continuum hadn’t taken place and we weren’t somehow whisked back to June 11, 1967.
Why that date? For those who may not be aware (although I know a good many on this site are) that was the day before the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Loving v Virginia, striking down Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws and also overturning Pace v Alabama and ultimately ending restrictions on interracial marriage in the United States. Had it not been for the Lovings, I wonder how much longer it would have taken for laws to be struck down that could have made my own marriage illegal in some states.
From Kenyon Farrow at Grio:
When Obama delivered his “gay agenda” speech to the well-fed, well-scrubbed mostly white crowd of gays and lesbians at the Human Rights Campaign’s Annual Dinner on Saturday night, anyone outside of the LGBT community would have assumed by the applause that the entire “gay community” is in agreement that access to serve in the military, gay marriage, and hate crimes legislation are our primary issues. But in reality, HRC’s political agenda is not what I want. It does not speak for me, nor for the lives of many other black, poor and working class LGBT people.
Given the fact that we’re in a long recession where hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost in almost every month of 2009, and national unemployment numbers are at nearly 10 percent, why are we not talking about the issues that most people are concerned about – health care and the economy – and their impact on the LGBT community? The truth is, for many people at that dinner who could afford the cheapest ticket at $250 a plate, jobs and wages are of little concern.
It’s not as though there is a lack of evidence that supports the idea that LGBT folks are impacted by poverty. A report on lesbian and gay poverty in the US by the Williams Institute this spring showed that lesbian and gay couples were as likely to be poor as straight couples, mostly due to the impact of race and gender.
Read the rest of the piece here.
Continue reading about Black working class gays left out of national gay rights agenda
From Guy Adams of the Independent (UK):
[caption id="attachment_231" align="alignright" width="300" caption="FIONA WATSON/SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL Ururu, front left, with the last members of the Akuntsu, in a picture taken before she died this month. Most of the tribe was massacred by loggers in about 1990"]
[/caption]The last surviving members of an ancient Amazonian tribe are a tragic testament to greed and genocide
They are the last survivors: all that’s left of a once-vibrant civilisation which created its own religion and language, and gave special names to everything from the creatures of the rainforest to the stars of the night sky.
Just five people represent the entire remaining population of the Akuntsu, an ancient Amazonian tribe which a generation ago boasted several hundred members, but has been destroyed by a tragic mixture of hostility and neglect.
The indigenous community, which spent thousands of years in uncontacted seclusion, recently took an unwelcome step closer to extinction, with the death of its sixth last member, an elderly woman called Ururú.
Please read this excellent article in its entirety here.
Continue reading about Decline of Amazonian tribe; dwindles to just 5 members
From Queer Kids of Queer Parents Against Gay Marriage:
It’s hard for us to believe what we’re hearing these days. Thousands are losing their homes, and gays want a day named after Harvey Milk. The U.S. military is continuing its path of destruction, and gays want to be allowed to fight. Cops are still killing unarmed black men and bashing queers, and gays want more policing. More and more Americans are suffering and dying because they can’t get decent health care, and gays want weddings. What happened to us? Where have our communities gone? Did gays really sell out that easily?
As young queer people raised in queer families and communities, we reject the liberal gay agenda that gives top priority to the fight for marriage equality. The queer families and communities we are proud to have been raised in are nothing like the ones transformed by marriage equality. This agenda fractures our communities, pits us against natural allies, supports unequal power structures, obscures urgent queer concerns, abandons struggle for mutual sustainability inside queer communities and disregards our awesomely fabulous queer history.
From ABA Law Journal:
The state of New York has cut off unemployment benefits for a 2008 law grad after she reported collecting $1.30 a day in advertising income from her blog.
The lawyer, who allowed only her first name of Karin to be used, was laid off from her job at a New York City law firm after working there only six months, Forbes reports. Karin publishes a blog called STL Meal Deals highlighting dining bargains in St. Louis, where she moved to take advantage of more affordable rent.
The agency told Karin it’s investigating her business, and she won’t get any benefits while the probe is under way, the story says. State law provides that anyone who earns less than $405, the amount paid in weekly benefits, will have their checks reduced by 25 percent.
Continue reading about Lawyer Loses Unemployment Because of $1.30 Daily Blog Income
Ojibwa of Street Prophets and Dailykos writes:
In fact, it was well-known at that time among geographers, astronomers, cartographers, and educated people that the world was round. Anaximander, the Greek founder of scientific geography, had suggested that the world was a globe back in the sixth century B.C., This concept was popularized by the Roman geographer Aurelius Macrobius in the late fourth century A.D. and by the English cartographer Johannes de Sacrobosco (John of Hollywood) in the early fourteenth century. By the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, virtually all European cartographers ascribed to it.
[...]
At the time Columbus first set sail for the East, no educated person questioned the fact that one could reach the East by sailing west.
[...]
There are some historians and geographers today who question the notion that Columbus was confused about where he was when he landed on an island off the coast of the Americas. If Columbus actually thought he was off the coast of China, they ask, why would he take formal possession of territory that he believed to be under the suzerainty of the Great Khan? It would have been an act of abject madness to land on an island within the Khan’s domain and lay claim to it. Second, why did Columbus load up on glass beads and other trinkets when setting off to see the Great Khan?
[...]
Columbus was not the first European to set foot on the Americas. Scandinavian sea kings, commonly called Vikings, had earlier colonized Greenland, had sailed off the coast of North America, and had attempted to establish a colony on North America.
[...]
Contact between Europe and the Americas was not one way. There are also reports of American Indians “discovering” Europe. There are several reports of Indians in kayaks being blown off course and landing in Ireland and on the European coast. Pliny’s Natural History, written in 100 B.C., reports that Native American merchants arrived in the Netherlands, blown off course by a storm.
In 2004, Micheal Moore went on record:
I don’t agree with the copyright laws and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they’re not trying to make a profit off my labour. I would oppose that. I do well enough already and I made this film because I want the world, to change. The more people who see it the better, so I’m happy this is happening. Is it wrong for someone who’s bought a film on DVD to let a friend watch it for free? Of course it’s not. It never has been and never will be. I think information, art and ideas should be shared.
I have yet to see Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story. The fact that Moore did not release his latest documentary under a Creative Commons License, in my view, undermines his credibility, motivation, intention, and message. It’s not like we have the technology to disseminate and distribute films to a wide audience for free.
My view is, if you’re going to criticize an economic system and advocate for a different, more justiciable economic system, then it behooves you as an activist, journalist, and filmmaker to operate within the structures of the more justiciable economic system — especially when those alternative structures already exist. Lead by example. Walk the walk. Get it? What was it that Mahatma Ghandi said, something about “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
What gives Moore? Why isn’t your latest film released on the internet under a CC license? If you honestly oppose the oppressive structures of capitalism, then why do you continue to prop up those structures?
Continue reading about Michael Moore: pirate my film, please
