Greer: Salvaging Learning
July 31, 2011
John Michael Greer’s weekly column “The Archdruid Report” has become a regular stop for blog-surfers looking for interesting and challenging perspectives. The people who are still entering pro-Obama and anti-Obama comments on the blog, a full year after I ran someone’s column about him, ought to read this column and do some actual thinking, instead of just reacting. This from http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/07/salvaging-learning.html
Salvaging Learning
The other day, courtesy of the public library system here in Cumberland, I had the chance to curl up on the couch with a copy of Canadian journalist Jonathan Kay’s survey of American conspiracy theorists, Among the Truthers. I’m sorry to say it was a disappointing read. Kay’s an engaging writer and the book has some good moments, but on the whole it was a depressing reminder of the reasons that the word “journalistic” has become a synonym for “facile and tendentious.”
Ventura: A war like no other
July 29, 2011
The accumulated war record of three administrations (two presidents) in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, moved from dismal to futile to criminal to insane. I’m old enough to remember when John F. Kennedy could say in a speech, and be believed, and in fact have nobody even think twice about the statement, “the world knows that America will never start a war.” Even then the CIA was trying to reshape the world regardless of what we children thought about it, but ”that America will never start a war” was not only plausible but assumed. Today, nearly 50 years after the coup d’etat that hijacked our country, we have become the country others fear. It isn’t pretty.
Lucky Austin, Texas, to be able to read Michael Ventura without having to go out of its way to find his Austin Chronicle column, Letters at 3 am. I know that sounds like sarcasm, but it isn’t. He’s just a great thinker.
This is from http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2011-07-29/letters-at-3am-a-show-of-hands/
Food and weight, the latest “latest”
July 27, 2011
I have a great cynicism about all these studies, vividly remembering when “science” “proved” that eggs were bad for you, or butter. Seems like the latest — especially from what might be called “official medicine” changes every few years, silently contradicting what it advised us to believe previously. But for those who are interested, this latest, from the New York Times, July 18, 2011,via a friend.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/health/19brody.html?ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=print
Still Counting Calories? Your Weight-Loss Plan May Be Outdated
By JANE E. BRODY
It’s no secret that Americans are fatter today than ever before, and not just those unlucky people who are genetically inclined to gain weight or have been overweight all their lives. Many who were lean as young adults have put on lots of unhealthy pounds as they pass into middle age and beyond.
It’s also no secret that the long-recommended advice to eat less and exercise more has done little to curb the inexorable rise in weight. No one likes to feel deprived or leave the table hungry, and the notion that one generally must eat less to control body weight really doesn’t cut it for the typical American.
Tesla to supply powertrain equipment to Toyota
July 25, 2011
I have been following Tesla Motors with interest since it was founded a few years ago. Its marketing strategy was right on the money (in all senses of the term) in that it first developed a super-expensive, super-performing toy for the rich. Then, with its cachet and profits in place, it could begin to go down-market. Ultimately its technology is going to revolutionize the automotive industry, which badly needed it. In the process it is going to participate in the retooling of America.
Reading the World In a Loaf of Bread
July 23, 2011
Via tomdispatch http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175419/tomgram%3A_christian_parenti,_staff_of_life,_bread_of_death/ sent by a friend of mine.
Soaring Food Prices, Wild Weather, Upheaval, and a Planetful of Trouble
By Christian Parenti
What can a humble loaf of bread tell us about the world?
The answer is: far more than you might imagine. For one thing, that loaf can be “read” as if it were a core sample extracted from the heart of a grim global economy. Looked at another way, it reveals some of the crucial fault lines of world politics, including the origins of the Arab spring that has now become a summer of discontent.
John Whitehead – Fulfilling Orwell’s Prophecy
July 21, 2011
Any similarities to our own reality, or at least our own fears of the projected trends already reflected in our reality, are, of course, illusory. We hope.
Fulfilling Orwell’s prophecy: 15 futuristic films you should see
By John W. Whitehead
July 18, 2011
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.”—George Orwell
It has been over 60 years since George Orwell published his novel 1984. Described as political satire, it is, in reality, a political prophecy—one that is being fulfilled in our own times.
1984 portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. And people are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. The government, or “Party,” is headed by Big Brother who appears on posters everywhere with the words: “Big Brother is watching you.”
Ventura: In a Lonely Place
July 21, 2011
MICHAEL VENTURA
LETTERS AT 3AM –
IN A LONELY PLACE
Austin Chronicle – June 3, 2011
The way things are going, the beginning of The Big Sleep will one day be banned. In silhouette, Humphrey Bogart lights Lauren Bacall’s cigarette then lights his. Smoke swirls round the black, white, and silvery screen. Credits appear, turn to wisps, and disappear. The camera pans to an ashtray. Bogie’s hand places his cigarette on its rim, Bacall’s hand does the same, and from both butts thin grayish trails rise until credits fade out.
Rebecca MacKinnon: Let’s take back the Internet
July 17, 2011
The problem keeps getting more complicated as the technology does.
In this talk from TEDGlobal, Rebecca MacKinnon describes the expanding struggle for freedom and control in cyberspace, and asks: How do we design the next phase of the Internet with accountability and freedom at its core, rather than control? She believes the internet is headed for a “Magna Carta” moment when citizens around the world demand that their governments protect free speech and their right to connection.
http://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_mackinnon_let_s_take_back_the_internet.html
Why Fukushima Can Happen Here
July 15, 2011
This is from Arnie Gundersen’s website http://www.fairewinds.com/updates.
I don’t know if you’ll be able to click through from here. If not, just go to the URL above and play the video with this title.
Why Fukushima Can Happen Here:
What the NRC and Nuclear Industry Dont Want You to Know
The well-known safety flaws of Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors have gained significant attention in the wake of the four reactor accidents at Fukushima, but a more insidious danger lurks. In this video nuclear engineers Arnie Gundersen and David Lochbaum discuss how the US regulators and regulatory process have left Americans unprotected. They walk, step-by-step, through the events of the Japanese meltdowns and consider how the knowledge gained from Fukushima applies to the nuclear industry worldwide. They discuss “points of vulnerability” in American plants, some of which have been unaddressed by the NRC for three decades. Finally, they concluded that an accident with the consequences of Fukushima could happen in the US.
With more radioactive Cesium in the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant’s spent fuel pool than was released by Fukushima, Chernobyl, and all nuclear bomb testing combined. Gundersen and Lockbaum ask why there is not a single procedure in place to deal with a crisis in the fuel pool? These and more safety questions are discussed in this forum presented by the C-10 Foundation at the Boston Public Library. Special thanks to Herb Moyer for the excellent video and Geoff Sutton for the frame-by-frame graphics of the Unit 3 explosion.
