dystopiabustout

Delegalize, Decriminalize, Decommercialize - massive multi-front shift

2012-01-29T07:02:00.000-08:00

My father was a compulsive gambler and it pretty much destroyed our family. So my view on the right approach to alcohol, tobacco, firearms (in the US especially), pot and other illegal drugs, as is appropriate to each ones current status is:
   delegalize (a term I thought I just made up, until I Googled it),
   decriminalize,
   decommercialize.

It is not just Native Americans who have a problem integrating distilled spirits into their communities. as Hogarth's famous 1751 prints show. Societies in the British Isles and Europe in relatively recent times and to this day deal with the difficulties posed by distilled spirits. The crime novels of Denise Mina graphically illustrate the grim legacy of 250 years of the double whammy of the Industrial Revolution and distilled spirits on poverty stricken Scottish and Irish communities. The Balkans and Western Africa have also suffered from atrocities fuelled with distilled spirits.

The US has unique problems from the political power of and successful covert (in the sense that the movement followers see themselves as rebellious independent thinkers not being manipulated by powerful elites) construction of social movements, libertarianism and the Tea party with significant financial and public relations support by the gun industry. Cheap guns and cheap alcohol with and aversion to effective social safety nets lead to communities with far higher violent deaths than are found other wealthy countries.. Essentially, the alcohol, tobacco and firearms, and legal and illegal drug industries benefit hugely from enforcing laissez faire capitalism for this traffic in poor US communities without enough hope in a vicious spiral.

I do not endorse prohibition, which was criminalization, but rather a radical assertion of the right to collectively remove these problematic activities from the commercial sphere. People over the age of majority can grow and brew and gamble to their hearts content, but the might of the state is concentrated on breaking up or, interdicting and fining (rather than taxing which leads to dependence on continued growth) large commercial concentrations of profit from these activities. Like the tiny gunsmith operations of Northern India, they could build their own long guns and ammunition on a small scale only.

Interdiction has in most cases led to dangerously concentrated intoxicants, which are less risky for profiteers because less bulky and/or prone to detection, but far harder for communities to integrate and moderate the damage from. Beer vs. spirits, coca vs. cocaine, opium vs. heroin, even weak wild cannabis vs. Sinsemilla and hash oil.

Such a dismantling of multiple multi-billion dollar laissez faire legal and underground markets would require a somewhat violent international revolution of sorts. The UN itself is currently highly committed to the war on drugs, the interdiction which sustains the huge black market it purports to oppose.

Global warming is only the half of it

2010-06-29T03:35:00.000-07:00

Human caused overfishing, ocean pollution, plastic ocean pollution, overpopulation, habitat destruction, forest overexploitation, the pet and animal parts trade, and addiction to economic growth are all additional causes of our current mass extinctions and a threat to all life, including ours. Being drawn into petty skirmishes about details of global warming is fighting the battle on the enemy's terms. Tobacco perception was finally turned ( and the tobacco industry gave up nitpicking) not just by evidence of lung cancer, but by hundreds of studies showing it to be nearly a universal toxin causing dozens of problems aside of lung cancer. So a calm, firm emphasis on the broad picture of human destructiveness is needed in addition to a sober presentation of details and proofs of human caused global warming. Our understanding of the details of any one of these threats will alter over time. There may be anastrophes, unexpected strokes of good fortune, or homoeostatic mechanisms of the biosphere which mitigate some of the threats, like global cooling effects of particulate pollution, But the overwhelming, exponentially increasing planetary destruction of the last 500 years is evident to almost everyone who has looked at it in good faith. It is like we are in a car with bald tires, a noisy transmission, loud knocking and so forth, but we are arguing only about whether to change the oil because the dipstick shows nearly empty and one of the passengers says he can't afford the time to top or change the dirty oil. The vehicle has a high chance of not getting where it is going. of catastrophic failure, unless it is stopped, examined carefully and the time and expense taken to change the odds.

Peacenik stock play - sell arms stocks short

2010-01-02T11:55:00.000-08:00

I was thinking because of some news stories, about the real "Dude" , who inspired the Big Lebowski character, and I realized I had a relative and a friend who also lived their progressive political and artistic views pretty much without compromising, and that it led to or at least co-existed with, in the long term, pretty successful financial outcomes in these cases. All of them were more or less in media, arts, show biz.

I wonder if maybe one could work against war and the arms trade and that familiarity with upcoming possible arms and peace treaties, and possible outbreaks of peace, might put one in a position to sell arms stocks short in a timely manner, and as a side benefit. being among the arms "bears" when they are vulnerable. I wonder if Geoge Soros has ever thought of it, the way he famously "shorted" the pound with a 10 billion play once. Of course one would be bucking world history to think that the military part of the military industrial complex, which traditionally grows more reliably than anything, and the cold war peace dividend of the early 90s has been obliterated it seems by new perceived bugaboos.Also another film inspiration, this one very negative, Viktor Bout, who is said to have inspired the film, Lord of War, seems to have beaten an attempt to extradite him from Thailand last August, but remains in jail pending an appeal soon. So all those factors are the major risks one would have to account for. Also if you were a prominent peace advocate and you shorted arms stocks, you could be accused of only promoting peace for short term financial advantage.

At least one can fantasize about a successful bear run against the arms trade in a worldwide outbreak of peace.

new far green political buttons

2009-12-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

Ludd was right
Malthus was a schmuck but right about some things
wildlife corridors around and through cities
march civilization back to abundance
You CAN stop and yes reverse progress, Tokugawa did it
Wealth through shrinkage

Luddite and proud
As Macolm redefined black and white, we need to redefine shrinkage and growth
The Club of Rome was right
Schumacher was right, just wrong on the timing
Live like pirates, in the homes left empty and decaying by the population crash
Let's all do it the easy way- population crash now.
Skip the famines and wars - the easy way is to stop consuming and breeding now
Let the forest and grassland reclaim the burbs
May the maternity wards close for lack of business
7 generation moratorium on most childbirth - the easy way

Why Obama falters

2009-11-21T08:23:00.000-08:00

If you just think about health care it doesn't make sense. Nice succinct article about the broader picture that explains it quite well. I would add, how do you expect the many to embrace the moral principle of the stronger helping the weaker when every day they ignore and drive by homeless veterans and others, who die from lack of care every week or two in major population centres, even San Francisco which is so liberal? It also explains how it becomes acceptable for Republican congress reps to use the phrase "those who have earned their health care" referring to those who have coverage in speeches. I presume they are devout Calvinists who feel babies born into covered families are among God's deserving elect.

It is like developing countries with a gated elite that has a strong sense of privilege, but in some ways far more reprehensible, in that the poor minority is so small and the excess wealth to correct it completely is clearly present.

I hope I am wrong this time - a new presidential hopeful for the bitter and hateful

2009-10-24T22:10:00.000-07:00

In the mid-nineties, after sending many fruitless faxes, emails and phone calls to Governor George W. Bush about death penalty cases, I concluded he could be the next president. He was negative enough and deaf enough to real concerns and rational objections to unite the angry white people around the country. He would approach the problems of the world the way he dealt with crime in Texas. Kill people. My liberal friends scoffed: "He is a buffoon and a local phenomenon peculiar to Texas." Now I feel the same way about Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. He is taking advantage of changes in immigration enforcement in the Obama administration to defy the federal government and highlight and publicize his unrelenting persecution of immigrants. If the dice of US and world events roll the wrong way...

I hope they don't. I hope I'm wrong.

Evil Funds- a joke that is 6 years behind reality

2009-10-24T21:26:00.000-07:00

I thought of the following announcement as a joke last night. When I started to get a few links for it I found my joke had been preceded by reality 6 years earlier: the Vice Fund.
see also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Fund

Fortunately, the latest performance numbers show that at least one hypothesis, that such "vice" investments as defense and tobacco are recession proof, seems to hold little water - it is down just like most other investments.

Here is my unoriginal spoof - I have not yet researched the second more radical "Ultimate Evil" hypothetical fund . I hope nobody has made it a reality, though I fear a real version exists, even if it is not public knowledge. (Fifty years ago, I met a couple of Canadian billionaires who closed two highly profitable businesses just to punish workers for embracing unions, and bragged about it. )

As an evil twin image of ethical investment funds, these funds tap highly active information sources like Corpwatch to identify potential investments:

1) The Evil Fund maximises profit regardless of the ethical consequences, going boldly where others would hang back out of mundane ethical concerns.

2) the Ultimate Evil fund is for those investors with a triple evil bottom line - even if an investment is less profitable, it may be worthwhile if it generates enough mayhem and suffering.

He's back for the health debate - the scary socialist

2009-08-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

On Halloween night in 2008, I was exploring an old warehouse in Oakland California, when I heard an eerie voice singing:
"We shall not , we shall not be moved .."and, suddenly an strange undead apparition emerged from the shadows carrying pamphlets about anarchists and other radicals; a SCARY SOCIALIST. "Brother, I said, shaking, who are you and how did you come to be here?"

"I am as bewildered as you. One minute I was peacefully demonstrating with my fellow Wobblies for the release of Red Emma when shots rang out and the next, a terrifying cabal of the most frightening looking guys I have ever seen were reciting incantations and digging me up in the centre of a circle of black candles in the cemetery near this warehouse. They would not say who they were but I heard the words Skull and Bones and Republican National Committee. They said they had an important job for me for one week, well 4 and one half days, Until Nov. 4th. Well, I says, that sounds swell and I ain't worked in a while , but what do you fellas want me to do? You don't want me to be a scab or nothin, do you? So they says, no no no! just be yourself, hand out your pamphlets, make a speech or 2 - do what you do!"

Then he said" Can you help me find a crowd to agitate?"

So, with some trepidation, I took the scary socialist to a Halloween party I was invited to and it turned out my worries were unfounded: he fit right in. He wasn't the only political type there. Not at all. there was a guy dressed as the Statue of Liberty carrying a sign about same sex marriage and someone dressed as a nurse with signs about health care reform. And everybody was talking about Nov. 4th the next week.

Well, I did not see him in person after the party, but over that weekend, the Scary Socialist seemed to be all that people on the TV news and talk shows were talking about, so I guess the people who dug him up made a valiant effort to scare everybody with him. I thought I might write about him in these pages at the time.

But you all know by now that election day came and they did not scare everybody enough. I was walking by the same part of town the night of the election, and amidst the cheers and horns blowing and I thought I saw him clamber over the fence into the cemetery and disappear into the shadows. I thought that was the last I would hear of him for at least another 90 years. I just forgot about writing about him, thinking he was irrelevant now.

Boy was I wrong. The health care debate heated up and he was dragged back out, scarier than ever, boys and girls. So I thought I would post these photographs and talk about him after all.

Scathing review of British Education reform

2009-02-20T01:07:00.000-08:00

A scathing review of British version of "no child left behind", but really reflects trends around the world. To some extent Japanese and Indian education systems supposed successes In math and science were used to lengthen school years, load young kids with homework and rob them of play time, creativity, humanities and childhood, In particular, top business, info and other technology grads around the world are ignorant even of the spirit of the glorious revolution of Cromwell in Britain, the French and American revolutions, the rights struggles of Ghandi in South Africa and India, and the dialogue and struggle on class, race and human rights in the US, the economic, moral and political questions of Adam Smith, Marx, Engels Weber in the 19th century and the continuing development of thought on human rights in the 20th century. More controversially, I would argue, while acutely aware of some recent film, music and other pop culture, they lack depth in the history of classical and popular culture in at least one or 2 regions essential to understanding the richness of language and history.

This trend, which is older than the recent initiatives, really goes a long way explaining the acquiescence of populations of all developed nations to measures and political parties which compromise the Magna Carta, etc. (note that the Google spell checker highlights Magna Carta as an error). The continued development of ideas of equality, rights and environmental justice may rely on the thin ranks of a few progressives in North and South America and the rest of the world such as the Ghandiists.

Smithsonian should acquire Scott Adams' old cubicle

2009-01-17T11:13:00.000-08:00

If it still exists. i know people who worked for Pac Bell in Contra Costa and who were given a tour that included Scott Adams' cubicle that inspired Dilbert.

Simple Middle East Peace Solutions

2008-12-27T21:42:00.000-08:00

- for every child killed in Israel and Palestine a holy site should be bulldozed and put through a pulverizer, then mixed with nuclear waste so not even relics can be accessed for a few million years; the recent atheistic and other critics of the 3 great monotheistic religions have a point.
- if another 100 children die. Jerusalem should become a much needed international nuclear wasted dump and Israelis and Palestinians should spend at least 40 years relocated to the Sinai desert in tent cities, until a new generation demonstrates it understands that a child's life is worth more than a holy site.
- secular socialists and other Israeli and Arab leftists (there was a recent meeting of Israeli Arab leftists) should be granted at least the equivalent of the billions in money and support poured into Islamic groups like the mujhadeen in Afghanistan for strategic Realpolitik reasons during the cold war. The secular non-theistic strain in the Middle East must be rebuilt,
As a matter of fairness, the same rule should apply elsewhere such as in India and Sri Lanka, even though some of the parties are not strictly monotheists. Maybe the atheists have it right: all religion is primarily a destructive force when you tally up history.

The Wimpiest Revolution with the Biggest Impact?

2008-11-03T02:18:00.000-08:00

The anti-globalization revolution of 1999 snd 2000 seemed stillborn in its aftermath. After successfully shutting down some sessions of the World Trade Organization(WTO meeting in the Battle of Seattle in 1999, subsequent protests in Quebec and Genoa were curtailed by massive military style police crackdowns that kept protestors out of sight and earshot of delegates, and overrode freedom of speech. Police chiefs around the world were mindful of the fate of Seattle's police chief at the time, ignominy and dismissal. Then the September 11 attacks came and the press declared the anti-globalization movement dead in the wave of sympathy for the victims and the anti-revolutionary mood. Indeed subsequent anti-globalization efforts were pale and small. Even some progressive and leftist pundits declared the efforts of the young anti-globalists shallow and unsustainable .

But the Battle of Seattle coincided strangely with the end of the power, even the decline, of the era of ever more encompassing and powerful, international, neo-liberal trade agreements. No agreement was reached in Seattle, even though the the meetings eventually convened, and some blamed the protests and the lame duck Clinton's too peaceful response to them. Since then the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs(GATT), WTO and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have suffered repeated failures and losses of influence. though the failure of Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) dubbed NAFTA on steroids by its nemesis Maude Barlow, who just recently was appointed as the UN's Senior advisor on water, actually faltered in 1998, its successful David character, Maude Barlow of the Council of canadians, was a major influence and intellectual supporter of the following year's anti-globalization movement. Poor Latin American and other countries saddled with huge debts, and forced to abandon social programs following IMF bailouts with strings attached, rebelled against further interventions in spite of their continued need. And now some declare the decline of global capitalism as we know it.

Was the massive international globalization structure fragile in some way. Was it near a tipping point in 1999?

The unprecedented, 10 million strong, global 2003 protests ahead of the Iraq war looked and felt like the anti-globalization protests. Again, the impact seemed minimal and even protestors were demoralized when their efforts did not stop the invasion. But would US and world public opinion have swung so massively against the war later if the predictions of trouble ahead implicit in the protests and the support and limelight it gave to the small minority of investigative reporters criticizing the reasons for the war and the war's conduct in the face of the huge US public relations propoganda machine, without the seemingly ineffectual protests.

One wonders if the ancient Romans poo pooed the impact of the early Barbarian sackings as the attackers withdrew.

US election thoughts

2008-11-02T10:42:00.000-08:00

As an international observer, I wonder if the international viewer ratings for the US election will surpass the Oscars or the soccer World Cup or whatever the record is until now.

Robert F. Kennedy and Greg Palast

In 2004 on the morning of election day, Palast listed states and counts of votes which were already discounted or suppressed totalling in the millions. Fortunately he and Robert F Kennedy are proactive issuing a 7 page comic book (linked to below the article above) "stealing back your vote", so voters can actively secure their vote, and do more than shake their heads.

When major scary things are happening, many are in denial as in 2004. Democrats, in my view, seem to accept they have to win a cushion of 5-10% of votes to counter the suppression, rather than fight back vigorously and use the "c" word, conspiracy, which you can't use in polite company and get invited back to the cocktail party. They are fighting more vigorously this year, but the form of "the crunch", when and if it comes, is always different and surprising, and that is when we may see if Obama, unlike Gore and Kerry in 2000 and 2004, is a street fighter (or not). Someone should send him an emergency bullhorn. :>

Michael Moore, working for Dem legislature candidates in Michigan expressed some of this: in Friday on Democracy Now:

Michael Moores feeling:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/31/academy_award_winning_filmmaker_michael_moore

MICHAEL MOORE: Right, yeah, I know. It seems that—it seems to feel like the Republicans aren’t going to have a very, very good time on Tuesday night. And she’s, of course, obviously, one of the extreme cases of why they’re in deep, deep trouble.

But I have no sense of optimism, as I sit here. You know, way too many times in the past, we’ve gotten far too giddy way too soon. And I am just not going to succumb to that feeling right now. I mean, I hope. I hope it all looks good on Tuesday, but for many reasons, there is a chance that McCain will win on Tuesday. And we have to operate with that attitude in mind, because—I mean, let’s face it. People on our side usually aren’t as driven to involve themselves in a political process that they view, somewhat cynically, as not having operated in the best interests of the people. And so, they’re not often as—often—not as much as the other side is motivated to go to the polls, whereas the other side, under, you know, strict orders from, they believe, the voice of God that’s in their head telling them that they must go to the polls and vote for these good people or remove the heathens that are in violation of whatever it is they’re listening to in their head. So, I’m telling you, I think that’s pretty powerful. They’ve been very successful at it. They’ve always been well funded. They’re very smart about it. They are committed. They are up at the crack of dawn, and they will be on Tuesday. Trust me. We have not lived under the Republicans for twenty of the last twenty-eight years by their side being a bunch of slackers. That’s not the case. So they will be out in full force. And I don’t think we need to wake up on Wednesday with that feeling that we all know too well, that—you know, “Woah, what happened? What happened?” I just—I think that’s happened one too many times.

political affiliations, isolation and attachment, health: Interesting survey or secondary data topic

2008-10-16T05:35:00.000-07:00

Are affiliates of right wing or social Darwinist parties more lilkely to suffer from certain chronic preventable illnesses or risky habits like smoking than left leaning affiliates. Does a philosophy that stresses individualism and personal responsibility and personal wealth accumulation (philosophically or in Buddhist terms isolation and attachment) lead to the isolation and guilt over personal faiure associated with some illnesses. If so, in the US one could offer health insurance based on long term political membership and have degree of risk predictability.

Some related observations:

- lots of lefties smoke, drink and overeat too
- poverty is mostly associated with ill health, 2 exceptions being risk of car accidents and alcohol consumption; right wing views are associated positively with wealth I seem to recall
- are right wing views associated with fatalism and disbelief of the research showing that lifestyle changes (or collective/legislative/enforcement against hazards like pollution) can affect health?

ranked choice polling could lead to ranked choice voting

2008-10-15T00:49:00.000-07:00

Could polls which say "how would you rank the candidates if your vote would always count eg you could vote green or libertarian and you did not have to fear the most worst if you did not vote for the least worst". Unlike proportional, ranked choice or instant runoff voting leads to a near majority for the winner. at least as a second or third or 4th choice and could be the real way to foster "radical" (in the Harry Belafonte sense) change we can believe in and alternative parties. Excellent Wikipedia entry here.

LHC why can't we just observe collisions in space?

2008-09-11T10:34:00.001-07:00

Physicists - please answer my question:

too much noise? - we need 300 feet of rock? could it be done on an asteroid or the moon with a little tube collecting cosmic particles and sending them into a drilled chamber- could we have spent 8 billion developing a satellite and detector that couldl filter out the noise and detect lots of particles?

Because the safety argument that it happens anyway in upper atmosphere assumes it happens at the same concentration - if we are concentrating collisions to any degree beyond that the safety argument, that it happens every day in upper atmosphere falls short.

population crash movement - moratorium on childbirth

2008-08-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

It is politically unacceptable to talk about powerful incentives to discourage childbearing, as filmmaker Nina Paley noted in discussing her powerful 2002 animation. The Stork.

Three or four decades ago programs to give $50 to desperately poor third world women to be sterilized became the textbook case of uninformed non-consent. Population control also became associated with racism, genocide and eugenics, for example see this discussion. Zero population growth was a popular movement in the 1970s (if only more had listened), but who is calling for a committed movement to stop or greatly curtail all childbirth for a generation, given our global warming and mass extinction reality. It certainly beats wars, disease, famines and runaway global heating as an outcome even if it precipitated its own economic and elder care crises. As a near senior citizen, I would gladly forgo better medical and financial care and die happy if I knew major measurable steps to save the environment were under way. And I think a lot of young people are prepared to put off or forgo the pleasures and pains of family life, of a traditional human life, for one or 2 generations to save the world, no less than those who fought the Nazis, if enough women signed on, It could cause a bit of credible, measurable real demographic and economic collapse, but also fairly immediate environmental and social advantages would happen simultaneously. In a decade or 2 the next generation could begin to live like happy, non-violent pirates in the ruins and booty of the now emptier cities and towns as beautiful savannas and jungles reclaimed some of what they yielded before to sprawling housing and farms. A few maverick environmentalists continue to bring up population collapse as a very good thing.

Governments like Canada continue to tout 19th century policies that encourage population and economic growth, But I think the criticisms about racism can be overcome by rolling out the campaign to the vastly greater resource-consuming developed countries first. If France, the US, Canada Australia and so forth lead the way with cobwebs on the maternity wards, and making the short term economic and lifestyle sacrifices, then the rational objections to reintroducing vigorous population control measures everywhere would fall away. A lot of health resources go into maternity, so maybe I would even not have to give up some of cheaper, more cost-effective medical attention as I age.

Dirty Canadian Tar Sands kill ducks and the climate

2008-07-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

My Brother on Afghanistan and Kipling

2008-07-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

What the heck is going on in Britain? Coal and national ID

2008-03-09T21:43:00.000-07:00

the story

and an opinion

Well, people said Brown was worse than Blair, that Blair did a deal to pursue regressive policies to get Brown's support when he ran for party leader or something like that as I recall. Ominous that it is announced at the Adam Smith Institute which was behind Margaret Thatcher's privatization and eighties version of the ownership society. I remember a speech circulated in the Saskatchewan civil service where I worked under right wing Grant Devine's government by someone from the Adam Smith Institute. He was touting the public stock offerings in BOAC and other British privatizations of public corporations.

And a national ID program with fingerprints and biometrics beyond anything the US neocons can practically hope for and targeting non-Europeans? Do they really think the existence of the EU covers this return to old racist treatment of non-white immigrants and citizens? British progressives should say, you mean by non-European, non-white. I have a sneaking suspicion the ID card may stop at the 1st phase, non-Europeans, bowing to human rights concerns at the point where it affects whites.

A friend of mine was an Iranian refugee going to high school in Britain in the 80s while waiting for his parents to be allowed to leave Iran. He was very glad when his parents finally were able to escape to the US and he was able to leave Britain, where he said it got worse every year under Margaret Thatcher's politically motivated policies tightening restrictions on the immigrant population.

How to cancel Real's Rhapsody

2008-01-05T07:53:00.001-08:00

Go to help A-Z , cancel my account and phone the number which is 1-866-597-5465 and tell the nice customer service people you want to cancel. There is no online way to cancel and I could find no other link for cancellation except buried deep within help. Earlier today, I tried via the "edit account" and a screen offered a subscribe button for a service I already had! Needless to say I did not push the button and turned to the help instead, so maybe another screen after the subscribe button offered a way to cancel, though the customer rep said you could only cancel by phone.

Real should be ashamed of themselves. BTW I got 4 months of a total of 6 months of $15 bills refunded by taking the 5 extra minutes to escalate to a supervisor, which was appreciated. I had offered to forgo the refund if they would provide an obvious way for everyone to cancel online, but of course the help dept could not do that.

A quick search revealed others on real networks own support thread with similar problems:

from Mar 2007

Another thread on Rhapsody as recent as Dec. 2007 discussed the ethics of the lobster trap cancellation policy, easy to sign up for free trial, but very hard to find your way out.

Finally this amusing investigation in PC World by Tom Spring included an attempt to cancel Rhapsody account and another real product, both of which proved difficult.

A representative of RealNetworks, told him it was an single mistake . When he showed them it happened twice they promised to investigate both incidents,

Very good - investigations underway; only problem is Spring's article is dated December 22, 2006.

Suddenly, Buy Nothing Day makes sense to mainstream

2007-11-24T01:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/23/BUBETG17L.DTL

KCBS had stories covering Buy Nothing Day

and a book about The Corruption of Consumerism
Benjamin Barber, author of "Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole," on American capitalism.

More media coverage here:
http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/news.php

Suddenly, after An Inconvenient Truth etc., Buy Nothing Day makes sense to the mainstream.

In a weak economy, even questions about its impact, which was ridiculed in the past are less evident. I think it may be time to raise the issue of high market and retailers expectations and what would be a non-damaging and sustainable economy with some stability for average workers: more emphasis on simple, basic, durable goods made relatively locally, of a quality that lasted long enough that a higher price was accepted? Didn't we have at least a partial economy sort of like that 60 or so years ago? I remember when people began to decry "planned obsolescence" in the 1950s, particularly in connection with toys and automobiles.

Regret re lost opportunity to stand up

2007-09-29T06:02:00.000-07:00

I was analyzing results for a health survey for an eastern North American regional government. My 2 co-workers and I complained vociferously to the survey manager about a standard procedure that was putting young and/or female survey respondents at risk. If the respondent was not at home or did not have time for the long survey, the questionnaire was left for them to be sealed in an envelope for later pickup by the survey field person. But the survey contained sensitive questions about sexual behavior for all respondents in the household over 15 as I recall. From comments of the field personnel, my co-workers found out some fathers had ripped open the envelopes and read their daughters' answers, leading to "dire" consequences for the girls. The manager brusquely cut off the discussion, citing cost and the need to maintain high levels of response. And none of us even escalated it as far as i know. So we do not know if anything was done (possibly other divisions of it were alerted) or what the impact was of the ill-advised procedure. I was sole support to my wife and 2 teen agers on contract in a tight market and felt the manager would fire me if I pursued it. I had been enthusiastic about the project early on, working through Christmas drafting the report outline, but I already felt disheartened re a conflict with the manager over ensuring that the report would have statistically strong useful content, a problem I had encountered in government before with managers who buried or altered my substantive reports because they wanted risk-free, bland results. None of those cases had direct risks of harm to people.

Because I am outspoken at work in government and corporate jobs, I generally have never, aside of this case, had a serious ethical dilemma because people doing questionable things know from the outset not to put me in the loop, And my career has likely underperformed, partly because of that.

The Aleuts - quiet Columbuses

2007-09-29T05:32:00.000-07:00

I learned in U of British Columbia in the 60s from a very conventional anthropology professor whose actions and observations may be considered colonial these days , Wilson Duff, about a simple historical fact that really poses yet another devastating question about the myth that America was discovered by Europeans in the 15th century "AD". He was showing artifacts he had "collected" from an ancient site in the Queen Charlottes. There were small Japanese carvings. Wow, I thought, but he was nonchalant. He said there has always been trade of small goods along the entire Pacific rim via the Aleuts. Say what?

So if I am an enterprising ancient Siberian trader, say in 500 BCE, and i had the money and motivation, without sailing across uncharted waters I could easily accompany my bag of trade goods to Mexico. And who is to say it did not happen? Almost certainly, Japanese and other Asian art was influenced by Native American art and vice-verse.

Nobunaga, 3 strikes and why the Iraq war so deadly now?

2007-06-14T03:20:00.000-07:00

A speculation as to why the Iraq war has become so deadly:

A Japanese TV drama(dorama) told the story of how Nobunaga, the brilliant, ruthless leader who broke down the Japanese code of chivalry which had prevented anyone from uniting Japan operated. A nobleman received the honorary title "jar breaker" for single handedly running into the courtyard of a castle under siege and breaking the water jar holding the only precious water for the castle. When his story was presented to Nobunaga, he was unimpressed, and humiliated the nobleman by asking the low born but fierce warrior Hideyoshi why breaking the water jar was a mistake. "The castle's eventual fall was assured . Breaking the water jar merely made the defenders fight with more reckless ferocity, causing unnecessary losses for our troops."

Three strikes laws attempt to make the streets safer at enormous human and financial cost, swelling the prison population. While many believe they protect the public, the laws may make police work more hazardous by increasing the number of suspected criminals desperate not to be caught.

The pervasive and accurate perception by Iraqi insurgents that they may be tortured or rendered to unknown, uncontrolled centres where powerful, effective techniques, developed over the last half century by US psychologists, will break them down, may make them fight far more desperately and increase the suicidal ferocity factor, even among fighters not technically suicide bombers. Wouldn't any insurgent rather die than be captured alive under the circumstances?

Now is the time to demonstrate and make waves

2007-01-26T08:12:00.000-08:00

If you demonstrated in 2003, if you did not, the opportunity to have an impact now is greater than ever. Politicians and the media have stuck their necks out a bit. They need coaxing encouragement and continued committed visible passion against the direction of the Bush adminstration that they can point to so they can listen a bit less to the legions of pro-war lobbyists enticing them to do less, not to make waves to ensure steady donations to their campaigns and war related jobs for their constituents.

When Nixon resigned, war opposers, even though on the brink of citory on the military industrial complex, population control, the environment and a whole range of fronts instead heaved a sigh of relief, got jobs, got married let up. 4 years later the Reagan revolution was in full swing.

Demonstrate this weekend in Washington, or in labour supported local demonstrations elsewhere write letters get active in your own way, don't get establishment jobs, don't have more kids yet and let the politicians and media and the powerful interests for war and against the planet pushing them not to rock the boat know we are not the pushovers we were back in the mid 70s and they are facing a determined opposition in for the long haul.

GPL 3, Stallman and Torvalds

2006-11-29T12:28:00.000-08:00

Recent article asserts that the Novell deal will push some who opposed GPL 3 towards its adoption with its stronger restrictions which would have stymied the Novell Microsoft deal.

I am not really up to speed on all this, but at the 1997 or 98 LinuxWorld in San Jose I attended out of curiosity, both Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds participated in the panels and at the time, Linus seemed so with it and in tune with the excitement, whereas Stallman seemed stodgy and foreboding, warning the community not to get carried away with corporate and user friendliness buzz.

The years since have borne out RS's warnings in spades, IMHO. What happened at VA Linux and other companies, to me, means that they might have avoided a whole ugly roller coaster and distraction and just slowly and modestly built their businesses in an organic gradual way if they had heeded his warnings.

Stallman's vision and criticisms are more comprehensive and skeptical about doing business and about globalcorporations than most, though not dogmatic; he gave an example in the '98 panel of IBM as a corporation that had taken a helpful approach to free software and Gnu Linux.

Paul Robeson Memorial Fair Trade Border Concerts and Festivals

2006-11-13T01:33:00.000-08:00

A concert in memory of Paul Robeson's cross border concert in 1952 which attracted 40,000 to hear the famous Bass who was forbidden in the blacklist era from crossing the border was planned by the Canadian Auto Workers in 2002, though I cannot find an after the fact report.

Now seems an opportune time to plan peaceful cross border music festivals for summer of 2007 at Vancouver, Windsor, Buffalo, San Diego, Tucson, El Paso etc. aimed to push the newly elected more liberal US congress and Canadian Liberal and NDP politicians with a little more wind in their sails, to dismantle NAFTA, GATT and WTO as they exist in favor of a fair trade set of rules. It is one possible action to push the newly resurgent "liberals" in both countries to do something real and lasting in reponse to the expectations of their supporters, something that I think would also consolidate their transient success, as conservatives and Republicans I know have grave doubts about NAFTA etc.. For that reason my suggestion would be to focus solely on trade issues.

Such artists as Michael Franti, Kanye West, Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt, WIllie Nelson come to mind, but surely people willl think of many others. Sponsors could be Global Exchange, Council of Canadians, unions like CAW, etc.

Shouting and persuading

2006-10-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

A couple of nice debates
:
Alice Walker at a Code Pink event just before Oct. 5 2006 rallies(paraphrase):

There will be shouting at the upcoming rally, and I can't bear shouting. I know Dennis (Bernstain) says this is a time for shouting. Well some of us are constitutionally built for shouting and some of for persuading. We have to have peace within to make peace outside.

Ghandi's grandson described conversation with Arafat some years ago:

ARUN GANDHI: I told Mr. Arafat, I said, suppose you were to go there and lead this half a million people, men, women and children, in a march to Palestine, and no armaments or anything, just say that we are coming back to live in peace and harmony in our homeland, can the Israelis kill so many people and live with their conscience? I said the whole world would wake up and stop this action.

Getting to test a new generation of weapons.

2006-08-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

Many causes of the battle but one outcome is that sponsors of the proxy armies test their new weapons and tactics in a place where their own populace is not at risk, as the opponents did in Spain in the 30s. Thankfully this writer's work is free of charge for now.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1219457.ece

Beautiful, horrible Beirut elegy by Robert Fisk

2006-07-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

Posted on Lebanese blogger site. Best of Robert Fisk, sometimes chilling and scary portrait of middle Eastern militants, as he did elsewhere with Arafat, Bin Laden and Dustum, with uncanny ability to describe what it is like for people on the other end of the gunsights, the beauty of the place and the horror of what is happening and has happened. Be sure to read last paragraph and listen to the song.

I like the comment of the (Lebanese?) person who posted it:

At Sunday, July 23, 2006 1:17:27 AM, Hilal Chouman said...

arch.
although i may oppose him in some political opinions, i liked the way he presented the scenes.. as if it is afilm..
i consider it a very nostalgic piece

The other bigger crisis? Amazon drying up fast

2006-07-22T23:21:00.000-07:00

With all eyes on the Lebanon crisis, is this the other bigger crisis, like the opening scene in a disaster movie. A second article in The Independent echoes:

"And it comes hard on the heels of a warning by an international group of experts, led by the Eastern Orthodox " pope" Bartholomew, last week that the forest is rapidly approaching a " tipping point" that would lead to its total destruction."

"Studies by the blue-chip Woods Hole Research Centre, carried out in Amazonia, have concluded that the forest cannot withstand more than two consecutive years of drought without breaking down.

Scientists say that this would spread drought into the northern hemisphere, including Britain, and could massively accelerate global warming with incalculable consequences, spinning out of control, a process that might end in the world becoming uninhabitable."

Now what?

2006-07-22T03:10:00.000-07:00

While they did not stop the war before it started, the unprecedented demonstrations, protests and criticism laid the groundwork for current skeptical public opinion, even in the US. This is a huge outcome, a major reversal for the conservative tide of the last decades. While shallow, the skepticism is broad and persistent. So, now what? In 1974, when Nixon resigned, the rapid fall of a seemingly unstoppable conservative juggernaut from enormous stupidity and arrogance shocked his critics and left them somewhat flat footed.

More in next post.

Bono edits the Independent for product RED

2006-05-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

Strange bedfellows as Bono edits, Condaleeza Rice and Armani contribute to a special edition of Britain's venerable daily The Independent, in support of product RED, a big, slick, largely corporate campaign to donate product profits to fight AIDS in Africa.

First economical fair trade I have seen

2006-05-10T07:27:00.000-07:00

Click on above title for World Centric Fair Trade & Eco Store, first aggregation I have seen of credible fair trade organic cotton clothing and biodegradable, compostable utensils and picnic ware at excellent competitive real world prices that I for one can afford. I ordered 4 organic natural unbleached undyed cotton t shirts for about $47 shipped. They arrived in 2 days, The organization threw in a 5th shirt and a note with hand written thanks. The shirts are attractive natural cotton colour, heavy tightly knit high quality; a little too high quality as I prefer lower quality thin loosely knit that breathe a little more, but they will be great after 5 or 10 washings. I have not checked out their chocolate or other recommendations.

So why can't currently active politicians say this

2006-03-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

Common sense no currently active American politicians will say: Jimmy Carter on Israel and Palestine. As a Jew, I think a small, vociferous coterie of extremists has usurped the voice of the large number of moderate, liberal or progressive Jews, and politicians currently active in the US have taken the easy cowardly route of not opening up the debate. And double that charge for the mainstream media. There are real issues that need to be thrashed out, like whether Israel can survive if it is anything but aggressive as hell, which is the question most hardliners pose when challenged. I think it can because reduction in the excess retaliatory violence provoked by the aggressive stance could counterbalance risks in carefully considered peace overtures, but what constitutes a credible, effective,just, measured approach to survival?. Or, how can the history of literal and economic colonization by Europe and the West in the Middle East be addressed - a truth commission?

Nature Study: Wikipedia vs. Britannica

2006-03-11T07:29:00.000-08:00

KInda been waiting for this study.

4 inaccuracies vs 3 - and we know less breadth in Britannica, though one hopes the study includes science items not in Brittanica. On the other hand the likelihood of out and out hoaxes or rants low in Britannica. But most non-controversial topics very unlikely to attract such abuses, and wikipedia shines on obscure topics where both academics and enthusiasts are happy to have a platform, for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_in_the_High_Middle_Ages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Hurling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitesurfing

Ruining high payout lotteries

2006-02-18T12:15:00.000-08:00

A study in the late 80s or early 90s in Ontario said that large payout lotteries had a significant impact in concentrating wealth even further than misguided neo-liberal economic already have. And the Ontario Lotto 649 at that time even limited jackpots to 20 or 30 million. When people win a million dollars the money likely recirculates; when they win 100 million,if they heed professional advice will be setting up offshore accounts etc. so less recirculation. Maybe all the people who make bad investments and throw big parties are more beneficial than "responsible" lottery winners.

Maybe church groups and others opposed to the proliferation of gambling could ruin publicity surrounding high payout lotteries by encouraging large lottery pools which would buy and split lotteries limiting payouts to a million or 100 thousand, donate half the winnings to anti-gambling lobbying, and appoint a spokesperson to speak at the acceptance of the cheques who would point out the problems with gambling.

I am a Jealous G-d

2006-02-09T22:11:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about a documentary about Akhenaton and Nefertiti and all the trouble caused by the intolerant strain in the 3 great related monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Akhenaton's reputation in my mind had been as a man ahead of his time. Information that was new to me in the documentary made me think that the greatest argument that Akhenaton and Moses and ultimately the intolerant theme in the 3 great montheistic religions are historically related in their theology was that Akhenaton was an intolerant, fanatical true believer who felt impelled by his theology to force others to believe as he did and close the temples of those who disagreed. The traditional polytheistic priests attempted to erase any evidence of him after his death, because, as well as introducing a new religion which reduced their power, he had fomented a lot of destruction in his god's name.

So I googled "akhenaton intolerance judaism" and wham, I was not alone - Jonathan Kirsch, a book columnist for the LA TImes who writes and lectures widely on biblical topics in 2004 wrote "God against the Gods: the History of the war between Monotheism and Polytheism"

Fascinating discussion and reviews, very relevant to the enormous global problems we face today. Would we all be better off if Akhenaten or Abraham had kept their monotheistic ideas to themselves? Does monotheism hold the seeds of religious intolerance and violence, or is tolerance and kindness also an outgrowth, and if so, why so frequently war and persecution in its name?

Racial undercurrent of much in US editorial

2006-02-06T17:50:00.000-08:00

In the Boston Globe, a rare discussion of the catastrophic conflict and the incomplete resolution of it that ended to a large extent when Lincoln was assassinated. Found on Tom Paine.

Hamas election analysis Posted on American branch of Israeli peace group

2006-02-04T13:19:00.000-08:00

Leonard Fein discusses Hamas electoral victory.

One Canadian election poll 32% Conservative 31% Lib 23% NDP

2006-01-23T00:24:00.000-08:00

From SES research less accurate daily poll

Done Sunday Jna. 22. This is the less accurate (6% error) daily poll, not the 3 day average; blip or a trend?

An Israeli Positive Long-term change initiative

2006-01-07T23:58:00.000-08:00

This Haaretz article describes an organization in Israel that works to promote civil society using an American model to some extent, which has been effective in several examples in quietly reducing tensions and promoting human rights for vulnerable groups like Bedouin villagers in Israel, women, and West Bank farmers.

Commercial whaling coming back soon?

2006-01-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

Nice substantive article in the Independent which distinguishes itself by covering the most important issues behind the current dramatic Antarctic confrontation between on the whales' side: one of Greenpeace's founders, Paul Watson on Sea Shepherd's Farley Mowat and two Greenpeace ships (one of them a speed demon capable of dogging the fast Japanese ship and boats) and,
on the side of killing whales for food: the Japanese factory ship and harpoon boats. Kudos to the Independent for revealing the high stakes behind the confrontation and the upcoming whaling commission vote this spring.

Also on the environmental reversal-of-history front, a friend in Bangkok informs me that the Prime Minister of Thailand is promoting an exotic animal zoo in his home district with giraffes,zebras and crocodiles from Kenya on view and on the menu in several restaurants. I wonder if the Hon. Prime Minister has seen The Freshman, a 1990 comedy with Marlon Brando and Matthew Broderick, a film, for which, ironically I knew someone whose employer at the time in Toronto, a large pet shop, supplied an exotic lizard to play a starring role as the main course in a FICTIONAL millionaires' endangered species banquet. No animals were harmed int he making of THIS movie. I hope that the Thai, Kenyan and world environmental groups succeed in convincing the Hon. Prime Minister that any real project also must prove that no exotic animals were killed, consumed or harmed if Thailand is to remain a favored trade and tourism partner of people of good will around the world.

Illegal Japanese whalers in Antarctica

2005-12-28T17:03:00.000-08:00

Latest on illegal Japanese whalers in Antarctica, targetting the huge Fin whale this year and the humpback next. Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace put aside some of their strategy disagreements to co-operate in obstructing the pirate whalers.

Clemency denied: unimaginative, cowardly decision

2005-12-12T19:25:00.000-08:00

Like Clinton during his presidential campaign before him, Arnold Schwarzenegger has followed his political advisers line, with an eye to his political future. He has chosen to stay within the pseudo security the world of Southern California radio talk show demagogue style politics which first promoted his candidacy, instead of taking a risk that might open up new and constructive alliances.

Interesting guest on KPFA Berkeley's coverage, Murder victim families for human rights . At a protest outside Tommy Thompson's ( who was quite likely wrongfully convicted on the evidence of an offender with a violent past who received leniency for testifying) San Quentin execution in the 90s, a woman whose son or daughter was murdered spoke and said that as soon as the prosecutors' met her, " they told (me) a lie: That (I) would only get closure when the murderer was executed. " Thus the crass manipulation and use of victims suffering is a standard prosecution technique in the USA.

It is disturbing to think about murder and violence, and about injustice in the legal system that purports to protect us. The death penalty saps the problem-solving energy of the American public in emotional disputes, whereas the truth in sordid and sometimes convoluted fatal violence is more likely to come out over time. Effective, detached analysis and enlightened, hard-nosed public debate about violent crime are more likely to flourish in the majority of nations that have left state sanctioned killing for crime behind, along with the rack, debtor's prison and the gallows for pickpockets. The USA has the death penalty, an incredibly high rate of incarceration, yet continues to have one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world. What gall to pretend the debate in the US need not look beyond the narrow borders of the country.

Williams Execution - Governor decison tomorrow

2005-12-08T09:16:00.000-08:00

Clemency hearings for Stanley Tookie Williams are happening today at 10:00 am Pacific time. Snoop Dog, Jamie Foxx and many others continue to devote a lot of time and energy on this case. If you are reading this and want to express your views to the governor, today and early tomorrow are the last chance. If clemency is denied, the state will kill him MONDAY at midnight; yes that is midnight Monday the 12th or specifically, as soon as it is legally Dec. 13th. I just signed the petition and called the governor's office using the information on save tookie web site. If you call, you will talk to a real person at the governor's office. I got through first try and spoke to a real polite attentive person in under 1 minute. Faxes also are very effective at getting attention. I worked in Canadian provincial governments for 10 years and handled letters from the public, and I can tell you that phone calls, letters, faxes and petitions always have a real impact, whatever the final result. The pro-execution forces in this case are mobilizing and the governor's office will be counting the for and against phone calls, so this is a rare time frame where individuals taking the trouble to express themselves makes a difference.

I got through on the first dial in under a minute told the polite attentive governor's rep (even answering the calls like this costs money; you can tell they are concerned because they have enough people answering) that, as a Canadian criminology researcher i have seen that rehab is not the only reason in this case for clemency. Several judges expressed doubts about the trial of WIlliams, even in the recent decisions which he lost. Pricipal figures in his case had other important convictions thrown out because of similar racially biased juror rejection and racist remarks. Rotten features of the conviction include at least 2 witnesses who received outright immunity and others who received reduced sentences. Cases like this take up to 50 years before the truth comes out. Ultimately, witnesses get older, they finally talk about what happened to somebody and the often surprising truth comes out. It is in the public interest for the truth to come out and for plea deals not to determine so often who takes a rap. In the David Milgaard case in Canada, Milgaard was convicted of a nurse's rape and murder in the early 70s. His lawyer asserted that a convicted offender who lived nearby might have done the crime. Even though I was a human rights advocate who supported Milgaard's clemency, I doubted his lawyer's argument, because he was an unsympathetic character who had admitted standing around the area where the murder was committed,looking for a women whose purse he could snatch. 25 years later, in the mid 1990s new DNA tests that worked on the tiny frozen sample from the crime scene proved that Fisher, the convicted offender the lawyer mentioned was the murderer. He was convicted but he had spent decades free and had committed other violent crimes against women.

William F Buckley on Pacifica's WBAI in 1970s

2005-12-06T09:24:00.000-08:00

In 1970. William F. Buckley was one of numerous celebrities who read portions of the entire War and Peace Reprehensible in hindsight, considering how the National Review was financed and staffed, which was not known at the time. The invitation to him was not so bad, but he gave them a perfect excuse not to include him by refusing to come to the studio for fear of appearing to support leftists. So the WBAI people extended themselves by going to his New York mansion to record him and then compounded their obsequious behaviour by accepting a limo ride back to the station, and lamenting that no one was there to see them arrive. Good for the notoriety of the program, bad for integrity. I am all for dialogue with opposing views and accepting challenges to see how the other side arrives at their point of view, but a little parity and dignity please. (click on title above to find the audio of the interview)

Stanley Tookie WIlliams Execution hearing - Dec. 8

2005-11-28T08:39:00.000-08:00

This is hopefully first of a series of posts in the runup to Gov. Schwarzenegger's private clemency hearing Dec. 8, 4 days ahead of the scheduled execution date Dec. 13. (My math is not wrong- executions in California usually occur at 12:01 am on the scheduled date, so really at the end of the day before, as soon as possible after the legal date begins)

More about the case at save Tookie web site.

This case is already very high profile with Jamie Foxx, Snoop Dog and many others going to bat for the popular author of anti-gang children's books, but no mistake, the hard line pro-death penalty faction will fight hard as well, and public opinion in California, when given specific facts about the death penalty will back away from it, but when asked the general question favours the death penalty, So the pro-death penalty side will avoid the details of how the penalty is administered, the bias against the poor and non-whites, the many exonerations, the rare tip of the iceberg cases where DNA is available, one estimate being 1 in 7 wrongfully convicted. See Barry Scheck's innocence project to get a flavour of how things go down.

The right conclusion from the exonerations is not that the system works, but that death penalty cases put so much pressure on the system that the path of least resistance often determines who is prosecuted and what the punishment is, and this is often not consistent with a thorough intelligent investigation and prosecution. I will try in the next 2 weeks to highlight a half dozen renowned cases in Canada where incredibly famous life sentence cases were shown only decades after the fact to be entirely bogus.

Buy nothing Day meanderings

2005-11-25T09:35:00.000-08:00

On this Buy Nothing Day. as I stay at home not shopping, I allow myself a utopian reverie, with the thought that religious and other freedoms were once utopian reveries of the past. I went to U of British Columbia for 2 years way back, and have tried since then to get a job there and move back. Latest attempt is 3 visits in past year to a coastal logging town near Vancouver (which is too pricy for me I think right now). Every time I talk to real estate people or locals about it I am impressed at the gulf between them and me about how I feel about the place. My latest plan is to live and be environmentally active there, until I am satisfied I can do no more, then be a good example and move to Israel or Russia and be active there. The good example is: it would be nice if everybody from Europe and Asia who voluntarily (or whose ancestors voluntarily) moved to the Americas would back off, have no or a maximum of 1 children for a few generation and then back off North America by moving back to where we came from, there of course to shrink the population further and help reduce all of our global footprint. Wealth through shrinkage is to live like pirates rattling around in all the space and abandoned houses and possessions of the heirless as the selected cities crumble and are overgrown by the admittedly less diverse forests or grasses than were there 500 to 5000 years ago. Aim to be heirless.The declining Buddenbrooks family, but with pride and optimism while writing and imparting family culture to the shrunken next generation, cherished and well cared for children of the few who have children.

Jane Goodall's Harvest for Hope

2005-11-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

Flying to Seattle from Oakland in the late 90's, I noticed a woman who looked like Jane Goodall waiting in the lineup for the cut-rate, no frills, cramped Southwest flight. I thought, "gosh, she looks like Jane Goodall, but Jane Goodall, one of the most famous and recognized scientists in the world heads a multi-million dollar foundation and mixes with the rich and famous around the world. No way flying on Southwest, where you have to scramble for a cramped seat because no reserved seating."

After the woman bought her ticket, she took a large stuffed animal from under her arm and stood by the front of the line, talking to each passenger, particularly the children. It was a hand made gorilla.

I congratulated her on speaking out on the treatment of research primates some years earlier, saying it took courage in the face of many Canadian and American academics' opposition to any mandatory guidelines such as Britain's. I had been surprised at her stance, but it turns out I was ignorant of her personal history.

In a nice interview played today promoting her new book Harvest for Hope, Thanksgiving, on Democracy Now, it turns out she has been a vegetarian, or at least avoided factory farmed meat, since the 70s, having spent time on a traditional free range farm as a child and loving the animals.

She was knowlegeable about animal liberation and food issues and talked about speaking to Percy Schmeiser, the Canadian anti-GMO farmer who crossed swords with Monsanto over the last decade. More name dropping, Percy Schmeiser's family owned a house I rented for 4 months in Saskatoon in 1979. I discovered he was an incredibly hard-working tractor dealer/prairie farmer, who personally deliverd 17 tractors that summer.

Wal-Mart movie

2005-11-20T19:23:00.000-08:00

I saw part of Robert Greenwald's : WalMart:The High Cost of Low Price last night at a union screening at a local community college, 400 seats about 2/3 full for the early showing. It was very professional, entertaining, high production values, amazing compilation of information and full coverage around the US and of factory workers in China and Bangladesh. A little use of raw numbers discussing crime in Wal-Mart parking lots, similar to Bowling for Columbine where I would like to see relative numbers like percentages. However, Bowling For Columbine remains one of my favorite movies in spite of my criminology research background and my carp that he should show the less dramatic but no less apalling per capita gun murder rate differences between Canada and the US ( I estimated about 3 times the rate vs 30 times the raw number; Canada has about one tenth the US population). These films are passionate, sometimes humorous essays about serious important issues, like an editorial page feature story which contains many facts but is not an exhaustive monograph. A ll in all a powerful case that the local success story of Sam Walton, who had a buy American policy has grown into a corporate monster which is far too monomaniacal about profits and far too powerful for the USA or the world's good, the very situation for which our great grandparents in their wisdom implemented anti-trust laws. Thus another carp is that I think it should have covered the impact of going public and the US law that nothing but shareholder profit, not environment, not community, not employee good can legally be considered by corporate decision makes, as described so well in the Canadian documentary, The Corporation and made the distinction between the family owned company and the public corporation, but maybe it did. I missed the first half.

Nestle kills babies again?

2005-11-17T15:38:00.000-08:00

On daytime TV during the Martha Stewart or Ellen DeGeneres show first daytime ads for formula in a long time. Clever ad - Nestle's formula contains special calming proteins. So will this new defiant push in America revive the opposition that successfully forced Nestle to back away from their worldwide ads promoting bottle feeding, especially in developing countries?

Also, freetrader highlights BUY NOTHING next Friday Nov.25. (Beware of a somewhat silly site squatting inexplicably on the buynothingday/org url). The real longstanding international effort is http://www.adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/, affiliated with the wonderful artistic Adbusters magazine out of Vancouver, British Columbia. This real link has all kinds of reports on activities around the world and local actions. I envision some year buy nothing day concerts, where tickets are handed out at shopping centres between 9:00 am and 10:00 am diverting young shoppers to all day concerts with the many great musicians who have resisted commercialization and corporate sponsorship and endorsements. Neil Young's anti-sellout song, "This song's for you" could be an inspiration.

Robert Fisk: Torture's out: abuse is in

2005-11-16T23:07:00.000-08:00

Reading the news, everything seems confusing and disheartening. After reading analysis by Robert Fisk, just clear-eyed outrage. Without the history firmly in mind, we are rudderless flotsam. (Click above title to see the link)

Fairtrader on Class in America

2005-11-16T06:13:00.000-08:00

Click above title for blogger fairtrader's sorely needed discussion of the playing field for newborns in different developed countries. Bill Gates, and other billionaires opposed dropping the estate tax, a few years back, and were ignored for once by lawmakers and scorned by pundits. One really covoluted comment used against the argument: they have so much, they can afford the estate tax.

Heifer International

2005-11-15T07:23:00.000-08:00

The above link is one of my favorite charitable organizations. They have great ideals but are not "idealists" . I am skeptical of many such charities that seek to help the poor around the world, but, like Oxfam, they are so transparently astute economically and politically, try as I can, I can find no weakness in their projects, detailed thoroughly on the site. They have by far the most specific, clearest and most understandable examples of some of the unnecessary and negative consequences of trade agreements like WTO and of ill-considered corporate globalization.

Rats, I have no excuse not to give generously! :>

Tactical Voting

2005-11-14T07:47:00.000-08:00

Canadian politics (click the link in the title) is all about what is usually called strategic voting. People vote for a pretty corrupt party in fear of the excesses of US style laissez faire neo-coservatism. I call it tactical voting, because you can win battles with tactics, as in the originally Chinese game Go, but to win the war you need strategy. Just doing tactics is not enough. You have to do the really hard work of thinking about and building a long term strategy, and in modern politics in developed countries, that means the Herculean task of getting the public to look deeply into issue like crime and health care/ Otherwise, good things like the Canadian health care system will suffer the death of a thousand cuts.

Open voting; the next crisis?

2005-11-12T21:31:00.000-08:00

The paper trail and other necessities for a democracy. Progressives and Democrats hopeful for meaningful change need to declare now that they do not recognize votes decided by no-paper-trail voting machines, nor candidates elected that way, however they turn out. This is a serious gauntlet to throw down, and the sooner the better to sort out the implications the details of non-recognition.

Coutnries around the world could also declare a similar non-recognition and what sanctions they plan to apply, as already have been with countries whose elections and governments are not seen as legitimate. in past decades.

Al Gore at Net Impact Conference

2005-11-12T10:19:00.000-08:00

I found a huge photograph of Al Gore on the front of the Saturday Nov 12 2005 San Francisco Chronicle business section with a very short caption describing what seems a medium expensive but very interesting, possibly important conference this weekend, where " participants discuss themes including corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, community development and environmental management" according to the site. Click on the title of this post for the conference web site. It is sold out. Kudos to the Chron business section for featuring the photo with the headline "It's not about the money."

Hoping the speech was late last night and this is just the beginning of coverage ,not shallow celebrity journalism with no story beyond the big photo and caption (nothing at all I can find on the web version). Maybe it is out of their purview because it is not about the money, but hopefully they will have more coverage tomorrow or Monday.

Web idealism, real low quality, elites

2005-10-28T23:26:00.000-07:00

The well-reviewed contrarian blog "The amorality of Web 2.0" by Nicholas Carr, you can see by clicking on the title above, is thought provoking. The missing dimension in this stimulating debate in my view is elites and access to "Salons" of the intelligentsia. An important architect of Wikipedia agrees with Carr in the first link below it, citing the random Wikipedia search, which gives mostly sketchy stubs (stub- mere ideas for items) but also asserts its superb quality in selected articles. Intellectual elites from Lao Tzu and Ecclesiastes onwards largely ignore and decry the quality of 90-99% of what is written, asserted, and believed by the throng in favour of a saving remnant's luminous thoughts and dreams, So the pessimistic view of an inevitable decline in quality of "journalism" , in its literal meaning of the daily scribblings of individuals, and the advocates like TIm O'Reilly of a Web 2.0 renaissance, can be reconciled to a degree in that the web has and will allow a shortcut to bright isolated passionate individuals around the globe to at least a taste of the intellectual back and forth that might have taken years before or never happened, just as public libraries, free lecture series, television , the printing press and cofee houses have done in the past. Thus the curious and passionate will seek and find quality intellectual nourishment and avenues for self-expression, in spite of the overall prosaic noise levels.

At the same time, some may get lost in the forest of banal background noise. Try hitting "next blog" above a few times for a random tour of blogs. Last time I did it, it seemed to be a preponderance of literate, exhausted grad students wondering if it is worth it , the time before that, depressing Aussie and Brit drunken weekend descriptions:>

Bono In New York TImes Magazine

2005-09-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

Good article. Too long but I read whole thing.

Everything that is beautiful and terrible about limo lobbying. The preaching is dead on, and the story about Jesse Helms which I read before, amazing. Jesse Jackson does it too, quite well, but Americans discount him because of familiarity. Maybe Bono is partly the white Malcolm X I dream about, though not the ass-kicking voice reaching the poor and lower midle class that I think is needed. Now you should have seen Zbiggy Brezhinski on one of the first CNN town meeting type shows about 1992 nakedly insulting the Atlanta audience and, subsequently, the audience's wild cheers for him. Like excitable children who badly needed a firm parent. The audience had been applauding questions from the crowd, and he said, " I can understand you applauding a particularly good answer, but when you applaud each and every question you look like a bunch of trained seals!" He was not smiling. He was absolutely sincere and annoyed. The audience was stunned and sat in total silence after the reprimand. But as the show continued they listened raptly to Brezhinski's insights and gave him thunderous applause and cheers at the end. Too bad his main idea to save the world, to empower Islamic Mujhadeen to humiliate the Soviets, a brilliant tactical move, was not part of a broader strategy which took into account the devastating impact on the Islamic countries of vast influxes of resources to their most extreme religious fanatics, while secular mostly leftist elements were still being subverted, persecuted or killed by friendly regimes like Mubarak, Musharaf and King Hussein and the Israelis. Oh hindsight. Too bad for average working families in the middle who now had to demonstrate allegiance to the fanatics n varying degrees.

One thought - Bono needs to get at Cheney - maybe that is why Cheney is so elusive. Does he remain untouched, a virgin to feelings of humanity, by design, and yanks everybody back to the dark side if they get swayed by the likes of Bono. Does he say to the others, "remember our deal! Your soul in exchange for unlimited power. No backsliding into having a conscience or soul."?

The most interesting story is Paul O'Neill who opened up to Bono and the African reality and ended up frozen out of the Bush administration and wrote a very important, perhaps pivotal book that pulled the curtain aside on the administration, still influencing how irreverent many even mainstream journalists are getting.

Eery echo: Fatal Flood on PBS American Experience

2005-09-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

Many amazing, but not mysterious, parallels. I pray that PBS will show Fatal Flood (the american experience) this week. Read the timeline from the documentary by clicking the title of this post above. Photos from the documentary show 13,000 poor blacks trapped on a levee under guard by by armed whites and I immediately thought of the photo when I saw the civilians and prisoners on the expressway ramp outside the Superdome with the national guard around them.

The documentary is about a levee busting flood in 1927 with uncanny echoes today(especially the photos) that brought racial and class differences to a violent climax. Tens of thoudands of black prisoners and farm workers were forced at gunpoint to work day and night to shore up levees on the Mississippi, which may be why the song Aaron Neville sang Friday night, Louisiana 1927, refers to "They're trying to wash us away/They'retrying to wash us away.". When the levee broke many were swept away. Then 13,000 poor blacks were trapped on a levee without food or water further down the Mississippi and promised by a businessman that barges would come to take them to safety. The businessman's father colluded with local whites to block the rescue and only a handfull of white women and children were allowed on the barges. They feared their cheap labor would never return. A black leader was shot in the back for refusing to work a 24 hour shift, and whites and blacks armed themselves amid rising tensions.

Two Americas

2005-09-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

Just saw Jesse Jackson on MSNBC, interviewed by the African American woman, with long curls who has been hosting Countdown subbing for Olbermann. Real TV, like Kanye, real things going on. First of all he rips into her for calling them refugees, these are not refugees; these are American citizens. Then she asks a good question: why is this story, like the Rodney King and OJ stories uncovering 2 Americas, black and white, who view things very differently. He answers, because we have no black newsperson who hosts a show on CNN, MSNBC, not one.She responds, I'm working on it.

Rev. Jackson's point about refugees was spot on. How easily the we slipped into the habit of calling them refugees. The only other recent poor black refugees, from Haiti, were sent to Guantanamo and then back to the violent, poverty stricken island where they now live at risk of massacre by US and UN supported death squads. I would avoid being thought of as a refugee given the treatment of the Haitian refugees.

In Levitt's style

2005-08-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

My unprofessional observation that reminded me of the best seller:

If biodiesel catches on, there will be competition to pick up used oil at fast foods outlets, so the task of disposing of used oil will go from an expense to a revenue. This in turn could lower the cost of french fries dramatically and result in more obesity, especially among lower income people, heart disease etc. and more people who use their cars to get everywhere, because it is a greater effort with their extra weight.

Counter to this, French fries are already pretty cheap.

Nifty speech about another anarchic achievement

2005-07-29T21:47:00.000-07:00

The internet, conceived by the military as a headless (in Greek, anarchic) network resistant to atomic attack continues to generate powerful anarchically organized entities, and as such is the one of greatest conscious achievements of anarchic thinking. Another example is this speech from a Google scientist about how decentralized "dumb" data sources will dwarf the capabilities of centralized databases like Oracle in the next few years.

British Columbia real estate

2005-06-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

I went to U of British Columbia for 2 years way back, and have tried since then to get a job there and move back. Latest attempt is 3 visits in past year to a coastal logging town near Vancouver (which is too pricy for me I think right now). Every time I talk to real estate people or locals about it I am impressed at the gulf between them and me about how I feel about the place. Real estate in BC to me is inherently unethical unless one is intensely carrying out a plan to reverse the impact of real estate on this amazing surviving temperate rainforest. In most of Europe the old growth is reduced to little grottos with an understandable mystical element - the relatively intact natural world having been lost in Roman times or in the centuries thereafter, alnog wiht the lion, the wolf, or reduced to a shadow of its former self, like the timid European brown bear.

Star Wars Lament

2005-05-25T23:32:00.000-07:00

Darn! How could I have been so intent on immediate gratification, so childish. It was right there on the screen, before the first episode that was released, began. Why did I not walk right out of the theater as soon as I saw EPISODE IV.

WARNING, SPOILERS below: even though I have not seen Revenge of the Sith, the following contains spoilers for those of you wise enough, unlike my foolish impulsive young self, to have waited the few decades until the opus was complete.

How I envy the mature souls who waited, They have now viewed episodes I and II on DVD before taking in III at the cinema, and then rushing back home, depressed and ucertain whether this is ultimately a tragic story, with baited breath watching IV to VI in one glorious sitting, finally collapsing exhausted but satisfied with the rich reward of their patience.

The gospel according to the Christian right

2005-05-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

Matt.
21 Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive him? As many as seven times?" 22 Jesus said to him, "I tell you, not seven times, but three strikes and you're out!"

Beware of sleepwalking samurais

2005-05-14T22:02:00.000-07:00

You want to stay out of their way.

Greener fast food cutlery and dishes

2005-05-05T20:54:00.000-07:00

Fast food places and sidewalk hot dog stands etc., which I think do a fair amount of "regular customer" business, should offer a discount to customers who bring their own cup and bowl.Objections will be raised about hygiene and practicality. The food could be passed to them via a spatula which never touches their bowl-plate. Rather it is deftly slid from under the hamburger or whatever and drops onto the plate. They could also sell an inexpensive beautiful rugged ceramic cup.bowl/plate and cutlery kit with lock-on lids for bowl and cup.

Japan has those awesome lacquer bento boxes. Anybody know if those are re-used somehow? If so, how do they clean them enough.for public health.

"red" states should define meal

2005-05-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

I am proposing ballot initiatives in several bible belt states that would define a meal as only a union between meat and vegetables. Dishes consisting of vegetables and vegetables would lose their legal status as meals.

Activist dietitians are redefining the American meal. We need to take back our traditional meat and potatoes values!

Us election night thoughts

2004-11-03T01:14:00.000-08:00

Nov. 2 2004

Gavin Newsom mis-timing: Timing is everything. At the time of the gay marriages in SF, I thought, too bad he didn't hold that thought and do it after the November election, instead of giving Bush a distraction from the war, a ballot issues in bible states to drag in the fundamentalist voters; Would it have made all the difference -doubtful. Was it a factor - definitely. Yes, Bush started it in the state of the union, but Newson put it on the front page for a week. If he did it now, it would have been off the radar by the next major lection, and it might have a more lasting and intelligent debate around it, relatively free of electoral spin..

Howard Dean might have lost the same or worse, and he might have had a steady rise to victory, but would have put on the table a real healthy debate, real war issues and a real exit strategy, but Kerry was chosen for electability. to Kerry's great credit he carried at least some of this to the debates, and putting some of these arguments forcefully in front of a reluctant-to-hear American public is a lasting accomplishment. The American obsession with winning and winner takes all and winning is the only thing leads to the electability argument, but it is an artificial and democracy diminishing obsession. All the parliamentary governments accept a tie as a kind of viable situation to be negotiated - The Anaheim Ducks, Disney's hockey team tried to impose a shoot-out on every regular, tied game because they felt Americans would not accept a tie .

endless boring win strategizing - in the event too bad more risks were not taken

but the overriding danger is the 1/3 or more of the electorate that embraces the anti-democratic anti-human rights message of Bush, and the extent that bad cops, politicians bigots and, as my German friend who grew up under the NAZIs and has been shuddering for the last 4 years in deja vu says, the brownshirts will be strutting about and imposing their private views and morality and bullying on the rest of us.

Well, Sitting Bull broke down and cried and handed over all his earnings to the poor of London, as his fellow Buffalo Bill wild west show performers tried to stop him. How, he is reported to have said, can they (the immensely wealthy English at the height of the empire) not take care of their poor. Yet to take up the reigns of empire, it takes a certain abandonment of Judaeo-Christian -Muslim principles of charity to dive into an empire full force, to sacrifice the young people to the cause of suppressing the 'barbarians", a certain acceptance of strategies of terrorizing the population and turning a blind eye to atrocities. And this was reflected in the neglect of the poor at the heart of the empire.

Benefits of the Roman Empire
In high school history we learned, that although the Romans were brutal, there were many benefits and these we listed, not the brutality:

- echoing weirdly the German trains running on time - the Roman roads

- Roman language and culture

- laws

these dovetailed consciously and didactically with how the British empire styled itself.

Strategic electoral politics is ugly because it skips the real tough educational,investigative and deliberative processes that are required for lasting intelligent pragmatic social decision-making.And the epitome of shallow strategic politics is the US right now, maybe a function of being the sole superpower as Britain was at times in recent centuries. Most of us, me included, were dazzled by and partook of the irrational exuberance as Clinton danced a delicate strategic balancing act that maintained a tenuous peace and tentative steps toward peace in concert with a fantastic expansion and bubble which benefitted from the relative peace and relatively good image of Clinton around the world, just enough to maintain the economic expansion. A kind of zenith of the co-opting of acitivists from the 60's who compromised by having families, getting corporate and professional jobs through theta 70s and 80s, I am reminded of the words of a French Canadian woman about 50 I met on the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit in the later 90s. She said her son had scolded her: your generation blew it; you had the advantage, you had the right values in the 60s and early 70s and you gave up on it, when if you had just kept focused a little longer all the problems, the environment,overpopulation, poverty, would have been easy to solve! And I think he is largely correct - if enough of us had forgone jobs and families, it would have been so easy compared to now, to solve a lot of these problems, and give our non-existent children, but more importantly, the next generation, a much less compromised world.

So as daily Kos and others reiterate, the roots of the pickle we find ourselves in lies some decades (centuries?) in the past, and the way out is not for the fair weather ally but for the dogged and determined who are prepared for the long haul, for decades of watching and listening for a square inch of opportunity, for retreating and going forward as the situation evolves, for deep, deliberative study and action, for a willingness to make major life decisions with these dynamics in mind, without the security of an all knowing guru, ideology or God or even of ultimate good outcome. I once heard Martin Buber quoted or paraphrased by a local interpreter of his works: if, at the end of your life, you cannot consider the possibility that your life's work has been in vain, then your life's work has been in vain.