Social Justice News, 3-25-07

Hey everybody,
It’s been quite a week. Things have been hopping everywhere. Maybe it’s just because its spring, and everything is going through a period of rebirth and renewal. My turnips are up, and my potatoes, onions, carrots, etc are in the ground. I’ve resigned myself to not getting any peas thanks to this weather, and that way if I do somehow get some I’ll be extra happy. My bird feeder has lately been besieged by all kinds of different birds. I’ve counted six different types in the past week. I can only identify two of them by name –the cardinals and the finches –but I can tell the difference between the varieties. Why oh why doesn’t Audobon still give out birding guides? (Okay, I could buy one, but I’m too cheap –and too broke –to do so!)

FEATURED ARTICLES
I knew it was dry…but not this dry. We’re in the middle of the driest period in all the time -117 years –that the TVA has been keeping records. Chalk another problem up to global warming.
http://www.enewscourier.com/local/local_story_080221455.html

Department of Peace Controversy: America would be a bunch of wusses, say the detractors. Hmm, maybe if we were a bunch of “wusses”, almost a million people wouldn’t be dead in Iraq? Maybe we need more “wusses” in this country!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083208

No More Bees = No More People (or much of anything else). Bees are dying at an incredibly alarming rate –up to 70% of the East coast bee population has died over the winter! Bees are important why? They pollinate crops, which produce food for, well, everything. Some thing GMO plants are to blame.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,473166,00.html

Why Environmentalists Sometimes Conspire Against Their Own Interests: Or, the Idols of Environmentalism. A must read folks!
http://www.orionmagazine.org/pages/om/07-2om/White.html

GOOD NEWS
Gore In Congress: The NY Times on Gore’s trip to Congress this week. For a blow-by-blow account, check out the website of Grist Magazine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/washington/21cnd-gore.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin2

CLIMATE CHANGE
Has the arctic tipped? Scientists are beginning to think so, as melting accelerates at a frightening rate. The latest projections show that the Circle could be ice-less in summers as soon as 2040! Maybe Bush will admit global warming is real when the White House (and his family’s ranch in Maine) get submerged by rising seas. Ya think?
http://www.countercurrents.org/cc-connor170207.htm

Plastic Daffodils and Climate Change: I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. How deep down the rabbit hole does the denial go? Hey people! Take the blue pill! The blue one!
http://transitionculhttp://www.commondreams.org/views07/0321-22.htmture.org/2007/03/20/a-host-of-plastic-daffodils/

Biofuels Causing Massive Deforestation: Chalk another problem up to the rush for biofuels. And these things are supposed to be green? Only in the sense of ‘greenbacks’, if you get my meaning.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0322-01.htm

Worse than the disease? Okay, the techno-fix crowd has come out with some really wacky ideas to fix global warming –mirrors in space, putting sulphur in the air, etc. read about some of them here.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070318.wclimatee0318/BNStory/Science/home

Are you scared yet? James Lovelock says you ought to be. If he’s right, that cabin on Hudson Bay that I keep talking about in jest will soon be awfully crowded!
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/ethicalliving/story/0,,2034370,00.html

POLITICS

POLLUTION
China’s Rivers in Collapse: Oh hear ye, hear ye! Witness the result of worshipping the God of Economic Growth above all else.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IC24Ad01.html

ENVIRONMENT

OTHER
Marketing to the World’s Poorest: All right, its official: no one in the business world has any ethics (or shame) anymore. This is revolting1
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/03/19/PM200703194.html

Why more no longer equals better: An excerpt from Bill Mckibben’s latest book, Deep Economy. This looks like a really good book, and I’d be delighted if the library would get it. If anyone else agrees, you can call to request that they get it. The more requests they get, the more likely they’ll buy it! This is a rather long excerpt, but the second link has a shorter article along the same lines if you don’t have time to read the full excerpt.
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/49593/
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0321-22.htm

Website of the Week: Hillbilly Housewife. Fair Warning: This place is ran by a fundamentalist Christian and it shows (to put it mildly). But it is THE best place I’ve found for good, cheap recipes.
http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/

UU Joke of the Week: Arguing with a Unitarian Universalist is like mud wrestling a pig. Pretty soon you realize the pig likes it.

Have a good weekend everybody!
-Rebecca

Social Justice News, 3-16-07

Hey everybody,
Things have been crazy lately, though luckily they’re starting to settle down. The Chorus spring concerts were this past weekend and last night –and they both rocked. We got a standing ovation at Roberts. That was really cool. Even more cool is that my peach tree has its first ever blossom. I watched it open with my own eyes yesterday. I looked out the window of my office and saw something on the tree that looked like a bud. I kept watching –and slowly it started to unfold. The next thing I know it’s a flower! Woot! One of my profs the other day told me that Fox News is one of the “most credible, reliable, sources of news” –and she was serious. HA! That wasn’t so cool. Yesterday the pentagon finally admitted that the situation in Iraq looks like a civil war. They just now got that memo? How slow is communication in the government these days? I mean, come on –it took the Attorney General five months to discover eight of his deputies had been fired, and it took eighteen months or better for the military to discover that they’re in the middle of a shooting match? Gee, I wonder why these two sides keep shooting at each other? They must not like each other very much, huh?

FEATURED ARTICLES
Six Degrees or Less? The end of the world is nigh. And it’s all ready been written about in Nature. Just don’t expect most people to notice until Miami is under water. And then they’ll be complaining that no one warned them!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1480669.ece

Check out these projections! Temp increase, precipitation, frost days, and heat waves for the U.S. through 2100. Anyone else want to move North? I hear land is cheap around Hudson Bay.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-02-27-global-warming_x.htm

Rio Poor Take Over Bank: Some of Brazil’s poor got tired of being ignored by the rich bankers who are funding the illegal takeover of their land. So what did they do? They took over the bank!
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B82FEAF41-1208-42B9-A2AA-38A964A06CFB%7D&language=EN

GOOD NEWS
Australia Outlaws Incandescent Bulbs: Australia is giving the boot to the old-fashioned incandescent bulbs in favor of CFLs. Score one for the planet. Now if they’ll just sign on to Kyoto!
http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/02/20/1632204.shtml

CLIMATE CHANGE
Bush vs. the Polar Bears: Bush has picked another war he can’t win –this one against public support for the polar bears. I can’t wait for the polar bear to be listed on the ESA list. This is going to be a developer’s worst nightmare! (laughing evilly, ha ha ha!)
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/49162/

Sneak Preview of the next IPCC report: Buckle up folks, its going to be a bumpy ride. And while you’re at it, don’t buy any oceanfront property for oh, say a few hundred years. We may have a beach in Huntsville before it all done!
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0315/p04s01-sten.html

Stop BP: The green resistance movement is picking up steam!
http://www.counterpunch.org/schaefer03152007.html
What’s global warming? No, its not kids that don’t know. Apparently, many of our fellow adult Americans have never heard of it. I think these are the folks who watch Fox News and American Idol, think Bill O’Reilly is Jesus reborn, and that NASCAR is the greatest thing, ever. But hey, I could be wrong!
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/23/DDGDNO8ONL1.DTL

POLITICS
Say Vagina, get suspended: Several high school girls were suspended for using the word vagina in a recitation. The (male) principle didn’t like the word. Hmm, I wonder if he would have been so upset if the word used was the anatomically correct word for a certain part of the male body? Somehow I doubt it. Here’s the good news: Eve Ensler is going to appear at the school now. That principle ought to LOVE that.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/03/12/vagina.monologues.suspension.ap/index.html

Nuclear War: Why won’t the press really say what Bush is talking about with Iran? I’m not the only one that’s asking this question.
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0228-28.htm

Go ahead, send us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses: We’ll be happy to lock them up for you. And if we can make a buck doing it, all the better. So what if a nine year old is locked in prison for months or years? It won’t hurt ‘em!
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0228-25.htm

POLLUTION


ENVIRONMENT
Save the Bald Eagle! The bald eagle has rebounded in astounding numbers, and now it may be delisted as an endangered species –which will give developers the go-ahead to move into the prime eagle nesting grounds they’ve been eying for years.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7805391

Environmentalists and the Religious Right finding more common ground: This time on the issue of pollution, and what it’s doing to children and mothers.
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/48631/


OTHER
Welcome to Serfdom: Guess what? Free trade isn’t what its cracked up to be. A rising tide does lift all boats –as long as their yachts. The Land of Opportunity is leaving more and more people in permanent poverty. Welcome back to the Middle Ages. Go say hello to the Lord of the Manor, serf.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0223-09.htm

“Homosexuality is Immoral” says one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Well gee, thanks for insulting me and 10% or better of all humanity with your bigoted remarks, General. I suppose Abu Gharib was moral since those involved were all straight?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070313/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/military_gays;_ylt=AmuDqdebdpIVJlX3EdZ6hKGs0NUE

Mr. Eviction: This guy is despicable.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-evictlawyer14mar14,0,7826559.story?coll=la-home-local

Website of the Week: A brand new magazine, dedicated to conserving resources. Conserve Magazine: http://www.conservemag.com/

UU Joke of the Week: The Universalist thinks God is too good to damn him, while the Unitarian thinks he is too good for God to damn."
Have a good weekend everybody!
-Rebecca