Followups « Tikkunista!

6. Followups

May-18-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: When we’re away for two weeks, there are more items to followup. In Canada, most of the press on the F35 has focussed on the financial debacle, and the lies the Conservatives have used to cover up. But it’s becoming clearer that the plane itself is a disaster, at any price. Then, a long New Yorker article looks in detail at geo-engineering, (correcting global warming by changing the planet) and why we’re probably going to try it, and the political disasters that will ensue. We missed Mother’s Day, but it’s worth noting that it started as a political act, not as a Hallmark promo. And there’s a fine summary of all the things that aren’t torture according to the US. May they never happen to any of us.

* F35: The Jet That Ate The Pentagon The Toronto Star

Already unaffordable, the F-35’s price is headed in one direction — due north. The F-35 isn’t only expensive — it’s way behind schedule. The first plan was to have an initial batch of F-35s available for combat in 2010. Then first deployment was to be 2012. More recently, the military services have said the deployment date is “to be determined.” A new target date of 2019 has been informally suggested in testimony — almost 10 years late.

If the F-35’s performance were spectacular, it might be worth the cost and wait. But it is not. Even if the aircraft lived up to its original specifications — and it will not — it would be a huge disappointment. The reason it is such a mediocrity also explains why it is unaffordable and, for years to come, unobtainable.

….This grotesquely unpromising plan has already resulted in multitudes of problems — and 80 per cent of the flight testing remains. A virtual flying piano, the F-35 lacks the F-16’s agility in the air-to-air mode and the F-15E’s range and payload in the bombing mode, and it can’t even begin to compare to the A-10 at low-altitude close air support for troops engaged in combat. Worse yet, it won’t be able to get into the air as often to perform any mission — or, just as important, to train pilots — because its complexity prolongs maintenance and limits availability. The aircraft most like the F-35, the F-22, was able to get into the air on average for only 15 hours per month in 2010 when it was fully operational….

The bottom line: The F-35 is not the wonder its advocates claim. It is a gigantic performance disappointment, and in some respects a step backward. The problems, integral to the design, cannot be fixed without starting from a clean sheet of paper.

* Geo-Engineering The New Yorker

For years, even to entertain the possibility of human intervention on such a scale—geoengineering, as the practice is known—has been denounced as hubris. Predicting long-term climatic behavior by using computer models has proved difficult, and the notion of fiddling with the planet’s climate based on the results generated by those models worries even scientists who are fully engaged in the research. “There will be no easy victories, but at some point we are going to have to take the facts seriously,’’ David Keith, a professor of engineering and public policy at Harvard and one of geoengineering’s most thoughtful supporters, told me. “Nonetheless,’’ he added, “it is hyperbolic to say this, but no less true: when you start to reflect light away from the planet, you can easily imagine a chain of events that would extinguish life on earth.” There is only one reason to consider deploying a scheme with even a tiny chance of causing such a catastrophe: if the risks of not deploying it were clearly higher. No one is yet prepared to make such a calculation, but researchers are moving in that direction.

….Unfortunately, the least risky approach politically is also the most dangerous: do nothing until the world is faced with a cataclysm and then slip into a frenzied crisis mode. The political implications of any such action would be impossible to overstate. What would happen, for example, if one country decided to embark on such a program without the agreement of other countries? Or if industrialized nations agreed to inject sulfur particles into the stratosphere and accidentally set off a climate emergency that caused drought in China, India, or Africa?

“Let’s say the Chinese government decides their monsoon strength, upon which hundreds of millions of people rely for sustenance, is weakening,” Caldeira said. “They have reason to believe that making clouds right near the ocean might help, and they started to do that, and the Indians found out and believed—justifiably or not—that it would make their monsoon worse. What happens then? Where do we go to discuss that? We have no mechanism to settle that dispute.”

* The Radical History of Mother’s Day Nation of Change

Mother’s Day began in America in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Written in response to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, her proclamation called on women to use their position as mothers to influence society in fighting for an end to all wars. She called for women to stand up against the unjust violence of war through their roles as wife and mother, to protest the futility of their sons killing other mothers’ sons.

Howe wrote:

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

* Would the Last Civil Right in America Please Remember to Close the Door on Its Way Out? Lowering the Bar

Q: What do all of the following have in common?

Prolonged isolation;
Deprivation of light;
Exposure to prolonged periods of light and/or darkness;
Extreme variations in temperature;
Sleep adjustment;
Threats of severe physical abuse;
Death threats;
Administration of psychotropic drugs;
Shackling and manacling for hours at a time;
Use of “stress” positions;
Noxious fumes that caused pain to eyes and nose;
Withholding of any mattress, pillow, sheet or blanket;
Constant surveillance;
Incommunicado detention, including denial of all contact with family and legal counsel for a 21-month period;
Denial of medical care for serious and potentially life-threatening ailments, including chest pain and difficulty breathing, as well as for treatment of the chronic, extreme pain caused by being forced to endure stress positions, resulting in severe and continuing mental and physical harm, pain, and profound disruption of the senses and personality.

Any guesses? Time’s up!

A: They’re all things that government officials could do to an American citizen and still claim later that they didn’t know they were “torturing” that citizen, according to a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

April 27th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 16

Apr-27-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: Another “View from the Other Side”, this one from Africa by Mama Hope. As the tragic civil war in Syria goes on, Western realists such as Stephen Walt argue increasingly against Western involvement (TL:DR Libya) leaving Turkey as the only relevant outside power. And in Canada, a panicked Conservative Government argues that independent scientists really want to be controlled: Environment Minister Peter Kent claims, “Many of our younger scientists seek advice from our departmental communications staff.” Pull the other one, Peter….

* African Men, Hollywood Stereotypes (video) -via Boing Boing

Wouldn’t it be better if African men weren’t always depicted as warlords or victims?

* Europe Has Left Syria To A Distinctly Ottoman Fate Timothy Garton Ash The Guardian

US president Barack Obama and French president Nicolas Sarkozy have elections to win. British prime minister David Cameron is too busy eating cold pasties and drumming up trade in the Far East. They will express outrage, and try to ratchet up economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure through the UN, but don’t expect any Libya or Kosovo-type intervention any time soon.

In these circumstances, it is other powers that will determine the fate of the Syrian people. In the near future, Turkey will be more important than Britain, Iran than Germany, Saudi Arabia than France, Russia than America. In Syria, all these regional powers pursue their own national interests, defined not just in economic and military but also in cultural and ideological terms. So there’s a struggle between Shia, post-revolutionary Iran and Sunni, reactionary Saudi Arabia, post-imperial Russia and neo-Ottoman Turkey, not to mention distant but mighty China – a vital swing vote among the permanent members of the UN security council.

* Environment Canada To Monitor What Scientists Say

Government media minders are being dispatched to an international polar conference in Montreal to monitor and record what Environment Canada scientists say to reporters.The scientists will present the latest findings on everything from seabirds to Arctic ice, and Environment Canada’s media office plans to intervene when the media approaches the researchers, Postmedia News has learned.

…“Until now such a crude heavy-handed approach to muzzle Canadian scientists, prior to a significant international Arctic science conference hosted by Canada, would have been unthinkable,” says a senior scientist, who has worked for Environment Canada for decades. He asked not to be identified due to the possibility of repercussions from Ottawa. “The memo is clearly designed to intimidate government scientists from Environment Canada,” he says. “Why they would do such an unethical thing, I can’t even begin to imagine, but it is enormously embarrassing to us in the international world of science.”

April 20th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 15

Apr-20-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: Using some of last week’s pieces, I put together a perspective on what I see happening with Israel. Fell free to disagree, of course. The Guardian looks at Israel’s building a security fence, regular correspondent (sometime reader) Linda alerted me to “Thrive” a movie about conspiracies controlling your life (or not). And a great Titanic line that demanded inclusion rounds it all off.

* Losing the Struggle Peter Marmorek

Uri Avnery says that G_d asked Israel when it was born in 1947 what it wanted to be, and Israel answered that it wanted to be Jewish, democratic, and stretch from sea to sea (Mediterranean to Jordan). G_d thought about this, and said that Israel could have any two of those, but not all three. There was a time, maybe up until recently, when Israel could have settled for democratic and Jewish, and taken the ‘67 borders, and allowed Palestine to be a separate country. But that time has passed. Now the Jewish settlers own so much land in Palestine and use so much of the water in Palestine that it is no longer possible to create any real Palestinian state. “Real” means a contiguous state with enough power to satisfy the Palestinian people. Nor is it possible to pull the settlers out of Palestine, as the power in the Israeli parliament depends on rightwing support. But leaving the settlers there without Israeli protection is also impossible, politically. So Israel will stretch from sea to sea, and now must choose between democratic or Jewish.

…There are reasons why this has happened, both because of Israeli and Palestinian intransigence, and because of unwillingness to settle for less than they wanted on both sides. And at this point the reasons why we have gotten to this point don’t matter. In the realistic world of politics there are only two questions that matter: where are we now, and where do we go from here. So, where are we?

* Israel Extends New Border Fence But Critics Say It Is A Sign Of Weakness Harriet Sherwood The Guardian

It cuts a steel swath through the stark wilderness where Israel and Egypt meet, glinting in the desert sun as it snakes across barren hills and sandy plateaus. Wielding blowtorches at the base of the five-metre-high (16ft) barrier are some of the very men the border fence is in part designed to keep out: illegal immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, now working as cheap construction labour for Israeli contractors.

Israel’s newest frontier fence is being erected at high speed along the 150-mile boundary between the Sinai and Negev deserts. Its construction, due to be completed by the end of this year, was accelerated after last summer’s cross-border attack in which eight Israelis were killed, and amid rising alarm about the number of refugees crossing into the Jewish state.

Once it is finished, Israel will be almost completely enclosed by steel, barbed wire and concrete, leaving only the southern border with Jordan between the Dead and Red Seas without a physical barrier. That, too, may be fenced in the future.

* “Thrive” Debunked (Thanks, Linda)

Thrive promotes conspiracy theories that are based on an imaginary division between “us” and “them.” “We” are many and well-meaning but victimized; while “they” are a tiny, greedy and immensely powerful few who are masterfully organized, who are purposefully causing massive disasters in order to cull the population, and who will do absolutely anything in their quest to achieve total world domination. I think the allure of this way of thinking is that it distracts and absolves us from the troubling truth that the real source of the problem is in all of us, and in the economic systems we have collectively produced. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every heart”

* Titanic Cleverness (via Reddit)

I renamed my iPod ‘The Titanic’ so that when I plug it in, iTunes tells me “The Titanic is syncing.” That is all.

April 13th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 14

Apr-13-2012 | Comments (1)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: Two pieces followup on last week’s Death of Freedom section. Naomi Wolfe is clear and cogent about what’s happening. And the New Yorker is the last piece we’ll run on the Apple and Foxconn issue. It points, eloquently, out just how solipsistic it is to pretend this issue is about us. (Besides, it’s a great title!)

* How The US Uses Sexual Humiliation As A Political Tool Naomi Wolf Guardian

In a five-four ruling this week, the supreme court decided that anyone can be strip-searched upon arrest for any offense, however minor, at any time. This horror show ruling joins two recent horror show laws: the NDAA, which lets anyone be arrested forever at any time, and HR 347, the “trespass bill”, which gives you a 10-year sentence for protesting anywhere near someone with secret service protection. These criminalizations of being human follow, of course, the mini-uprising of the Occupy movement.

Is American strip-searching benign? The man who had brought the initial suit, Albert Florence, described having been told to “turn around. Squat and cough. Spread your cheeks.” He said he felt humiliated: “It made me feel like less of a man.”

In surreal reasoning, justice Anthony Kennedy explained that this ruling is necessary because the 9/11 bomber could have been stopped for speeding. How would strip searching him have prevented the attack? Did justice Kennedy imagine that plans to blow up the twin towers had been concealed in a body cavity? In still more bizarre non-logic, his and the other justices’ decision rests on concerns about weapons and contraband in prison systems. But people under arrest – that is, who are not yet convicted – haven’t been introduced into a prison population….

* In Michigan, Cops Copy The Contents Of Iphones In 2 Minutes The Next Web

It has emerged that Michigan State Police have been using a high-tech mobile forensics device that can extract information from over 3,000 models of mobile phone, potentially grabbing all media content from your iPhone in under two minutes.The CelleBrite UFED is a handheld device that Michigan officers have been using since August 2008 to copy information from mobile phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The device can circumvent password restrictions and extract existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags.

* Do Chinese Factory Workers Dream of iPads? The New Yorker

What’s wrong with a world in which a worker on an iPhone assembly line can’t even afford to buy one? As “This American Life” host Ira Glass put it at the end of the episode retracting the original Daisey broadcast, “As somebody who owns these products, should I feel bad?”

The simple narrative equating American demand and Chinese suffering is appealing, especially at a time when many Americans feel guilty about their impact on the world. It’s also inaccurate and disrespectful. We must be peculiarly self-obsessed to imagine we have the power to drive tens of millions of people on the other side of the world to migrate and suffer in terrible ways. China produces goods for markets all over the world, including for its own consumers, thanks to low costs, a large and educated workforce, and a flexible manufacturing system that responds rapidly to market demands. To imagine that we have willed this universe into being is simply solipsistic. It is also demeaning to the workers. We are not at the center of this story—we are minor players in theirs. By focussing on ourselves and our gadgets, we have reduced the human beings at the other end to invisibility, as tiny and interchangeable as the parts of a mobile phone.

April 7th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 13

Apr-07-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: Now that climate change science is clear, politicians have a tough choice: are they going to listen to scientists, or wealthy campaign supporters? We have a theory…. Boingboing highlights another outrage similar to the Tayvon Martin case, and Apple pushes Foxconn to major reforms on its work practices. Teju Cole (a Nigerian-American writer and historian) wrote five tweets on the Kony issue, and what it reveals. They caused such a furore that the Atlantic had him write a piece about them. Hugely entertaining politics.

* Nasa Scientist: Climate Change Is A Moral Issue On A Par With Slavery The Guardian

Averting the worst consequences of human-induced climate change is a “great moral issue” on a par with slavery, according to the leading Nasa climate scientist Prof Jim Hansen. He argues that storing up expensive and destructive consequences for society in future is an “injustice of one generation to others”.

Hansen, who will next Tuesday be awarded the prestigious Edinburgh Medal for his contribution to science, will also in his acceptance speech call for a worldwide tax on all carbon emissions. In his lecture, Hansen will argue that the challenge facing future generations from climate change is so urgent that a flat-rate global tax is needed to force immediate cuts in fossil fuel use. Ahead of receiving the award – which has previously been given to Sir David Attenborough, the ecologist James Lovelock, and the economist Amartya Sen – Hansen told the Guardian that the latest climate models had shown the planet was on the brink of an emergency. He said humanity faces repeated natural disasters from extreme weather events which would affect large areas of the planet.

* Black Marine Veteran, 68, Shot Dead By Police After Wearable Medical Alert Gadget Went Off In Error Boing Boing

The Trayvon Martin story remains in national headlines this week, but little media attention has been paid to a similarly troubling case: that of Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., a 68-year-old Marine vet killed in his home last November by police officers in White Plains, NY. The officers were responding to a false alarm triggered by Chamberlain’s medical alert pendant. Instead of helping the man, who had a heart condition, they broke down his front door, tasered him, reportedly called him the “n-word” and mocked him, then shot him dead. Audio throughout the incident was recorded by his medical alert device.

* Foxconn, Apple Supplier, Vows Reforms in China New York Times

Apple, which recently joined the Fair Labor Association, had asked the group to investigate plants manufacturing iPhones, iPads and other devices. In past months, a growing outcry over conditions at such factories has drawn protests and petitions, and several labor rights organizations started independently scrutinizing Apple’s suppliers. Earlier this week a collection of advocacy groups sent Apple an open letter calling on the company to “ensure decent working conditions at all its suppliers.”

Since January, Apple has released the names of 156 of its suppliers — which it had previously declined to identify — and has started posting regular monitoring reports on the number of hours worked by factory employees. Apple, which has audited its suppliers since 2006, said in a statement Thursday that it shares “the F.L.A.’s goal of improving lives and raising the bar for manufacturing companies everywhere.”

* The White Savior Industrial Complex Teju Cole The Atlantic

These tweets were retweeted, forwarded, and widely shared by readers. They migrated beyond Twitter to blogs, Tumblr, Facebook, and other sites; I’m told they generated fierce arguments. As the days went by, the tweets were reproduced in their entirety on the websites of the Atlantic and the New York Times, and they showed up on German, Spanish, and Portuguese sites. … These sentences of mine, written without much premeditation, had touched a nerve. I heard back from many people who were grateful to have read them. I heard back from many others who were disappointed or furious. Many people, too many to count, called me a racist. One person likened me to the Mau Mau. The Atlantic writer who’d reproduced them, while agreeing with my broader points, described the language in which they were expressed as “resentment.”

5- The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.

7- I deeply respect American sentimentality, the way one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it is deadly.

March 23rd, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 11

Mar-23-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: Tikkunista ran the “This American Life” show below, so it’s only right to run the retraction. Ira does an extraordinary job of making a one hour retraction a fascinating and powerful story in its own right. And we follow up our Drone section with a painfully funny card, one that may soon be coming to a mailbox near you.

* Retraction This American Life

Ira Glass writes: I have difficult news. We’ve learned that Mike Daisey’s story about Apple in China – which we broadcast in January – contained significant fabrications. We’re retracting the story because we can’t vouch for its truth. This is not a story we commissioned. It was an excerpt of Mike Daisey’s acclaimed one-man show “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” in which he talks about visiting a factory in China that makes iPhones and other Apple products.

The China correspondent for the public radio show Marketplace tracked down the interpreter that Daisey hired when he visited Shenzhen China. The interpreter disputed much of what Daisey has been saying on stage and on our show. On this week’s episode of This American Life, we will devote the entire hour to detailing the errors in “Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory.”

Daisey lied to me and to This American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast. That doesn’t excuse the fact that we never should’ve put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake.

* Hello, You’ve Been Targeted For a US Drone Assassination Tom the Dancing Bug Boing Boing (Toon)

5. Progress, It’s Just a Click Away

Mar-23-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Despite occasional good news, much of what you read here isn’t reason for hope and optimism. So here are a few things you can do… a list of three causes I suspect any Tikkunista reader would support, and a fascinating discussion in the coming week that any reader would enjoy, Take a second or two, and click through to support one of these. Remember, no one snowflake thinks it is responsible for the avalanche, yet avalanches happen.

* Make a Call For Tibet

Thousands of Tibetans and Tibet supporters around the world Make a Call for Tibet. This global lobbying initiative aims to bring Tibet and the ongoing critical situation to the attention of elected representatives around the world and to ask for their support. Please join and stand in solidarity with advocates for Tibet by committing to Make a Call for Tibet yourself. It’s easy, click here to see how.

* Avaaz – RIP Amina

Days ago, 16 year-old Amina Filali, raped, beaten and forced to wed her rapist, killed herself — the only way she saw to escape Article 475 in Morocco’s penal code which allows a rapist to avoid prosecution and a long prison sentence by marrying his victim if she is a minor. Since 2006, the government has promised to strike this down and pass legislation prohibiting violence against women, but it hasn’t happened.

* Avaaz – Stop Rape And Murder For Profit

When security forces of a Canadian mining company brutally evicted Mayan families from their villages in Guatemala, eleven women were raped, a community leader was killed, and a young man paralyzed. Now villagers are standing up and suing HudBay Minerals for these horrific crimes — but they need our help to match the corporate legal firepower and win their case!

* Searching for Democracy in Israel Beit Zetoun

As with Alexis de Tocqueville, who travelled through America in the 1830’s looking for democracy, Canadian playwright Arthur Milner recently toured Israel — the “only democracy in the Middle East” — seeking the nature and character of democracy in Israel. With characteristic wit and insight, Milner shares his observations and challenges Canadians to look with clear glasses at democracy in “the Jewish state” and the future of all its citizens. To be followed by Q&A and conversation. Tues March 27th, 7–9

March 16th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 10

Mar-16-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: An extraordinary piece by Israel’s greatest writer, David Grossman, starts the followups from two weeks ago. Then a fascinating two minute slide show explains what Earth can expect over the next seven billion years, should current apocalyptic predictions prove wrong. Finally, Foreign Policy’s Stephen Walt looks at the ten most important aspects of the Iran War debate that the media are not giving us. There are three shown, but the other seven are equally insightful.

* David Grossman: Why? Who died? Haaretz, via epalestine

Last Friday Haaretz did something unusual: it placed an opinion piece on top of its front page. But it wasn’t just an ordinary opinion piece, it was written by one of the country foremost novelists, David Grossman. The article, like Emile Zola’s J’accuse, to which it has been compared, was a moral critique. Many who read it were very moved. But the moral missive never appeared in English… And of course translating Grossman is not easy, he is a master of the language and the art of writing.I have no idea whether I have done justice to this work. But it needed to be translated. The message is too important.

* Our World. Putting Things In Perspective. 2 minute animated gif via Reddit

A hugely fascinating series of slides showing what will happen on earth and elsewhere over the next 7+ billion years

* Top Ten Media Failures In The Iran War Debate Stephen M. Walt

#2: Loose talk about Iran’s “nuclear [weapons] program.” A recurring feature of Iran war coverage has been tendency to refer to Iran’s “nuclear weapons program” as if its existence were an established fact. U.S. intelligence services still believe that Iran does not have an active program, and the IAEA has also declined to render that judgment either. Interestingly, both theTimes’ public editor Arthur Brisbane and Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton have recently chided their own organizations for muddying this issue….

#3: Obsessing about Ahmadinejad. A typical insertion into discussions of Iran is to make various references to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, usually including an obligatory reference to his penchant for Holocaust denial and his famously mis-translated statement about Israel “vanishing from the page of time.” This feature is often linked to the issue of whether Iran’s leaders are rational or not. But the obsession with Ahmadinejad is misleading in several ways: he has little or no influence over Iran’s national security policy, his power has been declining sharply in recent months, and Supreme Leader Ali Khameini — who does make the key decisions — has repeatedly said that nuclear weapons are contrary to Islam….

#7: Exaggerating Israel’s capabilities. In a very real sense, this whole war scare has been driven by the possibility that Israel might feel so endangered that they would launch a preventive war on their own, even if U.S. leaders warned them not to. But the IDF doesn’t have the capacity to take out Iran’s new facility at Fordow, because they don’t have any aircraft that can carry a bomb big enough to penetrate the layers of rock that protect the facilities. And if they can’t take out Fordow, then they can’t do much to delay Iran’s program at all and the only reason they might strike is to try to get the United States dragged in. In short, the recent war scare-whose taproot is the belief that Israel might strike on its own-may be based on a mirage.

March 3rd, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 9

Mar-02-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: We return to the Apocalypse, with an article by essayist nonpareil Adam Gopnick, on Elaine Pagels’ new book about Revelations. Bottom line? It was a coded screed about current events, not a prediction about the future. As opposed to BP’s report on their oil spill which was complete fantasy. But the truth is seeping out, faster than an uncapped oil-well.

* Elaine Pagels on the Book of Revelation Adam Gopnik The New Yorker

Perhaps what most strikes the naïve reader of the Book of Revelation is what a close-run thing the battle is. When God finally gets tired of waiting it out and decides to end things, the back-and-forth between dragons and serpents and sea monsters and Jesus is less like a scouring of the stables than like a Giants-Patriots Super Bowl. It seems that Manichaeanism—bad god vs. good god—is the natural religion of mankind and that all faiths bend toward the Devil, to make sense of God’s furious impotence. A god omniscient and omnipotent and also powerless to stop evil remains a theological perplexity, even as it becomes a prop of faith. It gives you the advantage of clarity—only one guy worth worshipping—at the loss of lucidity: if he’s so great, why is he so weak?

You can’t help feeling, along with Pagels, a pang that the Gnostic poems, so much more affecting in their mystical, pantheistic rapture, got interred while Revelation lives on. But you also have to wonder if there ever was a likely alternative. Don’t squishy doctrines of transformation through personal illumination always get marginalized in mass movements? As Stephen Batchelor has recently shown, the open-minded, non-authoritarian side of Buddhism, too, quickly succumbed to its theocratic side, gasping under the weight of those heavy statues. The histories of faiths are all essentially the same: a vague and ambiguous millennial doctrine preached by a charismatic founder, Marx or Jesus; mystical variants held by the first generations of followers; and a militant consensus put firmly in place by the power-achieving generation. Bakunin, like the Essenes, never really had a chance. The truth is that punitive, hysterical religions thrive, while soft, mystical ones must hide their scriptures somewhere in the hot sand.

* BP Misrepresented Gulf Oil Spill NationofChange

Gulf Rescue Alliance (GRA) has just sent a briefing package to the Attorney Generals of Alabama and Louisiana which presents evidence that:

• The unmentioned existence of a 3rd Macondo well (the real source of the explosion, DWH sinking and ensuing oil spill).

The current condition of this well being such that it can never be properly capped.

The compromised condition of the seabed floor being such that there are multiple unnatural sources of gushers continuing to pour into the Gulf, with Corexit dispersant still suppressing its visibility.
That the highly publicized capped well (Well A) never occurred as reported, and in fact was an abandoned well, hence it was never the source of the millions of gallons released into the Gulf.

Feb. 24th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 8

Feb-24-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: Our women’s focus of a few weeks past somehow missed this classic 1960s ad. An absolute must-see. Scientists in Canada protest their muzzle gags, and RSA tries a new and lovely approach to animating, this time on some classic Michael Pollan food rules.

* How To Drug A Woman Into Doing Your Housework boingboing (click to enbigify)

* Scientists And Journalists Call On Harper To End Research Gag Order

Groups representing scientists and science writers sent an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday calling on his government to stop “muzzling” federal researchers. The release of the letter coincided with a panel discussion at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference, which heard numerous examples of alleged government interference and reporters being denied timely access to scientists.

Such control is sinking morale among scientists and denying the public access to important information about climate, agriculture and the environment, the conference heard. “Why are we suppressing really good news to Canadians – that is, successful science being done in federal government labs?” asked Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria. “Why don’t we open it up? There’s nothing to be feared but success.”

* Michael Pollan’s Food Rules Animated in Stop-Motion Brain Pickings

The fine folks at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, known for their brilliant sketchnote animations of talks by prominent authors and scientists, recently launched a competition, inviting emerging filmmakers to bring RSA talks to life in fresh ways. This fantastic stop-motion entry by Marija Jacimovic and Benoit Detalle, which took more than three weeks to create, is based on Michael Pollan’s iconic Food Rules

Feb. 17th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 7

Feb-17-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: We start with two more perspectives on Syria. Robert Fisk begs to differ with the prevailing view that Assad is on the verge of falling, and has some powerful backing for his perspectives, as always. Meanwhile Stephen Zunes puts the Russian and Chinese vetoes of the anti-Assad UN resolution into a much-needed historical context. We have a list of the 100 best SFF novels, and a look at green energy in the third world, and the roles it can fill there.

* From Washington This Looks Like Syria’s ‘Benghazi Moment’. But Not From Here Robert Fisk The Independent

But look east, and what does Bashar see? Loyal Iran standing with him. Loyal Iraq – Iran’s new best friend in the Arab world – refusing to impose sanctions. And to the west, loyal little Lebanon refusing to impose sanctions. Thus from the border of Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, Assad has a straight line of alliances which should prevent, at least, his economic collapse.

The trouble is that the West has been so deluged with stories and lectures and think-tank nonsense about the ghastly Iran and the unfaithful Iraq and the vicious Syria and the frightened Lebanon that it is almost impossible to snap off these delusional pictures and realise that Assad is not alone. That is not to praise Assad or to support his continuation. But it’s real.

* Putting the UN Veto in Perspective NationofChange

What is striking is the response from US officials and pundits so roundly condemning the use of the veto by these two permanent members of the Security Council to protect the Syrian regime from accountability for its savage repression against its own citizens.

A little perspective is required here: Since 1970, China has used its veto power eight times, and Russia (and the former Soviet Union) has used its veto power 13 times. However, the United States has used its veto power 83 times, primarily in defense of allies accused of violating international humanitarian law. Forty-two of these US vetoes were to protect Israel from criticism for illegal activities, including suspected war crimes. To this day, Israel occupies and colonizes a large swath of southwestern Syria in violation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions, which the United States has successfully blocked from enforcing. Yet, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insists that it is the Russians and Chinese who have “neutered” the Security Council in its ability to defend basic human rights.

* The 100 Greatest Science Fiction or Fantasy Novels of All Time This Recording

A good list, though the fun of such things is always where one differs. Your editor’s score: 51/100

* World’s 1.6 Billion Poor Going GreenJuan Cole Informed Comment

Renewable energy is often thought of as an initiative of advanced, sane countries such as Portugal and Germany. But there is another arena where green energy is making an impact– on the lives of the world’s poorest populations, in the global South. For them, it is not a luxury or prudent planning for the future or a dutiful attempt to save the planet from the looming catastrophe of climate change fueled by humans pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Rather, it is a way of solving their present, low-tech energy crisis.

Kevin Bullis explains that many villagers use expensive kerosene for cooking and heating, and to fuel lamps for light. Cell phones have spread rapidly in Africa and Asia (where often there is no grid of copper wires or underground fiber optic cables and so mobile phone towers allow them to leapfrog to a newer technology). But given that many villagers do not have electricity, they have to take their phones to private charging centers and pay an arm and a leg for the recharging.

Both kerosene and the private charging stands can be replaced right now, in the present, with cheaper solar batteries. For light, solar-powered light-emitting diode (LED) panels are much cheaper than light bulbs powered by burning kerosene.

Feb. 3rd, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 5

Feb-03-2012 | Comments (1)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: All the followups have to do with extremes. We start with an In Focus photo spread on this week’s “Tough Guy” competition, another extreme sport many readers will not feel the need to partake of. But all readers partake in the debate on Foxconn, maker of the computers on which you read this. We link to a fine debate on Reddit: the excerpted quote is the top comment and makes a strong argument for Foxconn as a positive role in China. Many respondents don’t agree…. Continuing with our Apocalypse Soon investigation. we link to the recently web-restored Apocamon a comic adaptation of the Book of Revelations as performed by Pokemon. And following last week’s brain feature, we look at the ethics of upsizing your intelligence.

* Tough Guy 2012 In Focus – The Atlantic

Billed as “the toughest race in the world,” the Tough Guy 2012 competition took place yesterday in Perton, England. Every year, thousands of men and women tackle the course, which is described on the Tough Guy website as eight country miles filled with freezing mud and “barbed wire, cuts, scrapes, burns, dehydration, hypothermia, acrophobia, claustrophobia, electric shocks, sprains, twists, joint dislocation and broken bones.” Gathered here are some images of the fun had by the tough competitors in this year’s event.

* Foxconn And Workers Rights Reddit comment

“In a poor country like ours, the alternative to low-paid jobs isn’t well-paid ones, it’s no jobs at all.”-Jesús Heroles, Fmr. Mexican Ambassador to the US

I’m not going to lie, Foxconn doesn’t sound like a terribly fun place to work. That being said, it’s crucial to note that Foxconn employees are not slaves. Every employee is there of their own accord and is perfectly free to leave whenever they want (in fact, Foxconn has a 30-40% turnover rate). That’s critically important to realise. It’s important because the fact that someone would choose to work at Foxconn means that it’s better than any other option they have. Remember that for the vast majority of Foxconn workers, the alternative is farming rice in a country where there’s 1 tractor for every 200 farmers. It should be axiomatic that if a person is offered a choice, they will take the option that improves their life. Unless you’re of the opinion that all people to the East of the Himalayas are stricken with some kind of mass delusion, the fact that people are wilfully choosing to work at Foxconn should be indisputable evidence that Foxconn is having a positive effect on their lives.

* Apocamon: The Final Judgement (NSFW) Written by St. John the Divine, Illustrated by Patrick Farley

Warning: Some people will find this offensive and rude; others will find it very funny. Caveat lector.

* The Ethics Of Brain Boosting Oxford University

Recent research in Oxford and elsewhere has shown that one type of brain stimulation in particular, called transcranial direct current stimulation or TDCS, can be used to improve language and maths abilities, memory, problem solving, attention, even movement.

Critically, this is not just helping to restore function in those with impaired abilities. TDCS can be used to enhance healthy people’s mental capacities. Indeed, most of the research so far has been carried out in healthy adults.

TDCS uses electrodes placed on the outside of the head to pass tiny currents across regions of the brain for 20 minutes or so. The currents of 1–2 mA make it easier for neurons in these brain regions to fire. It is thought that this enhances the making and strengthening of connections involved in learning and memory. The technique is painless, all indications at the moment are that it is safe, and the effects can last over the long term.

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6. Followups

April 27th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 16

April 20th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 15

April 13th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 14

April 7th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 13

March 23rd, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 11

5. Progress, It’s Just a Click Away

March 16th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 10

March 3rd, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 9

Feb. 24th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 8

Feb. 17th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 7

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