Jun 29, 2012

Interviewing Giants:Tariq Ali & Noam Chomsky






While Julian Assange is still holed up in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London with salivating vultures flying overhead trying to get their claws into his hide and drag him back to the US where he will more than likely be imprisoned for life, he is making the most of what little freedom (& possibly life) he has left. He has been interviewing a diverse group of people on his show whose voices are pretty much drowned out by the mindless blather of half-wits in the mainstream. As I've repeatedly stated on this blog, think for yourself: truth is scattered all over the place & it is up to us to do the digging. Remember George Orwell: In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act. Also Bertrand Russell:  Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do...

Stay alert

OneLove

:::MME:::

 

Jun 27, 2012

Exploding A Myth



OneLove


:::MME:::

Poet's Nook: "Forever Oneness" by Bee Lake (Aboriginal poet)

 
 
 
 
 
Forever Oneness,
who sings to us in silence,
who teaches us through each other.
Guide my steps with strength and wisdom.
May I see the lessons as I walk,
honor the Purpose of all things.
Help me touch with respect,
always speak from behind my eyes. 
Let me observe, not judge.
May I cause no harm,
and leave music and beauty after my visit.
When I return to forever
may the circle be closed
and the spiral be broader.


OneLove

                                                                          :::MME:::

MME's (Double) Jam Of The Day





Urban Folk singer/songwriter Fetsum is definitely one to keep an eye on.  As a child of Eritrean revolutionaries, born in Egypt &  raised in Rome and Stuttgart, he brings a plethora of influences to his music. His latest CD, Colors Of Hope, is excellent & I highly recommend it. My favorite track is the instrumental piece, Birth Of A River - the melody has a chilled, meditative feel to it. Check it out:


Birth Of A River by Fetsum on Grooveshark






OneLove


:::MME:::

Jun 25, 2012

Invented Realities

(The dumbing-down of a nation - how utterly tragic....)



Stay alert


:::MME:::

Remembering Michael Jackson






(Today marks three years since Michael Jackson passed away..his legacy continues......)


OneLove


:::MME:::

Expanding Waistlines Threaten The Planet (..drop the donut, big fella..)

 (This interesting article highlights the dysfunctional ethos of consumerism which is inextricably linked to consecrated mindless entertainment, instant gratification, sociopathic greed &pharmaceutical salvation. —It was taken from Cosmos Magazine)


 If the human race keeps growing fatter at American rates, the Earth may face a rise in food demand equal to that of nearly a billion extra people, British researchers warned.
Expanding waistlines in the rich world pose a grave threat to our planet's finite resources, said the team, arguing that a population explosion in the Third World was often wrongly singled out as the chief menace
.
"If all countries had the BMI distribution of the USA, human biomass would increase by 58 million tonnes, an increase in mass equivalent to an extra 935 million people of average body mass," said the researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Heavier body requires more energy

A heavier body requires more energy, obtained from food, in both its active and restive states.
The world's over-15 population in 2005, when it was estimated at 4.6 billion, weighed a total 287 million tonnes, said the team – an average of 62kg (137 pounds) per individual.
Of the total, 15 million tonnes were ascribed to overweight – a mass equivalent to 242 million people of average weight.
Biomass due to obesity was put at 3.5 million tonnes, the equivalent of about 56 million average-weight individuals.

“Everybody is getting fatter”

A person is considered overweight if his body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fat based on height and weight, is over 25, while a BMI over 30 qualifies one as obese.
The food energy used to fuel the excess kilograms that overweight people carry around could nourish more than 100 million extra average-weight individuals, the team wrote in the journal BMC Public Health.
"The average (weight) is increasing everywhere. Everybody is getting fatter, even the thin people are getting fatter," co-author Ian Roberts said.
"When people talk about the Earth and how many people it can maintain, they usually think of what is the population and how much is the population growing. Very quickly, people start pointing fingers at poor people in poor countries having too many babies."

“One has to start pointing the finger at fat populations"

But it was a mistake to count the number of mouths that need feeding and not the amount of flesh that needs sustenance, he said.
"Once you start thinking in terms of flesh, actually one has to start pointing the finger at fat populations in wealthy countries as well," said Roberts.
"It is not just about family planning in Africa".
The team said North America had six percent of the world's population, but 34 percent of mass attributed to obesity, compared to 61 percent of the population and 13 percent obesity mass for Asia.
"One tonne of human biomass corresponds to approximately 12 adults in North America and 17 adults in Asia," said the paper.

Food price determined partly by demand

Seventy-four percent of the North American population was overweight, compared to 56 percent in Europe, 24 percent in Asia and 29 percent in Africa.
And in consuming more than they needed, rich consumers were also driving up prices, said Roberts.
"There is a certain amount of food on the Earth and the price is determined partly by demand," he explained.
"Over-consumption in wealthy fat countries contributes to under-consumption in poor, lean countries."
The world's nations are meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for a UN Conference on Sustainable Development, discussing ways to end abuse of Earth's resources while also addressing poverty and hunger.

Related articles

Jun 24, 2012

Musings






Humanity, I love you
because you are perpetually
putting the secret of life
in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down on it.

- e.e. cummings



OneLove

:::MME:::

Jun 22, 2012

The Mad Uncle in the Attic by John Atcheson



Listen.  Can you hear the Mad Uncle in the attic? His muffled shriekings are getting louder as the myths, deceptions and delusions we’ve been living on evaporate one by one in the face of reality. 

Can you feel that sickening thrill as we poise atop this Sisyphean peak we call capitalism, right before the inevitable, nauseating plunge back down into reality?

Can you smell the stench from the soon-to-fail Rio plus 20 meeting as we con ourselves into believing we can snatch a bit more time at the peak if only we could steal yet more of our children’s children’s children’s birthright?

Ah, but we – plutocrats and people alike -- all beg, can’t we keep this damned Uncle locked up for just a little more time.  Maybe until this election is over.  Or until we’ve extracted a little more money from a fossil-fueled economy based on greed and exploitation. Or until … oh, I don’t know … until we’ve bled the last iota of money from the 99%?  Or at least until … I get mine?

Can’t we pretend for just one more generation that capitalism – pure, unconstrained capitalism, the kind Reagan promised us would bring morning to America – isn’t instead bringing mourning to America, and to the world?

Can’t we just pretend, for one more generation, that the whole infinite growth on a finite world thing isn’t just a giant, tragic Ponzi Scheme designed to sell out the future?

 Can’t we pass this problem onto them?

Can’t we use buzz words and sound bites to drown out the lunatic?  Words like socialist or redistribution or – most dreaded of all – communism.  Can’t we keep pretending that capitalism is the necessary handmaiden of Democracy, the only path to prosperity, our only source of happiness?
No. We can’t.  Because deep down inside, in places we don’t like to visit, we know the Mad Uncle is right.

What we’re doing now isn’t making us all rich.  It’s impoverishing us.

Ultimately, all wealth comes from natural capital.  Things like fertile soils; viable forests; intact gene pools; abundant minerals; clean water and living oceans; sustainable fish stocks; flourishing ecosystems; a stable, life-sustaining climate.  We are liquidating these essential sources of wealth as if they were so much junk offered for pennies on the dollar at a desperate garage sale.
Our current version of capitalism is good at generating more currency, not greater wealth. And we forget that currency is merely a surrogate for things of real value, with no tangible value in and of itself.

And even the currency isn’t being distributed equally.  It’s being siphoned off by the richest and most powerful in a spiral of inequity.

It isn't making us happy, it's enslaving us to a life spent pursuing more and more stuff we don’t need for reasons we don’t understand.  Bigger; more; faster becomes biggest; most; fastest.  But easy, easier, easiest becomes fatter, sicker weaker.

It isn’t making us free, it’s creating a tyranny of the corporations and plutocrats. They weaken government in the name of freedom, only to turn us into indentured servants to a system that's designed to take from the poor and middle class and give to the uber rich, even as it liquidates Earth’s treasures.
But the real tragedy isn’t our own alienation or our economic and spiritual impoverishment.   It is the diminished legacy we leave the rest of humanity and indeed, the rest of the biosphere.
It’s our willingness to consume the future in an orgy of gluttony, drowning out the Mad Uncle’s protests with the noise of our own slurping, chewing, smacking, munching, crunching as we inhale our children’s birthright.

Hyperbole?

Not really.  Every living system is in decline, and the rate is accelerating.

In the case of climate change we are at the threshold of igniting feedbacks that will usher in an inevitable and catastrophic set of changes that will make life difficult in some areas and impossible in others.

It’s time to admit that the Mad Uncle is right.  Pure, unconstrained capitalism is the problem, not the solution.

What, then, are we to do?

There are alternatives.  We could tie currency to sustainable eco-systems.  Instead of a gold standard we could have a green standard.  Thus, destruction of a nation’s stock of natural capital would devalue its currency, and make it poorer.

We could adopt systems of production and ownership such as Co-ops that emphasized cooperation, equitable sharing of revenue and stewardship of our natural resources. It’s not pie-in-the sky, to consider this. Cooperatives already produce more than $1 trillion in assets, enough to make them equivalent to the 10th largest economy in the world.

We could insist that trade agreements contain real, enforceable requirements for equitable treatment of labor and serious environmental protections, so that globalization ceased being a race to the bottom for humans and the planet.

Yes, these ideas are unrealistic, naïve, politically impossible and all the other labels that will surely be affixed to them and other ideas like them.

But it is worth remembering, that the only thing more unrealistic than junking our current bastardized system of economics is supposing we can continue to liquidate the Earth without consequence.
That’s what the Mad Uncle is telling us.  We continue to ignore him at our peril.

OneLove

:::MME:::

Bitch Redefined



 Bitch.


This word & all its shades of meaning still packs a punch whether one uses it in a derogatory manner or as a term of empowerment as a lot of fiercely independent women are (re)claiming nowadays. I hate the word, but I gotta say, I have begun to use it not out of disrespect for or reference to females, but as a way to express my utter rejection of grown men who act like they're walking on air, unassailable, self-centered & perpetually right about everything.. I think this word is the best descriptor of MEN who act in this manner, regardless of sexual orientation. And just who do I regard as a bitch? Here's a shortlist:


(1) That man who is deaf to reason & commonsense & insists on projecting power & control in any given situation 
(2) That man who talks over you when you have barely articulated your point of view

(3) The man who nags & complains about things of little or no consequence
(4) The man who has an excuse for everything 
(5) The man who denigrates others who have less than he has (education, income, etc)
(6) The man who keeps up with every fad & overestimates his importance
(7) The man who quickly dismisses the opinions of others that don't match his own
(8) The man too afraid to leave the safe confines of his well-manicured, gated neighborhood
(9) The man too afraid to share power equitably - even with his own wife/girlfriend!
(10) The man who snitches for favors when it's not necessary


If you find yourself on this list, you're a straight bitch in need of self-correction, dude. We're all fallible creatures so self-criticism should be in constant play. A lot of grown men avoid this somewhat discomforting task, but it must be done as it's the only way to improve. (Learning when to simply shut your trap when your opinion is not solicited is an important first step).


OneLove


:::MME:::





Jun 21, 2012

Poet's Nook: "Miracles" by Walt Whitman






Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.


OneLove

:::MME:::

The Mean World Syndrome



Mean World Syndrome is a phenomenon where the violence-related content of mass media convinces viewers that the world is more dangerous than it actually is, and prompts a desire for more protection than is warranted by any actual threat. Mean World Syndrome is one of the main conclusions of cultivation theory. The term "Mean World Syndrome" was coined by George Gerbner, a pioneer researcher on the effects of television on society, when he noted that people who watched a lot of TV tended to think of the world as an unforgiving and scary place. (Source


This is an excellent documentary about the the delusions foisted upon an unsuspecting public by that ol' idiot box (TV) in particular. I highly recommend that you tak the time to watch it - and let your children see it as well. If time is an issue ( it is over 50 minutes long), go to the 28 minute mark & pick it up from there (Full version here).  George Gerbner's analysis is on point. I especially liked the following quote he made which underpins the dehumanization and demonization of whole communities:


Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures. ... They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities.


It is easy to see how social control is achieved....

Absorb & reflect.

OneLove

:::MME:::

Jun 20, 2012

Musings

 
 
 
 
 
A path is only a path,
 and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you. 
Look at every path closely and deliberately. 
Try it as many times as you think necessary.
 Then ask yourself alone, one question. 
Does this path have a heart? 
If it does, the path is good;
 if it doesn’t it is of no use.”
.
~ Carlos Castaneda
 
OneLove
 
:::MME:::

Resisting The Scoundrels




(The following is a petition from Change.org's Tim Newman - This could happen to any one of us....)


 It was no ordinary morning. Police arrived at 4am and broke down the door to Alejandra Cruz’s family home with a battering ram. PNC Bank was trying to take her family's Minneapolis home after a bank error, and their friends and neighbors were in the home to defend it. The police forced everyone to leave -- but now Alejandra is fighting back to save her family's home.
Alejandra's family made every online payment on their home for seven years. But one month, PNC Bank didn’t withdraw it. Instead of admitting their error, they demanded two months’ payment as penalty.
Alejandra says there was no way her family could have come up with so much money on such short notice. So PNC put them into foreclosure and forced them to leave the house in 48 hours.
But now, Alejandra is fighting back. She’s started a petition asking PNC to sit down and negotiate -- and this Thursday, she’s traveling to the the bank’s headquarters to deliver her message. It could decide the fate of her family’s home -- and if thousands of people join her before then, she knows the bank won’t be able to ignore her message.
Alejandra says her family has worked incredibly hard to meet their mortgage payments. Her father worked two jobs, and she and her brother worked part time through school to help. The foreclosure has already forced them to move out of their home, and when friends and neighbours tried to stop the bank from taking the home, police arrested them. 
But Alejandra knows there is hope. Just last week, another Minneapolis resident named Nick Espinosa started a Change.org petition to save his mom’s home. Thousands of people signed in a matter of days, and the bank was forced to back down and let Nick's mom keep her home with a reduced mortgage.
Local media are already taking interest in her family’s battle, and if PNC Bank hears from thousands across the country right now, Alejandra is convinced they’ll decide to negotiate rather than face a public relations nightmare.
OneLove


:::MME:::

Uncle Sam Wants Your Ass

Revealed: There are 64 drone bases on American soil.  (Check out Pepe Escobar's excellent essay, Drone Me Down On The Killing Floor )


OneLove

:::MME::::

PS:  "Dystopia"?

Jun 19, 2012

Dreams & Nightmares





They are saying we are all losers, but the true losers are down there on Wall Street. They were bailed out by billions of our money. We are called socialists, but here there is always socialism for the rich. They say we don’t respect private property, but in the 2008 financial crash-down more hard-earned private property was destroyed than if all of us here were to be destroying it night and day for weeks. They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are the awakening from a dream that is turning into a nightmare.

We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know the classic scene from cartoons. The cat reaches a precipice but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath this ground. Only when it looks down and notices it, it falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street, "Hey, look down!"


~Slavoj Zizek

OneLove


:::MME:::

Jun 18, 2012

On Being Grateful


This is an excellent short by filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg. Bombarded as we are with all kinds of  pressure on a daily basis, it's tough sometimes to find space to collect ourselves & be grateful . As the late great Carl Sagan once stated:


The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

OneLove

:::MME:::

Jun 17, 2012

Poet's Nook: "Throw Away Your Agendas" by I.G. Karfield


Set your agendas –
There is this movement
And it may not be stopped.
It may not be halted,
It may not be dropped
From our agendas.
Set your agendas.
Keep the fires burning,
Just enough to heat the soil
We are dancing on,
Yearning for a second chance.
Set your agendas.
We shall never surrender
To the terror laws of physics.
Wear us down all you want,
But you cannot stop the movement.
You cannot stop the music,
And we are tired of your
Lucid muting,
Screwing with humanity.
You’ve caught us moving
At a pace too slow to race;
Until now, you got the best of us
In your posh back pockets.
Squashed together Mr. Blow,
Mr. Flows of green and the rest of us.
But that’s when you got sloppy.
The dimension of one blink of an eye.
One fraction in time – space.
Oh, boy, did we get a lot of space.
Boy, oh boy, did you raise us right.
So set your agendas tonight,
Sweet system of mine!
For you have paved the way for a movement
That will shake your silky socks off.

And they will be your last pair.


OneLove

::::MME::::

Jun 15, 2012

The Winning Ways Of Wall Street



 The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy, are you buddy? It's the free market. And you're a part of it. You've got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I've still got a lot to teach you.

-Gordon Gekko (Wall Street)

OneLove


:::MME:::

Potentates & Eunuchs


(This clip speaks volumes to the state of our so-called democracy. This is but a snapshot of institutional power in America.....In a healthy, functioning democracy, a shmuck like Jamie Diamond would have been in the slammer by now...)


Stay alert...


OneLove


:::MME:::

Jun 14, 2012

Musings

It is the mind that frees us or enslaves.
Driven by the senses we become bound;
Master of the senses we become free.
Those who seek freedom must master their senses.

When the mind is detached from the senses
One reaches the summit of consciousness.
Mastery of the mind leads to wisdom.
Practice meditation.  Stop all vain talk.
The highest state is beyond reach of thought,
For it lies beyond all duality.

~The Amritabindu Upanishad

OneLove

:::MME:::

Jun 11, 2012

MME's (Double) Jam Of The Day



Love this track! Inspired by Spike Lee's Mo'Better Blues & produced by Toronto-based DJ Deadmau5, Luke James appears poised to take the R&B throne & run with it. This brother can not only sing, but he writes as well having written songs for Chris Brown, Justin Beiber, Britney Spears & Michael Bolton to name a few. His current release, I Want You, is also very good, but I like the stripped-down version better. Check it out:



With up & coming artists like Luke James, Frank Ocean, Stacy Barthe, Janelle Monae  , Sarah White & Lianne La Havas putting life back into R&B which has been, you have to admit, quite boring & formulaic for a while, the future looks bright.......

OneLove


:::MME:::

Jun 6, 2012

News As Infotainment




Charlie Brooker hit the nail on the head with his take on the mainstream news which, in my opinion, is colossal mindfuck. No matter where you go in the U.S, you can switch from channel to channel & invariably find pretty much the same style of news reporting: Irksomely chatty newscasters hyping some decontextualized event & minutes later, over-emoting over some 'human interest' story, taking ad-libbing to nauseating heights. Sometimes I catch myself with my mouth wide open at a loss for words for what is passing as news - & why does the weather reporting have to be so hi-res & repetitive? Unless something dangerous is heading our way, a simple snapshot of the day's/week's weather will do. We don't need to know your dog's name, Doug, just the bare facts.

Many of us have long left the plantation & acquire our news from multiple sources. As one study on the mainstream media established recently, the more you rely on the mainstream news outlets for your news "hit", the less you know (another interesting study found that the sexier the anchorwoman, the less male viewers remember!). One of the key ingredients of manufacturing consent is diverting people's interest and attention away from issues about which they could become concerned. Do yourself a favor: question more & seek alernative sources.


OneLove


:::MME:::


Jun 4, 2012

Poet's Nook: "Lightly..." by Aldous Huxley




It’s dark because you are trying too hard. 
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. 
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. 
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. 

I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. 
Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. 
When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. 
No rhetoric, no tremolos, 
no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. 
And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. 
Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light. 

So throw away your baggage and go forward. 
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, 
trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. 
That’s why you must walk so lightly. 
Lightly my darling, 
on tiptoes and no luggage, 
not even a sponge bag, 
completely unencumbered.




The New Corporation

  The New Corporation ​is a 2020 documentary directed by Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan, law professor at the University of British Columb...