DakotaPuma Park

wateringgoodseeds: This young man gets it ENTIRELY right. (via...

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:36:34 -0700

This young man gets it ENTIRELY right.

(via Juan Cole’s Informed Comment)

Nabil goes in: A British Muslim responds to the Woolwich murder in which Lee Rigby, 25, of 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was butchered by clearly unbalanced persons. Our hearts go out to the Rigbys. –Juan Cole (May 24, 2013)

carolinafrica: “To see ten thousand animals untamed and not...

Fri, 24 May 2013 07:48:26 -0700

carolinafrica:

“To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time, or like finding a forest without roads or footpaths, or the blemish of an axe. You know then what you had always been told — that the world once lived and grew without adding machines and newsprint and brick-walled streets and the tyranny of clocks.” – Beryl Markham

"People act like whether you are ‘out’ is a yes or no question. It’s really more complicated than..."

Thu, 23 May 2013 19:12:21 -0700

“

People act like whether you are ‘out’ is a yes or no question. It’s really more complicated than that, because in the real world, you may have to come out to each and every person you interact with. Some people will blame you if you’re not out– others will feel like you’re too out, as if you are changing the atmosphere for everyone else by reminding people that you are not straight. The politics of outness are complex: you may choose to share your sexuality with different people depending on your relationship to them and their feelings on the issue. Being out to your friends and being out to your parents is an entirely different situation.
..

I’m not necessarily being brave by calling myself, “The Lingerie Lesbian“– but I am being almost aggressively honest. I was so tired of the assumptions of straightness that follows me in my physical life that I wanted to make it clear that my sexuality is a part of who I am. Just my presence changes the conversation. Some people, gay and straight, say that your sexuality is private, that it’s not a necessary part of a conversation about fashion or anything else– I completely disagree. If I look around me and listen to the conversations, I am constantly hearing about my coworker’s husbands, celebrities’ boyfriends, some popstar’s (straight) wedding, how attractive some model (of the opposite sex) is. It feels like I’m inundated in heteronormative culture and no one sees it but me. No matter how liberal or accepting a community is, if you’ve come out, you know what it’s like to see someone’s face change, for their whole mind to shift to take in a reality that had genuinely never occurred to them. You’ve changed, completely, right before their eyes– even while you know that you’ve stayed completely the same.

”

- the lingerie lesbian (via toinfinityandbeyonce)

I just got back from a trip with my mom and dad to Dry Tortugas...

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:24:33 -0700

I just got back from a trip with my mom and dad to Dry Tortugas National Park. Seventy miles west of Key West, it is the most remote national park I have ever been to. The weather was perfect. (May 2013)

mehreenkasana: Medea Benjamin of Code Pink being “escorted” out...

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:02:49 -0700

mehreenkasana:

Medea Benjamin of Code Pink being “escorted” out as she bravely questioned President Obama on drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen as well as Guantanamo Bay. Full speech here.

Looks like our Nobel Peace Prize winning harbinger of hope and justice and what not couldn’t handle actual freedom of speech. In other news, grass is green.

Photo

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:36:35 -0700

motherjones: theamericanprospect: The Making of a Dead...

Thu, 23 May 2013 07:48:27 -0700

motherjones:

theamericanprospect:

The Making of a Dead Zone

Knowledge.

“Dead zones begin when rivers carry nitrogen and phosphorus-based nutrients—primarily agricultural fertilizers—into the ocean. In the case of the Gulf of Mexico, it is the Mississippi River that delivers nitrates, nitrites, and phosphates from the American heartland into the Gulf at a rate of 1.7 million tons per year.” –Paul Greenberg (May 22, 2013)

"Citizen Koch,” a documentary about money in politics focused on the Wisconsin uprising, was shunned..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 19:12:31 -0700

““Citizen Koch,” a documentary about money in politics focused on the Wisconsin uprising, was shunned by PBS for fear of offending billionaire industrialist David Koch, who has given $23 million to public television, according to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker. The dispute highlights the increasing role of private money in “public” television and raises even further concerns about the Kochs potentially purchasing eight major daily newspapers.”

- PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary “Citizen Koch” To Appease Koch Brothers

The richest, most organized climate deniers on the planet and real proof on how they control the messages that people hear every day. And when they buy all those extra news papers - it’ll get even worse.

(via stopkillingourworld)

iggymogo: rawed: knowledgeandlove: rawed: knowledgeandlove: ...

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:24:24 -0700

iggymogo:

rawed:

knowledgeandlove:

rawed:

knowledgeandlove:

livingxvxfaith:

Friendly reminder that MARCH 25 is March Against Monsanto day

Why doesn’t this have more notes.

march happened a while ago i think you mean may 25th

It says it’s May 25th :) The movement is called March Against Monsanto.

livingxvxfaith said march 25th sneaky sneaky

May 25th. stop monsanto. every day.

mediamattersforamerica: Given recent allegations that 3...

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:36:45 -0700

mediamattersforamerica:

Given recent allegations that 3 military service members — all who are in charge of sexual assault programs — committed sexual assaults, Fox News has seriously underreported the topic. While MSNBC spent nearly 5 hours on it in the last 2 weeks, Fox News spent less than 19 minutes.

THE "RACE" PROBLEM: Casual reminder that White gay man Chuck Knipp tours the country doing shows for audiences of White people in Blackface...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:08:36 -0700

THE "RACE" PROBLEM: Casual reminder that White gay man Chuck Knipp tours the country doing shows for audiences of White people in Blackface...:

theraceproblem:

“Wealthy white people are starting to hire me for private parties, where I play the raisin in a bowl of oatmeal. From the way they interact with me, I can see that my being there as Shirley makes them feel it’s acceptable to openly mock black people in a way they otherwise would…

I just realized that one of the tumblrs I follow, “TheRaceProblem”, got deleted about a week ago, and not by the blog’s owner. This is an example post that I had been sitting on in my “drafts” folder until I had time to check the links. Well, the whole blog and all posts are gone now. I valued TheRaceProblem for its posts about inequality and structural racism. I didn’t realize that this is the real world interpretation of tumblr’s terms of service, though. If we get too edgy (I assume) then everything is gone with no explanation to the blog owner or followers.

By-the-bye, this specific reblog about Chuck Knipp jumped out at me because I am familiar with seeing advertisements for his show.

–DakotaPuma (May 22, 2013)

summerelephants: bless this man

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:45:21 -0700

summerelephants:

bless this man

"[As] Harvard Law Professor Yochai Benkler noted recently in the New Republic, when the judge..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 18:15:39 -0700

“[As] Harvard Law Professor Yochai Benkler noted recently in the New Republic, when the judge presiding over Manning’s prosecution asked military lawyers if they would ‘have pressed the same charges if Manning had given the documents not to WikiLeaks but directly to the New York Times?,’ the prosecutor answered simply: ‘Yes, ma’am’. It has long been clear that this WikiLeaks-as-criminals theory could and would be used to criminalize establishment media outlets which reported on that which the US government wanted concealed. Now we know that the DOJ is doing exactly that: applying this theory to criminalize the acts of journalists who report on what the US government does in secret, even though there is no law that makes such reporting illegal and the First Amendment protects such conduct. Essentially accusing James Rosen of being an unindicted co-conspriator in these alleged crimes is a major escalation of the Obama DOJ’s already dangerous attacks on press freedom. … It is virtually impossible at this point to overstate the threat posed by the Obama DOJ to press freedoms.”

- Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes | Glenn Greenwald

… Back in 2006, Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales triggered a major controversy when he said that the New York Times could be prosecuted for having revealed the Top Secret information that the NSA was eavesdropping on the communications of Americans without warrants. That was at the same time that right-wing demagogues such Bill Bennett were calling for the prosecution of the NYT reporters who reported on the NSA program, as well as the Washington Post’s Dana Priest for having exposed the CIA black site network.

But despite those public threats, the Bush DOJ never went so far as to formally accuse journalists in court filings of committing crimes for reporting on classified information. Now the Obama DOJ has.

… If even the most protected journalists - those who work for the largest media outlets - are being targeted in this way, and are saying over and over that the Obama DOJ is preventing basic news gathering from taking place without fear, imagine the effect this all has on independent journalists who are much more vulnerable.

There is simply no defense for this behavior. Obama defenders such as Andrew Sullivan claim that this is all more complicated than media outrage suggests because of a necessary “trade-off” between press freedoms and security. So do Obama defenders believe that George Bush and Richard Nixon - who never prosecuted leakers like this or formally accused journalists of being criminals for reporting classified information - were excessively protective of press freedoms and insufficiently devoted to safeguarding secrecy? To ask that question is to mock it. Obama has gone so far beyond what every recent prior president has done in bolstering secrecy and criminalizing whistleblowing and leaks.

Greenwald is writing in response to this report from The Washington Post.
(via circlingtheroundabout)

crooksh4nks: Maui Waterfalls - Honokohau Falls

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:31:34 -0700

crooksh4nks:

Maui Waterfalls - Honokohau Falls

Guantanamo: ‘An Unmitigated Disaster’

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:45:29 -0700

humanrightswatch:

Seven days after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, President George W. Bush signed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a joint resolution passed by Congress that empowered the president to use force against those responsible for the attacks. More than 11 years later that law is still in effect. On May 16, 2013, Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, testified before the US Senate Armed Services Committee on the laws of war and the use of military force. He cautioned the committee on the dangers of extending or expanding war powers contained in the AUMF and argued it was time to retire the law.
Read More

Alabama city destroying ancient Indian mound for Sam’s...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:15:57 -0700

Alabama city destroying ancient Indian mound for Sam’s Club
southernstudies.org

City leaders in Oxford, Ala. have approved the destruction of a 1,500-year-old Native American ceremonial mound and are using the dirt as fill for a new Sam’s Club, a retail warehouse store o …

This mound has since disappeared and city officials claim they have done nothing to harm the site. –Jan. 21, 2010

ecowatchorg: More Than Honey: How Dwindling Bee Populations...

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:30:38 -0700

ecowatchorg:

More Than Honey: How Dwindling Bee Populations Impact Global Food Supply

For over a decade, the bee population has dwindled, baffling scientists worldwide. And for an insect that is responsible for two-thirds of the world’s food source, their disappearance could be devastating.

“Einstein supposedly suggested that if the bees died off, humans would only last four more years; so you can imagine the urgency.”

Photo

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:45:38 -0700

thepeoplesrecord: We live in a world capable, in principle, of...

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:15:36 -0700

thepeoplesrecord:

We live in a world capable, in principle, of providing a diverse and healthy diet for all, and yet one quarter of its people suffer from frequent hunger and ill health generated by a diet that is poor in quantity or quality or both. Another quarter of the world’s population eats too much food, food that is often heavy with calories and low on nutrients (colloquially called ‘junk food’). This quarter of the world’s population risks diabetes and all of the other chronic illnesses generated by obesity. In Mexico, for example, 14 per cent of the population have diabetes, and in India, 11 per cent of city-dwellers over 15. In the US it has been estimated that one-third of the children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes—a truly sad prospect, given that most of this is entirely preventable. Study after study in recent years has come to the conclusion that the single most important factor in human health is diet, and diet is something we can shape.

Cheap food is important to capitalism because it allows wages to be lower (and thus profits to be higher) and yet leave workers with more disposable income available to buy other commodities. For these and other reasons, early in the history of capitalism, the food system became tied to colonialism, where various forms of forced or semi-forced labour were common. After the civil war ended slavery in the US, the domestically-produced food system came to rest primarily on the family farm. But after the Second World War the increasing mechanization and chemicalisation of agriculture favoured larger farms. In the early 1970s the US Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz got Congress to pass a programme of subsidies that rewarded high yields. As a result, the larger the farm and the higher the yield, the larger became the subsidy. Nearly all the subsidies went to large farms, and for a few basic crops: tobacco, cotton, corn, wheat, and eventually soy. Moreover the large farms that could benefit the most from mechanization and chemicalisation became increasingly subservient to the gigantic corporations that supplied the inputs and bought the outputs of these factory farms.

This situation remains essentially unchanged today. In 2005 alone the US government spent over $20 billion in agricultural subsidies (46 per cent of this went for corn production, 23 per cent for cotton, 10 per cent for wheat, and 6 per cent for soybeans). The largest 10 per cent of the farms got 72 per cent of the subsidies and 60 per cent of all farms got no subsidy at all. For the most part, fruit and vegetable crops received no subsidies, and the same could be said for most small and medium sized farms. In short, the subsidy program rewards the large yields that result from very large, highly industrialized farms.

Today, while there are still many family farms in the US, the older mixed family farm that utilized manure from its animals to fertilize the land, and practised crop rotation and other techniques to control pests, has been largely wiped out. The giant capitalist farm of today is dependent on cheap oil and government subsidies. David Pimentel, professor of ecology at Cornell University and a globally recognized expert on food systems and energy, has argued that if the entire world adopted the American food system, all known sources of fossil fuel would be exhausted in seven years. At the same time, utilizing such huge amounts of petroleum-based chemicals (fertilizers and pesticides) would not only contribute enormously to global warming, but also would make our toxic environment even more toxic.

In this short essay most of my examples come from the US, because, as the most hegemonic capitalist power in the world, it has done the most to shape the global food system. But I don’t want to give the impression that there is one tightly integrated capitalist world food system. Even in the US, capitalism has not entirely subsumed the whole food system, and while there are few places in the world untouched by capitalism, its degree of hegemony may vary a great deal. Still, up to the present, capitalism has been the single strongest force shaping the global food system, and much of that shaping power has flowed outward from the US.

It is scandalous that in the academic world many professors of economics still teach the doctrine of consumer sovereignty when it is so clear that on the contrary, corporations are the far greater sovereign force.

More from: Between obesity & hunger: the capitalist food industry

ShortFormBlog: Thoughts on Tumblr and Yahoo (in rebloggable form, upon reader request)

Sun, 19 May 2013 13:30:57 -0700

ShortFormBlog: Thoughts on Tumblr and Yahoo (in rebloggable form, upon reader request):

shortformblog:

obitoftheday asks: What do you think happens if Yahoo buys Tumblr? And why do we all agree that it seems like a bad idea?

» SFB says: I think Tumblr starts monetizing itself more effectively. For years they’ve tried to do everything but the obvious, but the problem is, they’ve turned down a lot of good ideas as a result.

(Comparison: WordPress.com has succeeded at profitability by both offering paid premium features and revenue sharing-style advertising for bloggers—both things Tumblr has chosen not to do, but could arguably do better than WordPress if it chose to do so. Nobody really complains about Wordpress’ ads. Think that might be because they created a context for it that didn’t bug users?)

But this could come at the cost of a very strong community. I know of one heavily-active user I liked reading, The Callus, who has quit Tumblr and deleted all of his posts as a result of the whiff of a rumor of this buyout happening. I don’t think you or anyone else should follow suit, but that’s what people are doing.

As for the “bad idea” chunk of your questions, the problem is this: Yahoo has a reputation for letting acquisitions flounder under its corporate structure. Even the big ones. Delicious, for example, was nearly shut down before the founders of YouTube swooped in and saved it. And Yahoo has also tried the user-generated market before, including with Geocities and Yahoo Meme (which was effectively Yahoo’s failed attempt to create a Tumblr clone). Yahoo has a long list of discontinued products. And while Laurie Voss has a good point about Flickr, there’s a better point here: Building a community with integrity is tough, and change at the top can ruin everything if done the wrong way. I can understand why people might be worried. I’m worried, too. — Ernie @ SFB

P.S.: One key line from the story we linked last night: “sources say the company only has a few months of cash runway left.” Who knows if that’s true, but this is a company that unceremoniously fired its editorial team recently—a move that could be seen in a different light considering that line, though that’s speculative. Tumblr can’t run on dreams and reblogs and investor money forever. Something has to change on the business front to ensure the likes can keep coming. That change can come from the inside, but the change can come more easily from an exit.

Read more at http://shortformblog.com/post/50774541523/tumblr-and-yahoo#S1bsfuDbgUf5hoVf.99