"Conservatism, not Radicalism, threatens the free exchange of ideas, intellectual tolerance, and the life of the mind in Academia." - Herbert Shapiro
"In any discussion of the problems in our world today, racism must rank high. Not because we are soft-minded liberals obsessed with countless crimes throughout history induced by colour, religion, tribalism or chauvinism of one kind or another. But because the poison which we hoped and believed had been eradicated in our own time by the knowledge of the ultimate evil- the gas-chamber murders committed by the Nazis--is in fact still present, not in any one area of discrimination or racism, or in a restricted number of specific rulers or governments, but in all humankind. I call it "Inner Racism."-
Waiting for the Ferguson grand jury to return with their much anticipated "no indictment" decision can be a bit distracting while planning my football watching schedule today, Sunday. As it is, my supply of chips and dip is depleted and my beverage allotment has been curtailed due to my fixed income budgetary concerns. Life is hard ain't it? If I wasn't so lazy I could walk right out my front door and mosey down to the nearest grocery which is about 4 1/2 miles as the crow flies and pick me up some emergency potato chips with ridges and get me some of that cheddar and horseradish dip and perhaps a 6 pack without ever worrying about being shot while walking through neighborhoods where nobody knows me- no cop would slow up behind me to watch my slow deliberate striding- at 62 I'm not as spry as I was-
come to think of it I don't think I was ever a spry type- and unless my wife called 911 to report me missing- a gray-haired somewhat disheveled slouched strider who after 2 heart attacks took an early retirement, sold his favorite pick-up, and now spends all day with his best friend, Willie, a lab mutt, at home waiting for his wife to return from her day job with our one and only vehicle, no one would ever take a second glance as I shuffle by. An old white guy going for some dip. Maybe a salsa, too. The only times I can remember being afraid to venture out was in my childhood, oh maybe sometime around 5 or 6, and there were stories going around my neighborhood in Queens, NY about evil foreign-speaking janitors kidnapping children and offering poisoned candy- real Brothers Grimm stuff. Anyway I had an older cousin who I insisted accompany me home. The threat soon passed with my childhood. The only other time I felt threatened while walking was so many years later in another town. Columbus, Ohio of all places. I had attended college there for a couple of years and was returning one early Sunday morning to visit some friends on my way west one spring when emerging from the bus depot downtown I crossed what was a very quiet and very deserted street. I mean its about 6AM, its Sunday morning in Columbus -over 40 years ago, now, not a creature was stirring- not even the cop sitting against a lamppost on the other side of the street I was crossing. Until he started waving his forefinger in my direction. I hadn't a clue. He: "where are you going?" Me: "toward campus" He: "Do you know why I pulled you over?" Me: "No, was I going too fast?" He:" You're from New York?' Me:" Yes.." He then proceeded to read me the riot act and we started to walk together in the direction of the precinct jail as he was going to arrest me for jaywalking. He didn't like my attitude and my "New York" accent. "You New Yorkers think you can do anything. Well I'm going to teach you a lesson." And we walked for a good 20 minutes or so it seemed and got right up to the jailhouse door before he decided that I had learned my lesson and let me go. For but a brief sighing second I thought better than to turn my back and walk away from him but in that same flash of time my lazy head is all the time thinking, "Nah..he wouldn't. I'm white". Privilege has its place. Even if you're from New York. And yet... for most of my life I've lived and worked in New York City. And I even managed to find some lasting friendships along the way and for that I am a very fortunate man. And these friendships are with a wide range of individuals from different walks and places and cultures and even neighborhoods and up until very recently (ok, within the last decade or so) I never even considered or never thought to ask or never thought period that one of my closest friends, a Black man, would have been subject to not one but several public search and frisk procedures so enamored by the NYPD- it could happen anytime -then?- while walking to the grocery, to work, to the store, waiting outside for his wife- anywhere, anytime and did and he never mentioned it for the longest time. The only time I was ever frisked and bodily searched was when I was doing research for another friend- a Unitarian pastor who was a distinguished scholar and writer and having met through a mutual acquaintance he asked me to help him with a book on the American-Christian Palestine Committee which required periodic visits to the "Zionist Library and Archive" which was located at the time in 515 Park Ave. which housed several Israeli and Zionist groups and was literally guarded by Israeli security personnel who insisted on searching my dubious presence. Each time I went. I was merely inconvenienced by obnoxious Israelis who talked in accents of my wife-at the time- who was also Israeli - I was more embarrassed by their rudeness. My friend's "procedure" ,the undergoing , is humiliating enough in a power-implied gesture with a four-hundred year old brutality behind it and as my friend explained he was too upset and too angry to tell some of his friends. "We" wouldn't and couldn't understand all that that was to him. Its part of that Black-white divide in this country that is never really bridged- call it the cost of history. So while I'm out of chips I never take for granted that long walk to the grocery- and back again. But 4 1/2 miles each way I'll miss the game easily and won't be back til the last quarter of Sunday Night football, so whats the point?
No. 12–682 BILL SCHUETTE, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MICHI- GAN, PETITIONER v. COALITION TO DEFEND AF- FIRMATIVE ACTION, INTEGRATION AND IMMI- GRANT RIGHTS AND FIGHT FOR EQUALITY BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY (BAMN), ET AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
[April 22, 2014]
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins, dissenting.
"My colleagues are of the view that we should leave race out of the picture entirely and let the voters sort it out. We have seen this reason- ing before. (“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race”). It is a sentiment out of touch with reality, one not required by our Constitution, and one that has properly been rejected as “not sufficient” to resolve cases of this nature. While “[t]he enduring hope is that race should not matter[,] the reality is that too often it does.” “[R]acial discrimination . . . [is] not ancient history.”
Race matters. Race matters in part because of the long history of racial minorities’ being denied access to the political process. (describing racial discrimination in voting as “an insidious and perva- sive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution”). And although we have made great strides, “voting discrimination still exists; no one doubts that.”
Race also matters because of persistent racial inequality in society—inequality that cannot be ignored and that has produced stark socioeconomic disparities. (cataloging the many ways in which “the effects of centuries of law- sanctioned inequality remain painfully evident in our communities and schools,” in areas like employment, poverty, access to health care, housing, consumer transac- tions, and education); recognizing that the “lingering effects” of discrimination, “reflective of a system of racial caste only recently ended, are evident in our workplaces, markets, and neighborhoods”.
And race matters for reasons that really are only skin deep, that cannot be discussed any other way, and that cannot be wished away. Race matters to a young man’s view of society when he spends his teenage years watching
others tense up as he passes, no matter the neighborhood where he grew up. Race matters to a young woman’s sense of self when she states her hometown, and then is pressed, “No, where are you really from?”, regardless of how many generations her family has been in the country. Race matters to a young person addressed by a stranger in a foreign language, which he does not understand because only English was spoken at home. Race matters because of the slights, the snickers, the silent judgments that reinforce that most crippling of thoughts: “I do not belong here.”
In my colleagues’ view, examining the racial impact of legislation only perpetuates racial discrimination. This refusal to accept the stark reality that race matters is regrettable. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfor- tunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination. As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society. It is this view that works harm, by perpetuating the facile notion that what makes race matter is acknowledging the simple truth that race does matter." This is the conclusion of her dissent. For the full text of the decision and of Judge Sotomayer's important dissent go here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-682_j4ek.pdf
"The Constitution does not protect racial minorities from political defeat. But neither does it give the majority free rein to erect selective barriers against racial minorities. The political-process doctrine polices the channels of change to ensure that the majority, when it wins, does so without rigging the rules of the game to ensure its success. Today, the Court discards that doctrine without good reason.
In doing so, it permits the decision of a majority of the voters in Michigan to strip Michigan’s elected universityboards of their authority to make decisions with respect to constitutionally permissible race-sensitive admissions policies, while preserving the boards’ plenary authority to make all other educational decisions. “In a most direct sense, this implicates the judiciary’s special role in safe- guarding the interests of those groups that are relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to com- mand extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process.” The Court abdicates that role, permitting the majority to use its numerical advantage to change the rules mid-contest and forever stack the deck against racial minorities in Michigan.
The result is that Michigan’s public colleges and universities are less equipped to do their part in ensuring that students of all races are “better prepare[d] . . . for an increasingly diverse workforce and society . . .”
Today’s decision eviscerates an important strand of our equal protection jurisprudence. For members of historically marginalized groups, which rely on the federal courts to protect their constitutional rights, the decision can hardly bolster hope for a vision of democracy that preserves for all the right to participate meaningfully and equally in self-government.
I respectfully dissent." Note to my reader(s?): Go and read the Court's inane decision and pay careful attention to "Chief" Roberts response to Judge Sotomayor's eloquent dissent. He has - in his own pathetic way- proven everything she has written.
The International Jew is a book written by Henry Ford, who authored books and articles which make claims about Jews. Readers will be able to make their own judgements of this work, as some find it to be accurate while most have historically found Henry Ford's writings to be filled with innacuracies and bigotry. This book is presented here for educational purposes and for those who are interested in reading a book written by important American businessman Henry Ford. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition and was provided by the publisher.
The edition shown here may have typos and missing text.
We thought it appropriate -actually more like a public service- to re-post this at this time while the usual war-mongers are busy saddling the Light Cavalry.
While Reading (again) Dwight Macdonald
Originally posted on June 1, 2012
I thought it correlative to lift Mr. Coleridge from his eternal solitude as had Dwight Macdonald 45 years hence in Esquire (Jan.) what with recent talk of Vietnam commemoratives and having just past the 10 (or 11th?) Memorial Day since our
War On Terror began I had begun to feel a bit feverish with an incessant anxiety (must be the presidential campaign) that reminded me of an exasperated John Houseman playing an intelligence exec in that movie Three Days of the Condor which was based on the novel with more days, anyway, Houseman, I think( I really should check this somewhere- google movie lines? google movie character lines?) is asked if he misses the "old days" (I'm thinking WWII) and he answers not really but he does miss the clarity and it is the way he annunciates cla-ri-ty that I most remember (like I was sitting in his first year law..) Which, somehow brings me to Coleridge as cited in old Dwight's essay which is the name of the poem-"Fears In Solitude". I am just a kid in Jan., 1967, a HS sophomore trying to hit a curve ball on the outside corner and girls faces were just starting to form a forward path (I know I heard that before) and the war -undeclared - was starting to intrude upon my green and silent dell.
In January Neil Sheehan was reporting in the NYTimes that the DoD was expecting the costs of the war to level off by mid-year barring some unforeseen development (the Tet Offensive was exactly a year away- any 15 yr olds you know today know this?).During the same week the Times was also reporting that post-war (WWII that is) babies were coming of age and for some reason that meant a good year for confetti manufacturers and cookbook publishers. A UPI story that first week in January told of how Gov. John Connally, Jr of Texas did not want President Kennedy to come to Texas in November, 1963 (and neither did I). Also in January the good gray paper published an article stating "practically the entire securities industry appears to be up in arms against a proposed government regulation that would require securities salesmen to recommend to customers only stocks that are suitable to the customer's financial situation."(Why oh why did I buy Facebook? at 39!!) On the first Sunday that January
The Johnson "welcoming" a guest
the Johnsons, according to an AP story, heard a sermon from a Protestant minister expressing great sympathy with Cardinal Spellman's call for victory in Vietnam. And Hanson Baldwin(!) reported in the NYTimes, of course, that plastic baby bottles, complete with nipples and teflon had been accepted for combat use in the war in Vietnam. A few days later we learn that the Marines had moved into the Mekong River Delta(with baby bottles with nipples?). Among other news that month South Vietnam was planning to hold local elections that spring. And in Esquire, Dwight Macdonald introduced the relevant parts of the poem this way,
"England had used its power unjustly, had become insensitive to the sufferings of alien peoples on whom they had forcibly imposed their self-righteous ideas. Just as we are doing in Vietnam."
Just as we continue to do 45 years hence.
from "Fears In Solitude" by Samuel Coleridge:
We have offended, Oh! My countrymen! We have offended very grievously, And been most tyrannous. From east to west A groan of accusation pierces Heaven!
The wretched plead against us; multitudes Countless and vehement, the sons of God, Our brethren! Like a cloud that travels on, Steamed up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence, Even so, my countrymen! have we gone forth And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs And, deadlier far, our vices... ...Meanwhile, at home, All individual dignity and power Engulfed in Courts, Committees, Institutions, Associations and Societies, A vain speech-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild, One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery, We have drunk up, demure as at a grace Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth.
Thankless too for peace (Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas) Secure from actual warfare, we have loved To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war! ...and forth (Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names, And adjurations of the God in Heaven) We send our mandates for the certain death Of thousands and ten thousands! Boys and girls, And women, that would groan to see a child Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war, The best amusement for our morning meal! The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers From curses, who knows scarcely words enough To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father, Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute And technical in victories and defeats, And all our dainty terms for fratricide; Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which We join no feeling and attach no form! As if the soldier died without a wound.
And Macdonald ends his essay with words from this poem -"When will we know the meaning of our words? When will we be forced to feel the desolation and the agony of our fierce doings?"
"There
is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the
same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of
reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he
may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has
befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal
mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and
sovereign agent"- R.W. Emerson ("History")
"There
really is only one world soul, which I for preference call my soul and
as which alone I conceive what I call the soul of others"- L.
Wittgenstein
In
the end we're all toast anyway. Frozen dust perhaps? Everyone and
everything. Unless we take Dr. Hawking's advise and get the hell off
this orb we're doomed and our little dog, too. He's figuring another 300
to 1000 years and we should all live so long (wait-on second thought) .
Of course if we do make it off this planet in time- find another
life-sustaining ball spinning around
out beyond the outskirts of Cassiopeia or at least beyond Bayonne we'd
probably wind up wrecking that sphere too within unreasonable time. In
all of god's blue Earth there aren't that many of us who have learned
not to hate or at the very least learn how not to distrust someone
because they are different than you are; speak differently; believe
differently, look differently, eat differently, dress and even work
differently. As if we inhabit this one planet with aliens - and
according to Prof. Hawking when we meet the real aliens OUT There- R U N
! - who need to be controlled, enslaved , and, eventually,
exterminated-because they ain't US. And we're going to take such basic
earthbound sentiments along to a new world that is if we can agree to
who gets to go? That should be interesting-if and when that time draws
nigh. Well you and I won't be around if that leave-taking earth day ever
comes (maybe Ted Williams can still make it-someone should reserve a
seat for him)
(Oil on canvas by Jacqueline Jolles)
but
our descendants will be and I can't be convinced that they will take
along for the long journey the same old faults and ignorance and hatreds
that we seem to always have- part of our DNA I guess because we never
learn as I say,. Why just the knowledge and know-how to be able to do
that- take off for distant stars - came with a price too horrible to
imagine and yet there we go and here we are. So what EXACTLY are we
supposed to learn from HISTORY? If its how to be better humans -
forgedaboutit. And that includes everyone. Memo to Pew and Gallup: Be
sure to question all Republicans on what should be America's goal in the
next 300 years- A deficit of 0 ? or good jobs and decent wages for
everyone? That is if there is still an America to be around. I guess as
long as we stay away from the drinking water in West Virginia, keep
praying and dancing for rain in California, keep clear of any mismanaged
(ha!) nuclear waste and assorted toxic chemical sites , stop ingesting
too much contaminated meat and sugarinfused snacks (damn), limit our
burning of fossil fuels (perhaps just for the weekend grill), stop
paying heed to the NRA and if need be start treating the sale and use of
guns as we do cars (for a start), start buying coastal properties in
western Tennessee or at least in West Carolina, because we're in big
trouble here as Prof Hill tried to tell the Iowa caucuses and we will
not allow ourselves the communal will and imagination to do anything
substantial about it. But don't take only my word for it ( Memo to
myself for a future post (maybe) - the sign on the message board outside
that church atop Scotchtown hill read yesterday: "Words are the windows
to our hearts".- ) As it seems to be always the case here at the Joyful
Moocher we are on the same worldly wavelength with our more articulate
brothers and sisters; I know its easy - too easy at times to be drawn to
those that we are more -what? simpatico? have the same or almost the
same political bent? are fans of Willie Mays (although I have big
problem with George Will-, Murray Kempton was one thing, but Will? Hey,
its baseball afterall.)?
["Humanity
will disappear in 300 years. The word 'apocalypse' appears in the media
on a regular basis. Some scientists believe that the planet will be
destroyed as a result of the Third World War, others believe that it
will be a deluge. Some others predict an impact with an asteroid. The
list is endless. Recently, however, the most popular idea is the idea of
global warming. Thus, according to forecasts of Australian
scientists, by 2300, due to global warming, humanity will not be able to
exist normally on Earth. A change of the thermal regime will change the
moisturizing regime. All this may undermine the natural water cycle.
The speed of the increase of temperatures and the reaction of the entire
climate system to this factor will play a decisive role in the
process."]
As
we have pointed out in other posts and related sites the similitude of
our concerns and thoughts are already well articulated by quite a few
others, not surprisingly, of our liberal cast. But I guess that's always
the case. What I can never understand-satisfactorily- is why those who
aren't of similar reflection cannot see the folly or if you prefer the
evil of their way. (Just by way of example: in a country where children
are starving and in too many cases, dying because of inadequate
healthcare- why would someone who can help alleviate such conditions by
voting to increase food allotments and extending health benefits -why
would they vote to do the opposite and site some Dickensian-sounding
mean-ness as an excuse to do so while alleviating even more of the
infinitely affordable taxes of the very rich and adding on to the
burdens of the poor? Nobody can think such a course is right without
keeping some other -nefarious, perhaps, evil in mind. Don't you dare
Sunday- morning- TV paralogize this)
"According to Australian experts, in 300 years, more than 40 percent
of land will be flooded. The remaining part of the land will quickly use
up all available resources and become unsuitable for human life. The
scientists say that in 300 years, average annual temperatures will grow
by 12 degrees, which will have a devastating impact on people. It is
quite possible that we do not have 1,000 years to live on this planet,
as Hawking said. Will mankind be able to live in space?"- S.Vasilenkov
I
had an inkling, a hint of what I wanted to jot down - usually around 3
or 4 in the morning while in bed and too warm and comfortable to emerge
from out of the covers to make notes and when I did finally emerge I
find -these olden days-that the very act of putting pen to paper is
quite arduous for me as my hand and fingers tighten too soon and after a
brief stint I find I cannot even read what I had been writing and as
for my Mac program and my blogging -well, lets just say I am at the
mercy of poor excuses and technological glitches I have no understanding
of and spend a good deal of my time writing e-mails to "hosting
services" and talking to customer service reps in Mumbai who are
incredibly patient
with this grouchy old man who wakes up ( my dog is always grateful that
I did, my wife, I'm not too sure although she does makes me coffee
every morn) to a world of forgotten dreams and a new ache. It had to do
with connections - again. I wanted to somehow share with my reader the
unremarkable happenstance while reading a new (?) Roger Rosenblatt
memoir I came across the passages of his walking around Herman
Melville's old neighborhood in Manhattan - Rosenblatt grew up near
Gramercy Park - and Melville lived for a time on 26th St -well anyway no
sooner than I put this aside I come across -online- a rather poignant
and extraordinary article by the great Chris Hedges for whom "the most prescient portrait of the American character and our ultimate
fate as a species is found in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick.” Melville
makes our murderous obsessions, our hubris, violent impulses, moral
weakness and inevitable self-destruction visible in his chronicle of a
whaling voyage. He is our foremost oracle."
Of
course Mr. Hedges isn't the first to offer up Melville as our great
chronicler of power and authority and, even, virtue (talk about
forgotten dreams) but nevertheless to come across old Herman twice in
the course of a solitary morning should be taken - I believe- as some
kind of wake up call-again. Mr. Hedges considers:
"Yet we, like Ahab and his crew, rationalize our collective madness.
All calls for prudence, for halting the march toward economic, political
and environmental catastrophe, for sane limits on carbon emissions, are
ignored or ridiculed. Even with the flashing red lights before us, the
increased droughts, rapid melting of glaciers and Arctic ice, monster
tornadoes, vast hurricanes, crop failures, floods, raging wildfires and
soaring temperatures, we bow slavishly before hedonism and greed and the
enticing illusion of limitless power, intelligence and prowess.
The
corporate assault on culture, journalism, education, the arts and
critical thinking has left those who speak this truth marginalized and
ignored, frantic Cassandras who are viewed as slightly unhinged and
depressingly apocalyptic. We are consumed by a mania for hope, which our
corporate masters lavishly provide, at the expense of truth."
Still there is much ambiguity in Melville (as there should be) but you know that somewhere in this favored land his spirit (and words) reside with the crew of the
Pequod and workingmen and women everywhere. He may have had Capt. Vere
hang Billy Budd but he at least made him cry in his heart for the rest
of his shortened life.
"As the planet begins to convulse with fury, as the senseless greed of
limitless capitalist expansion implodes the global economy, as our
civil liberties are eviscerated in the name of national security,
shackling us to an interconnected security and surveillance state that
stretches from Moscow to Istanbul to New York, how shall we endure and
resist?" And he answers: Our hope lies in the human imagination. And
toward the end of his thoughtful and so well-written ( as always)
article Mr. Hedges posits a course of action for the rest of us to
perhaps- if we dare- follow. It is only those who harness
their imagination, and through their imagination find the courage to
peer into the molten pit, who can minister to the suffering of those
around them. It is only they who can find the physical and psychological
strength to resist. Resistance is carried out not for its success, but
because by resisting in every way possible we affirm life. And those who
resist in the years ahead will be those who are infected with this
“sublime madness.” As Hannah Arendt wrote in “The Origins of
Totalitarianism,” the only morally reliable people are not those who say
“this is wrong” or “this should not be done,” but those who say “I
can’t.” They know that as Immanuel Kant wrote: “If justice perishes,
human life on earth has lost its meaning.” And this means that, like
Socrates, we must come to a place where it is better to suffer wrong
than to do wrong. We must at once see and act, and given what it means
to see, this will require the surmounting of despair, not by reason, but
by faith.
Homer, Dante, Beethoven, Melville,
Dostoevsky, Proust, Joyce, W.H. Auden, Emily Dickinson and James
Baldwin, along with artists such as the sculptor David Smith, the
photographer Diane Arbus and the blues musician Charley Patton, all had
it. It is the sublime madness that lets one sing, as bluesman Ishman
Bracey did in Hinds County, Miss., “I’ve been down so long, Lawd, down
don’t worry me.” And yet in the mists of the imagination also lie the
absurdity and certainty of divine justice:"
It
reminded me of another passionate and articulate teacher who taught
about the history of American education and who wrote in a book
published over 40 years ago :
"The
grounds for the establishment of limits are already present in the
works of the giants of the twentieth century. Freud, Dewey, Einstein,
Sartre, Schweitzer,Camus, Oppenheimer, James Joyce, Aldous Huxley,
Orwell, Russell, and Buber called for an end to the monism of pure
science or pure religion or pure individualism. They also refused to
adjust to dualisms which end by favouring one side and tolerating the
other. They disregarded the drive to promote exact definitions free of
emotions. They accepted the present and acted in it, promoting full,
human possibility inside the present. ..schools need to clarify these
grounds and need to keep clarifying them so that everyman can establish
limits not out of desperation or despair, but through hope and faith in
the worth of fellow men living together in a new version of
communities." - B. Mehl, Classic Educational Ideas
I
confess I have many books within reach as it is a constant wonderment
to me how alike the good people are and unfortunately the converse and
sometimes how much certain opposites are more alike than they care to
realize let alone admit ( why just see an old post we called "The
Commonwealth"). And yet for some dumb reason each succeeding generation has to learn and unlearn once again what it means to live together. Is it not so that ever since some brilliant s o b came up with the concept of the "American way of life" it is left to the generation coming of age to try to solve the same old problems that for a number of reasons should have been worked out long ago; how to be with one another. C'mon people lets get it together. (But we don't.) There is a book recently reviewed by Al Gore in last Sunday's NYTimes chronicling what is referred to as the sixth mass extinction which is being caused by what biologists and scientists and Algore-ists know to be man-made climate change - although NBC and CBS and Fox still seem to think there should be discussion on the matter - pretend its not happening or their ginormous oil company ad revenue may get hurt feelings ( I wonder if that blonde actress who shills in black pants outfits for the American Petroleum Institute and whose ads play on every channel I have ever watched and more recently has been seen
hawking the godbearing gifts of fracking for shale oil is among the richest performers on earth- but its not really my business - but, oh, the deviousness) if the so-called news reporters and readers so much as whisper that they are among those that are responsible for, as Al notes, "destroying the integrity of our planet's ecology" ( which sort of fits our attractive spokewoman's shushing gesture in some of those commercials, you know "don't tell anyone how lucrative and earth destroying this really is'). Of course we are destroying our only planet ( and with opening day 7 weeks away) and of course there are many things we can start doing about saving? it; at least prolonging the inevitable? Because somewhere back in those historical extinction epochs or whatever it seems COMMON SENSE went the way of the last dinosaur. For every Al Gore (I hope this doesn't give him a swell head) and Prof. Hawking there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of Fox Hate watchers and holier than thou believers and American states who insist that creationism be included in their children's text books. Get on board The Pequod boys and girls the voyage has just begun. ___________________________________________________
BEIJING
— The Chinese government released a report on Thursday that said nearly
one-fifth of its arable land was polluted, a finding certain to raise
questions about the toxic results of China’s rapid industrialization,
its lack of regulations over commercial interests and the consequences for the national food chain.
The
report, issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the
Ministry of Land Resources, said 16.1 percent of the country’s soil was
polluted, including 19.4 percent of farmland. The report was based on a
study done from April 2005 to last December on more than 2.4 million
square miles of land across mainland China, according to Xinhua, the state news agency.
The
report said that “the main pollution source is human industrial and
agricultural activities,” according to Xinhua. More specifically,
factory waste products, irrigation of land by polluted water, the
improper use of fertilizers and pesticides, and livestock breeding have
all resulted in tainted farmland, the report said.
The
study found that 82.8 percent of the polluted land was contaminated by
inorganic material. The most common pollutants were cadmium, nickel and
arsenic, and the levels of these materials in the soil had risen sharply
since land studies in 1986 and 1990. The level of cadmium had risen by
50 percent in the southwest and in coastal areas and by 10 percent to 40
percent in other regions, Xinhua reported. The soil in southern China
is more polluted than in the north.
The
report confirms spreading fears among many officials and ordinary
Chinese that the country’s soil has been in severe decline. Its numbers
also indicate a more serious problem than statistics did in a book
published in early 2013 by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, “Soil Pollution and Physical Health,” which said one-sixth of China’s arable land, or nearly 50 million acres, was polluted.
Pequod and workingmen and women everywhere. He may have had Capt. Vere
hang Billy Budd but he at least made him cry in his heart for the rest
of his shortened life.
hawking the godbearing gifts of fracking for shale oil is among the richest performers on earth- but its not really my business - but, oh, the deviousness) if the so-called news reporters and readers so much as whisper that they are among those that are responsible for, as Al notes, "destroying the integrity of our planet's ecology" ( which sort of fits our attractive spokewoman's shushing gesture in some of those commercials, you know "don't tell anyone how lucrative and earth destroying this really is'). Of course we are destroying our only planet ( and with opening day 7 weeks away) and of course there are many things we can start doing about saving? it; at least prolonging the inevitable? Because somewhere back in those historical extinction epochs or whatever it seems COMMON SENSE went the way of the last dinosaur. For every Al Gore (I hope this doesn't give him a swell head) and Prof. Hawking there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of Fox Hate watchers and holier than thou believers and American states who insist that creationism be included in their children's text books. Get on board The Pequod boys and girls the voyage has just begun. 
Earth Will Cross the Climate Danger Threshold by 2036