I’m on the road for the next couple of weeks – and on Colbert tomorrow! – so I’ll be cross posting over the next couple of days. First up, a fine piece by Sonia Shah from Z-net. Choicest line is the quote from the USDA official: “the [pesticide] companies believe this is safe…” More below the fold.
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Published in Pambazuka News 2009-12-16, Issue 462.
In a house in a leafy Durban suburb, lightly festooned with Christmas decorations, a TV is playing the Adam Sandler movie ‘Bedtime Stories’. Across scenes of gumballs falling from the sky and Roman gladiator races, our hero tries to get ahead through wish fulfilment. Predictably, his dreams don’t come true in quite the way he hoped.
Right. I’m back, sort of. The next few weeks are going to be a little bonkers (see the Events schedule, for an indication). I’ll also be writing up some of my experiences from recent visits to Malawi and South Africa.
There’s a splendid commentary up at The Commoner, where Massimo De Angelis offers a fine analysis of the fiasco unfolding in Copenhagen, and why bringing the ‘atmospheric commons’ under market rule will not end well. The Commoner is now on the blogroll, Massimo’s latest book is The Beginning of History and you can read his thoughts on climate change here.
The latest book by Eduardo Galeano is as insightful as we’ve come to expect. Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone contains more history and analysis than a year of ‘history of civilization’ classes, with much more beauty and grace. In the battle of memory against forgetting, Galeano offers an arsenal. A tidbit below the fold, on the origin of the World Trade Organization.
Airports. Bad for me. Bad for environment. Good for blogging in departure lounge. Two top resources from the Copenhagen climate change. The first from Henry Saragih of Via Campesina on Why We Left our Farms for Copenhagen below. Disappointingly, women don’t get a mention at all, but there are many resources, most accessibly here and most comprehensively at Gender cc. More below the fold. Keep Reading »
I should have been posting a little more than I have over the past week or so, but I’ve been murderously busy with the UK publicity tour for The Value of Nothing which ended gloriously this morning with a five minute crossing of swords on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme. I’m heading to Malawi today, which means being offline for a week or two, but when I come back, expect thoughts on Copenhagen, economic recovery, and how much you can eat for $1 a day.
The Friday after Thanksgiving is traditionally the day when US consumers rush to the shops, and spend until their eyes bleed. But tomorrow doesn’t inevitably have to involve running around with a credit card and bags of crap we don’t need.
One man who takes shopping’s stigmata very seriously is the Reverend Billy, preacher at the Church of Stop Shopping.
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