Category Archives: Text

Omnivores Unite!

Its sunday and I’ve been throwing myself all over a frisbee field all day, so rather than doing deep research or extensive writing, I bring you a recommendation from my listening over the last few days.

Michael Pollan is an author that many of you recommended to me during the time I was focused on the soy industry, and over the last few months he has certainly made the rounds on the radio.? For the last few months I myself have been skipping around his book, the Omnivore’s Dilemna, going back and forth between chapters.

Pollan was a guest on Democracy Now last thursday and he gets into alot of important issues. Among them, genetically modified crops, high-fructose corn syrup, farm subsidies, swine flu, and the FDA.? Interestingly he points out that for the first time in a very long time, the FDA (food and drug regulator of the US government) is actually investigating food companies and enforcing rules on nutrition and production.

He also gets into a recent study on genetically modified food and production statistics that warrants a post and perhaps a video unto itself.? For now I simply recommend, if you’re concerned about what you and your children eat, and also concerned about how food producers are behaving, listen, read or watch this segment.

Testimony on the State of the Media

In a recent post you might remember me pointing to the words of The Wire creator and former Baltimore journalist David Simon as he was interviewed on Bill Moyer’s program.? You might also remember that I’m a huge, let’s be honest, FAN, of Simon as I find the Wire to be one imperfect and completely accurate mirror of how our society and our world functions.

So it might come as a surprise and certainly ironic when I tell you I hated David Simon’s testimony before US Congress during the recent session on the state of the media industry. Hmm, saying I hated it is kind of silly, the basic fact is that based on Simon’s words before congress, I don’t agree and would argue some of his statements/facts.

I actually plan to develop my response further, possibly putting it out as a video entry, but for now I wanted to begin to break-down what problem I have with Simon’s words and to properly lay out my own responses.Continue reading “Testimony on the State of the Media”

Augusto Boal Interview

I admit that during his life I didn’t know everything about Augusto Boal and his work for social justice and human rights. I should have, because now only a few days after his death, it is clear he was my kind of guy; someone who’s life is an example to many of us.

DemocracyNow recently played an old interview with Boal from 2007, I would highly recommend you listen to his words, they’re brief but meaningful.? Also I wanted to include my favorite part of the interview which is better in audio format, but for those who prefer to read:Continue reading “Augusto Boal Interview”

Abuse on the Street

It was a Monday late afternoon as N and I walked onto the extremely crowded Istiklal, Istanbul’s see-and-be-seen pedestrian avenue lined with all the coolest shops and restaurants. She and I walked among the masses on our way to meet a friend for dinner, chatting about her work and upcoming events at the University, when all of a sudden out of the hundreds of voices rose one extremely angry and violent? male tone, shouting in Turkish in such a manner that you needn’t understand Turkish to understand that this man was on the verge of hurting someone or something.

The voice must have pierced through the crowd and into our conversation at about the same time for both of us, as we immediatelyContinue reading “Abuse on the Street”

Trial That Sould be Center Stage

“If the Corps didn’t do its job, somebody should be held responsible. Somebody’s got to answer to something.” – The words of a former Lower Ninth Ward resident who lost a daughter to the flood waters that would swallow up his entire house.

The lawsuit filed by New Orleans based Katrina victims against the Army Corps of Engineers has begun, the slow quest for answers and accountability all these years later, has finally landed in the courtroom. The specific grievance, the Army Corps’ failure to maintain the MR-GO channel who’s 20 breaches were largely the cause of flooding in the lower ninth ward following Hurricane Katrina.? Between 10 billion and 100 billion $ in damages hang in the balance, but well beyond the money, for victims of the federal flood, this case is about holding government accountable, and breaking the long held assumption that the Army Corps is immune from any legal action for their actions.

I can remember in 2007 when I was in NOLAContinue reading “Trial That Sould be Center Stage”

Stats can lie

David Simon, creator of The Wire, was on Bill Moyers journal this past week.? Before getting into the world of writing and directing television, he was a journalist in Baltimore for many years. At that job he got to watch how the police force, city government, and school system work, or perhaps we could say, don’t work.

At one point in part 1, Simon touches on a topic that says alot about how our world works – the use of statistics to justify some plan or political goal.?? Specifically he says:

You show me anything that depicts institutional progress in America… anything that a politician can run on, anything that somebody can get a promotion on, and as soon as you invent that statistical category, 50 people at that institution will be at working trying to make it look like progress has been made when actually no progress has occurred.

Simon gets into how when the mayor of Baltimore wanted higher arrest numbers and the police department wanted to show those stats, they would go around arresting anyone they could including people sitting on their front steps (loitering in a drug-free zone). But he points to how the same logic applies in the school system where students are taught only what they need to get test answers right and increase the test scores. Or how the media are more concerned about winning awards and pleasing managers rather than doing difficult investigative reports and connecting those reports to the bigger picture.

As Simon mentions, this same way of thinking can be found in the current financial crisis… showing good numbers to please investors even if those numbers are based on toxic assets and loans that people can’t pay back.

Its enough to make a person think twice when they rely on the old logic “Just the facts m’am”, as journalists so often have throughout history. Stats can be , and often are,? used and abused. It takes alot more than stats to tell a story and understand an issue.