 High-Speed Rail Grants Favor the Prepared
by jamesmccommons It's no surprise that only a handful of states were awarded the $8 billion in stimulus rail grants awarded last week by the U.S. Department of Transportation rail. Thirty-two states applied with requests totaling $50 billion, but the truth is few states are ready for rail money. Most DOTs and [...]
 Gays in the Military
by madeleinekunin We’ve come a long way in the sixteen years since the policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” was adopted to deal with the question of gay and lesbian members of the military. This time, advocacy for repeal did not come from any outside group; it came from the apex of [...]
 The Tea Party Dumps Economic Populism: Where are the Progressives?
by lesleopold The Tea Party sprang to life in response to the financial crash that sent our economy into a tailspin. Until recently, it balanced two tendencies: hatred of big government and hatred of Wall Street. The combination (in the form of the bailouts and stimulus programs) provided a perfect target as [...]
 Weathervane Week
by robertkuttner So what will it be, Mr. Punch-it-through, or Mr. Bipartisan? Obama seems to be determined to give bipartisanship one more shot, hoping that his reasonableness will trump Republican obstruction.
Last week, right after his State of the Union Address, President Obama spent several hours with the Republicans at their Baltimore caucus [...]
 Toyota's Green Goodwill Will Save Its Reputation
by richardseireeni The world's media engines are in high gear as they go after Toyota for the current spate of accelerator and braking issues. That's to be expected when you are now the world's leading maker of automobiles with an almost mythic reputation for quality. You become a target.
However, I don't think [...]
 Now It's Time For The Climate Deniers To Answer Some Questions
by keithfarnish Here's a situation you might be familiar with: you are doing something at work that you are particularly good at, having gained those skills through study, experience, and learning from your mistakes. Along comes a person who you know of by reputation to be a bit of a seen-it-all, done-it-all, [...]
150 Billion Reasons Why Wall Street Loves Political Gridlock
by lesleopold No, it's not a conspiracy. Goldman Sachs and its minions are not plotting to cripple the government. But it is remarkable how our political system freezes shut just when we need to make serious changes to our economic system.
Earth to government: our people are out of work, but we're letting [...]
 Defense Department Turns Down My FOIA Request for Mohamed Al Hanashi's Autopsy Report
by naomiwolf You may recall that in June of last year, I was in Guantanamo when the detainees' representative, Mohamed al Hanashi, was found dead in his cell, "an aparent suicide" according to the Gitmo press office. To recap, there was plenty wrong with that picture: al Hanashi had been taken out [...]
The Tea Party: Economic Populists or Wall Street Toadies?
by lesleopold Who cares?
We all should. The Tea Party is not a fake. It's not just a creation of Fox News and Dick Armey's Astroturfing operation. It's a genuine expression of populist anger that is driving our politics from below. There's a reason it is polling higher than either of the [...]
 More backwards hype about "the soul of organic"
by gracegershuny A recent post on GRIST (http://www.grist.org/article/battle-for-the-soul-of-organic-dairy-farmers-goes-on-behind-the-scenes) starts with an attention-grabbing but purely hyperbolic "There is a battle going on in the White House for the very soul of the organic dairy movement—and possibly over the future of small family-operated dairy farms—and you don’t even know it." The author goes on [...]
 Radical Homemakers: Ecological, Social and Economic Transformation...all under one roof
by shannonhayes Portions of this story are excerpted from Shannon Hayes’ newest book, Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity From a Consumer Culture, Left to Write Press, 2010. To learn more, visit radicalhomemakers.com.
Long before we could pronounce Betty Friedan’s last name, Americans from my generation felt her impact. Many of us born in the [...]
 If a Disaster Struck Your Town, How Could You Cope?
by matstein Watching the poor people suffering in Haiti points out our all-too-human vulnerability when disaster strikes, things fall apart, nothing is working, and the few facilities and rescue workers that are functioning are hopelessly overloaded! Most Americans are in the danger zone for some kind of disaster, whether it be terrorism, [...]
Love, Love Me Do
by robertkuttner Looked at together, President Obama's State of the Union Address last Wednesday and his appearance before the House Republican Caucus retreat in Baltimore on Friday offered a fascinating window on how Obama and his advisers believe an embattled president should lead in the face of wall-to-wall obstruction. Though the stance [...]
 Fascinating lecture: "Keeping Cattle: Cause or Cure of Climate Change?"
by jte Check this out. It's a lecture by Allan Savory sponsored by Feasta, an Irish organization ("The foundation for the economics of sustainability"). There's a 10 minute version and a 1 hour version. The full version includes a lot of seriously interesting stuff not in the condensed version.
I'd love to have [...]
 Gaia Mission #1
by GaiaGirl My hubby (a third-grade teacher) and I have always called Gaia Girls, "Fiction with a Mission." I'm happy to announce that the "Mission" component is about to begin! This weekend, on my monthly show, Radio Gaia, I will be announcing Gaia Mission #1.
From the Gaia Girls Blog: "I am soooo excited [...]
Why are we donating $2,000 per family to Wall Street Bonuses?
by lesleopold President Obama won't tell us in his State of the Union address. The deficit hawks won't crow about it. Don't expect the Tea Party or Rush and Beck to highlight our generosity either. But the sad fact is this: During the worst year since the Great Depression, with 30 million [...]
 Where's the Movement?
by georgelakoff In forming his administration, President Obama abandoned the movement that had begun during his campaign for deal-making and a pragmatism that hasn't worked. That movement is still possible and needed now. Here is look at what is required, and how a version of it is forming in California.
We begin [...]
The Supreme Court and Corporate Electioneering
by madeleinekunin The Supreme Court decision which will allow unfettered campaign contributions from corporations and unions poses a threat to the very workings of our democracy. To equate a corporation with a person is a travesty of justice. The voice of the individual voter will be drowned out by the cacophony of [...]
Wall Street Bonuses Can Create One Million Green Jobs
by lesleopold President Obama may be joining the populist crusade against Wall Street. In the span of one week he opened up a three front war: a tax on big banks, full support for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and the embrace of Paul Volcker's plan to break up the big [...]
Mixed Signals
by robertkuttner What a week!
As so many of us writing for Huffington Post have been arguing for the past year, if President Obama did not cease behaving as the ally of Wall Street, the right wing would emerge as populist champion of the forgotten American. The election results in Massachusetts have now [...]
 The U.S. Supreme Court Sells Out: A Government of, for, and by the Corporations
by rikiott The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Citizen United v. Federal Elections Commission case sold America down the river. It opens the floodgates to unfettered -- unlimited! -- corporate and union spending on candidate elections by overturning state and federal restrictions on electioneering. This will affect all elections: school board, [...]
HCR Avatar analogy—and "pass HCR" contingency fund
by jte Maybe lots of other people are making Avatar analogies, but I haven't happened to see them myself. So I'll just throw this out there. (Spoiler alert for people who haven't seen the movie and don't want to know the storyline: avoid this diary entry.)
Scott Brown's election is the point in [...]
In the Wake of Massachusetts
by madeleinekunin A political earthquake hit Massachusetts last night. The tectonic plates of the Democratic Party shifted with the election of Republican Scott Brown to the United States Senate and left untold amounts of debris in its wake. I woke up this morning with the hope that one has after a bad [...]
 Ponds for Viking Funerals!
by timmatson Boston Globe columnist Mark Feeney declares his affection for “ridiculously tame” urban ponds in a wry “G” section essay, “Fond of the Pond.” Bypassing the grandeur of more distant monumental landscapes, he’s quite happy with the human scale of Boston’s Fresh Pond as a strolling destination and calming object of [...]
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Submitted by dpacheco on February 8, 2010 04:59 PM 
By Keith Farnish, author of Time's Up! An Uncivilized Solution to a Global Crisis Here’s a situation you might be familiar with: you are doing something at work that you are particularly good at, having gained those skills through study, experience, and learning from your mistakes. Along comes a person who you know of by reputation to be a bit of a seen-it-all, done-it-all, bought the t-shirt type; they always insist they can do everyone’s job better than the specialist can. Most of the time the specialists politely decline his “help”, after which he ...
Submitted by dpacheco on February 8, 2010 11:46 AM 
In an attempt to improve their image in Italy and foster better relations with that country's government—and also, perhaps, placate the vocal Slow Food movement—fast-food restauarant chain McDonald's is adding an item to their menu there: a burger with a nationalist twist.
The imaginatively-named </sarcasm> McItaly gives natives and tourists exactly what I assume corporate executives think they want in home-grown Italian cuisine: a meal sporting the colors of the Italian flag—red, white, and green. Not surprisingly, the multinational corporation is getting some push-back from Italy's Slow Food movement—most notably from Carlo Petrini, ...
Submitted by dpacheco on February 7, 2010 10:00 AM 
At the 2010 Eco Farm Conference, Chelsea Green's own Makenna Goodman got to witness firsthand one of the most well-attended and inspiring talks: organic farmer Eliot Coleman on the subversive power of the small farmer. Coleman adapted his address for AlterNet. Here's a snippet:
An observer today cannot help noticing the continuation of a trend that started at the beginning of the industrial revolution, a trend away from autonomy and independence for human beings and towards manipulation, consolidation, and control by large corporate entities. The early destruction of small farms in the 18th century ...
Submitted by dpacheco on February 6, 2010 09:59 AM 
A signature drive by the group Tax Cannabis 2010 was easily able to gather 700,000 signatures—far more than necessary—to ensure the "Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010" will show up on the ballot in California this November. The law would make it legal for private citizens 21 years and older to own up to an ounce of pot and to grow a limited amount for personal use. It would, of course, still be illegal under federal statutes.
From the San Francisco Chronicle at sfgate.com:
Proponents of a state initiative to legalize marijuana ...
Submitted by dpacheco on February 5, 2010 09:59 AM 
Ask Joel Salatin what he does for a living and chances are he'll tell you he's a grass farmer. If that brings to mind images of burritos stuffed with sauteed Kentucky blue, or biofuel cars that run on lawn clippings, you've probably never seen Food, Inc. or read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.
Called "the high priest of the pasture" by the New York Times, Salatin has developed a system of pasture rotation that produces nutrient-rich grass and maximizes the composting of animal waste. Each species on the farm is dependent on another. ...
Submitted by dpacheco on February 4, 2010 12:05 PM 
The following is an excerpt from Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? by Steve Fox, Paul Armentano, and Mason Tvert. It has been adapted for the Web. Why is it that our state and federal laws embrace alcohol—a drug that is a known cause of a frightening array of adverse health effects and behaviors— while criminalizing the use of marijuana, which is seldom associated with such problems?” Good question. After all, it wasn’t always like this. Throughout most of America’s history, marijuana and alcohol were both legal. ...
Submitted by dpacheco on February 4, 2010 11:01 AM 
In a recent interview with epicurious.com's Joanne Camas, slow food advocate Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) revealed seven of his "food heroes," farmers and writers who epitomize the slow/local/simple/real food movement. And guess what three out of seven of those people had in common. Go on. (Hint: it rhymes with Spelsea Spleen.)
Aw, heck, I'll just tell you: Joel Salatin, Eliot Coleman, and Joan Gussow are all authors whose books are either published or distributed by Chelsea Green. We're immensely proud to be a part of the growing movement away from ...
Submitted by dpacheco on February 3, 2010 09:04 AM 
Farmers who sell their produce wholesale have at least one thing in common with their buyers: they don't want their customers to get sick. And not just because food poisoning is a bummer—it's just bad for business. Increasingly, buyers want the added assurance of Good Agricultural Practices, or GAP, certification. Certification of Good Agricultural Practices as defined by the USDA is usually done by a third party. Easy enough to do, but a lot of farmers are opting out. They believe it creates an onerous burden. Are they right? And is mandatory GAP certification on the ...
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