From bogus@does.not.exist.com Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: No subject Message-ID: 1. U.S. Builds Case For Iraq War on Thin Proof Top U.S. military advisers, international leaders, economists, and former United Nations weapons inspectors have criticized the Bush administration’s plan to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime by sending upwards of 250,000 troops into Iraq. Without widespread support, Bush has been desperately seeking a connection between Iraq and Al Queda or Sept. 11. A full-scale war could then be waged without Congressional or United Nations approval. And the U.S. would never have to prove that Iraq has biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. “The U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA know perfectly well that today’s Iraq poses no threat to anyone in the region, let alone in the United States. To argue otherwise is dishonest” says Hans von Sponeck, former UN humanitarian aid coordinator for Iraq. The Washington Post reported recently that the U.S. has not identified a “single factory or lab known to be actively producing [weapons of mass destruction].” But former CIA Director James Woolsey warned CBS News that Saddam Hussein “poses the same kind of threat to the United States that Hitler posed in Germany in the mid-1930s.” Economists are also concerned. The New York Times estimates that a rerun of the Gulf War would cost the U.S. $80 billion, roughly six times the $13 billion the U.S. spent on the Gulf War when Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Japan picked up most of the $60 billion tab. And if Hussein is overthrown, the Pentagon estimates 25,000 to 50,000 troops may be needed for a decade or more to maintain stability. Sharon, Bush, U.S Companies Sued for Atrocities in Israel Using U.S. Aid Solidarity International for Human Rights, a Palestinian-American organization, has filed a lawsuit against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, President George Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and United States defense contractors. The suit, invoking the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, demands that the President and Secretary of State “cease providing military assistance to Israel until they have reported to Congress the misuse of American military assistance by Israel.” Attorney Stanley Cohen who filed the brief on behalf of 21 Palestenian-Americans, said the plaintiffs claims arise out of torture, killing, and destruction of property by and with the support of the Israeli and United States governments. 2. “Duh, It’s Hot:” GLOBAL TEMPERATURES SET RECORD HIGHS The first six months of the year were the second-warmest ever and average global temperatures in 2002 could be the highest recorded in 150 years, according to the British Meteorological Office. Global temperatures were 1.03 Fahrenheit higher than the long-term average of about 59 Fahrenheit in the period from January to June. In the nearly 150 years since recording began, only in 1998 has the difference been higher, 1.08 Fahrenheit, and that was caused by the influence of the El Nino weather phenomenon. The figures also showed that the northern hemisphere had its warmest-ever half year, with temperatures 1.31 Fahrenheit above the long-term average. 3. 35 Years of Human Rights Abuses? U.S. says OK The US is moving to reinstate ties with Indonesia’s armed forces, drawing sharp condemnation from human rights groups who challenge that the armed forces are still committing atrocities. Existing U.S. law cuts aid to the Indonesia military for its role in the devastation of East Timor, following its vote for independence in 1999. Visiting Indonesia on August 2, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that the administration would seek $50 million from Congress to “strengthen Indonesia’s capacity to deal with terrorism.” This follows on the heels of a July vote by the Senate appropriations committee to remove the ban on military training. “This is a very dangerous move,” said Munir, the founder of Kontras, Indonesia’s most prominent human rights organization. Munir points to the army’s support for the brutal 32-year dictatorship of former President Suharto and the 1999 abuses in East Timor as evidence. Activists also denounce the security forces for resuming a bloody crackdown against separatists in Aceh province this year that has left hundreds of civilians dead. John Miller, spokesman for the New York-based East Timor Action Network says the move to restore military aid to Indonesia “effectively gives U.S. backing to continued gross violations of human rights.” 4. Nigerian Women Rock Chevron Texaco Hundreds of unarmed Nigerian women lifted a siege of four key oil flow stations July 26 when ChevronTexaco agreed to provide more jobs, business loans, schools and hospitals for their communities. It marked the second time in less than two weeks that the world’s fourth largest oil company had bowed to the demands of local activists in the Niger Delta. The peaceful, all-woman protests were a departure for the oil-rich Niger Delta, where armed men frequently use kidnapping and sabotage against oil multinational companies. “History has been made,” Esther Tolar told the Associated Press. "Our culture is a patriarchal society. For women to come out like this and achieve what we have is out of the ordinary.” 5. Berenson Trial Goes To International Court The Peruvian government has decided that an Organization of American States' court will decide the case of New Yorker Lori Berenson, according to Reuters. Berenson was arrested in 1995 under ousted President Alberto Fujimori's anti-terrorism laws and jailed in 1996 for her alleged association with the Marxist rebel group, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. The court, whose decision would be legally binding on member state Peru, could order her freed or retried in Peru. The government, however, says it has appointed lawyers "to defend the Peruvian state with the aim of ... obtaining a resolution favorable to the interests of Peru." "For this government to spend money to defend the illegal Fujimori laws is preposterous...Lori should be released immediately," said Berenson's mother, Rhoda. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better --0-787874964-1028653217=:43314 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii

International Briefs on 1. Iraq; 2. Global Warming; 3. US-Indonesia Relations; 4. Nigerian Protests; 5. Lori Berenson

From August 2002 Indypendent

1. U.S. Builds Case For Iraq War on Thin Proof
Top U.S. military advisers, international leaders, economists, and former United Nations weapons inspectors have criticized the Bush administration’s plan to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime by sending upwards of 250,000 troops into Iraq.

Without widespread support, Bush has been desperately seeking a connection between Iraq and Al Queda or Sept. 11. A full-scale war could then be waged without Congressional or United Nations approval. And the U.S. would never have to prove that Iraq has biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.

“The U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA know perfectly well that today’s Iraq poses no threat to anyone in the region, let alone in the United States. To argue otherwise is dishonest” says Hans von Sponeck, former UN humanitarian aid coordinator for Iraq.

The Washington Post reported recently that the U.S. has not identified a “single factory or lab known to be actively producing [weapons of mass destruction].”

But former CIA Director James Woolsey warned CBS News that Saddam Hussein “poses the same kind of threat to the United States that Hitler posed in Germany in the mid-1930s.”

Economists are also concerned. The New York Times estimates that a rerun of the Gulf War would cost the U.S. $80 billion, roughly six times the $13 billion the U.S. spent on the Gulf War when Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Japan picked up most of the $60 billion tab. And if Hussein is overthrown, the Pentagon estimates 25,000 to 50,000 troops may be needed for a decade or more to maintain stability.

Sharon, Bush, U.S Companies Sued for Atrocities in Israel Using U.S. Aid
Solidarity International for Human Rights, a Palestinian-American organization, has filed a lawsuit against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, President George Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and United States defense contractors.

The suit, invoking the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, demands that the President and Secretary of State “cease providing military assistance to Israel until they have reported to Congress the misuse of American military assistance by Israel.”

Attorney Stanley Cohen who filed the brief on behalf of 21 Palestenian-Americans, said the plaintiffs claims arise out of torture, killing, and destruction of property by and with the support of the Israeli and United States governments.

2. “Duh, It’s Hot:” GLOBAL TEMPERATURES SET RECORD HIGHS

The first six months of the year were the second-warmest ever and average global temperatures in 2002 could be the highest recorded in 150 years, according to the British Meteorological Office.

Global temperatures were 1.03 Fahrenheit higher than the long-term average of about 59 Fahrenheit in the period from January to June. In the nearly 150 years since recording began, only in 1998 has the difference been higher, 1.08 Fahrenheit, and that was caused by the influence of the El Nino weather phenomenon.
The figures also showed that the northern hemisphere had its warmest-ever half year, with temperatures 1.31 Fahrenheit above the long-term average.

3. 35 Years of Human Rights Abuses? U.S. says OK

The US is moving to reinstate ties with Indonesia’s armed forces, drawing sharp condemnation from human rights groups who challenge that the armed forces are still committing atrocities. Existing U.S. law cuts aid to the Indonesia military for its role in the devastation of East Timor, following its vote for independence in 1999.

Visiting Indonesia on August 2, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that the administration would seek $50 million from Congress to “strengthen Indonesia’s capacity to deal with terrorism.” This follows on the heels of a July vote by the Senate appropriations committee to remove the ban on military training.

“This is a very dangerous move,” said Munir, the founder of Kontras, Indonesia’s most prominent human rights organization. Munir points to the army’s support for the brutal 32-year dictatorship of former President Suharto and the 1999 abuses in East Timor as evidence. Activists also denounce the security forces for resuming a bloody crackdown against separatists in Aceh province this year that has left hundreds of civilians dead.

John Miller, spokesman for the New York-based East Timor Action Network says the move to restore military aid to Indonesia “effectively gives U.S. backing to continued gross violations of human rights.”

4. Nigerian Women Rock Chevron Texaco

Hundreds of unarmed Nigerian women lifted a siege of four key oil flow stations July 26 when ChevronTexaco agreed to provide more jobs, business loans, schools and hospitals for their communities. It marked the second time in less than two weeks that the world’s fourth largest oil company had bowed to the demands of local activists in the Niger Delta.

The peaceful, all-woman protests were a departure for the oil-rich Niger Delta, where armed men frequently use kidnapping and sabotage against oil multinational companies.

“History has been made,” Esther Tolar told the Associated Press. "Our culture is a patriarchal society. For women to come out like this and achieve what we have is out of the ordinary.”

5. Berenson Trial Goes To International Court

The Peruvian government has decided that an Organization of American States' court will decide the case of New Yorker Lori Berenson, according to Reuters. Berenson was arrested in 1995 under ousted President Alberto Fujimori's anti-terrorism laws and jailed in 1996 for her alleged association with the Marxist rebel group, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.

The court, whose decision would be legally binding on member state Peru, could order her freed or retried in Peru. The government, however, says it has appointed lawyers "to defend the Peruvian state with the aim of ... obtaining a resolution favorable to the interests of Peru."

"For this government to spend money to defend the illegal Fujimori laws is preposterous...Lori should be released immediately," said Berenson's mother, Rhoda.


Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better --0-787874964-1028653217=:43314-- From bogus@does.not.exist.com Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: No subject Message-ID: On June 30, a group of six local fishermen from the small southern Cambodian village of Phnom Sralao confronted an illegal commercial fishing vessel that had been using large nets that destroy locals’ gear. Armed guards on the trawler shot and killed two of the men and wounded a third. When the police went to the village the next day to investigate, they weren’t interested in gathering information about the killers, but instead accused the local men of trying to rob the larger boat. “They did not come to investigate but they came to ask for money and threaten to arrest if we did not pay them,” said Phin Sour, the wife of one of those killed. The mother of Dem Yon, who was not killed, paid B 3500 to the police to protect her son from prosecution. “I sold my land for 2800 baht ($66) and my boat for 800 baht ($19) to pay them,” she said. The conflict is the result of tensions caused by the privatization of Cambodia’s once communal fishing areas. The transformation of the industry is part of a package of reforms the Cambodian government is carrying out as it prepares for its 2005 accession to the World Trade Organization, which requires developing countries to promote foreign trade and eliminate domestic protections. But rapid changes to this fragile economy are threatening the country’s stability. Shootings, arsons, seizures and arrests in the fisheries, as well as conflict, indebtedness, migration and malnutrition are increasing among the 90 percent of Cambodians who live in rural areas. Millions here rely on fishing for their protein and livelihood, but it is becoming harder for them to do so. The village of Anlong Raing consists of a few dozen floating houses on the edge of the Great Tonle Sap Lake, the largest lake in Southeast Asia. Fishers here used to catch enough fish to eat, plus some to trade for rice. But, because of commercial competition and the degradation of the lake itself, the fish they now catch are too small to sell, and must be kept in cages until they are big enough to market. “We cannot make enough money to buy rice...There are fewer fish now that big fishermen come and fish this area, and we cannot do anything about them,” said Veng Thy Viet, a mother of five. The commercial fishermen are supported by Cambodia’s fishing ministry and other authorities, said Mao Vanna, head of the Anlong Raing community fishery. “The ministry and police are involved in illegal fishing; they take a cut of the profits.” The commercial vessels use illegal methods: electrocution, poisons, explosives, water pumping, scoops, nets and fences. These practices overfish the lake, destroy aquatic life and wreck locals’ gear. In defiance of a law that guarantees family fishers open access to communal areas within the commercial fishing lots, lot owners frequently post guards and charge fees. The prime minister attempted to resolve the growing conflict in late 2000 by restoring more than half of the privatized fishing lots to the communities. But without Department of Fisheries officials monitoring the field and without maps demarking the newly-drawn boundaries publicly available, the situation became chaotic. Confrontations between family and commercial fishers increased. In a country still shaped by the murderous Khmer Rouge era and ensuing years of uncertainty, there are few community organizations to connect local fishers, leaving them weak. Thanks to grassroots organizing and the support of non-governmental organizations, notably OxFam USA and the Fisheries Action Coalition Team, circumstances for small fishers in Anlong Raing have begun to improve. In some areas, a decline in illegal fishing has mitigated local conflict. But that has led to a large influx of people from areas where things have been getting worse. In 1990, there were 43 families in the village; now there are 90. Population pressure combined with a declining catch rate for locals threatens the structure of this community. Related environmental dangers resulting from liberalization reforms are also becoming a menace. The booming timber industry — another newfound export for Cambodia — is resulting in deforestation and soil erosion around the Tonle Sap, silting up the lake. Hoping to export rice, the Cambodian government has promoted more intensive agriculture that requires pesticides and fertilizers that seep into the freshwater system. But if the Sre Ambel killers are not pursued, the main problem for Cambodia’s small fishers will be that commercial fishers will assume they can act with impunity. And the violence will escalate. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better --0-1051842426-1028653345=:7788 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii

By Joshua Breitbart

*** Photos Available on Request ***

From August 2002 Indypendent

On June 30, a group of six local fishermen from the small southern Cambodian village of Phnom Sralao confronted an illegal commercial fishing vessel that had been using large nets that destroy locals’ gear.

Armed guards on the trawler shot and killed two of the men and wounded a third. When the police went to the village the next day to investigate, they weren’t interested in gathering information about the killers, but instead accused the local men of trying to rob the larger boat.

“They did not come to investigate but they came to ask for money and threaten to arrest if we did not pay them,” said Phin Sour, the wife of one of those killed.

The mother of Dem Yon, who was not killed, paid B 3500 to the police to protect her son from prosecution. “I sold my land for 2800 baht ($66) and my boat for 800 baht ($19) to pay them,” she said.

The conflict is the result of tensions caused by the privatization of Cambodia’s once communal fishing areas. The transformation of the industry is part of a package of reforms the Cambodian government is carrying out as it prepares for its 2005 accession to the World Trade Organization, which requires developing countries to promote foreign trade and eliminate domestic protections. But rapid changes to this fragile economy are threatening the country’s stability.

Shootings, arsons, seizures and arrests in the fisheries, as well as conflict, indebtedness, migration and malnutrition are increasing among the 90 percent of Cambodians who live in rural areas. Millions here rely on fishing for their protein and livelihood, but it is becoming harder for them to do so.

The village of Anlong Raing consists of a few dozen floating houses on the edge of the Great Tonle Sap Lake, the largest lake in Southeast Asia. Fishers here used to catch enough fish to eat, plus some to trade for rice. But, because of commercial competition and the degradation of the lake itself, the fish they now catch are too small to sell, and must be kept in cages until they are big enough to market.

“We cannot make enough money to buy rice...There are fewer fish now that big fishermen come and fish this area, and we cannot do anything about them,” said Veng Thy Viet, a mother of five.

The commercial fishermen are supported by Cambodia’s fishing ministry and other authorities, said Mao Vanna, head of the Anlong Raing community fishery. “The ministry and police are involved in illegal fishing; they take a cut of the profits.”

The commercial vessels use illegal methods: electrocution, poisons, explosives, water pumping, scoops, nets and fences. These practices overfish the lake, destroy aquatic life and wreck locals’ gear.
In defiance of a law that guarantees family fishers open access to communal areas within the commercial fishing lots, lot owners frequently post guards and charge fees.

The prime minister attempted to resolve the growing conflict in late 2000 by restoring more than half of the privatized fishing lots to the communities. But without Department of Fisheries officials monitoring the field and without maps demarking the newly-drawn boundaries publicly available, the situation became chaotic. Confrontations between family and commercial fishers increased.

In a country still shaped by the murderous Khmer Rouge era and ensuing years of uncertainty, there are few community organizations to connect local fishers, leaving them weak. Thanks to grassroots organizing and the support of non-governmental organizations, notably OxFam USA and the Fisheries Action Coalition Team, circumstances for small fishers in Anlong Raing have begun to improve. In some areas, a decline in illegal fishing has mitigated local conflict.

But that has led to a large influx of people from areas where things have been getting worse.

In 1990, there were 43 families in the village; now there are 90. Population pressure combined with a declining catch rate for locals threatens the structure of this community.

Related environmental dangers resulting from liberalization reforms are also becoming a menace. The booming timber industry — another newfound export for Cambodia — is resulting in deforestation and soil erosion around the Tonle Sap, silting up the lake. Hoping to export rice, the Cambodian government has promoted more intensive agriculture that requires pesticides and fertilizers that seep into the freshwater system.

But if the Sre Ambel killers are not pursued, the main problem for Cambodia’s small fishers will be that commercial fishers will assume they can act with impunity. And the violence will escalate.


Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better --0-1051842426-1028653345=:7788-- From bogus@does.not.exist.com Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Wild blueberries. They are everywhere these days — in breakfast cereals, jams, muffins, pancakes, pop tarts and sold alone. They flourish in the highly acidic soil of northern Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and are harvested in August by hundreds of migrants including this reporter. It’s backbreaking work that attracts a diverse collection of people. At once idyllic and brutal, this unique harvest may soon be a thing of the past. Historically, the wild blueberry’s journey to your breakfast table has begun in a rake, the 18-inch-wide, metal-tined scooping device used to comb the low-lying blueberry vines. Mexicans, Mic Mac (Mi’Kmaq) Indians from eastern Canada, crusty gutter punks and free-floating hippies take to the fields at dawn’s first light. Bent over in the blazing sun, the rakers slowly vacuum the blue carpet that covers the fields. The sun’s slow-arcing trajectory traces the course of the day. You are keenly alert to every cloud, shadow and gentle late afternoon breeze. Paid by production, rakers can choose when to eat or rest, hop in a nearby stream or just hang out with friends. It’s not uncommon to see people sitting in a circle in the middle of the field sharing a big fat spliff, sometimes with the crew boss. Yet, most of the time, people rake with a desperate intensity. Fired by various dreams, they seek to make the most of their time in what is still, potentially, one of the most lucrative migrant gigs around. The trick is in the wielding of the rake — a special pushing and twisting motion of the wrists that teases the ripe berries from the grasp of the vine without crushing the fruit. A strong back comes in handy, too. I stretch and meditate for an hour before work and try to cruise along at 1,200-1,500 lbs. per day, earning roughly 10 cents per lb. Crews of as many as 100 people work side-by-side in long 20-foot-wide rows marked off by thin white twine. Raking can be highly competitive. Eventually, though, you realize it’s a waste of time to compare yourself to others. Someone will always be faster. At day’s end, there’s a sublime satisfaction to coming off the field totally spent knowing you’ve done the best you can. Back at camp, sleep comes easily though blueberries have a way of popping up in your dreams. The harvest can also be a nightmare, though. Many people don’t find as much “blue gold” as they hope for. As with most farm work, injury rates are disproportionately high. Pesticide usage is widespread. Maine’s Washington County, the self-proclaimed “Blueberry Capital of the World,” is the poorest county in a poor state, with 34,000 inhabitants scattered over a heavily-wooded area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. Maine’s annual wild blueberry production has more than tripled from 24 million to 75 million lbs. per year over the past two decades, and in that time, a small, locally-controlled industry has been increasingly assimilated into the global economy. Last year, independent growers received the same price (31 cents) they received in 1976. The box price for rakers has also remained stagnant or declined. Cherryfield Foods, a subsidiary of a Canadian frozen foods conglomerate, is now the largest blueberry grower in Maine, owning or managing over 12,000 acres of land. It once hired 800-1,200 rakers per season. It now makes do with 250. Mechanical harvesters are more cost-effective even though they are prone to tearing plants from their roots and recover as little as 60 percent of the berries that a hand raker gets. Such is progress in the era of globalization. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better --0-1458621921-1028654407=:77897 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii

By John Tarleton

*** Photos available ***

From the August 2002 issue of the Indypendent

Wild blueberries. They are everywhere these days — in breakfast cereals, jams, muffins, pancakes, pop tarts and sold alone. They flourish in the highly acidic soil of northern Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and are harvested in August by hundreds of migrants including this reporter. It’s backbreaking work that attracts a diverse collection of people. At once idyllic and brutal, this unique harvest may soon be a thing of the past.

Historically, the wild blueberry’s journey to your breakfast table has begun in a rake, the 18-inch-wide, metal-tined scooping device used to comb the low-lying blueberry vines. Mexicans, Mic Mac (Mi’Kmaq) Indians from eastern Canada, crusty gutter punks and free-floating hippies take to the fields at dawn’s first light. Bent over in the blazing sun, the rakers slowly vacuum the blue carpet that covers the fields.

The sun’s slow-arcing trajectory traces the course of the day. You are keenly alert to every cloud, shadow and gentle late afternoon breeze. Paid by production, rakers can choose when to eat or rest, hop in a nearby stream or just hang out with friends. It’s not uncommon to see people sitting in a circle in the middle of the field sharing a big fat spliff, sometimes with the crew boss.

Yet, most of the time, people rake with a desperate intensity. Fired by various dreams, they seek to make the most of their time in what is still, potentially, one of the most lucrative migrant gigs around. The trick is in the wielding of the rake — a special pushing and twisting motion of the wrists that teases the ripe berries from the grasp of the vine without crushing the fruit. A strong back comes in handy, too.

I stretch and meditate for an hour before work and try to cruise along at 1,200-1,500 lbs. per day, earning roughly 10 cents per lb. Crews of as many as 100 people work side-by-side in long 20-foot-wide rows marked off by thin white twine. Raking can be highly competitive. Eventually, though, you realize it’s a waste of time to compare yourself to others. Someone will always be faster. At day’s end, there’s a sublime satisfaction to coming off the field totally spent knowing you’ve done the best you can. Back at camp, sleep comes easily though blueberries have a way of popping up in your dreams.

The harvest can also be a nightmare, though. Many people don’t find as much “blue gold” as they hope for.

As with most farm work, injury rates are disproportionately high. Pesticide usage is widespread. Maine’s Washington County, the self-proclaimed “Blueberry Capital of the World,” is the poorest county in a poor state, with 34,000 inhabitants scattered over a heavily-wooded area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

Maine’s annual wild blueberry production has more than tripled from 24 million to 75 million lbs. per year over the past two decades, and in that time, a small, locally-controlled industry has been increasingly assimilated into the global economy. Last year, independent growers received the same price (31 cents) they received in 1976. The box price for rakers has also remained stagnant or declined.

Cherryfield Foods, a subsidiary of a Canadian frozen foods conglomerate, is now the largest blueberry grower in Maine, owning or managing over 12,000 acres of land. It once hired 800-1,200 rakers per season. It now makes do with 250. Mechanical harvesters are more cost-effective even though they are prone to tearing plants from their roots and recover as little as 60 percent of the berries that a hand raker gets. Such is progress in the era of globalization.


Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better --0-1458621921-1028654407=:77897-- From bogus@does.not.exist.com Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Sun Feb 8 02:52:01 2004 Subject: No subject Message-ID: have branded feminism “a hair-raising emotional orgy of hatred” led by “freaks… incapable of coming to terms with their own natures as females” (Esquire, 1971), a “passing fad” (New York Times, 1972), and a “lost cause” (Vogue, 1983), a “failure” (Newsweek, 1990) and a “dead” movement overrun by “a whole lot of stylish fluff ” (Time, 1998). By the late 1990s news outlets from NBC to PBS portrayed feminists as waging unjust “sex wars” and heralding a “gender Armageddon.” And by the turn of the millennium Men’s Health magazine reported that “militant,” “hostile” young feminists are oppressing men on college campuses by insisting on strong sexual assault policies and women’s studies programs. Today, similar sentiments span outlets from the liberal Atlantic Monthly to the conservative Fox News Network. This antifeminist hostility can be felt in coverage of topics editors narrowly define as “women’s issues” (e.g., rape, abortion, child care), where stereotypes are invoked and perpetuated. Take the ways in which sexual violence is sensationalized and used to scare women into sexual and social conformity. Victim-blaming is still prevalent; “What responsibility, if any, did the women have for what happened…?” asked Dateline NBC after dozens of women were sexually assaulted in Central Park in June 2000. Then there are the endless, frightening headlines about attempted rapists on the loose. Since sexual predators don’t just get bored mid-attack, behind every story about an attempted rape is the reality that some woman did something to get away. So, why no triumphant headlines about women fighting back, fending off their assailants? A similar framing problem persists in coverage of abortion, media’s favorite hot-button “women’s issue.” Consider how loath media have been to label shootings, fire bombings, death threats and other politically-motivated violence against abortion providers as “terrorism.” Only after Sept. 11, when newscasters received letters claiming to be laced with anthrax, did mainstream media finally “discover” the story — reported over the past decade in the women’s and alternative press — that anti-abortion terrorists have subjected women’s health advocates and clinics to a regular campaign of anthrax threats and violent — even fatal — crime for many frightening years (with more than 500 such letters arriving pre-9/11). When issues fall outside journalists’ pink ghetto yet implicitly affect women’s survival (e.g., global trade, affairs of state, war), gender is rarely used as a lens for analysis. For example, poll data following Sept. 11 showed women to be more moderate than men in their views about war. Yet corporate media presented a misleading picture of a flag-waving populace united behind the Bush push for military retaliation. Because women were nearly invisible as sources, experts and pundits in news debates, this notion went virtually unchallenged — helping the administration drum up support for an unending “war on terror.” Similarly, though women and children are 90 percent of the world’s sweatshop workers, editors almost never frame international economics as a “women’s issue.” Instead, global trade stories are told from the perspective of transnational corporations, not the female workers who suffer labor and human rights abuses daily in overseas and domestic sweatshops. This pro-business bias protects the financial interests of media advertisers, investors and parent companies, while denying the public information that might make us question our personal consumer decisions or collectively challenge corporate exploitation. If it is clear that women have a serious stake in media coverage, it is equally important to recognize that biased content is the end result of a much larger institutional problem — a media system structured in favor of advertisers and owners rather than citizens seeking information and entertainment; a system motivated by profit, not the public interest. We are at a crucial moment for the media industry. The deregulatory structure favored by big media and its favorite lap-dog, Federal Communications Commission Chair Michael Powell, would pave the way for the tightest convergence of media power we have ever seen in this country, threatening to subvert women’s and public interest voices more thoroughly than ever. We have two choices: we can sit back and wait until all our news is filtered through the lens of MSNBC-NNBCBSABCFOXAOLWB, Inc. — or we can work for progressive feminist media reform. Jennifer L. Pozner is founder of Women In Media & News (WIMN), a women’s media monitoring, training and outreach organization. This piece is adapted from “The ‘Big Lie’: False Feminist Death Syndrome, Profit, and the Media,” in the forthcoming Catching A Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From bogus@does.not.exist.com Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Sun Feb 8 02:52:02 2004 Subject: No subject Message-ID: militarism. Accounts of events of aggression are laid out concisely in a time line that speaks to their accuracy and validity. The atrocities covered in the time line are punctuated by dated quotes, selected to clarify the objectives of the perpetrators and advocates of violence in each case. Any threat to Persian Gulf oil, Jimmy Carter says, in 1979, “will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” The immorality of the events is brought to the surface and affirmed by the gestures on the faces in the opinionated illustrations that read between the lines and leave the readers saying “funny, but not funny.” The humor in the illustrations is shattered by the sober and marring gravity of the social commentary they convey. General Smedley Butler is drawn with his face scrunched up in sorrow saying, “Our boys were sent off to die with beautiful ideals painted in front of them. No one told them that dollar and cents were the real reason they were marching off to kill and die” in 1934. There are illustrations of players like the senior Bush and even Jimmy Carter with shit eating grins on their faces bragging about their war machine. Bush says about Saddam Hussein in 1990 “He’s going to get his ass kicked!” The ravenous and monstrous war habit of our corporatized government is indulged at our expense. Where violence might satisfy the desires for power and money of a few big corporations, it is taxing for the rest of us. The plain monetary expense of maintaining our military is crippling our infrastructure. “Bridges, roads, sewers, and water systems are crumbling because the government fails to provide the money needed to maintain them.” The expense issued to the rest of the world is even harsher. People are starved and slaughtered thoughtlessly by US sanctions and arms, so they also have to live paranoid under the threat of retaliations. The retaliations are branded as terrorism. We are continuously deceived by the clandestine “marshaling of public opinion” for our support of the war monster, and this book puts that all out on the table. The book ends on a hopeful note showing how effective good people can be when they come together and voice their truths. It leaves you wanting to figure out how you can put an end to the violence. Addicted to War is an inspiring and easy read. It has a sizable list of references, so it can also be a great tool for educating and eye opening. Share it with your friends and family. _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail From bogus@does.not.exist.com Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Sun Feb 8 02:52:03 2004 Subject: No subject Message-ID: food per square foot of surface area in your bin. One pound of food waste fills a 16-ounce plastic cup. Appropriate worm food is anything that does not smell bad when it rots. Do not feed meat, dairy, oil, or grease to your worms. Keep in mind that microorganisms decompose the food to a certain extent before the worms can digest it. Hand washing is strongly recommended after feeding or handling the worms. Cover the box and set it on a surface that can collect liquid that may leak out of the bin. Keep your bin in a dark, dry place that is convenient for you, like a basement or garage. In order for the worms to eat your food waste at maximum speed, the box needs to be kept at a temperature that is comfortable to humans, between 40 and 80 degrees Farinheit. If it gets too cold, cover the bin with a blanket and/or a tarp. A full vermiposting cycle takes two to four months to complete. This is apparent when the original bedding material is absent, and a brown, earthy-smelling substance replaces it. It is now time to harvest the castings. If you have helpers, (e.g., anyone who likes bugs), dump the whole bin out on a tarp and pull out as many of the worms as you can by hand. Otherwise, scoop all of the castings to one side of the bin. Add damp bedding material to the vacant side and begin the whole process anew. Worms will gradually move to the unfinished side, and you can skim finished compost as they go. When conditions are too wet inside the bin due to overfeeding or lack of aeration disagreeable odors occur. To fix the problem, reduce the amount of food waste you feed the worms. Also check the aeration holes to see if they are blocked. It may also be necessary to drill more holes. For further information as well as suggestions, find the book Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof. It’s well-written, authored by one of the world’s leading authorities on worm composting. The Madison Public Library System has several copies in circulation. The author can be contacted at ginnygold103@hotmail.com --Sidebar-- Suggestions for your very own vermiculture: 1. Compost used coffee grounds with the filter, as well as tea bags, in the worm bin. 2. To keep yourself cleaner when feeding the worms, use a small garden fork to bury the food waste. 3. Old coolers (with lots of ventilation) make great worm bins. 4. If the worms appear to be trying to escape, try feeding them less citrus peel. 5. It is possible to carefully rinse oil/dressing from fresh veggies to feed worms 6. Chop food waste into tiny pieces (or use a food processor to puree it), the worms will eat it much faster. Most importantly, be creative when making and using wormbins! __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com