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August 18, 2005
08.18.05 Edition | The Farce of the Gaza Evacuation; New "Intelligent Falling" Theory; Why American Apparel Sucks
 |
August 18, 2005
Edition |
| "The Best of the Rest of the Web" |
THiS WEEK: Why the evacuation from Gaza is a big Israel-US PR campaign; Mike Davis has customarily cheery news about avian flu; evangelical scientists refute gravity with "intelligent falling" theory; Katha Pollitt asks if it's time for Roe v. Wade to go; yet more reasons American Apparel just sucks; bloodthirsty, warmongering...Canadians?; Why the "War on Terror" looks like the "Dirty Wars" of the '70s to South Americans; and much more, of course.
This Week's
Picks:
- The Shame of
It All
A great charade is taking place in front of the world media in the Gaza Strip. It is the staged evacuation of 8000 Jewish settlers from their illegal settlement homes, and it has been carefully designed to create imagery to support Israel's US-backed takeover of the West Bank and cantonization of the Palestinians.Jennifer Loewenstein | CounterPunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein08172005.html - The Coming
Avian Flu Pandemic
The first bar-headed geese have already arrived at their wintering grounds near the Cauvery River in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. Over the next ten weeks, 100,000 more geese, gulls, and cormorants will leave their summer home at Lake Qinghai in western China, headed for India, Bangladesh, Myanmar/Burma, and Australia.
Mike Davis | TomDispatch
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=56&ItemID=8523
- Evangelical
Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory
"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.
The Onion
http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2
- Should Roe
Go?
Should prochoicers just give up and let Roe go? With the resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor, more people are asking that question. Democratic Party insiders quietly wonder if abandoning abortion rights would win back white Catholics and evangelicals. A chorus of pundits—among them David Brooks in the New York Times and the Washington Post's Benjamin Wittes writing in The Atlantic—argue that Roe's unforeseen consequences exact too high a price: on democracy, on public discourse, even, paradoxically, on abortion rights.Katha Pollitt | ZNet
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=91&ItemID=8351 - Towards a Better
Food Aid System: An Interview with Sophia Murphy
The main reason reform is so difficult is that there aren't strong domestic political constituencies that have an interest in moving to an all cash based system. The nongovernmental organizations would seem to be the most likely to push for these changes. But they are happy to be getting any aid at all, and worry about endangering the flow of food by pushing too hard for reform. And because many of these organizations get funds that they need from monetization of food aid, they actually have an interest in perpetuating the system.
Interview by Clint Hendler | Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2005/08/food_aid.html
- Wolf in Sheep's
Clothing
Sexist antics and union-busting cast doubt on American Apparel's progressive cred.
Ari Paul | In These Times
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2270/
- Killing the
Peace-Keeping Myth:
Canadian Forces on the Road to Kandahar
The prevailing image of Canadian military interventions as benevolent, or at least neutral, though, should have been shattered any number of years ago in Vietnam when it produced Agent Orange (and sprayed it on its own unwitting soldiers at CFB Gagetown), in Somalia, or in Iraq during the Gulf War and the subsequent sanctions regime.
Derrick O'Keefe | Seven Oaks
http://sevenoaksmag.com/commentary/73_comm4.html - Terror's
Greatest Recruitment Tool
Hussain Osman, one of the men alleged to have participated in London's failed bombings on July 21, recently told Italian investigators that they prepared for the attacks by watching "films on the war in Iraq," La Repubblica reported. "Especially those where women and children were being killed and exterminated by British and American soldiers...of widows, mothers and daughters that cry."
Naomi Klein | The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050829&s=klein
- For South Americans,
War on Terror Looks Like 'Dirty War'
The recent turns in the war on terror look, to South American eyes, eerily like the Dirty Wars of the 1970s, when thousands of dissidents and rebels were imprisoned, tortured and often "disappeared."
Marcelo Ballvé | Pacific News Service
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=0c905a77e6c284dc0ab81cc704bb0cbf
- AUDIO
| Water Woes
Access to clean water is a matter of life and death for poor people across the globe. And that's the reality over one billion face today.
National Radio Project
http://www.radioproject.org/sound/050810.ra
- Weird Science
on the Religious Right
Seven of the greatest hits (or misses) of conservative Christian 'science' show just how little fact goes into these beliefs, and how much damage they can cause.
Stan Cox | Alternet
http://www.alternet.org/story/24000/
- Murdering the
Poor: Canadian Tax Dollars at Work
A fast-growing movement in Canada is demanding that the Canadian government support the return of constitutional democracy in Haiti.
Isabel Macdonald | Rabble
http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?sh_itm=4b4fd8e2d89608b03b4881bdee525a81&rXn=1&
- Junk Food Nation:
Who's to Blame for Childhood Obesity?
In recent months the major food companies have been trying hard to convince Americans that they feel the pain of our expanding waistlines, especially when it comes to kids. Kraft announced it would no longer market Oreos to younger children, McDonald's promoted itself as a salad producer and Coca-Cola said it won't advertise to kids under 12. But behind the scenes it's hardball as usual, with the junk food giants pushing the Bush Administration to defend their interests.
Gary Ruskin & Juliet Schor | The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050829&s=ruskin
- Fearing Backlash,
Pentagon Moves to Block New Abu Ghraib Photos
The Pentagon has moved forcefully to block the release of new video evidence of prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, arguing it would help recruit new Islamist insurgents and endanger American lives.
Agence France | Common Dreams
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0813-02.htm
- Media Picks Contributing Editors: Adam Barker and Erica Wetter
- Media Picks compiled and edited by Erin
Wiegand and Brian Awehali
Posted by erin at August 18, 2005 12:36 AM