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September 28, 2005
09.28.05 | US Forced to Import Bullets; "True Porn" Comics; Foucault and the Iranian Revolution
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September 28, 2005
Edition |
| "The Best of the Rest of the Web" |
THiS WEEK: US running out of bullets; Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez promises to provide the US poor with cheap fuel; the real meaning of reconstruction in New Orleans; Jonathan Kozol on how the US educational system is still leaving poor kids behind; "True Porn" comics; why Michel Foucault was so enamored of the Iranian Revolution; a funny cartoon; disturbing edits of government reports on global warming; relief workers at risk in New Orleans; a brief history of flash mobs; why discrimination—not just housing prices—continues to keep so many from owning their own home; dolphins with toxic dart guns on the loose in the Gulf of Mexico; and much, much more in this week's edition of Media Picks.
This Week's Picks:
- US Forced to Import Bullets
US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan—an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed—that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand.Andrew Buncombe | The Independent / Uruknet
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m16122&l=i&size=1&hd=0 - Chavez Staying True To Pledge For US Poor
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has vowed to provide cheap oil to poor people in the US—sending officials from Citgo (the Venezuelan state-owned energy company) scrambling to fine-tune his language.Estanislao Oziewicz | Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20050923.CHAVEZ23/TPStory/TPInternational - AUDIO | Hugo Chavez Speaks
In his first interview in the United States, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez discusses the war in Iraq, his plans for sending cheap fuel to the US poor, the role of the media in the aborted coup against him, and Venezuela's request for the extradition of Cuban anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles.Amy Goodman | Democracy Now!
Part One:http://www.archive.org/download/dn2005-0920/dn2005-0920-1_64kb.mp3
Part Two: http://www.archive.org/download/dn2005-0920/dn2005-0920-1_64kb.mp3 - CARTOON | How American Health Care Works
Shannon Wheeler | Too Much Coffee Man
http://www.tmcm.com/comics/tmcm050926.gif - Purging the Poor
"Reconstruction," whether in Baghdad or New Orleans, has become shorthand for a massive uninterrupted transfer of wealth from public to private hands, whether in the form of direct "cost plus" government contracts or by auctioning off new sectors of the state to corporations. Already in New Orleans, this "reconstruction" appears to be coming at the cost of diversity.Naomi Klein | The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/klein - INTERVIEW | Five Minutes with Jonathan Kozol
Author Jonathan Kozol talks about how the American educational system continues to betray lower-income inner-city children.Elana Berkowitz | Campus Progress
http://www.campusprogress.org/features/552/five-minutes-with-jonathan-kozol - Lusty Lady
'True Porn' comics tell stories of boredom, ecstasy, impotence, and onanism.Rachel Kramer Bussel | Village Voice
http://villagevoice.com/people/0539,bussel,68184,24.html - AUDIO | Foucault and the Iranian Revolution
What are the risks when the left champions anti-imperialist movements that are neither secular nor leftist? Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson talk about their controversial new book, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution : Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, which looks at philosopher Michel Foucault's support for the clerical movement that ultimately installed the Ayatollah Khomeini as head of the Islamic Republic of Iran.Sasha Lilley | Against The Grain
http://www.againstthegrain.org/audio9.20.05.mp3 - Silent Spring
From editorial revisions and marginal notations made to government reports on global warming by Philip A. Cooney, then chief of staff for the White House's Council on Environmental Quality. Cooney's previous employer had been the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade and lobbying group of the petroleum industry. Soon after the documents were released by the Government Accountability Project in June, Cooney left the administration to take a public-relations job with ExxonMobil. - Relief Workers May Be Next Wave of Katrina Victims
Though evacuation orders have been in place since Hurricane Katrina shredded New Orleans weeks ago, the city has never been empty. As water poured over its walls, many first responders, military and medical personnel, and other public servants stood their ground, and still more flowed in from other areas, placing themselves in harm's way to help others. But as the floodwaters recede and the city looks toward recovery, environmental groups are warning that numerous hazards still residing on New Orleans' sodden ground could cause short- and long-term health problems. And they say the government's efforts to protect recovery workers threaten to be as incompetent as its initial response.Michelle Chen | NewStandard News
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2395 - Remembering Flash Mobs
Who'd have thought a single email designed to mock New York scenesters would have turned into an international craze? The founder of flash mobs talks to Stay Free! about how it all happened.Francis Heaney | Stay Free
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/24/flash-mobs-history.html - Closing the Door on Americans' Housing Choices
Newspapers and TV commentaries around the country have been buzzing with alarm about skyrocketing housing prices. But for many Americans, spiraling home prices and rents aren't the only barriers to housing opportunity and choice. Discrimination—by landlords, real estate agents, and mortgage lenders— stands in the way of too many families searching for a place to live.Margery Austin Turner and Carla Herbig | Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2005/09/closing_the_door.html - Armed and Dangerous
36 bottlenose dolphins, trained in attack-and-kill missions by the US Navy, have gone missing after their compound was breached by Hurricane Katrina. The dolphins, trained to shoot "terrorists" with toxic dart guns, may now pose a threat to divers and surfers in the area.Mark Townsend Houston | The Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1577753,00.html - Secrecy Power Sinks Patent Case
A federal appeals court deep-sixes a lawsuit filed by inventors of a fiber-optic connector after the government claims a top-secret project could be exposed in court. Critics warn that the "state secrets privilege" is ripe for abuse.Kevin Poulsen | Wired
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68894,00.html?tw=wn_7polihead - The Polls of Bel Air
The post-coup Haitian presidential election, currently planned for November 20, has a list of 54 candidates. The Canadian Prime Minister's 'special advisor on Haiti', Denis Coderre, suggested yesterday that this sprawling list of candidates was a good thing, a sign that 'democracy is like a flower that needs to be constantly tended'.Justin Podur | ZNet
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=8801 - The New Hamas: Between Resistance and Participation
In March 2005, Hamas, the largest Islamist party in Palestine, joined its main secular rival Fatah and 11 other Palestinian organizations in endorsing a document that seemed to embody the greatest harmony achieved within the Palestinian national movement in almost two decades.Graham Usher | Middle East Report
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero082105.html
- Media Picks Contributing Editors: Erica Wetter, Adam Barker
- Media Picks compiled and edited by Erin
Wiegand and Brian Awehali
Posted by erin at September 28, 2005 08:47 AM