« 11.22.05 | John Rendon, the Man Who Sold the War; SuicideGirls Revolt; Greenland's Glaciers Melting Really Fast | Main | 12.07.05 | An Issue of Choice; Kamikaze Pilots and Suicide Bombers; Sex Toys for Republicans »

November 30, 2005

11.30.05 | Death of Native Languages; When Boys Will Be Jarheads; History of Iraq, in Lies
November 30, 2005 Edition

"The Best of the Rest of the Web"

THiS WEEK: Indigenous communities further isolated by disaster; John Ross reports on the death of native languages in Mexico; Hollywood's little problem with equating war with a rite of masculinity—and how superficially anti-war movies like Jarhead fall into the same trap; while the administration talks about "withdrawal" of troops from Iraq, the US military is busy solidifying US influence through another medium; how "homeland security" is the biggest money-maker in the US since the dotcom boom; cheerleaders recruited to sell drugs; race, class, and capital punishment; the increasing influence of the Christian Reconstruction movement; World Bank acknowledges social and environmental havoc wreaked by dams, keeps building dams; why Pope Benedict's reactionary policies are nothing new for Catholics in Latin America; and more.

This Week's Picks:

  1. VIDEO | Isolated Native American Communities Struggle in the Aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
    In the deep bayous of Louisiana, many Native American tribes—especially those that lack federal recognition as tribes—have suffered disproportionately from the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita because they have been overlooked by federal agencies and relief organizations.

    Amy Goodman (host) | Democracy Now
    Video: http://www.archive.org/download/dn2005-1124/dn2005-1124-1_64kb.mp3
    Transcript: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/24/0740237


  2. First Kill the Language, Then the Culture
    The planet upon which we dwell is no longer the Tower of Babel it once was. Like bio-diversity, linguistic diversity is drying up at an alarming rate.

    John Ross | CounterPunch
    http://www.counterpunch.org/ross11262005.html


  3. REVIEW | When Boys Will be Jarheads
    Hollywood movies construct war as a rite of masculinity, a crucible of violence from which the soldier emerges either a stronger, better man or forever destroyed. So, director Sam Mendes was already in trouble the moment he decided to make a movie based on Anthony Swofford's memoir Jarhead.

    Lakshmi Chaudhry | In These Times
    http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/when_boys_will_be_jarheads


  4. US Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press
    The Lincoln Group, a small, Washington-based PR firm, has contracted with the Pentagon to translate and place dozens of stories in Iraqi newspapers with headlines like "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism." Meanwhile, a military taskforce has allegedly bought an Iraqi newspaper and taken over a radio station to promote a pro-US message—and neither identifies itself as the military mouthpiece it is.

    Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi | LA Times
    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-infowar30nov30,0,5638790.story


  5. Bush To Increase Funding For Hope-Based Initiatives
    President Bush announced today that he will sign a bill providing an additional $2.8 billion for private organizations that emphasize the importance of hoping for change.

    The Onion
    http://www.theonion.com/content/node/42811


  6. Fear, Inc.
    A decade ago, optimism about how technology would connect the planet, reinvent commerce, and revolutionize society gave rise to the dotcom boom. When optimism turned into fevered speculation, the economy crashed. Now another mania is taking hold. It's predicated on fear and funded by a drive to defend against, prepare for, and recover from perils both man-made and natural, real and imagined. For every nightmare scenario—a nuclear weapon in a shipping container, a suicide bomber in the subway, an avian flu pandemic, another killer hurricane—there are entrepreneurs and venture capitalists and consultants promising to help. And the government is ready to spend money to confront these problems—or at least to look like it's doing so.

    Evan Ratliff | Wired
    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/homeland.html


  7. Gimme an Rx! Cheerleaders Pep Up Drug Sales
    "Exaggerated motions, exaggerated smiles, exaggerated enthusiasm—they learn those things, and they can get people to do what they want."

    Stephanie Saul | New York Times / CorpWatch
    http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12833


  8. AUDIO | Cruel and Unusual Punishment
    One minute past minute on December 13th, Stanley Tookie Williams is scheduled to be executed by the State of California. Lance Lindsey and Phil Gasper talk about the many convoluted dimensions of the death penalty and the ways that race, class, and the backlash against the civil rights movement intersect with the issue of capital punishment.

    C.S. Soong (host) | Against the Grain
    http://www.againstthegrain.org/audio11.29.05.mp3


  9. Revision Thing
    A history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies.

    Sam Smith | Harper's
    http://www.harpers.org/RevisionThing.html


  10. A Nation Under God
    Let others worry about the Rapture: For the increasingly powerful Christian Reconstruction movement, the task is to establish the Kingdom of God right now—from the courthouse to the White House.

    John Sugg | Mother Jones
    http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/12/a_nation_under_god.html


  11. Damming the World Bank
    The World Bank recognizes the countless social and environmental problems caused by dams, but won't let them get in the way of building more and more dams.

    Jacques Leslie | AlterNet
    http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/28622


  12. Lost Lives and Impoverished Souls
    When the conservative Catholic cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI, many observers saw this as the beginning of a reactionary period for the Catholic Church. To those who have followed the politics of the Church in Latin America, however, his election came as no surprise and is clearly seen, not as a new position of the Church, but one which began in the 1980s.

    Michael Hogan | ZNet
    http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9169


- Media Picks Contributing Editors: Erica Wetter, Adam Barker
- Media Picks compiled and edited by Erin Wiegand and Brian Awehali

Posted by erin at November 30, 2005 09:37 AM

Comments