« 05.18.06 Ali G. Interviews Noam Chomsky; Of NGOs and Missionaries; Propaganda and the World Cup | Main | 05.31.06 Nonprofits and Drug Firms; Japan's Swing to the Right; The Omnivore's Dilemma »
May 24, 2006
05.24.06 NSA Surveillance Testimony; (Young) Christian Soldiers; Local or Organic?
 |
May 24, 2006 Edition |
| "The Best of the Rest of the Web" |
SIGN A FRIEND UP FOR MEDIA PICKS: They'll be given the option to confirm their addition to the list, and may decline with one click. Click here.
THiS WEEK: conscientious objector Aidan Delgado speaks to high school kids about the difference between recruitment propaganda and realities of war; firsthand testimony from a whistleblower on how AT&T helped the NSA conduct illegal internet surveillance; Bill O'Reilly tries to take the moral high ground in interviewing Ricardo Cortés, author of It's Just a Plant; why the question of "local or organic" is a lot harder than it seems; the shock troops of the christian youth; why network neutrality is a black issue; urban farming and guerrilla gardening; the politics of "development"; Da Vinci's queer code; and much more in this week's utterly fantastic version of Media Picks.
This Week's Picks:
- VIDEO | Recruitment and Realities
Aidan Delgado enlisted for the national reseve on September 11th, 2001, and has since become an outspoken conscientious objector and critic of the Iraq War. This is an excellent documentary including interview footage, photos from the war, and clips from his March 23, 2005 talk at a high school in Berkeley, California. "Some of these photos may be graphic or shocking, but I think that if you're [considered] old enough to fight, you're old enough to see what the reality is."Archive.org
http://www.archive.org/details/ConscientiousObjectorAidanDelgado - Whistle-Blower's Evidence, Uncut
Former AT&T technician Mark Klein's firsthand account tells how he discovered a secret room routing American internet traffic straight to the NSA—along with all the documents he says prove his case.Wired
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70944-0.html?tw=wn_index_2 - VIDEO | Going to Pot
Bill O'Reilly has a fair and balanced conversation with Ricardo Cortés, author of the fabulous children's book about marijuana, It's Just a Plant. (Check out the book at http://www.justaplant.com.)Magic Propaganda Mill / YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kssS_TEeQfU - Chews Wisely
In an essay from his book, Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew, author Samuel Fromartz suggests the choice between local and organic foods is a false one.Samuel Fromartz | Grist Magazine
http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2006/05/18/fromartz/index.html - CARTOON | Undocumented War Profiteers
Matt Bors | Idiot Box
http://www.mattbors.com/strips/177.gif - Meet the Shock Troops of the Christian Youth
If you've been waiting until the Christian fascist movement started filling stadiums with young people and hyping them up to do battle in "God's army" to get alarmed, wait no longer.Sunsara Taylor | ZNet
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=10275 - The Black Stake in the Internet
When AT&T rents black ministers and black Republican sock puppets like the National Black Chamber of Commerce, and even recruits the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation to its team, network neutrality has very definitely become a black issue.Bruce Dixon | The Black Commentator
http://www.blackcommentator.com/183/183_cover_black_stake_internet.html - The Midas Touch
In Alaska's Bristol Bay region, the continent's biggest deposit could produce more gold than the Klondike gold rush—and put the world's largest salmon fishery out of business.Kenneth Miller | Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/05/midas_touch.html - Lure of the Urban Veggie Garden
For Wally Satzewich, the kick of urban gardening is making fat money and sticking it to the Man. Thing is, he's doing it growing leafy greens in people's back yards.Bryan Zandberg | The Tyee
http://thetyee.ca/Life/2006/05/19/UrbanGarden/ - Harper's Index
Minimum number of times that Frederick Douglass was beaten in what is now Donald Rumsfeld's vacation home: 25 - The Homeland of my Imagination
Colonial subjects die a kind of death when they lose the birthright to define themselves in the terms of their birth, as they are made to respond to the multiple identities imposed upon them by others: when they are forced to see themselves as someone else's invention.Abdel-Qader Yassine | Al-Ahram Weekly
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/795/op2.htm - AUDIO | The Ballot or The Bullet
Malcolm X's famous, complete oration of April 12, 1964. "We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation, and social degradation—all of them from the same enemy. The government has failed us; you can't deny that. Anytime you live in the twentieth century, 1964, and you walkin' around here singing "We Shall Overcome," the government has failed us. This is part of what's wrong with you—you do too much singing. Today it's time to stop singing and start swinging.Produced by King Daevid MacKenzie | Echoes of a Century
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=18235&nav=& - What Exactly is "Development"?
India's development debate has actually regressed this past decade. For one thing, a single, homogenised view of development is being shoved down from above. Whether it works or does not work is not the issue. Any departure from it is heresy. If you oppose the draining of people's water by Coca Cola and the poisoning of their wells, that's anti-development.P. Sainath | Counter Punch
http://www.counterpunch.org/sainath05202006.html - Queering the Code
The Vatican is right about one thing: Dan Brown's story doesn't really make historical or artistic sense. Leonardo da Vinci's work is coded, all right—as gay.Michael Bronski | Boston Phoenix
http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid12613.aspx - Displaced New Orleanians Return Home to Vote
This weekend's general election for mayor and other seats in the Crescent City revives racially complicated concerns about displaced residents' ability to access polls.Catherine Komp | The New Standard
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/3195
- Media Picks Contributing Editors: Adam Barker, Justin Park
- Media Picks compiled and edited by Erin
Wiegand and Brian Awehali
Posted by erin at May 24, 2006 12:19 PM