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Three Worlds One Vision

Monthly Archives: October 2015

Climate Disruption: Thought of the Week

28 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Clean energy source, Climate Change, Climate disruption, Tapping Energy from Ocean Currents, Young Scientist Challenge

2015 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge

2015 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge
Photo Credit: Fast Company

Ninth Grader Invented Prototype to Tap Energy from Ocean Currents

Fifteen-year-old Hannah Herbst from Boca Raton, Florida, is the winner of the 2015 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge. Herbst created an energy probe prototype that seeks to offer a stable power source to developing countries by using untapped energy from ocean currents.

~ Press Release, Discovery Education and 3M announce 2015 Science Competition Winner, Young Scientist Challenge, October 26, 2015.

Blue Sky for Guyana?

25 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Guyana

≈ 31 Comments

Tags

Blue Sky for Black America by Jesse Rhines, Hopefulness, Marginalized people, Racial divisiveness, Utopian literature

Blue Sky over the Georgetown Seawall and Shore - Guyana

Blue Sky over the Georgetown Seawall and Shore – Guyana
Photo Credit: Joel Oleson /Traveling Epic! Blog

Growing up in pre- and post-independent Guyana, I had a tough mother with a vision of a better future for me and my four siblings. Without inherited wealth or property, her hope for securing our future lay in a good education. To achieve her goal, she worked long hours at home as a seamstress. No sacrifice was too great.

My mother was not unique. The majority of poor working class parents shared her vision. United in their determination to free themselves from British exploitation and rule, they were prepared to risk their lives by taking part in street demonstrations and workers’ strikes.

But the British were no fools. On granting us independence, they not only ensured that our young nation would remain tied to their navel-string, but they also set us up to fail. You see, we fell for their bait of racial divisiveness. Up to today, the descendants of African slaves and East Indian indentured laborers still harbor mistrust, hatred, and fear of the other. Continue reading →

Climate Disruption: Thought of the Week

21 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Climate Change, Climate disruption, Earth Pledge 1992, Global warming, Pledges to reduce carbon emissions

Earth Pledge - UNCED - June 1992

People sign the Earth Pledge – June 1992
UN Conference on Environment and Development
Photo Credit: UNCED

Which countries are doing the most to stop dangerous global warming?

In November, nearly 200 countries meet in Paris for UN talks to agree a new climate deal. Find out how pledges compare in The Guardian’s in-depth analysis of 13 key countries and blocs: EU, Japan, Russia, US, Canada, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Mexico, and Morocco.

~ “Which countries are doing the most to stop dangerous global warming?” The Guardian, October 2015.

Blue Sky for Black America

18 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Education, Recommended Reading, United States

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

African American Science fiction, African American Studies, Blacks in American Utopian Literature, Blue Sky for Black America by Jesse Rhines, Hopefulness for Black youth, Jesse Rhines

Book Cover - Blue Sky for Black America by Jesse Rhines

Book Cover: Blue Sky for Black America:
100 Years of Colored People in Western Utopian Literature
by Jesse Rhines Ph.D

The book, Blue Sky for Black America: 100 Years of Colored People in Western Utopian Literature, captured my interest as a lover of science fiction. Based on his early experience as an IBM Systems Engineer Trainee, the author Jesse Rhines applies IBM’s “blue sky” utopian approach to formulating its hundred-year projection in addressing urban hopelessness among underclass Black youth. He argues that hopelessness, a future oriented condition, requires a future oriented solution.

To facilitate this process, Rhines analyzes one hundred years of Western Utopian literature featuring Black Americans. Beginning with the pre-World War II period, he examines two classic futuristic novels by Edward Bellamy and Aldous Huxley. Blacks remain servants and are depicted as backwards, uncivilized, and rapists. Continue reading →

Climate Disruption: Thought of the Week

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Climate Change, Climate disruption, Global warming, Gulf Stream, Nature & Environment, Ocean circulation, Stefan Rahmstorf, The Thermohaline Circulation

The Thermohaline Circulation

Download NASA Animation Video
(Duration 1:23 minutes)
The Thermohaline Circulation: The Great Ocean Conveyor Belt

Global Warming Slowing Down Circulation of Oceans

According to a new study in Nature Climate Change by Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-authors, we’re now seeing a slowdown of the great ocean circulation that, among other planetary roles, helps to partly drive the Gulf Stream off the U.S. east coast…

~ Read the complete article “Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans – with potentially dire consequences” by Chris Mooney, The Washington Post, March 23, 2015.

Brazil bans corporate donations to parties and election campaigns

11 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil

≈ 32 Comments

Tags

Brazilian politics, Congressman Eduardo Cunha, Corporate donations in election campaigns, Election campaign finance, Overturning Citizens United, Petrobras kickback scandal, Political corruption

Supreme Federal Court - Brasilia - Brazil

Sculpture “Justice” by Alfredo Ceschiatti
Supreme Federal Court – Brasília – Federal District – Brazil
Photo Credit: Valter Campanato/Agência Brasil

Sparked by national outcry for change, on September 17, 2015, Brazil took a giant leap forward. Amidst the fallout of the kickback scheme at the state-own oil company Petrobras, the Supreme Federal Court (STF) finally ruled in the case for “clean campaign finance” filed in 2013 by the Brazilian Bar Association. With a favorable verdict of eight to three, they declared legislation allowing businesses to finance election campaigns as unconstitutional. Considering that in Brazil’s 2014 general elections almost 95 percent of donations came from large corporations, this is a blow to the political power elite.

Justice Luiz Fuz, voting in favor of the ban on corporate donations, said: “I know that the verdict is important for democracy, because the inherent values to democracy presupposes a free participation, an ideological participation in elections, and these donations by corporations end up contaminating the democratic process, the political power by economic power, which is absolutely unacceptable in a democracy.”

Also ruling in favor, Justice Rosa Weber argued: “The influence of economic power has ended up transforming the electoral process into a political game of marked cards, a despicable pantomime which makes the voter a puppet…”

Opposing the ban, Justice Gilmar Mendes contended that it would only benefit the ruling Workers Party (PT) that “would not need more contributions, as they are financed with the embezzlement of public money.”

Congressman Eduardo Cunha rejected the verdict. As Speaker of the House and former leader of the Party for the Movement of Democracy in Brazil (PMDB), he is one of Brazil’s most influential politicians. Just a week before the STF ruling, he led Congress in passing a new campaign finance bill that allowed corporate donations of over US$5 million. Standing with the STF ruling, President Dilma Rousseff has vetoed this bill.

Brazilians have had enough. The Petrobras kickback scheme – now estimated at more than US$5 billion – has brought their country to its knees, leaving millions without work. Some of the spoil went to politicians. Eduardo Cunha is among those under investigation for alleged involvement. Recent disclosures from Swiss authorities could link him to the kickback scheme. But Cunha denies he holds Swiss bank accounts and any involvement in money laundering. He refuses to step down as Speaker of the House.

In a country were corruption is endemic, the STF ban on corporate donations is a bold step. Enforcing the new legislation will not be easy. As opponents to the ruling have noted, individuals can still contribute up to 10 percent of their annual income, providing a loophole for corporate exploitation.

In the United States, Big Money exploits all loopholes for pouring billions of dollars into our electoral process, transforming our democracy into a Brazilian-style oligarchy. Through the Aware and Fair Blog, I learned that the recent Bloomberg Politics National Poll reveals a whopping 78 percent of Americans – Republicans, Democrats, and Independents – agree on something: overturning Citizens United. Does our Supreme Court hold the power to take that bold step forward?

Climate Disruption: Thought of the Week

07 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Climate Change, Climate disruption, ExxonMobil, Nature & Environment

Exxon Climate Science Timeline 1964-1985

For Decades, Exxon Mingled with the Climate Science Elite
Photo Credit: Paul Horn / InsideClimate News

EXXON: The Road Not Taken

After eight months of investigation, InsideClimate News presents this multi-part history of Exxon’s engagement with the emerging science of climate change… It describes how Exxon conducted cutting-edge climate research decades ago and then, without revealing all that it had learned, worked at the forefront of climate denial, manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that its own scientists had confirmed.
~ EXXON: The Road Not Taken by Neela Banerjee, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer, InsideClimate News, September 21, 2015.

“Rise Up After the Fall” – Poem by Leonard Dabydeen

04 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Poetry

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Fibonacci poetic form, Guyanese-Canadian Poet Leonard Dabydeen, No to Wars, Save our Children, Syrian Crisis

No to War - Afghan Peace Volunteers

Afghan Peace Volunteers at Borderfree Nonviolence Community Center
Photo Credit: TruthOut (Dr. Hakim)

My Poetry Corner October 2015 features the poem “Rise Up After the Fall” by Guyanese-Canadian poet Leonard Dabydeen. Before migrating to Canada where he is a licensed paralegal, he was a former headmaster and later lecturer at the Guyana Teachers’ Training College. Following his 2012 debut collection, Watching You: A Collection of Tetractys Poems, Dabydeen’s latest collection, Searching for You: A Collection of Tetractys & Fibonacci Poems, was published in September 2015.

The featured poem and the following excerpts are from Dabydeen’s e-book collection, 419 Poems, published in October 2014. While his poetry is mainly free verse, he also works with the modern mathematical poetic forms, tetractys and Fibonacci. Whatever the style, Dabydeen’s poetry lays bare our soul with its longings and broken dreams; its darkness and love’s light.

Written in the first person, “Age” speaks of youth’s disregard for the aged: in tattered clothes / and hobbled knees / and my thinning gray hair / and my frail bone-in body. Perhaps, younger generations should consider:

that your time will come
like ocean waves washing
towards the shore
and leaving a crustacean memory
for those who are yet to come.

For those of us trapped in life’s stampede…in the gathering of things, he reminds us in “Here Today…Gone Tomorrow”:

if mobility means to peddle oneself
in ascent or descent in going places
this we know with certainty
you are here today
and you will be gone tomorrow
as long as memory does not
suffer senility syndrome.

In “Misunderstandings,” the poet exposes the ordeals of being a parent:

What misunderstandings reek the mind
when parents are unable to decipher
how their son or daughter is growing up
how he or she makes decisions that
rupture their sentiments
like a cesarean wound?…

Calling attention to the “Civil Crisis” of the Syrian people, the poet uses the Fibonacci poetic form which hammers home the escalating crisis and demonstrates humanity’s descent into depravity.

Shoot
to kill
everyone
in the district
Syrians must die
no hope for survival
civil outcry they fear not
they will never tolerate this
bombings continue to destroy them
human rights no longer exist for us.

Dabydeen asks in “How Much More…”

Oh! what has man done to man
to emboss him with so much hate and anger?
You ask me as much
as I ask you with a blush of hope
how much more
and for what price?

The featured poem “Rise Up After the Fall” delves into our corrupt minds and souls, affecting all levels of our society. Corruption blinds us to our guilt; leaves us with no shame no shame.

sometimes we become witness
to this blind man in each of us
or innocent if we do not know
how we do what we do when we do

Dabydeen is optimistic that in working together we can rise up after the fall. We have to…for our children’s sake.

To read the complete poem and learn more about Leonard Dabydeen’s work, go to my Poetry Corner October 2015.

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