Monthly Archives: April 2016

Disobedience: The Courage to Break Free

30 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption

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Disobedience - The Courage to Break Free

The new film Disobedience about the global movement to break free from fossil fuels is now available for free download and streaming at watchdisobedience.com!

The film is a powerful journey, featuring Break Free organizers in Canada, Germany, Turkey and the Philippines as they prepare to mobilize for major actions this May. It shows that the global movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground is growing in size and courage.

Disobedience features author and activist Naomi Klein, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, as well as board member Lidy Nacpil and dozens of inspiring voices from front-line fights around the world.

It’s about 40 minutes long, and I think it makes for inspiring watching ahead of the Break Free wave of action starting a few days from now.

If you’re inspired by what you see — and I think you will be — then I hope you will both share the film, and join thousands of people across the planet in Break Free actions next month. Across the United States, people are standing up to the power and pollution of the fossil fuel industry — from the frack fields of California, to the tar sands networks of the Midwest, to the oil train rail lines in the Northeast. This is where you can go to join Break Free.

Onwards, to a future beyond fossil fuels,
Duncan Meisel
350.org

The real reason Dilma Rousseff’s enemies want her impeached – By David Miranda

27 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by in Brazil

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“Ultimately, Brazil’s elite political and media classes are toying with the mechanics of democracy. That’s a dangerous, unpredictable game to play anywhere, but particularly so in a very young democracy with a recent history of political instability and tyranny, and where millions are furious over their economic deprivation.”
~ I’m pleased to see that the foreign press has awakened to the “legalized coup” (my description) underway in Brazil.

Guyanese Online

The real reason Dilma Rousseff’s enemies want her impeached

David Miranda – April 21, 2016 – Opinion – The Guardian

Dilma Rousseff Dilma Rousseff

Corruption is just the pretext for a wealthy elite who failed to defeat Brazil’s president at the ballot box

The story of Brazil’s political crisis, and the rapidly changing global perception of it, begins with its national media. The country’s dominant broadcast and print outlets are owned by a tiny handful of Brazil’s richest families, and are steadfastly conservative. For decades, those media outlets have been used to agitate for the Brazilian rich, ensuring that severe wealth inequality (and the political inequality that results) remains firmly in place.

Indeed, most of today’s largest media outlets – that appear respectable to outsiders – supported the 1964 military coup that ushered in two decades of rightwing dictatorship and further enriched the nation’s oligarchs. This key historical event still casts…

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Film Review: ‘Dear President Obama’ slaps America’s Establishment over the harm caused by Fracking

24 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized

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Our ignorance and shortsightedness as a species are incomprehensible.

The Secular Jurist

By Robert A. Vella

Last night, Viceland aired the anti-fracking documentary Dear President Obama – written and directed by Jon Bowermaster and narrated by Mark Ruffalo.  Although I’ve been closely following the use of hydraulic fracturing technology to produce oil and natural gas domestically in the U.S., the revelations presented in this extraordinary film were nevertheless quite shocking.  I was most disturbed by the complicity of the American political, bureaucratic, and judicial establishment which enabled powerful energy corporations to callously destroy the lives of millions of citizens with little-to-no recourse.  Their lands were seized or devalued, their vital water resources ruined, and the health and safety of their families were sacrificed all in the pursuit of short-term profit.  In addition to the well-known association between Big Oil and Republican politicians, it was surprising to learn how involved and hypocritical the Democratic Party has been in this corporatist energy scheme –…

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Earth Day 2016: Trees for the Earth

20 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by in Nature and the Environment, United States

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Earth-Day-2016-Poster-Earth-Day-Network

Earth Day 2016: Trees for the Earth
Image Credit: Earth Day Network

Friday, April 22nd, is Earth Day 2016. The theme is: Trees for the Earth. In the five-year countdown to their 50th anniversary, the Earth Day network has initiated an ambitious goal of planting 7.8 billion trees by 2020. In planting a tree for every person on our planet, we will contribute to:
~ mitigating climate change and pollution;
~ protecting our planet’s biodiversity; and
~ supporting communities and their livelihoods.

With our superior technological tools and weapons, we humans continue to kill trees and entire forests in the name of human progress and economic growth. Rooted to the ground, trees are helpless against our onslaught.

Like so much in our lives, we take trees for granted. We forget or ignore their vital role in storing the carbon dioxide we produce and releasing the oxygen we breathe. Earth without trees will not sustain human life.

I like to think of trees as quiet, reliable heroes. Do you have a relative or friend that’s always there when you need a shoulder to cry on, a lending hand, an attentive ear, a generous heart? Trees are like that. When they see us coming, they don’t run away or hide. They are well grounded and face whatever adversity comes their way. They provide shade, shelter, and security to all creatures seeking refuge.

Avenue in Georgetown - Guyana

Tree-lined Avenue – Georgetown – Guyana

Plant a tree today and it will outlive you and your grandchildren. The trees that line the avenues in the main streets of Georgetown, Guyana, where I was born and grew up, existed before I was born. If not destroyed to build parking lots, they will still be providing beauty and shade long after I’m gone.

Methuselah - California - Oldest Living Tree in the World

Methuselah – California – USA

The world’s oldest living tree is a bristle-cone pine, named Methuselah, in California’s White Mountains. Over 4800 years old, it was around when the Egyptians were busy building pyramids. To think we consider ourselves the crown of creation!

Hyperion - California Redwood Forest - World Tallest Tree

Hyperion – California Redwood Forest – USA

When it comes to height and built, trees also outdo us. Rooted in California’s Redwood Forest, the giant sequoia named Hyperion towers over us at 379.1 feet. That’s nearly six times taller than the Statue of Liberty! Next to such trees, we humans are puny.

We need trees for our survival on Earth. Lots of trees. Plant a tree. It’s easier than you think.

Lula: ‘The Brazilian Elite Do Not Like Democracy’

17 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by in Brazil

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Brazil Former President Lula da Silva

Brazil’s Former President Lula da Silva (left) – Brasilia – Brazil – April 16, 2016
Photo Credit: Reuters

My heart bleeds for Brazil and the majority working class. Rosaliene.

Brazil’s popular Former President Lula da Silva joined social movement leaders in the capital of Brasilia to denounce efforts to oust his successor.

Source: Lula: ‘The Brazilian Elite Do Not Like Democracy’

Another Side of Suicide: The Strange History of Punishing the Deceased

10 Sunday Apr 2016

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My blogger friend, Dr. Gerald Stein, has posted an interesting summary on the strange history of suicide. Despite religious and other prohibitions to what was once termed “self-murder”, those who sought to end their lives found a way.

Dr. Gerald Stein

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Would you talk to a casual acquaintance about suicide? Probably not. Such weighty conversations most often occur with someone intimate  — a therapist or close friend. Without such discussion, full knowledge of suicide becomes difficult. Moreover, even those who understand the psychology of suicide are unlikely to know its history. They are unaware, for example, that suicide victims in Europe during the Middle Ages were often punished for the act of self murder.

I imagine you are asking, how can a person who is already dead be punished? Leaving a body unburied was one way. An ancient example is found in the Sophocles play Antigone, where Polynices is prohibited from burial because he participated in a failed revolt against Thebes. The rationale for this disrespect went beyond the expectation of a corpse ravaged by animals: the absence of proper burial would prevent him from going to the Underworld, the…

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