Daily Music Selection
Written by Bill Berkowitz His public confession on Dr. James Dobson’s radio program nearly five years ago, the speech at the graduation ceremony of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, his much publicized conversion to Catholicism, his insistence on writing, making films and speechifying about the threat of a secularized America, may all have contributed to re-branding Newt Gingrich, from womanizing miscreant to redeemed sinner, in the eyes of the Religious Right.
When did we start farming brownfields? BY CURTIS MORRISON As a kid growing up in rural Southern Indiana, I knew the 10,000+ acre, Indiana Army Ammunition Plant was blighted by long-term pollution. My step-dad had told me. It wasn’t a secret back then. That’s why I was surprised to hear in it’s last meeting of 2011, the River Ridge Development Authority which has owned and controlled the former Plant since 1998, announced they’re offering more than 360 acres of land to farmers. (News and Tribune: River Ridge offering land to farmers: Farm leases expected to bring in additional revenues) The Authority’s Executive Director Jerry Acy told the News and Tribune’s Branden Lammers: “It’ll be a good revenue boost.”
The FDA’s Christmas Present for Factory Farms By Tom Philpott Wed Dec. 28, 2011 4:00 AM PST (highlights and emphasis added by Ana) On Dec. 22, while even the nerdiest observers were thinking more about Christmas plans than food-safety policy, the FDA snuck a holiday gift to the meat industry into the Federal Register. The agency announced it had - essentially given up any pretense of regulating antibiotic abuse on factory farms, at least for the time being. Wired’s diligent Maryn McKenna has the background.
Last week, Adam Klugman, host of Portland’s KPOJ radio talk show, Mad As Hell in America was doing the Norman Goldman show (Norman’s substitute hosts are ALWAYS better than listening to Norm…) and he talked about how he would have like to see Obama deliver his speech in Kansas last week. So he sad down and re-wrote the speech and broadcasted it over the air… Here is the transcript: My fellow Americans, I am here today is Osowatamie, Kansas to deliver an urgent message. You are under attack. Young and old, middle class and lower class, sick and well, working and unemployed, educated and uneducated, you must understand this and understand it now – our republic has been breeched. Our economic system has been deliberately and systematically compromised and our democracy has been rigged to keep those who love power, in power. Our environment stands on the brink of unprecedented global disaster while madmen tug at the earth’s core for oil, and the myth of clean coal, and frack for natural gas that is decimating our fresh water supply and destroying our home in total. Bankers, War Profiteers and Multinational Energy Conglomerates not only run our country, but our world.…
I saw on the news that one of our congressmen is working on changing Halloween to the last Saturday in October so kids won’t have to go to school the next day and parents can more easily plan to go along. He also feels that many people are confused about what night to trick or treat, because at his house he has seen kids out trick-or-treating 2-3 days in a row. Got news for him – they were not confused. They were hungry for candy and thought they were being clever. This reminded me of the messing around with our holidays we already have to endure. Every year, when it is time for Columbus day I think about the fact that kids don’t know the actual date, and probably in the process have lost track of why it was once considered significant. I continue to see surveys mentioned on the evening news in which high school kids were asked questions about world war II or President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and they have no idea about either the time frame or the relation such events have to history. When I was young, we celebrated Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday, and…
Written by Hamilton Nolan. From gawker.com It’s the end of the year, which means that it’s time for Greek Orthodox clergymen and Armenian Orthodox clergymen to come together in order to “[scream] at each other and beat each other with broomsticks” during their annual cleaning of the Church of Nativity, where Jesus was born. As Jesus said, “If an adherent of a Christian sect with exceedingly minor theological or geographic differences crosseth into thine half of my birthplace whilst engaged in the very same charitable task as thou, thou must smite him with your broom.” See you all at Clergy Brawl 2012: Redemption! [AP. Photos: AP]
