As if you didn't still have the taste of bubble and squeak lingering in your mouth from all the royal baby coverage, Britain keeps the hits coming today! Now Tory Prime Minister David Cameron wants to censor pornography on the internet.
I realize Britain is a smaller country and not a federation like the United States. I realize that issues that would be reserved to the states here and could not make it to the federal level in Washington can still be a topic of debate in London. Still, it leaves me scratching my head over why the leader of the government of a G8 country would actually dedicate time to filtering the beat banks of his constituents. Sorry. "Wank banks".
Child pornography as well as pornography depicting rape should of course be outlawed and their producers shut down and arrested. I wholeheartedly agree with Cameron on that part of his crusade. However, aside from some bogus Focus on the Family moral argument, there really is no legitimate reason for a national leader to be engaged in a quest to censor sexually explicit content made for adults by adults.
As an American, however, I will say that I am a little relieved. David Cameron is showing the world the ancestral homeland of American Puritanism and "family values" horse shit: England.
Monday, July 22, 2013
In honor of the Royal Baby
Right now, America and the whole world seem to be paying more attention to Kate Middleton's dilating cervix than even her own personal team of medical professionals. The fixation is disgusting. For one thing, this is a private moment for Kate and her follicularly challenged prince. For another, the fixation itself is demonstrative of just how out of whack people's news priorities are.
So in honor of the world'st most watched fetus, here is a brief list of real fucking news stories and issues that are of more importance than the birth of a child to a couple thousands of miles away whom you will never ever meet. None of the following is in any particular order.
International:
Domestic (US):
Or, if you want to stop thinking about any of these things, or even never begin thinking about them to begin with, enjoy your Royal Baby.
So in honor of the world'st most watched fetus, here is a brief list of real fucking news stories and issues that are of more importance than the birth of a child to a couple thousands of miles away whom you will never ever meet. None of the following is in any particular order.
International:
- Famine
- AIDS
- Climate change
- Desertification
- Overpopulation
- Air pollution
- Access to clean drinking water
- Mass fucking starvation
Domestic (US):
- Corporate corruption of the entire political process
- Seizure of private property through eminent domain by private energy corporations
- Healthcare reform (ACA is only a first step)
- Corruption and conflicts of interest on the Supreme Court
- Wholesale purchasing of statehouses by ALEC
- Crumbling infrastructure
- Soaring youth unemployment
- Degradation of workers' rights
Or, if you want to stop thinking about any of these things, or even never begin thinking about them to begin with, enjoy your Royal Baby.
 |
| BBC World News |
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Home sweet home
As if the proposed Keystone XL pipeline across America and the fracking disasters above the Marcellus Shale weren't enough for the people and land of this country to tolerate, there is more bad news. Large corporations have proposed pipelines and power lines which they would like to extend across the landscape, and even across your yard.
Closest to home here, one company is seeking to use an already laid pipeline, reverse the direction of its flow, and send Canadian tar sands through it from Montreal to Portland, Maine. Of course the trouble is that while the pipeline already exists, tar sands are full of, well, sands, meaning that the new river of petroleum in the raw would be full of abrasive rock, scratching at the sides of the pipeline, wearing it down and bringing it ever closer to springing a leak. Of course, while they would love to use the pipeline, the company has not sought to reinforce it.
Equally close to home is again another Canadian company, Hydro-Quebec, which is pursuing a massive land grab across beautiful stretches of northern New England so that it may bring its electricity from Quebec into the New England states. This unfortunately means dragging high tension wires across family farms and mountain tops. For those of you not familiar with the region, picture your desktop background or your fall time screen saver, then imagine it carved in two with massive high tension wires across your view. Not so relaxing now, is it?
Think I am being melodramatic here my fellow American? Do a quick Google search of "Hydro-Quebec" AND "Cree Nation".
At least in the case of Hydro-Quebec, the private corporation in question is offering to buy family farms one by one. In Vermont, Vermont Gas, another energy company, is looking to extend a gas pipeline through part of the state, under one of the nation's larger lakes, and into New York State. And how do they propose doing it? I mean, not the construction, but the legalities, the real estate transactions? Apparently, they are applying for a "Certificate of Public Good" so that they may use the state's sovereign power of eminent domain to seize people's property interests (namely the right of exclusive possession) and build their pipeline across their farm or their yard.
To avoid delving into a lengthy explanation wrought with legalese, I will simply put it in the following terms: if this private company obtains this certificate, wants to extend its property through your home, and you do not consent, tough shit. They apparently can apply to obtain that "right".
This is a touchy and indeed touching subject. Anyone who ever took a middle school civics class learned at some point about eminent domain, which is to say, taking for the public good. If the government needed to build a road for all of us to use, and your land were in the way, they could take what they needed, and pay you the value of what they took. Of course now even before this Vermont Gas story, the Supreme Court took an extremely broad view of the term "public use" (or was it public good?) when it ruled that the government could take private property and give it to a private corporation, as long as it deemed that seizure and redistribution to be for the greater good. Apparently your family isn't doing much good, so we'll need to take your land and give it to some real job creators!
Whether you are young or old, rich or poor, renter or owner, this all should have you very concerned. We are now living at a time when corporations are once again apparently able to apply for (or buy?) a governmental power, and use it take and destroy one's own family home. I say again since this all smacks of the rampant abuses of railroad companies some hundred-and-fifty or so years ago. So regardless of what your living situation is, stay informed and speak up for yourself and for your neighbors. If we do not work together to litigate in the court of public opinion, we have no hope. We already know what the Supreme Court has said about taking your home.
Closest to home here, one company is seeking to use an already laid pipeline, reverse the direction of its flow, and send Canadian tar sands through it from Montreal to Portland, Maine. Of course the trouble is that while the pipeline already exists, tar sands are full of, well, sands, meaning that the new river of petroleum in the raw would be full of abrasive rock, scratching at the sides of the pipeline, wearing it down and bringing it ever closer to springing a leak. Of course, while they would love to use the pipeline, the company has not sought to reinforce it.
Equally close to home is again another Canadian company, Hydro-Quebec, which is pursuing a massive land grab across beautiful stretches of northern New England so that it may bring its electricity from Quebec into the New England states. This unfortunately means dragging high tension wires across family farms and mountain tops. For those of you not familiar with the region, picture your desktop background or your fall time screen saver, then imagine it carved in two with massive high tension wires across your view. Not so relaxing now, is it?
Think I am being melodramatic here my fellow American? Do a quick Google search of "Hydro-Quebec" AND "Cree Nation".
At least in the case of Hydro-Quebec, the private corporation in question is offering to buy family farms one by one. In Vermont, Vermont Gas, another energy company, is looking to extend a gas pipeline through part of the state, under one of the nation's larger lakes, and into New York State. And how do they propose doing it? I mean, not the construction, but the legalities, the real estate transactions? Apparently, they are applying for a "Certificate of Public Good" so that they may use the state's sovereign power of eminent domain to seize people's property interests (namely the right of exclusive possession) and build their pipeline across their farm or their yard.
To avoid delving into a lengthy explanation wrought with legalese, I will simply put it in the following terms: if this private company obtains this certificate, wants to extend its property through your home, and you do not consent, tough shit. They apparently can apply to obtain that "right".
This is a touchy and indeed touching subject. Anyone who ever took a middle school civics class learned at some point about eminent domain, which is to say, taking for the public good. If the government needed to build a road for all of us to use, and your land were in the way, they could take what they needed, and pay you the value of what they took. Of course now even before this Vermont Gas story, the Supreme Court took an extremely broad view of the term "public use" (or was it public good?) when it ruled that the government could take private property and give it to a private corporation, as long as it deemed that seizure and redistribution to be for the greater good. Apparently your family isn't doing much good, so we'll need to take your land and give it to some real job creators!
Whether you are young or old, rich or poor, renter or owner, this all should have you very concerned. We are now living at a time when corporations are once again apparently able to apply for (or buy?) a governmental power, and use it take and destroy one's own family home. I say again since this all smacks of the rampant abuses of railroad companies some hundred-and-fifty or so years ago. So regardless of what your living situation is, stay informed and speak up for yourself and for your neighbors. If we do not work together to litigate in the court of public opinion, we have no hope. We already know what the Supreme Court has said about taking your home.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Double our rate today
If you are lucky enough to not have any outstanding student debt, you may have missed today's news and what it means for millions of us. Even if you are part of our unfortunate lot, you may have missed it. Today is, however, the day on which student loan rates are set to double if Congress does not act, which in light of the laughable members of which it is comprised, is about as likely as the world ending before dinner.
Two articles are out today worth a quick read, despite their questionable publications of origin. One is by Joan Walsh of Salon, while the other appeared in USA Today online and was shared via social media by Senator Bernie Sanders' staff. Both are sobering to say the least, and to be quite frank, I would actually discourage you from reading either one of them if you feel as though your emotional and mental health are anything short of rock solid these days.
The hard truth is that the numbers do not lie, and a college degree - especially an undergraduate degree - may not even be worth it anymore. This of course flies in the face of the past few decades' conventional wisdom. Young people have been told for years things like "it will all be worth it in the end" and "it's an investment". That may have been honest advice when the debt assumed in undertaking one's studies was under five digits and the lifelong benefits were measured by almost exponential gains in income. Now, and indeed for some years leading up to now, this "investment" argument has become disingenuous, as debt burdens have creeped into the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars while the increases in lifelong earning potential have stagnated. What was sound advice for students of the past became something akin to fraudulent inducement.
I will not launch into a preemptive rebuttal of the obnoxious "personal responsibility" argument today, as I am about as short on time as I am on money. I will say, however, that if we truly had a meritocratic system of education in America, this would not even be an issue. Instead, we have a system where the hard workers have to not only work hard, but also go into debt, all while a lucky few are given an education, whether they work for it or not.
Bear in mind also that this is not typical debt. It can no longer be discharged in bankruptcy, and very often cannot be refinanced. Your wages can be garnished, you can be harassed, and you have little if any recourse for any injury you suffer. Your lender can sell your debt away and force you to deal with another party with whom you never had an agreement, but try to tell them you have sold your end of the deal to a third party and see what happens. This is the the closest thing we have to indenture in the modern era.
If any of this has made you feel compelled to give your Representative on Capitol Hill a piece of your mind, you can find all the contact info you need here. Best of luck.
Two articles are out today worth a quick read, despite their questionable publications of origin. One is by Joan Walsh of Salon, while the other appeared in USA Today online and was shared via social media by Senator Bernie Sanders' staff. Both are sobering to say the least, and to be quite frank, I would actually discourage you from reading either one of them if you feel as though your emotional and mental health are anything short of rock solid these days.
The hard truth is that the numbers do not lie, and a college degree - especially an undergraduate degree - may not even be worth it anymore. This of course flies in the face of the past few decades' conventional wisdom. Young people have been told for years things like "it will all be worth it in the end" and "it's an investment". That may have been honest advice when the debt assumed in undertaking one's studies was under five digits and the lifelong benefits were measured by almost exponential gains in income. Now, and indeed for some years leading up to now, this "investment" argument has become disingenuous, as debt burdens have creeped into the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars while the increases in lifelong earning potential have stagnated. What was sound advice for students of the past became something akin to fraudulent inducement.
I will not launch into a preemptive rebuttal of the obnoxious "personal responsibility" argument today, as I am about as short on time as I am on money. I will say, however, that if we truly had a meritocratic system of education in America, this would not even be an issue. Instead, we have a system where the hard workers have to not only work hard, but also go into debt, all while a lucky few are given an education, whether they work for it or not.
Bear in mind also that this is not typical debt. It can no longer be discharged in bankruptcy, and very often cannot be refinanced. Your wages can be garnished, you can be harassed, and you have little if any recourse for any injury you suffer. Your lender can sell your debt away and force you to deal with another party with whom you never had an agreement, but try to tell them you have sold your end of the deal to a third party and see what happens. This is the the closest thing we have to indenture in the modern era.
If any of this has made you feel compelled to give your Representative on Capitol Hill a piece of your mind, you can find all the contact info you need here. Best of luck.
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