Illegal Immigrants In NC Community Colleges

Check out the article here.

Personally, I think it is a great idea to allow illegal immigrants into our community colleges. Opposition to the NC Community College system’s decision to allow illegal immigrants to register for classes seems to be limited to the argument that these immigrants will rise up and take jobs, money, and power away from American citizens if they are allowed to attend community colleges.

The fact is that these “illegal” immigrants face prejudice on a massive scale. If a white American male citizen is accepted into a community college, it is expected. He will be offered a job out of college and able to afford basic necessities. If an undocumented immigrant is allowed to go to community college, it could potentially save his entire extended family from severe poverty, as it is likely that he will be the only one in the family to have a college education.

What is more important – that American citizens get all the American jobs, even if some immigrants are better for the job? Or that America as a whole is accepting of immigrants and helps to alleviate widespread poverty faced by already discriminated against immigrants? It is clear that the answer is to allow any qualified person a shot at making a living. After all, this is “the land of opportunity”.

Furthermore, many, if not all, of these immigrants seeking a college education were brought over with their parents when they were very young. Is it right to punish them for what their parents have done? They will need to save up the money to pay the out-of-state tuition, which will actually help the community colleges to make a profit.

Floating Mass Of Trash

There is a floating mass of trash in the Pacific Ocean that one scientist has estimated is TWICE THE SIZE OF TEXAS!

Check out the article in the San Francisco Chronicle here.

Free Rice Update

http://www.freerice.com/index.php has updated their site so that when you answer one question, they now donate 20 grains of rice instead of 10. That is double the amount of rice donated per question, so click the link and get to donating.

Salt Water As Fuel?

A man may have figured out how to convert salt water into fuel, instead of using oil or coal. He successfully figured out, on accident, how to burn salt water.

Check the link here:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07252/815920-85.stm

or click the title of this post.

A Sad Fact

It is sad, but true. The average age of a homeless person in the U.S. is nine years old.

The Hunger Site

This is pretty similar to Freerice.com except that you don't have to play a game to donate the food.

Click this link:
http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=1

and there will be a yellow box that says "Click here to give - its FREE". click this and sponsors will donate 1.1 cups of food to malnourished children around the world.

It says to click it daily, so I'm not sure if that means you can only click once per day. I just tried it twice in a row and it seemed to work.

Please check this out, it is even less work and time than freerice.com, although freerice is fun!

Tree Man

Check out the article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessi..MLYGYKBGOGQ2DQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/11/12/wtree112.xml

Part of this documentary will be shown at 9pm tonight on the Discovery Channel.

Build Your Vocabulary by Donating Rice!

This is an amazing site. If you are ever bored or looking for something to do, this is it. It is a vocabulary building "game" where you are given a word and then four choices for synonyms. Each time you get a question right, you donate 10 grains of rice to the World Food Program which distributes the rice to hungry people across the globe.

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Tim Tang Test

Check this out. It is a puzzle type game with over 200 levels. No one has beaten it yet. I tried doing it and couldn't get all the way through the tutorial. It's really hard but also addicting.

http://www.timtang.com/ttt/

Female President in Argentina

I am trying to study abroad in Argentina next year and just found out that they just elected Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as their first female president.

check out the link:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/exit-polls-give-argentinas-first/story.aspx?guid=%7B0DB6E875-F04C-4369-A12A-3F17D4550209%7D

Religion and IQ

I am not making any claims or assumptions about this, I just thought it was a pretty interesting study. It shows that the more religious the person, generally the lower IQ they have.

http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/religious_peopl.html

A Moral Dilemma: The Good and the Bad in Straight Edge

Kelly posted this on xsisterhoodx.com. It is an interesting paper about straight edge, although by no means is it completely comprehensive or even 100% true.

http://ladychi-sxe.livejournal.com/9575.html

Total Destruction

Here is a link to to the PDF version of Total Destruction A Straight Edge Zine Against the Ruling Social Order. I think it's issue number 4. I have not read the entire thing, but from what I have read it is pretty interesting.

http://www.impassionedinsurrection.info/pamphlets/td4.pdf

56 Year Old Wheelchair-Bound Woman Tasered 10 Times to Death

Courtesy of Julien.

One Lawmaker, Many Votes

Police Brutality

School of Shock

Wow.

This is an article about a real school in MA that shocks kids with behavior disorders as part of their "treatment plan". The kids, some as young as nine years old, are hooked up to an array of electrodes 24/7 and shocked for any bad behavior.

To quote one part, it says "Marguerite Famolare brought her son Michael to the Rotenberg Center six years ago, after he attacked her so aggressively she had to call 911 and, in a separate incident, flipped over a kitchen table onto a tutor. Michael, now 19, suffers from mental retardation and severe autism. These days, when he comes home for a visit, Marguerite carries his shock activator in her purse. All she has to do, she says, is show it to him. "He'll automatically comply to whatever my signal command may be, whether it is 'Put on your seatbelt,' or 'Hand me that apple,' or 'Sit appropriately and eat your food,'" she says. "It's made him a human being, a civilized human being."

It sounds to me like it made him an obediant robot, complying to any command.

Lara (http://www.blogger.com/profile/11480095954577891278), sent this article to me in a comment on the blog below this.

Check it out by clicking the title of this blog, going to the comments section of my last blog, or copying and pasting this into your browswer window:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock.html

More Tasers

What the fuck is going on with the cops?

Seriously.


Another article here, where cops tasered a fifteen year old autistic child.

http://www.comcast.net/news/national/index.jsp?cat=DOMESTIC&fn=/2007/09/20/768988.html&cvqh=itn_teen

Couch Surfing

Check this link out:

http://www.couchsurfing.com/index.html?index=1

Couch Surfing is an international network of people allowing you to stay on their couch for free when you travel. Look around the website and read the FAQ. It is a great idea.

Student Tasered at John Kerry Event

There are several different videos of this on the internet, some longer than others. I chose this one because of the relatively high quality of the video. However, this one does not show the student's entire rant on the microphone. If you want to see any of the other versions, just go search YouTube. There are a bunch of them. The guy does talk longer than he is supposed to, and is clearly riled up, but is that a reason to shoot him with a taser? I think this is another instance of police brutality. The sick part is that John Kerry is on the stage making jokes about it in the background, not even doing anything to solve the problem.

Does this remind you of anything? How about the Iranian UCLA student that was tasered multiple times for being in the university library without a student ID card?

Homophobia

Read this article immediately:

WASHINGTON -- Psychoanalytic theory holds that homophobia -- the fear, anxiety, anger, discomfort and aversion that some ostensibly heterosexual people hold for gay individuals -- is the result of repressed homosexual urges that the person is either unaware of or denies. A study appearing in the August 1996 issue of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA), provides new empirical evidence that is consistent with that theory.

Researchers at the University of Georgia conducted an experiment involving 35 homophobic men and 29 nonhomophobic men as measured by the Index of Homophobia scale. All the participants selected for the study described themselves as exclusively heterosexual both in terms of sexual arousal and experience.

Each participant was exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual and lesbian videotapes (but not necessarily in that order). Their degree of sexual arousal was measured by penile plethysmography, which precisely measures and records male tumescence.

Men in both groups were aroused by about the same degree by the video depicting heterosexual sexual behavior and by the video showing two women engaged in sexual behavior. The only significant difference in degree of arousal between the two groups occurred when they viewed the video depicting male homosexual sex: 'The homophobic men showed a significant increase in penile circumference to the male homosexual video, but the control [nonhomophobic] men did not.'

Broken down further, the measurements showed that while 66% of the nonhomophobic group showed no significant tumescence while watching the male homosexual video, only 20% of the homophobic men showed little or no evidence of arousal. Similarly, while 24% of the nonhomophobic men showed definite tumescence while watching the homosexual video, 54% of the homophobic men did.

When asked to give their own subjective assessment of the degree to which they were aroused by watching each of the three videos, men in both groups gave answers that tracked fairly closely with the results of the objective physiological measurement, with one exception: the homophobic men significantly underestimated their degree of arousal by the male homosexual video.

Do these findings mean, then, that homophobia in men is a reaction to repressed homosexual urges, as psychoanalysis theorizes? While their findings are consistent with that theory, the authors note that there is another, competing theoretical explanation: anxiety. According to this theory, viewing the male homosexual videotape may have caused negative emotions (such as anxiety) in the homophobic men, but not in the nonhomophobic men. As the authors note, 'anxiety has been shown to enhance arousal and erection,' and so it is also possible that 'a response to homosexual stimuli [in these men] is a function of the threat condition rather than sexual arousal per se. These competing notions can and should be evaluated by future research.'

Article: 'Is Homophobia Associated With Homosexual Arousal?' by Henry E. Adams, Ph.D., Lester W. Wright, Jr., Ph.D. and Bethany A. Lohr, University of Georgia, in Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. 105, No. 3, pp 440-445

New Author

Sometime in the near future, I will be adding another author to this blog. My friend Alex, who has already regularly contributed to this blog behind the scenes, will soon become a fellow "author". I feel that this will add another dimension to the blog, another viewpoint, and will also assure that it will be updated more frequently. After all, two heads is better than one. When reading future posts, be sure to check out who published what.

Dark Days

I actually saw this documentary a few years ago and I just remembered it the other day.

It is called "Dark Days" and it is about a community of squatters living underground in an abandoned subway tunnel in New York.

This is a must-see. It has amazing cinematography and the soundtrack, by DJ Shadow, is awesome.

Check it out.


EDIT: Here is a link to the full documentary. My friend Alex found it.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=7162991383052101447

Surprising Facts

These facts are from my biology professor.

20% of the worlds people who live in highest income countries consume 86% of worlds resources.

Four quarts of oil can cause an eight-acre oil slick.


And these are the most surprising ones:

If everyone in the US recycled just 1/10 of their newsprint, we would save the estimated equivalent of 25 million trees a year.

Americans throw away 25 MILLION plastic beverage bottles EVERY HOUR, even though recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.

Americans throw out enough paper each year to build a 12-foot high wall from New York City to L.A.

Into The Wild

I want to see this:

Really Good Freeganism/Dumpster Article

This is a great article.

Here is my favorite quote of the article. The speaker is asked if he thinks dumpsterdiving is stealing and replies:


"Actually I don't consider it stolen - it's liberated. Liberated from those who neither wanted nor deserved it. Diverted on the way to the landfill."

Click the title of the blog or paste this into your browser:

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,2149304,00.html

Freetown Christiania

Recently my younger brother went backpacking across Europe with a group of friends, which is something that I am planning to do for next year.

Of all the places that he went to, the one that peaked my interest the most was Freetown Christiania in Denmark near Copenhagen. Christiania is basically an anarchist/communist collective of about 900 people living by their own rules. They have sucessfully thwarted government action and violent police raids for years.

Until my brother mentioned it, I had never heard of Christiania. I had heard of the nearby Ungdomshuset in Copenhagen because of all the recent media coverage over the riots.

Click the name of the blog for a link to the wikipedia page or paste this into your browser:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania

I want to check it out.

Zeitgeist Movie

My friend Alex sent me this link lastnight.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/


It is a two hour long documentary with some very interesting and compelling arguments. It has three major parts, one about religion and Christianity specifically, one about September 11th, and another about the federal bank.

I guess you could say it has a few conspiracy theories in it.

Anyways, the title of this blog is a link there, and there is also a link on the right-hand side of your screen under "Useful Links". I also encourage you to check out any of the other links listed there as well. They aren't advertisements or anything, just things I find interesting.


EDIT: Oh shit, the link is not working anymore. I just watched the movie less than a few hours ago, and now it isn't working. IT'S A CONSPIRACY!! haha

EDIT2: I just checked and the link works again, so it seems like the site goes up and down. If you click it and it doesn't work, just try again another time.

Freeganism

Tonic Immobilization

I saw one of the most interesting things ever tonight on the Discovery Channel. I am hoping that most of you already know that it is shark week.

Well today happens to be the first day of my family beach vacation, and we rented a house right on the ocean. When we got in tonight, we ordered pizza and checked out what was playing on the tube. We stumbled across SharkWeek, and I considered changing the channel, as I was very disapointed at one of SharkWeek's previous shows. But I stuck it out, and I'm glad I did.

The show was called "Sharkman" and it was about a guy that willingly swam with great white sharks, without a cage or any other sort of protection. And even more, he would reach out and touch them. He was experimenting with some sort of hypnosis, where if he touched certain sharks in certain places, they would go into a trance-like state. This was much easier to demonstrate on smaller sharks. He would flip some smaller sharks over, or just rub their nose, and they would immediately relax and lay still, allowing him to rub all over their bodies.

In one case with a caribean coral reef shark, which I believe was around 6-8 feet long, he induced this trance-like sleep, moved shark bait a few feet away and then let the shark wake up. Instead of immediately going for the bait, the shark followed him, asking for more. This indicated that the sharks enjoy this tonic immobilization. Some of the sharks were competing for the Sharkman's attention, wanting to get their snouts rubbed.

This reminded me somewhat of my dog Chloe. If you pet her in a certain place, she basically falls into a hypnotic trance and rolls onto her back, presenting you with her belly, which she wants you to rub for her. If you stop and walk away, she follows you, wanting more.

The fact that my little westie and massive predators of the sea may have a lot more in common than I ever would have imagined possible, in terms of ability to interact with humans, is astounding.

It also blows the traditional view of sharks, especially great white sharks, to pieces. The sharks seemed playfull, curious, and friendly even towards humans in the water, as apposed to "mindless killing machines."

I think it's a great thing when all previous negative connotations towards anything are totally shattered, whether it be stereotypes towards certain groups of people or negative views of sharks.

Funny Video

Pit Bull's Bad Image

Here is another article about Pit Bulls that I found just after I posted my last blog. It has been on the cnn homepage for awhile now.


http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/07/24/pitbull.culture.ap/index.html

Hello Bully

This is a link to a great article on one of my favorite sites, xsisterhoodx. Check out this article on the truth about Pit Bulls.

http://www.xsisterhoodx.com/content/view/1337/1/

Strokes of Genius

Check this link too for some amazing and creative art! (video content)



http://potw.news.yahoo.com/s/potw/23115/strokes-of-genius;_ylt=AnsBYV2eu75bhmI4B8fRFiAKwId4



(thanks to Lindsey for both links to this and the copwatch video)

CopWatch LA

check this link: http://potw.news.yahoo.com/s/potw/40/somebodys-watching-you


There are two videos and an article on there about CopWatch LA and how young people are fighting back against police brutality. Check it.

Break Free

Body World

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I've been slacking. I got a summer job and have neglected to update this as often as I would like to. I promise the blog isn't dying. I'm going to pick it up and update more often. Come mid-late August, I will be settled back in school and posting more regularly.

Anyways...

Yesterday I went to the unique exhibit "Body Worlds" at Discovery Place in downtown Charlotte. I meandered between the dead, skinned, human bodies suspended forever in action poses, with my trusty audio guide stuck to the side of my head. I looked in awe at the Ichabod Crane-esque dead man riding the dead horse with his brain in one hand, the horse's in another. I witnessed an array of dead fetuses; one still inside its mother's womb.

In other words, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Not to sound sick or anything....


There were informative plaques and posters hanging from each wall that gave interesting tid-bits. My personal favorite were a few quotes, the speakers of which elude me (sorry), on the topic of death. One was something to the affect of "I have come to realize that death is absolutely normal while life is the exception" and the other was about how if one mourns the dead, then why not mourn the unborn?

These quotes, mixed with the motionless dead bodies tastefully dancing around the room, got me thinking about the subject of death.


As for the actual Body World exhibit, I thought it was pretty well done, aside from the audio guide's weakness towards the end of the exhibit.

I reccomend checking it out, as I usually do.

Autism

These are two amazing videos about two amazing autistic people. They will both blow your mind.




and...


https://webmail.ncsu.edu/src/download.php?startMessage=1&passed_id=79&mailbox=INBOX&ent_id=2&passed_ent_id=0

Coffee-table Computer

Lately, I've been checking out all the cool technology coming out. This is one of the better things. Watch that video.

Photosynth Demo

From the TED website:
"Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that speck in corner? Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a gargoyle. With an unpleasant grimace. And an ant-sized chip in its lower left molar. "Perhaps the most amazing demo I've seen this year," wrote Ethan Zuckerman, after TED2007. Indeed, Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images."

Click the title for a link to the TED page.

This idea is amazing.

Buffalo vs. Lion vs. Crocodile

One of the more amazing videos that I have seen in a while.

Ecological Footprint

Check out this link: www.myfootprint.org

It asks you a few questions and then determines your ecological footprint. It is pretty interesting.

For me, it said:

CATEGORY ACRES

FOOD 4

MOBILITY 1.7

SHELTER 7.2

GOODS/SERVICES 8.2

TOTAL FOOTPRINT 21



IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 4.7 PLANETS.


My ecological footprint is smaller than that of the average American, but 4.7 times bigger than it should be.

Build This City...

Here are some lyrics that I "wrote" for the song Pedrosa, off of Build This City Now Burn It Down's release from last summer:

"The collection plate takes your money, exploiting your small comforting “sins”, sacrificing nothing at all in return.
Immense demands made from the altar steps by men who don’t know the meaning of sacrifice.
The weakness of faith.
What is there to experience but vacancy?
Are there still those that claim a loving and merciful God?
You would rather die and destroy everything, alone without any memories at all.
But we have to go on living.
The world is not the universe."


I borrowed a few lines from the book "The Power And The Glory."


Build This City should be starting up again some time next week with at least one member change, and we are contemplating a name change. Keep a look out for new releases and show dates.

Click the title to go to the band's myspace page.

Atheism Video

This is part one of three. I might put up the other two parts later, but I have not watched them yet.

To be frank here, I disagree Kirk. I really do.

If God is your reason or excuse to do good things in the world, then by all means, believe in God. But do not try and tell anyone else that they are wrong. I do not feel the need to believe in something "bigger than my self," so why try and make me?

Is it really so hard to believe that the universe was never created and it will never end? Why does it even matter if there is a "creator" at all?

I honestly do not see the point in killing someone else because of your/their faith. I also do not see the point in following yet another set of rules. If you step out of line, you're going to hell.

Why not live our lives for what they are, not for a creator. If I were God, I would be pissed off at my "children". Certainly there are a lot of christians doing good in the world. But it seems to me there are a lot more wasting their lives waiting for heaven and trying to please an absent entity by attempting to force others to believe. Don't you think God, if s/he exists, wants us to look out for eachother and have fun?

Pray if it gives you strength. Believe if you feel the need to. But do not try and make me believe in God with bullshit reasons about a banana fits in my hand or a car has a maker therefore I must as well.

My personal view is everything that glorifies 'God' and the afterworld slanders humanity and the real world.

Bokito Agrees

Bokito is a gorilla that escaped from his cage at the zoo in Amsterdam today. I think he was tired of being locked up on account of his species.

Click the title to check out the CNN article about it.

Life Slowly Starts to Choke the Poetry Out of Us

The Washington Post, in a social experiment, convinced world famous violinist, Joshua Bell, to play in a subway station in Washington D.C. He is used to selling out massive arenas and plays with a $3.5 million Stradivarius violin.

Yet out of the 1,097 that walked past while he played some of the most difficult and beautiful pieces ever written, only seven people stopped briefly to listen.

There is an article about it in the Washington Post for May 4, 2007.

What does this tell us about our culture? We are self-centered and caught up in our own world. Getting to work on time is more important than art and life.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not looking down on the people that did not stop. I think our culture has trained us to ignore anything that might slow down production, and to view a street performer as a slacker. Frankly, I don’t know if I would have stopped had I something “important” to do. I think that is why the article interests me so much. Who knows what great things I have missed in my life by simply not paying attention.

Right now I am counting down the days until my graduation, waiting to get out of here. But in doing so, I may be ignoring or disregarding beautiful and important people and things in my life.

My favorite part of the article says:

“The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother’s heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music too.”

I hope this never happens to me.

Free Trade vs. Fair Trade

This is a pretty good video about free vs. fair trade.

An article in the New Yorker called “Exporting I.P.” illustrates what the American government is doing to the rest of the world in terms of its free trade policy. Here is a quick excerpt:

“Free trade is supposed to be a win-win situation. You sell me your televisions, I sell you my software, and we both prosper. In practice, free-trade agreements are messier than that. Since all industries crave foreign markets to expand into but fear foreign competitors encroaching on their home turf, they lobby their governments to tilt the rules in their favor. Usually, this involves manipulating tariffs and quotas.”

It goes on to explain how America bullies other countries into changing their copyright laws in order to support American pharmaceutical companies.

It is well written article, check it out. I don’t have the link though, sorry.

Mother's Day: Caring and Capitalism

Isn’t it typical that corporations can take something worthwhile, commercialize it, and in the process turn it to shit? Click the title for the link to the CNN article about mother’s day, and how its been bastardized and sold to us. Any way for them to make a buck, and it isn’t just mother’s day. They sell us our entire lives.

They stole mother’s day. They commercialized punk rock. They sold rebellion. They even bottled our water and sold it to us. What is next?

Straight Edge and Rebellion

Rebellion in general has always held my interest. Not that bullshit stick-it-to-the-man hogwash, but rebellion with a purpose. Resistance movements. Freedom fighters. Guerillas. Manifestos. Counterculture. All of those wonderful things.

Straight edge.

Think about it for a second. Hardcore and punk are obvious forms of rebellion in and of themselves. So what does that make straight edge? Aside from the one and only true path to self-liberation, it serves as an intelligent counter-rebellion to the mindless opposition of society’s accepted moral codes. So is straight edge then supporting the majority if it is rebelling against the rebellion?

The answer of course is no. A youth engaging in activities that he/she believes to be counterculture is indeed supporting the same social structure that he/she intends to disrupt. For instance, many of today’s young punks buy merchandise or compact discs distributed by major corporations. Those that claim they only purchase directly from independent bands and labels believe that they are one step above their mallrat counterparts. But they are wrong. They indeed support the two corporations largest of all: the alcohol and tobacco industries. Each of these two industries is a leading killer among the working-class citizens that these punks claim to represent. Where is the logic in that?

Abstinence is the answer, and that is why straight edge is gaining so much ground. Aside from all the health reasons, straight edge is a form of pure intelligent rebellion.

The argument could be made that jumping on the straight edge bandwagon is not rebelling, but nothing is original anymore and the same argument could be made for any situation.

The possibility of straight edge becoming affiliated with any established political party or religious organization is nonexistent, if not downright absurd. Straight edge seems to say, “sure, we’ve got values that the public deem appropriate, but we say ‘fuck you’ anyways”. Society can write off punks as a whole because of the way they present themselves, but it cannot write off straight edge. It cannot reject something that reflects many of its own moral principles. And yet we still reject society.

Chimp Rights

This is an interesting article that Lindsey brought to my attention. Click the title of the blog "chimp rights" to go to the article.

I definatly agree that chimps should have some basic rights and that they deserve more legal rights "than bricks or apples or potatoes," as stated in the article.

Thanks Lindsey, for the article.

Cannibalism

According to the Economic Policy Institute, as of 2001, a “living wage,” or the minimum hourly wage to be able to sustain a family of one adult and two children, is $30,000 a year, or $14 an hour. 60% of Americans earn less than $14 an hour, or the living wage. The vast majority of those earn about half that, at $7 an hour for many entry-level positions. This means that the majority of Americans are struggling to pay rent, health insurance, car insurance, credit interest, groceries, etc. With the relatively recent welfare reform bill signed in 1996 by Clinton, thousands of people are suffering, namely single mothers living far beneath the “living wage”. The poverty line, which is at about half that of the “living wage,” is grossly outdated and is not a substantial measure of poverty. Americans feel relatively confident in the fact that the percent of Americans living under the poverty line hovers somewhere around 13% (a number that I find disgustingly high), but do not realize that many Americans live above the poverty line and yet still cannot afford rent. According to a 1997 report of the National Coalition of the Homeless, “nearly one-fifth of all homeless people (in twenty-nine cities across the nation) are employed in full or part-time jobs” (1).

To me, what this all boils down to, is that capitalism works in a way in which many are left out. Capitalism is the problem. According to the principles of capitalism, businesses operate according to the law of supply and demand, and exist only to raise their bottom line. They do not care for their workers, as there is always a fresh supply of those in poverty willing to fill in when a corporation decides to discard a former employee. What does this create? People working twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week, to feed their children and make rent. What is the point of a life wasted as a wage slave? It seems to me that capitalism has forced us all to sell our lives away for $7 an hour with the pathetic hope of moving up the corporate ladder, as if that will somehow change something and suddenly fill our lives with meaning.

I believe that we can operate our society in a way in which everyone can enjoy life while contributing positively to society. I call this direct action. I call this anarchism.



(1). Direct quote from Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel And Dimed.

Beauty

(click the image to enlarge it)


It's true.


Beauty must be defined as what we are, or else the concept itself is our enemy. Why languish in the shadow of a standard we cannot personify, an ideal we cannot live?

Smash your concept of what you or others should be, and redefine beauty, and understand that we are perfect in our imperfections.

Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring from Anyone, Under Any Circumstances, Even If They Really Want to Give You One

By Liz Stanton, CPE Staff Economist

1. You've Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond
The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.

2. Diamonds are Priced Well Above Their Value
The De Beers cartel has systematically held diamond prices at levels far greater than their abundance would generate under anything even remotely resembling perfect competition. All diamonds not already under its control are bought by the cartel, and then the De Beers cartel carefully managed world diamond supply in order to keep prices steadily high.

3. Diamonds Have No Resale or Investment Value
Any diamond that you buy or receive will indeed be yours forever: De Beers' advertising deliberately brain-washed women not to sell; the steady price is a tool to prevent speculation in diamonds; and no dealer will buy a diamond from you. You can only sell it at a diamond purchasing center or a pawn shop where you will receive a tiny fraction of its original "value."

4. Diamond Miners are Disproportionately Exposed to HIV/AIDS
Many diamond mining camps enforce all-male, no-family rules. Men contract HIV/AIDS from camp sex-workers, while women married to miners have no access to employment, no income outside of their husbands and no bargaining power for negotiating safe sex, and thus are at extremely high risk of contracting HIV.

5. Open-Pit Diamond Mines Pose Environmental Threats
Diamond mines are open pits where salts, heavy minerals, organisms, oil, and chemicals from mining equipment freely leach into ground-water, endangering people in nearby mining camps and villages, as well as downstream plants and animals.

6. Diamond Mine-Owners Violate Indigenous People's Rights
Diamond mines in Australia, Canada, India and many countries in Africa are situated on lands traditionally associated with indigenous peoples. Many of these communities have been displaced, while others remain, often at great cost to their health, livelihoods and traditional cultures.

7. Slave Laborers Cut and Polish Diamonds
More than one-half of the world's diamonds are processed in India where many of the cutters and polishers are bonded child laborers. Bonded children work to pay off the debts of their relatives, often unsuccessfully. When they reach adulthood their debt is passed on to their younger siblings or to their own children.

8. Conflict Diamonds Fund Civil Wars in Africa
There is no reliable way to insure that your diamond was not mined or stolen by government or rebel military forces in order to finance civil conflict. Conflict diamonds are traded either for guns or for cash to pay and feed soldiers.

9. Diamond Wars are Fought Using Child Warriors
Many diamond producing governments and rebel forces use children as soldiers, laborers in military camps, and sex slaves. Child soldiers are given drugs to overcome their fear and reluctance to participate in atrocities.

10. Small Arms Trade is Intimately Related to Diamond Smuggling
Illicit diamonds inflame the clandestine trade of small arms. There are 500 million small arms in the world today which are used to kill 500,000 people annually, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants.

References:

Collier, Paul, "Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and Their Implications for Policy," World Bank, June 15, 2000.

Epstein, Edward Jay, "Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?", The Atlantic Monthly, February 1982. www.theatlantic.com/issues/82feb/8202diamond1.htm

Global Witness, "Conflict Diamonds: Possibilities for the Identification, Certification and Control of Diamonds," A Briefing Document, June 2000, www.globalwitness.org/text/campaigns/diamonds/reports.html


Human Rights Watch/Asia, "The Small Hands of Slavery: Bonded Child Labor In India," Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Project, www.hrw.org/reports/1996/India3.htm .

Human Rights Watch, "Children's Rights: Stop the Use of Child Soldiers;" www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/index.htm .

Kerlin, Katherine "Diamonds Aren't Forever: Environmental Degradation and Civil War in the Gem Trade," The Environment Magazine, www.emagazine.com/september-october_2001/0901gl_consumer.html .

Le Billon, Philippe, "Angola's Political Economy of War: The Role of Oil and Diamonds, 1975-2000," African Affairs, (2001), 100, p.55-80.

Mines and Communities, "The Mining Curse: The roles of mining in 'underdeveloped' economies," Minewatch Asia Pacific/Nostromo Briefing Paper, February 1999, www.minesandcommunities.org/Country/curse.htm .

Other Facets, Number 1, April 2001; Number 2, June 2001; Number 3, October 2001, www.partnershipafricacanada.org/hsdp/of.html

Did You Know?

That’s Not Your Marble Bleeding...

This is a quote from Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed. In this book Ehrenreich works minimum wage jobs to see if she can survive on them. Here she is a maid:

“Self-restraint becomes more of a challenge when the owner of a million-dollar condo…who is (according to a framed photograph on the wall) an acquaintance of the real Barbara Bush takes me into the master bathroom to explain the difficulties she’s been having with the shower stall. Seems its marble walls have been ‘bleeding’ onto the brass fixtures, and can I scrub the grouting extra hard? That’s not your marble bleeding, I want to tell her, it’s the world-wide working class—the people who quarried the marble, wove your Persian rugs until they went blind, harvested the apples in your lovely fall-themed dining room centerpiece, smelted the steel for the nails, drove the trucks, put up this building, and now bend and squat and sweat to clean it.”

Although I am only about halfway through it, I really recommend this book as it is full of amazing insights such as this and is wonderfully written.

Random "Real Facts"

These are all from Snapple.com:


A bee has 5 eyelids.

An electric eel can release a charge powerful enough to start 50 cars.

There is a town called Big Ugly, West Virginia.

It took Leonardo da Vinci 12 years to paint the lips of Mona Lisa.

Borborygmi is the noise that your stomach makes when you are hungry.

Slugs have 4 noses.

In a year, the average person walks four miles making his or her bed.

Mongolians invented lemonade around 1299 A.D.

Caller ID is illegal in California.

A one-day weather forecast requires about 10 billion mathematical calculations.

The first human-made object to break the sound barrier was a whip.

The bullfrog is the only animal that never sleeps.

Seals sleep only one and a half minutes at a time.

Napoleon suffered from a fear of cats.

The blue whale's heart is the size of a small car.

If you drive from Los Angeles to Reno, NV, you will be heading west.



The only one I have a problem with is the last one. You will not be heading west, you will be heading north-northwest. Check out the map. If you head directly west from LA, you will drive into the ocean.

Ape Shit

Something that has really begun to interest me lately is the subject of great apes. An article in the New York Times recently reported that scientists have indeed proved the extent of ape intelligence. You can check that out here:

Almost Human, and Sometimes Smarter


In fact, in one memory test in which numbers flashed up on computer screen in different locations and the objective was to press the spots in the order that they flashed up, chimpanzees outperformed humans by far. Chimps have been proven to utilize tools for such things as cracking nuts and fishing for termites. Furthermore, research has also shown that an ape culture exists.

So the question is: if these things have been proven, and apes have only a 1.23% DNA difference from humans, then why are they still being used for animal testing, kept in zoos, or forced to do tricks for the entertainment of humans? I believe it is fair to say that many apes are much more intelligent then mentally handicapped humans, yet they are still treated cruelly. Therefore looking into this, I stumbled upon something which has apparently existed since 1993, The Great Ape Project.

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_project



This group has been fighting for the rights of great apes such as “the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture” . I think these are pretty fair rights given that apes have “varied social, emotional, and cognitive life”. They are not asking for apes to have the right to vote or anything, just that they are treated in a respectful manner.

Manifesto

During my spring break I went to Cabo San Lucas in the Baja peninsula in Mexico. The area is fast growing down there, and it is developed almost the entire way to San Jose De Cabo, the next town about 20-30 miles north of the city. But despite Wal-Mart moving in and Sam’s Club and Home Depot, among other large corporations already being there, the growth has not benefited many of the locals. There are million dollar mansions on the beach, five star resorts and hotels, and large corporate chains all around. Yet the contrast is striking between this and how some of the locals live. I noticed while I was at Sam’s Club, that not fifty yards from the parking lot there was a small squatter’s one room shack made out of pieces of scrap aluminum and plywood. I could tell someone was living in it because there were pieces of laundry hanging out on the line outside of it. The conditions looked horrible: clearly no electricity or running water. But I fear it could be getting worse. Instead of helping the community, the government allows large corporations such as Wal-Mart to come in and kill all local business. Hundreds of locals depending on their small convenience stores and other shops will soon be without work. Instead of adopting a policy that gives money or shelter to those in desperate poverty, “SQUATTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED” signs and barbed wire go up around any open land.

This situation is not unique to Baja Sur or Mexico. It is happening across the globe. I find it extremely sad that we live in a world where everyone is looking out for the interests of their wallet while no one is looking out for the people that truly need help. In Mexico the rich get richer while the squatters starve. In America everyone has equal rights, but poor blacks are getting their land taken away from them after hurricane Katrina by eminent domain because their grass is too long. In Sudan big business thrives while children are forced to kill or be killed. In India the elite do not interact with the poor, and the poor cut off their hands and feet to get sympathy from passers by who may drop them a coin.

Something needs to change.

What I propose.

Many governments have clearly conveyed their lack of interest in helping those without the means to help themselves. The favelas in Rio de Janeiro are a good example of the Brazilian government’s neglect of the over one million squatters living in the hills around the city. Many governments are simply unable to help out their large populations of impoverished citizens, while other governments choose to ignore these people. So if the government cannot or will not help, then we, as people, must try.

In order for any real difference to be made, something radical must happen. Therefore I propose an anti-capitalistic approach to economy. The fact is that capitalism by its very nature creates class differences that leave millions behind. I believe that a gift-based economy, as apposed to a trade-based economy, would help to transform the world into a better place. Instead of approaching business with the “what do these people have to offer me?” mentality, a “what can I do to help?” mentality may serve a better purpose. Moreover, I believe in asking for what you want and giving generously.

If every person answered their calling, then we would all have something to share with one another. It is highly unlikely that every single one of those in the work force that sit day-in day-out in a cubicle actually want to be there. I am positive that some wanted to be firemen or artists or musicians or farmers or something other than what they are. What if they all decided to follow their dreams? Everyone would support the artists of the world, creating a more beautiful world in which more of the impoverished could participate. If one in ten cubicle slaves decided to quit their jobs and build community centers and gardens, then more people would have places to sleep and things to eat.

Of course, this has to happen on a large scale for any real difference to be made at the global level. Skeptically you may be thinking, “That sounds impossibly utopian. How can I make any real change if it would take everyone to change as well?” The answer my friend, is that you can make change.

Stop buying from Wal-Mart and start shopping at local businesses. Find a cause you really believe in and tell everyone you know about it. Cultivate a garden in your backyard. Sponsor a local farm and eat local produce. Lobby for a community center in your neighborhood. Reduce the number of hours you work each week. Buy from local artists and musicians. Volunteer with or donate to Oxfam America, Habitat for Humanity, or any other non-profit organization in which you believe. Keep non-perishable food in your car and generously give it to any homeless person you see.

Take it upon yourself to consciously work for a better environment for all and live life the way you truly think it should be lived.

Start

Just testing this out.