HELIOLITH

We interrupt this week of perpetual studies with the following news: Mark Wilkerson is badass. He deserted the US Army for Canada after being denied concientious objector status, and has just returned to turn himself in after a year and a half. I listened to his story this morning on WNYC. He talked about his […]

I saw this bumper sticker in the supermarket parking lot last week, and it’s ringing truer and true as our current events become stranger every day. From the US today blocking a deal on fighting AIDS to the president pretending he could ever pass an anti-same-sex marriage ammendment to the Constitution, to the improbability […]

The UK’s Sunday Times runs the story today of the officially recognized massacre of 24 innocent civilians, including the elderly, disabled, women, and children in Haditha, Iraq at the hands of at least 4 U.S. Marines who according to one military official “suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership” it’s important to read what […]

Care of KPFK’s Digital Village, come an interview with Robert W. McChesney, President of Free Press. They’ve posted a good informational essay from the San-Jose Mercury News here: Free Press : Saving Internet Equality. From that piece:
The choice facing lawmakers is stark: keep the Internet as a decentralized network that no […]

While visiting my parents on the East Coast, (and yes my dear co-author Talula), I had the opportunity to see the powerful documentary film, “Street Fight.” (Wikipedia | Official Site) It’s about Cory Booker’s (Wikipedia | Official Site) unsuccessful but relentless campaign for mayor of the city of Newark, N.J. in 2002. […]

Amidst the revolutionary innovation Google has spawned in the last few years, it seems tainted to me by the negative press and talk from playing nice with China’s censorship requests. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about their choice to play up to China’s national policy of flagrant disinformation, and how much […]

The story: via the BBC:
“The authorities in Mexico say a US-owned hotel in Mexico City may have broken the law by expelling a group of Cuban officials.”
The quote by Sean McCormack (US State Dept. spokesman):
“Very basically, US law would apply to US corporations or subsidiaries of US corporations, no matter where they […]

The LA Times’ opinion page carried an interesting story Wednesday: that the Bush administration is reluctant to release the results of a study we paid for through the National Literacy Panel. An administration that touts science publically seems frequently at odds with accepted research (global warming, evolution, etc.)
Panelist Robert Slavin, an education professor […]

I’ve been playing with Stumbleupon and came back again to the postsecret weblog that takes postcards sent in anonymously and posts them. They are frequently sad, occaisonally funny, and very frequently incredibly powerful.
Upon seeing this card, I felt tears coming on and had to put my head down for a few moments. In […]

Lately my first stop for news, the Slate’s “today’s papers” section shared a few good links around the currently evolving scandal regarding the leaking of Valerie Plame’s CIA identity and Karl Rove. Especially interesting is the juxtaposition of previous administration comments and the somewhat irrepressible hounding of gag-ordered? Whitehouse frontman Scott McClellan who absolutely refused […]