Disingenious Greenwashing

I don't know why anyone is surprised by this any more.

Public health experts involved in the response to the Ebola crisis have condemned what they described as a ludicrous, insulting and opportunistic attempt to exploit the disease for corporate gain by the world’s largest privately-held coal company.

As part of a PR offensive to rebrand coal as a “21st-century fuel” that can help solve global poverty, it has emerged that at the height of Ebola’s impact in Africa, Peabody Energy promoted its product as an answer to Africa’s devastating public health crisis.

Water in Palestine

Yesterday was World Water Day.  Today, Juan Cole has a report posted, Israeli control of their water a continuing threat to Palestinian Surely, important to read as I've always thought the control of water as a resource would reach crisis proportions in this century. It's happening now.

Water and Farming

Wendell Berry: As agribusiness replaces men with machines, the American landscape loses its stewards, and the culture they built.

Related: The California drought and the need to change the nation's food systems.

Word

"My personal ideal of feminism is not one in which women of the ruling class have equal power with men of the ruling class, while poor men and women go to hell together. This is, however, because my ideal of feminism requires a general commitment to social justice and human dignity. A liberation which sets some women free to humiliate and exploit others is no liberation."  - D. A Clarke , Unleashing Feminism

"I'm from Missouri--you'll have to show me."

Richard Seymour has recorded segments for Tariq Ali's series on Telesur.  The latest is a review of the media's performance on Ferguson, Mo.   Put some of this in context while digesting the media's coverage of Antonio Martin or Tamir Rice.

On This Thanksgiving Day

Poetry on Gratitude
Denise Levertov:
That Passeth All Understanding - Oblique Prayers
New Directions, New York, 1984, p. 85

 An awe so quiet
I don't know when it began.

A gratitude
had begun
to sing in me.

Was there
some moment
dividing
song from no song?

When does dewfall begin?

When does night
fold its arms over our hearts
to cherish them?

When is daybreak?

Praise Wet Snow Falling Early - 
  - New Directions, New York
(1995)

 Praise wet snow
          falling early.
Praise the shadow
          my neighbor's chimney casts on the tile roof
even this gray October day that should, they say,
have been golden.
                    Praise
the invisible sun burning beyond
          the white cold sky, giving us
light and the chimney's shadow.
Praise
god or the gods, the unknown,
that which imagined us, which stays
our hand,
our murderous hand,
                    and gives us
still,
in the shadow of death,
          our daily life,
          and the dream still
of goodwill, of peace on earth.
Praise
flow and change, night and
the pulse of day.

Tomas Young, R. I. P.

Tomas Young, one of the first Iraq veterans to publicly oppose the war, passed away on Monday, November 10, 2014. He was 34 years old. He was shot and paralyzed shortly after he started his tour of duty. May he rest in peace and rise in glory. May he never be forgotten. Bill Moyers interviewed Phil Donohue and Ellen Spiro about their documentary Body of War, which was about Tomas Young:

Terminology: women, words, and violence

GLOSSWATCH, always good:

Anyhow, today I am angry. I am angry because a violent male has been sentenced to four days – just four days – in prison for a sustained sexual assault on a female victim. We are required to refer to the perpetrator as a “she”. We are asked to call the rape of a woman, using a penis, a “lesbian” assault. We are expected not to call this male violence, for that would make us “violent TERFs”. But it is male violence. It is.

If there is a problem with terminology here – if the right to self-define clashes with the right to call violence by its proper name – then that problem is not caused by feminists. It’s caused by males who rape women and all those who refuse to identify them as such. It’s caused by a gender hierarchy which non-feminists both defend and refuse to acknowledge. Feminists don’t owe anyone a solution to the linguistic contradictions emerging from this mess. It’s not for us to tiptoe around with language so that no one feels “erased” by the description of a male penis violating female flesh. It’s not our fault. We didn’t create this gender hierarchy. We challenge it. If you prefer to micro-manage it, making tweaks here and there while those at the bottom of the pile continue to suffer, go ahead. But again you are not a feminist.

310,000 can't be wrong

Surely not; 310,000 marched in NYC. Matt Sutkowski,  writing about yesterday's global climate march, praises the intent if the marchers, but wonders if the momentum for policy change will be maintained - and will the politicians listen? He's got his doubts, and so do I.  (Juan Cole's Informed Comment gives background on their effectiveness, with a little history about these protests.). It's all about momentum. Sustained momentum.

Because there's this, from the Guardian:

US will not commit to climate change aid for poor nations at UN summit