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For posts before June 2012, please follow these links to our archives.

E.g., 2013-06-18

From Ike to “The Matrix”: Welcome to the American dystopia

June 17, 2013
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/16/from_ike_to_the_matrix_welcome_to_the_american_dystopia/
Salon
We live in a country that embodies three different dystopian archetypes at once: America is partly a panopticon surveillance-and-security state, as in Orwell, partly an anesthetic and amoral consumer wonderland, as in Huxley, and partly a grand rhetorical delusion or “spectacle,” as in Dick or “The Matrix” or certain currents of French philosophy.

Iran to send 4,000 troops to aid President Assad

June 17, 2013
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-to-send-4000-troops-to-aid-president-assad-forces-in-syria-8660358.html
The Independent
Washington’s decision to arm Syria’s Sunni Muslim rebels has plunged America into the great Sunni-Shia conflict of the Islamic Middle East. Breaking all President Barack Obama’s rules of disengagement, the US is now fully engaged on the side of armed groups which include the most extreme Sunni Islamist movements in the Middle East. For the first time, all of America’s ‘friends’ in the region are Sunni Muslims and all of its enemies are Shiites.

They Can't Stop Beethoven, Can They? Orchestral Workers Fight For Dignity

June 17, 2013
http://toomuchonline.org/they-cant-stop-beethoven-can-they/
Too Much - A commentary on excess and inequality
Richard Davis chairs the negotiating committee at the nonprofit responsible for the Minnesota Orchestra. Last October 1, Davis and his fellow corporate managers who run the nonprofit "locked out" the orchestra's musicians after they refused to accept a contract offer that would have cut musician pay by up to 50 percent and jumped annual health care premiums by up to $8,000. These musicians are not striking. Quite the contrary.

David Brooks, Tom Friedman, Bill Keller Wish Snowden Had Just Followed Orders

June 17, 2013
http://www.nationofchange.org/david-brooks-tom-friedman-bill-keller-wish-edward-snowden-had-just-followed-orders-1371481671
Nation of Change Human Rights
This month, not only with words but also with actions, Edward Snowden is transcending the moral limits of authority and insisting that we can fully defend the Bill of Rights, emphatically including the Fourth Amendment. What a contrast with New York Times columnists David Brooks, Thomas Friedman and Bill Keller, who have responded to Snowden’s revelations by siding with the violators of civil liberties at the top of the U.S. government.

Undercounting the Poor,The U.S.'s New, but Only Marginally Improved, Poverty Measure.

June 17, 2013
http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2013/0513wicks-lim.html
Dollars & Sense May/June Issue
The 2011 official poverty rate is 15.1%. The new poverty measure presented—and missed by a wide margin—the opportunity to bring into public view how widespread the problem of poverty is for American families. If what we mean by poverty is the inability to meet one’s basic needs a more reasonable poverty line would tell us that 34% of Americans—more than one in three—are poor.

Even Our Ancestors Never Really Ate the “Paleo Diet”

June 17, 2013
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2013/06/03/even-our-ancestors-never-really-ate-the-paleo-diet
Discover
The Paleo Diet is a new food trend. There is little doubt that many modern humans eat too much sugar and processed foods. However, recent studies show that identifying a particular “paleo” diet is impossible. Researchers are just beginning to understand what ancient humans ate, and these recent studies show that grasses and grains have been part of the human diet for millions of years.

Protests in North Carolina Challenge Conservative Shift in State Politics

June 16, 2013
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/us/weekly-protests-in-north-carolina-challenge-conservative-shift-in-state-politics.html
New York Times
Week by week, Monday by Monday, since April 29, a growing coalition assembled by the N.A.A.C.P. has challenged the newly conservative Republican leadership in North Carolina, raising its voice against the loss of the state’s centrist government and what they see as diminished recognition of the poor and minorities.

Minimum Wage: Catching up to Productivity

June 17, 2013
http://www.democracyjournal.org/29/minimum-wage-catching-up-to-productivity.php?page=all
Democracy
Between 1979 and 2012, after accounting for inflation, the productivity of the average American worker increased about 85 percent. Over the same period, the inflation-adjusted wage of the median worker rose only about 6 percent, and the value of the minimum wage fell 21 percent. As a country, we got richer, but workers in the middle saw little of the gains, and workers at the bottom actually fell behind.

Loeb Opposes Teachers Union on Pensions as Asness Quits

June 16, 2013
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-12/loeb-opposes-teachers-over-pensions-as-asness-withdraws.html
BLOOMBERG
In April, the union included four billionaires on its “watch list” of money managers that support groups the labor organization said are hostile to traditional public pensions. The groups included StudentsFirst, an organization that backs eliminating tenure and funding charter schools at the same level as public ones. Daniel Loeb, founder of Third Point LLC, an activist investor is the only one of 33 managers targeted by the AFT to push back publicly against the union.

Farmed Fish Production Overtakes Beef

June 17, 2013
http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2013/update114
Earth Policy Institute
The world quietly reached a milestone in the evolution of the human diet in 2011. For the first time in modern history, world farmed fish production topped beef production. The gap widened in 2012, with output from fish farming—also called aquaculture—reaching a record 66 million tons, compared with production of beef at 63 million tons. And 2013 may well be the first year that people eat more fish raised on farms than caught in the wild.

Man of Steel: Does Hollywood Need Saving From Superheroes?

June 16, 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/jun/11/man-steel-hollywood-break-superheroes
The Guardian
Twenty years ago, after appearing in two phenomenally successful, visually opulent and generally brilliant Batman movies, Michael Keaton decided he didn't want to make any more Caped Crusader films. So he walked away. It was a disastrous move that effectively ended Keaton's career as a leading man, the actor learning the hard way that the only unforgivable crime in Hollywood is to walk away from a phenomenally successful franchise.

Brussels Failed to Act Against US Surveillance of EU Citizens

June 15, 2013
http://www.dw.de/brussels-failed-to-act-against-us-surveillance-of-eu-citizens/a-16872631
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
"The telecommunications providers have been forced to set up an electronic interface for the authorities so that IP addresses can be retrieved.. These trends also exist in Europe."

Just the Tip of the Iceberg

June 15, 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/nsa-partisanship-propaganda-prism
The Guardian (UK)
Addressing many of the issues arising from last week's NSA stories

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