Curing Cancer: Conquering Disease or Creating Profit?

Jake Bernstein/Dean Baker ProPublica
How Big Pharma’s focus on blockbuster cancer drugs and the use of patents to maintain monopoly control of drug prices squeezes out research and research models and methods leading to potential treatments that are more affordable.

Leave ‘Organic’ Out of It

Mark Bittman The New York Times
Very few people can avoid struggling daily with the avalanche of bad food and the culture and propaganda surrounding it. Near-hysteria or simple answers lead to unachievable situations and nonsolutions. More effective would be shifting the food culture, the relevant business models and public policies - a gradual and concerted movement toward making production and consumption simply "better." That is what the good food movement should be about.

Polio Declared An International Health Emergency

Maryn McKenna Wired
In a move that is simultaneously discouraging, urgent and deeply unusual, the World Health Organization has declared that the resurgence of polio is a “public health emergency of international concern.” The WHO, the CDC, the fraternal organization Rotary International and a raft of partners have been pressing an international and very expensive eradication campaign since 1988. Every time the world has gotten close, though, polio has flared up again.

Teachers Union Offers To Compromise On Pensions

Greg Hinz Crain's
Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis specifically said the union is willing to consider reducing benefits for those who still are working, although she emphatically ruled out changes for members who already have retired. But such compromise wont come until the city and the school board agree to contribute more to pensions each year in order to at least partially make up for a contribution shortfall that occurred during much of the past two decades.

Have We Built the Committee?

Seth Newton Patel Working USA
Organizing practice and research have shown that the recruitment and development of grassroots worker leadership is key to winning organizing, contract, and political campaigns. Despite the broad endorsement of leadership-development organizing and a collection of truly inspiring leadership development stories, when asked, worker leaders consistently report varieties of leadership underdevelopment.

Farley Mowat: the Greatest Canadian?

Paul Watson CounterPunch
Canada has lost their greatest literary treasure, the world has lost one of our most inspirational conservationists

Palestinian Reconciliation Agreement Good News for Peace

Uri Avnery Palestine Chronicle
Why is the Palestinian reconciliation agreement good news for peace? First of all, because one makes peace with a whole nation, not with half of it. A peace with the PLO, without Hamas, would be ineffective from the beginning.

Rhapsody in Blue Set to New York City

Rhapsody in Blue (George Gershwin, 1924), combines elements of classical music with jazz. Gershwin spoke of the rhapsody as "a musical kaleidoscope of America," but it has often been interpreted as a musical portrait of New York City. This video montage of Manhattan was edited by Gilda Tabarez. Music performed by the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Josh White, Jr. House of the Rising Sun

Josh White, Jr. and David Amram at the Clearwater Power of Song Award ceremony and concert premiering the film David Amram: The First 80 Years. Symphony Space, NYC, Nov 9, 2012.