I pulled the article below from The Huffington Post.

THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING

Posted November 10, 2007 | 08:20 AM (EST)

The United States needs an independent print, (newspaper,) media. One that does not rely on a big corporate infrastructure to determine what content should or should not be carried.This is not about who selects, produces, and owns entertainment content shown on ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS, but rather the unwillingness of these GIGANTIC media companies to provide America with more news and documentary programs that just might have exposed those who led us into the horrid wars we are in, and are trying to encourage another one with Iran, and who have surreptitiously violated our constitution.

Congress should not allow these guys to own newspapers in the markets that they serve with television content. Those fabulous Republican FCC Commissioners will do their best to give the “really big bad guys” whatever they want.

The Washington Posts coverage of the Watergate disaster would have been stopped if pressure was brought to bear by the administration on one of today’s “mega-media” conglomerates. Who among us thinks that today’s administration would not punish a broadcast network for reporting bad things about the war, or “minor” constitutional violations?

And now a personal story about the “very the powerful” pushing the less powerful around.

It was well over thirty years ago that I rejoined Screen Gems following the FCC decision to strip the broadcast networks of their distribution business. I was with CBS Enterprises, the company that sold rights to broadcast in syndication the programs that CBS owned, as well as the content produced and owned by CBS News.

Having been inculcated in the FCC rule concerning what the broadcast networks could do in Canada, I was having discussions with the Columbia Pictures lawyers in Washington in order to get the CBS Network to stop doing what they were doing in Canada that violated the rules. Our lawyers agreed to anonymously and informally discuss the CBS transgressions with the CBS Washington attorneys. I thought that by doing this surreptitiously, the people at CBS would not trace the complaint back to me.

I realize now, but was too unconscious at the time to understand that “my fingerprints” were all over the issue.

It took less then a week for my boss to receive a phone call from a very senior CBS executive telling him “keep Horowitz away from what we are doing in Canada.” My boss, knowing that CBS was only one of three of our customers who ordered content from us, threatened to have me killed if I ever again messed with one of his customers, even if they were violating the FCC rules or “ANYTHING!”

That brings me to my point, something that mostly takes me a long time to get around to.

America needs as much independent Radio and Television ownership as it possibly can have, and certainly not less then it already has.

More ownership diversity means more opinions, and you can come closer to the truth when information comes from as many sources as possible. Wanting the public not to know what is true appears to be “the mantra” of all governments.

The real bad guys know that if they were able to limit the sources of news and opinion that they could do whatever they wanted to do.

Domestic wiretapping in our country was revealed, not by ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox, but rather The New York Times. Suppose GE owned the Times, do you think that it would have been easy for them to release the story” Perhaps you do, but I don’t.

The more INDEPENDENT opinions we have, the closer we can get to the truth. The argument continues to be made that we have enough sources and diversity of information already, and after all we do have the internet. PLEASE DO NOT BUY INTO THIS!

If CBS. NBC, Fox and ABC would report tonight on their network news that “the sky is falling,” 20 odd million American homes would hear it at the same time.

The Bush administration has arranged to have the media in our country the way they want it to be. If they arrange to have the major newspapers in our country controlled by the same people who own and control the broadcast media, it will not be a good thing for our country.

As Nixon and his people could not control the Washington Post during Watergate, and the New York Times could report on so many things that the Bush administration wants to keep secret, that would continue to be a good thing for America,

I have looked upon the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as the “spectrum” equivalent of the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. They should enhance or strengthen the notion of competition, diversity, and localism and not do as they have done in the past, which has been to act on behalf of the major media companies. The FCC has, in my experience, invariably follows a politically motivated agenda in their rulings.

How sad for our country.

Where is Chicken Little when we need him?

Below you’ll find an Associated Press article about the rallies this weekend. For entire article click the blue “Read More” link below.

Thousands call for swift end to Iraq war

By Jason Dearen, Associated Press Writer | October 28, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO –Thousands of people called for a swift end to the war in Iraq as they marched through downtown on Saturday, chanting and carrying signs that read: “Wall Street Gets Rich, Iraqis and GIs Die” or “Drop Tuition Not Bombs.”

The streets were filled with thousands as labor union members, anti-war activists, clergy and others rallied near City Hall before marching to Dolores Park.

As part of the demonstration, protesters fell on Market Street as part of a “die in” to commemorate the thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi citizens who have died since the conflict began in March 2003.

The protest was the largest in a series of war protests taking place in New York, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, organizers said.

No official head count was available. Organizers of the event estimated about 30,000 people participated in San Francisco. It appeared that more than 10,000 people attended the march.

“I got the sense that many people were at a demonstration for the first time,” said Sarah Sloan, one of the event’s organizers. “That’s something that’s really changed. People have realized the right thing to do is to take to the streets.”

In the shadow of the National Constitution Center and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, a few hundred protesters ranging from grade school-aged children to senior citizens called on President Bush to end funding for the war and bring troops home.

Marchers who braved severe wet weather during the walk of more than 30 blocks were met by people lining the sidewalks and clutching a long yellow ribbon over the final blocks before Independence Mall. There, the rally opened with songs and prayers by descendants of Lenape Indians.

“Our signs are limp from the rain and the ground is soggy, but out spirits are high,” said Bal Pinguel, of the American Friends Service Committee, one of the national sponsors of the event. “The high price we are paying is the more than 3,800 troops who have been killed in the war in Iraq.”

Vince Robbins, 51, of Mount Holly, N.J., said there needed to be more rallies and more outrage.

“Where’s the outcry? Where’s the horror that almost 4,000 Americans have died in a foreign country that we invaded?” Robbins said. “I’m almost as angry at the American people as I am the president. I think Americans have become apathetic and placid about the whole thing.”

In New York, among the thousands marching down Broadway was a man carrying cardboard peace doves. Some others dressed as prisoners, wearing the bright orange garb of Guantanamo Bay inmates and pushing a person in a cage.

Chicago police said about 5,000 people marched through city streets to protest the war.

Police spokeswoman JoAnn Taylor said three protesters were arrested before the march started. They face charges including resisting arrest, failure to obey a police officer, criminal damage to property and aggravated battery to a police officer.

In Seattle, thousands of marchers were led by a small group of Iraq war veterans.

At Occidental Park, where the protesters rallied after the march, the American Friends Service Committee displayed scores of combat boots, one pair for each U.S. solider killed in Iraq.

——

Associated Press writer Bob Lentz in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Why Have the Children Been Left Behind?

By Sean Gonsalves, AlterNet
Posted on October 22, 2007
Printed on October 28, 2007

A child’s education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The debate in Congress over whether to reauthorize No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is underway.

What’s with these politically-calculated, brand-name, PR-speak, Orwellian euphemisms? Clear Skies Act. Operation Enduring Freedom. USAPatriot Act. No Child Left Behind. Who, other than Hal Lindsey fans, would want a child to be left behind?! What unenlightened creature, harboring “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” in the words of the President, would be opposed to legislation that promotes “academic excellence?”

Loaded terms aside, the Repubs are ready to march in line behind Bush while the Dems say they have issues with the law’s mandate that state’s rely on standardized tests to measure “adequate yearly progress” in reading and math.

The most obvious problem with NCLB is the gap between the lofty sounding rhetoric coming out of the President’s mouth, and the money. Since the law came into effect in 2002, it’s been underfunded by an estimated $56 billion.

Last month, Bush held up New York City as an example of how to improve “underperforming” schools. “If New York City can do it, you can do it,” he said.

Two weeks later, the New York press is reporting how “the feds are cheating the city out of $3.3 billion in education funds — money promised to help kids pass a slew of new standardized tests.”

In 2007, for example, Bush promised $1.8 billion to Big Apple schools, but only delivered $834 million — a 54 percent shortfall, according to U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-Brooklyn and Queens.

Despite the under-funding of NCLB, student test scores have generally increased and the so-called achievement gap between ethnic groups has narrowed somewhat since the law was enacted. But, no one can say whether those gains are because of NCLB or other factors.

And there doesn’t seem to be any discernible relationship between standardized test results and good grades, class rank or other measures used to predict success in college or the job market.

Ben Sears of Political Affairs magazine captures the situation succinctly. “This is resulting in narrowing the curriculum as schools focus on preparing for the tests and are forced to reduce instructional time for ‘non-tested’ subjects.”

“All this forces one to wonder. Could NCLB as presently written be part of the long range plan of the Administration to undermine public education? If the law’s harsh provisions result in more schools being branded ‘failures,’ could that lead to an exodus from the public schools in to the proliferating charter schools or religious or other private academies?”

“And could the law generate such frustration with the federal government’s clumsy attempt to influence education policy, that it causes a ‘backlash’ movement opposing any federal role?”

Of course, high standards and accountability are worthy ideals but the public appears to be growing weary of this over-reliance on testing. A Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll in June found that 52 percent of public school parents felt there’s too much testing — up from 32 percent in 2002. And, 75 percent of public school parents said the focus on testing was forcing teachers to teach to the test, not the subject matter.

This growing skepticism is based on more than just gut instinct or warmed-over Dr. Spock feel goodism. A survey conducted by the Center on Education Policy shows that 71 percent of America’s 15,000 schools had cut instruction time at the expense of other subjects like history, art and music.

But, even more basic than these concerns are those coming from the scientific community. “Contrary to traditional notions … emotions, not cognitive stimulation, serve as the mind’s primary architect,” Dr. Stanley Greenspan details in his book The Growth of the Mind.

So while we’re obsessing over high-stakes testing and focusing on the minds of teenagers, there’s not much attention being paid to what’s in the babies’ heart — the foundation of theirs (and ours) educational future.

And not just the babies but their mothers too. I think Abigail Adams was onto something when she wrote to her husband and Founding Father, John: “If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women.”

“If much depends … on the early education of youth and the first principles which are instilled take the deepest root, great benefit must arise from literary accomplishments in women.”

Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff reporter and a syndicated columnist.

Below is an article I found in Guardian Unlimited.

Indian ‘Slave’ Children Found Making Low-cost Clothes Destined for Gap

Dan McDougall in New Delhi
Sunday October 28, 2007

Child workers, some as young as 10, have been found working in a textile factory in conditions close to slavery to produce clothes that appear destined for Gap Kids, one of the most successful arms of the high street giant. Speaking to The Observer, the children described long hours of unwaged work, as well as threats and beatings.

Gap said it was unaware that clothing intended for the Christmas market had been improperly subcontracted to a sweatshop using child labour. It announced it had withdrawn the garments involved while it investigated breaches of the ethical code imposed by it three years ago.

The discovery of the children working in filthy conditions in the Shahpur Jat area of Delhi has renewed concerns about the outsourcing by large retail chains of their garment production to India, recognised by the United Nations as the world’s capital for child labour.

According to one estimate, more than 20 per cent of India’s economy is dependent on children, the equivalent of 55 million youngsters under 14.

The Observer discovered the children in a filthy sweatshop working on piles of beaded children’s blouses marked with serial numbers that Gap admitted corresponded with its own inventory. The company has pledged to convene a meeting of its Indian suppliers as well as withdrawing tens of thousands of the embroidered girl’s blouses from the market, before they reach the stores. The hand-stitched tops, which would have been sold for about £20, were destined for shelves in America and Europe in the next seven days in time to be sold to Christmas shoppers.

With endorsements from celebrities including Madonna, Lenny Kravitz and Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, Gap has become one of the most successful and iconic brands in fashion. Last year the firm embarked on a huge poster and TV campaign surrounding Product Red, a charitable trust for Africa founded by the U2 lead singer Bono.

Despite its charitable activities, Gap has been criticised for outsourcing large contracts to the developing world. In 2004, when it launched its social audit, it admitted that forced labour, child labour, wages below the minimum wage, physical punishment and coercion were among abuses it had found at some factories producing garments for it. It added that it had terminated contracts with 136 suppliers as a consequence.

In the past year Gap has severed contracts with a further 23 suppliers for workplace abuses.

Gap said in a statement from its headquarters in San Francisco: ‘We firmly believe that under no circumstances is it acceptable for children to produce or work on garments. These allegations are deeply upsetting and we take this situation very seriously. All of our suppliers and their subcontractors are required to guarantee that they will not use child labour to produce garments. In this situation, it’s clear one of our vendors violated this agreement and a full investigation is under way.’

Professor Sheotaj Singh, co-founder of the DSV, or Dayanand Shilpa Vidyalaya, a Delhi-based rehabilitation centre and school for rescued child workers, said he believed that as long as cut-price embroidered goods were sold in stores across Britain, America, continental Europe and elsewhere in the West, there would be a problem with unscrupulous subcontractors using children.

‘It is obvious what the attraction is here for Western conglomerates,’ he told The Observer. ‘The key thing India has to offer the global economy is some of the world’s cheapest labour, and this is the saddest thing of all the horrors that arise from Delhi’s 15,000 inadequately regulated garment factories, some of which are among the worst sweatshops ever to taint the human conscience.

‘Consumers in the West should not only be demanding answers from retailers as to how goods are produced but looking deep within themselves at how they spend their money.’

Sunday, October 28th @ 2:30 p.m.

Jim Hightower has the great attribute of being both accessible and funny. Here’s his most recent video. Please visit his site. He is both witty and wise. Jim is incredibly informed and his site and newsletter are valuable resources to staying informed, especially about the war machine . . .

The Wonderland of Rudy, Mitt & Fred

More from GOOD Magazine . . .

E-Waste PSA: High-tech Trash/The Damaging Export of Electronic Waste

Video By Morgan Currie, Ian Lynam
Illustrations By Ian Lynam
Music By E*Rock
Words By Patrick James

If the transition from 386 to 486 resonates loudly in your heart strings, then you have some idea of how far we’ve come the past fifteen years or so. Of course, the seemingly exponential acceleration of tech improvements presents a fair share of problems–problems that extend beyond your feelings of inadequacy that can’t be quelled until you get your hands on the next big thing. Electronic Waste, or E-Waste, is cause for serious environmental concern. Every time someone makes a device run faster, smoother, or more efficiently, a whole line of products becomes obsolete. We, however, hope that once that happens, those items won’t become environmental burdens.

From GOOD, with love, here’s a PSA explaining what you can do to help.

An original GOOD Video presentation:

More great info and another wonderful short video from GOOD Magazine. I’m not on their payroll, I swear! )

Bikes to Rwanda

Video By Lindsay Utz, Morgan Currie, Daniel Kim, Stefan Nadelman, Nate Goodman, Kyril Cvetkov, Morgan Hobart
Music By The Sensualists, George Langford, Sen Kumpa

Lugging huge bags of coffee through the unpaved hills of Rwanda to a processing plant was back-breaking work for the Karaba coffee co-op.

In this original GOOD video see how a collaboration between Karaba and a Portland, Oregon, coffee roaster has solved that problem, boosted production, and given birth to a new non-profit.

The above video clip was about coffee coming from Rwanda. There is a relatively new documentary movie out entitled Black Gold which is about a coffee farmer, Tadesse Meskela, in Ethiopia who is trying to save his coffee farmers from bankruptcy. Here is a clip from that movie:

Statistics from BLACK GOLD the movie

• Ethiopia is the largest producer of coffee in Africa. Over 15 million Ethiopians depend on coffee for their survival. Coffee provides approximately 67 percent of Ethiopia’s export revenue.
• The Ethiopian coffee farmer receives between 1-4 Birr (20-50 cents) for a kilo of coffee. In the West, retail coffee consumers pay 2,000 Birr ($230) for that same kilo.
• Globally, more than two billion cups of coffee are consumed every day.
• Since 1990, retail sales from coffee have increased from $30 billion to $80 billion a year.
• The world coffee market is dominated by four multinational corporations: Kraft, Nestle, Proctor & Gamble and Sara Lee.
• The international price of coffee is established by commodity trading exchanges in New York and London. In many years, coffee has been the second most actively traded commodity in the world.
• Ethiopian women who pick through coffee beans to ensure that no bad beans are shipped out earn less than 50 cents a day for eight hours of work.
• Seven million people in Ethiopia are dependent on emergency food aid every year. The United Nations Development Programme estimates Ethiopia’s population at 75.6 million people.
• Over the last 20 years, Africa’s share of world trade has fallen to one percent. If that share could be raised to two percent, it would generate $70 billion a year—five times the amount the continent now receives in aid.
• Coffee is widely believed to have originated in Ethiopia. The coffee ceremony is a sacred Ethiopian tradition and can take up to several hours. The beans are roasted and then ground by hand. The coffee is prepared in a special pot and poured into special cups. In many parts of Ethiopia, the coffee ceremony takes place up to three times per day.
• Ethiopia is the sixth largest producer of coffee in the world and the largest African producer and exporter.

How to Get Involved

• Get a group together to watch “Black Gold.” Buy the DVD to show at your house, in a coffee-house, and on your campus.
• Lead a discussion after the film. Oxfam has helped Independent Television develop a discussion guide and a facilitator’s guide.
• Join Oxfam and Co-Op America’s “Check Out Fair Trade” initiative. Click here to learn how you can get your local supermarket to stock, market, and display more Fair Trade products.
• Read more about Oxfam’s coffee work. Learn more about fair trade and the crisis facing coffee cooperatives here. Read about Oxfam’s campaign to get roasters such as Starbucks to recognize the rights of Ethiopian coffee farmers here.
• Support Oxfam’s coffee work. Help partner organizations such as the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union by making a donation to Oxfam America.
• Get updates on this and other Oxfam campaigns. Join our email list.

See below article about Starbucks

A step in the right direction (but I’m still boycotting them )

Oxfam Celebrates Win-Win Outcome for Ethiopian Coffee Farmers and Starbucks

Well this is just the coolest thing. I found it via the GOOD Magazine Blog.

FreeRice is a website with two goals: to improve your vocabulary and feed the hungry. You go to FreeRice.com, you play an addictive vocabulary game, and for every word you get right, FreeRice donates 10 grains of rice through the United Nations World Food Program.

The rice is paid for by the unobtrusive sponsor ads that rotate during the game.

A “vocabulary game” would be easy to phone in, but this one is good. It adapts to your performance (it’s like the GRE in that respect but a lot more fun), so you’re always being tested at your limits.

Feed the hungry at learn what “isinglass” and “veld” mean: FreeRice.com.

Try it — ’tis a bit addicting though I have to say.

Below is a blurb, pictures and a video I lifted from a new magazine I found called GOOD. As per usual, I am not feeling the need to say a ton . . . the blurb below, as well as the movie and links just about says it all. For those of you that are local (Charleston, SC) I have some ideas on how to help on this issue. If you have any ideas you wish to share, please feel free to comment here or email me (hlmparks@gmail.com). Stay tuned for more.

The U.N. Millennium Declaration

In 2000, 189 nations came together and made a promise to eradicate extreme poverty, hunger and combat preventable diseases by 2015.

From this alliance the Millennium Declaration, a document outlining eight specific goals to help the world realize this promise, was born.

We had the opportunity to present this video at a benefit for Millennium Promise and Malaria No More, two of the groups working to meet this challenge.

The Video

Organization Links

Millennium Promise — The mission of Millennium Promise is to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – eight globally endorsed objectives that address the many aspects of extreme poverty – in Africa by 2015. To that end, Millennium Promise works with impoverished communities, national and local governments, and partner organizations to implement high-impact programs aimed at transforming lives on the continent and engaging donor nations, corporations, and the general public in the effort. Our work is premised on the belief that, for the first time in history, our generation has the opportunity to end extreme poverty, hunger, and disease.

Malaria No More — Malaria No More’s mission is simple: to end deaths due to malaria.