CHARLES C. MANN, - National Geographic
Stephan: Here is the latest, and one of the most exciting lines of research designed to help us understand who we are, by uncovering who we were -- really were -- thus rectifying the fantasy we learned in school.
Charles C. Mann's new book, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, is due out in August.
We used to think agriculture gave rise to cities and later to writing, art, and religion. Now the world’s oldest temple suggests the urge to worship sparked civilization.
By Charles C. Mann
Photograph by Vincent J. Musi
Every now and then the dawn of civilization is reenacted on a remote hilltop in southern Turkey.
The reenactors are busloads of tourists-usually Turkish, sometimes European. The buses (white, air-conditioned, equipped with televisions) blunder over the winding, indifferently paved road to the ridge and dock like dreadnoughts before a stone portal. Visitors flood out, fumbling with water bottles and MP3 players. Guides call out instructions and explanations. Paying no attention, the visitors straggle up the hill. When they reach the top, their mouths flop open with amazement, making a line of perfect cartoon O’s.
Before them are dozens of massive stone pillars arranged into a set of rings, one mashed up against the next. Known as Göbekli Tepe (pronounced Guh-behk-LEE TEH-peh), the site is vaguely reminiscent of Stonehenge, except that Göbekli Tepe was built much earlier and is made not from roughly hewn blocks but from cleanly carved limestone pillars splashed with bas-reliefs of animals-a cavalcade of gazelles, snakes, foxes, scorpions, and ferocious wild boars. The […]
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BRUCE GAIN, - PC Business Center
Stephan: This is one of those arcane issues that are almost unknown to the general public, but which hold the potential to create major social change.
This article is easier to appreciate if one knows the conclusion. So here it is: 'Small businesses as well as subscribers can react by contacting their ISPs and congressional representatives to express why they think this development is a bad idea. Some participating ISPs may decide to opt out of the initiative if enough subscribers complain.'
In my view this is an attempt by large corporate interests to construct a punitive system defending their interests at the expense of small businesses and, ultimately, individuals.
Millions of small business owners may soon realize that their Internet service could be disrupted if they’re wrongly accused of illegal file sharing or downloading under the ‘six strikes’ plan entertainment media groups announced this week.
Initiated by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and other media groups, participating ISPs will shortly begin sending warning letters to users or companies whose accounts are allegedly used to illegally share files. ISPs will send a series of up to six notices to account holders whose IP addresses are allegedly used for the ‘online content theft of film, TV shows, or music’ as part of the Center for Copyright Information initiative. After six notices, the ISP could begin a series of ‘mitigation measures’–which for all intents and purposes would likely lead to the disruption of Internet services on which most small businesses depend.
The announcement is the most important of its kind since the RIAA announced it was ending its litigation campaign in 2008 to thwart illegal file sharing. So now, instead of suing alleged digital copyright infringers, participating ISPs including AT&T, Cablevision Systems, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon will carry the stick intended to curb […]
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EVE CONANT, - The Daily Beast
Stephan: For the first time in 500 years White culture is not going to be dominant in the world, and the United States is going to become a majority non-White nation. For many people this is a source of fear and anxiety. This is what drove the Birthers, and this is what is making it possible for hard core white nationalists -- Neo Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Confederates, the whole lot of them -- to consider again running for public office. In parts of the country the less toxic of them are going to start winning.
From that will flow policies that will further break the country down into bio-regions. Cascadia, from Northern California to the Canadian border, and increasingly across it to Vancouver is one such region. The cluster of states that constitutes its antipode are Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. It is in this second region that this movement's power will show up first.
America has always been a nation riven by race, and we are nowhere near through with that trend.
Add to the growing list of candidates considering a bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 America’s most famous white-power advocate: David Duke.
A former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and Republican executive-committee chairman in his district until 2000, Duke has a significant following online. His videos go viral. This month, he’s launching a tour of 25 states to explore how much support he can garner for a potential presidential bid. He hasn’t considered running for serious office since the early ’90s, when he won nearly 40 percent of the vote in his bid for Louisiana governor. But like many ‘white civil rights advocates,
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DAVID FERGUSON, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Here is what happens when even a small change away from the insanity of our Drug War is effected. This is my prediction: The private prison industry is going to become a powerful, but clandestine, force against legalization. Our crazy drugs laws produce the prisoners that their economic model is based upon. This is part of the new American slavery.
I will be watching closely which other cash-strapped cities, if any, follow Philadelphia's lead. Whether ideology or data carry the day.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office estimates that it saved the city two million dollars in revenue through a new program designed to deal with individuals arrested with less than 30 grams (slightly more than one ounce) of marijuana.
According to The Philadelphia Daily News, new sentencing guidelines have meant that the city no longer has to foot the bill for court-appointed defense attorneys, prosecutorial fees, lab tests, or overtime wages paid to police officers who appear in court. Additionally, says the article, legal personnel at all levels are freed up to concentrate on more serious crimes.
Thousands of cases have been diverted to through Philadelphia’s so-called Small Amount of Marijuana (SAM) program, which is designed to process marijuana users quickly through the system and leave them with a clean record. The effort might have been doomed to failure had it not received the support of law enforcement personnel, who say that efforts to take marijuana off the streets use up resources and do little to dent the supply available to users.
In the year since the policy has gone into effect, police say that they’ve noticed no discernible change in the city’s quality of life.
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TINA GERHARDT, - AlterNet
Stephan: This is another aspect of what I believe is the gathering food crisis. It is a trend with horrible consequences, and entirely avoidable. We just have to place profit in its proper place, not the principal and premiere place it now enjoys.
US and EU investors — including US universities, pension funds and investment firms — are involved in unprecedented land grabs currently taking place in Africa, according to a series of investigative reports released on Wednesday by the Oakland Institute.
The Oakland Institute spent over a year working undercover to gather information on land deals in Ethiopia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Sudan.
The reports show how land deals have a number of effects, including the destabilization of food prices, mass displacement and environmental damage.
‘The same financial firms that drove us into a global recession by inflating the real estate bubble through risky financial maneuvers are now doing the same with the world’s food supply,’ said Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute.
‘In Africa,’ she added, ‘this is resulting in the displacement of small farmers, environmental devastation, water loss and further political instability.’
These deals are often presented as agricultural investment, providing much-needed economic funds, creating jobs and infrastructure in developing countries.
Yet, the report argues, many of the deals have negative impacts. These include inadequate participation of local populations, misinformation, lack of adequate compensation, especially for women or indigenous populations.
The intention of releasing the reports is not to curb agricultural investment […]
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