Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
GEORGE CHIDI, - The Raw Story
Stephan: One of the more interesting trends going on right now as the decision by the Millenials to abandon Christianity. I think this is happening because the Theocratic Right lives in a realm of fantasy that Millenials can see is utterly bogus -- 6,000 year old Earth, inerrant Bible, Creationism, and Climate Denierism. This generation can see the fruits of this worldview, and the implications of this apostasy of the young is going to have significant political implications.
Click through to see the video of this revealing conversation.
Dueling young columnists discussed the rise of atheism among millenials Sunday morning on CNN.
Rachel Evans, an evangelical blogger, attributed the number of millenials abandoning the church to a loss of connection to the traditional religious values of service and spiritual connection, and not superficial questions of style. ‘I think there’s this assumption among a lot of Christian leaders that, you know, if we bring in some hipper worship bands and a coffee shop in the fellowship hall and maybe a pastor who wears skinny jeans young adults will come flocking back to the church,
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Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
Stephan: Here is some good news about the anti-GMO movement with which I am in complete agreement (See my esssay, The Great Experiment: Genetically Modified Organisms, Scientific Integrity, and National Wellness. http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2812%2900222-4/fulltext)
In the face of mass demonstrations, documentaries like GMO OMG , and a torrent of irate consumers who have inundated the blogosphere with complaints and criticism of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), food giants are responding with concessions. Whole Foods Market, Inc. ( WFM ) announced that by 2018, it will require the labeling of genetically engineered ingredients in its American and Canadian stores. In the UK, it’s already mandatory. Whole Foods’ competitors are expected to follow suit.
Americans are showing clear support for the Right to Choose movement by buying more of the few products that are already labeled non-GMO. Whole Foods President, A. C. Gallo told the New York Times , ‘We’ve seen how our customers have responded to the products we do have labeled. Some of our manufacturers say they’ve seen a 15% increase in sales of products they have labeled non-GMO.’
Despite all of the controversy surrounding the GMO issue, however, it has been business as usual during the past year or so for big food companies like Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. ( WMT ) and Whole Foods, and biotech engineering companies like Monsanto Company ( MON ), where earnings and share prices have been relatively stable. Companies like Monsanto […]
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Tuesday, August 20th, 2013
WILLIAM BOARDMAN, - Nation of Change
Stephan: Endless war is the basis for the abrogation of our civil liberties, the suspension our legal guarantees, and the assault on journalism. It is the cancer that is destroying our democracy, and our passivity is what makes it possible.
If a country is at war, and that war is an illusion, is there a cure?
We are a country at war, as President Obama reminded us in his notable May 23 speech about ‘contemplating the future of warfare here in the 21st century.
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Tuesday, August 20th, 2013
IAN FLOYD, - The Texas Tribune
Stephan: I have been following and writing about the road depaving trend for almost five years, and it is getting more and more prevalant, particularly in states controlled by Republicans. We are actually going backwards. Compare this with the preceding story about the photovoltaic road in Korea. And notice that this story of Texas, a state that seems to excel in charging into the past, is yet another consequence of surrendering the general wellbeing so that a few corporations, and the individuals who control them, can make billions of dollars from Fracking.
As he witnesses the roads around his South Texas farm crumble and deteriorate, Dane Elliot is aware that he is both a victim of the problem and part of it. The farmer and rancher in Live Oak County also owns a small trucking company that hauls oil field equipment.
‘My wife works in a local hospital and she has to take our son to daycare,’ Eliott said. ‘It worries me every day with the traffic and road conditions. It weighs on my mind, not only from a maintenance standpoint for my trucks but a safety standpoint for my family.
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Tuesday, August 20th, 2013
MARC LYNCH, Associate Professor of Political science and International Affairs at George Washington University - Foreign Policy
Stephan: We are in the endless war because of the stupidity of American foreign policy beginning with the Reagan Administration, which was notably inept. And, thanks to Dick Cheney and the Neocons, we have transformed what was once a deep affection for Americans in the Arab world, which I experienced in the two years I lived in Egypt in the 70s, into a deep and abiding hatred which will endure for generations.
This week, Hosni Mubarak’s old media boss, Abdel Latif el-Menawy, published an astonishing essay on the website of the Saudi-funded, Emirati-based satellite television station Al Arabiya. Menawy described a wild conspiracy in which the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, directed Muslim Brotherhood snipers to murder Egyptian soldiers.
It would be easy to dismiss the ravings of an old Mubarak hand if they were not almost tame compared with the wild rumors and allegations across much of the Egyptian media and public. Even longtime observers of Egyptian rhetoric have been taken aback by the vitriol and sheer lunacy of the current wave of anti-American rhetoric. The streets have been filled with fliers, banners, posters, and graffiti denouncing President Barack Obama for supporting terrorism and featuring Photoshopped images of Obama with a Muslim-y beard or bearing Muslim Brotherhood colors.
A big Tahrir Square banner declaring love for the American people alongside hatred for Obama rings somewhat false given the fierce, simultaneous campaign against CNN and American journalists. The rhetoric spans the political spectrum: veteran leftist George Ishaq (Patterson ‘is an evil lady’), the Salafi Front (calling for demonstrations at the U.S. Embassy against foreign interference), the reckless secularist TV host Tawfik Okasha (whipping […]
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