Stephan: Today's SR is devoted to the ignorance and greed that is the hallmark of all too many industrialized societies. The U.S., Canada, and Australia, all three have governments dominated by carbon energy and chemical industries. As a result all three are making decisions that history will condemn. I see these stories every day, and it just becomes ever more clear to me that the only hope for the future is an electorate the rises up and compels, through its votes, a fundamental change. But equally clear to me is the sad truth this is unlikely to happen. About a third of voters in all three countries are what are euphemistically known as low-information theological or ideological voters. In the end we will have no one to blame but ourselves. In the U.S., November's vote will tell us our fate.
-- Stephan
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Stephan: This essay is, I think, the bitter truth. As a nation we are willing to tolerate regular mass murders of children, the aged, anyone as the price of maintaining our gun psychosis
I started writing this essay last week, about the next mass shooting. It hadn’t happened yet, but we all knew it was going to. We didn’t know then whether it would be in a school or a workplace, a mall or a theater or a military base, in Maryland or Idaho, Chicago or some small town we’d never heard of before, suddenly elevated to infamy. We didn’t know the killer’s name or how many people would die. But we did know some things for certain.
We knew there would be grief: genuine on the part of relatives and friends, professionally simulated by media personalities, journalists, politicians, spokespeople, and pundits. There would be anguished calls to understand how this could have happened. The question “Why?” would be posed. There would be outraged calls for gun control by liberals, and pro forma calls for better monitoring of the mentally ill by gun lobbyists. The Culture of Violence would be decried. The word tragedy would be used, and the word senseless, and, within minutes, politicize, and, after a few days, the phrase come together as a community, and the word healing. Ultimately, nothing at all would be done and we’d forget all about it […]
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LORI MONTGOMERY, - The Washington Post
Stephan: The Republican Party may not believe in climate change, but the mayor of Norfolk has no doubt. I find stories about this area very poignant. I grew up a few miles further up the Chesapeake Bay in Gloucester, and lived twice in Virginia Beach, which melds into the smaller Norfolk. Major events in my life took place in the Tidewater and it is quite painful to know that several houses that I have lived in, including my family home built in 1653, will be gone by the time my grandson Ryley is my age. And maybe much sooner.
NORFOLK — At high tide on the small inlet next to Norfolk’s most prestigious art museum, the water lapped at the very top of the concrete sea wall that has held it back for 100 years. It seeped up through storm drains, puddled on the promenade and spread, half a foot deep, across the street, where a sign read, ‘Road Closed.”
The sun was shining, but all around the inlet people were bracing for more serious flooding. The Chrysler Museum of Art had just completed a $24 million renovation that emptied the basement, now accessible only by ladder, and lifted the heating and air-conditioning systems to the top floor. A local accounting firm stood behind a homemade barricade of stanchions and detachable flaps rigged to keep the water out. And the congregation of the Unitarian Church of Norfolk was looking to evacuate.
But will it get the blessing of one of the House’s top committees?
‘We don’t like being the poster child for climate change,” said the Rev. Jennifer Slade, who added that the building, with its carved-wood sanctuary and soaring flood-insurance rates, would soon be on the market for the first time in four decades. ‘I don’t know many churches that have […]
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DON EMMERT, - Agence France-Presse (France)/The Raw Story
Stephan: I take this to be good news but also a teaching moment. The premise of this story is that the small everyday choices made by ordinary individuals -- to seek out organic eggs -- is forcing an industry to change. This is the great secret. The small quotidian choices of life replicated by a critical mass of the population produces massive social change. It takes about 10 percent to act.
Rising consumer interest in healthy eating and animal welfare is beginning to scramble the US egg business.
The price of egg whites has nearly tripled to record levels since early 2013 following moves by McDonald’s and other fast-food giants to introduce egg-white menu items to appeal to cholesterol-focused customers.
Meanwhile, egg producers are spending millions of dollars to add more hens for producing organic and cage-free eggs. A catalyst behind that is a California law that takes effect in 2015 that aims to address inhumane conditions for the birds.
The shifts are the latest sign of the rising interest in the United States towards healthier and organic foods, evident in supermarkets and restaurants, including an initiative by leading retailer Wal-Mart to sell discounted organic foods in US stores.
Yet food experts say the trends should not be exaggerated, noting, for example, that industrial eggs remain the norm.
The organic chicken flock, which is by definition also cage-free, stood at five percent of the US market as of August 2013, while the total cage-free flock was 8.1 percent, according to the American Egg Board, a trade group.
The organic and cage-free markets “have plenty of room to grow, but as long as these eggs cost more — […]
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Stephan: And the surveillance state just keeps oozing out across our lives like a toxic smog. It will soon be possible to track any person, almost anywhere. There is already no problem turning on your phone's camera, or microphone. Moving through any public space will result in multiple images, which are keyed to every electronic interaction you have.
The National Security Agency is reportedly capturing millions of images per day to feed facial recognition programs.
Citing top-secret documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the New York Times reported the agency ‘s reliance on such technology has grown in recent years.
New software allows the NSA to “exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications,” the newspaper said.
“The agency intercepts ‘millions of images per day’ – including about 55,000 ‘facial recognition quality images’ – which translate into ‘tremendous untapped potential,’” the newspaper reported, citing documents from 2011.
Facial recognition is a computer-based system that automatically identifies a person based on a digital image or video source that is then matched to information stored in a database. The technology is powerful, but not always straightforward.
According to the New York Times: “It has difficulty matching low-resolution images, and photographs of people’s faces taken from the side or angles can be impossible to match against mug shots or other head-on photographs.”
The newspaper said it was unclear how many images have been acquired, nor was it clear how many people have been caught up in the program.
An NSA spokeswoman defended the program.
“We would not be doing […]
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