Easier Said Than Done

As things unravel, it won't be whether or not atrocities are exposed so much as whether people any longer care. When so many are experiencing malign neglect from markets and institutions, building solidarity or even empathy with those who suffer the most becomes an increasingly greater challenge. Calling on essential moral values during calamitous times requires tuning out the noisemakers--something easier said than done.

Cheap Food Cheap Lives

Human Trafficking Report looks at agricultural child labor in the US, what makes those blueberries at Wal Mart so cheap.

Kentucky Cello

I'm trying to remember if the Beatles used a cello in their tune Eleanor Rigby. I forgot to mention that to a doc filmmaker who interviewed me on the plaza yesterday afternoon. She left me her card, thankfully, and her film about a cello player looks interesting--especially since the unusual musician comes from Kentucky, where my dad's side is from.

Race Residuals

I've been a supporter of The Real News Network since its inception, and am grateful there is at least one place where perspectives excluded by dominant society's mainstream media can be heard. Interviews with Black Agenda Report senior editor Glen Ford and Aymara Bolivian President Evo Morales stand out as unique. Yet, when I look at the media links featured on TRNN, media produced by African Americans and Native Americans is absent. I'm not sure how to interpret that.

Keeping Connected

I live in one of the few counties in California that has a medical program for the uninsured. One of the benefits I receive is physical therapy for my chronic back condition, a condition that prevents me from working, as well as causes me considerable pain.

An added benefit of being able to see my doctor for a checkup, which I previously neglected as I was unable to afford the office call, is that I now have a more holistic view of my health, and can manage my disability more effectively. It sounds common sense, but what do people do where no help is available?

Leaving the Marin General Hospital outpatient physical therapy unit the other day, I thought about how good it feels to be doing normal things, like going to the doctor or therapist for treatment, and recalled how excluded I felt before these services were provided. As more people become unemployed and dislocated, social inclusion programs, like county medical services, help keep them connected. Without them, we are no longer a society.

US Failed State?

Read this.

St. Hillary

St. Hillary calls for an end to sexual violence in conflict zones. How pious. Maybe someone can explain to her eminence that creating conflict for the benefit of profiteering is the problem, and when that abomination is eliminated, then the symptoms will also disappear.