Here’s my latest news flash.
I live in a modest subdivision in Northwest Raleigh (annexed five years ago into the city limits). Last year, inspired by the politics of food as well as my love of fresh, unpoisoned vegetables, I cleared about 800 square feet of useless grass and “decorative” landscaping, as well as two […]

We are pleased to feature, with the authors’ permission, front-page links to two very important books: Susan Bordo’s Unbearable Weight and Sandor Katz’ The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved. IA’s core beliefs — (1) the politics of food maps onto virtually every other issue, and (2) no politics can be serious that ignores gender analysis — are the reason we are featuring these tomes. Sandor Katz’ overview of a broadly emerging and ever more revolutionary underground food movement is not only a remarkable bit of research and analysis, it has multiple and extremely useful bibliographies for the people who are writing, thinking, and doing these things. Susan Bordo’s book is absolutely essential to understanding the contradictory relationship that many American women have with food… and for beginning any serious conversation about feminism and-or food-politics … Let the conversation begin!

In a trial involving an alleged sexual assault, how would the prosecution present its case in a courtroom from which the judge had formally banned the words and phrases “rape,” “sexual assault,” “victim,” “assailant,” etc? Is this an Onion story or a Monty Python sketch (”he said it! he said ‘Jehovah’!”)? nope, apparently this is a real courtroom and a real case and an unfortunately real judge. The next time some wingnut (or misogynist leftyboy) gets all over your case for being “politically correct,” it might be helpful to reflect what real censhorship looks like and how it operates to steal the words that people might otherwise be able to use to describe the abuse of power. Katie Roiphe must be happy, but the rest of us are thinking ‘Kafka Lives’…

(From a diary at European Tribune:) We may have to pack light to make it through the next century, or indeed the next millennium. If we have to pack light, what do we really need to preserve that essential ability to feel enthusiasm, a genuine pleasure in life? Most of what I own I don’t really need or am not truly attached to; this is something you find out not only when packing for a journey, but when packing to move (which I’m doing now, and that’s another story). Is it worth packing and paying for the larger size of truck and toting the heavy boxes? Maybe not. Maybe I can live just fine without it. I suspect that the same applies to us (affluent Westerners) as a culture; much of what we have isn’t really all that wonderful — not worth throwing away a perfectly good planet or killing people for, anyway — and we could be quite happy with a lot less material cruft and a much lower energy budget.

So I’m proposing the question — to myself and to us all: suppose you’re packing light for a long journey; suppose you don’t have infinite energy to haul heavy baggage around; suppose you don’t have infinite suitcases to pack tons of junk into; what would you stuff into the backpack and take on the train, and what would you leave behind and hardly miss as soon as the journey started?

…is the opening section of the third chapter of Maria Mies’ canonical Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale - Women in the International Divison of Labor (Zed Books, 1986, 1998). It is a theoretical treatment of the whole business of the male-conquest theme, and how that theme maps onto the “civilized-backward” episteme that […]

A few closing thoughts for the evening… on immigration. The Republican chiefs — beholden to the same business interests as Democratic chiefs for big chunks of campaign cash — are now being hoisted on their own petard by the demands of capital accumulation. One of those demands is cheap, throwaway labor inside the […]

I disagree with you philosophically. We will not agree on many issues. But we (leftists and libertarians) find ourselves in a peculiar conjuncture in history where we might coordinate our actions toward a commonly agreed upon end. Here are some key points on which we might agree.
(1) We oppose the war; […]

I just posted a thingy on Huffingtonpost about the USS Liberty, the American intelligence vessel that was attacked 40 years ago June 8th in international waters by the Israeli Air Force. I lke Huffpo, and I’m grateful they allow me to blog. They get bajillions of hits each day; and the comments that […]

By YIFAT SUSSKIND
Indigenous activists are putting up a fight ­ against violence. At the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, activists are focused on passing a declaration that recognizes the right of Indigenous Peoples to their lands, territories, and resources. This organizing drive is seeking international legal protection from the violence done to Indigenous Peoples, […]

We’d like to see anything of interest, when and how people can, that examines the inter-phenomenal dynamics of environmental degradation — starting with the Mediterranean deforestation, military expansionism, and the political consolidations of so-called “barbarians,” during the fall of the Roman Empire. Anything on the entry of “barbarians” into Roman military service is also interesting.
Thanks.