hat tip to Lou Proyect A three-decade analysis of prior research reveals that American college students are not quite as empathetic as they used to be. “We found the biggest drop in empathy after the year 2000,” co-author Sara Konrath, a researcher at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, said in a news [...]

Until 2008, world energy forecasters had always assumed global oil production would keep up with economic growth. According to classic economic theory, as world economies grew they would demand more oil, and oil companies would respond by investing in more exploration and development. “Peak Oil” was considered decades away. Beginning around 2005, however, world oil [...]

Indeed, hair may be on fire at McChrystal’s Bagram headquarters. Rumors are circulating in military circles of backbiting and finger pointing, as well as complaints that MacChrystal is being set up as a fall guy, while his boss, General Petraeus, skates to a Republican presidential nomination in 2012. The stressed out psychological atmosphere appears to [...]

Organic Bytes #225: Millions Against Monsanto May 21, 2010 Health, Justice and Sustainability News from the Organic Consumers Association http://www.organicconsumers.org Edited by Alexis Baden-Mayer and Ronnie Cummins Organic Consumers on The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ronnie-cummins Organic Bytes on the Radio: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19418.cfm Organic Consumers Association’s Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/organicconsumers Organic Consumers Association’s Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=58644&uid=2354420887 http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=58644&uid=2354420887 Organic [...]

We know some of the ways they’re linked. But with oil tar headed to the Florida Keys and the new study showing links between ADHD and pesticide exposure well below the “allowable limits” of the FDA, we are seeing a kind of contingent exposure of Food alongside a contingent exposure of Oil. Oil companies are [...]

We write a good deal here about war, sex, enemies, and power. As we read about Steven Green, a name not yet popularized, and the infamy of Mahmudiyah, maybe we can grasp in greater detail how these big things – war, sex, enemies, power – can emerge in these moments of concentrated, and sexualized, fury [...]

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us [...]

I’ve just discovered and am rather liking the Youtube “Feminist Frequency” productions. We often talk here about the necessity for pop culture critique — for unpacking the ‘messaging’ content of for-profit entertainment media and its power in subverting and/or enforcing dominant paradigms (often, bewilderingly, both at once — or apparently subverting while actually enforcing — [...]

The Transition Movement is a vibrant, grassroots movement that seeks to build community resilience in the face of such challenges as peak oil, climate change and the economic crisis. It represents one of the most promising ways of engaging people in strengthening their communities against the effects of these challenges, resulting in a life that [...]

This interview with Chalmers Johnson, from today’s Counterpunch, is a gold mine on gender and militarism, and on how militarism affects us all. It also highlights the DeAnander Fractal that joins war, agribusiness, and pornography: the fantasy of control, the flight from reciprocity, and the refusal to acknowledge or respect limits. There’s also a passage [...]