The Oil We Eat

A Harper's Bazaar article "The Oil We Eat" describing the origins of and interrelationships between agriculture and petroleum. http://www.harpers.org/TheOilWeEat.html

A Morgan Stanley newsletter of September 05 describing the particular problems faced by Japan in their "food mileage" issues vis-a-vis peak oil. Of national concern, however, is the marginal comments on peak oil about the u.s.: http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/507

Osama Bin Laden in his own words

The following speech by Osama Bin Laden was played by Aljazeera on October 29th, 2004. Bin Laden discusses the reasons for the attack on the world trade center, the strategy of bleeding the u.s. into financial ruin, and the path to peace. Of particular interest is his disavowal of the oft-cited claim by western politicians that they "hate us for our freedom-loving ways". In fact, he sounds every bit a leftist, Marxist critic of global multinational capitalism--albeit with a fundamentalist Islamicist streak. If we take him at his own word, this conflict isn't about western democracy, its about economic oppression and the political manipulation of Arab countries for their resources. I am aware that our policy is not to bargain with terrorists. But we would be wise to understand the real reasons for the conflict AND NOT accept the recasting of this conflict in terms which our administration finds politically convenient in terms of the resource wars. A must read: http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/160

Bush finally does something right

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/26/business/26cnd-gas.html?hp&ex=1127793600&en=53f023b3f0228c1e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Record Loss of Arctic Sea Ice Accelerates Global Warming

For the third summer in a row record losses of sea ice now diminish the "albedo effect", that is, the reflective capacity of the polar ice caps. With the loss of albedo comes the increased acceleration of global warming as multipliers abound. These multipliers include the melting of permafrost in which greenhouse gases have been sequestered, the increased absorption of solar energy in the polar regions themselves, etc. Scientists now say that we have crossed the threshold: things will irreversibly decline from now on. See: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=57&ItemID=8761

Theory of Value

Russell Peterson, former republican governer of the state of Maryland describes the trajectory of the right and where they have gone wrong: http://www.governorpeterson.org/Articles/AmerDream.htm

pro/con table of alternative fuels  

Compressing down a post-apocalypse scene into emotionally dense multivalent verses

"Welcome to New Orleans in the post-apocalypse, half baked and half deluged: pestilent, eerie, unnaturally quiet.
Scraggly residents emerge from waterlogged wood to say strange things, and then return into the rot. Cars drive the wrong way on the interstate and no one cares. Fires burn, dogs scavenge, and old signs from les bons temps have been replaced with hand-scrawled threats that looters will be shot dead.
The incomprehensible has become so routine here that it tends to lull you into acceptance."

See article by Dan Barry: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/national/nationalspecial/08orleans.html?hp&ex=1126238400&en=a7ff2832a9df65b3&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Les Bon Temps
scraggly residents emerge from
waterlogged wood to say strange things
returning into the rot

the incomprehensible routine
the incomprehensible routine that
that lulls you into acceptance
cars that drive on the opposite side of the interstate
noone cares

fires burn and dogs scavenge
the pestilent, eerie, unnatural quiet
looters will be shot dead

The World Without

for Dennis and Mary Streif

I was in Kathmandu once.
At night, when walking back
through the outer roads,
the stubble in the fields
and the sound of the dog's bark,
the moon rose.

An october orange harvest moon
illuminating like a lamp
the great mystery of the city.
Dark cinder block wallways,
chortens, pagoda rooftops,
the billows of woodsmoke.

In the distance
the roar and the din
of the taxicabs
along the main conduits...
But in the quiet and dark sidestreets
newari households lit by the blue cone flame
making curry over the primus stove.

In the darkness of the backroads
travelling fast to find my way home,
fingers sticky with tangerine juice,
I walked home to
the mystery of the world without.
And the life of the world within.