The move by President Obama to follow the ideas of Paul Volcker seems to push directly into the face of heretofore financial advisor Larry Summers.
Summers was not in favor of ANY of the things Volcker has brought into view. He did not want to regulate the banks. He did not want all things happening in the open. And he certainly didn’t want to put any size restrictions on banks that become “Too big to fail.”
Though long expected, the decision to overturn Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and to thereby allow unlimited corporate financing of campaigns is nonetheless shocking. Republicans, with the exception of McCain, are cheering this decision (can near see them rubbing their hands greedily together as they fantasize gleefully over the money soon to be pouring into their campaign coffers). Exxon and Phillip Morris can now give eleventy billion dollars to see that likes of Michelle Bachmann stay in office till they turn to dust.
I want to scream.
Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.
Cow peas are an important staple in Western Africa, providing protein to millions of people. Unlike maize, cow peas are indigenous to the region and have adapted to local growing conditions, making them an ideal source of food.
Making sure that the crops make it from the field to farmers’ bowls (or bols), however, is a real challenge in Niger and other countries (see Innovation of the Week: Reducing Food Waste). Cow peas only grow a few months a year and storing large amounts of the crop can be difficult because of pests. But that’s changing, thanks to a storage bag developed by Purdue University. The bags, called Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage, or PICS, are hermetically sealed, preventing oxygen and pests from contaminating the cowpeas. According to Purdue President Martin C. Jischke, “The method is simple, safe, inexpensive and very effective, which means that getting the right information to these people will reap tremendous benefits.”
With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the PICS project hopes to reach 28,000 villages in not only Niger, but Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Chad, and Togo by 2011. And while many farmers are at first skeptical the large storage bags will protect cow peas throughout the year, seeing is believing- in each village bags are filled with cowpeas and then 4 to 6 months later PICS has an Open-the-Bag event, allowing the farmers to see that the cowpeas are undamaged and ready-to-eat. In addition to protecting the cowpea from pests, the PICS bags also save farmers money on expensive pesticides.
Stay tuned for more on PICS bags when we head to Western Africa in a few months.
Media Promotes Flawed Haiti Narrative is the headline and title of a commentary and new youtube video by Kris Broughton (*see editor’s note below) at Brown Man Thinking Hard.
*editor’s note: Kris Broughton, aka the Brown Man from Brown Man Thinking Hard, contacted Motley Moose and provided the link to his original post of the above video.
The video was written, voiced, and produced by Kris and kindly uploaded to Youtube by Baratunde Thurston.
In spite of the heart breaking loss of Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat to yet another goofy republican, I am reminded of the terrible loss of Paul Wellstone’s seat after his tragic death in 2004 to Norm Coleman. Now that seat has returned to the Democratic party in the capable hands of Al Franken.
Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.
Mokolodi Wildlife Reserve used to be known more for raising livestock than protecting wildlife. But after years of ranching degraded the land, the owner decided to devote the area to protecting elephants, giraffes, impala, kudu, crocodiles, hippos, ostrich, warthogs, and various other animals and birds. But the reserve hasn’t stopped raising food.
In addition to teaching students and the community about conserving and protecting wildlife and the environment, they’re also educating students about permaculture. By growing indigenous vegetables, recycling water for irrigation, and using organic fertilizers—including elephant dung—the Reserve’s Education Center is demonstrating how to grow nutritious food with very little water or chemical inputs. (See Malawi’s Real “Miracle” and Emphasizing Malawi’s Indigenous Vegetables as Crops.)
I met with Tuelo Lekgowe and his wife, Moho Sehtomo, who are managing the permaculture garden at Mokolodi. Tuelo explained that the organically grown spinach, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, green peppers, garlic, basil, parsley, coriander and other crops raised at the garden are used to feed the school groups who come regularly to learn about not only animals, but also sustainable agriculture. Tuelo and Moho use the garden as a classroom, teaching students about composting, intercropping, water harvesting, and organic agriculture practices. The garden also supplies food for the Education Center and Mokolodi’s restaurant, feeding the hundreds of students and tourists who visit the non-profit reserve each week.
The Mokolodi Reserve is another example of how agriculture and wildlife conservation can go hand-in hand.
A wake up call from this side of the Atlantic.
I’ve noticed after last night’s results that many of you are feeling despairing about your country, and even contemplating giving up political blogging because of the distress of it. I’ve one word of advice…
Hold on. Buckle up, and keep going. It was always going to be a bumpy ride.
I had “friended” a person on Facebook some time ago and have been commenting or “like”ing his status for some months. Not entirely sure how I ended up connecting with him, but he posts famous quotes regularly and it was a not entirely uninteresting snippet of the chaotic facebook flow. As an At Large Representative of the Libertarian Party the quotes were along not surprising lines, and as someone who has used the term “libertarian” to describe himself at times in my life there were some I agree with quite strongly. Others were further into the depths of anarchy than I feel is workable, so on those that I saw I would typically provide some commentary as honestly and politely as a Moose should.
Tonight, Mr. Wrights chose to engage me in “discussion”, if casting derision and personal attacks can be classified as such. I am not one to entertain that level of discourse with a troll on a political blog, but hearing it from a leader of a notable US political party was particularly interesting, however disappointing it might have been.
In response I have “unfriended” Mr. Wright. As a parting shot Mr. Wrights sent me a personal Facebook message, which I include below along with the Facebook thread in question and the introduction of my email to Bill Redpath, Chair of the Libertarian Party.
It is a sad day when any leadership member of any recognizable American political party behaves like an unruly schoolchild in public.
With the release of today’s Pew Research Center report, many preconceived ideas about the economic dynamics of marriage seem to be turned on their head.
Entitled “The New Economics of Marriage: The Rise of Wives,” the study shows that a “larger share of women today, compared with their 1970 counterparts, have more education and income than their spouses. As a result, in recent decades the economic gains associated with marriage have been greater for men than for women.”
I like choice. I believe in choice. I think about choice as the exercise of one’s own mind and as fulfillment of any rights granted by a society.
My personal experience of rights is that they do not exist outside of the agreements that combine to create and define a society. I won’t venture into the unprovable belief that rights are given by god. For this conversation, I am talking about the rights granted by the social contract(s) we agree to follow as a group for the benefit if the group and by extension – ourselves. In that context, rights are an agreement to what we can and cannot do, as individuals or groups within the society at-large.
As individuals, we demonstrate the reasons for our rights. In fact, so many conversations demand that we prove why we have rights. The rights of the privileged exist and everyone else is seemingly forced to fight for theirs – one painful step at a time.
(Cross-posted at SexGenderBody.)