Motley Moose – Archive

Julian Assange visited Melbourne Australia last week and was greeted by having his passport seized, told that it will be canceled and questioned about hacking crimes he committed as a teen.  According to The Times Online, the authorities took his passport for a period of time and when they returned it to him, he was informed that it would be canceled because it is “looking worn”.  They also brought up his past computer criminal record – hacking Telco’s and US Military computers as a teenager, for which he had already been tried, convicted and sentenced.

(Cross-posted at The National Gadfly)

*The one that says ‘Bad Motherf#cker’ on it.

As a young, and presumably naive Obama Administration was shaping AfPak policy way back in aught-nine, there was a lot of hooey from bloggers, pundits, the chattering class, and politicians from both sides of the aisle about who was really in charge — a neophyte Democratic President or the wiley batch of Generals backed by a behemoth and press-savvy Pentagon.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, goes before Congress this week, and with him comes this question: Who’s really in charge here, the generals or President Barack Obama?

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“The president’s decision is already being softened and made mush of,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told POLITICO. And within the House and Senate Appropriations committees, senior Democrats – themselves veterans of past wars – have grown increasingly concerned by the political clout of a generation of younger, often press-savvy military commanders.

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“I’ve always believed that the president of the United States is the commander in chief,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who was awarded the Medal of Honor in World War II. “It concerns me when I see my president, the commander in chief, having to debate with generals. They can do that privately, but he should be able to say to General A, ‘This is the way we’re going to do our business.’ … I would expect generals to advise the president but not to go public.”

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“He’s got to be very, very much on top of the type of missions and the way in which these troops are deployed,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) told POLITICO. “It’s clear to me that there are limitations. We should not be going in, clearing and holding areas where we don’t have the ability to come in immediately with Afghans.”

“If we don’t, we’re going to be digging ourselves a hole,” he said. “[Obama] has to very careful not to allow that to happen.”

Some advance snips from Jonathan Alter’s new book The Promise, President Obama, Year One provide a riveting look inside the Obama War Room, and reveal a remarkably astute Commander-in-Chief who out-manueved, out-foxed, and decisively reigned in the military leadership intent on testing his mettle.

This isn’t really political…it sorta is, but I’m gonna write about it anyway because it’s on my mind. Hope you don’t mind.

My parents live in Commack, New York…a quaint far out suburb of New York City on Long Island about halfway between NYC and The Hamptons. (Exit 52 on the Long Island Expressway)

Recently, my parents have had some neighbor trouble and my mom thinks part of it is political. Here’s the story.  

Crossposted from BorderJumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

Our entry begins in Maralal, Kenya, a place mostly known for its wildlife. And as we made the seven hour, bumpy trek from Nairobi-half of it on unpaved roads-we saw our fair share of water buffaloes, rhinos, impala, and giraffes. But we weren’t here to go on safari. We were here to meet with a group of pastoralists-livestock keepers who had agreed to meet with us and talk about the challenges they face.

Although most of these people don’t have access to cable TV or even radios, they do have a good sense of the challenges their fellow livestock keepers face all over Kenya. They are aware that climate change is likely responsible for the drought plaguing much of East Africa, killing thousands of livestock over the last few months. They know that conflict with neighboring pastoral communities over water resources and access to land makes headlines in Kenya’s newspapers. And they know that many policy-makers would like to forget they exist and consider their nomadic lifestyle barbaric, as our guide Dr. Pat Lanyasunya, a member of theAfrica LIFE Network, explained.

What surprised me most about these livestock keepers is their understanding that the world is changing. They know that many of their children won’t live the same kind of lives that their ancestors lived for centuries. Many will choose to go to the cities, but they said if their children become “landed,” they want them to maintain links to the pastoralist way of life.

Speaking of the ‘big” city, Nairobi, we had some unforgettable site visits there. Driving through the crowded streets of Kibera, (an urban slum in Nairobi), it’s nearly impossible to describe how many people live in this area of about 225 hectares, the equivalent of just over half the size of Central Park in Manhattan. Anywhere from 700,000 to a million people live in what is likely the largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa–it’s hard to count the exact number here because people don’t own the land where they live and work, making their existence a very tenuous one. Often people are evicted from their homes (most of them wooden shacks with tin roves) because the city government doesn’t want to recognize that Kibera exists. But it does. And despite the challenges people here face-lack of water and sanitation services and lack of land ownership are the big ones-they are also thriving.

We met a “self help” group of women farmers in Kibera, who are growing food for their families and selling the surplus. These groups are present all over Kenya-giving youth, women, and other groups the opportunity to organize, share information and skills, and ultimately improve their well-being.

The women we met are raising vegetables on what they call “vertical farms.” But instead of skyscrapers, these farms are in tall sacks, filled with dirt, and the women grow crops in them on different levels by poking holes in the bags and planting seeds. They received training, seeds, and sacks from the French NGO Soladarites to start their sack gardens.

The women told us that more than 1,000 of their neighbors are growing food in a similar way-something that Red Cross International recognized during 2007 and 2008 when there was conflict in the slums of Nairobi. No food could come into these areas, but most residents didn’t go without food because so many of them were growing crops-in sacks, vacant land, or elsewhere.

These small gardens can yield big benefits in terms of nutrition, food security, and income. All the women told us that they saved money because they no longer had to buy vegetables at the store and they claimed they taste better because they were organically grown-but it also might come from the pride that comes from growing something themselves.

When we got to the union office in Kerecho, Kenya, union officials were elated to see the staff of the Solidarity Center. Over the last couple of months, more than 6,000 tea workers joined the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union (KPAWU). To help them win more members-and continue to grow-the Solidarity Center provides resources to hire organizers, conduct trainings, and offer communications and transportation support, according to KPAWU branch secretary Joshua Owuor Maywen.

The union, despite having more than 200,000 members in the agriculture sector and representing some of the most vulnerable workers, has still lost density over the last two decades. During this time, companies are trying whatever they can to cut costs, including implementing child labor, mechanizing the plucking industry–according to one of the workers: “the machines pluck everything including snakes and spiders, while the tea pluckers pluck tea”-and hiring casuals or “temporary” workers at lower wages and reduced benefits.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts — we check for comments everyday and want to have a regular ongoing discussion with you.

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3. Help keep our research going–If you know of any great projects or contacts in West Africa please connect us connect us by emailing, commenting or sending us a message on facebook.

Well (no pun intended), BP managed to shove something up their greasy hole today (pun very specifically intended).  This is something many have suggested that they should do since the burning and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon on April 20.  The leak has not stopped, but at the moment some oil is being collected by a ship located above the site of the wreckage.  There is no word that this effort will contain all of the leak until new wells are drilled this summer, but something is better than nothing.

The official line is that the leak had been running at 5,000 barrels (200,000 gallons) per day, though estimates by outside sources put it at up to 70,000 barrels (2,800,000 gallons) per day.  To date, therefore, the accident has released between 5,200,000 gallons (half of the Exxon Valdez spill) to 72,800,000 million gallons (seven times the Exxon Valdez) into the Gulf of Mexico.

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Many Americans have heard of the Daisy Ad.

Most politics buffs probably watched this ad at one time or another. And after it was over, they may have wondered – how in the world was the daisy ad so effective?

By modern standards, it seems both outdated and completely transparent. The implication is most unsubtle: voting for Senator Barry Goldwater will bring nuclear war. Today’s viewer might find it somewhat ridiculous, even laughable. It would be as if Senator Barack Obama cut an ad implying that Senator John McCain would start World War Three.

Yet the Daisy Ad worked. Mr. Goldwater went on to lose the election by a landslide, partly as a result of said ad.

This was because in 1964, believe it or not, many Americans actually worried that Mr. Goldwater might use nuclear weapons.

More below.

In this regular series we profile advisors of the Nourishing the Planet project. This week, we feature Norman Uphoff, professor of Government and International Agriculture at Cornell University.

Name: Norman Uphoff

Affiliation: Cornell University

Location: Ithaca, United States

Bio: Norman Uphoff is a professor of Government and International Agriculture at Cornell University and former director of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development, 1990 to 2005. His work has focused on development administration, irrigation management, local participation, and strategies for broad-based rural development. His current development interests have expanded beyond the social sciences to include agro-ecology, particularly the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and its extrapolation to other crops beyond rice.

Published work:

-“System of Rice Intensification responds to 21st Century Needs, Rice Today 3 (3): 42-43

–Reasons for Success: Learning from Instructive Experiences in Rural Development (1997), with Esman and Krishna, Kumarian Press.

-Agroecological Innovations: Increasing Food Production with Participatory Development (2002), Earthscan Press.

–Biological Approaches to Sustainable Soil Systems, managing editor (2006), CRC Press.

-“An assessment of physiological effects of system of rice intensification (SRI) practices compared to recommended rice cultivation practices in India,” with Thakur and Antony (2010) in Experimental Agriculture, 46:77-98

-“Learning about positive plant-microbial interactions from the System of Rice Intensification (SRI),” with Anas, Rupela, Thakur and Thiyagarajan (2009). Aspects of Applied Biology 98: 29-54.

On Nourishing the Planet: Nourishing the Planet is looking ahead at ways that we can, first, avert the most dire outcomes that will be the likely consequence of our present practices, and, second, reverse the present adverse trends by capitalizing on new opportunities. Both are necessary. Not enough people realize that we are ‘in a hole,’ and that continuing to ‘dig deeper’ will not get us out.

Our food production methods need to be reformulated and reoriented to approximate more closely the natural processes that have supported vegetation growth on the planet’s surface for some 400 million years. All herbivores, carnivores and omnivores (including us) are supported by these photosynthetically-driven processes and their associated soil system dynamics.  Nourishing the planet in the decades ahead will depend on a profound understanding of ecological opportunities and limits.

The December 2009 issue of Farming Matters calls you “one of the most energetic and persistent promoters of SRI.” Can you describe your evolution from being a skeptic of the technique to becoming one its biggest supporters? When I first learned about ‘SRI’ from the Malagasy NGO Association Teffy Saina in December 1993 it sounded fantastical. How could farmers, who had very poor soils, significantly improve their yields-by 5, 10, even 15 tons per hectare-without the use of new, improved rice varieties, and without the use of chemical fertilizer (just compost made from any available biomass), and with less water? This was not believable. Even though I was a social scientist, not an agronomist, I knew this was not possible.  

Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Fridah Mugo and her 13 siblings grew up in a farming family in rural Kenya, where the majority of young girls are not expected to finish primary school. But, in 1999, with a scholarship provided by Winrock International‘s African Women Leaders in Agriculture and the Environment program (AWLAE), she was able to complete her PhD in Natural Resources Policy and Management.

Now, with an education and AWLAE’s Leadership for Change training, Mugo is working to address the problem of devastating deforestation in Kenya where only 2 percent of the country is forested-in the 1950’s one third of Kenya was covered in trees. She provides extension services to rural communities dependent on wood burning cookers. Training women to make and use new and alternative energy sources, such as fireless cookers (reed baskets lined with cloth that can be quickly heated on fires to slowly cook food over the course of an entire day, reducing the need for firewood), Mugo is helping prevent the loss of more forest and improving livelihoods.  (See also: Reducing the Things They Carry)

She also lobbies for women’s participation in agricultural development projects in Kenya and other African countries, and founded an education program for young girls, enabling dozens of girls to attend and complete primary school.

But in Kenya and most of sub-Saharan Africa, Mugo’s achievements as a woman are the exception, not the rule. “Women hold their families and country together. The problem is they have no decision-making power and lack access to resources and education. Those who do have resources can make a huge difference,” says Mugo.

Since its start in 1989, AWLAE has presented 570 women with scholarships for advanced studies, helped over 50,000 young girls gain access to primary education, and provided training to more than 100,000 farmers.  The program also provides a network, connecting scholarship and training recipients to each other for support and to exchange knowledge and experiences.

And this support is just as important as the education itself because, according to Mugo, “women are brought up to listen. You’re not supposed to talk. At the training, they taught us that we could achieve anything.”

And, according to a growing number of voices in the global agriculture community, when women are allowed to strive to achieve anything, it is their families and the wider community that benefit. To read more about how empowering women can alleviate hunger and poverty, see also: Feeding Communities By Focusing on Women, Women Farmers Are Key to Halving Global Hunger by 2015, and Panelists Call for Women’s Important Role in Alleviating Global Hunger to be Reflected in Agriculture Funding.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts-we check comments everyday and look forward to a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive weekly updates-Sign up for our “Nourishing the Planet” weekly newsletter at the blog by clicking here and receive regular blog and travel updates.

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Madagascar, like many other African nations, “is based on rice,” says Xavier Rakontonjanahary, the Rice Breeding Coordinator at the Centre National de la Recherche Apliquee au Developpement Rural/FOFIFA or the National Center for Rural Development.

As a result, FOFIFA works with farmers, developing different rice varieties for different regions and different conditions. Their approach, according to Xavier, is to not only introduce different varieties of rice and different innovations, “but also listen to farmers.”  FOFIFA works with farmers to adapt different technologies and innovations to fit their own needs through extension services and on-farm testing.

“You need innovation,” says Xavier, “but when you talk about application, it’s not always working.” In other words, it’s not just enough to develop an innovation-such as SRI, which increases yields, but is more labor intensive, or F1 rice hybrids, which requires a lot of expensive fertilizers-unless farmers are able to practice it.

And while conservation farming practices, such as minimal tillage and the use of compost, can help prevent erosion and improve soils in Madagascar, Xavier notes that the country, even with funding from the French government and other donors, “can’t be Brazil when it comes to conservation farming.” In Southern Brazil, cover crops, intercropping, and other conservation agriculture practices are used extensively for maize . But “lowland rice in Madagascar is very different than other crops,” says Xavier. And while rice can be intercropped with wheat or trees in integrated rice and agroforestry projects, not every farmer in Madagascar will be able to use those practices.

“We have enough innovations,” says Xavier, “but they’re not applied” because of constraints, including farmers access to credit or land or markets. Removing those constraints and strengthening farmers’ rights need to be considered, according to Xavier, if you want to improve hunger and poverty.

Stay tuned for more about rice breeding in Senegal when we write from West Africa in a few weeks.

This is a weekly series where we recommend an artist, song, or compilation of songs, from a country in Africa, brought to you by our awesome friends at Awesome Tapes From Africa. Today’s selection is from Ghana:

Ghana has a wealth of regional music variation and the Accra area (Ghana’s capital) is home to some particularly interesting stuff. Ga music, as performed by the Allan Family Culture Troupe, is excellent. These are the rhythms upon which the dzama (or jama) style of hiplife is based. But even without the now ubiquitous presence of these patterns in Ghanaian pop I would hasten to say this music is some of the most vital traditional music in Ghana.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts-we check comments everyday and look forward to a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive weekly updates-Sign up for our “Nourishing the Planet” weekly newsletter at the blog by clicking here and receive regular blog and travel updates.

Cross posted from BorderJumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

Check out Food First‘s most recent edition of Alternatives to the Green Revolution in Africa newsletter (AAAGRrrr!). In a piece written by Richard Jonasse and Tanya Kerssen, Nourishing the Planet Advisory Group member, Professor Olivier De Schutter, is quoted about the threat of  increasing corporate consolidation in the food system and how it puts small farmers at risk. De Schutter calls on African nations to increase access for farmers to markets and strengthening local and public procurement systems. Food First points out “that the ability-and the willingness-of developing countries to carry out such policies, however, is constrained in part by the enormous influence of the multilateral Aid regime.”

“In their struggles for land reform, democracy and food sovereignty, peasant movements must confront not only unaccountable governments and corporations, but powerful philanthropies and international aid institutions that are shaping every imaginable aspect of the political (and actual) landscape,” according to the article.

Ultimately, what is needed, says Food First, is “strengthening smallholder agriculture and the social fabric through the promotion of cohesive farmer collectives and smallholder support mechanisms, local control over seed production and research, and stopping land grabs through secure land rights.”

Stay tuned for more about innovations that put farmers in the driver’s seat in State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts — we check for comments everyday and want to have a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive regular updates–Join the weekly BorderJumpers newsletter by clicking here.

3. Help keep our research going–If you know of any great projects or contacts in West Africa please connect us connect us by emailing, commenting or sending us a message on facebook.