HIV positive children and their loved ones have few rights if they choose to battle with social work authorities in New York City.
Jacklyn Hoerger’s job was to treat children with HIV at a New York children’s home.
But nobody had told her that the drugs she was administering were experimental and highly toxic.
“We were told that if they were vomiting, if they lost their ability to walk, if they were having diarrhoea, if they were dying, then all of this was because of their HIV infection.”
In fact it was the drugs that were making the children ill and the children had been enrolled on the secret trials without their relatives’ or guardians’ knowledge.
Posted by stan as News at 3:27 PM PST
Hat tip to Brian… he found Slow Food. What is that? you may ask… so we’ll tell you. It is an international non-profit organization that has managed to build a network of “convivia” (we like this term) - local concentrations of food-praxis folk who are not only doing remarkable educational work; they are building their community sensually… by eating. While scrolling through their local web sites for Slow Food USA, we found picture after picture of organic, local feasts (for omivores, veggies, and vegans), and more recipes than you can shake a stick at. We’ve been talking about “food praxis” for a minute on this site, and there is no reason to re-invent the wheel. For $5 a month ($60 a year), one joins the international and then qualifies to join one of the 150 (!!!) US convivia. The one-time payment is tricky for low income folk, and that’s a downside. But the basic network is already there and growing. Slow Food is very consistent with what IA stands for with regard to (1) the body as the first and last instance of politics and (2) food being a lynchpin issue for any liberatory political project. Slow Food, by bieng a 501(c)(3) inside the US is limited on its political activity as Slow Food, but that doesn’t mean they don’t serve a critical networking and practical education function. IA is not a non-profit (in fact we barely pay any bills), so what Slow Food cannot say… and do, we can. We will also note that Slow Food seems to enjoy a very large women’s leadership majority.
Let’s eat!
Posted by stan as News at 3:01 PM PST
A joy of writing for TreeHugger is that one learns so much, about things we never thought much about before. This may make us a lousy book reviewer, because we are certainly not experts in the subjects of the books we are reading and tend to gush. We learned about peak oil from James Howard Kunstler; about global warming from Tim Flannery, and now about food from Michael Pollan, and true to form we gush again.
The Omnivore’s dilemma is this: When you can eat just about anything nature has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety. The Koala doesn’t worry about food- he just chews eucalyptus leaves. Rats and humans have bigger issues. Pollan says that the way we eat represents our most profound engagement FULL
Posted by stan as News at 8:23 AM PST
On January 18, 2007, the putative Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki launched rhetorical barbs at his masters in the Bush administration, appealing for more weapons even as the Americans ignored his behind-the-scenes plea not to set him up for a war with Muqtada al-Sadr. Bush, he said, was yielding to media pressure in the devlopment of his policy in Iraq and in response to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s intimation that Maliki’s “time is running out,” he said, “I might be able to say that the Iraqi government is better able to continue working than some other governments.” FULL ANALYSIS
Posted by stan as Analysis at 7:16 AM PST
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by BrianR as News at 5:14 PM PST
By V.S. Ramachandran
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The discovery of mirror neurons in the frontal lobes of monkeys, and their potential relevance to human brain evolution — which I speculate on in this essay — is the single most important “unreported” (or at least, unpublicized) story of the decade. I predict that mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology: they will provide a unifying framework and help explain a host of mental abilities that have hitherto remained mysterious and inaccessible to experiments. FULL ANALYSIS
Posted by stan as Analysis at 2:39 PM PST
The Venezuelan revolution is perhaps the first revolution in history saved by computer hackers and this is one of the reasons the government is so very strong on promoting the use of free software, particularly in public administration. The Venezuelan government wishes never again to have vital infrastructure held hostage or sabotaged by agents of foreign nations. This cannot be accomplished by source secret proprietary software, such as Microsoft Windows, with its infamous backdoor NSA key. Even proprietary software from a trustworthy source has to be suspect for possible tampering, and so must be rejected, not just by Venezuela, but by any nation that wishes to protect and maintain its sovereignty against sabotage. FULL ARTICLE
Posted by stan as News at 12:58 PM PST
By Jim Craven Omahkohkiaayo
Flying magazine, which has been around a long time, has a feature called “I Learned About Flying From That”. Each article deals with a flight situation (hanger stories) from which lessons were learned and what those lessons were. In my own case, as a pilot over 40 years, I am here and able to write this partly because of what I learned in some of those articles I read; lessons that helped to get me out of some tight and potentially fatal situations.
Well the same applies in struggle, There are lessons to be learned that may help reduce costs, avoid mistakes and even losses of lives. That is what Stan Goff is trying to do at his Insurgent American. Practical tips and lessons, principles, sources, data, heads-ups, pithy quotes, legal principles and tactics–weapons for effective struggle–that increase scope, depth and effectiveness of outreach and debate and thus overall resistance to that which literally threatens the survival of this planet and all lifeforms.
FULL ANALYSIS
Posted by BrianR as Analysis at 8:30 AM PST
Political strategy until 2008
Few things will be as important between now and the election primaries of 2008 as making sure the public knows about the Democratic Leadership Council. Teaching the public about the role and methods of this powerful clique of Democratic Party operatives could easily be the difference between a Democratic Party that calls for an end to the war in Iraq and one that doesn’t.
A strategic imperative for the antiwar movement must be to push for the defeat of any and all DLC supported candidates, and to expose and eviscerate the power of this ruling class committee. This is possible using the communications media available to popular forces through the internet, and combining this networking capacity with aggressive grassroots education efforts. FULL COMMENT
Posted by stan as Analysis at 3:11 PM PST
In solidarity with the people of the Gulf Coast and understanding that every bomb dropped in Iraq explodes over the U.S. Gulf Coast, Veterans For Peace and partner organizations will return to the area devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, to aid in reconstruction efforts. The project will raise money and volunteers to aid in rebuilding homes for victims of the hurricanes. In addition, we will raise awareness of the continued plight of the gulf coast victims and the persistent commitment to an illegal, immoral war fought at staggering costs, both financially and in human casualties.
We will arrive in the gulf (probably in Biloxi, MS, or New Orleans, LA, depending upon logistics) around Saturday March 24th, and work through March 31st, 2007. We encourage you to seriously consider taking part in this historic endeavor and your part can assume a variety of roles.
Here are several ways you can be a part of this effort: LINK TO WHOLE ANNOUNCEMENT
Posted by stan as News at 7:08 AM PST
