BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT!
Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno are two guys who just can't take "no" for an answer.
http://www.theyesmenfixtheworld.com/story.htm
They have an unusual hobby: posing as top executives of corporations they hate. Armed with nothing but thrift-store suits, the Yes Men lie their way into business conferences and parody their corporate targets in ever more extreme ways - basically doing everything that they can to wake up their audiences to the danger of letting greed run our world.
One day Andy, purporting to be a Dow Chemical spokesperson, gets on the biggest TV news program in the world and announces that Dow will finally clean up the site of the largest industrial accident in history, the Bhopal catastrophe. The result: as people worldwide celebrate, Dow's stock value loses two billion dollars. People want Dow to do the right thing, but the market decides that it can't.
The reality hits Andy and Mike like a ton of bricks: we have created a market system that makes doing the right thing impossible, and the people who appear to be leading are actually following its pathological dictates. If we keep putting the market in the driver's seat, it could happily drive the whole planet off a cliff.
At conference after conference, the Yes Men try to wake up their corporate audiences to this frightening prospect, in the process taking on some of the world's biggest and baddest corporations. Just one example: as Exxon, Andy and Mike demonstrate a new biofuel made from climate-change victims. It's a gut-busting laugh riot - one of several in the film - to see the unsuspecting audience learn that the lit candles they hold are made out of dead people.
On their journey, the Yes Men act as gonzo journalists, delving deep into the question of why we have given the market more power than any other institution to determine our direction as a society. They visit the twisted (and accidentally hilarious) underworld of the free-market think tanks, where they figure out a way to defeat the logic that's destroying our planet. And as they appear on the BBC before 300 million viewers, or before 1000 New Orleans contractors alongside Mayor Ray Nagin, the layers of lies are peeled back to reveal the raw heart of truth - a truth that brings with it hope.
Hope explodes at the end of this film with a power that may take audiences straight out of the theater and into the barricades. A word of warning to theater owners: make sure your seats are securely screwed down.
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Bonus: This film has one of the very few underwater ballet scenes you will ever see in a political documentary!
This film is dedicated to the ongoing struggle of the people of Bhopal to achieve a crucial global precedent.
Please visit www.bhopal.net and contribute whatever you can - your money, your talents, your time.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
EAT THE WEEDS!
Ready for nettles and dandelions on your plate? Langdon Cook talks foraging, the next (cheap!) step in local food
By Sarah Karnasiewicz
Read more: Food and Travel
News
from Salon
Oct. 6, 2009
| It's been three decades since Alice Waters made microgreens a culinary cliché, and by now most diners take the lingo of local food for granted: chefs who raise their own heritage chickens, restaurants with hand-lettered blackboards that outline the lineage of every lamb chop, and salads that sport farmers' Christian names. But what if the next menu you picked up offered nettle pesto picked from the ditch next to Route 6? Or garlic-sautéed dandelion greens gathered from the overgrown lot behind the grocery store? As the meanings of "organic" and "local" grow ever more slippery -- and in lean times, when fewer folks than ever can afford to pay a premium for dinner -- are wild edibles poised to emerge as the next gastronomic zeitgeist?
(full text: http://www.salon.com/mwt/food/2009/10/06/fat_of_the_land/)
By Sarah Karnasiewicz
Read more: Food and Travel
News
from Salon
Oct. 6, 2009
| It's been three decades since Alice Waters made microgreens a culinary cliché, and by now most diners take the lingo of local food for granted: chefs who raise their own heritage chickens, restaurants with hand-lettered blackboards that outline the lineage of every lamb chop, and salads that sport farmers' Christian names. But what if the next menu you picked up offered nettle pesto picked from the ditch next to Route 6? Or garlic-sautéed dandelion greens gathered from the overgrown lot behind the grocery store? As the meanings of "organic" and "local" grow ever more slippery -- and in lean times, when fewer folks than ever can afford to pay a premium for dinner -- are wild edibles poised to emerge as the next gastronomic zeitgeist?
(full text: http://www.salon.com/mwt/food/2009/10/06/fat_of_the_land/)
SAVING RAINFOREST-STOP CATTLE INDUSTRY DESTRUCTION!
Brazil Cattle Industry Giants Unite in Banning Amazon Destruction
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 5, 2009
4:23 PM
CONTACT: Greenpeace
Daniel Kessler, Greenpeace USA Press Officer, 510.501.1779
Lindsey Allen, Greenpeace Forest Campaigner, 415.710.5601
Paulo Adario, Greenpeace Amazon Campaign director, +55 92 8115 8928
SAO PAULO, Brazil - October 5 - In a major step forward for climate protection, today four of the biggest players in the global cattle industry -- Marfrig, Bertin, JBS-Friboi and Minerva - joined forces to ban the purchase of cattle from newly deforested areas of the Brazilian Amazon from their supply chains, backing Greenpeace's call for zero deforestation in the rainforest. (1)
The move follows the release of the Greenpeace report ‘Slaughtering the Amazon' in June, which exposed the link between forest destruction and the expansion of cattle ranching in the Amazon. This prompted calls for action from key international companies, including Adidas, Nike and Timberland, which committed to cancel contracts unless their products were guaranteed to be free from Amazon destruction, encouraging today's move.
(Full text: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/10/05-18)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 5, 2009
4:23 PM
CONTACT: Greenpeace
Daniel Kessler, Greenpeace USA Press Officer, 510.501.1779
Lindsey Allen, Greenpeace Forest Campaigner, 415.710.5601
Paulo Adario, Greenpeace Amazon Campaign director, +55 92 8115 8928
SAO PAULO, Brazil - October 5 - In a major step forward for climate protection, today four of the biggest players in the global cattle industry -- Marfrig, Bertin, JBS-Friboi and Minerva - joined forces to ban the purchase of cattle from newly deforested areas of the Brazilian Amazon from their supply chains, backing Greenpeace's call for zero deforestation in the rainforest. (1)
The move follows the release of the Greenpeace report ‘Slaughtering the Amazon' in June, which exposed the link between forest destruction and the expansion of cattle ranching in the Amazon. This prompted calls for action from key international companies, including Adidas, Nike and Timberland, which committed to cancel contracts unless their products were guaranteed to be free from Amazon destruction, encouraging today's move.
(Full text: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/10/05-18)
Monday, October 5, 2009
MORE AMERICANS GROW THEIR OWN FOOD!!
Published on Monday, October 5, 2009 by Associated Press
More Americans Growing Food on Small `Hobby Farms'
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's most recent farm census shows that while the nation's largest farms keep getting larger, a growing number of small farms also are sprouting across the nation.
February's census report found that the number of farms under 50 acres soared nearly 15 percent between 2002 and 2007 to about 853,000 nationwide. Farms under 10 acres grew even more, with their numbers rising about 30 percent to 232,000.
Nearly 300,000 new farms began production since the last census in 2002, and they tended to have fewer acres, lower sales and younger operators who also work off-farm, said Ginger Harris, a demographer with National Agricultural Statistics Service, a branch of the USDA.
(FULL TEXT: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/05-2
More Americans Growing Food on Small `Hobby Farms'
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's most recent farm census shows that while the nation's largest farms keep getting larger, a growing number of small farms also are sprouting across the nation.
February's census report found that the number of farms under 50 acres soared nearly 15 percent between 2002 and 2007 to about 853,000 nationwide. Farms under 10 acres grew even more, with their numbers rising about 30 percent to 232,000.
Nearly 300,000 new farms began production since the last census in 2002, and they tended to have fewer acres, lower sales and younger operators who also work off-farm, said Ginger Harris, a demographer with National Agricultural Statistics Service, a branch of the USDA.
(FULL TEXT: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/05-2
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