by Mikhail Lyubansky

“Fiction,” said Stephen King, “is the truth inside the lie.” The problem is (apart from the necessary mental calisthenics involved in deciphering this comment) is that, for many filmgoers, it may well be the only truth they get, at least about some issues. It is therefore noteworthy that recent films (and of course the books and comics that spawned them) such as X-Men and Harry Potter have explicitly taken on racial issues and race relations. As a result, important issues such as blood purity, group prejudice, and even eugenics have become part of the dialog – both online and at the kitchen table. With several more Harry Potter and X-Men films currently in production, these themes are likely to remain in our cultural dialog for the foreseeable future.

(Cross posted from Docudharma)

We have come to a place unimagined even by Orwell who got so much right.  

This from The Council of Foreign Relations:

Food shortages and skyrocketing prices are putting pressure on many of the world’s poorest nations. The Wall Street Journal reports that at spring meetings of policymakers from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, some assigned partial blame to U.S. biofuels policies. The meetings produced “few concrete results” on the way forward. World Bank President Robert Zoellick is calling for a “New Deal on Global Food Policy.” and said the bank plans to double agricultural lending to sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, street riots have broken out across Latin America (Miami Herald), and in Haiti, where the prime minister was ousted from office on Saturday after protests against rising food prices ground the country to a halt (NYT). East Asia is also feeling pinched, with many countries limiting exports—particularly of rice—to meet domestic demand (ISN Security Watch). The Philippines has called for an emergency regional meeting to discuss the region’s food crisis (Bloomberg).

 think the North Central coast of New Zealand’s North Island is as close to paradise as you are likely to find. We don’t know for certain why Captain Cook called it “The Bay of Plenty” in 1769. But at the port of Taurange, a three hour drive south from Auckland, the average low temperature in the winter (March through August) is a cool 41F, and the average high in the summer is a pleasant 75F. During the winter rainy season the average rainfall is only 4 to 5 inches a month. And even though its beach lined coast is bisected by the Taupo Volcanic Zone, with its northern terminus of White Island, one of the most accessible and active, explosive volcanoes in the world, a mere 30 miles off the coast, there is nothing in the geological history to indicate that this resort region has anything particular to fear from Mother Nature. The violence and the fireworks of this land are merely harmless backdrops. Or at least they were until 45 year old James Bowring went on the prowl.

Here is a link to the text as well.

Okay, that’s just a catchy headline. The problem isn’t with progress, but our reaction to it. When it comes to social progress, America is like a chronically ill person who stops taking his meds prematurely once the most egregious symptoms are gone.

Regarding racial inequality and black Americans, our country took its “medicine” through civil war, grassroots rebellion and governmental upheaval. As a result, the most egregious symptoms of racism are gone—slavery, lynching “parties,” poll taxes, “sundown towns” and government-sanctioned (or at least ignored) hate crimes against black citizens, are for the most part, sad stories from out past. And so, America put away its medicine. And because we have stopped having substantive racial dialogue, because we have too soon forgotten the sins of yesterday and too long ignored the sins of today, America’s low-grade fever is turning into an infection: a race-torn presidential primary where a nationally-known politician can say without irony that black men are privileged in American culture, and even white progressives are shocked at the anger coming from the pulpit of a black church.

From recent conversations in the media and online, several things are clear to me:

(Cross posted from Docudharma)

My generation thought Vietnam was an aberration, but it wasn’t, it was the game plan.  Lie your way into a nasty little war and let other people’s children do the killing and dying while the fat cats at the top of the capitalist pile rake in the dough.  It’s all for the benefit of those so bloated with greed that they just don’t care that their profits come soaked in the blood of innocents and patriots.

I think the person we particularly need to look back to, for guidance and inspiration, is that latter day Founder, Martin Luther King. JFK's death is often thought of as the turning point of the sixties, but I think the real turning point was Martin Luther King's death. I think the impact it had the nation's soul was incalculable and that our journey as a nation became much darker after King was killed.

It's long overdue that America hang its head in shame.

It's long overdue that the political class come to the American people pleading for forgiveness.

This morning in a massive and lengthy lead editorial, The New York Times actually uses the word shame (have they been reading the Daily Kos health catastrophe diaries?) to describe our merciless, depraved and cockroach infested healthcare system.

Commentary written by Vi Ransel and edited by Jason Miller

Verse by Vi Ransel

Thomas Paine's Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=187

It seems you’ve been able to unite liberals, progressives, conservatives, libertarians and even whacka-wacka Americans not in a righteous condemnation of the Iraq War, illegal dictatorial legislation, the wealth gap, lack of health care, vote fraud, dumbed down education, a bought-off/wholly-owned media and Congress, but simply by reminding them of where the meat they eat comes from. Would that we could inspire such passion over any of the aforementioned topics!

Crossposted from My Left Wing | Smirking Chimp | GreenState Project

The following essay, my first post at My Left Wing, was originally "inspired" (spawned) by a series of "Diary Titles" over at Daily Kos. You know how it works: somebody crafts a unique and catchy title and others morph it into other things. Such it the case here and it's explained in the essay.

The Middle Way is a revered Buddhist tradition and similar notions exist in other philosophical traditions as in the Western idea of moderation in all things.  This concept, judiciously applied, can be wisdom itself.  But don’t be too moderate in how much water you drink or how much shelter you avail yourself of...or how many train wrecks you avoid.

Who presents a greater threat to American society - international terrorists, or the current caretakers of the federal government?