December 2010
November 2010
“Move over Popeye and make room for the “queen of greens,” kale. Gaining in popularity, kale is an amazing vegetable being recognized for its exceptional nutrient richness, health benefits, and delicious flavor.”
—
Kathleen M. Zelman, MPH, RD, LD ”WebMD Expert Column, “The Truth About Kale: Nutrition, Recipe Ideas, and More”
I had always wanted to try kale, and while I’d eaten eaten it in some dishes at Life Alive, it was Cate Stillman’s Fall Cleanse that gave me the impetus to prepare it. Now I juice it and make a salad with it. I’m addicted to it and can’t get enough. May I recommend it to you?
“A new wave of research into bullying’s effects, however, is now suggesting something more than that — that in fact, bullying can leave an indelible imprint on a teen’s brain at a time when it is still growing and developing.”
—
Inside the bullied brain (via boston)
Ooh. Now BoGlobe has a Tumblog.
Week in a Tweet winner! - All Salon - Salon.com →
salon.com
@willpostforfood is a wit, comparing Black Friday to the Gulf War.
MONDAY, NOV 29, 2010 10:01 ET Week in a Tweet winner! Check out this week’s winner in our new weekly contest BY SALON
The winning tweet from this week’s Week in a Tweet contest comes fromwillpostforfood:
Follow willpostforfood on Twitter (we are). We’ll announce the winner every Monday — you can enter any time by tagging your tweet #weekinatweet.
Sun in constellation Ophiuchus November 30 to December 17 →
earthsky.org
If you could see the stars during the daytime, you’d see the sun shining in front of the constellation Ophiuchus today. At about this time each year, the sun passes out of Scorpius to enter…
Nov. 30, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
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Tuesday’s Poem: “Flying at Night” by Ted Kooser, from One World at a Time. Tuesday’s Literary Notes: Today we celebrate the birthday of Henry McCarty, better known as Billy the Kid, who might have…
New favorite on Mixcloud.com
Ucl Occupation Coverage - Nus President Aaron Porter Meets The Ucl Occupation by Rare Fm on Mixcloud
Just favorited “UCL Occupation Coverage - NUS President Aaron Porter Meets the UCL Occupation” by Rare FM on Mixcloud.comvia Mixcloud
Play
“If this Terror Theater drives the rogue Portland City Council back into the hands of the all-protecting federal government’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, it will have been money well-spent, I suppose.”
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Will Portland Rejoin JTTF After Terror Takedown? | MyFDL
I’ve never liked the civil liberties implications of the JTTF pulling out the firewalls between federal, state, and local law enforcement. I thought it emboldened state and local law enforcement to act beyond its typical restraints. I’m surprised to learn of Portland’s decision five years ago, and it seems all-too-convenient to me that this is where the FBI has concentrated its efforts.
A billion people will lose their homes due to climate change, says report →
guardian.co.uk
Devastating changes to sea levels, rainfall, water supplies, weather systems and crop yields are increasingly likely before the end of the century, scientists will warn tomorrow.
A special report, to be released at the start of climate negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, will reveal that up to a billion people face losing their homes in the next 90 years because of failures to agree curbs on carbon emissions.
Up to three billion people could lose access to clean water supplies because global temperatures cannot now be stopped from rising by 4C.
“The main message is that the closer we get to a four-degree rise, the harder it will be to deal with the consequences,” said Dr Mark New, a climate expert at Oxford University, who organised a recent conference entitled “Four Degrees and Beyond” on behalf of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Tomorrow the papers from the meeting will be published to coincide with the start of the Cancún climate talks.
A key feature of these papers is that they assume that even if global carbon emission curbs were to be agreed in the future, these would be insufficient to limit global temperature rises to 2C this century – the maximum temperature rise agreed by politicians as acceptable. “To have a realistic chance of doing that, the world would have to get carbon emissions to peak within 15 years and then follow this up with a massive decarbonisation of society,” said Dr Chris Huntingford, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxfordshire.
Few experts believe this is a remotely practical proposition, particularly in the wake of the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks last December – a point stressed by Bob Watson, former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and now chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. As he put it: “Two degrees is now a wishful dream.”
Researchers such as Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office, calculate that a 4C rise could occur in less than 50 years, with melting of ice sheets and rising sea levels.
According to François Gemenne, of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris, this could lead to the creation of “ghost states” whose governments-in-exile would rule over scattered citizens and land lost to rising seas.
Small island states such as Tuvalu and the Maldives are already threatened by inundation. “What would happen if a state was to physically disappear but people want to keep their nationalities?” he asked. “It could continue as a virtual state even though it is a rock under the ocean.”
Peter Stott of the Met Office said the most severe effect of all these changes is likely to involve changes to the planet’s ability to soak up carbon dioxide. At present, around 50% of man-made carbon emissions are absorbed by the sea and by plants on land.
“However, the amount of carbon dioxide that can be absorbed decreases as temperatures rise. We will reach a tipping point from which temperatures will go up even faster. The world will then start to look very different.”
The Inner Landscape of Beauty with John O'Donohue
Krista Tippett on Being
This podcast was my drive-time listen today. As with so many other installments of Being (née Speaking of Faith), I was absolutely arrested, this time by the lyricism of a particularly Celtic take on divinity and embodiment, spirit and matter. I was so taken by the poetry with which complexities of our humanity rolled off O’Donohue’s tongue, that it made me sad he could no longer be heard in person. To my mind, Anam Cara will be worth a read, and hope that to your ear, O’Donohue will have been worth a listen. Please join the greater conversation, and cultivate an inner landscape.
John O’Donohue’s Ancient Celtic Wisdoms and Modern Longings: A Show of Remembranceby Krista Tippett, host
photo: Will O’Leary“It’s strange to be here,” John O’Donohue wrote, referring to life. “The mystery never leaves you.” And creating this show has been a lovely, if strange and mysterious, experience.
O’Donohue was an Irish poet and philosopher beloved for his books, including Anam Ċara — Gaelic for “soul friend” — and for his insistence on beauty as a human calling and a defining aspect of God. I sat down with him in the fall of 2007 for a wide-ranging, two-hour conversation. Then just a few months later, before it could go to air, he died in his sleep, suddenly, at the age of 52. And so this hour of conversation (mp3, 51:00) has become a remembrance of him.
We’re putting his lovely, lively, exuberant voice out there in the world, as it touched so many the first time. And he would surely see this as a serendipitous continuation of his life’s work — of bringing ancient Celtic wisdom to modern confusions and longings.
We ended the show with his reading of “Beannacht,” a poem of blessing he wrote for his mother upon the death of his father. A number of listeners who read and loved John O’Donohue’s work have written to us as we began to post this and other poems he read to me during our interview:
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the gray window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
And we’ve posted our research into the beautiful, essential music for this show — including the style of Gaelic singing called sean-nos and the helpful contributions of an Irish listener from Belfast.
“Music,” John O’Donohue said to me, “is what language would love to be if it could.”
Amazement
I’m finding myself amazed by the thin skin of ice on the mill pond by the post office. While the nights have been that cold, the days have not been. Garrison Keillor suggests that it’s probably a good thing we apparently have no memory of the seasons, regarding each successive change with wonder. “Have you ever seen such colors?” we might ask, regarding autumn leaves. “Look! It’s snowing!” we shout, as we feel a childlike giddiness come on.
Take some time to look for such moments to come.
“What’s nastier than the latest thug-ugly video by rightwing dirty trickster James O’Keefe? The rousing endorsement his smear of a nationally recognized public school teacher got from New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a GOP 2012 presidential possible who really, really hates the teachers’ union.”
—Leslie Savan ”Governor Christie Pimps O’Keefe Video Smear of Heroic Teacher” | The Nation 11/21/10
A Thanksgiving Guide to the 2012 Republican Field →
thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com
If God had intended Republicans to vote, she would have given them candidates.
From The New York Times:
2. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas is making the rounds of important campaign stops. He recently gave a speech before a group of conservatives in Iowa, home of the first presidential contest in the nation. Among his jokes was a little dig at his fellow Fox News Channel commentator, Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska. “If I get in, I prefer she not and that she endorse me,” he said.
But like Mr. Romney, Mr. Huckabee has said he is in no rush to decide: “I’m not on a timetable. I’m not on somebody’s calendar to say this is the time when I have to decide. Ask me in six months, and I’ll have a clearer answer.”
“
Thanksgiving may be a time to give thanks for our blessings, but in Washington the resurgent Republicans are jettisoning compassion. They have the same old leaders—and their passion hasn’t changed. It isn’t about offering a hand to the afflicted; it’s about handouts to the connected.
Republicans have continued their strategy of obstruction in the lame-duck session by opposing the New Start treaty, opposing repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” opposing immigration reform and even opposing appropriations for the current year. Their passion is focused on one goal: extending the Bush tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 a year. Forget about deficit reduction. According to the GOP, tax cuts for the wealthy—which will cost an estimated $700 billion over the next decade—need not be balanced by spending cuts.
At the same time, the GOP is willing to filibuster to block extending benefits to the long-term unemployed—the families of some 2 million workers—which expire at the end of November. The Republicans won’t sign on, they say, unless there are domestic spending cuts to offset the benefits. So much for holiday cheer.
” —This Thanksgiving, Republicans Embrace the Politics of Pain | The Nation
Are there no foreclosure proceedings? Are there no food pantries?
(Make the GOP read Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.)
Catch Mercury after sunset in late November and early December →
earthsky.org
You might be able to find the most elusive planet – Mercury – low in the southwest sky at evening dusk for this whole next week. This is the best evening apparition of this planet until March 2011….
Nov. 29, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
feeds.americanpublicmedia.org
Monday’s Poem: “His Stillness” by Sharon Olds, from Strike Sparks. Monday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of Louisa May Alcott, born in Germantown, Pennsylvania (1832). She’s the author of Little…
“As the first reporters to expose the Tea Party as an Astroturf PR campaign funded by FreedomWorks and Koch-related front groups back in February, 2009, we see many of the same elements driving the current “rebellion” against the TSA: Koch-related libertarians, Washington lobbyists and PR operatives posing as “ordinary citizens,” and suspicious fake-grassroots outrage relentlessly promoted in the same old right-wing echo chamber.”
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Don’t touch this junk.
“JustGive.org – As opposed to registering for traditional gifts, you can sign up for your wedding party to give charitable donations to the charities of your choice.”
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(via Mashable 30+ Online Tools For The Perfect Wedding)
Today, a Facebook friend asked if there were a “charity registry” to which she could direct guests of an upcoming wedding in lieu of traditional gifts. This morning’s service was about “Life after Shopping,” so I knew I had to post what I had discovered.
“Media coverage of the massive new WikiLeaks release began about 1:00 PM ET as an embargo ended. We’ll be following this important story and controversy from now until the end of the night, and will add the latest at the top, with an ET stamp.”
—BLOGGING THE WIKILEAKS RELEASE: Return Here All Day for Updates | The Nation
“
It may very well be that the FBI successfully and within legal limits arrested a dangerous criminal intent on carrying out a serious Terrorist plot that would have killed many innocent people, in which case they deserve praise. Court-approved surveillance and use of undercover agents to infiltrate terrorist plots are legitimate tactics when used in accordance with the law.
But it may also just as easily be the case that the FBI — as they’ve done many times in the past — found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a “Terrorist plot” which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI’s own concoction. Having stopped a plot which it itself manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts — and an uncritical media amplifies — its “success” to the world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism from Muslims is a serious threat and the Government’s vast surveillance powers — current and future new one — are necessary.
” —The FBI successfully thwarts its own Terrorist plot - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
Greenwald raises four important questions about whether Mohamud would have engaged this plot without FBI encouragement.
Elsie’s Yoga Class Live and Unplugged Podcast in Yoga Journal! | Elsie's Yoga Kula →
elsiesyogakula.com
Elsie makes Yoga Journal (p. 100 of the November issue).
Back at the end of July I was contacted by the lovely Erica Rodefer Winters @spoiledyogiwho writes for Yoga Journal. She told me she was writing a story about online media and yoga instruction and had been referred to me by another magical lady Nancy @yoga_mydrishti.
We corresponded back and forth. I sent her a bunch of info and didn’t hear from her again.
In truth, I totally forgot!
But alas, in November I began to receive tons of congratulations from the yogi world regarding my mention in the November issue of Yoga Journal!!!! Page 100 to be exact
Thanks Erica! Thanks Nancy!
Yeay for me!!!!
Nov. 28, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
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Sunday’s Poem: “On the Way to the Farm I Think of My Sister” by Joyce Sutphen, from First Words. Sunday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of writer and physicist Alan Lightman, born in Memphis…
Nov. 27, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
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Saturday’s Poem: “Cruising with the Beach Boys” by Dana Gioia, from Daily Horoscope. Saturday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of the man who said, “I know I am making the choice most dangerous to…
Orion the Hunter rises in the east at mid-evening →
earthsky.org
Orion the Mighty Hunter – perhaps the easiest to identify of all constellations – rises at mid-evening in late November and early December. Depending on where you live, Orion will climb over your…
“And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant in television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us’es, the us’es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.”
—Harvey Milk (via feministslut)
Can you see the different colors of the stars? →
earthsky.org
The stars are like wildflowers, in that each star radiates with a different color of the rainbow. Have you ever noticed star colors? Let’s explore some of the stars that you’ll see in the meadow of…
Nov. 26, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
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Friday’s Poem:”25th High School Reunion” by Linda Pastan, from Carnival Evening 1968-1998: New and Selected Poems. Friday’s Literary Notes: It’s the birthday of novelist Marilynne Robinson, born in…
Happy Thanksgiving!
I’m thinking now of the near universality of this holiday in the US of A.
Enjoy this time with family and friends.
Nov. 25, 2010: The Writer's Almanac →
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Thursday’s Poem: “Psalm 100” King James Bible. Thursday’s Literary Notes: Feast days giving thanks for a good harvest have been celebrated for thousands of years. But when we talk about “the first…
Find the Water Jar of Aquarius to the west of Jupiter →
earthsky.org
Will you spot the Water Jar in the constellation Aquarius to the west (right) of the blazing planet Jupiter tonight? You’re only likely to see the Y-shaped Water Jar and the stars of Aquarius if you…
listening to "The Clash - Lost in the supermarket" →
blip.fm
RB I am grateful this is NOT me. #gratitude
