Free BBC Reporter Alan Johnston
Kidnapped in Gaza. They’ve got a petition campaign and also this button:
No journalist should ever be kidnapped (nor anyone else, for that matter)–yet more and more of them face horrifying situations.
Author: Shel Horowitz—Green/Ethical Business Expert
A lifelong activist, profitability and marketing specialist Shel Horowitz’s mission is to fix crises like hunger, poverty, racism, war, and catastrophic climate change—by showing the business world how fixing them can make a profit. An author, international speaker, and TEDx Talker, his award-winning 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, lays out a blueprint for creating and MARKETING those profitable change-making products and services. He is happy to help you craft your messaging and develop profit strategies. Learn more (and download excerpts from the book) at http://goingbeyondsustainability.com
Forced Psych Disorder Discharges: Is THIS How the Military "Support Our Troops"? For Shame!
I don’t shock easily–but I am deeply shocked. I m outraged. I’m enraged. I’m bloody furious!
We hear all the time from the Bill O’Reillys, Ann Coulters and Rush Limbaughs of the country that any criticism of the Iraq “mission” is unpatriotic and goes against supporting our troops.
And then this–The Nation reports on numerous cases of soldiers injured in the war, pressured to accept a psychiatric discharge for a “pre-existing condition” that they never had, being told by their military doctors that this way they’ll get to keep their benefits and get a much quicker discharge–when in actuality these brave young men and women are hung out to dry, stripped of their medical benefits, and left holding the bill for any enlistment bonus they haven’t yet earned out.
This lowest of lowball tactics is saving the Veterans Administration millions of dollars–and is yet another betrayal of these many-times-betrayed soldiers.
Here’s a longish quote from the article:
He was standing in the doorway of his battalion’s headquarters when a
107-millimeter rocket struck two feet above his head. The impact punched a piano-sized hole in the concrete facade, sparked a huge fireball and tossed the 25-year-old Army specialist to the floor, where he lay blacked out among the rubble.“The next thing I remember is waking up on the ground.” Men from his unit had gathered around his body and were screaming his name. “They started shaking me. But I was numb all over,” he says. “And it’s weird because… because for a few minutes you feel like you’re not really there. I could see them, but I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear anything. I started shaking because I thought I was dead.”
Eventually the rocket shrapnel was removed from Town’s neck and his ears stopped leaking blood. But his hearing never really recovered, and in many ways, neither has his life. A soldier honored twelve times during his seven years in uniform, Town has spent the last three struggling with deafness, memory failure and depression. By September
2006 he and the Army agreed he was no longer combat-ready.But instead of sending Town to a medical board and discharging him because of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange: They claimed Town’s wounds were actually caused by a “personality disorder.” Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits.
Town is not alone. A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits.
If it weren’t already obvious, this “treatment”–which ought to be the subject of immediate Congressional investigation AND ACTION is the very opposite of supporting the troops. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–the best support we can give our troops is to bring them home safely and SOON. To which I’ll add that bringing charges against the barbarians carrying out this deeply inhumane and vicious policy that victimizes the very people hurt in carrying out their orders is also a way of supporting the troops.
$400 Haircuts: A Shopping Lesson for John Edwards
Hey, Senator Edwards, if you think a haircut should cost $400, I’d be glad to give you some shopping lessons. After all, I’ve written books and operated websites on frugality for years. I’ll even give you a copy of my e-book, The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant’s Pocketbook. It’s got a whole chapter on frugal shopping.
Not only did you pay $400 each for two Beverly Hills haircuts, but you got your campaign to pay for it! Guess which campaign I’m NOT contributing to?
And the funny thing is, you’ve got hair any barber could manage. If you looked like, say, Cher, there might be some justification for spending $100 (though not for getting the campaign to pick up the tab).
BTW, I go to stylist, not a barber, and I get great haircuts. I get them two or three times a year, and pay $20 or $22 (I forget). I’d be glad to introduce you to my hair guy. He’s even a Democrat.
Yes, it’s a legitimate campaign function to look properly groomed. But using other people’s money for a $400 haircut, twice, is shameful. Let the campaign pay the first $20 or $30 of each–and you should reimburse for the balance.
Earth to McConnell and Lieberman: Telling the Truth is NOT Dissing the Troops
In a rare act of almost blunt truth-telling–ok, so I’m being facetious–in a mouthful of weasely gobbdelygook–Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stated the obvious:
“I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and — you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows — (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday,” Reid said Thursday.
Give me a break–is this the best the Democrats can do? How about some straightforward honest language like “We never should have been in this war in the first place and we’re losing. Time to get out–starting right now.”
Still, even mild-mannered Mr. Mealy Mouth was instantly attacked as unpatriotic. The same article reports this idiotic response from Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell:
I can’t begin to imagine how our troops in the field, who are risking their lives every day, are going to react when they get back to base and hear that the Democrat leader of the United States Senate has declared the war is lost.
And this from that darling of the neocons, the once-Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman:
This is exactly the wrong time to question our strategy in Iraq, or that our new strategy has failed.
All I can say to McConnell and Lieberman is to quote Ronald Reagan: “there you go again!” The insidious right-wing attack on the patriotism of anyone who questions this illegal, immoral, and incompetent war continues–and we on the left have the obligation to call the scoundrels on it. Last time I read the Constitution, that very freedom to dissent was a big part of what set the United States apart from other more repressive governments in the 18th century.
Oh, and Lieberman got one thing right: unquestionably, our Iraq strategy has failed.
If our troops (and I respect them enormously, even if I have zero respect for the mission they are forced to perform) are attempting to defend the idea of democracy, that idea starts with the freedom to dissent. And calling us unpatriotic will not get us to shut up.
Fedco Seeds Takes Moral High Ground Against Monsanto
Fedco, a cooperatively owned seed company–founded in Maine back in 1978 and specializing in serving organic growers–found itself facing an ethical dilemma when Monsanto, a company known for its experiments in genetic engineering and aggressive filing of intellectual property claims (criminalizing farmers for saving seed, even) announced it was going to buy its and best largest supplier, Seminis.
Noted for its aggressive advocacy of genetically modified crops and its dominance in biotechnology, Monsanto will now have a major presence in the vegetable seed business for the first time. No one knows if or when they will incorporate transgenes into their vegetable varieties.
The Monsanto buyout presented us with a serious ethical dilemma. In striving to carry the best possible varieties at reasonable prices, we have based our selections largely on the merits of the varieties, rarely on our supplier preferences. Could we be purveyors of Monsanto products and still sleep well at night? Many of our customers have depended upon Seminis’ good genetics. However much we may think we require these varieties in the short run, they come at a devastating social cost, ultimately the complete alienation of sower from seed.
Fedco explained a bit about Monsanto and asked its customers to choose among several options, ranging from coding the Monsanto products in its catalog to eliminating them entirely. The membership overwhelmingly voted for immediate withdrawal. So, before the merger was consummated, Fedco bought a year’s worth of Seminis seeds and announced that there wouldn’t be any more.
Will this cause a hardship? Yes. But the company has taken a principled position that I suspect will ultimately help–and the year of product it bought will buy time to experiment with different suppliers, different seed varieties.
The company’s statement on this is well worth reading. I hope to get permission to post the whole thing, but in the meanwhile, just follow the link.
Reframing HuffPost's Terrible Advice to the Democrats
Doug Schoen writes in the usually sensible Huffington Post that the Democrats should roll over, as usual, and give GWB the blank check he’s looking for in Iraq: no limits on dollars or on deployment.
I think this an extremely wrong-headed and ill-advised idea–some of the worst advice I’ve heard anywhere in quite a while, in fact.
Here’s most of the public comment I made:
The Democrats need to hold fast, and to frame the dialogue thusly:
“We gave GWB a very reasonable bill that funds the war for the time being but begins a phased withdrawal. we are exercising our Constitutional authority as controller of the purse strings and a check on unbridled Presidential power. But Bush wanted a blank check, and that would be negligent–perhaps even criminally irresponsible. We do not want this crime on our hands, and we will not be a party to it. We absolutely refuse to abdicate our responsibilities by bringing forward any kind of blank check bill. Bush is the one who will not negotiate, and who is trying to usurp the power we were granted back in 1787”.
I’m using “framing” here as George Lakoff would use it: to wrap the debate around a construct that brings the public’s reference into focus–just as a black frame on a white wall allows the eye to differentiate elements in the white-background picture hanging within that frame.
The frame I’m proposing above is one that paints the Democrats as patriotic, as responsible–and GWB as overreaching his authority. This frame was not much in evidence in mainstream media during the run-up to the war, and if it had been, perhaps it would have slowed or stopped that unfortunate tide.
For far too long, the Democrats have allowed the right wing to create the frames. We have to take them back, and this is a great place to start.
Is this Absurd? $1.25 Million for the Bio of a Library Cat?
I kid you not–here’s the NY Times article.
Much as the cat may have been darling, and much as its authors ight do a great job, I find this absurd. And yet another indicator of the dumbing down of the American public via the media that controls what we see and read (except for those adventurous enough to seek their own sources).
Where are the big advances for books that shape how we actually think and act? that give us a lens to understand some of the craziness in the world.
OK, I like sweet stories about cats and might actually read this book (in a library copy) at some point. It’s not a book I expect I’ll need to own. But good heavens, most books that could change the culture receive paltry advances and paltry publicity, if they sell at all.
If this were now instead of then, would books like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, “Silent Spring”, or “Unsafe at Any Speed”–three among dozens of books that actually changed the world–have even been published, or found any significant audience if they had?
I hope one day to see my own Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First in someone’s list of books that changed the world. I didn’t even try for a mainstream publisher, figuring I’d go create an audience and then sell rights to a second edition.
But seriously, isn’t a book about how we got into the Iraq mess and are heading for trouble in Iran (not the subject of my book but of several recent ones) worth more attention than a book abut a cat? Or for that matter, the sordid and tawdry life of Anna Nicole Smith?
Priorities! As a society–we need to look at ours..
Got My First Press Release as a Blogger
Found in email in my spamfilter this morning that said, in part,
You are part of a select group of blog owner/publishers that we are inviting
to take an early “sneak peek” at lyro. We see your blog as a major
delivery vehicle for news and information and hope you’ll have a
willingness to cover our launch (good or bad).
Well…that’s certainly flattering! I think that’s the first time I’ve received a press release because I’m a blogger. I receive plenty as a newsletter publisher, book reviewer, etc. It would be nice to think that people are actually reading what I write here.
Lyro turns out to be a database of business cards. It presents a rather rigid format, but by putting one URL in the company field and another in the URL field, and by using the address2 line to talk about what I do, I made it marginally more useful. Still, there’s a lot more I’d like to say. And I find it absurd that there’s no way yet to upload a photo so everyone will have the same blank silhouette in the photo field.
No line for e-address, but on a searchable Web-based database, that’s a good thing–spambots would otherwise make this site a nightmare instantly. And there *is* a message system (hope it’s better than the awful one at MySpace).
I figure, what the hey–it’s links to two of my sites, it’ll probably get some viral traffic, and it took about three minutes to fill out. As long as they’re not charging, I’ll give it a whirl.
You can see mine at https://shelhorowitz.lyro.com/
Oh, and what else would I have put on the card?
My two or three most recent book titles (Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishersand Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World) as well as more of my nine URLs.
Intersting Argument for Eliminating Copy Protection
I’m quoting a short bit from Adam Sutton’s article in Mequoda Daily, an often-provocative marketing newsletter emphasizing fairly advanced concepts and products. I have felt this for many years but they articulate it so smoothly and well:
Supporters are law-abiding citizens that pay for products because
they love the company and want it to prosper.
Samplers get free products from Supporters or other Samplers. They
do not immediately buy a product, because they are unsure of the
product’s worth or do not have enough money. Samplers typically get a
free product, and if they like it, pay for others when cash is
available.
Thieves will happily pirate products and break DRM systems forever.
They consciously never pay for products and have no desire to support
artists. This group is best ignored because their will to circumvent
DRM–or any copyright protection–is unbreakable.
If you’re a Sampler who found this worth while, the link above to the full article presents the option to subscribe, no charge.
Mainstream Media Ignores Wal-Mart's Vast Spy Scandal
You might have missed this story in the mainstream news; on the first two pages of Google results for Wal-Mart spy, AOL, MSN, and CNN were the only U.S. mainstream sources listed; they picked up the story from the Reuters wire, which means it was accessible to every news outlet in the world.
You can read the original WSJ piece, as reproduced on MSN, here.
But most of the returns were from places like Huffington Post, Consumerist.com, and wakeupwalmart.com–the “usual suspects” on the Left.
Nothing wrong with those news sources; after all, I found the story by listening to Democracy Now yesterday. And DN’s interviewee was one of two Wall Street Journal reporters who broke the story, so this one actually started in the mainstream media.
Personally, I think that when the world’s largest retailer, a force considerably larger and more powerful than many national governments, illegally wiretaps phone calls with a New York Times reporter, intercepts employee e-mail sent over networks other than its own corporate system and records their correspondents’ addresses (e.g., Hotmail and Yahoo), infiltrates opposition grassroots groups, digs up a private unlinked archive of an activist’s vacation photos in order to identify him if he tries to go to a shareholder meeting–the list of shockingly inappropriate activities goes on and on–it should be a huge story in every print and electronic medium that calls itself a news organization–and government agencies should be investigating NOW.
I even searched the New York Times site to see if that august paper had deemed that such a story–its own reporter’s telephone was tapped when he called the company–was worth a line or two in print. But a search for wal-mart spy and another for wal-mart spying brought up nothing relevant or recent (this story began to reveal itself within the last few weeks, with the most important revelations coming just this week).
Oh yes, and Wal-Mart’s wimpy statement about future behavior:
This group [the spy unit] is no longer operating in the same manner that it did prior to the discovery of the unauthorized recording of telephone conversations.
Not “we have disbanded this group.” Not “we shouldn’t have spied on people.” Just a statement that the group is reorganized (the whole letter is included in the DN article). For shame!
But don’t you think when a story like this breaks across a major newswire and originates from one of the most respected media in the world, that other media would sit up and take notice? Papers in Taiwan and Belfast thought so, but not most of the US press.
Shame on Wal-Mart, yes–but shame as well on the major media outlets who ignored this story.