BREAKING NEWS RIGHT NOW
In relation to both the specific recent experience of Japanese corporate overseers with the fiscal downside of the nuclear fool cycle and the general issue of sociopolitical oversight of toxic, if profitable, commodities, more particularly the standard operating procedures of the primary Federal agency that deals with such substances, a couple of profferals from our ‘paper of record,’ the first of which examines the just-announced resignation of Toshiba’s chairman after the company announced up to $6 billion or more of losses on speculative ‘investments’ in the U.S. nuclear power industry, and the second of which presents an overview of the newly accredited chairman of the Environmental Protection Agency, a political and ideological actor whose adult life has repeatedly placed him in positions of discrediting the agency that he now purportedly will ‘lead,’ journalism that in turn juxtaposes in interesting ways with a Japan Times brief that notes a current lawsuit against the central government of the islands to mandate support for Hiroshima victims’ children, a contentious development about science and society that will in the next period of time also apply to the offspring of the people who managed to live through the initial incineration of Nagasaki in America’s grand experiment and power play to punctuate the end of World War Two in the Pacific.
This Day in History
Six hundred forty-six years ago, invading Danes, Swedes, and other ‘Viking’ or Teutonic Europeans continued their campaigns against pagan locals in the Baltic region, in what historians now term the Northern Crusades; four hundred seventeen years back, Catholic inquisitors in Rome oversaw the immolation of philosopher Giordano Bruno for heresy; three hundred forty-four years before this exact point, the acclaimed dramatist and thinker, Moliere, breathed his last; the House of Representatives two hundred sixteen years prior to today decided an Electoral College tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr in Jefferson’s favor, leaving Burr as Vice President; a hundred ninety-eight years before the here-and-now, Congress first passed the Missouri compromise to permit a continued dual development of the United States as half slave and half free; MORE HERE
A Thought for the Day
Plausibly the most insidious notion about reality and its understanding revolves around the for nearly two centuries ubiquitous notion that comprehension can follow from breaking down or splitting apart phenomena into their erstwhile component parts so as to maximize precision, focus, true expertise, and so forth, a commitment to analysis alone whose present omnipresence, in a dialectical dervish dance of deconstructive preeminence, guarantees just the precise opposite result of what the analytical mindset pretends to pursue, which is the deepening awareness of every single thing, a cognizance that without exception is only possible as an interrelated web of propositions and knowledge that in turn, as one aspect of the complex concatenation of cosmic evolution appears to shift its reality, requires a constantly updated and flexible reconstruction of the whole interconnected schema, not as anything ultimately akin to certainty but as a matching of evidence and argument that might make sense and provides a basis for ongoing debate and discourse and learning and life itself, in all its unfolding grace and gargantuan potential.
Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much, if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?…I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing; but the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing; but the man who lives the span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one’s life with meaning- that, I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here.
"nuclear energy" OR "nuclear weapons" intentional OR purposeful OR chosen strategic OR "self interested" OR "self serving" corrupt OR fraud OR payoff OR graft OR "improper influence" "monopoly capital" OR "big money" OR "ruling class" genocide OR "mass murder" OR extinction analysis OR scholarship marxist OR radical = 235,000 Results.
TODAY’S HEART, SOUL, & AWARENESS VIDEO
DIFFERING VIEWS OF FUKUSHIMA NOW, & A LITTLE HISTORY
A mandatory twelve minute interview here between Thom Harmann and Kevin Kamps, of Beyond Nuclear, about the current context of maelstrom and mayhem that emanates from Fukushima, with ongoing and constant chances for catastrophic or even existential losses or accidents, a momentous exchange for scrappy scribes and stalwart citizens that is accessible as a YouTube channel that serves as a portal on this matter, a take that in an earlier compilation the science savant Michio Kaku amplified both the dangers and the essential coverup attitude of established reportage about these things, and that a more conspiratorial YouTube thinker also expresses in terms of facts and analysis while also speculating about all manner of possible thuggery and fraud, machinations of plunder and profiteering; the sum total of which dovetails in utterly riveting fashion with a Manhattan Project Voices interview with Freeman Dyson, and that also makes a chilling and paradoxical counterpoint with other YouTube nuclear offerings, the first of which is a trailer for the feature propaganda film in the form of a thriller, Atomic City, and the second of which, also offering a mixture of mythos and mendacity and public relations, is a short documentary, “Magic of the Atom: the Atomic City,” that served to make nuclear science look safe and clean and almost perfect for both peaceful and martial purposes, in retrospect completely false and fatuous perspectives and representations–the aggregate of all of which then lead, as if by an ineluctable route, to the use of Depleted Uranium weapons in Syria, about which Lauren Meuret reports as another instance on the part of the United States of engaging in criminal activities that can easily, under many different circumstances, lead to genocidal or even ecocidal eventualities.
Nearly Naked Links
From Thursday’s Files
Podemos’ Strategic Direction & Crisis – https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/spain-podemos-crossroads
Calling For General Strike – http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39449-to-halt-the-slide-into-authoritarianism-we-need-a-general-strike
Basing Grassroots Resurgence in States – http://inthesetimes.com/article/19867/how-the-lefts-long-march-back-will-begin-in-the-states
EVENTS
The Anderson Center at Tower View offers two- to four-week residencies from May through October to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers on a 330-acre estate in Red Wing, Minnesota. Residents are provided with lodging, meals, and studio space. For residencies in May, June, September, and October, using the online application system submit 10 pages of poetry or prose, a résumé, a project proposal, and a $20 application fee by February 15. For the August residency, which is reserved for emerging artists from Minnesota and New York City and is sponsored by the Jerome Foundation, using the online application system submit 10 pages of poetry or prose, a résumé, and a project proposal by February 15. There is no application fee. Call, e-mail, or visit the website for an application and complete guidelines.
OPPS/SUBS/CONTESTS
THE SLF $750 WORKING CLASS WRITERS GRANT
Working class, blue-collar, poor, and homeless writers have been historically underrepresented in speculative fiction, due to financial barriers which have made it much harder for them to have access to the writing world. Such lack of access might include an inability to attend conventions, to purchase a computer, to buy books, to attend college or high school, to have the time to write (if, for example, you must work two jobs simply to pay rent and feed a family, or if you must spend all your waking hours job-hunting for months on end). The SLF would like to assist in finding more of these marginalized voices and bringing them into speculative fiction. You are eligible for this $750 grant if you come from a background such as described above, if you grew up (or are growing up) in homelessness, poverty, or a blue collar / working-class household, or if you have lived for a significant portion of your life in such conditions, especially if you had limited access to relatives/friends who could assist you financially. Must be American. Deadline February 28, 2017.
JOBS
Write business stories for Business Monthly magazine, the journal of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt