“More than 100 million Americans—one-third of the population—live in poverty or a category called “near poverty.” Yet the stories of the poor and the near poor, the hardships they endure, are rarely told by a media that is owned by a handful of corporations—Viacom, General Electric, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Clear Channel and Disney. The suffering of the underclass, like the crimes of the power elite, has been rendered invisible.”
Random postings, links, and whatnotisms that interest one Adam Ballah, proprietor of little here or there.
May 21, 2013
May 20, 2013
Lens Blog
…a nation born of a slave revolt was “using its own children as slaves was ridiculous…”
More here.
May 10, 2013
BOSTON REVIEW: This video of a Texas high school student taking his teacher to task...
This video of a Texas high school student taking his teacher to task has become a viral hit. You may be asking, “What about the Texas miracle?”
The New York Times reports on the dismal finances of the state’s education system (and before you get there, the unionization rate of…
November 16, 2012
kottke.org: Remnick to Obama: focus on climate change
The New Yorker’s David Remnick urges President Obama to address climate change during his second term in a Kennedy-esque “we choose to go to the Moon” fashion.
Barack Obama can take pride in having fought off a formidable array of deep-pocketed revanchists. As President, however, he is faced…
September 26, 2012
An International Tragedy: Slavery Still Exists
These are not images of “problems.” They’re images of people. There are 27 million slavesin the world today: That’s more than double the number of people taken from Africa during the entire transatlantic slave trade. A hundred and fifty years ago, an average agricultural slave cost over three times the average yearly wage of an American worker, about $50,000 in today’s money. Yet now, entire families can be enslaved for generations over a debt as small as $18. Slavery is illegal everywhere, but it exists all over the world.
Read more. [Image: Lisa Kristine]
August 16, 2012
Spain’s ‘Robin Hood’ mayor steps up protests
August 15, 2012The mayor of a Spanish town who helped raid supermarkets to give groceries to the poor will step up his campaign against the country’s austerity measures.
Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo, a regional lawmaker and mayor of Marinaleda, population 2,645, will begin a three-week march to draw attention to families hit hard by Spain’s economic crisis, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Sanchez Gordillo stood outside the stores during the raids, Reuters said, but wasn’t arrested himself, because he has political immunity as an elected member of Andalusia’s regional parliament.Seven people have been arrested for their roles in two grocery raids, in which labour unionists loaded up supermarket carts and walked out without paying.
“There are people who don’t have enough to eat,” Sanchez Gordillo told Reuters. “In the 21st century, this is an absolute disgrace.”
Poverty levels are said to have risen more than 15 per cent since 2007, with a quarter of workers jobless and tens of thousands have been evicted from their homes.
Media coverage of the supermarket stunt has made the mayor a national celebrity.
His home region of Andalusia is one of the parts of Spain worst hit by the economic crisis: one worker in three is jobless, the news agency said.
His march will start in Jodar, which has Andalusia’s highest unemployment rate.
The EU has demanded Spain shrink one of Europe’s highest budget deficits to prevent the continent’s debt crisis from spreading.
Sanchez Gordillo has long been a fringe figure on the national stage, known for criticism of the mainstream political parties, Reuters said.
“They say I’m dangerous,” the news agency quoted him as saying. “And the bankers who are let off for fraud? That’s not dangerous? The banks which borrow from the ECB for one per cent then resell that debt to Spaniards for six per cent — they’re not dangerous?” he said.
(via burnagain)
May 29, 2012
the 27-story, 570-foot-tall, 400,000-square-foot mansion
Words cannot express the absurdity of this.
For a better, or at least more accurate picture of Mumbai read Kathrine Boo’s recent Behind to Beautiful Forevers
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