los anjalis

A brief history of US bank mergers, 1990-present, summarized in one chart. This says so much:

(chart obtained from motherjones, data from Federal Reserve, GAO)

Alternet has a short news/analysis piece on the 1,500 farmer suicides in India and the contributing factors. It’s a good read, albeit disturbing.

At the end of the article is a well placed quote from Vandana Shiva, one of the most outspoken and articulate critics of bioengineered crops, and one of the most ardent supporters of honest trade and land rights for Indian farmers. Here’s the excerpt:

A few weeks ago, I was in Punjab. 2,800 widows of farmer suicides who have lost their land, are having to bring up children as landless workers on others’ land. And yet, the system does not respond to it, because there’s only one response: get Monsanto out of the seed sector–they are part of this genocide — and ensure WTO rules are not bringing down the prices of agricultural produce in the United States, in Canada, in India, and allow trade to be honest. I don’t think we need to talk about free trade and fair trade. We need to talk about honest trade. Today’s trade system, especially in agriculture, is dishonest, and dishonesty has become a war against farmers. It’s become a genocide.

Please check out the complete interview that Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! conducted with Vandana Shiva (read the transcript or watch the video). I *heart* Vandana Shiva, saw her speak at the World Social Forum in Nairobi and she is a RIGHTEOUS passionate woman who knows her shit. She is NOT one to be messed with. Love her.

Yesterday I posted K’naan’s written perspective on environmental injustice, post-colonialism, and Somalia and pirates. Today, the one and only Mr Davey D posted two interviews he conducted with musician K’naan. The lessons for me: We are presented with such an unbearably skewed perspective in the West. And in the West our lives are worth more than others, and we can throw our shit wherever we want to, with no regard to the effects on the world. Here’s the 2nd video:

(the first video can be found here).

Musician K’naan (born in Somalia, grew up during the civil war, proponent of human rights) recently penned a piece on why the pirate situation in Somalia is at best quite complicated. His piece is extremely well-written and shares a perspective we don’t hear from the mainstream media’s reporting on the situation. Check out his piece, published at the Huffington Post. It deals with environmental injustices, the attitude of the west towards lives in post-colonial countries (worthless), and peoples’ self determination. I share it because this is a viewpoint that is completely missing from the general discussion in the West. (Side note: no pirate’s captives have been harmed as of yet).

Great thanks to K’naan, (check out his music website).

Here’s an excerpt from the article, check out the whole piece:

Already by this time, local fishermen in the coastline of Somalia have been complaining of illegal vessels coming to Somali waters and stealing all the fish. And since there was no government to report it to, and since the severity of the violence clumsily overshadowed every other problem, the fishermen went completely unheard.

But it was around this same time that a more sinister, a more patronizing practice was being put in motion. A Swiss firm called Achair Parterns, and an Italian waste company called Achair Parterns, made a deal with Ali Mahdi, that they were to dump containers of waste material in Somali waters. These European companies were said to be paying Warlords about $3 a ton, whereas to properly dispose of waste in Europe costs about $1000 a ton.

In 2004, after a tsunami washed ashore several leaking containers, thousand of locals in the Puntland region of Somalia started to complain of severe and previously unreported ailments, such as abdominal bleeding, skin melting off and a lot of immediate cancer-like symptoms. Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environmental Program, says that the containers had many different kinds of waste, including “Uranium, radioactive waste, lead, Cadmium, Mercury and chemical waste.” But this wasn’t just a passing evil from one or two groups taking advantage of our unprotected waters. The UN envoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, says that the practice still continues to this day.

UPDATE (4/13): Johann Hari has a piece in Alternet today that shares a similar perspective: “We’re Being Lied to About Pirates.”

Yesterday as I was purchasing my afternoon coffee, I saw a copy of the New York times at the local coffeehouse, featuring an article on its FRONT PAGE entitled, “With Advocates’ Help, Squatters Call Foreclosures Home.” Check out the short article. Thanks to folks like Take Back the Land’s Max Rameu, the Miami Workers Center, Women in Transition, sheriffs in Ohio who refuse to evict people from their houses, the Poor Peoples’ Economic Human Rights Campaign, and others working together in their communities to preserve a little human dignity in this recession. It reminds me of the question that Travis Koplow brought up about a Los Angeles neighborhood council meeting and foreclosed houses:

Is it so important that we protect capital itself? Is the protection of property is more important than the safety and protection of people?

My friend Saba shared a comment on that previous post, with the website for Take Back the Land. Here’s the latest video, an interview on CNN.

Thoughts?

Below: Step 9 of the 10 steps a country takes as it moves towards fascism. The clip is from the forthcoming documentary The End of America, based on Naomi Wolf’s book and speaking engagements. Naomi Wolf = brilliant.

Also check out the official movie trailer at the official The End of America documentary website.

Beautiful.

“And I also find it ironic that some of those who rail most loudly against this bill because of earmarks, actually inserted earmarks of their own, and will tout them in their own states and their own districts. These practices hit a peak in the middle of this decade, when the number of earmarks had ballooned to more than 16,000 and played a part in a series of corruption cases…

In 2007, the new democratic leadership in congress began to address these abuses by a series of reforms, that i was proud to have helped write. We eliminated anonymous earmarks and created new measures of transparency in the process so Americans could better follow how their tax dollars are being spent. Any earmark for a for-profit private company should be subject to the same bidding requirements as other federal contracts…

Rewarding of earmarks to private companies is the single most corrupting element of this practice, as witnessed by some of the indictments and convictions that we’ve already seen.”

(cross-posted at LAist and Cure This)

Photos by jbhangoo via flickr; graphic and videos from Students for Bhopal

Today marks the 24th anniversary of the world’s worst industrial disaster — one that has been called the “Hiroshima of the chemical industry” and that took place in Bhopal, India. Around midnight on December 3rd, 1984, a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal leaked 27 tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate. Safety systems were not operational and the gas spread through the city. Thousands died that night, more than 20,000 have died to date as a result of the effects of the exposure, and over 100,000 people still suffer from ailments caused by the exposure. From Bhopal.org, a harrowing account of the fateful night 24 years ago:

Shortly after midnight poison gas leaked from a factory in Bhopal, India, owned by the Union Carbide Corporation. There was no warning, none of the plant’s safety systems were working. In the city people were sleeping. They woke in darkness to the sound of screams with the gases burning their eyes, noses and mouths. They began retching and coughing up froth streaked with blood. Whole neighborhoods fled in panic, some were trampled, others convulsed and fell dead. People lost control of their bowels and bladders as they ran. Within hours thousands of dead bodies lay in the streets.

“We all live in Bhopal” is a common saying among the environmental justice movement, and it is relevant to LA residents too. We have no lack of potential and real environmental injustices, and no paucity of corporate crimes. Also of interest, the first ever nuclear accident actually occurred in Simi Valley in 1959, as noted in LAist previously:

We had no idea that Simi Valley was the site of America’s first nuclear accident (obviously we should watch more History Channel). At the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a liquid sodium reactor had a partial meltdown in 1959; the facts weren’t made public until UCLA investigated 20 years later. Researchers speculate that the radiation released was as much as 240 times that of the Three Mile Island accident. Exactly what was contaminated in the area, and by how much, was never accurately measured. Yikes, just 30 miles from downtown LA.

More on the Bhopal tragedy:

“The site has never been properly cleaned up and it continues to poison the residents of Bhopal. In 1999, local groundwater and wellwater testing near the site of the accident revealed mercury at levels between 20,000 and 6 million times those expected. Cancer and brain-damage- and birth-defect-causing chemicals were found in the water; trichloroethene, a chemical that has been shown to impair fetal development, was found at levels 50 times higher than EPA safety limits. Testing published in a 2002 report revealed poisons such as 1,3,5 trichlorobenzene, dichloromethane, chloroform, lead and mercury in the breast milk of nursing women. In 2001, Michigan-based chemical corporation Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide, thereby acquiring its assets and liabilities. However Dow Chemical has steadfastly refused to clean up the site, provide safe drinking water, compensate the victims, or disclose the composition of the gas leak, information that doctors could use to properly treat the victims.”

And if you have the stomach for this personal story, Aziza Sultan, a community health worker at the Sambhavna Clinic shares her personal account of that horrific night.

The pursuit of justice around the Bhopal tragedy is also a study in effective strategizing for positive change. The courageous residents of Bhopal, also known as Bhopalis, have captured the energies of social justice activists and students around the world. Bhopali women and children have performed numerous direct actions aimed at the most powerful leaders in India and America. The Bhopal Medical Appeal and the Sambhavna Trust Clinic were created to provide treatment and rehabilitation for victims and their families. And the activists’ relentlessness has finally paid off, and last month the government of India promised to create an Empowered Commission on Bhopal and take legal action on the criminal and civil liabilities of Union Carbide and Dow Chemical.

In a movement of solidarity, students at colleges and universities around the world have for years engaged in online actions, sent letters and faxes to the Indian government, and hosted thousands of events at their own campuses around the issues of the Bhopal tragedy.

Awareness about this disaster in Bhopal is important not only for its historical and present significance, but also because the battle to clean up the site of the power plant, compensate victims appropriately, and to stop completely preventable disasters like this around the world continues. December 3rd is noted as the Global Day of Action for Corporate Accountability, in memory of the Bhopal tragedy. From Bhopal.net:

Dow, the creator of Napalm, Agent Orange and responsible for Dioxin related deaths and diseases worldwide is not the only corporation that kills and maims people and causes irreparable damage to the planet. Wherever we may live, corporate greed and industrial poisons affect our lives and health through slow and silent Bhopals. Justice in Bhopal means justice for the poisoned everywhere.

Below is a poster that was distributed worldwide during the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster:

Links of interest:
International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal — Bhopal.net
The Bhopal Medical Appeal and Sambhavna Clinic — Bhopal.org
The worldwide student movement — Students for Bhopal

[This post is cross-posted at Cure This.org].

From a Washington Post editorial by Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition against Hunger:

Our country has been told that a gargantuan government rescue of the private sector is necessary because the collapse of major financial institutions would lead to unthinkable outcomes for society. Almost as if by magic, our nation’s leaders conjure up vast sums to respond to this crisis.

Yet when advocates point out that our nation is facing an altogether different kind of crisis, one of soaring hunger and homelessness, and that a large-scale bailout is needed to prevent social service providers nationwide from buckling under the increasing load, we are told that the money these agencies need just doesn’t exist.

In 2006, fully 35.5 million Americans, 4 million more than in 1999, lived in households that couldn’t afford enough food, according to the Agriculture Department. Those households included more than 4 million children.

Last December, the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that out of 23 major American cities, 80 percent had an increase in people using emergency soup kitchens and food pantries and 43 percent had an increase in the number of homeless children. All that happened between November 2006 and November 2007.

How did the federal government respond? It didn’t.

The only federal program that provides cash to both emergency feeding programs and homelessness prevention services, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program, wasn’t expanded by a penny…

…When we ask members of Congress and lobbyists to help obtain serious funding increases to meet the soaring needs, we are patronizingly praised for our good work but told that times are just too tough to increase budgets. Maybe there will be more money when the economy improves, they tell us, oblivious to the reality that funding for our programs is most needed when the economy is weakest.

OK, a correspondent directs me to John McCain’s article, Better Health Care at Lower Cost for Every American, in the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries. You might want to be seated before reading this.

Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

From economist Paul Krugman’s blog.

How telling.

Stephen Colbert and Nas bring it.

Lyrics to “Sly Fox” by Nas below…
(more…)

As performed by Saul Williams.

(original words from Not in Our Name’s Pledge of Resistance)

We believe that as people living in the United States it is our
responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government,
in our names

Not in our name
will you wage endless war
there can be no more deaths
no more transfusions of blood for oil

Not in our name
will you invade countries bomb civilians, kill more children
letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless

Not in our name
will you erode the very freedoms you have claimed to fight for

Not by our hands
will we supply weapons and funding
for the annihilation of families on foreign soil

Not by our mouths
will we let fear silence us

Not by our hearts
will we allow whole peoples or countries to be deemed evil

Not by our will
and Not in our name

We pledge resistance

We pledge alliance with those who have come under attack
for voicing opposition to the war or for their religion or ethnicity

We pledge to make common cause with the people of the world
to bring about justice, freedom and peace

Another world is possible
and we pledge to make it real.

(posted this on LAist earlier today)

Today will be historic. Throngs of voters will get out and vote NO on Proposition 98, a not thinly veiled attempt to destroy rent control and tenants rights. Of note, Los Angeles has the highest average rents (over $1500) of any city in the Western United States — even higher than San Francisco. In what direction will allowing the passage of Proposition 98 lead us?

Yesterday, Ross Lincoln wrote a fine post on LAist about the devil in the details regarding Prop 98 (and why we should vote NO). Today, we bring you a wonderful video that SAJE (Strategic Actions for Just Economies) developed to discuss the basis for and impact of Proposition 98. This animated story takes some of the confusion out of the proposition:

The video has been produced en espanol, tambien! Pass it on, and remind your friends and co-workers and family and passers-by — to vote NO on Proposition 98 TODAY.

And then, let’s celebrate in OUR streets.

This year, the final stops will be pulled, and NAFTA will be the great train derailing everything in sight. On 90.7FM (KPFK) in Los Angeles, I heard a wonderful interview (can’t remember who it was with) but essentially, this is what’s happening — we’re pulling the final stops on any restrictions (tarriffs, etc) on our huge corporate agribusiness companies’ exports of corn and beans to Mexico, this year.

What does this mean?

In simple terms, we’re putting the rural campesino, the rural farmer who grows and sustains his family on corn or beans, two of Mexico’s staple crops since Aztec and mayan times, IN DIRECT COMPETITION with ConAgra and other huuuuuuuge multimillion dollar multimillion acre American companies.

Mexican rural farmers will be buying our corn and beans from the United States. And they won’t be able to compete because we’re bigger, badder, and yes, our government subsidizes these goods. So not only is the rural campesino pitted against big American corporate business, we’re given the unfair advantage of heavily subsidized (therefore cheaper to the mexican govt than their own farmers’ goods) goods. Yes, yes. And 80% of “illegal immigrants” (for those in america who have the gall to call ANYONE illegal) come from rural parts of Mexico. It’s not so hard to connect the dots.

Oh yes! The show was Connect the Dots — where I heard this interview. NOW it’s all making sense.

I’ve not gone into how NAFTA hurts American farmers, that will be saved for another post. other than the quick mention that more than 1 million US jobs have been lost as a result of NAFTA, wages have stagnated, and outsourcing became the norm because of NAFTA.

But this brings me to this point — who of the leading democratic candidates is passionate about repealing NAFTA’s unfair “free trade” that benefits NEITHER mexicans NOR working Americans (only benefits the corporate elites on either side). Who? ONLY John Edwards. Because he cares about the workers, the middle class.

I’m feeling Obama’s talk and his visions of hope, and yes they’re very moving, but underneath that talk I’m not feeling any commitment to the middle class on issues of “free trade”. Very recently he supported a unilateral USA-Peru Free Trade Agreement. When the US cannot con a whole region into believing the virtues of its free trade, it attempts to create unilateral free trade agreements where other countries can be manipulated a bit more. And this is what happened with Peru. If you look at the details of the US/Peru free trade agreement, it helps NEITHER the middle class in Peru, NOR the middle class in the United States. [of note, and of IMPORTANT note -- Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton didn't even show up for the vote on the US-Peru free trade issue, but they both noted their support for it previous to the vote].

It’s all pretty infuriating. There’s not much making me feel like a vote for Obama or a vote for Clinton would be a vote for the status quo of the democratic party (the party that pushed through NAFTA). Not to say they couldn’t be nudged to the left if one of them wins the dem nomination. But come on, people want change. And change shouldn’t have to be nudged right now.

Yano?

Is it too much to ask to not HAVE to nudge? To not beg and plead?

Some Edwards love, as I’ve been doing, and will continue to do, as long as he’s in the fight:

Jed has a great analysis of the systemic exclusion of discussion of John Edwards by the mainstream media — both before the Iowa Caucuses and even AFTER the caucuses, when Edwards came in 2nd place! It’s a great piece and is quite convincing, whether or not you are an Edwards supporter.  Thoughts?

Woohoo! Doctors for John Edwards!

A physician posted a diary over at Daily Kos entitled “A Physician’s View of John Edwards” and has received quite a warm crowd of positive responses from other physicians who feel as passionately about Edwards. A few months ago, two friends and I thought it would be super rad to create an informal Docs for Edwards group, to put some weight of support behind Edwards from what others might initially think was an unlikely group of supporters given his work in medical malpractice. Physicians too often have a knee-jerk negative reaction to Edwards, because of his previous work. But that work was directly supporting patients who had been wrongly treated, and for those who like to think more broadly about presidential candidates, Edwards really has something to deliver on universal health care, labor/trade issues, medical review boards, economic justice, and other truly important issues. Plus, check out who taketh the money:

Do you know which two United States senators took in the most money from HMOs this current cycle?

#1. Hillary Clinton
#2. Barack Obama

First and second place– out of all 100 senators, Republican and Democrat. (from Open Secrets)

Health Services/HMOs: Money to Congress, Election cycle: 2008

1) Clinton, Hillary (D) — $246,480

2) Obama, Barack (D) — $175,093

John Edwards was completely right– the Clintons had all three branches of government, and they didn’t get anything passed that remotely resembled Universal Health Care. Regardless of their true intentions, that’s what “sitting at the table” gets you.

John has a history of taking on big HMOs for the little guy and winning. He and Elizabeth are now fighting to bring good health care coverage inexpensively to everyone.

Just like they’re fighting to end global warming and our dependence on non-renewable energy.

Just like they’re fighting to redeploy the combat troops from Iraq, and bring most of them home to their families.

I can’t speak for all physicians, but this physician trusts John Edwards to do the right thing.

Corporate control of congress must come to an end– now.

We deserve a President who is bought and paid for by the American people.

Oooh I like that — we deserve a president who is bought and paid for by the American people! Edwards repeatedly talks about the corporate interests in medicine, something that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama omit from their discussions (for reasons stated above, perhaps?) And I recall Edwards saying, “when i’m president, dissent will once again be patriotic”.

(yes, it’s true, Kucinich has the MOST progressive platform of ANY democratic candidate, by a landslide. But it’s a discussion for another time — why I’d vote for Edwards over Kucinich right now, when it’s SO imperative that we have a dem win in 2008. though i did hear on KPFK FM this morning that Kucinich is risin’ up in the polls for the Iowa primaries, and that’s SUPER rad).

The video is beautiful. Just beautiful. Check it out. THIS man will get my vote in the democratic primaries, and for the reasons above. His words on predatory lending issues and labor issues moved me greatly.

John Edwards:
“I listen to George Bush – about as little as I can get away with, but here is what I hear… Stay home, watch television, go shopping. Me and Dick Cheney, we’ll take care of ya’. I don’t want that crowd taking care of me! I don’t trust em’, that is not America! We are not a country that cowers in the corner waiting for someone to watch over us. We are strong, we are courageous, we are out there pushing the envelope. And by the way, when I’m the president of the United States of America, DISSENT WILL ONCE AGAIN BE PATRIOTIC!”

Ah.  We’re here!  5 residents from our family medicine residency program (Jose, Suganya, Casey, Eva, and myself) arrived in Kansas City, Missouri yesterday for the annual American Academy of Family Practice (AAFP) National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students.  We’re accompanied by our wonderful program director, Dr. Castro, and our associate program director, Dr. Sanchez.  Thinking back, this specific conference is what introduced me to my residency program in the first place.  I’m from the east coast — New Jersey and NYC to be specific — and I had no way of knowing what programs in the west coast or midwest fit my interests well.

I remember feeling a little down (and exhausted) after walking by many many display booths at this conference when I was a 3rd year medical student.  After a few long days of talking to many programs, I felt a connection to a few, a handful of them who I felt really walked the walk and did not just talk the talk in regards to broader public health issues, resident-driven change, and sustainable community outreach.  And then — love at first sight.  I glanced over at one table where a slideshow was being shared, and I saw photos of residents rallying with SEIU for healthcare reform; I saw photos of resident-driven international trips;  I saw photos of residents running the show at a resident-founded homeless clinic.  I talked to the residents and faculty at the table, and I heard more of the same, accompanied by a rigorous training, a sense of satisfaction and a sense of humility.  This was exciting!  Long story short, the conference introduced me to my top choice program in the country, and I’m ready to play the role of excitedly sharing the program with medical students.

We set up our display booth, which was quite fun, we’re pretty excited about it.  We’ll have video from our residents and screenshots of our residency blog (first of its kind in the nation, eh?) and our wiki (resident-driven collaborative learning/reflecting) on two laptops at our booth.

The freebies here are interesting.  There are some really fun ones, like the program that brought the portable popcorn maker and another program that brought a smoothie machine.  But it’s quite disappointing to see so many pharmaceutical companies’ huge display booths — very expensive and schmancy ones at that — set up among the family med residency booths.  We’re not quite sure what the purpose of them is…other than blatant blatant marketing of their drugs to physicians and (get ‘em young) medical students.  This is a family medicine conference for medical students and resident doctors, a recruiting conference, this is not a recruiting conference for the latest Merck drug.  sheesh.

Barbara Ehrenreich has a piece in today’s Huffington Post (“Health Care vs the Profit Principle”) on the debate over expansion of health insurance for children (S-CHIP or the State Health Insurance Program). In the midst of the movie SiCKO’s popularity, and in the midst of Americans building ever more energy around health care issues, the Bush administration has boldy gone where no administration has gone before, to make this yet again an ideological battle. Barbara Ehrenreich on the matter:

It’s always nice to see the President take a principled stand on something. The man formerly known as “43,” and now perhaps better named “29″ for his record-breaking approval rating, is promising to battle any expansion of government health insurance for children — and not because he hates children or refuses to cough up the funds. No, this is a battle over principle: private health care vs. government-provided health care. Speaking in Cleveland this week, Bush boldly asserted:

‘I strongly object to the government providing incentives for people to leave private medicine, private health care to the public sector. And I think it’s wrong and I think it’s a mistake. And therefore, I will resist Congress’s attempt … to federalize medicine…In my judgment that would be — it would lead to not better medicine, but worse medicine. It would lead to not more innovation, but less innovation.’

Ehrenreich finishes off with a bang:

If government insurance for children (S-CHIP) isn’t expanded to all the families that need it, there is no question but that some children will die — painfully perhaps and certainly unnecessarily. But at least they will have died for a principle.

Yes. This is how we must frame health care issues. It’s the way we have to, especially when republicans are also talking smack like this:

John Hart, a spokesman for Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, said Mr. Coburn saw the Democratic plan as “part of an effort to bring everyone into a socialized health care system, a clarion call for Hillary Care, part two,” referring to the Clinton administration plan for universal coverage. Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, shared that view.

HillaryCare! Boo! Scared, yet?

Let’s not forget to mention that Senator Tom Coburn is a doctor. Who elected the doctor who wants to limit health care for children?

Lastly, we know there is no accountability to our government when the very people we elect (and the people they appoint) are anti-government themselves. A few regional directors at the Department of Health and Human Services sent “letters to newspapers, warning against ‘a government takeover of the health care marketplace‘”. This is a prime example of the government flushing the government down the toilet. And what’s a department of health and human services doing playing partisan politics (letters to the media!) on childrens’ access to health?

So back to the framing. We need to improve our framing of these important issues. If the opposition can bring back “HillaryCare”, we can be creative (and true) too. So, let’s say it all together now — Bush hates children. Republicans who are against expanding health insurance for children hate children. Any other ideas for framing this issue? I’m in favor of gathering together a list of congresspeople who eventually vote against this bill and figuring out how to affect their re-election based on their hatred of kids. You know, holding elected officials accountable to their decisions. And let’s strip the Republicans of the ownership of the term “family values”.
And what can we do? Families USA has a nicely organized education and action campaign in place, check it out (i’m sure other organizations do too). The issue is being decided upon this week. Let’s get to it.

(cross-posted at Cure This)

Why so beautiful? Students and faculty protesting TOGETHER. Most everyone protesting. Silent processional protest with folks wearing No Card stickers. Loud booing from the whole hall of folks when Andrew Card gets his “doctorate in public service”. Signs pulled out of peoples’ gowns everywhere. Press coverage is inevitable for such an event. Completely nonviolent. Everything went off without a hitch.

Beautiful.

Now let’s look at the press coverage.

Interestingly, the Associated Press inaccurately portrayed the protest (check out the video then take a look at this piece of the article):

The protests were mainly contained to an area in the back of the campus arena. Many faculty on stage joined the three- to four-minute outburst.

Wow. Didn’t it look like the majority of the graduating class was holding up signs? Many of the students in the Orchestra Pit area right in front of the stage were holding signs, clearly demonstrated by the video. And students in various other places of the hall were holding up signs. What’s freaky is that the Associated Press, or the AP, reports on an event and then sends it out over the newswire to be syndicated in regional and local outlets all over the country (hundreds of newspapers reprinted this specific article).

The About section of the Associated Press’ website describes that hundreds of radio, tv, and news outlets use their pieces. So, a little misrepresentation, exponentially distributed? How do we hold the media accountable when they can blatantly lie like this?

Anyone who reads this site regularly knows i’m a stickler for wording / connotation / framing. The way the AP framed these two lines is stunning — the protests were “contained” to an area… 3 to 4 minute “outburst”. What would you picture from the AP article, if you hadn’t had access to an individual’s home video footage of the graduation ceremony? Some crazies in the back of the hall shouting nonsensically, and not supported in their protest by the other members of the graduating class.

If it weren’t for the internet and the ability of sites like YouTube to broadcast the peoples’ videos, we wouldn’t have any checks and balances on the media’s ability to repeatedly misrepresent anything they want to.

[Andrew Card was Bush's chief of staff from 2000-2006, lied to the american public about the Iraq war, and in the last month it was revealed that he and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez went to the bedside of John Ashcroft (while he was zonked out in the intensive care unit after an operation, and who had previously appointed another man to his position in the interim) to try to get his signature for reauthorization of a huge public citizen surveillance program (more at this slate.com article)].

From “PhRMA takes aim at Thailand for production of generics, hints that it will push for sanctions”:

In particular, U.S. drug-makers worry that other countries could emulate Thailand’s decision. Brazil earlier this month announced it will authorize a license for the production of an AIDS drugs, PhRMA notes. PhRMA President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Tauzin said that in the long term, this move could cost U.S. jobs and cause the entire system of protecting intellectual property “to crumble.”

Scare Tactic.

…World Trade Organization (WTO) rules do grant poor countries the right to issue compulsory licenses authorizing the production of generic drugs to deal with public health crises. But critics feel Thailand is pushing the envelope by announcing a license for Plavix, a cardiovascular disease medication…

Thailand’s actions have received support from some key advocates, including former President Bill Clinton, whose Clinton Foundation has worked with drug companies to lower prices for medicines in developing countries. The Reuters news service this week quoted Clinton as stating that “no company will live or die because of high price premiums for AIDS drugs in middle-income countries, but patients may.”

Slam dunk tactic.

…Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), in a statement released after his meeting with the health minister said the U.S. should respect Thailand’s decision. But some in the pharmaceutical industry believe members of Congress will draw a distinction between drugs for the treatment of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and those for other diseases such as cancer or heart disease. “How can a chronic, slow-acting, non-contagious condition be considered a public-health crisis?” asked one lobbyist. He suggested there could be bipartisan support for actions against Thailand or other countries that issue compulsory licenses for non- AIDS drugs.

Ok, did he just say that? The lobbyist here is employing the idiot tactic. Public health crises are not solely conditions that you breathe on each other or transmit by sexual contact. Childhood obesity in the US is a public health crisis. Diabetes is a public health crisis. Lung cancer is a public health crisis. Lack of fresh food in inner cities, lack of adequate housing, lack of health insurance for many hard working americans, and an utter lack of dignity many neighborhoods provide their residents (through air pollution, fastfood/liquor joints everywhere, and no room for shared urban spaces) are all public health crises. We need to hold those in power (and lobbying to those in power) accountable to the definitions of public health crises (that several trade agreements have allowances for drugs for).

From “Doctors, Legislators Resist Drugmakers’ Prying Eyes” (Washington Post, may 22, 2007)

Seattle pediatrician Rupin Thakkar’s first inkling that the pharmaceutical industry was peering over his shoulder and into his prescription pad came in a letter from a drug representative about the generic drops Thakkar prescribes to treat infectious pinkeye.

In the letter, the salesperson wrote that Thakkar was causing his patients to miss more days of school than they would if he put them on Vigamox, a more expensive brand-name medicine made by Alcon Laboratories.

Rupin’s one of my co-board members from the wonderful organization the National Physicians Alliance! If the above two short paragraphs don’t incense physicians (and the public), I don’t know what does. It’s a vulnerable position that doctors in the United States occupy — we are watched and peddled by pharmaceutical companies; we are slaves to the insurance companies that decide to deny or accept the standard of care that we provide to our patients (how many countless hours go into calling insurance companies to get approval for the medicine that your patient needs or the procedure that your patient needs); and we are screwed by the financial disencentives of taking more than 5 minutes to actually explore what’s contributing to patients’ health or sickness.

“It’s a key weapon in determining how we want to tailor our sales pitch,” said Shahram Ahari, a former drug detailer for Eli Lilly who is now a researcher at the University of California at San Francisco’s School of Pharmacy. “The programs give them [doctors] a score of 1 to 10 based on how much they write. Once we have that, we know who our primary targets are. We focus our time on the big [prescription] writers — the 10s, the 9s, and then less so on the 8s and 7s. . . . We’re dealing with individual physicians who might give us the biggest dividend for our investment.”

I’m trying to cut off my puppet strings!

Please check out the blog of the National Physicians Alliance! A few of us thought it would be a great idea to give greater voice online to this collective physicians’ voice, and the blog was created. I just redesigned the look of the blog. There are a few glitches (working on fixing them), but any thoughts/suggestions on the blog? Hey, and you can post comments on any of the posts there too :>

I’m joining the Work Less Party, after my family medicine residency is over, that is. 1 year, 6 weeks to go and counting! Check out the article that this below is excerpted from, a fascinating correlation between working more and consuming more/destroying the environment/being more anxious and less happy.

It’s just those kind of values Schmidt has tried to encourage in his Work Less Party. Schmidt, a former computer programmer, started by getting rid of his car and cycling to work, then took advantage of the savings by reducing his workweek, which allowed him enough time to write his book, make two documentaries, and organize a community theater group — all in the last three years.

“People spend so many hours working they have no idea of how much creative potential they have, but you get a taste of mental freedom you want more of it. It’s an explosion of creativity.” says Schmidt, quickly adding, “I’m a workaholic, but it’s the type of work that’s the problem. Our society is focused on work that makes stuff that goes directly into landfills. Essential work such as art, music, creativity, community, the kind necessary to create a healthy society and planet, is being negated in favor of that.”

If there’s any solution to increasing our well-being, as well as the planet’s, Schmidt’s advice flies counter to our driven consumerism. “If you want to protect the environment, you have to consume less, which means you have to produce less, and you have to work less. We have to keep the message positive — our standard of living will improve hugely. I think people are starting to make the connection.”

So who’s with me?

Development groups immediately reacted to the resignation by repeating demands that Washington launch a wider search for a replacement, including the consideration of non-American candidates. Yet U.S. officials suggest the White House is likely to nominate another American to become the 11th bank president since the institution was founded in the late 1940s.

Some names thought to be on the short list are former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who was considered at the time Mr. Wolfowitz got the nod in 2005, and current Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt. Another name that has come up is that of former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a heart surgeon who has traveled frequently to Africa…

The bank’s board is a volatile mix of big, single-country seats representing large donors, such as the U.S. and Germany, and a slew of other seats in which countries such as Mexico, Korea, Malaysia and Pakistan act as delegates for a group of countries in their region. The U.S. has the largest single voting share, at 16.4%, while the seat representing many of the Arab states, for instance, has just a 2.9% voting share.

The board’s dynamics made it unlikely a push to fire Mr. Wolfowitz could have won a majority vote. A solid vote against him from nearly all European shareholders, with the exception of Britain, would have added up to less than 25%. The countries that were more clearly supportive either of Mr. Wolfowitz or the Bush administration — including Britain, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Mexico — may have weighed in at more than 45%.

Wolfowitz Quits World Bank as U.S. Relents (wall street journal, may 18, 2007).

We are adaptable creatures, and while that is generally good, sometimes it’s a problem. We have no difficulty taking prompt action when faced with a sudden calamity, like a bleeding head wound, say, or a terrorist attack. But we are not good at moving against the creeping, more insidious threats — whether a slow-growing tumor, waistline or debt.

It’s as true of societies as of individuals. We did not muster the will to reform our long-broken banking system, for example, until it actually collapsed in the Great Depression.

This is, in a nutshell, the trouble with our health care crisis. Our health care system has eroded badly, but it has not collapsed. So we do nothing.

For at least two decades, polls have shown that most consider our health system seriously flawed. With family insurance premiums now averaging $12,000 a year, the insured fear it will become unaffordable, and businesses regard health benefit costs as their single greatest obstacle to competing globally.

People without insurance are proven to be more likely to die, and 28 percent of working-age Americans are now uninsured for at least part of a year. Emergency rooms, required to care for the uninsured, have become so full they turned away 500,000 ambulances last year. As a result, large majorities support the idea of fundamental change…

from Atul Gawande’s commentary “Can this Patient be Saved?” NYTimes May 5,2007. (thanks to Donkey O.D. for sharing the full piece, which is otherwise on the payola-only section of the Times website).

The bolded section above (emphasis mine) is a pet peeve of mine — we’ve put billions and billions into disaster preparedness and bioterrorism work in the past few years, and we’ve taken billions OUT of more insiduous killers like chronic disease programs, integral public health mechanisms, and such basics as housing, food, transportation, etc.

I work at a county hospital and clinic in Los Angeles, where we mostly treat the uninsured, underinsured, or undocumented.  We’re the safety net hospital in the area.  However, we’ve been packed to the brim and have had to say no to ambulances (channel them to other county or non-county emergency rooms) over and over and over again. Now that’s what I call scary.  Spillover from a safety net hospital.
Also — the cost that Gawande mentions for health insurance for a family isn’t overstated.  Even in California, individual health plans are more than $4500 a year, and family plans are definitely more than $12,000 a year.  And what’s minimum wage, in California or in the U.S.?  You do the math.  (Obviously this cost is too high even for middle-class folks!) That’s f***’ed up.  Where’s our revolution?

Thou shalt watch this video:

some words:

thou shalt not buy coca cola products, thou shalt not buy nestle products…

thou shalt give equal word to tragedies that occur in non-english speaking countries as to those that occur in english speaking countries…

guns, bitches, and bling were never part of the 4 elements [of hip hop], and never will be…

thou shalt not pimp my ride…

when i say hey thou shalt not say ho…

thou shalt think for yourselves…

[Some more tracks by them at their Myspace page -- I really like "A letter from God to Man". Some live performances are also available on YouTube, check 'em out, just search for them]

On a recent day, patients on American-financed AIDS drugs and their families streamed into a food distribution point at the Lewanika Hospital in the town of Mongu. Already, as the World Food Program’s stocks were running low, rations had been almost halved. Some were so hungry that they scooped handfuls of corn-soy powder into their mouths without even adding water to make porridge.

One of the patients, Annie Mubita, a 32-year-old mother of six, said her strength was returning, and so was her appetite, which had shriveled when she was sick. Mrs. Mubita assumes her children are also H.I.V. positive, she said, but has not had them tested because if they, too, go on the drugs, they will be as hungry as she is.

“If the children have an appetite like me, the food won’t last even two weeks,” she said. If the rations end, she said, “me and my children will die.”…

My goodness. (from NYTimes — “Even as Africa Hungers, Policy Slows Delivery of U.S. Food Aid” by Celia Dugger).

I don’t know much about U.S. food policy — I’m just starting to read about it especially after my trip to Africa. This NYTimes article goes into recent Bush Administration requests to allow the World Food Programme to buy food from the countries in which it operates (instead of the only using the expensive method of buying US grown food, shipping it in US ships and setting up in US warehouses in other countries — a process that also takes up to 6 months and can be dangerous in times of more urgent appeals for food). I’m surprised that the Bush administration is actually pushing for this common sense approach — because they usually pander to US interests — and even more so becuase I believe the Bush family and friends have stock in Cargill, one of the biggest agribusiness sellers of US food to the program. As a side note, it’s interesting that the biggest critics of the US government and the ones who want to break it down and give it all away to the private companies — are the same ones who invest in companies who sell to the US Government because it’s oh-so-profitable.

Anyway, back to the interesting article. It ends with this heartbreaking story:

Munalula and her barefoot cousins scraped their bowls clean, savoring each unsweetened bite. But some children barely touched theirs.

Sisi Negenda, a 6-year-old with little braids, shyly explained. She has a younger sister, 3, and several orphaned relatives at home. She said she wanted to share with them. She carried off the bowl, still heavy with porridge, as though it were a precious, breakable object.

I promise I’ll share more.

This kind of thoughtfulness is not unlike my experience in rural Tanzania this year. Families would have literally nothing of material good other than the clothes on their backs (tattered) and their worn shoes and a mud hut with not more than 2-3 pots and pans and a small amount of porridge or ugali cooking. However, when we went house to house to perform a health survey, we were always offered food or other things.

So again, I promise i’ll share more. Promise.

This summary in from the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s daily “Progress Report”:

GLOBAL WARMING — SCIENCE TEACHERS ASSOCIATION REFUSES COPIES OF ‘INCONVENIENT TRUTH’: Global warming activist Laurie David reported in the Washington Post that the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) refused 500,000 free DVD copies of An Inconvenient Truth, which scientists gave “five stars for accuracy.” David wrote, “In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other ‘special interests’ might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn’t want to offer ‘political’ endorsement of the film; and they saw ‘little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members’ in accepting the free DVDs.” The NSTA also expressed concern that accepting the DVDs would place “unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.” But those supporters already include “special interests,” including Exxon-Mobil, Shell Oil, and the American Petroleum Institute, which have given millions in funding to the NSTA. The NSTA has freely distributed oil industry-funded “educational” content like “Fuel-less: You Can’t Be Cool Without Fuel,” produced by the American Petroleum Institute (API). The film features the opening line: “You’re absolutely not going to believe this, but everything I have that’s really cool comes from oil!” An API memo leaked to the media in 1998 explains the motivation behind such videos: “Informing teachers/students about uncertainties in climate science will begin to erect barriers against further efforts to impose Kyoto-like measures in the future.”

More on this issue from Laurie David, in the washington post:

It’s hard to say whether NSTA is a bad guy here or just a sorry victim of tight education budgets. And we don’t pretend that a two-hour movie is a substitute for a rigorous science curriculum. Students should expect, and parents should demand, that educators present an honest and unbiased look at the true state of knowledge about the challenges of the day…

While NSTA and Exxon Mobil ponder the moral lesson they’re teaching with all this, there are 50,000 DVDs sitting in a Los Angeles warehouse, waiting to be distributed. In the meantime, Mom and Dad may want to keep a sharp eye on their kids’ science homework.

…what? 50,000 DVDs sitting in a Los Angeles warehouse? wait, i’m in LA. Who wants to join me in storming the warehouse and handing these dvds out to kids and saying — hey share this with your buddies? :>

It’s all so complicated, and new parents are apt to feel vulnerable, exhausted, and isolated. It’s the perfect moment for the marketers to step in and suggest hooking that baby up to a monitor. Why not? We’re so used to monitors. They are familiar, straightforward, and they come with an off/on switch. Think how much more relaxed you’ll feel interpreting the digitally analyzed transmissions of the “WhyCry Baby Cry Analyzer.” Instead of looking directly at your baby when he or she cries, you can now turn your attention to the electronic monitor programmed to recognize and interpret different tones of a baby’s cry…

This is the message corporations give to parents about their role: You don’t know what to do; we do. You’re scared and confused; we’re confident and clear-headed. You want the best for your kid; so do we, and we can sell it to you. Having virtually conquered the globe, capitalism is looking for new frontiers. Previously uncolonized aspects of human experience and interaction appear ripe for the taking. First they make it so we have to work all the time to make ends meet. Then they take away community by organizing our lives around cars, malls, and more work, of course, which we have to double up on to be able to afford the cars and the things in the malls. After they induce isolation, they sell us back the stuff that appears to connect us to human experience.

from The Corporate Parent, by Cynthia Peters, appearing in Znet daily commentary.

…and who came up with that name? the WhyCry Baby Cry Analyzer? sheesh.