Cash-Strapped Food Agency Struggles To Feed Poor : NPR
“For the world’s bottom billion, the financial crisis is having an effect on their ability to access food. Now add in the increased cost of food, and it’s a double whammy that is dangerous and destabilizing and a humanitarian crisis of huge proportions,”…
There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
~ Albert Schweitzer
Actually, that makes five. (Thanks, Nick)
Running late because of traffic? Not sure what exit to take? It’s probably best to wait until you’re off the road to text someone about your predicament – texting while driving increases your chances of crashing by 20 times, according to a Tuesday study.
The data is based on several studies conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI), which concluded that text messaging is “associated with the highest risk of all cell phone related tasks.” …
Texting While Driving Increases Crash Risk by 20X – News and Analysis by PC Magazine
Not Changing Lanes | Tricycle Magazine
While I was commuting across the Golden Gate Bridge to San Francisco every day, I would notice how frequently people (including me!) changed lanes to get into what seemed to be the fastest lane at the moment….
…once again and for the billionth time, a deeply sad and hypocritical conservative is now claiming that he will be turning to God not merely for forgiveness for his lusty irresponsibilities, but he is also claiming that, in order to set things right, God will now be actively stepping into his life to help put him back on track, fix his mangled moral compass, tell him the what’s-what and the don’t-stick-that-there. …
North Face of Mount Kailash -- Tibet
Click the image for wallpaper.
Vice Magazine – BIBLE BABIES – Inside the Weird World of Brazil’s Child Preachers
Managed by their parents, on tour 365 days a year, and charging $900 for a two-hour sermon, child preachers are big business in Brazil. Each event is a finely tuned marketing maneuver promoted with posters, magazine coverage, and radio ads. If you want one of these kid wonders to visit your parish, you’ll also have to fork over a down payment on a minimum of 150 DVDs (around $750).Considering that there are approximately 17,000 evangelical parishes with over 24 million members across a country renowned for its drugs, violence, and general depravity, Brazil is a huge market for potential “salvation.” We met up with three of the country’s most popular pint-size proselytizers to see what happens when people stop being polite and start being Brazilian child preachers. …
Forget Shorter Showers | Derrick Jensen | Orion Magazine
WOULD ANY SANE PERSON think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?
Major Economies ‘Ignored’ UN Climate Science
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, told reporters Monday it is important that leaders of the Group of Eight, G8 and nine other nations at the Major Economies Forum in Italy recognized that the global average temperature should not increase by more than two degrees Celsius, an “aspirational goal” which they had not agreed on or discussed earlier.But, he said, they disregarded the IPCC’s findings that emissions will have to peak in 2015 and then rapidly decline to avert the worst consequences of global warming….
“The truth is that male religious leaders have had — and still have — an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world.”
~ Jimmy Carter, on announcing that he is leaving the Southern Baptist Church after more than 60 years
273 Whole Foods Stores Earn Organic Certification
Rubber Sidewalks Give the Bounce to Concrete
Illegal Pangolin Trade Threatens Rare Species
Ocean current switch due to warming could be slower than feared
Book Review: Andrew Winston’s Green Recovery
Hydrofluorocarbons, Once a Solution, Now a Problem?
I’ve got an article about this floating around in the back room someplace (links above). I like Emily’s better.
Buddhism 101: What is karma really, and how does it work?
Karma is not a theory or something to believe in, and it definitely isn’t “destiny”. It is the first part of the scientific law of cause and effect. You don’t have to believe in reincarnation or higher mental states to see this demonstrated.
Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) have a high risk of psychiatric problems, particularly attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder, or both. Often children with FASD are initially diagnosed with ADHD. A new study is the first to examine a range of cognitive factors and social behavior in children with FASD and ADHD, finding that those with FASD have significantly weaker social cognition and facial emotion-processing abilities.
The Associated Press: Gays live _ and die _ in fear in Jamaica
It is impossible to say just how common gay bashing attacks … are in Jamaica — their tormentors are sometimes the police themselves. But many homosexuals in Jamaica say homophobia is pervasive across the sun-soaked island, from the pulpit to the floor of the Parliament.
