From futurist Stephan A. Schwartz - Trends That Will Affect Your Future …

[giovonni]

“Dead bodies and wasted money”: How I learned firsthand the worst lesson of war



Here is the bitter hard truth, from a grunt’s eye view, of the insanity of American foreign policy. Our geopolitical vision of the world is a failure, and you would think we would stop and re-assess. Instead we are putting in more troops into Afghanistan. The only product of these wars is death and hatred of America. All to no good purpose.

I read reports like these and all I can think about is the suffering, the death, and the lost opportunities for improving our own country the trillions of wasted dollars represent. We are literally taking food out of the mouths of babes to finance this madness.


Michael Carson

Recent revelations of colossal missteps in Afghanistan from Anand Gopal’s “No Good Men Among the Living“ combined with ISIL’S advance in Iraq have the few remaining Afghanistan and Iraq War optimists wondering what it is we should take away from these conflicts. I imagine thousands of bureaucrats and generals are asking the same question at the Pentagon, crustily ordering their multitudinous aides to compile relevant data and get back to them yesterday. This is for them, I would assume, a time for edifying soul-searching, a chance to become smarter, more resilient, to make, as they say, lemonade out of a whole lot of dead bodies and wasted tax dollars... Read more

[giovonni]

“No antibiotics ever”: School districts announce bold new standards for chicken



School lunches in most schools are a study in what children should not eat. So no question this is some good news. Major school districts are moving to eliminate the antibiotic laced chicken that most people eat. I hope this catches on across the country.

Lindsay Abrams - Salon

“No antibiotics ever”: That’s the new official chicken policy for six of the country’s largest school districts. Late Tuesday, members of the Urban School Food Alliance — a coalition that includes districts in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Miami-Dade County and Orlando County — announced the antibiotic-free standard for its poultry suppliers, a move representatives say demonstrate their commitment to protecting students’ health and wellness.

“We’re landing in a place that the scientists agree is the right direction,” Leslie Fowler, executive director of nutrition support services for the Chicago Public Schools, told Reuters.

This is heartening news, particularly as the U.S. government, despite acknowledging the problem, is doing almost nothing to address it. The purchasing power of the six districts, which together feed 2.9 million students, could force the industry’s hand: the districts are demanding that meat suppliers that can’t meet the new standards immediately … Read more

[Lifebringer]

Ever heard of the peace pipe? Native Americans and Mexicanos and other cultures used post to free the mind of distraction and to relax enough to tap the subconscious, in sweat lodges also. Western Rockerfeller medicine is also a culprit on keeping mj illegal because it does so much of what an opiate will do, but no side effects or addictive qualities. People smoke pot because they like it, not because, "they gotta have it."
It's mellow and I remember a strand in the late 70's called mellow yellow, which was really just Acapulco Gold. Good smoke.
Bottom line is 'our generation, can't live the way our soon to be deceased grandparents lived in the 50's and sixties, and they cannot relive their life through us, projecting their ideological restraints of freedom as ours.

[giovonni]

The Vanishing Male Worker: How America Fell Behind



Here is what is happening to men in the U.S. It is going to have a significant psychological impact, and yet this is the first serious assessment of the trend I have seen in print. This is part of the Destruction of the Middle Class Meta-Trend. Once again this is happening because of non-life affirming social policies. We are doing this to ourselves.

Binyamin Appelbaum - The New York Times

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND — Frank Walsh still pays dues to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, but more than four years have passed since his name was called at the union hall where the few available jobs are distributed. Mr. Walsh, his wife and two children live on her part-time income and a small inheritance from his mother, which is running out.

Sitting in the food court at a mall near his Maryland home, he sees that some of the restaurants are hiring. He says he can’t wait much longer to find a job. But he’s not ready yet... Read more

[giovonni]

Justice Is Blind To Those Who Can’t Afford It




Even more dangerous to democracy than the corruption of legislators is the corruption of the law and justice.
This report shows how bad it is getting in the U.S.

Sean Nevins - Mint Press News

WASHINGTON — Two days after a Staten Island grand jury acquitted NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, banking and financial services giant BNP Paribas S.A. (BNPP) was able to delay sentencing that would force it to pay $8.9 billion for pleading guilty to violating U.S. sanctions regulations.

Nobody at the global banking giant is likely to be prosecuted, and nobody will serve time.

Cases such as this reflect the starkly different prosecutory worlds available to those with money, influence and privilege, and those without, such as Michael Brown and Eric Garner... Read more

[giovonni]

Catholic Bishops From Every Continent Call For ‘An End To The Fossil Fuel Era’



There are 1.2 billion people in the world who profess to be Roman Catholics, so I take this as excellent news. It is impossible to know how it will play out, but it will create a compassionate and life-affirming social skew.

Jeff Spross - Think Progress

A group of Catholic Bishops called on the world’s governments to end fossil fuel use on Wednesday, citing climate change’s threat to the global poor as the lodestar of their concern.

According to the BBC, the statement is the first time senior officials in the Church from every continent have issued such a call. The statement also drops in the middle of ongoing international climate talks in Lima, Peru, as countries continue to hash out what to do about climate change in the run-up to a summit in 2015, where observers and activists hope a new international agreement will be finalized.

“We express an answer to what is considered God’s appeal to take action on the urgent and damaging situation of global climate warming,” the bishops wrote... Read more

[giovonni]

Death of a fast-food Goliath: What the decline of McDonald’s really means



This is both good news and an illustration of the point I make over and over: Small quotidian choices in which individuals choose the most compassionate and life-affirming option of the ones available, when a critical consensus of people make that choice, can create massive social change. This is the secret the power elite don’t want you to know.

Lindsay Abrams

The reign of the golden arches is ending. McDonald’s reported this week that its already-declining U.S. sales nose-dived in November, down 4.6 percent compared to last year. The company that introduced America to fast food, and has come to stand as its icon, is fading away.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that America’s falling out of love with fast food. It’s just that these days, we call it Chipotle.

There are plenty of reasons ascribed to McDonald’s downfall, but one constantly cited is that the post-”Super Size Me” world just isn’t eager to subject itself to the chain’s version of food any longer. Americans, the narrative goes, are demanding more of their meals. And the spoils are going to a new generation of “fast casual” providers who can provide they’re rising to the challenge... Read more

[giovonni]

Paul Krugman warns severe austerity measures
are pushing countries to brink of fascism



Once again, Paul Krugman nails it. Trickle down, austerity economics has proven to be a failure over and over. That a large percentage of the political class across the world don’t seem to acknowledge this is a measure of the decay and corruption of modern democracies.

Janet Allon - The Raw Story/

The problem with ideologues is that they do not learn from their mistakes, not even after they repeat them and things go wrong again. Paul Krugman returns to one of his favorite subjects in his Friday column: the mismanagement of Greece’s fiscal crisis, which erupted five years ago and has ongoing terrible side effects that are damaging the whole world. “But I’m not talking about the side effects you may have in mind — spillovers from Greece’s Great Depression-level slump, or financial contagion to other debtors,” Krugman writes. “No, the trulorey disastrous effect of the Greek crisis was the way it distorted economic policy, as supposedly serious people around the world rushed to learn the wrong lessons" ... Read more

[giovonni]

The 7 weirdest things science has taught us about sex



Not a trend but I thought it was interesting.

Anna Pulley - Salon

Science has made many groundbreaking discoveries through research and experimentation (and sometimes guessing and getting lucky). But sometimes we wonder how certain experiments came to be in the first place. For instance, the study that found the smell of Good ‘n’ Plenty candy increases vaginal blood flow, or the one that asked “What might be the minimal stimulus required to excite a turkey?” With that in mind, we found some of the most bizarre sex and relationship studies to share in the collective what-the-f*ckery. Enjoy... More here

[giovonni]

U.S. Drug Shortage Puts Patients in Critical Condition



This is a measure of the control Big Pharma has over America’s Illness Profit System, where wellness is hardly a factor. We pay more than any of the other system on Earth — 17.2% of GDP –yet we rank 37th in care delivered. Why is that hard to see do you think?

Maryann Mazer-Amirshahi - Live Science

Hospitals and pharmacies around the country are facing severe shortages of essential drugs. These shortages can limit access to critical medications and compromise patient safety, resulting in serious illness and even death. In a 2011 survey, the American Hospital Association reported that 82% of hospitals had to delay therapy due to a drug shortage. And the consequences of drugs shortages go beyond delays. A 2010 report by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices implicated drug shortages in medication errors, adverse drug reactions and several deaths ... Read more

[giovonni]

Torture in a Dick Cheney Minute




I think Dick Cheney is a war criminal, and that he and his dark minions should have been prosecuted in a modern version of the Nuremberg Trials. It’s not going to happen, of course, but I am pretty sure history will condemn them and him especially. This interview gives you his thinking.

Amy Davidson - The New Yorker

What, exactly, has President Barack Obama done to make sure that future Presidents don’t torture prisoners? On “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Dick Cheney, the former Vice-President, made it clear that he, for one, given the chance, would seize waterboarding paraphernalia, and get to it. “I’d do it again in a minute,” he told the host Chuck Todd. John Brennan, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, made it just as clear, in a news conference on Thursday, that the C.I.A. would not stand in the way of future White Houses: “I defer to the policymakers in future times when there is going to be the need to make sure this country stays safe if we face a similar type of crisis.” Neither man would call what the C.I.A. did torture. Each, in his own way, suggested that American torturers have not … Read more

[giovonni]

The Chinese Century



Read this article. This is the most important geopolitical essay I have read in 2014, in both the academic or general media. I absolutely agree with this assessment. The decisions we make in the next two years concerning China may define the next generation of the world. If we go the Theocratic Rightist way we are doomed. If we choose policies that are compassionate, inclusionist, and life-affirming stressing wellness, America will continue to enjoy a position of world leadership and the world will be more peaceful.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, PhD - Vanity Fair

When the history of 2014 is written, it will take note of a large fact that has received little attention: 2014 was the last year in which the United States could claim to be the world’s largest economic power. China enters 2015 in the top position, where it will likely remain for a very long time, if not forever. In doing so, it returns to the position it held through most of human history... Read more

[giovonni]

Why Congress Gave In to Medical Marijuana



Here is the latest in the dismantling of Marijuana Prohibition. This is a very interesting trend to watch because it was based on almost entirely bogus information and none of the things predicted to happen should prohibition be ended, based on that bogus reality — increased crime, massive upswing in teen usage, major health destruction, etc — have come to pass. As this report describes this change is also one of the very few policy positions where both voters and politicians agree.

Russell Berman - The Atlantic

Congress may have tried to stop residents of the nation’s capital from being able to light up joints with impunity, but lawmakers retreated last week in another important drug-war front: medical marijuana.

The $1 trillion spending bill that passed last week included a provision that blocks the Justice Department from spending any money to enforce a federal ban on growing or selling marijuana in the 32 states that have moved to legalize it for medical use. It marks a huge shift for Congress, which for years had sided with federal prosecutors in their battle with states over the liberalization of drug laws. “The war on medical marijuana is over,” Bill Piper, a lobbyist with the Drug Policy Alliance, declared to the Los Angeles Times... Read more

[giovonni]

1 in 5 Millennials Live in Poverty, Census Bureau Says



I deliberately chose a far right assessment of this dreadful situation to show that even the Right recognizes how desperate the situation has gotten. Society is being radically restructured just as the Millenial generation is coming on line, and the results of are very painful. Few millenials, with whom I have spoken, or whose blogs I have read, have the kind of optimistic view of the future that was commonplace before 9/11 and the financial crash. And they are experiencing a level of general poverty that has not been seen in decades.

Ali Meyer - CNS News

One in five young adults – ages 18 to 34 years old – live in poverty, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. (emphasis added)

“More millennials are living in poverty today, and they have lower rates of employment, compared with their counterparts in 1980,” the Census states. “One in five young adults lives in poverty (13.5 million people), up from one in seven (8.4 million people) in 1980.”

The data comes from a new Census release called “Young Adults: Then and Now,” which “illustrates characteristics of the young adult population (age 18-34) across the decades using data from the 1980, 1990 and 2000 Censuses and the 2009-2013 American Community Survey.” ... More here

[giovonni]

FACT SHEET: Charting a New Course on Cuba




The absurd and counterproductive shunning of Cuba has made Cuban society quite distinctive in the Latin world. Just one example: Cuba’s greatest export is doctors. In the Ebola crisis American provided logistics, which no one else could really do, and Cuba contributed highly skilled physicians who knew how to work in Third World conditions. No other country in Latin America could have done that.

Obama has broken a 50 year political taboo and I think this will be remembered as one of his major achievements.

I have read all kinds of misinformation about this in the conservative media, and even in the general corporate media. It seemed useful to me to publish exactly what is happening here.

The White House

Today, the United States is taking historic steps to chart a new course in our relations with Cuba and to further engage and empower the Cuban people. We are separated by 90 miles of water, but brought together through the relationships between the two million Cubans and Americans of Cuban descent that live in the United States, and the 11 million Cubans who share similar hopes for a more positive future for Cuba... Read more

[giovonni]

Time to lay off the doughnuts! Study reveals cops
are the most obese workers in America

Obesity is — pun intended — an enormous problem in the U.S. But I did not not know that fat cops, firefighters, and security guards weigh in as the worst job categories for this problem. But here is the study that makes this point.

Tim Macfarlan - Mail (U.K.)

Their job is to protect and serve – but it seems some police officers interpret this as an excuse to enjoy too many extra servings at the lunch table.

A study has revealed US cops have the highest rates of obesity among any profession in the country.

Along with firefighters and security guards, nearly 41 per cent of boys in blue are obese, according to a study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine... More here

[giovonni]

Ancient Egyptian technology may be our first line
of defense from hospital infections



Here is yet another proof that empirically developed insights can be as valid as science. I hope this insight catches on.

Daily Kos

No matter where in the world you find yourself, hospitals are filled with bacteria and viruses and potential infections for patients. Constanza Correa and her colleagues believe they have found a simple, and very old, fix that could greatly reduce inpatients’ chances of infection—replacing bedrails with copper... Read more

[giovonni]

Air Pollution Exposure in Pregnancy Linked to Autism in Study



If you know any pregnant women, or any women planning to get pregnant,
you might pass this report on. This is a shocking correlation.

Michelle Fay Cortez - Bloomberg

Women who are exposed to high levels of air pollution during their third trimester of pregnancy may be twice as likely to have an autistic child, a study found.

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found the risk of autism rises in parallel with exposure to fine particulate matter during pregnancy, with the biggest effect occurring in the final months of gestation. The results appear in the Dec. 18 edition of Environmental Health Perspectives ... Read more

[giovonni]

Million-Mummy Cemetery Unearthed in Egypt

Egyptian chronology and history were thought to be the best established body of knowledge about the ancient world that we have today. If this story holds up, and some Egyptologists find the idea of a million person unexcavated cemetery hard to accept, the book is about to be rewritten.

Owen Jarus - Live Science

TORONTO — She’s literally one in a million.

The remains of a child, laid to rest more than 1,500 years ago when the Roman Empire controlled Egypt, was found in an ancient cemetery that contains more than 1 million mummies, according to a team of archaeologists from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

The cemetery is now called Fag el-Gamous, which means “Way of the Water Buffalo,” a title that comes from the name of a nearby road. Archaeologists from Brigham Young University have been excavating Fag el-Gamous, along with a nearby pyramid, for about 30 years. Many of the mummies date to the time when the Roman or Byzantine Empire ruled Egypt, from the 1st century to the 7th century … Read more

[giovonni]

269 Sunken Turbines To Make Scotland Home To World’s Largest Tidal Farm




The other day a reader wrote to ask me, “Whatever happened to ocean tidal electric generation?”
Here is at least part of the answer. It is good news.

Ari Phillips - Climate Progress

The world’s largest tidal energy project, capable of powering nearly 175,000 homes in the U.K. with 400 megawatts of power, will break ground next month in northeast Scotland. Atlantis, majority owner of the MeyGen project, announced that its flagship project had met all the conditions required to start drawing down finance through the U.K.’s Renewable Energy Investment Fund... Read more