(Audio) Book: Holy Cow by Sarah Macdonald (Broadway Books 2004)

In her twenties, journalist Sarah Macdonald backpacked around India and came away with a lasting impression of heat, pollution and poverty. So when an airport beggar read her palm and told her she would return to India—and for love—she screamed, “Never!” and gave the country, and him, the finger.

But eleven years later, the prophecy comes true. When the love of Sarah’s life is posted to India, she quits her dream job to move to the most polluted city on earth, New Delhi. For Sarah this seems like the ultimate sacrifice for love, and it almost kills her, literally. Just settled, she falls dangerously ill with double pneumonia, an experience that compels her to face some serious questions about her own fragile mortality and inner spiritual void. “I must find peace in the only place possible in India,” she concludes. “Within.” Thus begins her journey of discovery through India in search of the meaning of life and death.

Holy Cow is Macdonald’s often hilarious chronicle of her adventures in a land of chaos and contradiction, of encounters with Hinduism, Islam and Jainism, Sufis, Sikhs, Parsis and Christians and a kaleidoscope of yogis, swamis and Bollywood stars. From spiritual retreats and crumbling nirvanas to war zones and New Delhi nightclubs, it is a journey that only a woman on a mission to save her soul, her love life—and her sanity—can survive.

See Holy Cow. I listened to the Audio reading of this book, which was excellently read by Kate Hosking.

A-to-Z Guide to Political Interference in Science (Union of Concerned Scientists)

I am one of the signatories to the Scientists' Statement on Scientific Integrity.

See the clever, elegant and thorough A to Z Guide to Political Interference with Scientific Advice which documents why this is needed.

Film: Eva and the Fire Horse (directed by Julia Kwan, 2005)

This is a delightful film about youth, the coming-of-age of children of immigrants, imagination, and family. Highly recommended.

Video: Frontline: Living Old (Miri Navasky, Karen O'Connor, Nov 21, 2006, 60 min)

Producers Miri Navasky and Karen O'Connor's touching and insightful documentary program for the PBS/WGBH Frontline series, Living Old, examines how the United States is coping with an increasing number of 85-year-old to 105-year-old seniors, who need assistance that in general, neither their children nor the medical community can provide.

Besides the interviews with the anging, their children, there are amazing interviews with numerous medical professionals.



This program is available for purchase on DVD. It can also be watched online, and you can learn more about the issues, at the program website.

Very highly recommended.

Book: American Theocracy (Kevin Phillips, Viking Adult, 2006, 480 pages)

This is an extended historical essay, very carefully researched, which explains how certain economic interests (especially big oil and financial services) are interacting with a Biblical worldview common among many Americans, and leading to all the symptoms which have led previous great powers to sharp declines after long periods of supremacy. Absolutely fascinating!

Film: Shut Up & Sing (Directed by Barbara Kopple & Cecilia Peck, Weinstein Company & Cabin Creek Films, 2006)

The filmmakers travel with the country music trio the Dixie Chicks for three years - from the peak of their popularity as the darlings of country music through the now infamous anti-Bush comment made by the group's lead singer Natalie Maines in 2003 and the political firestorm that resulted - raising questions about freedom of speech and the negative consequences it sometimes has.

As we see the resistance from country music radio stations in the US South to playing their music during the War in Iraq solidify, we see it begin to affect these artists and their manager; we also see them grow from just musicians into honest independent heart-felt citizens. Two of the Dixie Chicks are sisters who have been giving concerts since age 12; now in their mid-thirties, they decide they will not choose between self-censorship and their goal of Arena-scale musical tours.

Highly recommended.

Film: Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollack? (Picturehouse, 2006, Harry Moses)

This is a humous and compelling documentary! At one level it is about the art market. At another level it is about some amazing people. See it if you can.
Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollack?.

Film: An Unreasonable Man (about Ralph Nader) (Henriette Mantel & Steve Skrovan, 2006)

An Unreasonable Man follows the 40-year-long career of public interest attorney turned two-time Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader, bringing the insights of two dozen insiders who worked with him, for him, against him, and sometimes both for-and-against him at different times. The film is trying to explore several themes: What makes Nader tick? Are his recent Presidential runs advancing or detracting from the pro-citizen policies he articulates? How do third party candidates get treated by the press and by the two main parties? His most passionate defenders and his most ardent detractors are here, speaking candidly to the filmmakers.

Neither filmmaker had ever made a documentary, but this one is extremely thought-provoking... Try to see it when it comes to your town, or wait for the expected release on DVD in 2007.

Film: Encounter Point (2006, Ronit Avni, Just Vision)

is playing at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville NY on November 5 and November 6.

Film: 51 Birch Street (Doug Block, Copacetic Films, 2006)

51 Birch Street is a documentary that wasn't set out to be made until after 90% of the footage was shot for other purposes. Filmmaker Doug Block had been capturing little bits of video at all the usual family events, and decided to continue doing some of this with his retired parents at their home in Port Washington, New York. But a series of unexpected events leads him to learn, at age 50, some things about his parents that he had never known.

As he learns more about their lives, he captures a great deal about the dynamics of marraige, life in the suburbs, cultural shift over 60 years, all seen through what happened from his parent's immediately post-World War II courtship through a move to Florida at age 83.

What makes this such a powerful film is the honesty of his parents, their friends, his sisters, his spouse, and especially of Doug himself. This is a film that most people will identify with. Very highly recommended.

Film: Quinceanera by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmorland (Sony Pictures Classics, 2006)

This is a film about 3 months in the lives of young Mexican-American teenagers in Los Angeles, and about the awkward transitions made as they dabble with sexuality, see classism, and are drawn towards materialism and modernity while their more traditional parents distrustfully judge their move away from tradition. The need for acceptance and understanding by these teenagers is paramount, and often it is found in the most surprising places.

The powerful music and the fabulous acting are what make this such a compelling and touching film. For a story blending coming of age and the immigrant experience, you are well advised to see
Quinceanera.

Colorado resort operator to invest heavily in wind power

CNET News.com reprinted the August 2, 2006 report by the New York Times on the Vail Resorts decision to support wind-generated power going into the national grid equivalent to all electric power they use. Renewable Choice Energy will act as agent on behalf of Vail Results. See Colorado resort to invest heavily in wind power, and Ski with the Wind.

June 17-18: Clearwater Festival - Croton-on-Hudson, New York

I highly recommend attending this music, story-telling, arts, food, dance and environmental event


.


A few opportunities to volunteer at the festival will remain open -- make sure to apply ASAP.

Film: An Inconvenient Truth takes on the Climate Crisis and What We Can Do

An Inconvenient Truth (2006, Participant Productions, directed by Davis Guggenheim, featuring former-US Vice President Al Gore) is an engaging presentation of

1. the evidence that human-induced climate change is already well underway,


2. what causes it,


3. what is consequences would be if climate change is allowed (by inaction) to continue accelerating, and


4. what steps (many rather easy) are feasible for individuals, businesses and governments to take to slow it.

It sounds dry, but because of the fabulous footage from all over the world, animations, and the personal history that Gore recounts, showing how this topic came to seem to him as a major moral issue, this is a compelling and important experience. (The film includes scenes from some of the 1000 talks at Universities and to Civic Groups that Gore has given on this subject since being denied his bid for the Presidency in 2000).

A portion of the film proceeds are being donated to the Alliance for Climate Protection. Very very highly recommended.

Film: The Real Dirt on Farmer John by Taggart Siegel (2005)

THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN (2005, 82 min) by Taggart Siegel is the award-winning true story of third-generation American farmer John Peterson’s hero’s journey of success, tribulation, failure and rebirth, through his childhood in the ‘50s, the tumultuous ‘60s, the hippie-influenced ‘70s, and the farm-crisis ‘80s, culminating in his transformation-based creation of a biodynamic, organic CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm serving 1500 families in the Chicago area with weekly fresh produce.

John Peterson's honesty, breadth of perspective, and his good fortune to have film clips from many of the periods of his life all make this an amazing story. The film has won many many awards. Very highly recommended.

US Congress to Vote on COPE Telecom Bill - Net Neutrality At Stake!

Costa Rica Rainforest Canopy Adventure

Dream Forest Canopy near Quepos/Manuel Antonio lets you travel above the rainforest, sliding along zip lines between raised platforms. My cousin Maurice is one of the company principals. I haven't done this myself, but it sounds amazing.

Concerts: Holly Near & John Bucchino

Singer/Songwriter/Activist Holly Near and Songwriter/Pianist John Bucchino are on tour, and I was fortunate enough to hear their fabulous concert in Manhattan. Recommended!

John Kamm's Mission by Frank Langfitt (NPR, Apr 20)

John Kamm's Mission is the story of a US Business Lobbyist who has used his connections in China to win the release of numerous Chinese political prisoners.

How the US moved to Alternative Energy Sources 2006-2056

How the US moved to Alternative Energy Sources, 2006-2056 is an inspiring 4-minute video.

SlamNation: A Film by Paul Devlin (1998)

SlamNation is a documentary of the 4-day National Poetry Slam held in Portland Oregon in 1998. Very enjoyable!

A Year to Live, A Year To Die

A Year to Live, A Year to Die was reported by Mary Beth Kirchner on National Public Radio on March 27, 2006. Mixing her interview with widow Rebecca Peterson with the excerpts from the audio diary that her dying husband Stewart Selman had recorded during his year-long decline from brain cancer, this 22 minute 49 second piece is touching and truthful.

The Little Coffee Plant that Wouldn't Die

The Little Coffee Plant that Wouldn't Die is a National Public Radio report by Robert Krulwich that aired on March 28, 2006. (6 min, 22 seconds; or read transcript on the web).

Film: Live & Become / Va, Vis et Deviens (Radu Mihaileanu, 2004)

Va, Vis et Deviens, or Live and Become is the Epic story of a young Ethiopian Christian refugee whose mother sends him to Israel at age 9, telling him to pretend he is a Jew, and what happens to him over the following 18 years. This is a beautiful and touching film on so many levels: the clash of ancient and modern cultures, coming to terms with racism, the refugee and immigrant experience, magnificently filmed and with a fabulous ensemble cast. Very highly recommended.

NY State Veterans Depleted Urananium/Hazardous Chemicals Testing/Registry/Care Act A9116

On Tuesday February 7th in Albany, New York, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx) hosted a press conference to introduce Bill A9116.

The bill assumes commits the New York State Adjutant General (presumably with assistance from the Department of Health) to finding causes and sources of illnesses that returning soldiers from overseas conflicts experience, when those soldiers at New York residents, and for enabling care for those illnesses of NY returning soldiers.

Similar bills are now law in Connecticut and Louisiana, unfortunately because the US Department of Defense and the US Veterans Administration are stonewalling veterns who return from Iraq will illnesses, although there is extensive evidence that theese veterans have contracted Radiation Sickness as a result of the large amount of depleted uraninian that US Forces are exposed to during their Iraq duties.

Following an article in the New York Daily News in 2004, briefings by some vets were held on Capitol Hill, but so far with little effect. Here is an excerpt from a letter by one national guard member, Herbert Rudolph Reed, that was sent to our Representatives before the 2005 briefing in Washington:

My NG Unit, the 442nd Military Police Company, Orangeburg, New York Armory, served in Samawah, Iraq in 2003. Our base and living area was within a railway yard, in this town which was a “burial” site for radioactive Iraqi tanks partially destroyed in the First Gulf War. Trenches were dug. The vehicles and equipment, “hot” with radioactivity from U.S. depleted uranium shells which had incapacitated them, were covered with desert sand. That sand where we camped was tested with Geiger counters by the Dutch military who were supposed to replace us when our deployment was over. They pronounced the area “uninhabitable.”

That highly contaminated desert sand was used to form traffic islands in the local roads we traveled. Our mess tent was next to the road. The microscopic particles of uranium, still radioactive of course, were continually blowing around for us to inhale and also ingest when we ate and even talked. Every morning we broom-swept the layers of brown dust which had settled on the floor. The train yard itself, where we slept every night for months, held abandoned flat cars with wrecks of Iraqi tanks sitting on them.

These tanks, I know now, contained uranium particles in a thick layer of “dust,” the product of the intense burn of the dense depleted uranium shells which had penetrated the tank armor and incinerated the occupants. Uranium oxides particles are microscopic and in the form of jagged molecules which, easily inhaled, lodge in the lungs, the kidneys, and eventually settle in the bones. Their active alpha rays steadily destroy adjacent cells including stem cells in the bone marrow and DNA strands.

I must emphasize here that I have learned all this after serving in Iraq. While serving there, none of us knew the danger we were in. I had never heard of depleted uranium. The U.S. Army had sent us
there with out mentioning the radioactivity, let alone supplying us with protective equipment.

When we returned to the United States, we of the 442nd had no ideas why we experienced sleeplessness, skin rashes, muscle and joint aches, enlarged thyroids, burning urination, blood in urine and stools, headaches, difficulty breathing and gum disease. Then we received our positive test results, funded by the Daily News, done in a German laboratory with an advanced mass spectometry testing process sensitive to the various isotopes of uranium, unlike the crude full body tests done by the VA. We learned that these symptoms, lumped into the phony category of “Gulf War Syndrome,” are in reality the symptoms of radiation poisoning. My positive test included U236, which, like U238, is only found in processed uranium. not in nature. One of us, Gerard Matthews fathered a beautiful baby girl with a specific anomaly, missing fingers, which is found now in Iraqi children and in at least one girl whose parent grew up next door to a DU weapon fabrication plant in this country..

Before we called Juan Gonzales of the Daily News, we tried to get answers to our illnesses through military channels. One of us, a medic, had heard of depleted uranium as a health issue. We approached the Medical staff at Fort Dix to inquire about a test for exposure. They promised to check with Walter Reed Hospital and notify us immediately upon receiving a reply. In one week we were summoned to a meeting.

At that meeting I lost all respect for the military after having given nineteen years, nine months and twenty days of faithful service to my country. We were told there was no test to detect depleted uranium in a human body. Our own word of mouth research had discovered the existence of an unmarked door in the basement of an unmarked building which led to a special unit set up to test soldiers suspected of being exposed to depleted uranium. Several members of our unit went to Washington and asked to be tested but were refused. We immediately contacted our Senators, Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer. Senator Clinton had served on the Armed Services Committee. She expressed interest in our plight and held a press conference on the subject. At this point, we began to receive more cooperation from the VA.

We were amazed by what we learned. The Department of Defense had issued after the first Gulf War several Army Regulations (ARS) on the subject of depleted uranium’s danger to human health. These were endorsed by the Armed Services Committee including Senator Clinton. Those regs have never been followed in this present Iraq War although uranium munitions are being delivered all over the country by Abrams tanks, armored vehicles, A-10 Warthog planes, missiles. Every soldier was supposed to receive a full physical prior to being sent to a combat area, including blood and urine tests which would be repeated upon return to civilian life to identify contamination.

For example, Army Regulation 700-48, Headquarters, Department Of The Army, Washington, D.C. September 16, 2002, was the result of Major Douglas Rokke’s mission to clean up the initial radioactive debris from the First Gulf War. It states in part that
1) Military personnel “identify, segregate, isolate, secure, and label all RCE--radiologically contaminated equipment.
2) Procedures to minimize the spread of radioactivity will be implemented as soon as possible.
3) Radioactive material and waste will not be locally disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration or abandonment.”

It also mandates that the Commander, U.S. Army will “provide general awareness (of radioactive materials) to all soldiers who are currently entering or in the U.S. Army.” We are living proof that none of this has been done. Directives are arrogantly ignored that require the United States DOD officials to provide prompt and effective medical care of all exposed individuals (Medical Management of Unusual Depleted Uranium Casualties-Pentagon 10/14/93.)

Here we have 12 year old information that could have prevented others from becoming contaminated, and it was concealed. We have not been protected from this radioactive poison. Our government is riskng its own troops and the human gene pool. I think this is a crime and requires a full investigation. Ten of our ill “Daily News Vets” have retained counsel and filed a notice of claim against the United States Government that we will file a lawsuit in Federal Court.

Will we never learn from our mistakes? All who have served in these contaminated areas, which now includes Baghdad, Fallujah and the Western towns being bombed this June will not know why they are sick or where to turn for help. I think we are only asking for what was promised us when we joined our Armed Forces to serve our country. We think it is time they held up their part of the bargain, and we will not wait another thirty years before they tell the TRUTH.

Congress, the governmental arm of the people, must be a vehicle for exposing and changing this truth. There are too many lives at stake, and we are talking about future generations, about men and women having children and then grandchildren with deformities and cancers, their genes altered forever. Do we really need this? Don’t we have enough diseases we cannot cure now? A crime is being perpetuated against our soldiers and future generations. I pray that you as members of Congress get on board, support our day in Washington by attending our briefing and by helping us make this best kept of all criminal secrets known to all Americans. If you support the truth, you will support the troops.