kalmiopsis

sandandglass: Stephen Colbert deconstructs the meaning of One...

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 22:01:11 -0400

Stephen Colbert deconstructs the meaning of One Direction’s lyrics.

nativevoice: Sexual violence is tearing Native American...

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 21:19:47 -0400

Sexual violence is tearing Native American communities apart

by Lauren Wolfe and Lauren Chief Elk for guardian.co.uk

“The Northern Cheyenne people have a saying: “A nation is not defeated until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it’s finished. No matter how brave its warriors, or how strong its weapons.” Well, we are pretty sure that for much of the Native American community, the nation is near defeat.

What else can we say when one out of every three Native American women report they have been raped, or that an attempt has been made to sexually brutalise them? That is more than 2.5 times the national average. And if you think those numbers are staggering, consider who is carrying out these attacks: at least 86% of sexual assaults are reportedly being perpetrated by non-Native men, according to the US department of justice.”

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Sat, 08 Sep 2012 21:06:27 -0400

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Sat, 08 Sep 2012 21:05:06 -0400

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Sat, 08 Sep 2012 21:02:02 -0400

LOTR Stained Glass Drawings

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 19:43:00 -0400

LOTR Stained Glass Drawings:

"“The company sold illegally treated bird food for two years before it voluntarily recalled the..."

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 19:38:54 -0400

“

“The company sold illegally treated bird food for two years before it voluntarily recalled the products in March 2008, prosecutors said. It treated the food to try to protect it from insect infestations during storage, but the pesticides it used were toxic to birds and barred by the EPA.

The company also submitted false documents to the EPA and to state agencies in an attempt to deceive them, prosecutors said.”

”

- Pesticide violations cost Scott’s Miracle-Gro $12.5 million

Related: Scott’s to pay $4.5 million in fines over false paperwork, toxic birdseed

"Lets follow the chain. Subsistence farmers in Mexico are forced off their land so a transnational..."

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 19:00:17 -0400

““Lets follow the chain. Subsistence farmers in Mexico are forced off their land so a transnational agricorporation can grow tomatoes on the land that used to be theirs. The soil of this land quickly becomes toxified by the use of pesticides. The local river—which has forever been the source of water for local villages—is ruined by the pesticide and fertilizer runoff from the new tomato fields. Or it would be ruined if it hadn’t already been diverted for irrigation.
Now utterly impoverished, one of the men who used to live on this land (and whose wife is now dead from cancer and whose children are now brain-damaged from pesticides) leaves these children with his mother and crosses the (heavily guarded) border into the United States, which happens to be the destination for the tomatoes grown on the land that used to be his. He works his way toward Spokane. Along the way he is robbed at gunpoint twice, beaten thrice, and raped once. Of course employers steal his labor any number of times. One night in Spokane he is hungry. He has no money. He goes to a dumpster. It is locked. Inside are a couple dozen crates of tomatoes—coincidentally tomatoes that were grown on land that used to be his. He can’t get at them. Tomorrow morning these tomatoes will be taken to the incinerator and burned (insofar as tomatoes can burn at all). Whatever ash is left from the tomatoes will not even nourish any soil, because the incinerator is at the same time burning all sorts of other wastes, including plastic containers that formerly held toxic chemicals used to manufacture pesticides that were sprayed on the land where the man used to live.
This makes no sense.
This is how the system works.””

- Derrick Jensen and Aric McBay, What We Leave Behind

thepeoplesrecord: “Jails and prisons are designed to break...

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:59:24 -0400

thepeoplesrecord:

“Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo - obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.” - Angela Davis

manabouttown: (via davidcho)

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:05:15 -0400

manabouttown:

(via davidcho)

inothernews: URSA MAJOR… INFRACTION A Greenpeace activist,...

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:57:54 -0400

inothernews:

URSA MAJOR… INFRACTION A Greenpeace activist, dressed as a polar bear, sits inside a police car after being detained outside Gazprom’s headquarters in Moscow, Russia, on Sept. 5, 2012. Russian and international environmentalists are protesting against Gazprom’s plans to pioneer oil drilling in the Arctic. (Photo: Misha Japaridze / AP via NBC News)

It’s Putin’s Russia, so we’ll probably never hear from this protestor again.

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Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:11:12 -0400

"The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he..."

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:07:49 -0400

“The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect,
he becomes an adolescent;
the day he forgives them,
he becomes an adult;
the day he forgives himself,
he becomes wise.”

- Alden Nowlan, poet, novelist, and playwright (1933-1983) (via rainpetals)

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Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:58:28 -0400

There’s this place in Ireland where every 2 years, the stars...

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 14:17:37 -0400

There’s this place in Ireland where every 2 years, the stars line up with this trail on June 10th-June 18th. It’s called the Heaven’s Trail.

motherjones: Gay Marriage Seed Art at the Minnesota State Fair

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 13:41:53 -0400

motherjones:

Gay Marriage Seed Art at the Minnesota State Fair

sexmusic: ready to start // arcade fire

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 13:22:50 -0400

sexmusic:

ready to start // arcade fire

"The big lie about capitalism is that everyone can be rich. That’s impossible. Capitalism works only..."

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 13:17:08 -0400

“The big lie about capitalism is that everyone can be rich. That’s impossible. Capitalism works only if the vast majority of the population are kept poor enough to never quit working, are kept poor enough to accept distasteful jobs society cannot function without. If everyone were a millionaire, who would empty the trash or repair the sewers? It follows that the poorer the general population is made, the greater the worth of the money held by the wealthy, in terms of the lives which may be bought and sold with it.”

- Michael Rivero (via fucknobigbrother)

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Fri, 31 Aug 2012 12:24:14 -0400

rhamphotheca: Meganeura … a genus of extinct insects from...

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 11:40:25 -0400

rhamphotheca:

Meganeura

… a genus of extinct insects from the Carboniferous period approximately 300 million years ago, which resembled and are related to the present-day dragonflies. With wingspans of up to 65 cm (2.1 ft), M. monyi is one of the largest known flying insect species; the Permian Meganeuropsis permiana is another. Meganeura were predatory, and fed on other insects, and even small amphibians.

Controversy has prevailed as to how insects of the Carboniferous period were able to grow so large. The way oxygen isdiffused through the insect’s body via its tracheal breathing system puts an upper limit on body size, which prehistoric insects seem to have well exceeded. It was originally proposed that Meganeura was only able to fly because the atmosphere at that time contained more oxygen than the present 20%. This theory was dismissed by fellow scientists, but has found approval more recently through further study into the relationship between gigantism and oxygen availability. If this theory is correct, these insects would have been susceptible to falling oxygen levels and certainly could not survive in our modern atmosphere…

(read more: Wikipedia) (images: T - illustration by Dodoni; B - photo by Hcrepin)