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Will the Real WTO Please Stand Up?

Thanks for having me on your blog David! Wanted to add a note about this brilliant film I saw last night at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival Closing Night. Identity imposters, The Yes Men take over www.gatt.org and get invited to conferences as official reps from the WTO... the rest is stunning commentary about the state of the world; our relationship to authority, econmics, and justice; and just how gullible people with advanced degrees are.

Draft Bruce to Belt it Out for the USA?

Some of you have probably already seen this. Concert promoter, Democratic activist and the guy behind the Personal Democracy Forum, Andrew Rasiej has put Giants Stadium on hold for September 1 (the same day Bush will be nominated at the RNC), hoping Bruce will get on board and agree to sing. So far, the Boss is sticking to his guns and saying he won't, but Andrew is hoping this petition will change his mind.

Thanks for that post David - no interruption at all.

Sorry to Interrupt...

Sorry to interrupt Anna, but I have to post this update from the New York Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty:

The New York State Court of Appeals has overturned the death sentence of Stephen LaValle because of an unconstitutional provision in the statute and in the process has emptied New York's Death Row and has put a stop to efforts to seek the death penalty in pending cases. In the process, the Court has invalidated the state's death penalty.

The State Legislature will obviously be asked to rewrite the law so that the death penalty can be implemented in New York State. The revised law could turn out to be much, much worse.

Newsday is conducting an e-poll asking whether there should or should not be a death penalty in New York. Please vote at www.newsday.com.

NYADP has prepared an op ed piece that we hope will appear in tomorrow's Newsday. Please consider writing a letter to the editor of any newspaper you read. NYADP is formulating a legislative strategy. We will keep you posted.

Stay tuned for further news.

Moratorium Now!!!!!!
This is the time.

There's also news in the New York Times.

Something I just stumbled on...

Take a look at Drive-Thru Barbie...

And Now for Something Completely Local (with National Implications)

I'm posting a long-winded, hot-headed letter I just wrote and emailed to some elected officials here about a stadium development project proposed for a few blocks away from my Brooklyn apartment (it seems much longer in this blog than it did on paper). Last weekend, the organizers of "develop don't destroy-brooklyn" hosted a community block party and rally in protest of the development. I just got an email saying that the City Council will vote on Monday. See more here. As I say below in the letter, this whole thing -- claiming eminent domain to push people out of their homes, claiming stadium development brings job growth and economic booms -- has been proven wrong time and time again in cities across the country. Plus, on a very personal note, I love my neighborhood and don't want to see it bulldozed over by developers who don't ensure affordable housing or equal opportunity employment who create more breeding grounds for McDonalds.

The Letter:

To Whom it May Concern:

I came home to my Ft. Greene apartment last week to discover the full-color promotional brochure for the “Atlantic Yards” – the name for the new stadium-and-condo complex planned for my neighborhood.

With its full-color spread of smiling faces and laundry list of benefits of the development, it was still just high-priced propaganda. With its tear-out reply card, it was also a bald-faced bribe to get the community “show” its support: Everyone who checked “Yes, I support the Atlantic Yards!” and sent it in was promised free tickets to a basketball game in the proposed new stadium.

What the fancy brochure failed to mention are the dozens of legitimate concerns that citizen groups have voiced about the development through the organizing work of “Develop Don’t Destroy-Brooklyn.”

The fancy brochure failed to mention how these concerns have been silenced by developers. (The one community meeting I tried to attend was canceled without warning, and community members at the recent public forum had to wait five hours to testify, by which point most of the daily media had already left to begin filing their stories).

In cities across the country, we’ve seen the same process unfold: Rich investors and gung-ho developers promise the world in exchange for stadium development – jobs, tax revenue, family entertainment. The stadiums are built. The jobs are fewer than expected, the tax revenue less than predicted, the benefits of entertainment overshadowed by congestion, traffic, noise, and crowds. In Pittsburgh, Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, we’ve seen it all before. The verdict on stadium development is in: Stadiums never bring all the benefits developers promise. Why, then, should hundreds of million of public dollars go to this project? Why, then, should hundreds of families lose their homes? Why should our elected officials, those who are supposed to represent the interests of the majority of the community, bow to the demands of high-rolling developers?

One of the defining characteristics of our neighborhood (Ft. Greene and Prospect Heights) is the local, small businesses that make up the commercial real estate here. By bringing in multinational franchises such as Red Lobster, KFC, and McDonalds, the proposed plan would fundamentally change the nature of the neighborhood.

Economists and urban planners have proven the strongest urban economies are localized ones, where dollars circulate within communities. With the influx of these mega-chains we will not only lose local flavor, we will lose our strong, localized economy.

Traffic, already at extraordinarily high levels (haven’t we all been stuck in stop-and-go Flatbush traffic at 3 in the afternoon, 3 in the morning, and every hour in between?), will be worsened by the presence of more than 15,000 visitors on game nights and thousands more in the stadium, condos, and mall slated for development.

Air quality will further be affected by increased congestion and development.

Cultural traditions, on which this borough was built, will be eviscerated with the imposition of high-rises in place of Brownstones and sports bars in the place of corner stores.

It would be a travesty to the cultural legacy and the economic health of this incredible borough – not to mention the democratic process – for Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards plan to be approved.

As a resident of this community, I strongly oppose the plan, as do hundreds of my other like-minded neighbors.

Sincerely,

Anna Lappé
Ft. Greene, Brooklyn

French Fries are Fresh Vegetables

Woke up this morning to this little piece of news: In the fuzzy-logic land of the USDA, French fries are now considered fresh vegetables. Read on... who even knew that there was a Frozen Potato Products Institute?

"The Frozen Potato Products Institute appealed to the USDA in 2000 to change its definition of fresh produce... to include batter-coated, frozen french fries, arguing that rolling potato slices in a starch coating, frying them and freezing them is the equivalent of waxing a cucumber or sweetening a strawberry. The USDA agreed and, on June 2, 2003, the agency amended its [Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act] rules to include what is described in court documents as the "Batter-Coating Rule."
From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Chew On This

So for the chapter I'm working on I just trolled through some USDA figures and learned that last year we exported 2.5 billion pounds of beef (officially it's: "beef and veal, measured in carcass weight"), which is about 10 percent of our total production. But get this, we also imported 3 billion pounds of beef the same year. Just a little fact from an international food system that spends more money moving things around than paying farmers and farm workers fair wages. A food system in which you can find yourself in Wisconsin near some of the best dairy farms in the country but not find any local cheese, or live in New York City near some of the best apple orchards and only find Fujis from New Zealand. Now, post-espresso, post-post, I'm back to work.

Uncle Sam Wants You Fat (really)

Just got this news alert from the folks at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: Turns out USDA is partnering with Nabisco, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, and other companies in their fight against obesity. Call me crazy, but aren't those the guys who are making us fat in the first place?

Here's a little piece from the PCRM's latest action alert - trying to get USDA to end its partnership with Nabisco: "the USDA is currently partnering with Nabisco to push kids to eat more Oreos and Chips Ahoy cookies and to drink more milk. The recently completed “Dunk and Win” cookie contest, which awarded $1 million to the holder of a “special Oreo cookie” that, when dunked, turned milk blue, was touted by the dairy industry as “the most successful retail milk promotion ever conducted under the check-off program.”

Apparently this program was so successful, the USDA plans to launch another: "Spell M-I-L-K with specially marked Oreo cookies and win $100,000. A third milk-and-cookies sweepstakes—this one aimed at school children—is set to kick off in August." You can ask the USDA to get real here.

That Crazy Person Called a Corporation

In the same vein as my previous post (about the corporate slam on the Super Size Me director) I thought I'd give a shout-out for a new film that helps us understand that wacky modern-day invention: the corporation.

Appropriately called "The Corporation," the Canadian documentary has been getting lots of buzz since its big splash at Sundance earlier this year. From its website: “The film is a timely, critical inquiry that invites CEOs, whistle-blowers, brokers, gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits on a graphic and engaging quest to reveal the corporation’s inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures.”

Our friend Jane Akre -- who, along with her journalist husband Steve Wilson, felt the corporate pinch (so to speak) when they dared to report on questions about rBGH growth hormone in dairy cows -- writes to us: “You may recall my run in with Fox. It is in the film among many stories of corporate greed run amuck. Many compelling characters, among them Michael Moore, corporate insiders, a couple of CEO's, marketing professionals who brag how you are manipulated...It is very important for our times.” (See the film to learn how her story ends.)

As far as I'm concerned, any film that casts Noam Chomsky and Milton Friedman, has got to be interesting.

For those of you in NYC, it opens at the Film Forum on June 30th, with the filmmakers at the 6pm show. Or check out www.thecorporation.tv for screenings across the country. If your local independent isn’t showing it, don’t hesitate to ask them. They are always open to audience requests.

... okay, now back to work ...

procrastination or communication?

David asked me to spend a week posting to his blog. It seemed a dangerous new form of procrastination for me as I try to finish helping my mother work on the first draft of a remake of her awkwardly titled (but of course brilliant!) 1994 book, The Quickening of America. (She didn't get my reference to Highlander, which up until then had been the only time I'd heard the word quickening before. We're still working on a new title.)

I was just perusing what has been posted recently and thought I'd jump into the Super Size Me fray with a link to this industry-funded slam-Spurlock site. You know you're making an impact when you've got industry PR flacks on your back.