Badlands Journal
Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
12-18-21
Informed Content
Opioid Crisis: Purdue Pharma/ Sackler Family Fails in End Run around Justice
F. DOUGLAS STEPHENSON
https://www.juancole.com/2021/12/opioid-sackler-justice.html
“…For let no one ever forget that it was precisely in the limitation of permissible means that lay the strength of the most perfect formation heroism has ever received, that of medieval chivalry.
A story that began at UC Berkeley almost 20 years ago seems to have ended this fall. We don't mean to credit UCB with a positive role because its administration did what it could to buery the research and the head researcher, Ignacio Chapela. But Chapela persisted and prevailed and now the government and highest court of Mexico, the natal home of corn, appears to fully recognize the danger GMO-corn cultivation poses to the diversity of corn varieties that grow in Mexico. -- blj
Global warming, massive fires, and the wood-chip industry are creating a disastrous loop of destruction. -- blj
3-12-21
Dissent Voice
Burned-out Forests Are Not Re-Growing
by Robert Hunziker
https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/12/burned-out-forests-are-not-re-growing/
Nobody we know can discuss the relationship between education and society with both the focus and the breadth that Henry Giroux brings to this complex, vital collection of topics. And in these desperate times when the numbnut knuckleheads appear once again to be winning, Giroux's voice is more welcome and needed than ever. This is a long essay; take it bit by bit, let it enlighten and encourage you even as he describes the horrible intellectual and moral geology of the particular cave we're in right now. -- blj
DECEMBER 10, 2021
12-6-21
Los Angeles Times
California Rep. Devin Nunes leaving Congress to head Trump social media group
Seema Mehta, Jennifer Haberkorn
The VST development project was first conceived of in the 1990s, when the trust property was pledged to a burgeoning UC Merced. The university, which opened in 2005, was built on the trust land… In total, more 2,400 jobs and $8.9 million in city revenue is projected to come from the project, according to Merced Planning Manager Kim Espinosa. Merced City Council’s action on Monday gave support to the potential annexation of the VST development project. representing a critical step in a vision that is still decades in the making. – Merced Sun-Star, Nov 17, 2021
Address on Iraq, by Dominique de Villepin, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, at the UN Security Council
New-York, February 14, 2003
Mr. President,
Mr. Secretary-General,
Ministers,
Ambassadors,
Capitalism has become so desperate for profits, any profits, that it is escalating the pace at which it devours society, government, and ultimately itself. -- blj
10-1-21
CBSNews
Mail delivery slowdown: USPS to slow delivery starting October 1
BY AIMEE PICCHI
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mail-delivery-slower-usps-october-1/
Mail delivery for many Americans will slow starting on Friday, part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's blueprint for overhauling the U.S. Postal Service in order to slash costs. But critics say the slower delivery standards could cause problems such as late bill delivery while more broadly undermining the public's faith in the USPS. Almost 4 of 10 pieces of first-class mail will see slower delivery, according to Paul Steidler, senior fellow at the Lexington Institute and an expert on the postal service. That "means mail delivery will be slower than in the 1970s,"
The hijackers who carried out the attacks on 9/11, like all radical jihadist groups in the Middle East, spoke to us in the murderous language we taught them. I was in Times Square in New York City shortly after the second plane banked and plowed into the South Tower. The crowd looking up at the Jumbotron gasped in dismay at the billowing black smoke and the fireball that erupted from the tower. There was no question now that the two attacks on the Twin Towers were acts of terrorism. The earlier supposition, that perhaps the pilot had a heart attack or lost control of the plane when it struck the North Tower seventeen minutes earlier, vanished with the second attack. The city fell into a collective state of shock. Fear palpitated throughout the streets. Would they strike again? Where? Was my family safe? Should I go to work? Should I go home? What did it mean? Who would do this? Why?