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POPSVatican Condemns Hallowe'en Last year a newspaper controlled by the Italian bishops, Avvenire, called for a boycott of Hallowe'en, calling it a "dangerous celebration of horror and the macabre" which could encourage "pitiless sects without scruples". Earlier this week the Catholic Church in Spain also condemned the growing popularity of Halloween, saying it threatened to overshadow the Christian festival of All Saints' Day. The Bishop of Siguenza-Guadalajara, Jose Sanchez, said there was a risk that Halloween could "replace Christian customs like devotion to saints and praying for the dead."
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POPSStop Begging Obama and Get Mad
The right wing is not wrong. It is not the problem. We are the problem. If we do not tap into the justifiable anger sweeping across the nation, if we do not militantly push back against corporate fraud and imperial wars that we cannot win or afford, the political vacuum we have created will be filled with right-wing lunatics and proto-fascists. The goons will inherit power not because they are astute, but because we are weak and inept. Violence is a dark undercurrent of American history. It is exacerbated by war and economic decline. Violence is spreading outward from the killing fields in Iraq and Afghanistan to slowly tear apart individuals, families and communities. There is no immunity. The longer the wars continue, the longer the members of our working class are transformed by corporate overlords into serfs, the more violence will dominate the landscape. The slide into chaos and a police state will become inevitable. The soldiers and Marines who return from Iraq and Afghanis
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POPSThe Coarsening of Culture The undercurrent of bigotry is erupting with increasing frequency. From the "grass roots", hate filled ravings of the tea baggers to the backwater swamps of rural Georgia. I grew up surrounded by these people. All they needed was an excuse and now they've found it among the likes of Glen Beck and other purveyors of propaganda to stir up the mob. The FBI is investigating bringing a charge of hate crimes against this scumbag. I hope they do.
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POPSNick Cave on Mark: Jesus' anger, loneliness, and desperation Nick Cave describes his fascination with and attraction to Mark in very sophisticated terms, identifying as key elements of Marcan theology a kind of pressured narrative urgency, a constant undercurrent of conflict, the isolation and anger that seem to characterize Jesus' own inner life, hopeless incomprehension on the part of his own family and followers, a looming, desperate awareness of the cross, and the restless activity of Jesus' "jewel-like imagination." Seen at Christopher Cocca's blog (bit.ly/11zhE6).
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POPSCountdown: Tea Parties Part of an Astroturf Movement A video by bloggerinterrupted showcases a string of protesters from a Feb. 27 event in Cleveland who don't believe President Obama was born in the United States. Any good protest will have its fringe weirdos, but the birth certificate deniers may be emerging as an undercurrent in the tea party movement -- D.C. tea party organizers booked Obama-birth-certificate-skeptic Alan Keyes to speak at the tax day event outside the Treasury Department.
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POPSAuto Bailout's Death Seen as a Republican Blow at Unions A bit far fetched to say that a political party would stoop so low as to sacrifice a potentially fine industry (alternative vehicles leading the way) just to take a swipe at the Unions. It is saying that Republicans and their supporters are willing to cause ruination on the nation. Crazy! Especially in times they should realize require cooperation.
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POPSM.F.K. Fisher's An Alphabet for Gourmets – full text available online More: An Alphabet For Gourmets, P-R P is for peas…naturally!…and for a few reasons why the best peas I ever ate in my life were, in truth, the best peas I ever ate in my life. An Alphabet For Gourmets, S-V S is for sad…and for the mysterious appetite that often surges in us when our hearts seem breaking and our lives too bleakly empty. An Alphabet For Gourmets, W-Z W is for wanton…and the great difference between the way a man eats and has his lady love eat.
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POPSZeitgeist of the US Clipped is the preamble to a very short article explaining what is meant by anti-science and some of the ramifications of it. Since there is an undercurrent in the US that is anti-science I thought this would be a nice introduction to this topic.
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POPSClean Food Initiatives: Island Bounty, SA - Aquaculture "Clean Food" is a global issue. Aquaculture can change the way we eat and live throughthe participationof the global communtity as a whole. Island Bounty is leading the way to a new "blue revolution" whereby many countries work together. I am really glad to see them doing so well towards that end.
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POPSCause For Alarm "Mr. Boren believes that the combination of unrestrained partisanship and the corrosive influence of big money have all but paralyzed the political process. He worries about the neglect of the nation’s infrastructure, about the growing divide between the very wealthy and everyone else, and about “the catastrophic drop in the way the rest of the world views us.” Listen, I love my country, but the writing is on the wall. We can't ignore this any longer or there will be great suffering. The alarm is ringing loud . . . just listen.
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POPSFirst Israeli Sex Festival "In fact, many men are battered by women in Israel on a daily basis and never complain to the police out of embarrassment. Does openness about sex lead to violence? Research says no. It also states that domestic violence statistics show that violence is just as prevalent in gay and lesbian relationships as it is in heterosexual couples."
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POPSThe Note That Makes Us Weep
More: But the high C has a more visceral, spine-tingling lure. “The reason it’s so exciting to people is, it’s based on the human cry,” said Maitland Peters, chairman of the voice department at the Manhattan School of Music. “It’s instinctual. It’s like a baby. You’re pulled into it.” When a tenor sings a ringing high C, it seems, “there’s nothing in his way,” Mr. Peters said. The pitch, in itself, has a satisfying quality. The key of C major, after all, is a stable, cheerful, happy key, the one with no sharps or flats. Fascination may also derive from the fact that high tenor notes are somewhat freakish. Women have high voices, and men have low voices. For a male to sing that high with such power somehow seems unnatural. With one important exception: through the 18th century, the most celebrated singers were castrati, boys altered before puberty who grew into men with powerful high voices. Un-altered tenors rarely got higher than an A without singing falsetto. Many of the
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POPS$2,500 and a Video iPod for Your Next Spot on YouTube Any Colorado-based clippers interested in this opportunity? What If? Colorado is a cool new effort headed by the Colorado Dept. of Public Health and Environment to educate residents in disaster preparedness. I am working with my team at Undercurrent to get the word out about this and would love to hear from you if you or your friends are interested. You can contact me at amanda undercurrent com or check out www.whatifcolorado.com. In any event, it's cool to see a state-backed effort engage residents via YouTube.
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POPSEngage or Die From a great new magazine on social media. This new media marketing manifesto by author Brian Solis is sure to galvanize any fair weather web marketer
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POPSInternet Flame Wars Some things said on the internet make Jerry Springer show's combatant guests seem benign, almost!
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