The Tikkun Toronto Newsletter                 
Summer newsletters issued Irregularly

Compiled and edited by Peter Marmorek                                                      
Year Five; Issue 27

1. Tikkun: Upcoming Meeting
2.  Georgia, Russia, and the Backstory
3.  Some Views on Israel
4.   Climate Change
5.  Not Quite as It Seems
6.  Mad. Completely Mad.
7.  Fighting the War on Drugs
8.  The Language Lab
9.  Eyecandy: Strange Animals
10. Quote of the Week

1.   Tikkun Coming Attractions
* The Divination Spirit Meeting is on Thursday, August 28th, at 7:30 pm at Anne and Michael’s (Map here) Focus: Open discussion on Astrology, Tarot, I Ching, etc... A last note: The Israel Stories have now been listened to 3166 times...have you heard them yet?

2. What is Happening, and Why
* The Nelson Report (via the Agonist)
Many both outside and even inside the Bush administration predicted that the U.S. decision to champion Kosovo independence without Serbian consent would lead Moscow to become more assertive in establishing its presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Kremlin made abundantly clear that it would view Kosovo's independence without Serbian consent and a U.N. Security Council mandate as a precedent for the two Georgian de facto independent enclaves. Furthermore, while President Saakashvili was making obvious his ambition to reconquer Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moscow was both publicly and privately warning that Georgia's use of force to reestablish control of the two regions would meet a tough Russian reaction, including, if needed, air strikes against Georgia proper.

* Gorbachev’s Perspective (The Guardian)
The roots of this tragedy lie in the decision of Georgia's separatist leaders in 1991 to abolish South Ossetian autonomy. Each time successive Georgian leaders tried to impose their will by force - both in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, where the issues of autonomy are similar - it only made the situation worse. What happened on the night of August 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas. Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against "small, defenceless Georgia" is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity.

* How the US Invited a War in South Ossetia (Counterpunch)
The writing has been on the wall for months. Georgian President Saakashvili’s fawning over Western leaders at the “emergency” NATO meeting in April and his pre-election anti-Russian bluster in May made it clear to all that Georgia is the more-than-willing canary in the Eastern mine shaft. The Georgian attack on South Ossetia’s capital Tskhinvali — I repeat — just hours after Saakashvili declared a cease-fire, looks very much like an attempt to reincorporate the rebel province into Georgia unilaterally. But whoever is advising the brash young president ignores the postscript — no pasaran! South Ossetia has been independent for 16 years and is not likely to drape flowers on invading Georgia tanks. It also just happens to have Russia as patron.

3. Two Perspectives on Israel
* An Israeli Jew in Gaza (Jeff Halper) (Who’s he?)
This is why I, an Israeli Jew, felt compelled to join this voyage to break the siege. As a person who seeks a just peace with the Palestinians, who understands (despite what our politicians tell us) that they are not our enemies but rather people seeking precisely what we sought and fought for – national self-determination  I cannot stand idly aside. I can no more passively witness my government’s destruction of another people than I can watch the Occupation destroy the moral fabric of my own country. To do so would violate my commitment to human rights, the very essence of prophetic Jewish religion, culture and morals, without which Israel is no longer Jewish but an empty, if powerful, Sparta.

* The Country that Wouldn’t Grow Up (Haaretz, Tony Judt) (Who’s he?)
By the age of 58 a country - like a man - should have achieved a certain maturity. After nearly six decades of existence we know, for good and for bad, who we are, what we have done and how we appear to others, warts and all. We acknowledge, however reluctantly and privately, our mistakes and our shortcomings. And though we still harbor the occasional illusion about ourselves and our prospects, we are wise enough to recognize that these are indeed for the most part just that: illusions. In short, we are adults. 
But the State of Israel remains curiously (and among Western-style democracies, uniquely) immature. The social transformations of the country - and its many economic achievements - have not brought the political wisdom that usually accompanies age. Seen from the outside, Israel still comports itself like an adolescent: consumed by a brittle confidence in its own uniqueness; certain that no one "understands" it and everyone is "against" it; full of wounded self-esteem, quick to take offense and quick to give it. Like many adolescents Israel is convinced - and makes a point of aggressively and repeatedly asserting - that it can do as it wishes, that its actions carry no consequences and that it is immortal.

4. Useful Tools for Climate Change
* Climate Time Line (Cal Tech)
A series of interactive visualizations that allow you to see how sea ice, CO2, and temperature have been changing over recent time. Dramatically impressive.

* Learning to Speak Climate (Friedman, NY Times)
My trip with Denmark’s minister of climate and energy, Connie Hedegaard, to see the effects of climate change on Greenland’s ice sheet leaves me with a very strong opinion: Our kids are going to be so angry with us one day. We’ve charged their future on our Visa cards. We’ve added so many greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, for our generation’s growth, that our kids are likely going to spend a good part of their adulthood, maybe all of it, just dealing with the climate implications of our profligacy. And now our leaders are telling them the way out is “offshore drilling” for more climate-changing fossil fuels. Madness. Sheer madness.

* Prepare for Four Degree Rise in Temperature (Guardian)
The UK should take active steps to prepare for dangerous climate change of perhaps 4C according to one of the government's chief scientific advisers....Globally, a 4C temperature rise would have a catastrophic impact. According to the government's 2006 Stern review on the economics of climate change, between 7 million and 300 million more people would be affected by coastal flooding each year, there would be a 30-50% reduction in water availability in Southern Africa and the Mediterranean, agricultural yields would decline 15 to 35% in Africa and 20 to 50% of animal and plant species would face extinction.

5. Things That are Not Quite As They Seem
* Anthrax and the Real Questions about ABC (Salon)
ABC News, including Peter Jennings, repeatedly claimed that the presence of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks, since... "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons." Surely the question of who generated those false Iraq-anthrax reports is one of the most significant and explosive stories of the last decade. The motive to fabricate reports of bentonite and a link to Saddam is glaring. ...ABC News already knows the answers to these questions. They know who concocted the false bentonite story and who passed it on to them with the specific intent of having them broadcast those false claims to the world, in order to link Saddam to the anthrax attacks and -- as importantly -- to conceal the real culprit(s) (apparently within the U.S. government) who were behind the attacks. And yet, unbelievably, they are keeping the story to themselves, refusing to disclose who did all of this. They're allegedly a news organization, in possession of one of the most significant news stories of the last decade, and they are concealing it from the public, even years later.

* Children Don’t Make You Happy? (Newsweek)
The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term "bundle of joy" may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University's Robin Simon, a sociology professor who's conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. "In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It's such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they're not."

* OMG! Iran Has Nukes! (Cartoon)

6. A Few Clowns Short of a Circus
* The Poisoned Rainbow Conspiracy
Stunning in its stupidity, a woman films a rainbow in a water sprinkler while observing that rainbows never used to be this small or close to the ground, and it’s surely because the government has put contaminated metallic salts in the water supply. Makes General Jack D Ripper look like Ron Paul....

* Fail Builts
Architectural designs that are so wrong.

* How To Irritate People
Cleese, Palin, and Chapman in a pre-Python skit.

7. Fighting the War on Drugs
* America’s Never Ending Prohibition
America's marijuana prohibition drew into its 72nd year this month. It has created a huge underground industry catering to users, helped the U.S. prison population balloon into the world's largest, and diverted the resources of American law enforcement. What it has not done is keep Americans from using marijuana.

* The War on Drugs. Or Whatever (cartoon)

* Cannabis Magazine Wants You! (Craigslist)
I am the current editor, and I am too swamped with other tasks to continue to get the 112-page magazine out on time every two months. I am also the publisher so I will supervise the hiring and training of the selected applicant. I will always be around to help with sources, writers, artists, photographers. 

8. Language Lab Experiments
* The 100 Most Common English Words
See how many of the 100 most common words in the English language you can guess in 5 minutes... Great puzzle– your editor scored an embarrassing 33/100. Send your scores to the newsletter...

* Rules Grammar Change (One minute Onion audio broadcast)

* Reads Your Browser History– Guesses Your Gender
So what I did is I modified the SocialHistory JS so that it polled the browser to find out which of the Quantcast top 10k sites were visited. I then apply the ratio of male to female users for each site and with some basic math determine a guessimate of your gender. (Editor’s note: it was 94% confident I was male, which -amazingly- is about how confident I am)

9. Eyecandy: Strange Animals
* The Ajolote
* The What is it? (photo: Diana Meredith. Send answers to newsletter)
* Chacoan Peccary
* Pablo Picasso’s Bull

10. Quote of the Week
* “Texas is not bound by the World Court.” Office of the Texas Attorney General




=====================================

See who we are and what we're about to do.

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.

Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.

You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
 
                                        The Talmud
=====================================

The Tikkun Toronto Newsletter                 
Summer newsletters only every second week

Compiled and edited by Peter Marmorek                                                      
Year Five; Issue 27

1.   Tikkun: Upcoming Meeting
2.  Running While Black
3.  The US Economy and Class
4.   Incarceration, Oppression, and Comics
5.  Political Humor
6.  The Sound of Ticking Clocks
7.  This Digital World
8.  Plane Truth
9.  Waking on Water
10.  Eyecandy: Round the World
11. Quote of the Week

1.   Tikkun Coming Attractions
* The Divination Spirit Meeting is on Thursday, August 28th, at 7:30 pm at Anne and Michael’s (Map here) Focus: Open discussion on Astrology, Tarot, I Ching, etc...

2. Is Obama Guilty of “Running While Black”?
* New York Times Explores the Implications
Now, from the hapless but increasingly venomous McCain campaign, comes the slimy Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. The two highly sexualized women (both notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear) are shown briefly and incongruously at the beginning of a commercial critical of Mr. Obama.... [The ad is] designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women. The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control.

* McCain Changes Lanes (The New Yorker)
Throughout his long career in politics, McCain, who called his PAC Straight Talk America, has presented frankness as his fundamental virtue. If his positions—on campaign finance, on immigration reform, on the Bush tax cuts—were unpopular with either the White House or the Republican Party faithful, that just showed that he was willing to tackle the tough issues...The past few weeks have seen a change in McCain. He has hired new advisers, and with them he seems to have worked out a new approach. He is no longer telling the sorts of hard truths that people would prefer not to confront, or even half-truths that they might find vaguely discomfiting. Instead, he’s opted out of truth altogether. “Well, that certainly didn’t take long,” the Times observed....

* Obama and McCain Tax Proposals (Washington Post)
Great graphic image!

3. Class and the US Economy
* America’s Forgotten Poor (The Guardian)
Their growing poverty is highlighted in a report that ranked the US 42nd in terms of life expectancy, behind almost every other developed country. Just as damning, the US has dropped from second in terms of human development in 1990 to 12th place now and has a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world’s richest countries. Some 14% of the population – 40 million Americans – lack basic literacy.

* The Fall of the Middle Class (Alternet)
Our economic reality is as brutal as it is for a simple reason: whether we like it or not, we are in the midst of revolutionary economic changes. In the kind of breathtakingly ironic development that only real life can imagine, the collapse of the Soviet Union has allowed global capitalism to get into the political unfreedom business, turning China and the various impoverished dictatorships and semi-dictatorships of the third world into the sweatshop of the earth. This development ...[leaves] us with a service/managerial economy that simply cannot support the vast, healthy middle class our government used to work very hard to both foster and protect.

* The Upper Class Gets Punished (cartoon)

* The Suicide Solution (Barbara Ehrenreich)
Death is an effective remedy for debt, along with anything else that may be bothering you too. And try to think of it too from a lofty, corner-office, perspective: If you can’t pay your debts or afford to play your role as a consumer, and if, in addition – like an ever-rising number of Americans – you’re no longer needed at the workplace, then there’s no further point to your existence. I’m not saying that the creditors, the bankers and the mortgage companies actually want you dead, but in a culture where one’s credit rating is routinely held up as a three-digit measure of personal self-worth, the correct response to insoluble debt is in fact, “Just shoot me!”

4. Incarceration, Oppression and Comic Summaries
* Welcome to the Age of Incarceration (Mother Jones)
...beginning in 2000, I spent nearly four years shadowing a woman who'd just been released from prison. She'd been locked up for 16 years for a first-time drug crime, and her absence had all but destroyed her family. Her mother had taken in her four young children after her arrest, only to die prematurely of kidney failure. One daughter was deeply depressed, the other was seething with rage, and her youngest son had followed her lead, diving into the neighborhood drug culture and then winding up in prison himself. The criminal justice system had punished not only her but her entire family.

* But Who’s Really Number One? (cartoon)

* As Seen through Comics by One of America’s Greatest Historians
Now Howard Zinn, historian Paul Buhle, and cartoonist Mike Konopacki have collaborated to retell, in vibrant comics form, a most immediate and relevant chapter of A People’s History: the centuries-long story of America’s actions in the world. Narrated by Zinn, this version opens with the events of 9/11 and then jumps back to explore the cycles of U.S. expansionism from Wounded Knee to Iraq, stopping along the way at World War I, Central America, Vietnam, and the Iranian revolution. The book also follows the story of Zinn, the son of poor Jewish immigrants, from his childhood in the Brooklyn slums to his role as one of America’s leading historians.

5. The Footsteps of the Rough Beast Approach
* 100 Months...and Counting
Eight years, four months, and a handful of days: or less. As Andrew Simms writes in the UK Guardian, that's all the time we have left before global heating crosses the level (2C) at which natural "feed-back" processes kick in...and our biosphere careens up the curve of accelerating warming. If your oldest child is seven, the window slams shut before he or she will be old enough for a driver's license. If your first grandchild was born this year, cherish your posterity: that grandchild's likely to be the last of your line. Unless....unless we force action now and over the next 100 months.

* A Recipe For Disaster (The Guardian reviews two new books)
The figures are staggering. Wal-Mart currently dominates the global grocery trade with profits reckoned by the UN at the start of the century to be 'bigger than the gross domestic product of three quarters of the world's economies'. Today those profits have doubled. Five companies control 90 per cent of the global grain supply. The world tea market is in the hands of three. Eighty-one per cent of American beef belongs to four giant processing companies. None of these companies is answerable for what they do to anyone but themselves. They are ruthlessly anti-competitive, largely above the law, and more than able to impose their own, often ruinous conditions on the countries that supply them.

* An Even Better Worldclock (Thanks, Jeff!)

6. Some Political Humor
* Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency (ONN Newscast)

* Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet (Onion)

* The Barackschach Test

7. The Pain in Planes
* Patrick Smith: Ask the Pilot (Salon)
Realizing that I'm not getting my knife back, I try for the consolation prize, which is getting the man to admit, if nothing else, that the rule makes no sense. "Come on," I argue. "The purpose of confiscating knives is to keep people from bringing them onto planes, right? But every person on my flight was legally handed one of these knives with their meals. How can you ... I mean ... it just ... At least admit to me that it's a dumb rule."
"It's not a dumb rule."
"Yes, it is."
"No, it isn't."
And so on, until he asks me to leave.

* The Delta Flight From Hell: 7 Hours on the Runway (Youtube)

* 24 Hours of Flights

8. On Top of the Water
* The Log Driver’s Waltz (NFB cartoon with McGarrigles’ soundtrack)

* Surfers from Around the World

* Extreme Kayaking (Telegraph: 4 pictures)

9. This Digital World
* Canuks! Escape those Phonecalls! (Geist)
Last March, I established iOptOut.ca, a website that enables Canadians to opt-out of many exempted organizations with a few easy clicks at no cost. Visitors to the site are asked to enter their phone number (and email address if they wish) and to indicate their calling preferences for nearly 150 organizations. The public reaction has been extremely supportive.  Since its launch, the site has sent out millions of opt-out requests on behalf of tens of thousands of Canadians. The reaction from several leading associations has been less enthusiastic....

* The World of Web Trolling (NY Times) 
“Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium. “Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,” said one ex-troll who, like many people I contacted, refused to disclose his legal identity....I first met Weev in an online chat room that I visited while staying at Fortuny’s house. “I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money,” he boasted. “I make people afraid for their lives.” On the phone that night, Weev displayed a misanthropy far harsher than Fortuny’s. “Trolling is basically Internet eugenics,” he said, his voice pitching up like a jet engine on the runway. “I want everyone off the Internet. Bloggers are filth. They need to be destroyed.”

* Seven Universities Offering Free Online Courses
The Unis are MIT, Berkely, Carnegie, Tufts, Stanford, Utah State, and Irvine. MIT alone offers 1800 courses, over 100 with AV available for download. A typical sample....
Gödel, Escher, and Bach (6 one hour video lectures, times and topics as noted)
What do one mathematician, one artist, and one musician all have in common? Are you interested in zen Buddhism, math, fractals, logic, paradoxes, infinities, art, language, computer science, physics, music, intelligence, consciousness and unified theories? Get ready to chase me down a rabbit hole into Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach. Lectures will be a place for crazy ideas to bounce around as we try to pace our way through this enlightening tome. 

10. Eyecandy Around the World
* How We Wash Our Clothes

* 20 Abandoned Cities

* Li Wei Photographed

10. Quote of the Week
* “Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it is dark.” Zen proverb





=====================================

See who we are and what we're about to do.

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.

Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.

You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
 
                                        The Talmud
=====================================

The Tikkun Toronto Newsletter                 
Summer newsletters only every second week

Compiled and edited by Peter Marmorek                                                      
Year Five; Issue 26

1.   Tikkun: Upcoming Meetings & Last Israel Story!
2.  Election Updates
3.  Satire and the US Election
4.   Invading Iran...maybe not?
5.  Big Pharma, Big Profits, Big Scams
6.  Mindtwisters
7.  Participatory Stuff
8.  Canadian Music Flashes
9.  Separating the Sheep from the Goats
10.  Eyecandy: Summer Vacations
11. Quote of the Week

1.   Tikkun Coming Attractions
* The Divination Spirit Meeting is on Thursday, August 28th, at 7:30 pm at Anne and Michael’s (Map here) Focus: Open discussion on Astrology, Tarot, I Ching, etc...

* The Israel Stories - Last chance to write your Israel story and send it in for posting: details here.
Running total— 2662 listenings so far.

2. Obama Gets the Press... Perhaps Fortunately for McCain?
* The Full Berlin Speech (Barack Obama)
As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya. Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The poppies in Afghanistan become the heroin in Berlin. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow. The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all. In this new world, such dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them. That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone. None of us can deny these threats, or escape responsibility in meeting them.

* The Dark Side To Obamania (The Agonist)
Following Hillary Clinton's successful tack, Senator John McCain has picked up the theme that there's something sinister in Barack Obama's appeal. Some in the media are buying it. All of us are repeating it. To give a rousing speech is to appeal to our basest instincts, an adoring crowd abroad the kiss of death. For all we know, there might be socialists or soccer hooligans among them. For sure, they're foreigners. I fell into the trap myself saying on TV that the more admiration Obama elicits on his trip to the Middle East and Europe, the less voters in Kansas will trust him.

* McCain and Those Senior Moments (Washington Post)
We interrupt the nonstop coverage of Barack Obama's overseas trip to bring you some breaking whispers about John McCain. He has been making a series of verbal slips -- invariably described as "gaffes" -- that are starting to ricochet from liberal blogs to the mainstream media. And fairly or not, some critics are suggesting the 71-year-old Republican candidate is showing his age.

3. Satire, and Reactions
* That NYer Cover (Slate Magazine)
Although every critic of the New Yorker understood the simple satire of the cover, the most fretful of them worried that the illustration would be misread by the ignorant masses who don't subscribe to the magazine. ...Calling on the press to protect the common man from the potential corruptions of satire is a strange, paternalistic assignment for any journalist to give his peers, but that appears to be what The New Yorker's detractors desire. I don't know whether to be crushed by that realization or elated by the notion that one of the most elite journals in the land has faith that Joe Sixpack can figure out a damned picture for himself.

* Cartoon on Obama and NYer Cover

* Cartoon on McCain and NYer Cover (Vanity Fair)

* The George Bush Memorial Library (Wendy McElroy)
The Library will include: The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction. The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything. The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up. The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in. The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out....

4. Iran: Why the US Won’t Attack?
* US Will Not Attack Iran (Znet)
Here's the point: Yes, there is a powerful faction in this administration, headed by the Vice President, which has, it seems, saved its last rounds of ammunition for a strike against Iran. The question, of course, is: Are they still capable of creating "their own reality" and imposing it, however briefly, on the planet? Every tick upwards in the price of oil says no. Every day that passes makes an attack on Iran harder to pull off....

* Iran Isolation Attempts Backfire (Foreign Policy in Perspective)
Iran’s provocative missile tests ten days ago again fueled the debate on the likelihood of aerial strikes against Iran. Since last week’s thaw, however, an attack on Iran by the end of President Bush’s tenure no longer appears in the offing. Moreover, the narrow, exclusively military focus of the debate misses the broader picture. The overall U.S. strategy of containing Iran has failed in principle. And the attempt to impose a sanctions regime on Iran has led to an erosion of U.S. strategic influence in Asia and the Middle East. Over the long term, Washington’s shortsighted containment policy will only hurt Western business in the region. It will also play into the hands of China, drive crucial allies away, and render Iran untouchable. At the eleventh hour, even the Bush administration seems to have realized, albeit in a limited way, the inherent failure of the containment approach.... This sea change suggests that the realists around Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates having finally gained the upper hand over the faction around Vice President Dick Cheney in the intra-administration feud.

* Will the US Attack Iran? (Uri Avnery, Counterpunch)
IF YOU want to understand the policy of a country, look at the map - as Napoleon recommended. Anyone who wants to guess whether Israel and/or the United States are going to attack Iran should look at the map of the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Through this narrow waterway, only 34 km wide, pass the ships that carry between a fifth and a third of the world's oil, including that from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. Most of the commentators who talk about the inevitable American and Israeli attack on Iran do not take account of this map....

5. Big Pharma: the Same Old Drug Pushers
* Drug Companies Stay Healthy, But at Whose Expense? (Wired)
Trevor Foltz was six months old last fall, fresh off a visit to Disney World in Orlando, when the spasms first began....The next day, at home, Trevor was hit with a series of 40 convulsions and rushed to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with infantile spasms, a rare form of epilepsy. Treatment would cost $1,600 per vial of steroid drug H.P. Acthar Gel, and Trevor would need three of them....When the Foltzes submitted their claim, they found out the company that made the drug, Questcor Pharmaceuticals, had just recently jacked up the price—to $23,000 per vial, or $69,000 for a three-vial treatment—and the insurance company wasn't going to pay. And all the while, unbeknownst to anyone at that time, an alternative, for $15, existed.

* Protecting Bones from Drugs that Protect Bones (Counterpunch)
Of course selling "prevention" to at risk patients is a pharma goldmine. It keep patients on meds for decades through fear, alarmist marketing and after-this-because-of-this reasoning--since a patient doesn't know if she would have gotten the disease anyway....But now, like hormone replacement therapy which also exploited women's fear of aging and social marginalization, Fosamax appears to cause the conditions it's supposed to prevent. Since 2006, articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Orthopedic Trauma, Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Aging Clinical and Experimental Research, Hong Kong Medical Journal, Geriatrics and Bone have suggested the anti-bone turnover action of bisphosphonate drugs like Fosamax can in some cases cause fractures.
Oops.

* Pharma and the Third World (Salon)
It is amazing how some of the most profitable companies on the planet are able to play the victim at the hands of nations not formerly known for their potency in getting the West to dance to their tune. But never mind -- because the bulk of the Economist's story concerns how Big Pharma is finally realizing that maybe it should charge lower prices for drugs sold to poor people. Because, you know, it's not only the right thing to do, but it might not even be so hard to charge one price to the desperately poor and another to the newly rich. This is referred to as "new thinking."

* Big Pharma, Free Trade, and You (cartoon)

6. MindTwisters!
* Le Grand Content (Essential Viewing!)
A powerpoint explanation of the way the world is. Hilariouser than you can possibly imagine.

* Way of the Sheep
Keep scolling down through layers of strange and twisted images till you arrive back where you started.

* Running Cat
Move one image over another to reveal a cat running. I do not know how people create this.

7. Participate!
* 15 Ways to Tie Your Shoes

* Stick Styrofoam Cups on a Fence (Click on each picture to see the next one)

* Listen to 14 New Podcasts (Sample, and a new favourite of mine)
The best way to explain This American Life is to let them do it,
“. . .So usually we just say what we’re not. We’re not a news show or a talk show or a call-in show. We’re not really formatted like other radio shows at all. Instead, we do these stories that are like movies for radio. There are people in dramatic situations. Things happen to them. There are funny moments and emotional moments and—hopefully—moments where the people in the story say interesting, surprising things about it all. It has to be surprising. It has to be fun.” [subscribe]

8. Confusion Abounds in Canadian Music
* Neil Young is NOT the Beatles (Thanks, Owen!)
Youtube video of Neil doing “A Day in the Life”, live in Madrid this month.

* kd laing is NOT a Man (the guardian)
"I've always had an interesting relationship with my androgyny," she says. "It's kind of breadfruit - it looks poisonous but it's really good once you figure out how to get into it. I think the combination of my voice and my look was pre-ordained."

* Chaotic Noise is NOT an Anthem (or is it?) (Currently leading the CBC vote!)
Quite possibly the most amazing piece of music I've ever heard [is] called "Hockey Scores," and is a submission for the national search for a new Hockey Night In Canada theme song. It was created by a young man by the name of Logan Aube, and seriously, it had everyting you could ever want when you think of the great Canadian game. Babies. Cats. Guns. All combined into 30 seconds that, in all honesty, would let an entire nation know that they're watching Hockey Night In Canada.

9. Separating Goats from Sheep (A useful Primer)
* If it’s in a Tree, it’s a Goat
* If it’s Made of Phones, it’s a Sheep
* If it’s half sheared, it’s a Really Ugly Sheep

10. Eyecandy Takes You on a Summer Vacation
* To Africa
* To New York’s Waterfalls
* To Monaco
* To Jupiter

10. Quote of the Week
* “The road to wisdom?
Well it’s plain
and simple to express:
Err and err and err again,
but less and less and less.”
Piet Hein


=====================================

See who we are and what we're about to do.

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.

Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.

You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
 
                                        The Talmud
=====================================

The Tikkun Toronto Newsletter                 
Summer newsletters only every second week

Compiled and edited by Peter Marmorek                                                      
Year Five; Issue 25

1.  Tikkun: Upcoming Meetings & Your Israel Story!
2.  Capitalism über Alles
3.  The War on Terror
4.  The iPhone Reaches Canada
5.  Food and Water
6.  Work, the Old, the Young
7.  Creative Art
8.  Sorta Cute, in a Black Way
9.  EyeCandy: Earth, Air, Fire, Water
10. Quote of the Week

1.   Tikkun Coming Attractions
* The Last Chants Spirit Meeting is on Wednesday, July 23rd, at 7:30 pm at Peter's (Map here) Focus: chanting, prayer, ceremony, and ritual.

* The Israel Stories - Still time to write your Israel story and send it in for posting: details here.
Most recently added is “Anita”. Running total— 2257 listenings so far.

2. Relentless March of Capitalism
* Climate Change
In a nutshell, the G8 is saying "We're not going to risk our standard of living to fight climate change" while the rest of the world replies "Once we reach your standard of living, we'll be happy to do our part."

* Capital Leaves China, for Vietnam
The reason for the move south is straightforward: Vietnamese factory workers make about a quarter of what their Chinese counterparts earn. But why Vietnam and not, say, Thailand, where labor is similarly cheap? Vietnam's edge, it seems, is political. “Communism means more stability," Laurence Shu, the chief financial officer of Shanghai-based Texhong, one of the world's leading manufacturers of cotton fabrics, told Bradsher. This view, Bradsher reports, is common among Asian executives and some American executives, too, though they have the presence of mind never to say so on the record. After all, Vietnam, like China, outlaws independent unions. Absent free speech and free elections, no radical shifts in the government's economic policies are likely to be sprung upon unsuspecting American businesses.

* But of Course Exxon Wants Lower Oil Prices....
[The two core main ideas on the oil crisis are...] Not only is there nothing wrong with higher prices, they actually prove that the market works. AND The energy companies would love to charge less, if only the Democrats and the environmentalists would change a few laws.
Try keeping both of those ideas in your head at the same time. ExxonMobil has a sacred obligation to its shareholders to charge the maximum price the market will bear and they'd cut prices in a second, as a present -- as patriots -- if you'd just let them bespoil Alaska. I can't completely reconcile those theories, myself. I should probably listen to more talk radio. Except the radio's in my car, and I can't afford to drive.

3. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who Will Guard the Guardians?)
* “Brave New Britain” Sir Bob Geldof Lashes Out at the GWOT (Telegraph)
Still today, 800 years later, Magna Carta resonates: "To no man will we deny, To no man will we delay, Justice and Right." Is that not grand, worthy of your vote? Is habeas corpus to be traduced in one sad moment of political expediency? Do we not clearly deny and delay Justice and Right when we imprison a person for 42 days without charge?
What existential threat do we face greater than those of the past 800 years? What great terror exists today that not civil war, not world war, nor recent other terrorisms could make our forefathers change the fundamental basis of this state? What is so dangerous that our oldest statutes could be upended for such a ha'p'orth of momentary panic?

* Israel and the Culture of Fear (Guardian)
Given the volte face that I've performed since moving to Israel four years ago, I was asked to describe my most influential experience thus far, in terms of providing a catalyst to the political journey upon which I've embarked. Without hesitation, I replied that it had been my illicit trip to Bethlehem during a weekend furlough from the army....The fear instilled in me by the army all but dissipated once I was simply a tourist strolling through the town. Conversely, the more weaponry and protective gear I carried, the more terrifying the place became which, it dawned on me, was a distillation of Israel's core and eternal paradox – one that has dogged it since the moment the state was created.

* The War on Drugs Seems to Be Not Working (World Health Organization)
The numbers are startling. In the United States, 42.4 percent admitted having used marijuana. The only other nation that came close was New Zealand, another bastion of get-tough policies, at 41.9 percent. No one else was even close. The results for cocaine use were similar, with the United States leading the world by a large margin....Some of the most striking numbers are from the Netherlands, where adults are permitted to possess a small amount of marijuana and purchase it from regulated businesses. Some U.S. officials have claimed that these Dutch policies have created some sort of decadent cesspool of drug abuse, but the new study demolishes such assertions: In the Netherlands, only 19.8 percent have used marijuana, less than half the U.S. figure.

* Christopher Hitchens Gets Waterboarded
(Editor’s note: Loathe him or despise him, you’ve got to admire a man who puts his mouth where his mouth is....) Late last year, the writer, polemicist and fierce proponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq Christopher Hitchens attempted, in a piece for the online magazine Slate, to draw a distinction between what he called techniques of "extreme interrogation" and "outright torture". Enraged by what they saw as an exercise in elegant but offensive sophistry, some of the writer's critics suggested that Hitchens give waterboarding a whirl, just to see what it was like. ...And amazingly, he has done just that. In August's edition of Vanity Fair, you can read all about ...the "wheezing, paunchy, 59-year-old scribbler", his head hooded, being subjected to this most terrifying of ordeals by veterans of the US Special Forces.

4. Canada and its Best Cell-By Date
* We’re Number Two!
According to CBCNews.ca's iPhone iNdex, which compares basic service plans from the 27 carriers in 21 countries that have announced pricing for the device's launch on Friday, Canadians who buy the device before Aug. 31 will be faced with a total minimum cost of $2,176 US over the course of the three-year deal they must sign with Rogers. That is second only to the $2,554 US customers of Vodafone will pay in Italy with their two-year service agreement.

* iPhone or Millionaire? (a joyoftech cartoon)

* The 51st State
51st State is an ironic chronicle of the fight to maintain Freedom of Expression in Canada. 51st State is a clickable comic book. It links to 193 websites, blogs, films and papers and articles. “This is just staggeringly great, the perfect primer on the shameful attempt by Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice to smuggle the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act into Canadian law without debate or public input.” Cory Doctorow

5. Food and Water
* “Small is Bountiful” George Monbiot (who’s he?)
There is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield. In some cases, the difference is enormous. A recent study of farming in Turkey, for example, found that farms of less than one hectare are twenty times as productive as farms of over ten hectares(3). Sen’s observation has been tested in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Java, the Phillippines, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay. It appears to hold almost everywhere.

* Top 10 American Foods
The truth is, America does have a cuisine to call its own. Over the past 232 years we’ve invented some of the most creative, daring, and yes, downright craziest dishes the world has ever seen. Sure, they can be overly greasy, a little too cheesy, and sometimes fried a few times too many. But they’re ours.

* Status Water (cartoon)

6. Work; Don’t Work
* Children at Work (Photos)

* Boomers Who Don’t (NY Times)
The first wave of America’s 76 million baby boomers are taking early retirement and turning their hobbies into small businesses. Very small businesses. They say their microbusinesses are a way to give focus to a favorite pastime, get more zest out of life and make a little money. The best part is they do not care if the ventures fail. For all their insouciance, these quasi-entrepreneurs display some of the symptoms that drive their mainstream brethren. Their compulsion to escape the restraints of the workplace before they turn 65, for example, reflects their desire to run their own show.

7. “Art is Anything You Can Get Away With” Marshall McLuhan
* Subway Exhaust + Garbage Bags + Tape = Self Inflating Animals (A must see film)
* A Human Mirror (Improv Everywhere + identical twins + a subway car = ...)
* The Art of Shopdropping (reverse shoplifting)
* How to Confuse an Idiot (Youtube Video)

8. Nice Accessories
* A Wasp’s Nest
* A Baby Dragon
* Garden Zombies

9. EyeCandy: Earth, Air, Fire, Water
* Earth
* Air
* Fire
* Water

10. Quote of the Week
* “What the terrorists are frightened of is the very thing this law rejects: reason, values, logic, liberty and law... And what moral authority rests in a lawmaking body that acts against the liberties of its own people?” Bob Geldof


=====================================

See who we are and what we're about to do.

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.

Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.

You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
 
                                        The Talmud
=====================================

The Tikkun Toronto Newsletter                 
Summer newsletters only every second week

Compiled and edited by Peter Marmorek                                                      
Year Five; Issue 24

1.  Tikkun: Upcoming Meetings; We want Your Israel Story!
2.  The Outgoing US Regime
3.  The Incoming US Regime
4.  Environmental Notes
5.  Israel/Palestine
6.  Participatory Sites
7.  In Memoriam: George Carlin
8.  Playing With Food
9.  EyeCandy: Different Worlds
10. Quote of the Week

1.   Tikkun Coming Attractions
* Last Chants Spirit Meeting is on Wednesday, July 23rd, at 7:30 pm at Peter's (Map here) Focus: chanting, prayer, ceremony, and ritual.

* The Israel Stories - Hey, readers, Write your Israel story and send it in for posting: details here.
Online today is “Terry”. Running total— 1662 listenings so far.

2. The Old Boss
* Bush on Iran (cartoon)

* Rice on Israel (Guardian)
The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, yesterday accused Israel of undermining peace talks as Israel announced plans to build thousands more homes in settlements in east Jerusalem.Upon arrival in Jerusalem to help the faltering peace talks, Rice expressed her frustration at the Israeli housing ministry announcement of plans to build 1,300 more homes in Ramat Shlomo, a settlement on Palestinian land in east Jerusalem which was captured in the 1967 war.

* Life on the Street (Guardian Weekly Stories)
I see myself as a casualty of a perfect storm. Firstly, I lost my job in interior design, which was tied up with the real estate business. I’d been decorating model homes on new residential developments, but the bottom fell out of the market and there was no work any more. I also went through a vicious divorce, which didn’t help financially. Now I live in my car. This happens to the most regular of people – people who have good jobs, houses, and who are just regular everyday functioning members of society. All of a sudden they have nothing. It’s really hard to explain, but when you hit that wall, when you realise that your job’s gone, that they’re foreclosing on your house and there’s nothing in the bank, it’s a very frightening moment. 

3. (Same as) The New Boss
* No, I Can’t (Uri Avnery)
AFTER MONTHS of a tough and bitter race, a merciless struggle, Barack Obama has defeated his formidable opponent, Hillary Clinton. He has wrought a miracle: for the first time in history a black person has become a credible candidate for the presidency of the most powerful country in the world. And what was the first thing he did after his astounding victory? He ran to the conference of the Israel lobby, AIPAC, and made a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning. That is shocking enough. Even more shocking is the fact that nobody was shocked.

* Obama And The Fall Into Tyranny (Paul Craig Roberts)
As articles by John Pilger, Alexander Cockburn, and Uri Avnery make clear, by groveling before the Israel Lobby Obama has dispelled any hope that his presidency would make a difference....Obama has appointed two leading apologists for jobs offshoring as his economic advisors--Bill Clinton's Treasury Robert Rubin and Rubin associate Jason Furman. These two are notorious for their justifications of policies that benefit Wall Street, CEOs, and large retailers at the expense of the economic well being and careers of millions of Americans.  ...Where is the hope when Obama endorses a foreign policy that benefits only Israeli territorial expansion and an economic policy that benefits only multimillionaires and billionaires? 

* McCain Rally Goes Wild (photo)

4. Environmental Insights
* How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
Below is a complete listing of the articles in "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic," a series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming. There are four separate taxonomies....

* No Ice at the North Pole This Summer? (Guardian)
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.

* Take a Vacation at Alberta’s Oil Sands (Greenpeace)
Oil Sands tourism: changing the way the world sees Alberta, one barrel at a time

5. Israel and Palestine
* A Changing Discourse (half way down page)
We are in the midst of the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the nakba, the Arabic word for "catastrophe," which is how Palestinians describe the events if 1947-49. ...outside of AIPAC, what was different this year was that the massive media coverage of the overall celebration of the Israeli anniversary and the U.S.-Israeli "special relationship" actually acknowledged and gave voice to the nakba as a legitimate component of the narrative. Certainly the mainstream press did not give equal voice to Palestinian suffering or Palestinian rights, but there was a visible and audible breach in the once-unchallenged triumphalism of Israel's creation. There was widespread recognition that Palestinian voices had to be heard, and the recognition included all three components of the divided Palestinian nation - Palestinian refugees in their far-flung diaspora, those living under occupation in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and Palestinian citizens of Israel. AIPAC and Israel are no longer the sole proprietors of the Israel-Palestine narrative in the U.S.

* Israeli Arabs’ Perspective (Haaretz)
A recent opinion poll conducted by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government found that 77 percent of Israeli Arabs would rather live in Israel than in any other country in the world. The survey of 1,721 Israelis, both Arab and Jewish, also showed that 73 percent of the Jews and 94 percent of the Arabs want Israel to "be a society in which Arab and Jewish citizens have mutual respect and equal opportunities." 

* “My Israel Students” Neve Gordon, ZNet
Two decades ago, Palestinians were an integral part of the Israeli landscape, primarily as low-wage laborers who built houses, cleaned streets and worked in agriculture, but in the last few years they have literally disappeared. In the 1980s, most Israelis and Palestinians could travel freely between the territories and Israel and, in many respects, felt safe doing so. Currently Palestinians are locked up in the Gaza Strip, and Israelis are not permitted to enter the region. Palestinians from the West Bank are confined behind a separation barrier and only the Jewish settlers living there travel back and forth from Israel. Most of my students have consequently never talked with Palestinians from the territories, except perhaps as soldiers during their military service. Their acquaintance with Palestinians is therefore limited to three-minute news bites that almost always report on Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets or Israeli military assaults on Palestinian towns.

6. Brains at the Ready...
* Best Visual Illusion of the Year

* History of Internet Memes...with Links
from Cambridge Coffee, to Dancing Hamster, to “I Am Canadian”. Past Steven Colbert’s White House speech, around LOLcats (“I can haz Cheezeburger?” ), to “All your bases are belong to us”. A memory jaunt through your inbox over the past 15 years

* Useful “Make Your Own Receipt” Site

7. George Carlin, R.I.P.
* A Sample of Carlin Live (on “Soft Language”)

* Jerry Seinfeld on George Carlin
You could certainly say that George downright invented modern American stand-up comedy in many ways. Every comedian does a little George. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’ve been standing around with some comedians and someone talks about some idea for a joke and another comedian would say, “Carlin does it.” I’ve heard it my whole career: “Carlin does it,” “Carlin already did it,” “Carlin did it eight years ago.”

*George Carlin, American Radical (Alternet)
No one, not Obama, not Hillary Clinton and certainly not John McCain, caught the zeitgeist of the vanishing American dream so well as Carlin. "The owners of this country know the truth: It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.” Recalling George Bush's ranting about how the endless "war on terror" is a battle for freedom, Carlin echoed James Madison's thinking with a simple question: "Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?"

8. Playing With Your Food
* Sushi Art
* Fork Art
* North American Indigenous Food Map
* Time Line of Foods

9. EyeCandy: Different Worlds
* Creepy Snowglobes
* City of Shadows
* Faroe Islands

10. Quote of the Week...and a welcome back!
* This issue marks the return of Doonesbury, after Trudeau’s three month break. His first Sunday strip was “The Last Bushisms” a look at the priceless sayings of the Prez. Read them here (click to enlarge). Any would make a fine quote of the week.


=====================================

See who we are and what we're about to do.

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.

Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.

You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
 
                                        The Talmud
=====================================

The Tikkun Toronto Newsletter                 
Summer newsletters only every second week :-(

Compiled and edited by Peter Marmorek                                                      
Year Five; Issue 22

1.  Tikkun: Upcoming Meetings; We want Your Israel Story!
2.  The Guardian Weekly Stories
3.  Abuse of Power
4.  Abuse of Science
5.  The Environment
6.  Outer Space
7.  Music
8.  Worldly Perspectives
9.  EyeCandy: The Big Picture
10. Quote of the Week

1.   Tikkun Coming Attractions
* Next Action Meeting this Tuesday June 17th at Harvey’s
* Next Spirit Meeting is on Thursday, June 26th, at 7:30 pm at David and Lydia's. Map here. Focus: the mystical side of Judaism

* The Israel Stories - Hey, readers, Write your Israel story and send it in for posting: details here.
Online today is “Peter”. Running total— 1200 listenings so far.

2. Guardian Weekly Stories
Editor’s note: I’ve subscribed to the Guardian Weekly for over a decade: I love its detailed explanation of the meaning of the news, rather than just reporting what happened. It’s now publishing online, with a focus on telling human stories from around the world. Are these something you like? Would you like more of these in the newsletter? Let me know.

* Nepal Hails A New Republic
On May 28, 2008, Nepal's monarchy was abolished and the country declared a democratic republic by an elected assembly. King Gyanendra, the monarch, was given 15 days to leave the royal palace. Anand Gurung, a journalist who lives in Kathmandu, explains his conflicting emotions over recent events – jubilation at the end of feudalism, concerns about the Maoists' plans, and nostalgia for a deposed king

* Educating India’s Untouchables
On the outskirts of Secunderabad, Pipe Village is home to a community of Dalits, India's 'untouchable' caste. Here, behind the factory in which many of them are forced to work as bonded labourers, concrete drainage pipes and bushes form the structural basis of one of the world's poorest villages. Peter Hodge went to visit the community and talk to members of Operation Mercy, an organisation dedicated to bringing hope and enlightment to India's most underprivileged class

* Justice for the Stolen Generations
Debra Hocking, 49, is an Aboriginal Australian from Tasmania and one of the tens of thousands of indigenous Australians now known as the Stolen Generations. Forcibly removed from her family at 18 months old, she was made to live with a white foster family under whose care she endured years of sexual abuse. For over a decade Hocking has been at the heart of the campaign for a formal apology in Tasmania – the only state that has paid compensation to the removal policy victims – and she now works for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs for New South Wales

3. Abuse of Power
* Shareef and I (from your editor’s own blog)
I left teaching in 2003, and though I heard that Shareef had come by once to see me, I didn’t hear anything more of him until June 2006, when Steve, my ex-department head told me to look at the day’s Toronto Star. There was Shareef’s picture, one of the “Toronto 18”, eighteen young Muslim men and boys accused of planning acts of terror in either Ottawa or Toronto. My first thought was that this was a mistake, a confusion of names, but it was clearly Shareef. I waited for a trial which would clarify what had happened. I couldn’t reconcile the Shareef I had known with the terrorist the headlines were screaming about.

* US Supreme Court Offers Hope to Gitmo Prisoners (Salon)
The decision does achieve things that the Bush administration has been fighting against tooth and nail for years. First, the court upholds the fundamental right to habeas corpus, which has been part of the common-law tradition for centuries and was held dear by America's Founding Fathers. More than any other protection, habeas corpus means that the executive branch cannot arrest and detain you without a legitimate legal reason. The Bush administration wanted to whittle down that right. The Supreme Court said no.

* DUI Shock Tactics (MSNBC)
On a Monday morning last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some horrible news: Several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend. Classmates wept. Some became hysterical. A few hours and many tears later, though, the pain turned to fury when the teenagers learned that it was all a hoax — a scared-straight exercise designed by school officials to dramatize the consequences of drinking and driving.

4. Abuse of Science
* Framing Science
A new study by a team of political scientists and sociologists at the journal Environmental Politics concludes that 9 out of 10 books published since 1972 that have disputed the seriousness of environmental problems and mainstream science can be linked to a conservative think tank.

* Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Thought He Was A Boy - (Telegraph)
Before he was a year old, the chimp known as Nim Chimpsky was living with a New York family and could ask for food, play practical jokes and even say sorry. But was he a human child or a primate? Unfortunately, nobody involved in this pioneering experiment could decide.

* Confused About Copyright (MediaScout)
“Intellectual property is complicated,” a government official explained at a press briefing yesterday on the Conservative government’s proposed update to Canada’s copyright laws....Unfortunately, though, Big Seven respect for the prolixity of copyright law manifests itself not in a careful consideration of the issues at stake, but in an obfuscating timidity, a tendency to oversimplify to the point of misleading. The problem first made itself evident during last night’s news broadcasts: The National portrays the new policy as a “crackdown,” meant to quell a downloading culture grown out of control, while CTV News frames it as a modernization, a correction of the anachronistically stiff penalties for now-commonplace uses of technology—the result of an outdated Copyright Act not updated since 1997. The inconsistencies in coverage do not end there: The Star sees the legislation as an adjustment to the times; the Globe depicts it as almost draconian; the Post reports it as good news for illegal downloaders, bad news for traffickers of the illegally downloaded; and CTV News online suggests that the proposed $500 maximum fine for downloaders is either soft or a “smoke-screen [that] sets the stage for fines that could reach the millions.”

5. The Environment
* At $4 a Gallon, Everyone Gets Rational (Charles Krauthammer)
Some things, like renal physiology, are difficult. Some things, like Arab-Israeli peace, are impossible. And some things are preternaturally simple. You want more fuel-efficient cars? Don't regulate. Don't mandate. Don't scold. Don't appeal to the better angels of our nature. Do one thing: Hike the cost of gas until you find the price point.

* Five Year Costs of Vehicles (NY Times)
A fully loaded Ford F-250 pickup truck is a whole lot of vehicle. It can tow a horse trailer with multiple horses. It comes with a DVD-based navigation system for the driver as well as a DVD player for passengers who are sitting in the extended cab. And how much does an F-250 set you back these days? Try $100,000....While the F-250 costs $100,000 and a fully loaded F-150 — the better-known, smaller Ford pickup — costs about $70,000, a Ford Focus still costs less than $40,000 over five years. A Honda Civic Hybrid does, too. A Toyota Prius costs only a little more.

* Water Envy Sparks Battle Over Great Lakes
After two decades of diluting or deleting Clean Water Act provisions by the Bush administration, the Great Lakes again faces rising pollution, fluctuating water levels, invasive species, and backfilling of wetlands and streams whose waters feed and clean the Lakes. Proponents of the Compact argue that the law will be toothless if Congress doesn’t also pass the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2008 – a bill that restores the enforcement power lost under the above-mentioned administration.

6. Outer Space Round Up
* The Best of Cassini Photos of Saturn

* It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! No, it’s a Plutoid! (BBC)
"Plutoid" is the word of the moment for astronomers. It is the new classification that has been sanctioned for the object that was formerly known as the "ninth planet".

* New Light-Weight Champion Planet Found
There's a new extrasolar planet on the block: a mini-orb likely covered with a deep ocean. And it takes the record for the lowest mass exoplanet to orbit a normal star, astrophysicists announced today. The li'l planet — weighing in at three times Earth's mass —grabs the lightweight title from a five Earth-mass planet just announced in April.

7. Music Hits
* Rock El Casbah Algerian rocker Rachid Taha does a great cover of the Clash's classic
* Every Day I Have The Blues Eric Clapton.
* 45 Music Websites That Deliver Free Music

8. Worldly Perspectives
* Your Personal Financial Rating
* In Hanoi, They Do it Without Traffic Lights
* Some Foxy Babes

9. Eyecandy Looks at The Big Picture (Boston.com Picture Archives)
* The Sky From Above
* Water Water Everywhere
* World Environment Day, 2008
* Daily Life in Afghanistan

10.  Quote of the Week
“When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, ‘Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?’” Quentin Crisp



=====================================

See who we are and what we're about to do.

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.

Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.

You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
 
                                        The Talmud
=====================================

The Tikkun Toronto Newsletter                 
Compiled and edited by Peter Marmorek                                                      
Year Five; Issue 21

1.  Tikkun: Upcoming Meetings, Israel Stories Numbers Climbing Higher
2.  The Middle East Debacles
3.  Interesting Obama Perspectives
4.  Eastern Religion Gallery
5.  Power of Delusion
6.  Music: Farewell, Bo!
7.  Pictures of Ruins (Burma, China, Detroit)
8.  The Going Gets Weird
9.  EyeCandy: Grains of Sand
10.  Quote of the Week

1.   Tikkun Coming Attractions
* Next Action Meeting Tuesday June 17th at Harvey’s
* Next Spirit Meeting is on Thursday, June 26th, at 7:30 pm at David and Lydia's. Map here.
* The Israel Stories - up today is “Esther”. On the millennial verge: 990 listenings to the stories so far. Hey, readers, write your Israel story and send it in for posting: details here.

2. Rough Beasts All the Way Down
* Why NATO Troops Can't Deliver Peace in Afghanistan (Der Spiegel)
Forty nations are embroiled in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Anyone who travels through the country with Western troops soon realizes that NATO forces would have to be increased tenfold for peace to be even a remote possibility.

* Turkey on the Brink (The Agonist)
The writing is on the wall. In Turkey, a storm is brewing that may plunge the country into its worst political crisis since the turbulent 1970s that were ended by a military coup in 1980. In an unexpectedly unrelenting and confrontational move the Turkish Constitutional Court yesterday ruled a law easing the ban on headscarves at universities unconstitutional. But what may remind American readers of the recent controversy about the ten amendments being displayed in public buildings only constitutes the tip of the iceberg. The faultlines go much deeper. With its verdict to annul a constitutional amendment passed by the ruling AKP in February, the high court has taken sides as plain as can be in the political confrontation that has paralyzed the country's political system for months.

* Israel: Attack on Iran “Unavoidable” (Reuters)
An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks "unavoidable" given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential, one of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's deputies said on Friday.

* Iraq: Australia Pulls Out (The Telegraph)
All the arguments Australia marshalled to justify sending troops to fight in Iraq proved to be wrong, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said today, as the country's 550 combat soldiers headed home. In an admission that will make uncomfortable reading in London and Washington, the Labour leader dismissed one-by-one the reasons used by his predecessor, John Howard, to join the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq five years ago.

3. Obama: Past, Present, Future
* Past: How He Got the Nomination (NY Times)
A wonderful flash graphic that shows the Clinton/Obama breakdown by demographics in every state. Fascinating, and brilliant design.

*Past/Present: The First Web 2.0 President (Juan Cole)
I would suggest that Obama is 'metro-racial,' by which I mean Americans of mixed and ambiguous ethnic ancestry. ...In short, Obama is more Tiger Woods, Vin Diesel, the Rock, Kelly Hu (another Hawaiian) and Keanu Reeves than he is a traditional African-American community leader. ...I think it is more significant that Obama is the first major party candidate for president who got where he is through the current iteration of the World Wide Web, which includes the blogging world, distributed information networks, social networking, and video sites such as YouTube (i.e. Web 2.0). That is, the Iowa breakthrough was iconic of Obama's success, because youth, progressivism, metro-racialism and independent politics are all tightly interwoven with Web 2.0. 

* Present/Future: Obama, Farrakhan, Michael Lerner (ZNet)
As controversy has erupted regarding comments made by Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Wright's occasional words of praise for Farrakhan have caused many to suggest that he, and by extension, Obama, are somehow tainted...Sadly, it isn't only conservative and right-wing white folks who have chosen to make Farrakhan something of a racial Rorschach test for black leaders. To wit, the recent ventilations of self-proclaimed spiritual guru, Michael Lerner, who claimed," that lasting damage had likely been done by Rev. Wright's praise for Farrakhan”. According to Lerner, failure to clearly condemn the Nation of Islam leader is a "danger to any hopes of reconciliation between blacks and whites in this country." But such a statement - in effect, placing the burden for racial reconciliation on black people, who must condemn Farrakhan in order for whites to be willing to dialogue - is a grotesque inversion of historic responsibility for the problem of racism in the United States.

* Future: Obama in a Blowout (Alternet)
The November presidential election is not going to be close. Barack Obama is going to beat John McCain by 8 to 10 points in the national popular vote and win 300 to 350 electoral votes. Obama is going to wipe out McCain mano a mano. I am far more confident making this prediction than I was in predicting Hillary's demise. There are many reasons why....

4. Wisdom of the East
* Neural Buddhists (NY Times)
In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.

* Tibetan Open House (half way down the page) (Thanks, Judith!)
Doing anything tomorrow? In Toronto area? Consider going to a free “A Celebration of Tibetan Culture, featuring:   Tibetan Art Show; Guided tour of Shrine Room; Tibetan Music and Dance; Tibetan Food”

* Sadhu Gallery - Saint Yogis and Ascetics of India (Photo gallery)

5. The Power of Self Delusion
* Wayward Alzheimer's Patients Foiled By Fake Bus Stop - (The Telegraph)
A German nursing home has come up with a novel idea to stop Alzheimer's patients from wandering off: a phantom bus stop. The bus stop, in front of the Benrath Senior Centre in the western city of Düsseldorf, is an exact replica of a standard stop, with one small difference: buses never stop there.

* Obecalp
The Placebo Store sells cherry-flavored chewable tablets called Obecalp (get it?) for parents to administer when they don't think their kid is really sick.

* The World from Berlin: Bush Has 'Understood Nothing, Learned Nothing' (Der Spiegel)
Bush called for the US to halt the growth of greenhouse gas emissions -- but only in 2025. As the San Jose Mercury News wrote on Thursday: "Allowing emissions to rise for the next 17 years is not a plan; it's an abdication." Europe, not surprisingly, tends to agree. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel called Bush's presentation a "Neanderthal speech," and said it represented "losership, not leadership”. 

6. Music: Salute to Bo Diddley (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008)
* History, and 1955 Ed Sullivan Performance

* Bo and the Stars (Frankie Avalon, Clarence Clemons, Greg Allman,David Cassidy,Tom Scott Donny Osmond, Johnny Rivers, James Ingram, Lisa Ford, Joe Walsh, Scott Baxter, John Alec Entwhistle etc)

* “Bo, You Don’t Know Diddley” (Nike ad)

7. Pictures of the Ruins
* Burma (BBC)
* China
* Detroit

8. Weird Stuff
* Dutch Camouflaged Tank
* Toronto Pillow Fight
* Strangest Looking Animals

9. EyeCandy: The World in A Grain of Sand
* Grains of Sand
* Extreme Sand Sculpting
* Sisyphus is Almost There

10.  Quote of the Week
“I believe that if one person is watching a huge calamity - let's say a conflagration - there are always three principal options. Option 1: Run away, as far away and as fast as you can, and let those who cannot run burn. Option 2: Write a very angry letter to the editor of your paper demanding that the responsible people be removed from office in disgrace. Or for that matter launch a demonstration. Option 3: Bring a bucket of water and throw it on the fire, and if you don't have a bucket, bring a glass, and if you don't have a glass, use a teaspoon - everyone has a teaspoon. And yes, I know a teaspoon is little and the fire is huge, but there are millions of us and each one of us has a teaspoon.” Amos Oz



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See who we are and what we're about to do.

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.

Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.

You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
 
                                        The Talmud
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The Tikkun Toronto Newsletter                 
Compiled and edited by Peter Marmorek                                                      
Year Five; Issue 20

1.  Tikkun: Upcoming Meetings, Israel Stories Numbers 
2.  The Once and Future President
3.  Talking to the Enemy in the Middle East
4.  Oceanic Mistakes
5.  The Politics of Men & Women
6.  The Dope on Drugs
7.  Amazing Images
8.  Ad-ing Up
9.  EyeCandy: a Motley Collection
10.  Quote of the Week

1.   Tikkun Coming Attractions
* Next Action Meeting Tuesday June 17th at Harvey’s
* Spirit Meeting this Wednesday May 28th at Peter’s at 7:30. A Spirited discussion, in the garden- perhaps.
* The Israel Stories - up today is Dorothy So far, over 700 listenings to the stories online!

2. Carter, Clinton, Obama
* Ten Minutes to Change the World
The emotional high point came when Carter seemed to be playing the fantasy game himself, offering the opening words of the speech the next president should deliver when he or she is inaugurated next January..."When I'm the president of the United States," he intoned, the voice still strong, "My country will never again torture a prisoner. When I'm the president of the United States, we will never again attack another country unless our security is directly threatened. When I'm the president of the United States, human rights will be the foundation of our foreign policy." He went on in that vein, with ringing declarations on global warming, a promise to honour international agreements and to bring "security and peace to Israel and all its neighbours and treat them all on an equal basis." ...Carter insisted that a new president would not need a hundred days to change America's image in the world, just the "ten minutes" required to say those words.

* Barbara Ehrenreich on Hillary Clinton
In Friday’s New York Times, Susan Faludi rejoiced over Hillary Clinton’s destruction of the myth of female prissiness and innate moral superiority, hailing Clinton’s “no-holds-barred pugnacity” and her media reputation as “nasty” and “ruthless.” Future female presidential candidates will owe a lot to the race of 2008, Faludi wrote, “when Hillary Clinton broke through the glass floor and got down with the boys.” I share Faludi’s glee – up to a point. Surely no one will ever dare argue that women lack the temperament for political combat. But by running a racially-tinged campaign, lying about her foreign policy experience, and repeatedly seeming to favor McCain over her Democratic opponent, Clinton didn’t just break through the “glass floor,” she set a new low for floors in general, and would, if she could have got within arm’s reach, have rubbed the broken glass into Obama’s face.

* Is Obama Swinging Right? (Counterpunch)
Senator Obama was for many years considered pro-Palestinian, but a year ago when he spoke sympathetically about the suffering of Palestinian people, he quickly backed off his statements under pressure from the Israeli lobby. His surrender to AIPAC this week is particularly troubling because it comes at a time when more and more Americans - including Jewish Americans - are awakening to the fact that the Israeli lobby is a threat to both America and Israel, because its unwavering support for the expansion of colonial settlements and its resistance to serious peace negotiations serve to block the two-state solution which could otherwise be within reach.

3. Communicating With The Other Side in the Middle East
* Escaping Forward (Wonderful Uri Avnery piece)
Ehud Olmert's... situation is desperate. Most people in Israel do not doubt that he has received large bribes in envelopes stuffed with dollars. The Attorney General is liable to indict him any time, and this will compel him to resign. And lo and behold, at the most critical moment, just before the most damning details come out, a joint statement is issued simultaneously in Jerusalem, Damascus and Ankara, announcing the start of peace negotiations between Israel and Syria, with Turkey acting as mediator....Conv