"Daniel Denvir" - Ayn Rand U? Rich Conservatives -- Not Just the Kochs -- Buying Up Professors and Influence on Campus

By Daniel Denvir, AlterNet
Posted on May 24, 2011, Printed on May 27, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151066/ayn_rand_u_rich_conservatives_--_not_just_the_kochs_--_buying_up_professors_and_influence_on_campus

These days, rich conservatives want a lot more than their names on university buildings in exchange for big donations. The Koch brothers recently endowed two economics professorships at Florida State University in exchange for a say over faculty hires. Banker John Allison, long-time head of BB&T, has donated to 60 universities in exchange for their agreeing to teach Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged--some agreements even include the outrageous stipulation that the professor teaching the course “have a positive interest in and be well versed in Objectivism.”

The economic crisis has opened American universities to ever more brazen--and at times decidedly strange--attacks on the hallowed principle of academic freedom. Conservative efforts to shape hearts and minds on campus, however, are far from new. Like anything in a capitalist society, academia is a place where people with money fight for power, and take their advantage where they can. Indeed, the effort to mold higher education--which the Right has long caricatured as a hotbed of revolutionary agitation--in the image of the establishment has been central to the rise of modern conservatism.

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“Ibrahim Barzak” - Egypt permanently opens Gaza border crossing

Ibrahim Barzak, Associated Press

May 28, 2011

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/egypt-permanently-opens-gaza-border-crossing-2290293.html

After four years, Egypt today permanently opened the Gaza Strip's main gateway to the outside world, bringing long-awaited relief to the territory's Palestinian population and a significant achievement for the area's ruling Hamas militant group.

The reopening of the Rafah border crossing eases an Egyptian blockade of Gaza that has prevented the vast majority of the densely populated area's 1.5 million people from being able to travel abroad. The closure, along with an Israeli blockade of its borders with Gaza, has fueled an economic crisis in the territory.

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“Emily Holleman” - Is it OK for a vegetarian to wear leather?

As a child, I was uncompromising about not eating meat. But there was one little hypocrisy I tried to ignore

Emily Holleman

May 27, 2011

http://www.salon.com/life/my_tiny_hypocrisy/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/05/27/my_tiny_hypocrisy_vegetarian_and_leather

When I was 8, I became a vegetarian. A zealous vegetarian. The kind of vegetarian who at 10 forced herself to vomit an accidental bite of hot dog and spent hours lecturing her friends' parents on why they should stop eating meat.

As time wore on, my righteous crusade was met with practical challenges. When I'd moo at a friend taking a bite of a hamburger or rail against the cruelty of factory farms or drone on about how terrible cattle-rearing was for the environment, variations of the same question would arise: "Um, Emily, what do you think those shoes are made of?" And then I'd dodge the issue or just flat-out lie ("Um, they're pleather," my 12-year-old self would say. "I don't buy leather").

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"Medical News" - Antibiotics In Animal Feed Encourage Emergence Of Superbugs - FDA Sued By Health And Consumer Organizations

Medical News Today, 26 May 2011   

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/226619.php

If the FDA concluded in 1977 that adding low-dose antibiotics used in human medicine to animal feed raised the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, why has it still done nothing about it? A suit filed by some health and consumer organizations says the FDA has not met its legal responsibility to protect public health - the practice of routinely adding low-dose antibiotics to animal feed has to stop, and the FDA has the authority to make it so.

Peter Lehner, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) executive director, said:

"More than a generation has passed since FDA first recognized the potential human health consequences of feeding large quantities of antibiotics to healthy animals.

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"Robert Koehler" - Ignorant Certainty -- On Apocalypse and Empire

Published on Thursday, May 26, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/26-1

by Robert C. Koehler

Now that the end of the world didn’t happen, I can’t stop thinking about it. What chutzpah, what a diminished worldview, not simply to make such a prediction, but — even more incomprehensible, to my relentlessly self-questioning mind — to know you’ll be among the saved.

In 1011, a guy like Harold Camping would probably have been able to generate more panic than bemusement. A millennium later, with science taught in the public schools and all, we have a little more collective resistance to such thundering certainty leaping from highway billboards. I confess, however, to feeling a deep, reptilian tug last Friday morning, as I saw the sign — SAVE THIS DATE, MAY 21, 2011, CHRIST IS COMING — while driving through eastern Wisconsin. Yikes, that’s tomorrow.

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"Cornelius Lundsgaard" - Thousands of Mongolians Protest to Against China For Equal Rights

Thursday, 26 May 2011 15:46 Cornelius Lundsgaard, The Tibet Post International

http://www.thetibetpost.com/en/news/international/1727-thousands-of-mongolians-protest-to-against-china-for-equal-rights

Dharamshala: Wednesday May 25, more than 2000 ethnic Mongolian protesters marched to the Chinese government building in the North-western city of Xilinhot, in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR).

The protest was spurred by the killing of a Mongolian herder by a Chinese truck-driver following disputes over access to pastures which are being used as road-ways for trucks transporting coal for the growing coal-industry in Inner Mongolia.

Three herders and one student were reportedly beaten severely during the protests and their whereabouts are presently unknown.

The protesters, who were mainly students, demanded they be treated equal to the growing number of ethnic Han Chinese who now make up the majority of the population in the region, with only an estimated 17 percent of Inner Mongolia's 23 million people being of Mongolian ethnicity.

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"Matt Styslinger" - The Chicago Council on Global Affairs Gives a Mark of B Minus to the U.S. Government’s Leadership Role in Global Agricultural Development

By Matt Styslinger

Worldwatch  May 26, 2011

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs held its annual Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security in Washington, D.C. Tuesday, May 24^th, featuring keynote presentations from Bill Gates, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Rajiv Shah, and the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Tom Vilsack. The event coincided with the release of the 2011 Progress Report on U.S. Leadership in Global Agricultural Development by the Chicago Council’s Global Agricultural Development Initiative.

The initiative is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, and the report gives the U.S. government a grade of B minus for its overall leadership role in global agricultural development. “After several decades of decreased investment in international agriculture, the U.S. has made significant new commitments and its new initiatives are gaining momentum in a short period of time,” said project co-Chairs Catherine Bertini, former Executive Director of the UN World Food Program, and Dan Glickman, Former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Now the government as a whole must continue to support these efforts if they are to engender material reductions in global poverty,” they said.

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"Reuters" - Analysis: China drought ignites global grain supply concerns

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/26/us-china-drought-grains-idUSTRE74P2KA20110526

SINGAPORE/BEIJING (Reuters) - A prolonged drought in China could hit grains output in key growing regions, further squeezing global supplies and putting upward pressure on prices, but plentiful domestic wheat stocks will act as a cushion and keep import volumes low.

Analysts are closely watching the weather in China, warning any further supply shocks in the grain markets would fuel a further rally in U.S. corn and wheat futures, already stoked by harsh crop weather in the United States and Europe.

"Parts of China have been too dry and if we did see crop failures in that part of the world they are going to look to the global market for supplies," said Luke Mathews, a commodity strategist with Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

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"Robert Becker" - Rise and Fall of GOP Solipsism -- Narcissists on the Run?

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Rise-and-Fall-of-GOP-Solip-by-Robert-S-Becker-110525-307.html

May 25, 2011 By Robert S. Becker Come what, come may, narcissists have had their day. by politicalruminations.cm Historic tipping points, especially tracking the vagaries of self-serving political solipsism, are hard to pinpoint and harder to confirm.   We could be nearing a major reversal: fringe Republicanism -- which is to say the entire party -- refuses to back down from its deranged manias, with stunningly negative voting impacts.  Evidence: last night's Democratic Congressional win in a very Republican NY District.  True, impossible to know now how grievously will inexhaustible corporate gold tarnish formerly "free" elections -- serving up the biggest GOP 2012 brass ring: taking over the Senate. Reagan spearheaded the GOP ploy, showing that smug, insular self-absorption immune to fallacies and contradictions can win elections (especially against dismal Dems).  The pinnacle came when W.'s divinely-ordained "gut instincts" warped terrorism and committed trillions on bad wars -- inducing one of the most concentrated transfers of wealth in our history.   My brain still distinguishes the fixated, base-driven, rightwing self-absorption (W.'s or Fox TV) from less ideological Democratic self-absorption -- however volatile, Clinton's egotism never disrespected expertise and intelligence; Obama's 'let's-make-any-deal' "pragmatism" contrasts with Bush-Cheney's rigid, voice-of-God infallibility.

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"ACLU" - House Passes Bill Authorizing Worldwide War As Momentum Builds Against It

Defense Bill Also Contains Several Other Troubling Provisions

WASHINGTON - May 26 - The House today passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contains a dangerous provision that authorizes a worldwide war against terrorism suspects and against nations suspected of supporting them. The bill includes several additional troubling provisions, including one that would needlessly delay the implementation of the repeal of the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and another blocking all federal criminal trials of suspected terrorists who are not U.S. citizens. The American Civil Liberties Union strongly opposes the authorization for worldwide war and many other provisions in the bill.

Earlier this week, President Obama threatened to veto the legislation, citing concerns with the worldwide war provision and provisions limiting the executive branch’s authority to transfer terrorism suspects to the United States for prosecution or for release to other countries. An amendment to strike the worldwide war provision failed despite a strong bipartisan vote.

“The tide has begun to turn against the worldwide war proposal,” said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Two weeks ago, very few people even knew this dangerous worldwide war provision was being considered. Yet today, a bipartisan group of 187 members voted to try to block its passage and the president has issued a veto threat against it. The Senate should now build on today’s momentum and kill off this dangerous unlimited war proposal. A new authorization of worldwide war will mean unrestricted powers to use the military at home and abroad at a time when the majority of Americans want limits on U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts. Not only will this authority make America less safe, it is unnecessary and will undermine our values and change us as a nation.”

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