Unions Gone Global

"The business press has barely noticed and the usual champions of globalization have been mute, but an announcement last week in Ottawa signaled a radical new direction for the globalized economy. The United Steelworkers -- that venerable, Depression-era creation of John L. Lewis and New Deal labor policy -- entered into merger negotiations with two of Britain's largest unions (which are merging with each other next month) to create not only the first transatlantic but the first genuinely multinational trade union."

The US Muslim Punk Scene

The Taqwacores - a novel about a fictitious Muslim punk scene in the US - has spawned an actual movement that is being driven forward by young Muslims worldwide.

Future of Food

This is a "must see" documenary for anyone interested in US agri-business policy, patent law, and environmental policy. You Tube has the entire film available. I recently came across this very interesting related piece in The New York Times Magazine.

Europe tops US in stock market value

Europe has eclipsed the US in stock market value for the first time since the first world war in another sign of the slipping of the global dominance of American capital markets.

Life is dead

"Time Inc. announced yesterday that Life magazine would cease publication next month, the third time since Life’s founding in 1936 that its owner has pulled the plug.

The magazine once featured the work of some of the world’s greatest photographers. In its current incarnation, it has dwindled to 20 pages of mostly celebrity interviews and homemaking tips. The last issue will be April 20."

Brzezinski on "War on Terror"

Terrorized by 'War on Terror'

by Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter

"To justify the 'war on terror,' the administration has lately crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its bottle. It acquires a life of its own -- and can become demoralizing. America today is not the self-confident and determined nation..."

Might this be the mood that we have been discussing in relation to post 9/11 American Fiction?

Ecotopian Activist Warns Congress of ‘Planetary Emergency’

Former Vice President Al Gore, rejecting complaints by Republican lawmakers that he was waging an alarmist war on coal and oil use, insisted before Congressional panels today that human-caused global warming constitutes a “planetary emergency” requiring an aggressive federal response.