What shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?
"...what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?”
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
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| READ |
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| LEAKS |
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| FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA |
I've always liked counting down to the new
year. We get to reflect on what we've been through, and prepare for what's
ahead. There's something inherently optimistic about that.
I know optimism isn't always fashionable.
Certainly not when we're fed a steady stream of cynicism on television and
through social media. We face some extraordinary challenges, but consider the
long view. If you think about it, by almost every measure, America and the
world are better than they were fifty, twenty, even ten years ago.
I was born at a time when women and people of color were systematically, routinely excluded from huge portions of American life. Today, women and minorities are rising up in the ranks of business, politics, and everywhere else. That's just one of the significant shifts we've seen. And when you measure it against the scope of human history -- it happened in an instant. Around the world, we live in a time when fewer people are dying young and more people are living not only longer, but better. More girls are in school. More adults can read. More children get the vaccines they need. These are good things. And none of them are lucky accidents. They happened because countless people, toiling for many years, fought to make this progress. More than anything, that's what's needed now - the engagement of everyone who wants to see a better future for our children. The kind of collective action that has always driven human progress. And even in the face of cynicism and division, it's those kinds of stories from 2017 that I'll remember.
When Kat Creech, a wedding planner in Houston, Texas, saw a rapidly strengthening hurricane approaching her state, she and a couple whose Labor Day wedding she was planning decided to postpone. At Kat's suggestion, that couple instead invited their wedding party, family, and friends to join together and volunteer to support those affected by the flood. Inspired, Kat kept going. She started a Facebook group to help connect and coordinate with fellow residents who wanted to volunteer. That became Recovery Houston, hundreds of volunteers strong. They helped clear more than 120 homes in a single week. Asked what she hopes others will learn from her story, Kat said, "You can move mountains and really make a difference in someone's life."
That's a story from 2017.
In the wake of this summer's violence in Virginia, Chris Long, a defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles, gave his first six paychecks of the season to fund scholarships at the high school he attended in his hometown of Charlottesville. But, like Kat in Texas, he wanted to do more. He decided to give away the rest of his paychecks for the season as well. An entire season's salary. "Be that contagious light that spreads energy to other people," Chris told a group of high school students this year. "Be contagious in your energy."
That's something else that happened in 2017.
At just five years old, Jahkil Jackson had witnessed the struggles of Chicago's homeless families when his aunt took him to Lower Wacker Drive to hand out food to those camped there. He found himself restless, wanting to do more. With a spark of inspiration and the help of his family, Jahkil created "Blessing Bags" -- kits full of socks, toiletries and snacks that he could offer to those in need. Now, as a 10 year old, through his organization Project I Am, Jahkil has enlisted the help of his school and community to pursue his goal of handing out 5,000 Blessing Bags, all because he wanted a simple way to help his neighbors. Just yesterday, with the support of his friends, Jahkil reached his goal.
A 2017 story.
Kate, Chris, and Jahkil were all living in the same country, during the same time, as you and me. They chose not to be daunted by challenges, but to stand up and make their world better.
I saw that spirit all across America in people who chose to get involved, get engaged, and stand up not only to defend their rights, but more importantly, the rights of others. People who rejected cynicism and pessimism and pushed forward with a relentless, infectious optimism. Not a blind optimism that ignores the scale and scope of our challenges, but rather a hard-earned optimism rooted in the stories of real progress.
It's a belief that each of us can make a difference, and all of us ought to try. You only need one person speaking with conviction, speaking with courage, and yes, with optimism, and you're going to change some minds. Those folks won't just be convinced -- they'll be motivated to go out and spread the message that swayed them. They'll be its best ambassadors. And on it goes, one conversation at a time, until you've got yourself a movement. A movement that can change the world. I'll believe that as long as I live. So go keep changing the world in 2018.
- Barack
I was born at a time when women and people of color were systematically, routinely excluded from huge portions of American life. Today, women and minorities are rising up in the ranks of business, politics, and everywhere else. That's just one of the significant shifts we've seen. And when you measure it against the scope of human history -- it happened in an instant. Around the world, we live in a time when fewer people are dying young and more people are living not only longer, but better. More girls are in school. More adults can read. More children get the vaccines they need. These are good things. And none of them are lucky accidents. They happened because countless people, toiling for many years, fought to make this progress. More than anything, that's what's needed now - the engagement of everyone who wants to see a better future for our children. The kind of collective action that has always driven human progress. And even in the face of cynicism and division, it's those kinds of stories from 2017 that I'll remember.
When Kat Creech, a wedding planner in Houston, Texas, saw a rapidly strengthening hurricane approaching her state, she and a couple whose Labor Day wedding she was planning decided to postpone. At Kat's suggestion, that couple instead invited their wedding party, family, and friends to join together and volunteer to support those affected by the flood. Inspired, Kat kept going. She started a Facebook group to help connect and coordinate with fellow residents who wanted to volunteer. That became Recovery Houston, hundreds of volunteers strong. They helped clear more than 120 homes in a single week. Asked what she hopes others will learn from her story, Kat said, "You can move mountains and really make a difference in someone's life."
That's a story from 2017.
In the wake of this summer's violence in Virginia, Chris Long, a defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles, gave his first six paychecks of the season to fund scholarships at the high school he attended in his hometown of Charlottesville. But, like Kat in Texas, he wanted to do more. He decided to give away the rest of his paychecks for the season as well. An entire season's salary. "Be that contagious light that spreads energy to other people," Chris told a group of high school students this year. "Be contagious in your energy."
That's something else that happened in 2017.
At just five years old, Jahkil Jackson had witnessed the struggles of Chicago's homeless families when his aunt took him to Lower Wacker Drive to hand out food to those camped there. He found himself restless, wanting to do more. With a spark of inspiration and the help of his family, Jahkil created "Blessing Bags" -- kits full of socks, toiletries and snacks that he could offer to those in need. Now, as a 10 year old, through his organization Project I Am, Jahkil has enlisted the help of his school and community to pursue his goal of handing out 5,000 Blessing Bags, all because he wanted a simple way to help his neighbors. Just yesterday, with the support of his friends, Jahkil reached his goal.
A 2017 story.
Kate, Chris, and Jahkil were all living in the same country, during the same time, as you and me. They chose not to be daunted by challenges, but to stand up and make their world better.
I saw that spirit all across America in people who chose to get involved, get engaged, and stand up not only to defend their rights, but more importantly, the rights of others. People who rejected cynicism and pessimism and pushed forward with a relentless, infectious optimism. Not a blind optimism that ignores the scale and scope of our challenges, but rather a hard-earned optimism rooted in the stories of real progress.
It's a belief that each of us can make a difference, and all of us ought to try. You only need one person speaking with conviction, speaking with courage, and yes, with optimism, and you're going to change some minds. Those folks won't just be convinced -- they'll be motivated to go out and spread the message that swayed them. They'll be its best ambassadors. And on it goes, one conversation at a time, until you've got yourself a movement. A movement that can change the world. I'll believe that as long as I live. So go keep changing the world in 2018.
- Barack
"Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go
into North Korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea
problem if this continues to happen!" he wrote on Twitter. [Axios, China: 7 big things to watch in
2018, December 30, 2017]
"Countries See Executive Disorder in Trump's Foreign
Policy Tweets":
- "Two things stand out about the
foreign policy messages Mr. Trump has posted on Twitter since taking
office: How far they veer from the traditional ways American presidents
express themselves, let alone handle diplomacy."
- "And how rarely Mr. Trump has
followed through on his words. Indeed, nearly a year after he entered the
White House, the rest of the world is trying to figure out whether Mr.
Trump is more mouth than fist, more paper tiger than the real thing."
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| SCREEN |
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FOOD
& DRUG ADMINISTRATION
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FDA TO USDA: HOW ABOUT YOU NOT MOVE CODEX: The
FDA has officially registered its opinion about Secretary Perdue's plan to move
USDA's Codex office from its public health agency (FSIS) to its newly created
trade mission area. In short: Please don't.
In comments that were submitted to the docket but have not yet posted publicly, Stephen Ostroff, deputy
commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine at FDA, used unusually direct
language to criticize the move. "FDA strongly believes that moving Codex
to the oversight of a trade-promoting, non-science organization could undermine
the credibility of U.S. Codex as a science-based enterprise," Ostroff
wrote.
Factoid of the day: Of the more than 180
countries that participate in the Codex Alimentarius Commission, only five base
their Codex-assigned officials at a trade-focused agency: Congo, Guinea,
Lesotho, Madagascar and Samoa, according to FDA. [POLITICO's Morning Agriculture, October 4, 2017]
Fighting salmonella: The Food and Drug Administration said it would allow formic
acid in poultry feed to fight salmonella. But unlike European regulations,
which ban the use of formic acid in egg-laying chickens to avoid any residue in
the eggs, the U.S. will allow it to be used in both egg-laying hens and broiler
chickens. [POLITICO's Morning Agriculture, January 3, 2018]
FDA
hits pause on some FSMA enforcement: The
FDA announced Thursday it was planning to "exercise enforcement
discretion" for some provisions in four of the most significant Food
Safety Modernization Act regulations, including produce safety and preventive
controls. The move gives FDA more time to iron out some long-standing and
thorny questions about which regulations apply to farms that pack and hold
produce. In the meantime, there are plenty of farm businesses breathing a sigh
of relief knowing they have more time to sort things out. [POLITICO's Morning
Agriculture, January 5, 2018]
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| ENVIRONMENT |
Last August's dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico was the largest
ever seen. One company bears much of the responsibility: Tyson Foods.
Every year, the Mississippi River empties nutrient-rich sediment
into the Gulf of Mexico, creating a "dead zone" without enough oxygen
in the water. In August 2017, this area was the size of New Jersey.1
The nutrient pollution comes from fertilizer and manure. A
report earlier this year pointed the finger at one source in particular: Tyson
Foods, the country's largest meat company.2 Tell
Tyson CEO Tom Hayes to clean up his act and help prevent another Gulf dead
zone.
Tyson is a hungry corporation. It slaughters 125,000 cows,
415,000 hogs, and 35 million chickens every week.3 An
estimated five million acres of corn (plus more land for soybean crops) are
required to feed all these animals each year.4
An industry of this scale produces a lot of manure and
fertilizer, even before the animals get sent to one of Tyson's meat processing
facilities. Its insatiable appetite clears land and fosters monoculture where
healthy forests and grasslands once thrived.
Tyson-related pollution can flow from local streams into the
Mississippi River, eventually winding its way down through Louisiana and out
into the Gulf. There, the high amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus creates an
overgrowth of algae. The algae eventually dies, decomposing and absorbing
oxygen to the point where marine life must flee or die.
It's time for Tyson to take responsibility for the pollution
they cause. The company touts its sustainability initiatives -- tell
Tyson CEO Tom Hayes to put his money where his mouth is and clean up his
company's record.
In this together,
The SierraRise team
Sources:
1. Charles, D. (3 August 2017). "The Gulf
Of Mexico's Dead Zone Is The Biggest Ever Seen."
National Public Radio.
2. von Reusner, L. (1 August 2017). "Mystery Meat II: The Industry Behind the Quiet Destruction of the American Heartland." Mighty Earth.
3. (accessed 15 December 2017). "Tyson Foods, Inc." Vault.com.
4. von Reusner, L. (1 August 2017). "Mystery Meat II: The Industry Behind the Quiet Destruction of the American Heartland." Mighty Earth.
2. von Reusner, L. (1 August 2017). "Mystery Meat II: The Industry Behind the Quiet Destruction of the American Heartland." Mighty Earth.
3. (accessed 15 December 2017). "Tyson Foods, Inc." Vault.com.
4. von Reusner, L. (1 August 2017). "Mystery Meat II: The Industry Behind the Quiet Destruction of the American Heartland." Mighty Earth.
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| WHITE HOUSE |
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| EDUCATION |
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TRUMP
– RUSSIA PROBE
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"I saw sewage
filled yards in states where governments don’t consider sanitation facilities
to be their responsibility, I saw people who had lost all of their teeth
because adult dental care is not covered by the vast majority of programs
available to the very poor, I heard about soaring death rates and family and
community destruction wrought by prescription and other drug addiction, and I
met with people in the South of Puerto Rico living next to a mountain of
completely unprotected coal ash which rains down upon them bringing illness,
disability and death ... The United States is one of the world’s richest, most
powerful and technologically innovative countries; but neither its wealth nor
its power nor its technology is being harnessed to address the situation in
which 40 million people continue to live in poverty."
These words come from a
report written by Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty
and human rights who spent two weeks touring the United States earlier
this month. His report's sobering and painful conclusion: "The
American Dream is rapidly becoming the American Illusion."
That such deplorable levels of poverty and want are allowed to exist in a nation of such immense power and riches should be a national scandal - and Alston has done vital work in shining a light on it. Every American should read this report and make it a priority in 2018 to right this national wrong. [BostonGlobe, Is There A Silver Lining For Democrats In 2017? December 28, 2017]
That such deplorable levels of poverty and want are allowed to exist in a nation of such immense power and riches should be a national scandal - and Alston has done vital work in shining a light on it. Every American should read this report and make it a priority in 2018 to right this national wrong. [BostonGlobe, Is There A Silver Lining For Democrats In 2017? December 28, 2017]
NOTE: The news sources here vary. Not all sources have the same credibility, but in an effort to share some different perspectives, they are included here. This compendium itself cannot claim to be unbiased. Please take into consideration where these different perspectives originate in assessing their value. Thank you
NOTE: I have no official connection to any organization from which information is shared.. Occasionally, I post informational material and/or an opportunity to donate or join as a "community service" announcement. These again are shared for their varying perspectives.
Any books listed are random or topic-related to something else in the post. Think of these as a "library bookshelf" to browse. They are shared for informational or entertainment value only, not as being recommended
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