by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger

The biggest news for the environment this week might just be that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge took pains to add a couple of green touches to this morning's Royal Wedding. The flowers were seasonal, the food locally grown, and the emissions offset.

At Care2, Laura Bailey has a few more ideas for couples inclined to green a wedding: Wear a vintage wedding dress. Exchange heirloom rings. Give guests environmentally friendly wedding gifts. Ask them to donate to a charity instead of stocking your household with kitchen appliances.

Anyway...

Those of us who don't live in the fantasy land of British royalty do have bigger problems to worry about: tornadoes, jobs, climate change. At Grist, David Roberts argues that America's inability to act on this last problem is tied to the general insecurity running rampant:

Americans are so battered and anxious right now. Median wages are flat, unemployment is high, politics is paralyzed. Middle-class families are one health problem away from ruin, and when they fall, there's no net. That kind of insecurity, as much as anything, explains the American reticence to launch bold new social programs.

The first step to solving climate change, in this formulation, is to give average people two legs to stand on financially. Once Americans feel more confident about today, they'll be more like to worry about the big problems of the future.

No nuclear

It's vital that the country get to a place where real discussions about how to deal with the threats of climate change can happen, because the solutions the country's relying on now won't cut it in the long term. Take nuclear energy. It plays a key role in America's energy strategy for the future, despite the compelling reasons for building fewer, not more, plants.

At AlterNet, Norman Solomon, a writer with a long history of arguing against nuclear energy, writes that California needs to shut down its two nuclear plants. He's worried about the near-term consequences of creating nuclear power in an earthquake-prone zone but also about the long-term impacts of pro-nuclear policies:

The Diablo Canyon plant near San Luis Obispo and the San Onofre plant on the southern California coast are vulnerable to meltdowns from earthquakes and threaten both residents and the environment.

Reactor safety is just one of the concerns. Each nuclear power plant creates radioactive waste that will remain deadly for thousands of years. This is not the kind of legacy that we should leave for future generations.

This week also marked the 25th anniversary of the meltdown at Chernobyl. At The Nation, Peter Rothberg reminds us that nuclear accidents wreak havoc for years to come. The Chernobyl meltdown, he writes, "has caused tens of thousands of cancer deaths, and showed just how far-reaching the ramifications of a serious nuclear accident could be." Rothberg and Kevin Gostolza also rounded up a list of ten great anti-nuclear songs.

No oil

Nuclear isn't the only current energy source that poses intolerable risks. As the price of oil has rocketed upwards in the past few weeks, the country has started freaking out and, as Marah Hardt writes at Change.org, in Alaska, state officials are pressuring the federal government to open up oil drilling there. But as Hardt points out:

Spills can and will happen. And in the freezing, extreme conditions of the Arctic--think extended periods of darkness, fog, sub-zero temperatures, hurricane-force storms, and lots of moving sea ice--clean-up efforts would be nearly impossible. Just this past February, an oil spill off Norway's only marine reserve proved how difficult clean-up operations can be, even in relatively calm conditions: oil leaked underneath sea ice, where it was impossible to reach, and surface skimming booms quickly clogged with ice, rendering them useless.

No energy?

No matter what we do, however, gathering the energy used to power our lives will take some toll on the environment. A large portion of clean energy in states like New York, for example, comes from hydroelectric power--dams. But dams are environmental villains of long-standing, as well.

In the West, dams along the Colorado River are negatively impacting the region's national parks, Public News Service's Kathleen Ryan reports:

David Nimkin, NPCA's Southwest regional director, says all of the parks in the [Colorad River] basin, including the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and the Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado, are seeing the sometimes-unintended consequences of placing dams along the river, from unnatural water flow patterns, to the introduction of non-native fish species, or increased river sediment and temperatures.

"The dams also fragment the system as whole, creating small isolated little ecosystems and areas that are not consistent with overall river conditions."

With these sorts of choices, sometimes it is easier to worry about the little changes we can make to assuage our environmental consciences: recycled wedding invitations might not save the world, but they might hurt it that much less.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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by Catherine A. Traywick, Medica Consortium blogger

A year ago this month, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070 into law, effectively pushing an already vibrant anti-immigrant movement to a new extreme. Over the following months, immigrant rights advocates prepared for the worst, and grappled with multiple setbacks as other states threatened to follow Arizona's example.

Looking back, though, it's clear that the draconian immigration law hasn't quite measured up to its bad reputation--in part because a federal injunction blocked several of its more pernicious provisions. Kent Peterson at New America Media/Frontera NorteSur suggests that anti-immigrant policymakers "overreached" with SB 1070, pushing the restrictionist movement to its own peak with the controversial law.

Arizona's political influence has waned

Certainly in the long term, the law seems to have done more harm than good to the movement. While it initially added plenty of fuel to the restrictionists' fire, it has ultimately failed to spread through other states the way many expected it to. While a few states (see Colorlines.com's infographic or Alternet's rundown) are still considering SB1070-type laws, most others have backed off the idea.

As Seth Hoy explains at Alternet/Immigration Impact, "states learned from Arizona -- the numerous protests, Supreme Court challenge, costly litigation, economic boycotts that are still costing state businesses millions -- and rejected similar laws." Peterson similarly notes that a number of states have moved away from Arizona's example because of SB 1070's unexpected economic consequences--chiefly, an estimated $769 million in economic and tax revenues lost as a result of boycotts.

Immigrants still marginalized

That's not say that the law has had no effect on immigrants. While a federal judge stayed several of its provisions last summer, SB 1070 proved to be a precursor to other insidious state laws targeting immigrants. Empowered by their success with SB 1070 and the ensuing media frenzy, state legislators quickly moved forward with several other harsh laws. As Feet in Two Worlds' Valeria Fernandez explains, many immigrants in Arizona continue to live in fear even though SB 1070 is only partially enacted. She writes:

When you talk to immigrants in the street, they'll tell you that not much has changed. Some continue to live in fear that they could be stopped by the police and deported. Others are having a difficult time getting work due to another Arizona law that harshly sanctions employers who hire undocumented immigrants.

At Colorlines.com, Seth Freed Wessler elaborates on the real impact of bills like SB 1070. He writes:

[The bills] send waves of fear and confusion into immigrant communities. ... In the period since SB 1070 passed, uncounted numbers of immigrants have fled their homes in Arizona. ... And the provisions in the law that were not blocked by the court, including one that makes it a crime to harbor or transport undocumented immigrants, put everyone at risk.

The role of the federal government

Nevertheless, Wessler points out that the federal government--not SB 1070 and not Arizona--is to blame for the brunt of the damage inflicted upon undocumented immigrants in the last year. Besides deporting record numbers of immigrant detainees and significantly expanding border enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security laid the groundwork for SB 1070 with its 287(g) program--which enabled local law enforcement to act as ICE agents. Adding insult to injury, President Barack Obama never came to close to fulfilling his campaign promise of passing comprehensive immigration reform.

Whether he will do so this year is up for debate, but many reform advocates remain skeptical after last year's ups and downs. As Marcos Restrepo of the American Independent reports, several immigrant rights activists voiced disappointment after Obama convened a White House meeting on immigration last Tuesday. Chief among the critics was Pablo Alvorado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, who said in a statement:

While we appreciate the President's effort to keep immigration reform on the national agenda, his actions belie his intent...If the President genuinely wanted to fix the broken immigration system, he would respond to the growing chorus of voices calling for the suspension of the secure communities program and move to legalize instead of further criminalize our immigrant communities.

The American Prospect's Gabriel Arana is similarly skeptical of both the president's approach to the problem, and his ability to enact meaningful reform:

On one hand, it is laudable that the president has revived the immigration debate, but there is a reason it died last year, even with Democrats in firm control of Congress and the executive branch. Instead of trying to tack immigration reform to an enforcement bill, the president should change the frame and stop talking about immigration as a national-security issue rather than an issue in its own right.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger

The Vermont state Senate passed legislation to create a single-payer health insurance system, Paul Waldman reports for TAPPED. Since the state House has already passed a similar bill, all that's left to do is reconcile the two pieces of legislation before the governor signs it into law.

Waldman stresses that there are still many details to work out, including how the system will be funded. Vermont might end up with a system like France's where everyone has basic public insurance, which most people supplement with additional private coverage. The most important thing, Waldman argues, is that Vermont is moving to sever the link between employment and health insurance.

Roe showdown

Anti-choicers are gunning for a Roe v. Wade showdown in the Supreme Court before Obama can appoint any more justices. At the behest of an unnamed conservative group, Republican state Rep. John LaBruzzo of Louisiana has introduced a bill that would ban all abortions, even to save the woman's life. The original bill upped the anti-choice ante by criminalizing not only doctors who perform abortions, but also women who procure them. LaBruzzo has since promised to scale the bill back to just criminalizing doctors. This is all blatantly unconstitutional, of course,. but as Kate Sheppard explains in Mother Jones, that's precisely the point:

The Constitution, of course, is exactly what LaBruzzo is targeting. He admits his proposal is intended as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional right to privacy included the right to abortions in some circumstances. LaBruzzo says he'd like his bill to become law and "immediately go to court," and he told a local paper that an unnamed conservative religious group asked him to propose the law for exactly that purpose.

Drug pushers in your living room

Martha Rosenberg poses a provocative question at AlterNet: Does anyone remember a time before "Ask Your Doctor" ads overran the airwaves, Internet, buses, billboards, and seemingly every other medium? Direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising has become so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget that it was illegal until the late '90s. In the days before DTC, drug advertising was limited to medical journals, prescription pads, golf towels, and pill-shaped stress balls distributed in doctors' offices--which makes sense. The whole point of making a drug prescription-only is to put the decision-making power in the hands of doctors. Now, drug companies advertise to consumers for the same reason that food companies advertise to children. It's called "pester power."

DTC drug ads encourage consumers to self-diagnose based on vague and sometimes nearly universal symptoms like poor sleep, daytime drowsiness, anxiety, and depression. Once consumers are convinced they're suffering from industry-hyped constructs like "erectile dysfunction" and "premenstrual dysphoric disorder," they're going to badger their doctors for prescriptions.

That's not to say that these terms don't encompass legitimate health problems, but rather that DTC markets products in such vague terms that a lot of healthy people are sure to be clamoring for drugs they don't need. Typically, neither the patient nor the doctor is paying the full cost of the drug, so patients are more likely to ask and doctors have little incentive to say no.

Greenwashing air fresheners

A reader seeks the counsel of Grist's earthy advice columnist Umbra on the issue of air fresheners. Some of these odor-concealing aerosols are touting themselves as green for adopting all-natural propellants. Does that make them healthier, or greener? Only marginally, says Umbra. Air fresheners still contain formaldehyde, petroleum distillates, and other questionable chemicals.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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A lot of people claim that traditional publishing is broken and will eventually die. I disagree. Much like the changes that have occurred in the past in publishing, the big six will survive and so will agents. I do not have any insider knowledge or hidden agenda, nor do I profess to know everything about publishing. Not by a long shot. But I do know how to read the signs of this evolution or revolution, depending on which side of the fence you are on. I believe there have been many signs. Here is how I foresee they will do it.

Self-publishing: In the very near future, all of the houses will spend some of their equity on self-publishing. In order to survive, they are going to have to reinvent the way they do business. This means digging into the self-publishing arena. It's rumored that two major houses are already doing this, and there are likely more to come. Hay House, for example, has already lent their name to Balboa Press which is their self-publishing arm. I have no experience with Balboa so I can't speak to their process, but I do know that part of their sales pitch to authors is that a successful book published with Balboa will be considered by Hay House for republication. Does this actually happen? I don't know, Balboa hasn't been around long enough to show a track record. If publishers get into self-publishing, does that mean they won't be publishing traditionally? Not at all. The traditional model won't go away, but with publishers becoming more and more risk-averse, the model has to change if they're going to survive. And, let's face it, while the number of bookstores is declining, opportunities to sell books and flood the market with books continue to increase.

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Sunday September 19th, as part of Independent Film Week, the IFP invited me to a "Cage Match" with Jeff Lipsky on Indie Film's relationship with youth culture.  The discussion was spurred on by a post of mine "Can Truly Free Film Appeal To Youth Culture ," and the robust discussion everyone had in our comments section to that post, and then still further by discussions on Filmmaker Mag Blog and Anthony Kaufman's column.  It was a good discussion before IFP even proposed the CageMatch, but I appreciated the opportunity to give it more thought.

You might have missed it but it's been summed up pretty well by Robert McLellan on GlobalShift.org (thanks to Shari Candler for tipping me to that), Ingrid Koop on the FilmmakerMag Blog, and Eugene Hernandez at Indiewire (although I don't agree, or believe I said, that Indie Film is aimed at white women over the age of 45 -- although they are the dominant audience -- but that we have to prevent Indie Film from being the province of the privileged, old, and white (i.e. me!)). Jeff and I could have blabbed for hours. I have plenty more to say on the issue.

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Late yesterday, the Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation board issued a preliminary report of its findings related to causes of the Macondo well disaster that come under the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard.  This report focused only on the vessel, its condition, and the actions of the crew that caused the explosions and loss of the rig; it did not focus on the causes of the loss of well control, which will come in the complete report due out in July of this year.

The report clearly places blame on Transocean for the explosions after the blowout due to poor training, corroded and poorly maintained equipment, and bypassed alarms and shut down devices.  The report also singled out the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the flag state of the Deepwater Horizon, for "abdicating its safety inspection responsibilities".  The report was an indictment on the status quo of the offshore industry that allows drilling and service companies to unnecessarily risk lives and the environment through complacency, and tax avoidance and substandard safety requirements.

In its criticism of the Marshall Islands the joint committee said:

This investigation also revealed that the oversight and regulation of DEEPWATER HORIZON by its flag state, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), was ineffective in preventing this casualty. By delegating all of its inspection activities to "recognized organizations," without itself conducting on board oversight surveys, the RMI effectively abdicated its vessel inspection responsibilities. In turn, this failure illustrates the need to strengthen the system of U.S. Coast Guard oversight of foreign-flagged MODUs, which as currently constructed is too limited to effectively ensure the safety of such vessels (a MODU is a Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit - ed.).

As we've talked about before, most drilling companies "flag" or register their vessels in countries other than the US, called flags of convenience.  The companies all say that they do that to make it easier to move the vessels around the world more readily, but like incorporating their companies in foreign countries to avoid US taxes, they flag their vessels in countries that allow lax safety inspections, training, and crew requirements.  Such is the case with all of Transocean's rigs and drillships (as well as most other companies') where they register their vessels in countries like not only the Marshall Islands, but Panama, the Bahamas, and the Caymans, as well as other countries with lax regulations and third-party contract inspectors.  Some countries, like the Marshall Islands, actually allow the vessel owner to select (and pay) its own inspectors.

Other key findings for causes of the explosions were:

•  Failure to use the diverter line: The rig had 2 ways to keep wellbore fluids from coming onto the floor; one was a diverter, the dumps the oil and gas overboard.  The other was the mud gas separator (MGS) that is better for keeping mud and oil out of the water, but which is limited in capacity.  The crew chose the MGS, which was overloaded dumping a gas cloud over the rig.
• Hazardous electrical equipment:  There was corroded and substandard electrical equipment in the engine room which likely caused the gas cloud to ignite.
• Gas detectors: were not set to automatically activate the emergency shut down systems, and worse, the bridge crew was not trained in what to do when the alarms activated.  Had the rig's engines been immediately shut down, explosions could have been prevented or at least delayed.
• Bypassed systems: Gas detectors were either bypassed or inoperable when the rig exploded.  Testimony demonstrated that standard practice was to "inhibit" their function so that, even though they were reported to the control panel, no alarm would sound.  The crew also bypassed the automatic emergency shut down system.
• Design of Main and Emergency Power: The rig design was inadequate to prevent total shut down of power due to the proximity of the independent power and distribution systems.  In short, the explosions took out all the power.
• Crew blast protection:  As I noted in my book, Disater on the Horizon, the worst injuries (besides the drill floor and mud room deaths) occurred in the crew quarters.  There was no blast protection between the quarters and the drill floor, causing virtual destruction of that area of the rig while crew members were sleeping.
• Command and control of the rig:  A "clerical error" by the Marshall Islands allowed the Deepwater Horizon to by classified for a dual command structure.  This meant that when the rig was latched up and drilling, the Offshore Installation Manager (OIM) was in charge.  When the rig was underway, it was under command of the Master or captain.  This caused great confusion and delay during the emergency, with the Master actually asking the OIM for permission to activate the emergency disconnect system (EDS) to get off of the blowing out well.
  

Several other key mistakes and weaknesses caused the loss of the rig and additional injuries; one was a design flaw the powered the fire control system with only electrical power.  When the power was knocked out, so was the firefighting system.  Another was inadequate evacuation training,  resulting in 11 crew members being left behind on the rig in the confusion.  Additionally, the commission found that the rig likely sank due to damage during the explosions exacerbated by poor firefighting technique from the rescue ships that probably sank the rig by flooding it with water.

This first report from the Joint Investigation board is a stark view into the dangers of complacency, overconfidence, and a convoluted management structure resulting from years of success from cutting, both corners and cost.  It also highlights how minor failures can cascade into a catastrophe that is initiated from poor training and judgement.  It is clear that the US Government must change the basic rules of offshore drilling, from regulation of training and safety programs, maritime law and operating regulations, design and operations standards, and the financial incentives that are built into the system.  Inspection frequency and thoroughness must be improved and penalties for violations greatly increased.

Even as the BOEMRE continues to issue permits for operators to re-enter the deepwater for more drilling, few of these issues are currently being addressed, especially those surrounding operations in US waters by vessels flying flags of convenience.  Eliminating this particular loophole in maritime law is essential in assuring safer operations in the offshore, protecting American lives and jobs.

Bob Cavnar, a 30-year veteran of the oil and gas industry, is the author of Disaster on the Horizon: High Stakes, High Risks, and the Story Behind the Deepwater Well Blowout

 

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There is no doubt at all that there are demographic groups that can be accurately categorized as base voting blocs (of both parties) and as swing voting blocs, and politicians must appeal to both to win elections. The key is to position yourself in a way that genuinely does appeal to both -- that both fires up your side and resonates with those in the middle. The great fallacy for Democrats is in thinking those two kinds of voters are so far apart on the most important issues in determining their voting. This debate keeps raging in Democratic circles, and I expect it will continue to for the foreseeable future.

Historically, swing voters tend to be, as Lee Atwater and most Republican strategists for the last 50 years have understood, economically populist. That is especially true in tough economic times, when more people are hurting and angry. Swing voters intensely dislike the idea of cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They don't like Wall Street bankers at all. They hate outsourcing jobs and are not fans of trade deals. They support taxing people making over $250,000 a year. They like the idea of firefighters and cops and nurses being able to unionize. Now, there's no doubt: they are swing voters for a reason -- they don't like "big government" in general, they aren't crazy about their own taxes going up, they are worried about government deficits. But here's the deal: if the goal is to have a message and platform that appeals to both base and swing voters, you can do no better than populist economics. And here's the other key thing: it is hard to unite them any other way. D.C. conventional wisdom centrism sure doesn't do it.

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Today we celebrate the 41st Earth Day. We also mark one year since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank to bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. On April 20, 2010, the platform exploded, killing 11 workers. The rig disappeared beneath the water's surface two days later, but for 87 days more than 4 million barrels of oil spewed from the blown-out Macondo well, coating nearly 1,000 miles of Gulf coastline and temporarily closing over 88,000 square miles of some of the nation's most productive fishing grounds. A repeat incident in the Gulf of Mexico would cripple the region's still-devastated economy. An accident off of the U.S. East Coast would endanger over 200,000 jobs and $12 billion associated with New Jersey's fishing and tourism industries - and that is not even counting the indirect effects as this money flows through our local economies. Yet legislation currently making its way through Congress would increase the likelihood of future oil spills in both regions by accelerating offshore drilling without proper safety and environmental reviews.

Last week, the House Committee on Natural Resources advanced three offshore drilling bills that the Republican leadership has indicated will receive votes on the House floor in early May. The first of these bills would impose artificial and arbitrary deadlines on the Department of Interior to approve permits to drill - even if safety and environmental reviews are unfinished. The second would force the Interior Department to rush into leasing new oil and gas tracts in the Gulf of Mexico without updating the inadequate environmental reviews conducted prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and it would mandate a lease sale off the coast of Virginia - a mere 90 miles from the coast of New Jersey. The third bill would go even further and open up massive new swaths the East and West Coasts to drilling, including all of California as well as the mid- and North-Atlantic coasts.

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The negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority can potentially succeed, but such a success cannot be sustained unless Hamas is brought into the political process in some capacity. Concessions made or breakthroughs achieved must represent the majority of the electorates, as there can be no lasting peaceful solution without recreating a unified Palestinian polity in the West Bank and Gaza. The Arab states should therefore heed President Obama's call to meaningfully contribute to the peace process by pressing Hamas to renounce violence and accept the principles of the Arab Peace Initiative as a common frame of reference for advancing Palestinian unity and a comprehensive resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Israel must accept that Hamas is a reality, which it cannot simply wish away. Hamas' participation is essential, not only because it is in control of Gaza, but also because it represents a disciplined grassroots movement with a substantial social, political and security apparatus. To be sure, Hamas is a radical militant organization, yet it wields too much influence over its followers - and over the Gaza Strip - to be discounted. While Israel will continue to defend its citizens, Hamas - as an ideology - cannot be removed completely by military force, and ignoring Hamas has not been a successful strategy to marginalize it. Thus far, Hamas' political participation has been conditional upon its acceptance of the Quartet's three conditions: recognize Israel, renounce terrorism and accept prior Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Hamas' leadership has refused to do so and is unlikely to comply any time soon, perhaps with the exception of adhering to a non-violent atmosphere.

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The news, in the New York Times Sunday, that Karl Rove is up to his old tricks again is profoundly depressing. How can this monster of deceit and master of the politics of personal destruction be operating again in full public view? Has he not done enough damage in a lifetime of plotting?

Was this odious power-monger not exposed as one of the most egregious and unprincipled individuals in our nation's history, when he was dropped by the Bush administration in 2007 as a growing liability in the White House, where he had appointed himself Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, responsible for dirty tricks and Republican -- rather than American national -- interests. "Though no allegations have been proven or sustained, Rove's name has come up in political scandals, including the Valerie Plame Affair, the Bush White House e-mail controversy and the related dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy," Wikipedia notes. Ugh! Together with Vice President Dick Cheney, the two men ran the White House -- and the country -- into ruin. Cheney's chief of staff was caught and metaphorically hanged, but Rove and Cheney escaped the sheriff. Yet now, only several years later, we read in the NYT that Rove has raised "$32 million and counting" for mid-term election campaign interference via a new political extremist organization Rove is "advising' and pushing. "Already, plans at American Crossroads include an anti-Democratic barrage of attack ads that will be run tens of thousands of times, a final get-out-the-vote push with some 40 million negative mail pieces, and 20 million automated phone calls, officials there say."

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Well over a year ago I was sent a beautiful two-disc/one-DVD package from an imaginative label based in India called Earthsync. The first release on its roster was an intercultural gaze at the musical cultures affected by the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Maldives and India. Dubbed Laya Project, the 20 songs featured a broad range of native folk styles tempered in the studio, as if Alan Lomax was offered a sizable budget and eighty more years of technology. In that time this album has become a favorite of mine; all songs are richly textured and cinematically treated, mostly avoiding the dangers of the expectable (foreign vocals, big strings, boring beat). The accompanying documentary is simply stunning. The shots are exquisite, the musicians lively and passionate. Plenty of love for music and culture comes across in songs like the percussively rich "A New Day" and the gorgeous sitar-dugga play and vocals on "Hai La Sa," a fisherman's song tuned with deep bass. A track like "Tapatam" may set a dance floor or two on fire, but the real winner, both sonically and vibe-wise, is the devotional "Ya Allah," as you can see for yourself below.



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You are skiing down a mountain trail in Aspen, Colo. -- one of the expert diamond slopes, with the awe-inspiring snow-capped Rockies in your view. Though you have skied down this slope before, you have never been able to "dominate" it -- until now. You begin to hit your stride, striking every mogul perfectly, effortlessly. Your actions seem frozen in time and every little sound becomes more intense -- the crisp slap of your skis against the powder, the scrunch of your knees, and your rhythmic breathing. You are flowing down the slope, and later you might even describe yourself as having become "one with the mountain." All those years of training and struggling, taking ski lessons and tumbling into the woods, are now finally justified. You have had, quite literally, a peak experience.

If it is not skiing, you may have had similar experiences in other activities -- some other challenging exercise, working on a difficult project, or even in simpler exercises like reading or an intense conversation with a friend. These are moments in which your mind becomes so entirely absorbed in the activity that you "forget yourself" and begin to act effortlessly, with a heightened sense of awareness of the here and now (athletes often describe this as "being in the zone"). This type of experience has become the focus of much research in recent years by positive psychologists. Indeed, the Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has even given it a name for an objective condition: "Flow."

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In the wake of the Saturday shooting in Tucson, Ariz., Rep. Peter King (D-N.Y) announced he will introduce legislation to make it illegal to bring a gun within 1,000 feet of a government official -- but if recent political events are any indication, there's been little interest in separating guns and U.S. politics.

Just last year, Giffords's Republican opponent Jesse Kelly encouraged voters to join him in rallying to oust Giffords from office by shooting a fully-loaded assault rifle: "Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly," the invitation read. Tea Party darling Joe Miller, a staunch supporter of Second Amendment rights, recently defended his gun-toting Senate campaign supporters who marched in a local Alaska parade carrying substantial weaponry alongside their Joe Miller signs. And appearing at a three-day machine gun social in Kentucky last year, Sen. Rand Paul (then a candidate for the seat) said, "The president says that you're out here in the middle of the country clinging to your guns and ammunition. What I tell the President is, 'We're clinging to our guns, our religions and our ammunition," according to The Daily Caller's report.

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The basketball season is winding down. March Madness is over, and the NBA playoffs are almost here. This year, the NBA playoff season will involve even more hype than usual over the greatest players, and whichever team wins the championship, there may well be talk of the "greatest player ever" thing. If Kobe wins a sixth ring, the hype around him tying Jordan for championships will result in inevitable comparisons. If LeBron's Heat gets the title, even with him sharing the glory with Wade and Bosh, the talk of whether King James finally ranks on the all time greats list will be rekindled. If the surprising Spurs follow up on their great regular season to get a 5^th title for Tim Duncan, everyone will be reminded of what a steady and superb all-around big man he has been, and the comparisons to the all time great buy guys will be in full throttle. And speaking of all time great big men, a 5^th title for Shaq, and 2^nd title for Garnett, by the Celtics will spur lots of talk about how their greatness compares with the big men basketball gods of the past.

For us basketball history nerds, such discussions are always great fun. There have been many all time greats lists put together over the years, and the debates those lists generate are a blast. But I'm going to make the argument that the conventional wisdom standard for the all time greatest player which is assumed by so many writers - that Michael Jordan is the undisputed number one against whom all other players have to be measured and found wanting - is like most conventional wisdom - wrong.

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This is the time of year when everyone's minds turn to taxes and their finances. But even in the world's wealthiest nation and the greatest city in America, financial security remains a serious problem. Here in New York, one in four people do not have enough money to meet a basic family budget. Making matters worse, many of these families lack even a basic understanding of crucial financial tools and practices that could help alleviate their situations. Fortunately, social services exist to provide immediate help to these families, but in order to break the cycle and establish lasting and systemic change we have to go beneath the surface. Educating low-income New Yorkers and developing financial literacy is the key to creating financial mobility, security, and ensuring these families don't find themselves in the same place next year.

One resource is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a federal tax credit for people who work, but have low to moderate wages. Many often aren't even aware they qualify for the credit, so there are many programs designed to raise awareness among lower income communities. While it remains an important tool, United Way of NYC is working towards a more long-term, sustainable goal through its program, MoneyUP. This joint initiative with The Financial Clinic takes an innovative approach to helping low-income people get a grip on their finances and save for the future, rather than just offering a short-term solution.

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Ever since the first WikiLeaks "dump" of classified documents began during the summer of this year, I've been looking for official documents that confirm what many serious -- but often censored -- journalists have known for a long time: that the war on terror is really just the latest stage in the Great Game for Oil.

I just went to WikiLeaks' new website and typed in "oil" under its archived section on "Iraq and Afghan war logs." I found numerous mentions of military attacks against oil installations (pipelines, refineries) on the first page of 320 pages of archived documents, but for some reason my computer froze when I tried to gain access to the remaining pages. As for the diplomatic cables, the archives do not reveal leaks of "Top Secret" documents -- and that's where the oil discussions are likely to happen. It's possible there are some juicy documents in there that have been suppressed by the newspapers that WikiLeaks cooperated with. The establishment press has consistently under-reported if not suppressed the crucial oil aspect of the War on Terror on grounds of national security. I've provided some key documentation in my own book, The People v. Bush (Chelsea Green, 2010) which seems to have been totally blacklisted by the mainstream media and widely ignored by the alternative press as well. Perhaps we will get the really hot information when WikiLeaks begins releasing, as promised, its files on banks and multinational corporations which would presumably include communications with oil companies.

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I am more excited about Divinity of Doubt: The God Question than any other book in my entire career, and I've had seven New York Times bestsellers, three of them reaching number one. Why? Apart from the fact we can all agree that there cannot be a more important subject than God, the main reason is that we're talking about a 2,000-year-old conversation to which nothing significant has been brought to the table for a great many years. The religious terrain is so barren that we typically have light-hearted fare like recent books on sex and desire in the bible; Noah's Ark; does our body or soul go to heaven; a 3-year-old boy, during an appendectomy operation, meets Jesus in heaven; and, not too long ago, The Da Vinci Code claiming that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and they had children.

At such a late date (2,000 years), who would have expected anything game-changing now on God and religion? Frankly, not even yours truly. I had read the Bible and done much thinking about God and religion in earlier years, but I decided to go beyond this, take two years out of my life, and completely immerse myself in the subject seven days a week, approaching it in the same way I did my investigation and prosecution of a major case: objectively look at and draw powerful inferences from the evidence, my only master, to see if almost universally accepted, centuries-old religious beliefs had any merit to them. What I discovered is so startling that if anyone who reads Divinity of Doubt is not stunned, they would be the type who wouldn't be surprised if they saw a man jump away from his own shadow.

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Culver City based architecture firm, Shubin + Donaldson has begun the “Linda Flora Residence” commissioned by technology pioneer and entrepreneur Scott Painter. Most famous for his company CarsDirect.com, Painter was named the Entrepreneur of the Year by the Technology Council of Southern California in 2009. “Scott Painter is like no other client we’ve had… I could tell this was a man who took risks. I knew I had to work with him,” states Russell Shubin, AIA. Painter’s current endeavor is U.S. Digital Gaming, which he co-founded with Richard Baskin and Richard “Skip” D. Bronson.

This underground home will “virtually disappear” into the landscape. Anchored by a central living room, this four-bedroom home is an “architectonic extension of the natural topography,” according to the firm. It will be just shy of 27,000 square feet with floor to ceiling windows throughout. The home will feature an infinity pool, vineyard-like gardens, and views similar to those seen at the Getty Museum. Built into the Moraga Peak of the Santa Monica Mountains, this land was once gifted by Howard Hughes to the chief engineer of The Spruce Goose. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy will provide Painter protection from unwanted neighbors as the land North of the property cannot be developed. Brad Kelley is the home’s Project Architect, and both Robin Donaldson (AIA) and Russell Shubin (AIA) are the residence’s Principal Architects.

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The Supreme Court has reversed a $14 million jury verdict in favor of John Thompson who served 18 years in prison (14 of them on death row) for crimes that he did not commit. The verdict was based upon prosecutorial misconduct, and indeed, the prosecution admitted that it had failed to turn over exculpatory evidence in violation of the applicable law and the duty imposed upon prosecutors. Because of the narrow window for compensation in such matters, Mr. Thompson was compelled to allege and prove that the prosecutor had failed to properly train his assistants. The Supreme Court, in essence, concluded that the claim could not survive because one violation of the duty to turn-over exculpatory evidence did not meet the standard necessary to establish a failure to train. Thus Mr. Thompson was left without compensation for his 18 years in prison primarily caused by the prosecutor's misconduct. The dissent argued that the standard had been met and cited the repeated failures and repeated misconduct of the office.

But I look at this case and ask: why should a person who has been wrongly convicted, declared innocent, acquitted and exonerated have to prove anything? Shouldn't that be enough to entitle the person to compensation? Why should Mr. Thompson have to prove not only that he was imprisoned for 18 years largely due to the misconduct of the prosecutor, but that somehow that misconduct was the result of some failure to teach the assistants in that office what the law requires! Compensation should be granted automatically in such circumstances by law.

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Natural gas companies with rights to mineral and gas reserves below state and national parks could start drilling in otherwise protected areas, reports National Geographic in a series by Marianne Lavelle, who focuses on the impacts and problems of drilling in Pennsylvania. Sixty-seven companies already have stakes in the Marcellus shale geographic formation, a 389-million-year-old rock bed more than a mile beneath the Appalachian Mountains stretching from West Virginia to New York that likely holds large quantities of natural gas reserves. In many cases in Pennsylvania, mineral rights were separated from surface rights in the 19th century in deals that encouraged mining operations. As a result, the state has little ability to deny the mineral rights owners access to the mineral underground, though it will attempt to ensure that impact from extraction and drilling is limited. The state estimates that it owns mineral rights for just a fifth of the state's park areas. More than 2,480 permits for gas wells in Pennsylvania have been issued this year, and the industry expects more than 3,500 annually within a decade.

A total of 33 national park sites could be affected by the drilling, including 13 directly above the shale formation, among them a memorial to honor the passengers killed on United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed on September 11, 2001, and the site of George Washington's first military campaign. Gas companies are already drilling on private lands adjacent to state forests, and the state does not own the mineral rights to about 15 percent of state forest lands -- additional areas for potential gas drilling.

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Most traumatic brain injuries result in damage to the brain because the brain ricochets inside the skull during the impact of an accident. Mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI), also called "closed head injury" or "post-concussion syndrome," is a condition where an individual suffers a mild concussion, whiplash or blow to the head, and subsequently develops symptoms such as recurring head pain, cognitive difficulties, emotional and personality changes, hypersensitivity to light or sound, nerve damage, memory difficulties, etc.

Every couple has their "how'd you meet?" story. Ours is particularly useful because it offers both the story and a casual reminder that I actually did get a film made at one point in my illustrious career, convenient two-birding at a time when blowing one's horn just seems crass. This film, from a screenplay I co-wrote (with Patricia Royce) called "To Cross the Rubicon," was being produced in Seattle, and at some point early in the process I went to the company office and met the company attorney, Pete Wilke, Esq. Not long after, Mr. Wilke, Esq. negotiated my contract for the film, we fell in love, and on Oct. 1, 1990 we drove to the courthouse in Mount Vernon, Washington, where Judge Gerald Mullen postponed his lunch to solemnly don a long black robe, and in the company of our two witnesses, court secretary Pam Green and jovial bailiff Harold Johnson, we took our vows. I remember wondering if the whole courthouse/elopement scenario would feel generic and unemotional, but when Judge Mullen said, "The union into which you two are now about to enter is the closest and tenderest into which a human being can come," I was a goner.

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I always ask my elderly patients whether they have children who are active in their care. It used to be that if they replied yes, it implied they had a daughter; sons were rarely involved. But now we're seeing that men are more often assuming the role of caregiver. In fact, data shows that nearly 35 percent of caregivers to the elderly are men.

This is a big increase over previous years, but many men are still hesitant to assume the role. What keeps men from caring for their loved ones? For one thing, this is a role traditionally dominated by women, so some men feel that their masculinity is threatened by taking on a role that requires intimacy and emotional support. They become worried about how their peers would perceive them if, say, they had to leave work early to care for elderly parents. And consider the inherent double standard -- a woman can take her mother to a doctor's appointment with nary a complaint from others, but when a man does it, he is instantly branded a "momma's boy." Also, some men feel unprepared for the responsibility of caring for another human being, and this unpreparedness deters them from embracing the caregiver role. Furthermore, the combined pressure of providing for the family, raising children, and being a caregiver can be very daunting for any gender. Unfortunately, the impending social isolation that accompanies full-time care of the elderly is intimidating. People like to joke that men are scared of commitment -- well, caring for the elderly is a big commitment that some men are afraid to make.

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WASHINGTON -- Earlier this morning, Minnesota Congresswoman and potential GOP presidential aspirant Michele Bachmann appeared on "The Daily Rundown" to chat with hosts Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie. Among other typical talking points, Bachmann expressed the desire to increase federal budget deficits dramatically by repealing the Affordable Care Act. But soon enough, the conversation turned to Bachmann's 2012 prospects. That's when things sort of got hilarious, as Guthrie gently probed Bachmann about her public statements that fact check organizations routinely judge to be "lies."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Usually, traveling presents a unique set of horrors. We are all familiar with lost baggage, delayed flights, and the general incompetence of airlines. I experienced all of this on my voyage to India, which lasted 24 hours longer than it should have. But travelling in India presents its own unique constellation of troubles. For me, it started in Frankfurt with an army of sari-clad grandmothers clutching an even more formidable clan of screaming children shoving their way to the front of the line to claim their pre-boarding status. It was as though I was stuck in a scene to recreate an overcrowded train with people hanging out windows and sitting on the roofs of its cars. However, this minor inconvenience was nothing compared to next voyage.

It all started with a desire to escape the solitude of Rishi Valley and visit my grandparents in Bangalore. My intended route was not overly complex: a public bus would pick me up at the gates of the school and deliver me to another bus, which would bring me to Bangalore. But appearances can be deceiving, because in rural India, a public bus is actually an autorickshaw meant to seat three people that held seven. I hopped in the backward facing seat at the rear of the auto. Holding on for dear life, I was terrified as we travelled at breakneck speeds over first pockmarked paved roads, then unpaved roads, then off-road rocky terrain. I was amazed at the fact that a 70-year-old patient from the health center was able to clamber in the back with me and endure the bone-jarring journey.

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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger

The Republicans are poised to unveil a model budget on Tuesday that would effectively end Medicare by privatizing it, Steve Benen reports in the Washington Monthly. House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) is touting the budget as a strategy to reduce the national debt.

Ryan's plan would turn Medicare from a single-payer system to a "premium support" system. "Premium support" is a euphemism for the government giving up to $15,000 per person, per year, to insurance companies to defray the cost of a health insurance policy.

As Benen points out, privatizing Medicare does nothing to contain health care costs. On the contrary, as insurance customers weary of double-digit premium increases can attest, private insurers have a miserable track record of containing costs. They excel at denying care and coverage, but that's not the same thing.

The only way the government would save money under Ryan's proposal is by paying a flat rate in vouchers. Medicare covers the full cost of medical treatments, but private insurers are typically much less generous. So, after paying into Medicare all their working lives, Americans currently 55 and younger would get vouchers for part of their health insurance and still have to pay out-of-pocket to approach the level of benefits that Medicare currently provides.

Taking aim at Medicaid

The poor are easy targets for Republican budget-slashing, Jamelle Bouie writes on TAPPED. Ryan's proposal would also cut $1 trillion over the next 10 years from Medicaid, the joint federal-state health insurance program for the poor, by eliminating federal matching and providing all state funding through block grants. Most of this money would come from repealing the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion, which is slated to add 15 million people to Medicaid.

Block grants are cuts in disguise. Currently, Medicaid is an entitlement program, which means that states have to enroll everyone who is eligible, regardless of the state's ability to pay. In return, the states get federal matching funds for each person in the program. Ryan and the Republicans want to change Medicaid into a block grant program where the federal government simply gives each state a lump sum to spend on Medicaid. The states want to use this new found "flexibility" to cut benefits, narrow eligibility criteria, and generally gut the program.

This is incredibly short-sighted. The current structure of Medicaid ensures extra federal funding for every new patient. So when unemployment rises and large numbers of new patients become eligible for Medicaid, the states get extra federal money for each of them. But with a block grant, the states would just have to stretch the existing block grants or find money from somewhere else in their budgets. Medicaid rolls surge during bad economic times, so a block grant system could make state budget crises even worse.

Ryan's proposal has no chance of becoming law as long as Democrats control the Senate. The main purpose of the document is to lay out a platform for the 2012 elections.

Fake debt crisis

In The Nation, sociologist and activist Frances Fox Piven argues that the Republicans are hyping the debt threat to justify cuts to social programs:

Corporate America's unprovoked assault on working people has been carried out by manufacturing a need for fiscal austerity. We are told that there is no more money for essential human services, for the care of children, or better public schools, or to help lower the cost of a college education. The fact is that big banks and large corporations are hoarding trillions in cash and using tax loopholes to bankrupt our communities.

She notes that Republican-backed tax cuts for the wealthy are a major contributor to the debt.

Jesus was a non-union carpenter?

Josh Harkinson of Mother Jones reports on the religious right's crusade against unions. He notes that James Dobson of the socially conservative Family Research Council tweeted: "Pro-family voters should celebrate WI victory b/c public & private sector union bosses have marched lock-step w/liberal social agenda."

Harkinson reports that the Family Research Council is backing the Republican incumbent, David Prosser, in today's Wisconsin Supreme Court election--a battle that has become a proxy fight over Gov. Scott Walker's anti-collective bargaining bill:

The FRC's new political action committee, the Faith, Family, Freedom Fund, is airing ads on 34 Wisconsin radio stations in an effort to influence the April 5 judicial election that could ultimately decide the fate of the law. The ads target Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, who's running against a conservative incumbent, David Prosser, for a seat on the state Supreme Court. If elected, Kloppenburg would alter the balance on the court in favor of Democrats, giving them the ability to invalidate the recently enacted ban on public-employee collective bargaining. "Liberals see her as their best hope to advance their political agenda and strike down laws passed by a legislature and governor elected by the people," say the ads. "A vote for Prosser is a vote to keep politics out of the Supreme Court."

Roger Bybee of Working In These Times argues that recalling Republican state senators in Wisconsin is not enough to defend workers' rights from Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union onslaught.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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A five bedroom, six-and-a-half bathroom architectural home has hit the market in Brentwood for $6.25 million. The Mediterranean-style estate was designed by noteworthy LA architect, Peter Choate. Choate started his career by working with his father Chris Choate, who had numerous celebrity clients and once worked with famed architect Cliff Mays making prefabricated homes. Peter Choate then went on to work under LA architect Ted Grenzbach (who built for stars Frank Sinatra, Cher, and Barbra Streisand) before going into business for himself. Choate went on to design homes for clients like Sharon Stone, Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks, Carol Burnett, and Ryan O'Neal. A fun blast from the past: a1979 People Magazine article notes that when Choate was commissioned to do the renovations for celeb Linda Ronstadt's Malibu property, Choate remembered that "Governor Brown sneaked around a lot" around the home.

This particular Choate-designed home is located in the desirable Rockingham Rim area of Brentwood Park. The 1,966 square foot house features a living room with a fire place, media room, commercial kitchen, library with a solarium and fireplace, and a temperature-controlled wine cellar. The master suite includes a sitting area, dual bathrooms and closets, and a private poolside living room. The estate, which sits on over a half-acre of land, sits tucked behind gates for added privacy. The property also features a courtyard entry, a pool with a waterful and stacked stone spa, and mountain views.

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The New York Times has been gunning for The Huffington Post* lately, which makes me wonder what exactly Arianna Huffington has done to scare or anger them so. Or perhaps that's the wrong question. Given that our enemies are often those we don't understand, I wonder what The Times fails to grasp about HuffPo. That then leads to the question of what The Times can learn from this Post.

Felix Salmon has done a skillful job covering this one-way war, this schoolyard taunting in two posts. Times Executive Editor Bill Keller wrote two columns and a blog post going after Huffington -- once directly; once without (as Salmon puts it) the intellectual honesty to link to and allow his readers to judge those he criticizes; and once defensively, after Huffington called his bluff. Times staff loyally picked up Keller's spitballs to lob their own. Media critic David Carr wrote and then killed a tweet sniping about Arianna that he later conceded was "tasteless." Andrew Goldman didn't so much interview Huffington for The Times Magazine as he acted like a parody of a TV prosecutor trying to bait a cagey witness--or perhaps it is better described as a comic homage to Joe McCarthy trying to elicit confessions of leftness. Then Salmon points out that The Times snagged a HuffPo scoop without credit. Just now Carr delivers a glancing blow to Aol/HuffPo, reading into a defection a defeat.

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Fans of the New Wave, punk rock and industrial scene have a have a rare opportunity to bid on exclusive merchandise from recording artists like Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, Revolting Cocks and a laundry list of other noteworthy artists on Saturday, March 26, as a fundraiser for the legendary Chicago Wax Trax! at the Center on Halsted, to raise money for its Wax Trax! Records 33 1/3 Anniversary Retrospectacle in April at Metro (hey, they need extra money to fly in the European artists!).

At the top of its game in the 1980s and 1990s, the legendary Wax Trax! was at the helm of Chicago's underground art and music scene. It supported initial recordings by bands like Ministry, Front 242, and KMFDM, and became an innovator of industrial music. A fundraiser with the name Wax Trax! attached to it, would not be a fundraiser without music -- and there will be lots of it. The evening's events will kick off with a cabaret-style performance by Jon Langford, Chris Connelly, and the Blue Ribbon Glee Club, along with as a special on-stage interview with "recovering groupie" Cynthia Plaster Caster. Drinks and appetizers will be on hand, along with raffle tickets that will be sold throughout the night's festivities. And, if you're one of the lucky ones, you can score one of the evening's hottest commodities -- a pair of Wax Trax! Retrospectable tickets (two pairs will be given away to these sold-out concerts).

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With all the continued controversy surrounding the Affordable Care Act, it's easy to forget that its very passage was something of a miracle. A year later, the notion that Congress could enact comprehensive legislation on anything -- let alone a major expansion of the role of government in providing economic security to Americans -- is laughable. But the Act's passage was not just a remarkable achievement at this moment in our history; it defied a century of defeat by the same forces that are working to repeal it now. On its first birthday, it's important to appreciate the miracle in itself and as a reminder that things again could change very fast in these volatile times.

For some 100 years, the American political system failed to do what every other developed nation had done: make affordable health care a publicly guaranteed right. Our uniqueness was not a glitch; it was emblematic of a society that remains dominated by an individual ethos as opposed to an ethic of collective good, of caring for each other. And it was evidence of what every political scientist knows and every lobbyist counts on: our system is designed to kill major reforms. As Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson summarized in "Winner-Take-All Politics", "In America, it is hard to get things done and easy to block them. With its multiple branches and hurdles, the institutional structure of American government allows organized and intense interests -- even quite narrow ones -- to create gridlock and stalemate."

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That's the message from the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision vacating a $15 million dollar jury award for John Thompson, a Louisiana man who spent 14 years on death row (in all, 18 years in prison) for back-to-back armed robbery and murder convictions. He was weeks away from being executed, until his investigator found blood evidence on the robbery victim's clothing that proved Thompson's innocence (he was Type O, but the blood evidence was Type B) that had been hidden from Thompson's lawyer by a team of prosecutors in the New Orleans Parrish District Attorney's Office, and ultimately led to his murder conviction. As one of these rogue prosecutors had stated to Thompson: "I'm going to fry you. You will die in the electric chair."

This grisly, almost unimaginable story of U.S. criminal justice gone amok, was closed by the Supreme Court this week in a decision by Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Alito, and Kennedy, that has to rank as one of the Court's most questionable opinions in the area. Thompson, in his civil rights lawsuit after his exoneration, claimed that New Orleans District Attorney Harry Connick, Sr. at the time was "deliberately indifferent" to the constitutional rights of defendants prosecuted by his office - one of the prosecutors actually "confessed" to another having allegedly suppressed the exculpatory blood evidence - and, in fact, knowingly allowed prosecutors in his office to engage in repeated acts of misconduct, especially hiding exculpatory evidence, without any adverse consequences to them. Critical to Thompson's argument, which the jury, as well as two lower federal courts, found persuasive, was proof that Connick willfully failed to train his prosecutors about how to handle exculpatory evidence. Connick's office, the civil jury learned, had one of the worst records in the country in mishandling such evidence. Connick astonishingly claimed in his own testimony that training would make his job more difficult.

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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger

Last week marked the centennial of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, in which 146 mostly immigrant workers died. The tragedy prompted widespread labor reforms in the United States, but its commemoration underscores the plight of immigrant workers similarly exploited today.

As Richard Greenwald notes at Working in These Times, the disaster marked "the moment that a strong collective working class demanded its citizenship rights," while today, "we are living in a time where organized labor is weak, fractured and leaderless." He concludes that a rebirth of labor must come, as it did in 1911, from today's new immigrant communities, which continue to bear the brunt of exploitative labor practices.

Immigrant workers rally for labor rights

Immigrant workers and union organizers articulated the same sentiment when they commemorated the fire last week. According to Catalina Jaramillo at Feet in Two Worlds, labor groups rallied Friday to call for safer working conditions and unionization--especially for the thousands of immigrants who face abuse and exploitation because of their immigration status. One union member articulated the similarities between today's migrant workers and those who perished in the Triangle Fire:

"I see that a hundred years since this terrible accident that killed so many people, things have really not changed at all," said Walfre Merida, a member of Local 79, from the stage.

Merida, 25, said before joining the union he worked at a construction company where he was not paid overtime, had no benefits and was paid in cash.

"Safety conditions, none. Grab your tool and go to work, no more. And do not stop," he told El Diario/La Prensa. "When we worked in high places, on roofs, we never used harnesses, one became accustomed to the dangers and thanked God we weren't afraid of heights. One would risk his life out of necessity."

Kari Lydersen at Working In These Times adds that, while workplaces in general have gotten safer, immigrant workers tend to be employed in the most dangerous professions and are disproportionately affected by workplace health and safety problems. In particular, foreign-born Latinos tend to suffer injury and illness at a much higher rate than U.S.-born Latinos. Lydersen writes:

Work-related injury and illness can be especially devastating for undocumented workers since they are often fired because of their injury and they often don't collect workers compensation or other benefits due them. [...] A 2009 Government Accountability Office report says non-fatal workplace injuries could be under-reported by 80 percent.

Crackdown on immigrant workers bad for the economy

Other labor rights advocates are drawing attention to the federal government's ongoing crackdown on immigrant workers. Worksite audits which require employers to check the immigration status of their workers have resulted in thousands of layoffs in recent months. This sweeping trend hurts families as well as local economies, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center.

The report specifically looks at the economic impact of immigrant workers in Arizona, but its findings present much wider implications. Marcos Restrepo at The Colorado Independent sums up the key points:

The analysis estimates that immigrants on the whole paid $6 billion in taxes in 2008, while undocumented immigrants paid approximately $2.8 billion.

Increase tax revenues by $1.68 billion.

The report adds that the effects of deportation in Arizona would:

• Decrease total employment by 17.2 percent.
• Eliminate 581,000 jobs for immigrant and native-born workers alike.
• Shrink the state economy by $48.8 billion.
• Reduce state tax revenues by 10.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the effects of legalization in Arizona would:

Add 261,000 jobs for immigrant and native-born workers alike.

Increase labor income by $5.6 billion.

Restrepo adds that, in part because of such mounting evidence, immigrants rights advocates are exhorting authorities to recognize immigrants as workers, first and foremost.

Immigrant farm owners contend with exploitation

Of course, even when immigrants are owners, rather than employees, they still disproportionately contend with exploitative industry practices. At The American Prospect, Monica Potts reports on the unique experiences of Hmong immigrants operating chicken farms in the Ozarks. Specifically, Potts examines how behemoth agri-businesses like Tyson exploit the inexperience or limited English abilities of immigrants to sell chicken farms and secure contracts that often put the farmers deep into debt:

Many Hmong were signing contracts they couldn't read and getting into deals they didn't fully understand. At least 12 Hmong declared bankruptcy in 2006. [...] The concerns are similar for other immigrant farmers, especially Hispanics, who moved into the area to work at chicken-processing plants but were also recruited to buy operations. Hispanic farmers sometimes pooled their money and bought farms without a contract, only to realize later they wouldn't be able to sell their chickens on the open market. ... Many just walked away rather than trying to save their farms.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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President Obama made an energy speech this week that had little new to offer, while on Capitol Hill, Republicans were pushing to relieve the government of its last options to limit carbon emissions. In the House Republicans have passed a bill that would keep the EPA from regulating carbon, and in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid repeatedly pushed back a vote on the same issue.

But as Eartha Jane Melzer reports at The Michigan Messenger, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) has become the latest senator to propose taking away the EPA's authority over greenhouse gasses this week. If the Senate decides it wants to pursue this policy, it will have plenty of options to choose from.

Conflicting news leaked out about how strongly the Obama administration was willing to stand up for the EPA's right (granted by the Supreme Court) to treat carbon as a pollutant under the Clear Air Act. Grist's Glenn Hurowitz noted an Associated Press story with a comment indicating that the White House was telling Congress they'd have to compromise on this issue. But on Thursday the White House reassured progressive bloggers that it was opposed to any amendments to funding bills that furthered "unrelated policy agendas."

The energy speech

The energy speech that President Obama delivered at Georgetown this week, however, did not do much to reassure climate activists that the administration will put forward a strong vision on these issues. The president talked about decreasing our dependence on foreign oil and set a goal of having 80% of the country's electricity come from clean energy sources by 2035.

But as David Roberts at Grist writes, Obama skirted some of the trickiest issues. "The core truth is that for the U.S., oil problems mostly have to do with supply and oil solutions mostly have to do with demand," he says. "America becomes safer from oil by using less. From the Democratic establishment, only retiring Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is telling the public that truth."

Is clean energy green energy?

President Obama is right that the country has room to pursue more clean energy opportunities. As Public News Service's Mary Kuhlman reports, America is behind in the clean energy race. The Pew Environment Group just released a report that, according to Kuhlman, "finds the United States as a whole is falling behind in the global clean-energy race....The U.S. maintained the top spot until 2008, according to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts, but fell in 2010 to third behind China and Germany."

But as I point out at TAPPED, when politicians use the words "clean energy," they're generally talking about mid-point solutions like natural gas and nuclear energy. President Obama's proposed standard does not necessarily support renewable energy -- wind and solar projects that are truly sustainable.

The alternatives

And as Gavin Aronsen writes at Mother Jones, renewable energy projects need more support. "The near-term future of solar power in the US will also depend on whether President Obama's stimulus money keeps flowing," he explains. "For now, energy companies have until the end of the year to qualify for funding. Meanwhile, some solar advocates are suggesting alternatives like installing panels on urban rooftops."

If these projects flag, the alternative to renewable, or even clean, energy is not appealing. The world is beginning to depend on energy sources that require greater effort and create more environmental damage. Oil from tar sands is one such source, although as, Beth Buczynski reports at Care2, "a research group at Penn State spent the past 18 months developing a technique that uses ionic liquids (salt in a liquid state) to facilitate separation of oil from the sands in a cleaner, more energy efficient manner. The separation takes place at room temperature without the generation of waste water." Sounds like an improvement!

Does genetically modified alfafa do a body good?

The Obama administration is not only disappointing on energy issues. At GritTV, Laura Flanders talks to New York Times food writer Mark Bittman about the future of organic food, and the two agree that the only person whose agriculture and food policy they can wholeheartedly endorse is Michelle Obama's. Too bad she's not part of the administration.

One recent gripe is the Department of Agriculture's decision to approve genetically modified alfafa. "Essentially it's the beginning of the end of organic," Bittman said. "Once you introduce alfafa, which pollinates by the wind, you can't guarantee that any alfafa doesn't have genetically modified seed in it. And alfafa is used as hay, hay is used to feed cows, there goes organic milk. There goes a lot of organic meat."

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