September 2005 - Page 5 of 6

Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”: A 100th Anniversary Retrospective

Bob Feldman September 12, 2005 Bob Feldman

Among the early 20^th century muckraking writers, Upton Sinclair had perhaps the most intense immediate impact on U.S. public opinion after his novel, "The Jungle", was published 100 years ago. His target was the Beef Trust that controlled Chicago's stockyards and its meatpacking industry. The problem that Sinclair wished to expose through his muckraking was the way the Beef Trust treated its workers under an economic system that Sinclair felt was a system of "wage-slavery." But the result of Sinclair's muckraking work was only effective in exposing the unsanitary way the Beef Trust packed meat for middle-class U.S. consumers. As Sinclair wrote in October, 1906:

Sri Lanka: Assassinations and a Fractured Peace Process

Rene Wadlow September 8, 2005 Rene Wadlow

Lakshman Kadirgamar

The assassination of Lakshman Kadirgamar, Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka on August 12, 2005 is a serious blow to the stalled peace negotiations and to Tamil-Sinhalese reconciliation. Kadirgamar, an Oxford educated Christian Tamil from Jaffna, the Tamil heartland, was more than a token Tamil in an otherwise Sinhalese-led government. He was a symbol that ethnic identity is not the only factor that should determine policy, but rather that there are ways of working to develop the mutual interests of all communities. In fact, the armed conflict since 1983 has generated a momentum which exceeds its original ethnic causes and has invented new, hybrid, collective identities.

Global Notebook 9-7-05

Super User September 7, 2005 Super User

FEMA failed to follow disaster plan

WASHINGTON, DC – More than a year before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, local, state and federal officials held a simulated hurricane drill that Ronald Castleman, then regional director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) called "a very good exercise." More than 1 million residents were "evacuated" in a table-top scenario as 120 mph winds and 20 inches of rain caused widespread flooding that supposedly trapped 300,000 people in the city. read more

Movement Control: Navigating the Checkpoints of Palestine

Mneesha Gellman September 7, 2005 Mneesha Gellman

Crossing between Jerusalem and Ramallah, West Bank

The desert sun slants down, filtering through the dust and car exhaust. We shift our weight from one foot to the next, babies from hips to shoulders. Packages are set on the ground in resignation. Women in brightly embroidered thobes, traditional Palestinian dress, discreetly loosen their headscarves to allow a little air to pass over their throats. We are trying to get from one place to the next, and have been bottlenecked into a checkpoint. There are more than fifty-seven checkpoints in Palestine's West Bank, each one with a series of metal detectors and narrow cattle-shoot passages that one must pass through to reach the Israeli soldiers who staff them. Leaning against their sandbags, guns and ammo hanging from their chests, the soldiers lazily flip through each person's passport or ID card and then make the decision; to be let through, to be questioned further, or to be pulled to the side for a full investigation. It is a wild card every time.

Powering Alaska After The Oil Runs Out

Brian Yanity September 6, 2005 Brian Yanity

Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline

Someday Alaska's oil and gas reserves will run out. It is not a question of if, but when. Eventually, these commodities can no longer be the mainstay of the state's economy. This probably won't be the case for a couple of decades, but reality has a way of catching up with those who try to cheat the laws of physics. It is often claimed in Alaska that the "jobs versus environmental protection" dichotomy is an unbridgeable chasm. This may be historically true, based on past and present modes of economic production. However, Alaska can use new modes of energy production that are both economically and environmentally sustainable. The only way to protect resource-based jobs in the long run is through a sustainable working relationship with the land. Development of renewable energy sources, not just in Alaska but worldwide, is absolutely essential for a sustainable economy that preserves both jobs and the environment. The sooner Alaska starts developing innovative renewable energy resources, the more diverse Alaska's economy will be.

The Wholesale Looting of the Gulf Coast

Brian Dominick September 5, 2005 Brian Dominick

If you are more interested in and disgusted by rumors of civilian "troublemakers" on the streets of New Orleans and other Gulf Coastal communities than in the massive failings of the United States government before, during and since this tragedy began, consider a career in journalism.

The real criminals are sitting in positions of authority: the president, the director of FEMA, and the hundreds of congresspersons cutting their excessive vacations short to pat one another on the back as they pass emergency funding provisions for the hardly-operative relief efforts centered in Louisiana and Mississippi.