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Haiti: Government Destroys Refugee Camps

Getro Nelio, Top Tight
"Everything we owned got smashed. We lost everything." Getro Nelio was not referring to the devastating earthquake of January 12. The unemployed, 24-year-old Haitian was speaking about losing his home a second time in three months, on this occasion due to the government. Since late March, armed Haitian police have been closing camps and destroying the shelters that quake victims created out of whatever supplies they could scavenge, from cardboard to small strips of tin. U.N. troops sometimes aid in the evictions.

Rio Favela

Rio de Janeiro’s Katrina: Rains, Tragedy and Segregation

Favela in Rio
It could have been New Orleans as it was pummeled by hurricane Katrina-the torrential rains, the rising waters, the families separated, bodies lost and still missing-but it was not. This was Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2010, and the culprit was not a breach in the levee, but dozens of mudslides that leveled whole neighborhoods, burying homes and families alive.

No Picture

What If the Tea Party Were Black?

Source: Alternet

Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins. read more

No Picture

Grapes of Wrath: Climate Change and the Wine Industry

Source: Mother Jones

John Williams has been making wine in California’s Napa Valley for nearly 30 years, and he farms so ecologically that his peers call him Mr. Green. But if you ask him how climate change will affect Napa’s world famous wines, he gets irritated, almost insulted. "You know, I’ve been getting that question a lot recently, and I feel we need to keep this issue in perspective," he told me. "When I hear about global warming in the news, I hear that it’s going to melt the Arctic, inundate coastal cities, displace millions and millions of people, spread tropical diseases and bring lots of other horrible effects. Then I get calls from wine writers and all they want to know is, ‘How is the character of cabernet sauvignon going to change under global warming?’ I worry about global warming, but I worry about it at the humanity scale, not the vineyard scale." read more