Toban Black

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In this post, I’ll be sharing photos, videos, and a write-up about Switch Off Hazelwood anti-coal campaign rallies and interventions in Australia, earlier in September. I also will be offering a little commentary.

(This post isn’t about breaking news. But I happen to think that we should remember and continue to talk about previous actions — well after a couple of weeks have passed.)

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“COMMUNITY DECOMMISSION ORDER”

(Like the other images in this post, that photo is from the “hazelwood2009″ pages on Flickr — where you can see a lot of other photos.)

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A campaign video -
“Switch off Hazelwood - Coal Fired Power Station Action”

That video is an introduction to the overall campaign — in relation to a wider movement against fossil fuel consumption (which activists are just beginning to bring together — in Australia, and elsewhere). The video calls for proactive activist responses to mounting global warming threats — above all.

[Read more →]

Simran Sethi on AlterNet -
…”Heating bills may be [a] killer this winter”

Selected exerpts (which I’ve also edited — a little) -

“According to the United Kingdom’s National Housing Federation, one in four residents are facing ‘fuel poverty,’ spending more than 10 percent of their household income on fuel bills. By the end of 2009, 5.7 million UK households will be spending at least 10 percent of their income on energy bills. That’s a 100 percent increase since 2005.”

“The United States Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration estimates each American household will pay, on average, $1,182 in heating costs this winter — a 20 percent increase from last winter and a 65 percent increase from the winter of 2003/04.”

“Yet, a closer look reveals that this pain isn’t shared equally. Costs are a reflection of a host of factors including geography, consumption levels, and the quality of energy used.”  (The author then discusses two examples: American “Northeasterners” and American “Westerners.”)

“This energy crisis is creating an opportunity for us … to take back our power.”

“In addition to considering what we use and how we use it, we must consider issues of [social (rather than biological) ] race and class. The impacts of rising temperatures, fossil fuels prices, and heating and food costs disproportionately impact the most vulnerable among us.

[Read more →]

by El Fisgon

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Selected writing about what has been happening on and around Wall Street -

Joe Bageant at Counterpunch - “The Bailout in Plain English” (October 2nd)
“Speaking in the Tongues of Brokers”

Mike Whitney at Counterpunch - “Why the Bailout Stinks” (October 2nd)
“Not One Dime!”

Jenny at her blog - “Blame the Poor (and the minorities, and social justice movements) for the Financial Crisis” (October 2nd)

George Monbiot in The Guardian - “The free market preachers have long practised state welfare for the rich” (September 30th)
“Bailing out banks seems unprecedented, but the US government’s form in subsidising big business is well established”
[via The Global Sociology Blog]

Richard Heinberg at The Post-Carbon Institute site - “Bailout Blues” (September 26th)

Dave Lindorff at Counterpunch - “The Bailout Will Kill the Dollar” (September 23rd)
“What [Almost] Nobody’s Saying”

Corey D. B. Walke at MR Zine - “The Poverty of 21st Century Progressivism” (September 23rd)

Richard Rhames at Counterpunch - “A Bailout to Nowhere” (September 20th)

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When I first thought of using the word “fall-out” in place of the (misleading) term “bailout,” I had fall-out from nuclear weapons in mind.  (That’s just an analogy, of course).

Yet, the above cartoon depicts what also could be deemed a form of “fall-out” (in a sense); and the cartoon fits well with the phrase “fall street” (which I used yesterday).

[Read more →]

A post at Sociological Images -
Palin and Obama on bikes

The post is about how gender (and nationalism) relate to the forms of cycling in these images of Palin and Obama -

I posted a couple of comments there (as “T B”).  Here’s a touched-up version of what I said
(to give you indications of why I think that Sociological Images blog post is significant) -

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As at least a couple of writers (Carolyn Merchant and Helen Caldicott) have noted in their books, alternative energy has been associated with feminine language. There’s a common distinction between “hard energy” (e.g. coal plants) and “soft energy” (e.g. wind turbines).

[Read more →]