To prevent future food-price bubbles, the world must stop gambling on hunger.
Commentary
Vincent G. Harding 9-01-2010
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Why do so many try to lighten the impact of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech?
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann 7-01-2010
The U.S. Social Forum's alternative vision for our country and the world.
David Ostendorf 6-01-2010
Will economic conservatives join with social conservatives -- or racist extremists?
Ryan Rodrick Beiler 5-01-2010
If I were ExxonMobil or Halliburton, I’d be watching a certain congressional race with great interest. According to the Supreme Court ruling early this year in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, corporations have the same rights as human beings in regard to campaign financing. So now a Maryland PR firm is breaking more new ground by making a bid to be the first corporation to run for U.S. Congress: Murray Hill Inc. has announced it will try to compete in this fall’s Republican primary for Maryland’s 8th Congressional District.
Although the firm often works for progressive causes such as labor unions, conservatives may just have to vote for it for the sake of precedent. After all, if, as many conservatives claim, private business is better than government at pretty much everything, why not elect a corporation to be in government?
Murray Hill’s promise to “eliminate the middleman” offers immediate gains in electoral efficiency. Instead of dumping piles of money into the campaign coffers of a fickle human who may only represent some of their interests, now a corporation can buy democracy direct at huge discounts. And they pass the savings on to you! (You’re a stockholder, right?)
No longer will corporations need to bankroll overpaid lobbyists to draft legislation that underpaid congressional staffers—or, gasp, grassroots activists—might monkey with. When corporations take office, lobbyists are the staffers—instead of having to wait a few years to change jobs like they do now.
Valerie Elverton Dixon 5-01-2010
The U.S. military has 300,000 Advanced Combat Optical Gunsights (ACOG), with more on the way, and—as you may have heard—every one of them manufactured before this February had “JN8:12” inscribed at the end of the serial number. The markings, which were put there by the manufacturer, Michigan-based Trijicon Inc., refer to the Bible verse in which Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
According to the Trijicon Web site, the ACOG is made “for use in low light or at night.” The technology includes crosshairs or other aiming grids “using fiber optics which collect ambient light”—thus the scripture references to light. Other Trijicon gunsight models featured references to 2 Corinthians 4:6 (in which God makes “light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God”); Matthew 5:16 (in which Jesus urges all to “let your light shine before people, that they may see your good deeds and praise God in heaven”); and Revelation 21:23 (in which the New Jerusalem “does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp”).
In the Bible, the “light of life” refers to creation and to eternal life. In Genesis, its creation is what brings order from pre-existing chaos. Light also signals an end to oppression; Isaiah 9:2 says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who live in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined.”