Sunday, May 11, 2008:
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, and speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.
The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor – who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food – into hunger and destitution.
read more...
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Many South L.A. students frightened and depressed, survey finds
"They see that their school is failing them, their teachers are failing them, there's racial tension and gang violence, and also many feel that their schools are not schools -- their schools look more like prisons," said Anna Exiga, a junior at Jordan High School who was one of the organizers of the survey.
Jordan High Principal Stephen Strachan took exception to some of the results, saying the survey was skewed to provoke negative responses. He said his school has made great strides in preparing students for college and has created a "safe haven" from a violent community.
He did not, however, dispute the findings about depression. "This morning at 10 o'clock at Simpson's Mortuary, a 16-year-old was buried. That's one of my students who was shot in the community," he said. "I hear kids say, 'Too many people are dying in our community.' And that plays on the psyche. . . . It's really hard to focus on Algebra 2 when your friends are getting shot in the community."
read more...
Monday, April 21, 2008
Tuesday Is Earth Day: The drops of life
Next year, the United Nations will release its assessment of global access to water in a report titled "Water in a Changing World." Here's an early headline: Forget oil. In part, because of global warming, future wars will be fought over water.
Earth Day includes measuring risk -- and no threat is greater to humanity than catastrophic water shortages.
read more...
Thursday, April 17, 2008
ABC Hosts Heckled After Debate
"Oh, the crowd is turning on me, the crowd is turning on me!"
Reflecting what seemed to be the main consensus of the night - that ABC botched this debate, big time - Charlie Gibson tells the crowd there will be one more, superfluous commercial break of the night and is subsequently jeered.
read more, plus a sampling of comments to ABC regarding the debate...
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The first World Pillow Fight Day -- where people in about 35 different cities gathered in public spaces to engage in brawls -- is part of a broader phenomenon known as the urban playground movement. Its goal is to promote the creative use of public spaces through free and fun events, says Kevin Bracken, cofounder of Newmindspace, the group that organized the pillow fight in New York.
read more...
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Rocketing global food prices are causing acute problems of hunger in poor countries and have put back the fight against poverty by seven years, the World Bank said today.
Robert Zoellick, the Bank's president, said that while consumers in rich countries were worried about the cost of filling the fuel tanks in their cars, people in poor countries were "struggling to fill their stomachs. And it's getting more and more difficult every day."
Zoellick said the price of wheat has risen by 120% in the past year, more than doubling the cost of a loaf of bread. Rice prices were up by 75%.
read more...
Tuesday, April 8th
TV's New Diversity?
On April 2, the New York Times noticed a trend that, if true, would indeed be worth celebrating. Under the headline "Like the Candidates, TV’s Political Pundits Show Signs of Diversity," reporter Felicia Lee told readers: "With campaign coverage center stage on the cable channels, producers and critics are again assessing the diversity among pundits, who talk (and talk) about things like Mr. Obama’s pastor, the Hispanic vote, Iraq and the economy." Lee added: "Both MSNBC and CNN this election season have given new prominence to a handful of contributing commentators from varied backgrounds and perspectives: blacks, Hispanics and women."
That sounds good--until the Times gets around to telling you more about these fresh new faces. And then you learn that diversity has a somewhat limited definition in the corporate media.
read more...
Sunday, April 6, 2008
The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
by Jessica Mosby
"Rape has always been used as a weapon of war" is the opening line of the new documentary film The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo. For 76 minutes the film exposes the incredibly brutal civil war that has raged for over ten years in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Not only have over four million people been killed, but over 250,000 women and girls have been raped, kidnapped, and tortured.
read more...
Saturday, April 5th
Notes on Torture
This memorandum is a disgrace, not just morally, but legally as well. In fact it’s not really a legal document at all
by Jameel Jaffer
Since 2003, my organisation, the American Civil Liberties Union, has been litigating for the release of government documents concerning the abuse and torture of prisoners at Guantánamo and other US facilities overseas. The litigation has resulted in the release of more than 100,000 pages, including interrogation directives, witness statements, autopsy reports, and legal memos. One of the most important of these documents was released to us this week.
The document (pdf) is a legal memorandum authored in 2003 by the office of legal counsel, part of the US justice department, for the department of defence. The memo reinterprets statutes to argue that an act does not rise to the level of torture unless it inflicts the kind of pain associated with “death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of a significant bodily function”. It argues that, even if a statute bars a particular interrogation method, the president has the authority to ignore the statute. And it argues that, even if an interrogator were to be prosecuted for torture, the interrogator would be able to defend himself by arguing that the torture was not inflicted maliciously but rather as a means of obtaining information.
The memorandum is a disgrace, not just morally, but legally as well. In fact it’s not really a legal memo at all...
More at www.commondreams.org
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
Wednesday, July 25th
"The historical record is unequivocal. The United States is ham-handed and brutal in conceiving and executing clandestine operations, and it is simply no good at espionage; its operatives never have enough linguistic and cultural knowledge of target countries to recruit spies effectively. The CIA also appears to be one of the most easily penetrated espionage organizations on the planet. From the beginning, it repeatedly lost its assets to double agents.
On the clandestine side, the human costs were much higher. The CIA’s incessant, almost always misguided, attempts to determine how other people should govern themselves; its secret support for fascists (e.g., Greece under George Papadopoulos), militarists (e.g., Chile under Gen. Augusto Pinochet), and murderers (e.g., the Congo under Joseph Mobutu); its uncritical support of death squads (El Salvador) and religious fanatics (Muslim fundamentalists in Afghanistan) — all these and more activities combined to pepper the world with blowback movements against the United States.
Nothing has done more to undercut the reputation of the United States than the CIA’s “clandestine” (only in terms of the American people) murders of the presidents of South Vietnam and the Congo, its ravishing of the governments of Iran, Indonesia (three times), South Korea (twice), all of the Indochinese states, virtually every government in Latin America, and Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The deaths from these armed assaults run into the millions. After 9/11, President Bush asked “Why do they hate us?” From Iran (1953) to Iraq (2003), the better question would be, “Who does not?” "
Agency of Rogues: The Life and Times of the CIA
by Chalmers Johnson
Read more...
Saturday, July 14th
Internet radio may be killed tomorrow, but...
We are like Highlander. Y'know, the guy with the un-placeable accent who can't die unless you cut his head off. And until someone comes and literally cuts our heads off, Kill Radio is going to continue broadcasting free progressive news, independent music, and other alternative media. And by the way... there can be only one.
Tomorrow, July 15th, please drop by to enjoy another in our series of monthly live acoustic events at Lost Souls Cafe in downtown LA, brought to you by Kill Radio's submission show, HEAR HERE. The evening features 6 bands with a suggested donation of $5.
Come support the cause tomorrow night. Flyer below.
Friday, May 18th
Wednesday May 23rd Kill Radio will be hosting a fundraising concert at Mr. T's Bowl in Highland Park. Check this out...
From the LA Weekly 5/17 Pick of the Week column:
"The Randies, Bang Sugar Bang, Mezklah, Vesuviasonic @ Mr. T's Bowl
To benefit the Internet radio station Killradio.org, here are two bands whose songs are catchy enough to be heard on mainstream radio (assuming mainstream radio still played catchy songs by non-corporate-funded bands without nepotistic connections). The Randies have a fast-&-fizzy sound on their 2006 CD, Saw the Light (Elicit/Majestic), that’s as punky and poppy as the early Go-Go’s. Bassist Sienna DeGovia laments the loss of her youthful idealism on “I Thought I Could Change” as guitarists Laura Cataldo and Laurita Guaico surround her with consoling harmonies, all of it powered by drummer Aaron Polk’s relentless drive. “Up in Lights” is a charming ballad, a jangly contrast with such harder-rocking tunes as “Born Again.” Bang Sugar Bang come at you with dueling coed lead singers Cooper Gillespie and Matt Southwell, who trade off sarcastic lyrics about the state of the union on “That’s O.K., Civil Rights” from their upcoming CD, Victory Gin . With Gillespie and Southwell’s soaring harmonies, “The Sky Is Falling” sounds like the vocal exchanges of a more politically conscious version of John Doe and Exene Cervenka. It’s pretty exhilarating stuff: They’re trying to kill the radio in order to save it. Bang Sugar Bang also at Alex’s Bar, Thurs., May 24. (Falling James)
also video projection art, DJs (all to benefit Killradio)
5621 1/2 N. Figueroa Ave., Highland Park, (323) 256-7561"
Saturday, March 24th
"But today, amid Iraq's dreadful death throes, where are the parlor warriors? Have those Iraqi exiles reconsidered their illusions, that all it would take was a brisk invasion and a new constitution, to put Iraq to rights? Have any of them, from Makiya through Hitchens to Berman and Berube had dark nights, asking themselves just how much responsibility they have for the heaps of dead in Iraq, for a plundered nation, for the American soldiers who died or were crippled in Iraq at their urging ? Sometimes I dream of them, -- Friedman, Hitchens, Berman -- like characters in a Beckett play, buried up to their necks in a rubbish dump on the edge of Baghdad, reciting their columns to each other as the local women turn over the corpses to see if one of them is her husband or her son."
Four Years Later in Iraq
Where are the Laptop Bombardiers Now?
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Read more...
Saturday, March 10th
"Political scientists, when they make fun of the idea that the U.S. invaded Iraq to gain its oil, they point out is that the U.S. can get Middle East oil in other ways so therefore that can't be the reason. That's true, but it's irrelevant because the true issues are and always have been control and secondarily profit and in fact U.S. intelligence projections for the coming years have emphasized that while the U.S. should control Middle East energy for the traditional reasons, it should rely primarily on more stable Atlantic basin resources, namely West Africa and the Western hemisphere. They're more secure, presumably and therefore we can use those, but we should control the Middle East oil because it is a stupendous source of strategic power."
War, Neoliberalism and Empire in the 21st Century
Noam Chomsky Connects the Dots
By SAMEER DOSSANI
Read more...
Monday, February 19th
"Illegal and immoral U.S. aggression is, and always has been, a bipartisan affair. Democrats and liberals are responsible for their share of the death, destruction, and misery caused by U.S. empire-building along with Republicans and conservatives. I mention the Wellstone incident not to suggest he and George W. Bush are equally culpable, but to make the point that even politicians with Wellstone's progressive politics can be twisted by the pathology of power and privilege."
The Problem of Bi-Partisan Empire-Building
Liberal Icons and War
By ROBERT JENSEN
Read more...
Wednesday, January 31st
"According to intelligence sources, Bush’s Iran strategy is expected to let the Israelis take a lead role in attacking Iran's nuclear facilities in order to defuse Democratic opposition and let the U.S. intervention be sold as defensive, a case of a vulnerable ally protecting itself from a future nuclear threat.
Once American air and naval forces are committed to a new conflict, the Democrats will find it politically difficult to interfere at least in the near future, the thinking goes. A violent reaction from the Islamic world would further polarize the American population and let Bush paint war critics as cowardly, disloyal or pro-terrorist."
Iran Clock Is Ticking
by Robert Parry
Read more...
Saturday, January 20th
KILLRADIO.ORG BENEFIT CONCERT A TREMENDOUS SUCCESS
Thursday January 18th music lovers and supporters of independent media descended on The Echo club for the Killradio.org Benefit Concert co-organized by The Central Second Collective. Five bands gave incredible performances - Anchors for Architects, One Trick Pony, Death to Anders, Die Rockers Die, and The Transmissions. More info on these bands and their collective can be found at www.myspace.com/thecentralsecond.
In attendance were roughly 200 people, a mix of Kill Radio dj's, photographers, music journalists, and good old-fashioned fans of music. The bands donated their talents and let our station keep the door, which resulted in an amount that will allow us to make some much-needed improvements to the Kill Radio project. The success of the benefit concert has rejuvenated our interest in future events, so keep your ears peeled to killradio.org and you'll discover great things coming from your support in 2007.
To make a donation to killradio.org, you can Paypal any amount to kr.finance@gmail.com.
photo by: Starskee Suave
Wednesday, January 10th
Friday, December 15th
"The only hope for the planet is the isolation and neutralization of the United States by the international community. Policies to do so are underway in every democratic country on earth in quiet, unobtrusive ways. If the United States is not checkmated and nuclear war ensues, civilization as we know it will disappear and the United States will go into the history books along with the Huns and the Nazis as a scourge of human life itself."
Sorrows of Empire: An Interview with Chalmers Johnson
Read more...
Wednesday, December 6th