clipped from livinginbarbados.blogspot.com

Some commentators are arguing that the current government has little to offer in these recessionary times and have drawn water at the well of populist sentiment and pulled out 'the race card'. It's a card played strategically and frequently by politicians and has the great effect of neutralising its opponents, who immediately seem 'unpatriotic' and 'the ones who got us into this mess'. Any counter arguments from other countries naturally sound like 'their' voices telling 'us' what to do. But the card played is really 'the jack of spades' (and for those who do not know how to read Tarot cards, it could be time to learn): it's a card that creates conflict and division, while holding unexpressed deception; it's sometimes seen as a 'golden apple' but is a true 'apple of discord'.

clipped from www.nytimes.com

Tanveer Ahmad, it turns out, was a longtime New York City cabdriver who had paid thousands of dollars in taxes and immigration application fees. Whether out of love, loneliness or the quest for a green card, he had twice married American women after entering the country on a visitor’s visa in 1993. His only trouble with the law was a $200 fine for disorderly conduct in 1997: While working at a Houston gas station, he had displayed the business’s unlicensed gun to stop a robbery.

When the 43-year-old man died in a New Jersey immigration jail in 2005, the very fact seemed to fall into a black hole. Although a fellow inmate scrawled a note telling immigrant advocates that the detainee’s symptoms of a heart attack had long gone unheeded, government officials would not even confirm that the dead man had existed.

clipped from www.commondreams.org

KABUL, Afghanistan
- Through two decades of war, Abdul Ahad never contemplated leaving
Afghanistan. But as his country started to deteriorate rapidly in 2007,
so did his life. He was laid off from his full-time driving job and
forced to take the only work he could find: a once-a-week driving gig
through Taliban territory.

Weary of War, Young Afghans Pay for an Exit

Abdul Ahad driving through Taliban territory with a bodyguard. Frustrated by his perilous job, he has begun scouting potential smugglers to take him to Europe. (Eros Hoagland for The New York Times)

clipped from veggieoption.blogspot.com

Food Inc. Documentary opens July 10 at The Esquire

If you missed out on U.C.'s screening of the new Robert Kenner/Eric Schlosser documentary Food, Inc. back in May, there's still time to catch a local screening. The film opens at The Esquire Theatre on July 10. Whole Foods Market will be on hand on opening night with free, organic food samples and coupon books for organic and natural products.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com

Three years ago, U.S. Department of Agriculture employees determined that synthetic additives in organic baby formula violated federal standards and should be banned from a product carrying the federal organic label. Today the same additives, purported to boost brainpower and vision, can be found in 90 percent of organic baby formula.

Purity of Federal 'Organic' Label Is Questioned