As economic inequality has continued to dominate our society, I am constantly reminded of the original Star Trek series, and more specifically a particular episode. This essay has really nothing to do with the future of space travel or exploration (a word the precedes exploitation). Instead I use that series to address what is going on Earth in the present as the original series did.
Once the garden starts production, you've got to begin processing and storing your produce. I put together a food preservation resource last year. This year as I was freezing and storing the blueberries (which I do on a flat metal pan in the freezer before bagging) I started thinking we need to preserve more than just food. How about trying to preserve our health and wealth in these times when it is in jeopardy? What about our soils and resources? Or the ecosystem at large? So that train led me to thinking we need to do more than preserve, we need to restore...soils, the environment, our health and wealth. Which led me to the last theme, reclamation. We need to reclaim our rights...our right to health care, quality education, productive employment, decent energy efficient housing, clean water, peaceful coexistence... in other words a world designed across many levels and dimensions to foster people and a stable planet. There are examples. Let's look at some this week.
Since the Weinstein story broke, the GOP has been trying to spin it as a story about the Democratic elite.
There is a smidgen of truth to that spin, but only a smidgen.
The mainstream media has spun the Weinstein story as a story about male supremacy, and there is certainly valid points behind that spin.
I'm writing this after surgery yesterday so I may still be fogged a bit. If so, I like the fog for it helps see things more clearly.
This is not exactly news, but it is nice to see a fellow over at CounterPunch quantifying tax cheating.
Here's the key passage:
"How much of this tax cheating involves big-time business people and how much involves mom-and-pop business operators? The IRS doesn’t say. The agency doesn’t break down the new tax evasion data by taxpayer income class.
But eight years ago, economists Andrew Johns and Joel Slemrod went through earlier IRS raw data and did just that.
