---

GAIA AND HOMOSAPIENS

***** The Richard Dimbleby Lecture by HRH Prince Charles, titled “Facing the Future”
- Video ^

***** Documentary - 43.39 min | The Arctic - The Nature of Things, A Changing World -
CBC - December 3, 2009 - A sponsor's ad precedes video.
- video ^

Jordan Page Pendulum Music Video
- LINK ^

"Listen" By Jordan Page
- Music Vide ^

---

NoteThe symbol ^ denotes that that article can be read in full at the link. Articles with titles in italics are from last issue.

---

Imaging Life

***** US | Move Your Money: A New Year's Resolution
Huffington Post - By Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson - December 29, 2009
- LINK ^
This link provides an informative video of this issue. Scroll down.

The big banks on Wall Street, propped up by taxpayer money and government guarantees, have had a record year, making record profits while returning to the highly leveraged activities that brought our economy to the brink of disaster. In a slap in the face to taxpayers, they have also cut back on the money they are lending, even though the need to get credit flowing again was one of the main points used in selling the public the bank bailout. But since April, the Big Four banks -- JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo -- all of which took billions in taxpayer money, have cut lending to businesses by $100 billion.

Op-Ed | US - Reclaiming Public Values in the Age of Casino Capitalism
Truthout - By Henry A. Giroux - Wednesday 23 December 2009
- LINK ^

***** Breaking News

US News Analysis | Shadow of 9/11 Is Cast Again
The New York Tines - By Scott Shane - December 30, 2009
- LINK ^

WASHINGTON — The finger-pointing began in earnest on Wednesday over who in the alphabet soup of American security agencies knew what and when about the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up an airliner.

But the harshest spotlight fell on the very agency created to make sure intelligence dots were always connected: the National Counterterrorism Center. The crown jewel of intelligence reform after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the center was the hub whose mission was to unite every scrap of data on threats and suspects, to make sure an extremist like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be bomber, would never penetrate the United States’ defenses. “N.C.T.C. is supposed to be the nerve center,” said Amy B. Zegart, who studies intelligence at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s the fusion center of all fusion centers. So if something was missed, that’s where the blame is going to go.”

Editor i Blame? The head of the agency should be given 'early' retirement.

International

Commentary | Ennui Becomes Us
National Interest - By Randall L. Schweller - December 16, 2009
- LINK ^

CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL relations is moving toward a state of entropy. Chaos and randomness abound. Now, the story of world politics unfolds without coherence, unfettered by classic balance-of-power politics, a plotless postmodern work starring a menagerie of wildly incongruent themes and protagonists, as if divinely plucked from different historical ages and placed in a time machine set for the third millennium. We live in an era in which unprecedented globalization and economic interdependence, liberal-democratic hegemony, nanotechnology, robotic warfare, the “infosphere,” nuclear proliferation and geoengineering solutions to climate change coexist with the return of powerful autocratic-capitalist states, of a new Great Game in Central Asia, of imperialism in the Middle East, of piracy on the high seas, of rivalry in the Indian Ocean, of a 1929-like market crash, of 1914-style hypernationalism and ethnic conflict in the Balkans, of warlords and failed states, of genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur, and of a new holy war waged by radical Islamists complete with caliphates and beheadings reminiscent of medieval times. In short, we live in a Thomas Pynchon novel..

National

Afghanistan | Commentary - Karzai and 22,000 Villages
National Interest - By Ashraf Ghani - December 18, 2009
- LINK ^

GENERAL JOHN McColl is a rare military officer. In 2002, without firing a bullet, he led a British brigade into Afghanistan, established the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and received Afghan public acclaim for bringing security to the capital city of Kabul. His success reflected an Afghan consensus that international forces were central to building an effective state. They trusted the intentions and capability of the international community—trusted that their presence would catalyze the creation of a legitimate government and a just order. And under this umbrella of security, Afghans began the hard work of rebuilding destroyed homes and mending the social fabric of our homeland.

ISAF’s reception today, as General McChrystal acknowledges, is of a very different kind. The mission now faces the twin threats of an assertive insurgency and the predatory, corrupt behavior of the Afghan state. With these threats reinforcing one another, the Afghan public has lost confidence not only in their own government, but also in the international community. This decline in legitimacy has led to an ever-increasing death toll—both of Afghans and international military personnel. The Orientalist image of Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires is alive and well.

Honduras | Uncle Sam's Signature
Truthout - By Bruno Odent, L'Humanité - Wednesday 23 December 2009
- LINK ^

Since the November 29 electoral farce, Honduras's putschist government has been pursuing its work of normalization. No question of behaving like vulgar Pinochets from another era in Chile. The effect on international public opinion would be unacceptable. Above all, the context has become more delicate in a continent living through a changed balance of power. Hence, this desire to be discreet, to make the situation that emerged from the June "golpe" against President Zelaya as mundane as possible. Yet, what comes naturally is returning at a gallop to bring citizens who resist to heel. The death squads are circulating once more. A week does not go by without atrociously mutilated corpses of militants from the various democratic organizations gathered together in the Resistance Front against the Coup d'État (FRCG) being found. The mutilations prove that they were tortured before being killed. President of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights Andres Pavon talks about a planned "wave of terror" that has already taken several dozen victims, and he accuses the government of wanting to tear apart the resistance.

Iran | Commentary - The Revolution Will Be Mercantilized
National Interest - By Ali Ansari - December 21, 2009
- LINK ^

SOME YEARS back on a research trip to Iran, I met a young man who had been conscripted into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Commenting on his obviously secular upbringing, I was both intrigued and sympathetic. Yet contrary to all expectations, I found him not only sanguine but also somewhat relieved. He explained that the Guards were not what he had expected. For all their very public piety, they were by far the most relaxed and laid back of the military organizations in the Islamic Republic. The Guards had even implemented a form of flexible work hours. God forbid, had he gone into the regular military he might have been expected to adhere to a strict work regimen. It was all highly unorthodox and reassuringly Iranian. The IRGC wasn’t a disciplined military organization in the Western sense of the term; it was a network, a brotherhood, in which personalities and connections mattered far more than structures. This did not make it necessarily less effective or indeed less dangerous as an instrument of coercion—the lack of transparent rules might, in fact, make it more so—but it was certainly a different type of beast.

Though the IRGC started its life as a defender of the revolution, over time the organization has become increasingly involved in commercial interests. Divisions within the Revolutionary Guard, particularly between its veterans and their heirs, have deepened. Now in bed with an increasingly radicalized elite in Iran, the IRGC seems to be less about protecting the people of the country and more about protecting its own material interests. Iran is rapidly becoming a security state.

Iraq | Commentary - Spoils of Babylon
National Interest - By Joost R. Hiltermann - December 16, 2009
- LINK ^

THE FATE of Iraq may well rise or fall on Kirkuk as Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Christians grapple for control of the province and the safety of their people. Oil riches abound in this land that straddles the border of Arab and Kurdish Iraq. And command of these resources is the prize for the taking. As the powers that be in Baghdad fight to hold on to the tenuous peace wrested from civil war, deciding the political fate of Kirkuk is treacherous enough to bring down the state. So far, the battle has largely taken place in a never-ending political drama, but if compromise cannot be reached—and soon—bloody conflict may well be the next step.

The Fall of Mexico
Poor Mexico. So far from God and so close to the United States. — Porfirio Díaz, dictator of Mexico from 1876 to 1880 and 1884 to 1911
The Atlantic - By Philip Caputo - December 2009
- LINK ^

---

Topical News

---

Activism at the Groud Level

US | Op-Ed | Six Things to Do in 2010
Truthout - By Jim Hightower - Wednesday 30 December 2009
- LINK ^

In my travels, I've heard many cries of despair from you good folks about the timorous Obama presidency. On issue after issue, it's been go-slow and don't-rock-the-corporate boat. "Where's the 'audacity of hope?'" people are asking. "Where's the 'change you can believe in?'"

The answer is that in our country's democracy, audacity and change are where they've always resided: out there with you and me, at the grassroots level. For some reason, the guy who was elected by running from the outside is now trying to govern from the inside -- which is where change is taken to die.

The good news is that the American majority is with us on nearly every issue, so the chance for change remains strong -- if we can push it. Now is the time for us to be more aggressive, more demanding, more active than ever. Many of you have asked, "Fine -- but how?" Here are some suggestions:

US | Peace Activists to Set Up Encampment in Washington
Truthout - By Scott Galindez - Tuesday 22 December 2009
- LINK ^

In August of 2005, Cindy Sheehan, who had lost her son in Iraq, set up camp outside George Bush's vacation home in Crawford, Texas. She had a simple question; she wanted to know what the "noble cause" was for which her son had died. Thousands of people joined Cindy in Crawford, and Camp Casey became a national story that breathed new life into the antiwar movement. In March of 2010, Cindy Sheehan and other activists from a group calling itself "Peace of the Action" will be converging on Washington, DC, to set up a camp on the National Mall.

Canada Successfully Destroys Parody Websites - Climate Policy Remains Deplorable
The government of Canada has used strong-arm tactics to shut down two parody websites criticizing Canada's poor environmental policy, taking down 4500 other websites in the process.
CommonDreams.org - By The Yes Men - Tuesday, December 29, 2009
- LINK ^

Constitutional and Legal Issues

Microjustice: Helping those who are excluded from the legal system
More than 4 billion people don’t have access to even the most basic legal protections. The microjustice movement is giving them a voice.
Ode Magazine =y Carmel Wroth - April 2009 issue
- LINK ^

Economy and Finance

Bloomberg Economic News
- LINK ^

Bloomberg Current Worldwide Financial News
- LINK ^

Humor

Humor Under Communism - East German Jokes Collected by West German Spies
Der Spiegel - By Hans-Ulrich Stoldt and Klaus Wiegrefe - October 14, 2009
- LINK ^

Did East Germans originate from apes? Impossible. Apes could never have survived on just two bananas a year. Such jokes were whispered in communist East Germany -- and West German spies recorded them diligently to gain insights into the public mood, according to recently released intelligence files.
"What would happen if the desert became communist? Nothing for a while, and then there would be a sand shortage." Jokes like that made the rounds among East Germans during the communist era, and West Germany's intelligence service would collect them, as a way to assess the public mood behind the Iron Curtain but also to amuse its masters in Bonn, the West German capital.

Here's another one: "Why does West Germany have a higher standard of living than we do? Because communists can't get work permits there." The ubiquitous Trabant or Trabi, East Germany's legendary plastic car with its clattering two-stroke engine, was a favorite butt of jokes as well. Like this one: "A new Trabi has been launched with two exhaust pipes -- so you can use it as a wheelbarrow."

Legal and Constitutional Issues

Bloomberg Index of Current Legal News
- LINK ^

Life Style - The New Public Posture

I’m a Culture Critic … Get Me Out of Here!
Amid the smoldering wreckage of the popular culture, the author blames Reality TV, which has not only ruined network values, destroyed the classic documentary, and debased the art of bad acting, but also fomented class warfare, antisocial behavior, and murder.
Vanity Fair - By James Wolcott - December 2009
- LINK ^

I was recently in a Duane Reade drugstore, having a Hamlet fit of temporizing over which moisturizer to choose, when the normal tedium pervading the aisles was suddenly rent by the ranting distress of a young woman in her early 20s, pacing around and fuming into her cell phone. She made no effort to muffle her foulmouthed monologue, treating everyone to a one-sided tale of backstabbing betrayal—“She pretended to be my friend and shit all over me”—as mascara ran down her cheeks like raccoon tears. Judging from the unanimous round of stony expressions from customers and cashiers alike, her cri de coeur engendered no sympathy from the jury pool, partly because there was something phony about her angst, something “performative,” as they say in cultural studies. Her meltdown was reminding me of something, and then it flashed: this is how drama queens behave on Reality TV—a perfect mimicry of every spoiled snot licensed to pout on Bravo or VH1 or MTV.

The thin-skinned, martyred pride, the petulant, self-centered psychodrama—she was playing the scene as if a camera crew were present, recording her wailing solo for the highlight reel. Proof, perhaps, that the ruinous effects of Reality TV have reached street level and invaded the behavioral bloodstream, goading attention junkies to act as if we’re all extras in their vanity production. There was a time when idealistic folksingers such as myself believed that Reality TV was a programming vogue that would peak and recede, leaving only its hardiest show-offs. Instead, it has metastasized like toxic mold, filling every nook and opening new crannies. Idiocracy, Mike Judge’s satire about a future society too dumb to wipe itself, now looks like a prescient documentary.

Pollution
Canadian Cities Leading the Charge Against Bottled Water
Seventy-two municipalities from 8 provinces and 2 territories have implemented restrictions on bottled water.
Polaris Institute - By Joe Cressy - December 17, 2009
- LINK ^

Science & Technology

Bloomberg Index of Current Science News
- LINK ^

---

Sound and Fury

---

Carrumpah-Lobo - The Homosapiens.ki Blog
- Check in.

---

CBC Hourly News
- LINK ^

CBC World News
- LINK ^

CBC World at Six News
- LINK ^

---

About Homosapiens.ki

This website incorporates clips from mainstream and alternative media and, less frequently, blogs, and even obviously biased and counter-point-of-view sources. The clips are taken directly from the websites noted in each source link. Quotation marks are used where they appear in the cited source.

Homosapiens.ki has been developed on the XOOPS website production program.

Subscribe to a brief email notification as each issue of this site is posted. See top, left of any page io subscribe - no fee.

The editorial offices of Homosapiens.ki are located in New York City and Nelson BC Canada. Website hosting and technical services are provided from Sydney, Australia. The domain name registration ( .ki ) is a service of the Republic of Kiribati ( South Pacific ) domain registrar. Special thanks are due to all those who have assisted in bringing this site to life on the internet.

You may email the editor at
orchill@earthlink.net

In accordancee with TITLE 17 U.S.C. Sectopm 107, this material is distributed free to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes, Homosapiens.ki has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this content nor is Homosapiens.ki endorsed or sponsored by any originator.

Links are provided for access to source articles and for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are sometimes updated by their host sites, a version posted here may not match the version our readers view when clicking the source link on this site.

Privacy - we will not sell, rent, or give your name, address or any other personal information to any entity or person whatsoever at any point in time.

---