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The meteoric rise in the price of oil has ignited a renewed push for biofuels. Countries around the globe started biofuel programs to lessen their dependency on fossil fuels. Brazil is the benchmark for these programs as they have been energy self sufficient for years. Their biofuel strategy was a result of a 30 year project that culminated into a very successful plan that uses domestically grown sugar cane for ethanol based fuel. Brazil’s success, while receiving international praise, had another far reaching consequence: foods such as corn and soybeans that would normally be used for consumption, were being reserved for biofuel programs. These crops are in much demand by poorer nations.
As international crude oil prices soared, the rush to find an alternative to Middle Eastern oil has caused global food prices to spiral out of control, causing unrest in many poor nations. In fact, food prices have risen over 40 per cent since last year causing global instability.
In Dhaka yesterday, 20,000 thousand factory workers rampaged through the Bangladesh capital in protest against rising food prices, leaving at least 50 people injured.
In Haiti, hundreds attempted to storm the presidential palace to protest the high cost of rice.
Similarly, violent demonstrations have taken place in Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal and Cameroon where enraged locals, fed up with the high cost of food, have taken to the streets.
While Americans are obssessing over the presidential election people around the world are rioting about food prices.
Small developing countries are starving and we're using corn for fuel.
Alicia Keys made some controversial comments in Blender magazine about government conspiracies.
P.S. Hillary embarassed her self in a speech in Pennsylvania. She brought up Obama's "bitter" comments and the crowd told her "no", they booed and they moaned.
My 10 month old is teething. LOL
And, yeah, Alicia Keys has gone Black Panther. She'll come back after the drop in album sales.
Who is Brownfemipower and Amanda Marcotte?
She's classic. I love her she has balls. I do not agree with the gangsta rap conspiracy but I do agree with the media and government creation of an east coast/west coast tension.
She can change her last name again. This time to Shakur...Alicia Shakur, I love it.
She will have to go chill with Rev.Wright and myself out on the field!!
I would like to see her comments in context though. What did they ask her that lead to her conspiracy theories?
Last week she took down her site, permantly, in the wake of what is apparently an appropriation of her work by Amanada Marcotte. (I use hedging language here because I came late to the party and didn't see Marcotte's article and haven't read bfp's work). Marcotte is a feminist writer. She apparently somewhat out of the blue recently did an article discussing how immigration is a feminist issue, something BFP has been fighting to get the white feminist establishment to acknowledge or pay attention to, for years.
Many who regularly read BFP and Marcotte said the points were so similar they expected some level of attribution at the end of the article but Marcotte did not attribute to BFP. They also note that Marcotte herself has been reading BFP for a couple of years and most recently attended a lecture by BFP on this issue, at a Women's confernce they both attended.
You can read more about this and find relevant links at
http://mindthegapuk.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/its-a-jungle-out-there/
and at Feministe: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/04/1....
and http://highonrebellion.wordpress.com/2008/04/09... seems BFP didn't want to make this about her and Marcotte but did want to call attention to the larger issue of white feminists appropriating the works of women of color and how by so doing they change the nature of the issue and create schizms not just between themselves and WoC but schizms within the PoC communities. They "invisiblize" WoC, their work and their investment and inter-relatedness to the problems within their community that they write about. And apprently create more problems. Needless to say this criticism has been met with massive resistence, entitlement and dismissiveness by Ms Marcotte and her allies. SOSO - sigh.
If you listen carefully to the ground, you can hear Richard Wright's coffin spinning, and HL Mencken's ghost, laughing...
The Second Chance Act:
Excerpt:Close to 1.6 million Americans are in prison, a figure that does not count the more than 700,000 people held in local jails. While 650,000 prisoners are released each year, an estimated two-thirds of them can expect to return to prison within three years. Little help is extended for newly released prisoners making this unpromising transition, particularly compared with society’s mammoth investment in building more prisons.
The Sex Generation
Excerpt:Ladies, we know that when we straddle our man’s lap, in bed or in a chair, that he is going to get an erection; that’s why we do it. Gentlemen, you certainly know that if we bounce up and down on your lap, at some point all you’re going to want to do is take our clothes off and tell us a thing or two, and show us three or four more. When we turn around and “back it up”, c’mon, I mean, does that say “hold my hand”, or, “let’s go steady”? I’ll spare you the exact translation, but no, that’s not it.
"The Sex Generation
Excerpt:Ladies, we know that when we straddle our man’s lap, in bed or in a chair, that he is going to get an erection; that’s why we do it. Gentlemen, you certainly know that if we bounce up and down on your lap, at some point all you’re going to want to do is take our clothes off and tell us a thing or two, and show us three or four more. When we turn around and “back it up”, c’mon, I mean, does that say “hold my hand”, or, “let’s go steady”? I’ll spare you the exact translation, but no, that’s not it."
Thanx for letting me know!
In my world I'm getting ready to plant some flowers for blooming during the summer months.
finish reading "Into the Wild."
trying to lose 10 pounds...and step up my exercise routine.
Keep my husband from cheating on his diet so he can maintain his blood pressure.
Mundane stuff I know.
Which posts would you like to identify with - we'll try and help you.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080415/ap_on_el_pr/obama_johnson;_ylt=AqUl6.iNpqTR.K2dhoDUEkxh24cA
He's co-signing Ferraro's comments regarding Obama and says that anything said about the campaign is deemed racist.
Lou Dobbs is making me so sick. How is it that CNN allows him on the air?
you know, the place we get a lot of raw material from? the place we sell a lot of subsidized goods to?
yeah, it's a whole continent. china, europe and the us are feuding over its resources. our enterprises spend lotsa money to prop up murderous regimes and murderous warlords in their competition over the natural riches of africa.
africa, the black continent. black in many ways.
not saying that this is new, but it's happening and it's serious.
most recently, africa is getting hit by the global food crisis.
both sudden and continual poverty is painful, poisonuous and degrading to the spirit, the vision and the mind.
its really hard out here.