Captivating Illustrations by Molly Mendoza – The Fox Is Black

Really loving the work of Molly Mendoza, a Portland based illustrator. Her work tends to be loose, sketchy, and abastract with lots of brush strokes that give each piece a wonderful character. I particularly like this series (though I’m not sure what it’s called) because of her choice of color palette. Not normally something I would lean toward but it really works when you see all of the pieces together.

via Captivating Illustrations by Molly Mendoza – The Fox Is Black.

Party scolds official for blaming lead poisoning of 300 children on ‘chewing pencils’ | South China Morning Post

“It is scientific knowledge that pencils are made from graphite,” the article by commentator Zhang Yusheng said. “Does this official’s statement show ignorance, or just disregard for the people’s welfare?”

Chinese internet users also mocked the official. “How can such low IQ cadres appear in public?” asked author Cui Chenghao on Weibo.

China’s rapid industrialisation over the past 30 years has left the country with widespread environmental damage that has taken a heavy toll on public health.

Recent studies have shown that roughly two-thirds of China’s soil is estimated to be polluted and that 60 per cent of underground water is too contaminated to drink.

In 2011, authorities in the eastern province of Zhejiang detained 74 people and suspended work at hundreds of factories after 172 people – including 53 children fell ill with lead poisoning.

US battery maker Johnson Controls was in 2012 blamed for lead pollution in the commercial hub of Shanghai, after 49 children were diagnosed with lead poisoning.

via Party scolds official for blaming lead poisoning of 300 children on ‘chewing pencils’ | South China Morning Post.

Deadly “Buddhist” Violence Erupts in Sri Lanka – NYTimes.com

{Who would have thought there could be Buddhist Fascists?}

In some of the worst religious violence in Sri Lanka in decades, three people have been killed and 78 injured in riots between Buddhists and Muslims in this southwestern coastal town after months of rising tensions, officials said Monday.

The riots on Sunday followed a protest march by a hard-line Buddhist group, Bodu Bala Sena, which is led in part by monks. Its name roughly translates as “Buddhist Power Force.” Shops and homes in the area, many of them owned by Muslims, were set ablaze and vandalized in violence that continued throughout the night. Mobs shouting anti-Muslim slogans and hurling gas bombs and stones advanced on a Muslim part of the village of Welipitiya, where men were protecting a mosque.

Three mosques and several Muslim prayer houses were set on fire, according to unofficial reports. “They fought us face to face for two hours,” said M. Hussein, a Muslim man involved in the fighting on Sunday night. “The police didn’t show up until after people were dead.” Police teams eventually appeared in the early morning hours of Monday to transport the dead and injured, Mr. Hussein said.

Muslim residents said Monday that their lives had changed forever.

“They finished the Muslims in this area,” said M. Farina, who added that the police watched impassively Sunday evening as Buddhist mobs attacked Muslim shops and homes.

The Sri Lankan justice minister, Rauff Hakeem, denounced his own government’s inaction.

“The law and order machinery completely failed,” said Mr. Hakeem, who is the leader of the country’s largest Muslim party and confirmed the number of dead and injured. “For 72 hours, we begged the government to prevent this rally from taking place on Sunday for fear of riots.”

“I am ashamed,” he added. “I couldn’t protect my people.”

via Deadly Religious Violence Erupts in Sri Lanka – NYTimes.com.

Hathos Alert « The Dish

A Kagan never disappoints. Several of them are being deployed right now across the neocon triangle to argue for the necessity of another war … to fix the catastrophe their first war created. But this paragraph is so special it deserves a place of its own in the annals of self-awareness:

Rejoining the fight means immediately sending air support; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets; air transportation; Special Operations forces; training teams; and more military equipment back into Iraq. It does not mean re-invading Iraq.

My italics. I’m laughing because the alternative is too painful.

via Hathos Alert « The Dish.

Send Kagan! By self.

Baltic States first pet bird hotel opens in Estonia :: The Baltic Course | Baltic States news & analytics

A bird veterinarian will be receiving parrots in the bird hotel, birds are offered overnight accommodation for the time when their owner is for example on a trip or even a new home if the owner gets tired of their birds.

 

Estonian Animal Protection Society bird specialist Katarina Bright, who in profession is advertising manager of an information hotline, created in 2010 a web site papagoi.ee, where people interested in parrots could write about their problems and concerns. The people also asked about the service of a bird hotel – there are hotels for dogs and cats in Estonia but where could they leave their birds during trips? Animal Protection Society members thus recommended Bright that instead of charity-based instructions, she could open an official birds centre and thus she decided to open the Parrot Centre, that she and her husband own.

via Baltic States first pet bird hotel opens in Estonia :: The Baltic Course | Baltic States news & analytics.

Miracle Crop: Can a New Revolution Take Root? – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Shiva, dressed in a flowing robe and with a large bindi on her forehead, is an impressive figure, steeled by her tough, decades-long battle with the establishment. The civil rights activist never tires of castigating seed companies. “A globally operating industry is pushing hard to make the world dependent on their products,” she says. Farmers who have made the switch, she explains, give up their traditional seed and are then forced to buy the commercial varieties, which often come with license fees, in perpetuity.

“This type of agriculture has taken the lives of 25,000 farmers in India, who committed suicide because they couldn’t pay back their debts,” says Shiva. She doesn’t think much of biofortified varieties, either. “Harvest Plus is focused on one nutrient,” she says critically. “But a single nutrient is not a solution to multidimensional malnutrition crisis; the body needs all the micronutrients.”

Instead of these “monocultures,” Shiva is calling for a return to diversity in fields. “Most of our traditional crops are full of nutrients,” she explains. Why create Golden Rice with lots of vitamin A when carrots and pumpkins contain plenty of it already? Why develop genetically modified bananas with high iron content when horseradish and amaranth contain so much iron?

Shiva recommends field crop-rotation, and the fostering of vegetable and fruit gardens and small family farms primarily geared toward nutrition instead of maximized profit. Because Shiva believes organic farming is the only viable approach to defeating hunger, her organization has trained 75,000 farmers in organic farming methods since the late 1980s.

‘There Isn’t Enough Arable Land’

Harvest Plus Director Bouis believes that Shiva’s approach is naïve. “We have the fundamental problem that there isn’t enough arable land for a constantly growing population,” he says. {Bogus argument – raised bed gardens, alone, can double output – Harvest Plus is biased for industrialized agriculture – period.}

A UN Environment Programme report predicts that by 2050, agriculture will have to produce 70 percent more calories than today to feed an expected global population of 9.6 billion people. This “food gap” can only be closed, says Bouis, if we “make agriculture even more productive.”

But in Maharashtra, it’s clear that new varieties of super grains are not always the entire answer. A third farmer from the town of Vadgaon Kashimbe, Santosh Pingle, 38, and his family are visibly better off than their neighbors. They live in a plastered house, they have cows and goats for milk, and they enjoy the occasional luxury of a chicken from the market. Pingle’s recipe for success is that he has done more with his land than other farmers.

The farmer grows iron-rich Dhanshakti millet to satisfy the iron needs of his family of five. On the other half of their field, the Pingles grow tomatoes and high-yield hybrid millet, which they sell in the market. They also grow protein-rich pulses and other vegetables in their house garden, and his wife Jayashree and her daughters harvest lemons, coconuts and mangoes several times

via Miracle Crop: Can a New Revolution Take Root? – SPIEGEL ONLINE.