http://www.opednews.com/articles/Amazon-com-Reveals-the-Mos-by-Press-Release-110528-43.html

May 28, 2011

By Press Release

Cambridge, Mass., tops the list with the most books, magazines and newspapers purchased per capita of any city in the United States

Just in time for the summer reading season, Amazon.com announced its list of the Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities in America. After compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle format since Jan. 1, 2011, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 100,000 residents, the Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities are:

1. Cambridge, Mass.

Times of India May 31, 2011, 03.21pm IST http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/E-waste-pollution-causes-cancer-DNA-damage/articleshow/8663359.cms A new study has revealed that e-waste can cause adverse effects on human health, such as inflammation and oxidative stress. These may later transform into cardiovascular disease, DNA damage and possibly cancer. Electronic waste is described as end-of-life electrical goods such …

Published on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 by Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendell-potter/health-insurers-have-had_b_868946.html

by Wendell Potter

Of the many supporters of a single-payer health care system in the United States, some of the most ardent are small business owners who have struggled to continue offering coverage to their workers.

Among them are David Steil, a small business owner and former Republican — yes, Republican — state legislator in Pennsylvania who earlier this year became president of the advocacy group Health Care 4 All PA.

Another supporter is Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, who last Thursday signed a bill that sets the stage for the country’s first single-payer plan. If all goes as Shumlin and the bill’s many backers hope, all 620,000 Vermonters will eventually be enrolled in a state-run plan to replace Blue Cross, CIGNA and other private insurers whose business practices have contributed to the number of Vermonters without coverage — approximately 60,000 and growing.

Both men told me last week that their feelings were shaped by their backgrounds. Their experiences as businessmen convinced them that a health care system controlled by private insurers cannot be sustained, regardless of attempts to force those insurers to provide affordable access to care for all Americans. They are both skeptical that the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act will provide the fix the country needs, even with the new regulations and consumer protections.

By Alison Rose Levy   Share   “The shock, grief and loss were overwhelming.” How should we understand this latest and most troubling insight into the reality of our media ecology? In the aftermath of the resolution of the Great Birther bash-up, even as President Obama tried to lay the …

Published on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 by Foreign Policy

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/the_new_geopolitics_of_food?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full

From the Middle East to Madagascar, high prices are spawning land grabs and ousting dictators. Welcome to the 21st-century food wars.

by Lester Brown

In the United States, when world wheat prices rise by 75 percent, as they have over the last year, it means the difference between a $2 loaf of bread and a loaf costing maybe $2.10. If, however, you live in New Delhi, those skyrocketing costs really matter: A doubling in the world price of wheat actually means that the wheat you carry home from the market to hand-grind into flour for chapatis costs twice as much. And the same is true with rice. If the world price of rice doubles, so does the price of rice in your neighborhood market in Jakarta. And so does the cost of the bowl of boiled rice on an Indonesian family’s dinner table.

Welcome to the new food economics of 2011: Prices are climbing, but the impact is not at all being felt equally. For Americans, who spend less than one-tenth of their income in the supermarket, the soaring food prices we’ve seen so far this year are an annoyance, not a calamity. But for the planet’s poorest 2 billion people, who spend 50 to 70 percent of their income on food, these soaring prices may mean going from two meals a day to one. Those who are barely hanging on to the lower rungs of the global economic ladder risk losing their grip entirely. This can contribute — and it has — to revolutions and upheaval.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110528191542.htm ScienceDaily (May 30, 2011) — Maintaining social relationships and mobility in old age are so important for general well-being that some elderly people will go to extreme lengths to keep active, according to research funded by the United Kingdom’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Surveys conducted during the …

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Increasing-the-Deficits-Wi-by-Mike-Whitney-110528-705.html

 May 28, 2011

By Mike Whitney

How do you light a fire under Congress? How do you get these guys to do what they’re paid to do?

Look, we’re five years into this slump, millions of people have lost their homes and jobs, 44 million people are on food stamps, the economy is in the tank, and congress won’t lift a finger to help. What’s that all about? You’d think that the revision in GDP and the uptick in unemployment claims would set off alarms on Capital Hill. But it hasn’t. They just shrug it off and move on. What do they care? They get their fat paycheck one way or another, so what difference does it make to them? Besides, if they play their cards right, they’ll nab a 6-figure lobbying job as soon as they retire and spend the rest of their lives working on their chip-shot and swilling single-malt at the club with their moneybags friends. Doesn’t that piss you off?

Congress just doesn’t seem to “get it.” They don’t understand what people are going through; how maxed out they are. We’re in the middle of a Depression and all they want to do is score points playing political circle-jerk by stonewalling the debt ceiling or jacking-around with Medicare. Meanwhile, unemployment is on the rise (initial claims rose to 424,000 on Thursday), GDP is falling (1Q GDP revised to 1.8%), durable goods are down 3.6-percent in April, the market is topping out, business investment is flat, Europe’s on the ropes, Japan is in a historic slump, China is overheating, the output gap is as wide as it was six quarters ago, bank balance sheets are bleeding red from falling home prices and non-performing loans, and the housing market is crashing.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_tea_party_is_yesterdays_news_20110525/

Posted on May 25, 2011 – By E.J. Dionne, Jr.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_tea_party_is_yesterdays_news_20110525/

Posted on May 25, 2011 – By E.J. Dionne, Jr.

By Tirivangani Masawi

Global Research, May 28, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25014

Windhoek: Southern Africa has become the battle ground for a new scramble for resources, with the United States seeking to muscle out Chinese influence so as to secure strategic minerals – mainly for its military.

More frightening is the possibility of the US military itself becoming involved in securing these strategic minerals within the next 20 years.

According to a study by Dr Stephen Burgess, a Zimbabwean-born associate professor at the US Air War College, Washington may have to enlist the services of the Department of Defence, the National Security Agency and the Africa Command (AFRICOM) to secure Southern Africa’s resources.

His study, titled ‘Sustainability of Strategic Minerals in Southern Africa and Potential Conflicts and Partnerships’, says the US should move quickly to secure Southern Africa’s uranium, manganese, platinum, chrome, cobalt and rare earth minerals for America’s industrial needs and for its military as well as maintenance of weapons systems.

The study focuses on resource accessibility in the DRC, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe and draws parallels with the 1880s scramble for Africa.

To triumph in this new scramble, Burgess notes, ‘all instruments of (US) power’ must be deployed.

Burgess visited all these countries – except Zimbabwe – and makes recommendations on how the US can muscle out China.

He interviewed mining sector experts, government officials and journalists as part of his research.

There were also consultations with American institutions such as the Defence National Stock Pile Centre, the Defence Logistics Agency and the Marine Corps Command.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/05/27/18680563.php

Into Eternity – Nuclear Past, Present and Future
by Carol Brouillet ( cbrouillet [at] igc.org )

An award winning Danish film, Into Eternity will be screening this weekend in San Francisco. The film peers into the daunting question of containing the nuclear waste produced by the nuclear industry. With the situation in Fukushima out of control, concerned citizens are forced to confront the reality of the radioactive contamination of air, water, soil, food, ocean and the possibility of the nuclear disasters continuing and worsening, promoted by pro-nuclear governments. Citizens are mobilizing to monitor radioactivity and to shut down the nuclear industry.

http://counterpunch.org/naylor05272011.html

By THOMAS H. NAYLOR

Although I can claim no kinship with McGill University Professor R. T. (Thomas) Naylor, whom I have never met, I am an admirer of his work as an economist, a historian, a criminologist, and a political journalist.  Even though he tackles very weighty problems, Thomas Naylor skillfully manages to find the humor and the irony in the dark side of life.  His latest book,Crass Struggle: Greed, Glitz, and Gluttony in a Wanna-Have World, is no exception to the rule. 

Crass Struggle is about how the ultra-rich respond to the human condition, namely, separation, meaninglessness, powerlessness, and fear of death, as well as the devastating global social, economic, and environmental consequences of their behavior.  For those in the top 1 percent of the world’s population who own 50 percent of the world’s wealth, life is all about having – owning, possessing, manipulating and controlling money, power, people, and things – very expensive things such as precious metals, gemstones, diamonds, art objects, historical artifacts, rare coins, fine wines, Cuban cigars, scarce fish, exotic birds, wild animals, and elephant tusks.