Toadfish Monastery

http://www.alternet.org/stories/43435/

Author describes the loss of "beerodiversity" in the modern marketplace...

QuoteThe globalization of beer not only destroys the social, spiritual, and health-related benefits of small-scale home beer production. It also undercuts the vital role that home brewing plays in sustainable development throughout the world. For 10,000 years, brewing has been conducted at home, primarily by women, who were entrusted with safeguarding traditions that strengthen social bonds and build community identity. As an important component of diet, beer was distributed by female household heads according to the values of the community, which moderated consumption to socially acceptable levels. As an inherently small-scale and local endeavor, brewing also has had a low impact on environmental resources, relying on renewable energy sources and requiring little or no packaging or shipping.

Good article, covering both the sociological and financial aspects, not to mention the taste and quality concerns of microbrewing.

Come on beer drinkers and homebrewers. Let's hear from you!

The other one's not, but it's still pretty interesting.

A PDF of a mag article about the 13 scariest Americans.

http://www.oldtroutmag.com/docs/13ScariestAmericans.pdf

A Slate articel entitled "Why Democratic-leaning companies outperform Republican-leaning ones."

http://www.slate.com/id/2151355

And one about the evolution of the modern Bible.

http://tinyurl.com/y2qncx

Why does the media love hate-crime?

From Alternet's Evan Derkacz

http://tinyurl.com/yznxou

QuoteMediachannel's Rory O'Connor asks why the media rushes to cover every display of hate -- large or small -- yet neglects citizen's anti-hate groups like The Working Group...

There is an excellent video analysis on the Alternet page.

Why is there only bad news? What's the reason for "if it bleeds, it leads"?

Maybe it's because the media thinks that's what we want.

Bill Moyers (also on Wednesday night on PBS in the US, on this topic this week) has a bit to say about  the future of the internet.

QuoteThe Internet is revolutionary because it is the most democratic of media. All you need to join the revolution is a computer and a connection. We don't just watch; we participate, collaborate and create. Unlike television, radio and cable, whose hirelings create content aimed at us for their own reasons, with the Internet every citizen is potentially a producer. The conversation of democracy belongs to us.

That wide-open access is the founding principle of the Internet, but it may be slipping through our fingers. How ironic if it should pass irretrievably into history here, at the very dawn of the Internet Age.

According to Common Dreams: Injustice

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1017-01.htm

QuoteOct. 16 was established as World Food Day in 1979 by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), commemorating the agency's Oct. 16, 1945 founding date. Monday also marked the first day of Anti-Poverty Week, which will include events in Spain and around the world to raise awareness of the issue.

Quote...six million children a year die of hunger, which is responsible for half of all deaths of children under five. In addition, many children who survive hunger and malnutrition suffer disabilities for the rest of their lives.

Maybe it's time to rethink the whole 'foreign aid' thing, and quit giving some countries arms, and start giving more countries food. Or helping them grow food. (Not genetically modified stuff that can't produce the next year's seed, either, and make sure the Big Agra's pesticides that kill off all crops but their own are banned as well.)

Make sure you have plenty.

If you don't, you get to be shoved around and neglected and mistreated--and MALTREATED--and then you die.

Had the Vet Med School let us bring Preston to them, he would have lived. Hell, had they even bothered to fax his records when I asked-- instead of my having to argue with them amout the unavailability of a fax, and no I will not be paying off the bill before I transfer the dog, what exactly do you not understand about bleeding out with diahhrea??

Had the second vet known about his previous history she'd have known more of what to do, but it wasn't even ever explained to ME (last time, at the $1,700 hospitalization) beyond "a tender tummy",then we'd have known that it was chronic gastroenteritis, and could have DONE something all along the way (there are treatments).

They may have all the big shiny hospital stuff, but I was having trouble paying off the remaining $2,000 of a $5,000 bill, so they wouldn't see my dog.

Wanna hear the human side??

My friends Michael and Denise are both ill. He needs a kidney/liver transplant; her orthopedic problems for being hit by a car that red a red light, plus some birth defect problems are severe. (The only doctor that will touch her, at Texas Orthopedic, estimates 4 surgeries over a two year period would get her about 60% 'workable".) Michael's pain meds, dyalisys, anti-rejection meds for the original liver transplant, etc, have pretty much shredded HIS stomach/etc. and he has to have treatments with an argon laser (day surgery, endoscopic stomach surgery).

Once a monh, now once every 2 weeks, we take a person that has a bloodcount so low that there have been times that nobody knew if he could survive the trip, put him in my car, and drive 2  1/2 hours to a day surgery in Austin for the argon laser surgery he needs, and that will eventually help heal this mess. You'd THINK there'd be an argon laser in the hospital in Bryan. Well...there IS, but they won't use it on Medicare patients because there isn't enough money in it. And, the hospital, which COULD arrange an ambulance transfer to and from the Austin facility, won't--because they'd have to admit that there was an argon laser available that they refuse to use on Medicare patients.

St. Joseph's Hospital. They'll admit him, give him 9 units of blood in 5 days (the body holds eight) and then send him home to make a long trip, have surgery and make the long trip back the same day. They get 5 days of hospital bed rate, and the reimbursement for the blood, and care, so they're not losing money. But, evidently, the charity part of their care doesn't extend to actually doing what's best for the patient.

What's the common thread here??  Greed.

In the city where the George HW Bush Presidential Library is, greed isn't just good, it's the guiding principle.

Oh, and don't get a catastrophic illness that makes you poor and unable to work. Because then you're definitely considered second class.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4261242.html

Does anybody have a current e-mail address for Duke. He's not been on here in several days, and this is very worrisome.