News Round Up, MishMash

A news round up is probably all I can produce for the moment.  Plus I have too many articles clogging my inbox right now.  Here goes...

Let's start light -- and hopeful.  Here's a story on one farmer's use of oregano oil instead of antibiotics in chickens.  Makes me want to try it -- and I almost never eat chicken.  I admire this farmer's approach -- but it makes me wonder *again* if organic food is a sustainable solution.  I always wonder if we could cultivate enough crops or raise enough meats to sustain the entire country.  Is this just another way of separating the have's and have not's?  But this article also made me wonder if having less really good for you food might potentially help us also to eat less... which we could certainly stand to do.  If we all needed less calories per day, could we supply them in a sustainable way that would also be antibiotic and pesticide free??

This story made me laugh and wince.  It reminds me of the time some of my *militant* friends and acquaintances tried to tell me that they do not participate in the capitalist system.  Hmmm.... yet they live and *work* in the US.  Well, in that same way, these folks are trying to create *floating* isolates that aren't *governed* by any nation.  Listen to it and tell me what you think.

In another odd citizen/state balance story, here's one that tickled me.  Apparently the federal government is trying to capitalize on its involvement in the American Indian Movement.  And by that I mean its ownership of Alcatraz which was occupied by AIM back in the 1970s.  It is fascinating on many levels - and long because it is the NYTimes.  ENJOY.

I am treading lightly into the gun control news frenzy for now... but it is impossible to ignore the fray.  Here's an early one from NPR about a conservative guy who says we should talk about it ... and Robert Siegel really presses Manchin on what the statements he's made mean.  When I have a little more space to process this, I am going to write more -- I can't even begin to address the craziness that is the NRA and their so-called "Press Conference" with no questions...yeah, we call that attention seeking.

Whenever I tell anyone that I study anthropology, they assume I am working on getting my Indiana Jones official hat and coat.  I am not saying that I wouldn't love those accoutrements! However, it is not my kind of anthropology.  I am not immune to the fascination about bones... so I was tickled with this story about being able to discern a community's level of compassion from their burials.

Just back from my Las Vegas Christmas -- there are many twinkling lights in LV, but I don't know how many are really Christmas-y -- I read this article and was reminded that there are all kinds of Christmas stories ... and that we are not the only ones who have ever been forced to make new traditions.  This family waded through Christmas for the first time as immigrants/refugees -- I guess that is different, but perhaps no less dramatic (I decided against traumatic).

There are so many ways that this article feels like a kick in the teeth.  We have worked so hard, many of us in different capacities across the country, to bring a more equity and access to college degrees.  And what do we have to show for it? Apparently not much.  This story from the NYTimes illustrates, through the story of three young women from Galveston, the pitfalls that remain to be filled if we are to bring some parity in educational opportunity and experience. I hope we won't come away feeling hopeless.

To end on a lighter note, here is an interesting piece on how a medieval monastery from Spain got rebuilt north of Chico.  Yeah... just read it.