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Kurt Laitner

Forget the Foundations - In These Times - 0 views

inthesetimes.com/...forget_the_foundations

Madonna Thunderhawk financing foundation activism paper

shared by Kurt Laitner on 06 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Their “actions” didn’t involve writing grant proposals, discussing their concerns with a board of directors or contacting state agencies. They tested water samples themselves, and, in 1979, produced a study revealing high levels of radioactive contamination, a high percentage of pregnancies complicated by excessive bleeding or terminated in abortion and large numbers of children born with birth defects. Despite their work, the Centers for Disease Control and Indian Health Services discredited the study, and WARN wasn’t vindicated until the South Dakota School of Mines substantiated their claims that same year.
  • But unlike Erin Brockovich, this tale of local activists fighting against faceless institutions doesn’t have a happy ending: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission simply raised the level of “acceptable contamination,” and Indian Health Services started providing bottled water in one area. Congress authorized a new water pipeline to the reservation in 2002–only to have the funding diverted by the financial demands of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • who defer responsibility onto do-nothing organizations, only later to complain about their lack of agency
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • that foundations perpetuate First World interests and free-market capitalism, thus preserving many of the problems radical activists wish to eradicate, such as the unregulated concentration of wealth.
  • Foundations were created in the early 20th century by multimillionaire robber barons, such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, to evade corporate and estate taxes.
  • foundations divert money away from the collective tax base
  • who are more interested in supporting milquetoast reformers than social-justice organizations
  • federal and state funding for education and healthcare has shrunk
  • This is a culture of noblesse oblige, Ahn writes, where the “privileged are obliged to help those less fortunate, without examining how that wealth was created or the dangerous implications of conceding such power to the wealthy.”
  • is the power those with money wield over community leaders.
  • consequently realigning their interests (i.e., maintaining their jobs) with maintaining the system
  • This allegiance keeps community leaders from challenging the root causes of social inequities–the social-change work–at the same time that they pedal to keep up by providing for the needs of individuals devastated by institutional exploitation.
  • Kivel concedes this is valuable work, but points out the inherent injustice of this paradigm: “When temporary shelter becomes a substitute for permanent housing, emergency food a substitute for a decent job … we have shifted our attention from the redistribution of wealth to the temporary provision of social services to keep people alive.”
  • University of Southern California Professor Ruth Wilson Gilmore urges contemporary grassroots activists to stop seeking a “pure way of doing things.” “Many are looking for an organizational structure and a resource capability that will somehow be impervious to co-optation,”
  • transitioning from foundation support to a volunteer collective reliant solely on grassroots dollars
Steve Bosserman

'Biochemiresistor' sensor is fast, super-sensitive | KurzweilAI - 4 views

www.kurzweilai.net/sensor-is-fast-super-sensitive

sensor_technology biosensor contaminants biochemiresistor

shared by Steve Bosserman on 01 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Francois Bergeron on 03 Jun 12
     
    this sensor is amazing ! very close to the vision we have for personal portable sensors: fast to immediate reading, detection of any compound...
Francois Bergeron

United States Patent: 5316950 - 0 views

patft.uspto.gov/...nph-Parser

shared by Francois Bergeron on 01 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • One method for measuring contaminants which has been extensively discussed is the use of fiber-optic guided systems for in situ spectroscopy and chemical sensing,
  • Recently, a cooperative effort with many participants
  • Francois Bergeron on 01 Sep 11
     
    optical measurement and strain gauge
Steve Bosserman

Food Safety in China, and the Risk to the U.S. - 0 views

www.foodsafetynews.com/...n-china-and-the-risk-to-the-us

food_safety china market_opportunity food_system

shared by Steve Bosserman on 05 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Steve Bosserman on 05 Sep 11
     
    Three years after the melamine-in-milk scandal that made 300,000 children sick, and two years after China passed its first-ever food safety law in response, the country is still struggling to keep its food supply healthy. The Chinese government recently cracked down, closing almost 5,000 food-producing businesses and arresting 2,000 people -- but China experts say a needlessly complex bureaucracy and ferocious determination to turn a profit mean the contamination will keep coming. (On forums where expats chat, Westerners living in China wonder whether there is anything safe to eat.) (Update: Commenters at the China Law Blog, many of them apparently resident in China, reflect the same anxiety.)
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

Bio-chemical detection SFS-13-2015 - 0 views

ec.europa.eu/...2342-sfs-13-2015.html

horizon 2020 proposal Tibi's selection Juncker food_system lab-on-a-chip Hugo

shared by Tiberius Brastaviceanu on 02 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Tiberius Brastaviceanu on 02 Jun 14
     
    "Topic: Biological contamination of crops and the food chain SFS-13-2015"
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