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Common Dreams
By Olga Bonfiglio [Olga Bonfiglio]
Dr. Bonfiglio's articles published on the Common Dreams website.
Articles under this topic: 57
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It's morbidly painful to see ecological disaster strike at southern Louisiana-again. At risk now are the wetlands-the bayous.
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Published: Jul-21-2010 | Times read: 23 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Growing local organic food may be the best path toward economic recovery. It may also be key to building stronger and healthier communities.
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Published: Jul-21-2010 | Times read: 19 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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"There seems to be three ways for a nation to acquire wealth: the first is by war...this is robbery; the second by commerce, which is generally cheating; the third by agriculture, the only honest way." Benjamin Franklin
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Published: Jul-21-2010 | Times read: 13 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Are Americans willing to jeopardize their health with GMO foods? Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies about the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You Are Eating (2003), is convinced that they are not, so he started the Campaign for Healthier Eating in America, which calls for the elimination of GMO foods altogether.
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Published: Jul-21-2010 | Times read: 16 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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It appears that the increased risk of disaster is occurring worldwide due to climate change, deteriorating ecosystems and the expansion of poverty, says a UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. So what are we to do in the face of such threats to our lives, our homes, our communities-and our world?
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Published: Jul-21-2010 | Times read: 14 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Without water, nothing can live. And in the Western United States, there isn't much of it because the region is a desert.
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Published: Jul-21-2010 | Times read: 11 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Oak Ridge, Tennessee, “the city that made the atom bomb,” clearly illustrates the difficult conundrum people must face when their government decides to build a stockpile of highly lethal nuclear weapons.
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Published: Aug-07-2009 | Times read: 202 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Last summer, Kalamazoo College senior Nick Leonard discovered gardening and eating fresh fruits and vegetables as a new way to live a more sustainable lifestyle.
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Published: Aug-07-2009 | Times read: 141 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Today, as we celebrate the birth of our nation as the world's beacon of freedom and democracy, we might also ponder the insights from a book by Godfrey Hodgson, The Myth of American Exceptionalism. Exceptionalism is an especially pertinent topic for us during this insecure period of empire, war and economic decline.
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Published: Aug-07-2009 | Times read: 121 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Being an urban farmer may seem an unusual career goal for a young man of the twenty-first century, let alone one from Birmingham, an upscale middle class suburb of Detroit. It’s also counter-intuitive that a major university located in the middle of the cultural center could offer Howe a means to his aspirations.
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Published: Aug-07-2009 | Times read: 129 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Private citizen George W. Bush poked his head out from his quiet, exclusive Dallas neighborhood last night to give his first major speech since leaving office. Ironically, the place he picked is near one of the nation’s poorest, most racially divided cities. It also happens to be in one of the reddest, most conservative congressional districts.
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Published: Aug-07-2009 | Times read: 128 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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This year I decided to learn how to garden. My resolve wasn't just a notion for a new pastime or a move toward hip liberalism. Rather, it was my response to global warming and in particular, the depletion of fossil fuels, which has a direct effect on our food system.
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Published: Aug-07-2009 | Times read: 129 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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“We can only be secure when justice and the sharing of resources in the world are present,” said Jody Williams, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize recipient. “Human security, not national security will bring security to everyone in the world.”
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Published: Apr-27-2009 | Times read: 184 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Today marks six years since the start of the Iraq War and six years and five months since troops invaded Afghanistan. These wars were presumably started in response to 9/11 in the attempt to stop terrorism and protect us from Saddam's caches of WMD. So, how are we doing? Let's take a look.
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Published: Mar-21-2009 | Times read: 180 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Thomas Friedman has done it again. He has taken a global situation, this time it's climate change, and set out to educate the public about how we got there and what we can do about it. However, in his explanation, the self-described "somber optimist" inadvertently ends up salving readers with the expectation that technology will save us and we can go on with our lives as usual. Hot, Flat and Crowded focuses on the threats and opportunities of climate change in this new age that he calls the Energy-Climate Era (ECE), which begins now.
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Published: Mar-21-2009 | Times read: 175 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Recently, Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said it would be “wonderful if [Mr. Obama] would apologize for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on behalf of the American people.” Such an act would submit our nation to the power of forgiveness, which is what Nelson Mandela did when he became president of South Africa.
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Published: Mar-21-2009 | Times read: 169 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Community-based agriculture has the potential for creating jobs, developing small business entrepreneurships and keeping precious dollars in the community.
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Published: Feb-07-2009 | Times read: 225 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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The Vatican recently threatened to excommunicate Father Roy Bourgeois for his position that women be ordained priests. This out-of-the-blue, extreme measure against a prominent social justice advocate seems strange and ill-conceived. On the other hand, it serves as an opportunity to re-visit the issue since Pope John Paul II suspended all talk on it in 1994.
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Published: Feb-07-2009 | Times read: 192 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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It might be wishful thinking to believe that the 67.5 million Catholics of this nation (about 24.5 percent of the population) will influence this year's presidential election in Barack Obama's favor. After all, vice presidential hopeful Joe Biden is Catholic. Obama supports universal health care, taxes on the rich, education and job training, helping the poor, ending the war in Iraq-issues all in line with the social justice tradition and teachings of the Church. The reason this may not happen? Sarah Palin, a former Catholic gone non-denom, and her running mate, John McCain, are both pro-life.
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Published: Feb-07-2009 | Times read: 201 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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My annual pilgrimage to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival stimulated the thought once again about what it’s like to be in a community that devotes itself to beauty. That beauty matters in a town of Stratford’s size and geography is not only unusual, but it summons a reflection about what beauty entails and why it is important for our lives.
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Published: Aug-19-2008 | Times read: 444 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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“We are at a stage in human history that is as monumental as changing from a hunter/gatherer society to an agricultural society and from an agricultural society to and industrial society," said Dr. Grace Lee Boggs. "Where we’re headed now will be different because we have exhausted planetary space and human space for us to continue to look at things through the Cartesian measurement of material things.”
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Published: Jul-20-2008 | Times read: 391 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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The feature film, “WALL-E,” is a must-see for urban pioneers, environmentalists, teachers and community organizers because it reflects what can happen when citizens take control of their own lives — and plant gardens.
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Published: Jul-20-2008 | Times read: 280 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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West Michigan became the scene of an imported brand of Middle Eastern conflict over politics and religion recently when Nonie Darwish, a member of the nonpartisan Young America’s Foundation (YAF) speakers bureau, presented her view of the world at a lecture organized by the College Republicans in my town.
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Published: Jul-20-2008 | Times read: 286 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Movements for change begin mysteriously at the margins but if they take hold, they can have a big impact on society.
“Things happen. You have to count on it,” said Tom Hayden at a recent lecture sponsored by the Southwest Branch of the ACLU of Michigan.
The veteran activist first witnessed the process of social change while a student at the University of Michigan in 1960. As editor of the Michigan Daily he was covering John F. Kennedy’s visit to campus and discovered that a small group of students got to the presidential candidate about 11 p.m. and handed him a plan for an international peace program.
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Published: Jul-20-2008 | Times read: 264 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Shirin Ebadi wants Americans to do what they can to stop the Bush administration’s threats to bomb Iran as punishment for presumably making nuclear weapons.
“Nuclear weapons are not a daily concern of the people,” said Ebadi. “They want jobs; they want houses; they want health; they want more freedom.”
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Published: Jul-20-2008 | Times read: 289 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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