Fallout from Fukushima

A recent PEW Research Centre poll indicates that Japanese opposition to nuclear power is growing dramatically. Just last year, only 44% of the Japanese people polled believe that their country should reduce its reliance on nuclear energy. In 2012, the percentage of people who want reliance on nuclear energy to be reduced has shot up to 70%. The survey also indicates that 80% of Japanese are unhappy with their government's handling of the Fukushima disaster. In response to the Japanese Prime Minisger Noda's announcement today that he was about to re-start two nuclear reactors in Fukui, there were demonstrations in many cities. Even a third of his party's elected representatives cautioned him to go slow. One hopes that opposition to this dead-end technology will grow. Meanwhile in India, contradicting all available evidence and logic, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently declared that there is no alternative to nuclear energy. Until recently, China with its increased energy demand, has not relied too much on nuclear energy. All this is however changing dramatically, with 27 reactors under construction and about 50 more planned. Despite all the absurd hype - "clean energy" - nuclear energy is no alternative at all. However, neoliberal global capitalism in its many forms, including the Chinese variant, thrives on increasing rates of consumption - of energy as well as lifestyles and commodities that rely on ever increasing consumption of energy, structures the various trajectories for for a dead-end future for all of humanity.

The Real News

Tired of the corporate control and spin on news? Tired of "experts" pretending to dispense independent  opinions and takes on the fake news of the day? Tired of staged so-called debates such as "democracy can or cannot be promoted by armed interventions" in such and such country? Tired of getting the same mass manufactured narratives regardless of which news organization you turn to? Try "real news" instead:

http://therealnews.com/t2/

Terry Eagleton on Richard Sennett's book _Together_

"...sensitive attunement to other people has its limits. It is not as thought peace would break out if only we had a fuller understanding of each other's point of view. The problem is not primarily a breakdown of communication...A lot of Northern Irish loyalists understand their Catholic compatriots perfectly well. It is just that they cannot stand them. It is not always necessary to speak truth to power, not least because power very often knows the truth already." Terry Eagleton, Times Literary Supplement April 20, 2012

William Morris

"I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name"

William Morris, quoted in Nandini Sundar, Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 77,

hunter s. thompson

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

the gonzo journalist hunter s. thompson who was deeply impressed by the writing of c. wright mills. check out the movie "the rum diary" (2011) - about hunter thompson's early career as a journalist

Where got time?

"Where got time"? is a staple Singaporean expression. Barely any time to read, let alone write - a situation also known as "real life"! Currently reading a new edited volume titled _The Insecure American_ (2009) by the critical anthropologist Hugh Gusterson (and Catherine Besteman)with an introduction by Barbara Ehrenreich. Fabulous essays by some of the leading critical anthropologists and sociologists such as Joseph Dumit, Philip Bourgois and Nancy Scheper-Hughes.

 The blurb for the book: "Americans are feeling insecure. They are retreating to gated communities in record numbers, fearing for their jobs and their 401(k)s, nervous about their health insurance and their debt levels, worrying about terrorist attacks and immigrants. In this innovative volume, editors Hugh Gusterson and Catherine Besteman gather essays from nineteen leading ethnographers to create a unique portrait of an anxious country and to furnish valuable insights into the nation's possible future. With an incisive foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich, the contributors draw on their deep knowledge of different facets of American life to map the impact of the new economy, the “war on terror,” the “war on drugs,” racial resentments, a fraying safety net, undocumented immigration, a health care system in crisis, and much more. In laying out a range of views on the forces that unsettle us, The Insecure American demonstrates the singular power of an anthropological perspective for grasping the impact of corporate profit on democratic life, charting the links between policy and vulnerability, and envisioning alternatives to life as an insecure American." 

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520259713

mills on "statistical stuff and heavy duty theoretical bullshit"

In a letter (Sept. 17, 1951) to an editor of Knopf publishers, C. Wright Mills complains of the fact that Sociology "is now split into statistical stuff and heavy duty theoretical bullshit." Despite some major exceptions, this state of affairs unfortunately continues...