The Digital Dispatch

From NOEBIE.net

Curated Links

Report From Thailand

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Tyrell Haberkorn sums up the situation this week in Thailand, where what began as a student movement questioning the role of the monarchy has become a broader struggle for democracy.

In arresting them and others last week, the Thai authorities seemed to hope to end the movement calling for an end to dictatorship and reform of the monarchy by locking its leaders away behind bars. But as the mushrooming protests this past weekend and early this week illustrate, the tactic has failed.

One who is dear to our hearts lives in Bangkok. We pray for her safety during this time of turbulance.

Source: The Fight for Democracy in Thailand | Dissent Magazine

Chris Hedges Sums It Up

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This is a rather long read, and not a lot of fun, but I think that Hedges (as usual) describes the moment well.

Captain America and SkullsThe most difficult existential dilemma we face is to at once acknowledge the bleakness before us and act, to refuse to succumb to cynicism and despair. And we will only do this through faith, the faith that the good draws to it the good, that all acts that nurture and protect life have an intrinsic power, even if the empirical evidence shows that things are getting worse.

Source: Chris Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair – scheerpost.com

Restoring Natural Landscapes Offers Hope

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Rewild to mitigate the climate crisis, urge leading scientists. The Guardian reports that restoring natural landscapes damaged by human exploitation can be one of the most effective and cheapest ways to combat the climate crisis while also boosting dwindling wildlife populations, according to a scientific study published recently.

If a third of the planet’s most degraded areas were restored, and protection was thrown around areas still in good condition, that would store carbon equating to half of all human caused greenhouse gas emissions since the industrial revolution.

The changes would prevent about 70% of predicted species extinctions, according to the research, which is published in the journal Nature.

Source: Environment | The Guardian

Organizing To Thwart Theft of a Presidential Election

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There was a brief moment after the election in 2008 where I was worried that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney would refuse to leave office. When the fears proved unfounded, I chalked it up to paranoia.

This year, I just don’t know. It’s hard to say whether it is sad, or fortunate, that we have come to the point where we have so little confidence in the health and veracity of our public institutions. I suppose that it may be both.

In any case, if folks’ fears about this are realized this time around, the notion of a nationwide general strike to keep the current occupant of the White House compliant is appealing.

Unions Are Beginning to Talk About Staving Off a Possible Coup – Labor Notes Reports: “Therefore, be it finally resolved that the Rochester Labor Council, AFL-CIO calls on the National AFL-CIO, all of its affiliate unions, and all other labor organizations in the United States of America to prepare for and enact a general strike of all working people, if necessary, to ensure a Constitutionally mandated peaceful transition of power as a result of the 2020 Presidential Elections.”

Read More: https://www.labornotes.org/2020/10/unions-are-beginning-talk-about-staving-possible-coup

K-E-double-L-O-double-good.

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The Other Kellogg: Ella Eaton – Edward White’s monthly column, “Off Menu,” at The Paris Review, reminded me about cold cereal’s early history as a health food.

I’m ashamed to say that I had never heard of Ella Eaton.

In the Kellogg story there was one person in particular devoted to getting food right—not the flamboyant, egocentric John, nor the embittered, entrepreneurial William, but Ella Eaton Kellogg, John’s wife, one of the most overlooked but most important names in the ever-twisting story of America’s relationship with food.

Read More: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/08/11/the-other-kellogg-ella-eaton/

Which Side Are You On?

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A Bunch of Union Organizers Explain What’s Wrong with Unions – Hamilton Nolan from In These Times asked the real experts about the gap between public enthusiasm for unions and the lack of actual union members.

Read More: https://inthesetimes.com/article/union-density-workers-organizing-staff-experts-public-enthusiasm

Personal Notes: I am a proud, card-carrying union member. Also, I once came dangerously close to being hired as an Associate Editor at ITT. 🙂

Public Safety Alternatives

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BLM Sticker Brian Bean PhotoPublic Safety Without Police – Chicago Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez speaks with Rampant Magazine’s Brian Bean about her efforts to reprogram $150 million in funding from the Chicago Police Department to an alternative Chicago Crisis Response and Care System.

The CPD’s annual budget is $1.8 billion, so this shift would represent less than 10% of the city’s current police funding.

For those who consider calls for “defunding the police” ludicrous, as if major city police departments would cease to exist altogether, I would urge you to read the interview with an open mind, and try to envision how a relatively subtle shift in the way public safety funds are used might improve our lives and communities.

https://rampantmag.com/2020/10/13/public-safety-without-police/

For Every Light That Shines

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Shadow Falls

When I was 16 years old, I went to work as a broadcast engineer at WSOY Radio in my hometown of Decatur, Illinois. I was just completing my freshman year of college, and had gotten my Third Class Endorsed Radiotelephone license from the FCC through a Winter Term course in conjunction with the campus station at Millikin, WJMU. I’d been captivated by radio and by audio technology from a young age, and was elated to be working at “The Sound of Decatur” and to meet the people whose voices I had heard in my home for so many years growing up.

One of the very cool things about WSOY in those days was that the station was a CBS affiliate, so we carried newscasts and other programming from the CBS Radio Network. When I worked evening shifts, I had the pleasure of listening to the CBS Radio Mystery Theater at 9 o’clock each night. I grew to love these spooky radio dramas, and the way they created such vivid images in my head through a well crafted collection of sounds.

I worked at the station all through college before deciding that a career in radio was not for me, though I would continue to work there occasionally on a part-time basis even after moving on to another profession. To this day recording and broadcasting still holds a great deal of fascination for me.

In early 2005, I learned that people were beginning to create and distribute audio content via RSS (the technology behind blogging). I soon joined the ranks of independent media producers all over the world who gave birth to the “podcasting” craze. One of the exceptionally talented visionaries who came to my attention in those early days was named Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff. Eventually he and I would both come to work for a company that was attempting to monetize the nascent medium. Although I wasn’t directly involved with his groundbreaking production Shadow Falls, I was able to watch his creative process from a fairly near vantage point, occasionally receiving clips of episodes prior to their release to the general public. The series hearkened back to the CRMT that I so loved. The program was especially compelling, knowing the care that Mark took with the production, often recording the foley effects himself, for instance.

For several years, I had been searching the Internet for archives of the show to no avail. A few days ago Mark popped up by chance in my Twitter stream with a post about the follow up production Badlands, and I reached out to see if the original series was available. To my delight, he replied that he had recently posted all six episodes to his weblog.

My daughter is a creative who writes fan fiction and is perpetually obsessed with one or another series of books or teen television programs. It’s fun sharing Shadow Falls with her, and I have to say that the production still holds up well all these years later. Take a listen yourself and see what you think.

HRW Report: Government Hiding Illegal Methods

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Special Operations Medallion

The federal government is deliberately concealing methods used by intelligence or law enforcement agencies to identify or investigate suspects—including methods that may be illegal. A new report from Human Rights Watch describes the process.

Through a practice known as “parallel construction,” an official who wishes to keep an investigative activity hidden from courts and defendants—and ultimately from the public—can simply go through the motions of re-discovering evidence in some other way. For example, if the government learned of a suspected immigration-related offense by a person in Dallas, Texas, through a surveillance program it wished to keep secret, it could ask a Dallas police officer to follow the person’s car until she committed a traffic violation, then pull her over and start questioning her—and later pretend this traffic stop was how the investigation in her case started.

Read the Report: Secret Origins of Evidence in US Criminal Cases | HRW