There was an opera written in the 80s called Nixon in China that has a song about the news media. I heard it once and it's stuck with me. You see, I have two term projects I'm working on: a website about coffee in world history (fun facts below!) and an analysis of the information technology industry using concepts from volume I of Capital.
In class the other day the prof warned us that, as humanities grad students, we knew nothing about contemporary politics and economics and that we were all obliged to start reading as much high-quality mainstream press as possible, all the time. It was actually a pretty compelling point. For years I've avoided the news because it makes me want to throw up hearing about the hijinks of the Bush administration. I've now resolved to shed the bad faith involved there and try to get and maintain a better idea of what's actually going on.
As an added bonus, I'm sure to encounter my favorite genre of news stories: pandemics! SARs, West Nile, the Bird Flu! Oh, how I love thee!
So: if anyone has any suggestions of free online quality news, please let me know. Right now I'm just rolling with the NY Times, Le Monde, CNN (not quality, but concise), and Google News. Suggestions, people!
On an unrelated note, we got the new camera and Becky is busily taking pictures of crafts and a certain bunny. Graphics to follow in a later post.
Coffee: caffeine exists in the coffee plant because it's a natural insecticide. The coffee bean is the seed, which is contained in a fruit that resembles a cherry. The Ottoman Empire banned coffee-drinking and coffeehouses on several occasions, punishing violaters with death by drowning, but people just kept drinking it anyway and the bans had to be rescinded. Coffee itself fueled most of the intellectual ferment of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, including the ideology behind the American Revolution (the Declaration of Independence was first publically read in front of a coffeehouse.) Currently, international coffee prices are as low as they have ever been following the introduction of Vietnam into large-scale coffee production in the 90s. Likewise, following massive deregulation and neo-liberal economic intervention on the part of the IMF and World Bank, millions of coffee farmers are out of work and/or living in utter poverty.
So, basically, coffee is the fuel of capitalism. But that's not going to stop me from drinking it.
2.10.2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
You don't read the news...this I did not know. I'm shocked! Shocked!
* AlertNet
* LA Times
* Mother Jones
* Open Democracy
* Far Eastern Economic Review
These are some of my favorites & there are links on my blog. Without the news, I would have no inspiration for my work - depressing as it often is.
Le Journal, Radio France, and NPR mostly because neither requires much thinking and you can have them streaming in the background while you're doing something else.
i miss NPR. As far as the news, I usually watch on TV, CNN or BBC. I find that TV journalism gets me thinking more about HOW they're reporting than WHAT they're reporting, though. Fascinating business. It makes me angrier to see Dubya in the flesh though. It's easier to read what he says than to see him say it.
three words: fair trade coffee.
There's a lot of Newsweek online on MSNCBC.com too.
Here are some others that others might not have covered:
*Aljazeera.net
*The Guardian
*Asia Times Online
*The Globe and Mail
*The Economist
They all have their problems, but no news source is perfect. Well, I am perfect. Ego, ego, ego!
Awhile back my book group and I read The Coffee Traders, which was a historical fiction based on the beginnings of stock market-esque trading in Amesterdam and one man's interaction with the burgeoning coffee market. I loved it. Some hated it... but it did have lots of interesting points made about how the Dutch felt about this new, crazy drink.
Hey KFR,
I second The Economist. The smug feeling of superiority over the USA Today readers on the El keeps me warm through these -5˚ mornings.
On the coffee subject, I'm somewhat skeptical about the whole fair trade thing. I kind of support it, but I wonder if this is just Dumb American liberal guilt. Do we really understand how it works? Isn't it fucking with the basic supply/demand equation? Will the price inflation cause farmers to way overproduce, thereby shutting out anyone not in fair trade web? Could be one of those unintended, well-intentioned things gone wrong.
Post a Comment