I love the “Censored Stories” annually published by Seven Stories Press. Here’s a prematurely-put-together potluck of items for today’s meal, which focus on what we blot out of our own minds … without much help from culpable mainstream media outlets.
1. Why is so much fuss being made over the recent oil spill around San Francisco while virtually nothing is being reported/discussed about the “simultaneous” spill in the Black Sea.
Context: Dozens of birds and beaches were affected in the Bay Area while 30,000 birds were killed on the Russian/Ukraine border … extending ecological catastrophe over a much greater area. Also, people died and four freighters went down along the Crimean coast. Is it that someone’s discovered the birds were communists? If there’s going to be a death penalty for anything, why isn’t it applied to the individual — and, surely, there was one person responsible — who gave the green light for a tanker without a double hull to be in the Kerch Strait’s heavy seas? To remain there even after official warnings were issued.
Category: Ecological Catastrophe
2. Why do celebrities like Don Cheadle and George Clooney and Brad Pitt agree to do an “African” special in Vanity Fair when they know that Condy Rice and George W. are going to be getting feathers in their caps alongside them while Bono gets away with blending GAP and his RED project in a very fashionable, favorable light?
Context: It should be called “Vanity Unfair,” but at least Archbishop Desmond Tutu put himself in a prayer position (with eyes closed) as he was forced to pose with Bush for the July issue.
Category: That’s Entertainment!
3. Why are so many prescription drugs (like Celebrex, designed to treat arthritis pain) so popular with doctors and the public when the number of suicides and serious (possible) side effects are astronomical?
Context: The length of the “warning” points in the literature which accompanies distribution of the Pfizer product (and so many others) is unbelievable. When one thinks about the fact that people in general (let alone the unassisted elderly) will not plow through all the small print, it’s a wonder that so much political fuss is made over making prescription drugs available to one and all in health plans.
Category: Ongoing Abominations.
4. Why are so few activists who’ve wanted to incorporate people of color into the ranks of anti-war protests joining hands with members of the Latino community over the monumentally important/historic immigration issue?
Context: In a recent study out of Teachers College, Columbia University only one in ten anti-war activists questioned indicated that they had made an effort to do so. All else aside, our ages-old-tradition of vigilante action, being implemented along the border now with official sanction, is no less a horror than what went on with the tolerated/encouraged lynching of African-Americans throughout U.S. history.
Category: That’s Soldiarity!
5. Regarding the Minot-Barksdale Nuclear Missile Flight, why, out of over 900 high school Social Studies teachers canvassed, has there been no discussion of the “mistake” in “Current Events” school segments?
Context: Immediately after reading Dave Lindorff’s timely rundown of the event, I had my contacts across this “great” nation telephone 85 teachers (on average) in eleven states. I don’t know if things changed following his follow-up piece.
Categories: Ostrich Syndrome and That’s Education!