Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 7:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
I wound up with so much great material from my New Orleans diary yesterday that I'm extending it another day. Y'all won't mind, will ya?
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band - John The Revelator
"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both."
-- Frederick Douglass
News
Is Ecuador's Economic Policy a Non Neo-Liberal Alternative?
Ahead of September Trial, Bradley Manning Seeks Withheld Gov’t Evidence and Dismissal of 10 Charges
Spill sends 22,000 barrels of oil mix into Alberta muskeg
The spill ranks among the largest in North America in recent years, a period that has seen a series of high-profile accidents that have undermined the energy industry’s safety record. ... The spill has yet to be contained, although “we’re very close,” Pace chief executive Fred Woods said in an interview Wednesday.
The spill took place roughly 20 kilometres southeast of Rainbow Lake, which is 165 km south of the Northwest Territories border. It came from above-ground piping connecting an underground pipeline to a well used for wastewater injection. The pipe was carrying an emulsion that was roughly 70 per cent water and 30 per cent oil.
As with many recent pipeline accidents, Calgary-based Pace did not detect a problem, but was informed of the leak by another company after the spill was spotted from an aircraft. The spill, which killed one duck, now covers 4.3 hectares. Mr. Woods declined comment on how long it was leaking before detection.
Maria Gunnoe Testifies Before Congress: Mountaintop Removal Is Killing People
In a heroic effort to overcome the theatrics of a Congressional hearing gone wild on Big Coal slogans and anti-EPA fervor, Goldman Prize-winning activist Maria Gunnoe brought the deadly and costly realities of mountaintop removal mining in the central Appalachian coalfields–and a few moments of sanity–to Washington, DC last week:
The coal industry was allowed to run out of control in our mountains and depopulate many of our local communities during this rush to get the coal. In response to this insurgence by the coal industry, impacted community members organized to stop the attack of this industry on us in our homes. The EPA heard from us often and we appreciate that they are listening to the science. We have organized meetings with the impacted community members so that the representatives within the government agencies can see and hear the people’s pleas. Still, most of these decision makers walked away thinking that there is some sort of balance to be found in blowing up the mountains over our homes and shoving them into our streams. In reality the fact is mountaintop removal is killing people. These facts are out and available to anyone who wants to see them.
Please understand that the majority of people in Appalachia are against mountaintop removal coal mining. The only ones who support it are the ones who are making money from it. These are the ones that should be made to live in our communities and suffer the consequences of their actions. If you support mountaintop removal and what it is doing to us, you are supporting the murder of the people of the Appalachian culture that depends on these mountains and their waters for our very lives. ...
Mountaintop removal is NOT safe for anyone. Science has repeatedly proven this. The facts that mountaintop removal is killing us are in the 19 health studies that have been compiled.
This committee, Congress, the coal industry and the Obama administration continue to ignore these studies and continue to allow the blowing up of our mountains and poisoning of our waters and air to get to the coal that currently powers about 44 % of America’s electricity.
Expanding any mountaintop removal mining including the Spruce No. 1 permit means the depopulation of yet another mountain community and the sickening of the people who live in these communities.
Only 13.5 Percent of Food Workers Earn a Living Wage
Americans love to talk about food—how asparagus is best prepared, which preservatives to avoid, which types of fish are in peril, where to find the best tacos or most delectable peach pies. Most of us spend far less time contemplating the people that pick, slaughter, sort, process, and deliver the products of this 1.8 trillion dollar industry—a group of workers that makes up one-sixth of the country's workforce.
Unfortunately, the majority of these workers take home crummy wages and few benefits, according to a new report from the Food Chain Workers Alliance. Perhaps most strikingly, among workers surveyed by the FCWA, only 13.5 percent made a liveable wage (an amount FCWA defines as higher than 150 percent of the regional poverty level). ...
"Jobs in the food system aren't seen as high skilled," says Joann Lo, Executive Director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance. "It's hard work; you need to know the right way to cut a chicken in a poultry plant. But the general perception is that they are low skilled and don't deserve good wages." Overall, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, food workers earn less than workers in other industries:[see link for chart] As the report points out, fair market rent for a two bedroom place (think: small family) is $949 a month. An employee would need to make $18.25 an hour to afford it; instead, the median wage in the industry is $9.28 for high school grads, and only slightly more for those with some college under their belts.
Huge algae blooms discovered beneath Arctic ice
A NASA mission to study the tiny algae vital to the ocean’s food chain has turned up a massive amount of phytoplankton where scientists least expected it — under the Arctic ice.
In a project that uses both satellites and on-site measurements to study this important food source for many of the ocean’s creatures, NASA sent a team to sample the ice pack off the Chukchi Sea along Alaska’s coast. ...
The “massive under-ice bloom” also appeared to extend about 100 kilometers (60 miles) into the ice shelf, until “the waters literally looked like pea soup,” mission leader Kevin Arrigo told reporters. ... Arrigo said the discovery caused “a fundamental shift in our understanding of the Arctic ecosystem,” which was previously believed to be cold and desolate.
Mite helps virus destroy bee colonies: study
Parasitic mites linked to the deaths of millions of bee colonies worldwide may have destroyed them by incubating a potent virus and spreading it through the hives, according to a new report.
The findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, could help explain the mysterious collapse of bee colonies in recent years, a threat to plant life and agriculture, which depend on the honey-making insects for pollination.
The research was carried out in Hawaii, where the Varroa mite arrived five years ago but has not yet spread to all the islands, allowing the scientists to investigate its impact on the spread of Deformed Wing Virus (DWV).
Occupy Wall Street lawsuit over NY arrests can go forward
A lawsuit filed against New York City police officers involved in arresting some 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters during a march over Brooklyn Bridge last fall can go forward, a Manhattan federal judge ruled on Thursday. ...
In a lawsuit filed on October 4, many of those protesters contended they were unlawfully arrested. They said police had effectively tricked them into believing their march was being accommodated and they could lawfully be on the bridge roadway.
"While initially, the police officers congregated at the entrance to the bridge's vehicular roadway, thus effectively blocking the demonstrators from proceeding further, the officers then turned and started walking away from the demonstrators and onto the roadway - an implicit invitation to follow," U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said in a 30-page ruling.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Essential Visibility and the Overpass Light Brigade
6 Government Surveillance Programs Designed to Watch What You Do Online
The parable of water
Transgender woman seeks to re-enlist
Stay tuned for Freaky Friday, coming to a computer near you at 9pm Eastern Hippie Time!
A Little Night Music
Snooks Eaglin with George Porter Jr. - Red Beans
Snooks Eaglin & Poppa Funk's Boys - Come on
Clifton Chenier - I'm a Hog for You
Jelly Roll Morton - I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say
James Booker - Goodnight Irene
Snooks Eaglin - Drop The Bomb
Walter Wolfman Washington - Feel So Bad
Dr. John - Right Place Wrong Time
Earl King - Street Parade
Earl King - Let The Good Times Roll
Charmaine Neville - Iko Iko
John Mooney: Country Boy Down In New Orleans
Buckwheat Zydeco - Hard To Stop
Beau Jocque - Beau Jocque Boogie
For further listening:
Johnny Adams - Losing Battle
Johnny Adams - Danger Zone
Smiley Lewis - I Hear You Knockin
Snooks Eaglin - Talk To Your Daughter