David R. Montgomery - Dirt : The Erosion of Civilizations, with a New Preface

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520272903

Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.

Dignity and Defiance : Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520256996

Jim Shultz is Executive Director and Melissa Crane Draper is Assistant Director of the Democracy Center.

Dignity and Defiance is a powerful, eyewitness account of Bolivia's decade-long rebellion against globalization imposed from abroad. Based on extensive interviews, this story comes alive with first-person accounts of a massive Enron/Shell oil spill from an elderly woman whose livelihood it threatens, of the young people who stood down a former dictator to take back control of their water, and of Bolivia's dramatic and successful challenge to the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Featuring a substantial introduction, a conclusion, and introductions to each of the chapters, this well-crafted mix of storytelling and analysis is a rich portrait of people calling for global integration to be different than it has been: more fair and more just.

The Cochabamba Water War and its Aftermath:
http://www.democracyctr.org/blog/2009/04/cochabamba-water-war-and-its-aftermath.html

Banking 101 - What banks actually do : Creating, destroying and transferring money

1. The different types of money
2. A quick word on balance sheets
3. How central banks create money
   1. Central bank reserves
   2. Cash
4. How commercial banks create money
   1. Making loans
   2. Buying assets
5. Transferring money from one bank account to another
   1. Within a bank
   2. With cash
   3. Central Bank reserves payments
6. Destroying money

 What people think banks do: The money multiplier and other myths

1. Perception of banking number 1: The ‘safe deposit box’
2. Perception of banking number 2: The middle man
3. Perception of banking number 3: The money multiplier
   1. Problems with the money multiplier model

How do banks become insolvent and the importance of deposit insurance

1. Normal insolvency
2. Cash flow insolvency / becoming ‘Illiquid’
3. After insolvency and the need for deposit insurance
4. The problem with deposit insurance

 Source : http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/how-banks-create-money/balance-sheets/

Patrick Curry - Ecological Ethics : An Introduction - Second Edition

http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745651255

In this thoroughly revised and updated second edition of the highly successful Ecological Ethics, Patrick Curry shows that a new and truly ecological ethic is both possible and urgently needed. With this distinctive proposition in mind, Curry introduces and discusses all the major concepts needed to understand the full range of ecological ethics.

He discusses light green or anthropocentric ethics with the examples of stewardship, lifeboat ethics, and social ecology; the mid-green or intermediate ethics of animal liberation/rights; and dark or deep green ecocentric ethics. Particular attention is given to the Land Ethic, the Gaia Hypothesis and Deep Ecology and its offshoots: Deep Green Theory, Left Biocentrism and the Earth Manifesto. Ecofeminism is also considered and attention is paid to the close relationship between ecocentrism and virtue ethics. Other chapters discuss green ethics as post-secular, moral pluralism and pragmatism, green citizenship, and human population in the light of ecological ethics. In this new edition, all these have been updated and joined by discussions of climate change, sustainable economies, education, and food from an ecocentric perspective.

This comprehensive and wide-ranging textbook offers a radical but critical introduction to the subject which puts ecocentrism and the critique of anthropocentrism back at the top of the ethical, intellectual and political agenda. It will be of great interest to students and activists, and to a wider public.

Bill Fletcher, Fernando Gapasin : Solidarity Divided

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520261563

The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice, A new direction for labor by two of its leading activist intellectuals

The U.S. trade union movement finds itself today on a global battlefield filled with landmines and littered with the bodies of various social movements and struggles. Candid, incisive, and accessible, Solidarity Divided is a critical examination of labor's current crisis and a plan for a bold new way forward into the twenty-first century. Bill Fletcher and Fernando Gapasin, two longtime union insiders whose experiences as activists of color grant them a unique vantage on the problems now facing U.S. labor, offer a remarkable mix of vivid history and probing analysis. They chart changes in U.S. manufacturing, examine the onslaught of globalization, consider the influence of the environment on labor, and provide the first broad analysis of the fallout from the 2000 and 2004 elections on the U.S. labor movement. Ultimately calling for a wide-ranging reexamination of the ideological and structural underpinnings of today's labor movement, this is essential reading for understanding how the battle for social justice can be fought and won.

Bill Fletcher, Jr., co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal, is a columnist and long-time activist. He served as President of TransAfrica Forum and was formerly the Education Director and later Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO. He is the author of The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Relations, 1934-1941. Fernando Gapasin is a Central Labor Council President, Labor Educator, author, and former professor of Industrial Relations and Chicana/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

TV LOBOTOMIE - La vérité scientifique sur les effets de la télévision

http://www.maxmilo.com/product_info.php?products_id=220

English version info : TV Lobotomy  : The scientific truth about television

Sophie, 2 ans, regarde la télé 1 heure par jour. Cela double ses chances de présenter des troubles attentionnels en grandissant.

Lubin, 3 ans, regarde la télé 2 heures par jour. Cela triple ses chances d’être en surpoids.

Kevin, 4 ans, regarde des programmes jeunesse violents comme DragonBall Z. Cela quadruple ses chances de présenter des troubles du comportement quand il sera à l'école primaire.

Silvia, 7 ans, regarde la télé 1 heure par jour. Cela augmente de plus d'un tiers ses chances de devenir une adulte sans diplôme.

Lina, 15 ans, regarde des séries comme Desperate Housewives. Cela triple ses chances de connaître une grossesse précoce non désirée.

Entre 40 et 60 ans, Yves a regardé la télé 1 heure par jour. Cela augmente d'un tiers ses chances de développer la maladie d'Alzheimer.

Henri, 60 ans, regarde la télé 4 heures par jour. René, son jumeau, se contente de la moitié. Henri a 2 fois plus de chances de mourir d'un infarctus que René.

Chaque mois, les revues scientifiques internationales publient des dizaines de résultats de ce genre. Pour les spécialistes, dont fait partie l’auteur, il n’y a plus de doute : la télévision est un fléau. Elle exerce une influence profondément négative sur le développement intellectuel, les résultats scolaires, le langage, l’attention, l’imagination, la créativité, la violence, le sommeil, le tabagisme, l’alcoolisme, la sexualité, l’image du corps, le comportement alimentaire, l’obésité et l’espérance de vie.

Ces faits sont niés avec un aplomb fascinant par l’industrie audiovisuelle et son armée d’experts complaisants. La stratégie n’est pas nouvelle : les cigarettiers l’avaient utilisée, en leur temps, pour contester le caractère cancérigène du tabac...

Michel Desmurget est docteur en neurosciences. Après avoir fréquenté plusieurs grandes universités américaines (MIT, Emory, UCSF), il est aujourd’hui directeur de recherche à l’INSERM. Il est l’auteur de Mad in USA (Max Milo, 2008).

Glenn Greenwald - With Liberty and Justice for Some How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful

http://us.macmillan.com/withlibertyandjusticeforsome/GlennGreenwald

From "the most important voice to have entered the political discourse in years" (Bill Moyers), a scathing critique of the two-tiered system of justice that has emerged in America

From the nation's beginnings, the law was to be the great equalizer in American life, the guarantor of a common set of rules for all. But over the past four decades, the principle of equality before the law has been effectively abolished. Instead, a two-tiered system of justice ensures that the country's political and financial class is virtually immune from prosecution, licensed to act without restraint, while the politically powerless are imprisoned with greater ease and in greater numbers than in any other country in the world.

Starting with Watergate, continuing on through the Iran-Contra scandal, and culminating with Obama's shielding of Bush-era officials from prosecution, Glenn Greenwald lays bare the mechanisms that have come to shield the elite from accountability. He shows how the media, both political parties, and the courts have abetted a process that has produced torture, war crimes, domestic spying, and financial fraud.

Cogent, sharp, and urgent, this is a no-holds-barred indictment of a profoundly un-American system that sanctions immunity at the top and mercilessness for everyone else.