So, was it good for you?

Besides being the greatest tune John Lennon inked post-Beatles, Instant Karma is a new campaign being waged by Amnesty International to help stop the genocide in Darfur. Officially called “Instant Karma: The Campaign to Save Darfur,” the project is fairly simple in its action, fairly Incredible-Hulk-powerful in its aim.

As we noted two Wednesdays ago, the situation in Darfur, Sudan isn’t “a situation” at all: it’s a mass-killing, a raping and pillaging, and a starvation of innocent and helpless Sudanese people. In sort, it’s the most horrific human rights catastrophe imaginable. And it’s happening while much of the world watches at best, ignores at worst.

So Amnesty International has teamed with Yoko Ono and 50 musical artists to record an album of Lennon’s songs. But it’s not limited to the music. The music is simply a vehicle calling for action.

According to the site:

The CD, “Instant Karma: The Campaign to Save Darfur,” will be released by Warner Brothers Records and arrive in stores the week of June 12th. Additional singles from the album will be released leading up to the full album, along with special product offers coupled with opportunities to take action. Proceeds derived from the entire campaign will go directly to support Amnesty International’s urgent work on Darfur and other human rights crises worldwide.

So you’ll get a disc with phenomenal covers of phenomenal songs, and you’ll help protect the innocent. Three of the songs — covered by Green Day, R.E.M., and Los Lonely Boys — are already available for download through iTunes.

But if you swing by the site, you can do even more by taking simple actions of your own. From the Instant Karma, you can sign a petition to President Bush urging him to use the UN to create a peacekeeping force that can protect the people of Darfur and of Chad, and to take the necessary actions to stabilize the region. You can also write your Senators and Representative in Congress to do several things in their power, not the least of which is funding the necessary peacekeepers. You can also join Amnesty International — it’s easy, trust us.

So, in short, look for the album come June 12th. Sign the petition. Write your members of Congress. Protect innocent people suffering atrocities we could only concoct in our worst nightmares. Let’s not wait a moment longer. It shouldn’t take another 300,000 people slaughtered to finally wake up.

Howdy Friends,

We just wanted to call to your attention the brand-spanking-newest item on our far-right sidebar: two buttons, one for MySpace and one for Flickr. Each points, go figure, to our new pages on those sites.

Our MySpace page includes our favorite photo of the week, a Progressive Wednesday Radio Player, links to our daily and Wednesday content, and a list of our 1,300+ like-minded “friends” on the WWW. If you’ve got a MySpace page, pop on over, and add us as a friend. Do your pals run a MySpace site? Please pass the word along. You can even click the words “Share This” at the end of this post, and email it to your heart’s content. We think the page is a great primer for folks who are new to Progressive Wednesday.

If you’ve got a Flickr account, we’d love to have you join our group. We’re always looking for fresh photographs and photographers for our daily photo of our beautiful world — let us know if you’re interested! If you’re a photographer without a Flickr account, please consider signing up. The price is literally picture perfect: it’s free, baby, free! You can also get a “Pro” account for a measly $24.95 a year. Flickr is also a fantastic way to share your photos with amigos, amigas, aunts and grandfathers, sisters and “third cousins once removed” without having to email them large files, and you can use Flickr to create personalized photo books, calendars, and postage stamps.

We can’t thank you enough for your continued support in getting the word out about Progressive Wednesday, and for participating with us to help get our country over the hump.

Thrive,

Eric and Matt

According to the Global Terrorism Database, which is connected to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, between September 12, 2001 and January 1, 2005, exactly five Americans died on U.S. soil as a result of terrorist attacks.

In other words, my brothers and sisters, terrorism isn’t really something we ought to be fearing during our daily lives. Consider some of these comparative statistics:

66 Americans die every year from lightning strikes (Source: The U.S. National Weather Service).

17,000 Americans die every year from unintentionally falling. (Source: National Safety Council).

36,000 Americans die every year from the flu (Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

So put the golf clubs away when the cumulonimbus clouds come calling. Double-check your ladders, and help your grandmother down the porch steps. Maybe consider a flu shot, or, I don’t know, washing your hands on occasion. For crying out loud, 11 people died in 2003 because of fireworks.

One last thing on terrorism, because I know folks might be thinking, Well, Mr. Zambito, what about 9/11? First, please, call me Matt. Second, I care deeply about the the tragedy of 9/11, because 2,356 people died, because it filled us with a gut-wrenching feeling of the unknown. That date and the images from that day will always remind us of a huge loss of innocent human life, and what can result from a tremendous act of cowardly, unprovoked violence. But just consider that about 3,000 people die every month from the flu.

What I’m getting at is that we needn’t fret thinking that the terrorists are going to “follow us home.” Odds are, even if they do, we’ll be safe. And if we demanded that our government spent more of our money and resources protecting our borders, our ports, and our food and water sources, we’d be ridiculously safe.

As a born-again omnivore[1], I can’t claim the high road in terms of animal rights, you know, since I eat some of them. But at least there’s some utilitarian reasoning, if a bit flawed, behind the way I gobble.

But keeping animals trapped for our curious awe (at best) or our sick amusement (at worst), makes little sense to me. I’ve heard the argument before: “When people see unusual animals in a zoo, they become more aware and concerned for the animals living in the wild.” This logic, of course, seems strongly flawed since becoming more aware of the animals makes me want them in the zoo even less. For my money, Animal Planet and the Discovery Network have essentially debunked that argument and have beaten that tired horse to…. Okay, poor choice of words. They’ve eliminated our “need” for zoos, which is just a fancy euphemism for “animal jail.”

But if we need more evidence that even the folks running zoos know there’s something amiss about them, we needn’t look any farther than this tasty tidbit:

A zoo has hired a clown to keep its chimps, gorillas, orangutans and baboons busy. Boredom can make the animals ill or aggressive, so the zoo in Krefeld, near Cologne, hired Christina Peters to entertain them.

Chimps, gorillas, monkeys, orangutans and baboons belong in (wait for it…) the wild. If living beings need a clown to keep them entertained, then those living beings have serious problems. And if any of your professional clowns out there are offended, well, good. That was half of my idea. The other half goes like this: undomesticated animals deserve to live and, yes, die where they naturally call home.

If we’re to be true stewards of the environment, we need to keep this in mind whenever possible.

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[1] I was vegan for two years until I had to change my diet for health reasons.

13,000 taxis plow along on New York Cities streets. That factoid alone amazes me since that’s 10 times the number of people who live in my hometown. But here comes the green hitch:

Every yellow cab in this city will be a fuel-efficient hybrid by 2012, and stricter emissions and gas mileage standards for taxis will be phased in starting next year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said [on May 22].

There are now 375 hybrid vehicles among the 13,000 taxis rolling on New York City streets. Under Bloomberg’s plan, that number will increase to 1,000 by October 2008 and will grow by about 20 percent each year until 2012.

Let me be one of the first to lift of a glass to the Mayor of the greatest second greatest city in the world for being bold as gold (Buffalo, which is in my neck of the woods, will always be numero uno in my heart). Sure, this will cost the cab companies some cabbage at first, but in the long run they’ll save Benjamins by spending less on fuel. I think it’s interesting to note that this is the exact reason the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers is in favor of the move.

But what’s the real impact of this move?

According to Terra Pass, a Ford Crown Victoria, which is the standard cab used in la Grande Pomme, unloads approximately 1 pound of CO2 for every single mile driven. That’s an ugly one-to-one ratio if you ask me, my friends. Or, as the AP puts it: “The Ford Crown Victoria, gets 14 miles per gallon. In contrast, the Ford Escape taxis get 36 miles per gallon.”

To find the aforementioned stats, I searched around a bit for the best carbon calculators on the Web (which, if you weren’t aware, is World Wide!), and I think the EPA has got it right. Theirs figures in recycling (or a lack thereof), and offers a way to see how small changes individuals or families make can dramatically reduce their overall emissions. Give it a look-see, yo.

Maybe because I’m 30, I loathe MTV and VH1. There was a time, way back when in college, when I’d watch those channels while half-heartedly trying to read skim not-exactly-page-turners like Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra and William Langland’s practically incomprehensible Piers the Ploughman (trust me — don not bother). Or maybe it’s not that I’m 30, but rather that I only read what I feel like these days and don’t want the sonic and visual blare of contemporary pseudo-music distracting me.

But from time-to-time, thanks to my friendly friends over at YouTube, I stumble on some videos that include tunes I double-dog dig and images that make me feel like I’m watching a piece of art and not a piece of advertisement.

So, this all bring us to “Not About Love,”a new single by Fiona Apple off her latest release Extraordinary Machine. In the video, über-comic Zach Galifianakis lip-synchs the song, while Apple plays an all-together different role. She functions as a secondary character, the one you might expect that Apple is singing about.

The video mocks music videos by pointing out the somewhat ridiculousness of pretending to sing a song, but also adds power to the tune by showing us how “Not About Love” is a song we could all easily sing. And how could we not? Check out these sweet lyrics:

But I’d like to choose right,
Take all the things that I said that he stole,
Put ‘em in a sack,
Swing ‘em over my shoulder,
Turn on my heels,
Step out of this sight,
Try to live in a lovelier light.

And this haunting and, at times, all-too-true chorus:

This is not about love,
‘Cause I am not in love.
In fact, I can’t stop falling out.
I miss that stupid ache.

Plus, for you music readers out there, there’s this: “Not About Love” is written, like too few tunes, in 6/8. This version includes a brief introduction by Apple, but it’s the best one I could find. Watch it, yo:

I’d seen the artwork of Kiki Smith — in the MoMA, the Guggenheim, and the MFA — long before I knew anything about her. It wasn’t until I stumbled on (or did it stumble on me?) the remarkably revelatory PBS series Art: 21. If you’re any kind of contemporary art lover, I’d highly recommend laying down the necessary cabbage to snag yourself the DVD of this program. ( I recommend Seasons One and Two over Three.)

In Art: 21, Kiki Smith kind of creeps me out with her artwork and amazes me with her intellectual and creative curiosity. She goes out of her way to shape-shift from one media to another — screenprints, videos, photogravure, linocut, lithographs, drawings, books, collage, and sculptures, both big and small, made from paper, wood, bronze, glass…. In the film, we see her learning new techniques of various crafts. (You can see short clips of her from the series by clicking here. And you can read an interview of her by clicking here.)

But there is one Smith piece in particular that I can’t shake from my skull. It’s called “Born,” and it’s a bronze sculpture of deer giving birth to a woman. It is — in one breath — shocking and lovely. I’m lucky enough to see it in person from time to time at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, and you can see a photo of it yourself by clicking here.

What endears her to me even more is her chutzpah: her work doesn’t shy away from raising issues of gender, race, our relationship with the natural world, and violence towards women.

It is not an overstatement on the part of artist Chuck Close when he writes in an issue of Time that: “[Smith puts] her unique and personal stamp on everything — thrilling audiences from the most sophisticated art-world insiders to the casual gallery goer. She is one of our greatest artists.” Her work does what the best contemporary artwork does: it reflects our culture and creates it at the same time. See a small body of her work for yourself by clicking this sentence.

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Below you’ll find a 3-minute excerpt from her video “Jewel”:

I didn’t drink booze until I turned 21. Then I made up for lost time. I drank whatever was put in front of me with a chutzpah unsurpassed by my peers. One evening, my pals had to literally pick me up off the road and drive me to my dorm room. My roommate at the time, our photo editor, found me on the floor of the bathroom with my pants at my ankles. He told me the next morning: “The greatest sound in the world was when you stopped dry-heaving and started snoring.”

When I got to grad school, I kept it up at a pace that would make it seem like complete and utter intoxication was my goal and not a Master’s degree. Somehow, I managed both. I say this not because I’m proud of any of it (though, I’m not really ashamed, I mean, give me a break — I wasn’t alone), but because of something I recently read in Time:

New research from the American Heart Association (AHA) reveals that college students who drink excessively can double their levels of something known as C-reactive protein (CRP), a biological marker for inflammation that has been associated with a higher chance of cardiovascular problems.

Compared with those of moderate drinkers (two to five drinks at a time, one or two days a week), the CRP levels of heavy drinkers were more than double, placing them in the zone associated with a moderate risk of heart disease.

Not to be too blunt, but according to this piece by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, we don’t know if my drinking in college and grad school will help me kick my own bucket (a longer study would need to be done), though there does seem to be a “carry-over effect between past CRP levels and future heart disease.”

Here’s where it gets even more interesting: folks who drink whiskey moderately (I say “whiskey” because Jim Beam Black is my fave) have lower CRP numbers than whose who steer clear of beer. Plus Dr. Gupta points out that booze reduces blood clotting, and red wine, which is teeming with tannins, “[slows] down atherosclerosis and resveratrol.” You might be thinking, as I was, What in the hell are atherosclerosis and resveratrol? To find out, just click here and here, respectively.

So, I guess the lesson might be this: if you’re young, go easy; if you’re older, go easy. Sounds easy to me. (Editor’s note: we apologize for that pun, but it was staring us in the face like a shot of tequila, and like a shot of tequila, we had to lick it, slam it, and suck it.)

After reading a recent article in Business 2.0, I learned that I was shocked that 90% of all goods sent overseas are hauled by “50,000 diesel-powered containerships.”

But a Germany company is about to set-sail a ship with a creative hitch:

“A giant kite [will be attached] that files 1,000 feet above the bow, connected to an automated telescoping mast. Wind power won’t displace the ship’s giant diesel engines, but it will take a load off, slashing fuel consumption by as much as 30 percent.”

This kites are designed by SkySails, and they hope to expand the use of their kites to “oil tankers, fish trawlers, and big yachts.” The company “[aims] to reduce fuel consumption of modern shipping by the utilisation of environmentally friendly, free-of-charge wind energy.”

It seems to us that wind energy is a place where American companies could start increasing jobs on our shores. Someone needs to build these kites. Someone needs to build wind turbines. Why not us? Why not now?

While you try to answer those somewhat rhetorical questions, you can see this sail in action in the video below. (Since the company is German, you know, the dialogue is also in German. We really don’t know what they’re saying. We’ll assume it’s good stuff.)

More and more jobs (particularly manufacturing jobs) are being shipped overseas to countries where working conditions can be disgusting at best, criminal at worst. But there’s another problem with the way we all tend to shop: we’re hurting hard-working Americans, those with the bluest of collars. And this is particular evident in my corner of Western New York.

Maybe you’d like to get a big-time jump on your Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa shopping. Maybe you forgot all about Mother’s Day, and you’d like to make up for it in a jiffy (and not this kind of Jiffy). Maybe you’re snagging some new duds for the summer. Maybe you’re a union worker yourself, worried your gig might go the way of China.

So what can you do? We can buy American-made stuff. This, unfortunately, sounds easier said than done, because if you’re like me and tend to shop at places like Kohls or Target, the odds of finding much made here in the Red, White, and Blue are about as good as winning a whole mess of coin on a slot machine at the Seneca Niagara Casino. In other words, you’ll find some, but not a whole heck of a lot.

But at Progressive Wednesday, we’re all about making progressivism appear as simple as it truly can be. We’re all about helping you help this country. And we believe we’ve found you some answers to the sometimes tricky question of how to best lend a hand to America’s hardest working or those out of work folks pining for a chance to earn a decent paycheck once again.

So, here goes:

First up is Shop Union Made, a website with a vast array of resources to help us all support American union workers protect the security of their jobs, and therefore, their families. The site offers up categories readers can search to help find stores and companies that employ union workers, and Shop Union Made covers everything from clothing to tools, food to finances, travel to books. Basically, they’ve got it all, baby. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, consumer spending on everyday stuff adds up to 68 percent of all wealth created each year in the U. S. of A.. It’s time more of that moolah stayed right here. You can learn more about the importance of supporting U.S. workers by clicking this sentence.

No Sweat Apparel is an online shopping stop where we can buy guaranteed sweatshop-free made in the U.S., Canada, and the developing world. By using this site, you can be sure you’re protecting the rights of workers who make what you buy. You needed just buy online, there are a bevy of local retailers hocking no-sweat goods.

Because I walk a lot, and because I’m not a dress shoes kind of guy, I go through sneakers pretty quickly. Unfortunately, most of the sneakers sold here are sewn together by child workers in other countries. Through a company called Pangea, I’ve been able to find New Balance footwear made in America. Pangea also sells a variety of other items — from cosmetics to belts. I’ve shopped with them in the past, and can vouch for them as a speedy and honest privately-owned company.

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Editor’s note: We’ve covered the needs of hard-working families on a previous Wednesday. Just click this sentence to learn other ways you can help those American’s who slug through the 9-5 for the rest of us.

We’d like to graciously welcome readers of the Niagara Gazette who’ve found their way here today. Our site offers a lot of different content, including weekly columns by regular Americans, important info hidden on the back pages of newspapers and in under-the-radar magazines, daily photos of our beautiful world, reviews of books, magazines and movies, “How-to” tools, conversations with significant progressives, original video, and even some of the funny.

On the right sidebar, you find our most recent Wednesday topic — Corn, from Ascorbates to Zein, which includes a simple four-part to-do list offering simple actions everyday folks can take to make progressive change happen. You’ll learn about some of the problems with corn (believe it or not, there are several) and you’ll see new ways that corn can actually help make our country a better place. (To check out our complete list of Wednesday topics, just click this sentence.)

If you’ve got any questions about our site or topics you’d like to see us cover, just drop us a line through our Contact page. We’d love to hear from you, and we promise to get back to you pronto. If you’d dig having a free bumper sticker, just say the word, and we’ll ship one your way!

Again, thanks for dropping by. And don’t forget to check us out on June 13, when we focus on simple solutions for the big problems facing Niagara Falls.

Right now, organic food seems, at times, like a pricey luxury. Thankfully, more and more the price of this produce is coming down (thanks to increased demand, and therefore, production), and processed organic food is often similarly priced, and at times, cheaper than their genetically-modified, pesticide-coated counterparts (I find this particularly true with cereals, mac and cheese, and salsa).

But a new United Nations study plainly states that a shift to organic farming could, besides helping that not-so-little thing called the “environment,” but also help curb world hunger. The previously held knock on such an idea was that organic farming can reduce crop yields significantly, but over time this levels off.

And according to the Associated Press:

Researchers in Denmark found, however, that food security for sub-Saharan Africa would not be seriously harmed if 50 percent of agricultural land in the food exporting regions of Europe and North America were converted to organic by 2020.

While total food production would fall, the amount per crop would be much smaller than previously assumed, and the resulting rise in world food prices could be mitigated by improvements in the land and other benefits, the study found.

Plus, if farmers in sub-Saharan Africa made the switch, “it could reduce their need to import foods.” And here’s another plus: these farmers would save precious money by not needing to purchase chemicals, and earn money by exporting any extras.

Another study conducted by the University of Michigan found that:

A global shift to organic agriculture would yield at least 2,641 kilocalories per person per day, just under the world’s current production of 2,786, and as many as 4,381 kilocalories per person per day.

(Kilocalories are known to us as “calories.”)

So why are these new findings so significant? Well, here are the facts, Jack:

850 million people are chronically undernourished. That’s nearly three times the population of the United States.

Since 1996, the number of undernourished people in the developing world has gone up by 20 million. But here’s the more upsetting fact: the number of undernourished people is continuing to rise by four million per year.

30% of the world’s population suffers from malnutrition.

Nearly 24,000 people die each day as a direct result of hunger. And here’s a chilling statistic: 18,000 of those daily deaths are of children under the age of five.

But, while you might not be able to start an organic farm in Africa, there is something incredibly simple you can do. Just click this sentence to be taken to The Hunger Site. If you have any doubts about the legitimacy of this, you needn’t: just click here or here or here. The second link includes a citation from The New York Times.

If you just give a few clicks, you can help feed the hungry, and we know you can easily spend 7 seconds every day doing this.

Al Gore, erroneously known for being a stiff, humorless politico, has got a gift for the giggles, and that can be seen in full force in these equal parts honest and hilarious video clips from episodes of Futurama, a cartoon created by the same folks that brought you The Simpsons. (It should be said that Gore’s daughter Kristin used to be a writer for Futurama.)

I think this video further reminds us that most punchlines have a serious side, and serious topics rub up closer to jokes than we admit. Why is this important? Well, we hope that at Progressive Wednesday we share with you important info, factoids, stories, and tools that you might pass along to the everyday folks that are part of your lives. Humor, it seems to us, is a way to break the ice and avoid sounding didactic, even when an issue is of particular or personal importance. We struggle with this ourselves, and we’re always looking for fresh and jazzy ways to share our views. It can be difficult, but it can also be essential.

And if nothing else, you know, we hope you get a cackle or two out of this post.

(Cross-posted at Progressive Wednesday.)

I’m not a big fan of Foster’s beer. Give me an ice-cold bottle of Labatt Blue, or if you’re feeling generous, and I’m feeling decadent, hand me a glass of Chimay. But Foster’s is up to something so good they’re tempting me to make the occasional switch. Check it out, courtesy of Live Science:

Scientists and Australian beer maker Foster’s are teaming up to generate clean energy from brewery waste water — by using sugar-consuming bacteria.

The [microbial] fuel cell [being built] is essentially a battery in which bacteria consume water-soluble brewing waste such as sugar, starch and alcohol. The battery produces electricity plus clean water, said Prof. Jurg Keller, the university’s wastewater expert. The complex technology harnesses the chemical energy that the bacteria releases from the organic material, converting it into electrical energy.

The upshot is that this sucker will only produce a scant 2 kilowatts of electro-juice (about enough for one home), but it’s main focus is as a means of treating massive amounts of waste water. The current is just a bonus.

As someone who grew up a stone’s throw from the Niagara Power Project, I can’t help but be a huge fan of other green technologies — it’s in my blood, people. And I find it comforting that scientists everywhere are increasingly using their collective IQs to find creative, eco-friendly solutions to the vast problems made by the products and services we rely on (or in this case, indulge in).

Why is water treatment so important in terms of beer?

Well, first it’s important to know this: according the World Resources Institute, in 1995, “41 percent of the world’s population, or 2.3 billion people, live in river basins under water stress.” This number will leap to 48% by 2025. Plus, according to recent research we’ve compiled, clean drinking water is in short supply, even in the U. S. of A.

And here’s the skinny on beer production:

• It can take 1,500 gallons of water to process one barrel of beer.
• There are 31 gallons in a barrel.
• Some breweries have been able to reduce their water usage significantly. The Mad River Brewing Company of Blue Lake, California, “has reduced the amount of water [used to make one gallon of beer] from 14 gallons to an average of 7.9 gallons.” The thing is, that’s still a lot of water.

So, here’s props to Foster’s and the scientists at Australia’s University of Queensland for actively pursuing a solution to a problem that probably flies under most of our (occasionally beer-goggled) radars.