Food Becoming The New Oil
Investors have been quietly buying up chunks of fertile African and Indonesian farmland in hopes of turning a tidy profit as the world’s population increases by another 2 billion food consumers over the next forty years to 9.1 billion. German news magazine Der Spiegel, in this eye-opening article translated in Salon, reports that the governments…
House Committee Favors Ending Wack Sentencing Disparity
Yesterday, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee voted 16-9 in favor of a bill that would eliminate the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses. The disparity in mandatory sentences has resulted in a disproportionate number of African-Americans being sentenced to lengthy prison stays for crack offenses, despite most cocaine users being white, without…
You Enjoy Myspace: Phish And Social Networking
“When we look at bands and artists that foster community (and sometimes endless jams), we can see parallels to the rise of social networks,” writes Phish fan and strategic-communications specialist Josh Sternberg in “What Twitter and Facebook Can Learn From Phish,” an intriguing post for Mashable: The Social Media Guide. Sternberg makes the often repeated…
Barack Obama’s Health-Care Dilemma
Last month Bill Clinton urged President Obama not to give in to Republican demands for a weakening of the public option. At the time, it seemed like the only support Obama would have to struggle to gain would be from the right. But now, as budget talks intensify in the Senate and House, there’s clearly…
Al Schnier On Gathering Of The Vibes Death
As you’ve probably heard by now, an apparently grisly death marred last weekend’s Gathering of the Vibes. It was the first time anybody has died at a Vibes since the annual event’s 1996 debut. I attended the festival and can attest that this unpleasantness was in no way representative of the festival as a whole….
Interview: Brooklyn Bowl’s Peter Shapiro
Peter Shapiro has been a linchpin of the East Coast live-music scene since 1996, when he purchased Manhattan’s Wetlands Preserve from Larry Bloch. He began producing the Jammy Awards in 2000 and in May led a group of investors in relaunching Relix magazine. During the past few years he produced the films U2 3D, Wetlands…
William Shatner Makes Sarah Palin Start Making Sense
Located after John Dean’s intro. Dig those crazy bongos.
The Fall And Rise Of Music Magazines
At least in part because you’re reading this instead of one of them, music magazines have been dropping and downsizing like mad over the past several months. Blender and Vibe are history, and both Rolling Stone and Spin have trimmed their staffs considerably in response to diminishing readership and ad pages. In today’s Slate, former…
Man On The Lot: Sustainability And Conservation
Eric, HeadCount’s pesky yet courageous Man on the Lot, is back at it again. He recently spoke about sustainability and conservation with fans of The Fray at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey.
Arlo Guthrie, Unexpected Republican
Deborah Solomon had this interesting exchange with folksinger Arlo Guthrie in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine: Where are you politically these days? I became a registered Republican about five or six years ago because to have a successful democracy you have to have at least two parties, and one of them was failing miserably….