Saturday, March 13, 2021

Remembering the Times' Whitewash of Bolivia Coup

NYT Acknowledges Coup in Bolivia—While Shirking Blame for Its Supporting Role

by Camila Escalante with Brian Mier - FAIR

 
July 8, 2020
 
The New York Times (6/7/20) declared that an Organization of American States (OAS) report alleging fraud in the 2019 Bolivian presidential elections—which was used as justification for a bloody, authoritarian coup d’etat in November 2019—was fundamentally flawed.
 
 

The Times reported the findings of a new study by independent researchers; the Times brags of contributing to it by sharing data it “obtained from Bolivian electoral authorities,” though this data has been publicly available since before the 2019 coup.

 

Tuesday, March 09, 2021

Disappeared: The Mysterious Fate of Sergei and Yulia Skripal

The Disappearing Spy

by Rob Slane - The Blogmire

 
March 4, 2021

It is exactly three years since one of the most absurd yarns of modern times was spun just a few stone’s throws from where I live. 
 
 

The official narrative of the alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal was so patently ridiculous and full of holes, that I remain amazed at how anyone could have been taken in by it — although it must be said that this astonishment has since been surpassed by an order of magnitude by some of the things millions of people have been willing to believe over the past year, including the myth that healthy people can transmit an illness, the myth that wearing a mask prevents virus spread, and the myth that Lockdowns save lives rather than destroying both lives and society.

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Karl Grossman, Robert Hunziker March 11th, 2021

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 
March 11, 2021

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded March 2nd, 2021 Sept. 17, 2016
 
This March 11th marks the tenth anniversary of the Fukushima tsunami-engendered nuclear disaster. And, what have we learned? 
 
Ten years after, even as Japan continues cleaning up the mess, there is no solution to the question of just what to do with irradiated debris already collected, or how to deal with the contaminated cooling water still being generated every day, and now amounting to millions of litres.
 
In fact, far from getting a handle on the problem, things are only getting worse; as JapanToday reports, “The decades-long challenge to scrap the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant… is becoming more complex as recent remote-controlled probes have highlighted just how damaged the reactors are.
 
 
 
And yet, the nuclear industry is enjoying a renaissance, buoyed by concerns for climate change, and an unlikely partner in NASA and its collaborators who recently landed nukes on Mars.
 
Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and author of, ‘The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet’, and ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’. He’s also the host of the nationally syndicated television program, Enviro Close-UP with Karl Grossman, and is an associate with the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Karl’s articles too appear at CounterPunch.org, and Nation of Change, among other places, where I found his latest, ‘Plutonium—the most lethal of all radioactive substances—in space’.
 
 

Karl Grossman in the first half.

 
And; what about the Olympic Games? In 2016, the IOC announced not only would Japan host the 2020 Games, it would do so in the nuclear shadow of Fukushima Prefecture. But, Fate intervened in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic. 
 
But, but; the IOC and Japan determined to carry on come pandemic Hell, or atomic high waters, rescheduling Japan 2020, to July 2021. And, despite 80% of Japanese polled saying the games should be postponed again, new Tokyo Olympic organizing committee president, Seiko Hashimoto is reassuring the public it will be safe for the Games to go on saying, “The situation around coronavirus doesn’t go easy on us.
 
About Fukushima’s lingering nuclear radiation and the threat it poses, Hashimoto had this to say, [crickets].
 
Robert Hunziker is an environmental journalist whose climate clarion calls appear in numerous journals and multiple languages around the World and across the internet. He’s also appeared in a variety of media to talk about global climate change and has written extensively about the ongoing aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. I spoke to Robert waaaaaay back in 2016 about the then newly announced winning Tokyo Olympics bid, and Japan’s “progress” cleaning up the World’s worst civilian nuclear disaster.
 
 

Robert Humziker revisiting Fukushima in the second half.

 
But first, Karl Grossman and Earth’s nuclear envoy to Mars.
 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Rebel Songs for 2021: A New Album Release from David Rovics and Friends

Rebel Songs (2021): New Album from David Rovics and Friends 

by David Rovics -This Week with David Rovics

March 9, 2021
The first album from David Rovics of 2021 is out now on Bandcamp and will soon be up on all the usual music streaming platforms, including SoundCloud's new streaming platform, when it launches on April 1st.
 
 

The album, Rebel Songs, is a very pandemic-inspired international collaboration between Oregon, where the basic tracks were recorded at Big Red Studio in Corbett, and Ireland, where Pol Mac Adaim added various instruments to the mix and turned it all into an album, at his home studio in the Cooley Mountains.

 

Sunday, March 07, 2021

Passing: Richard Kastelein

The Death of Richard Kastelein: Blue Water Sailor, Media Maven, Technology Adventurer, Raconteur, Family Man

by C. L. Cook - Pacific Free Press

 
March 8, 2021
 
Richard Kastelein died February 5th in his adopted Dutch home of Groningen. He is survived by his wife, Wieke, three children, Hannah, Marah, and Ishyah, and extended family in Holland and in his native Canada. Rich is also mourned by the many, many people whose lives he touched and changed for the better over the course of his wide travels in a far too brief lifetime.
 
Rich Kastelein head  

Among the myriad projects Rich initiated and nurtured is this site, Pacific Free Press.