I recently came across two mainstream press articles related to anthropomorphizing dead forest creatures for the sake of art. Perhaps it's just a strange coincidence that I find one such account yesterday and then another today, or perhaps this sort of thing is becoming more common. Either way, it caught my attention...

Some of the dead possums and raccoons have been dressed in pet or human baby clothes and have had their claws painted with nail polish. The carcass of a deer has been adorned with gold paint. (continued...)

I came across this somewhat informative video series of a lecture that John Perkins delivered to a gathering of some anti-war veterans group. John Perkins is a former economic hit man for the U.S. corporatocracy who decided to 'do the right thing' by defecting and sharing his story with 'the people'. As he says in the video, he speaks only from experience (he doesnt claim to be any sort of intellectual) and consequently his analysis is not at all deep or thorough, but he gives us some excellent insights into the day-to-day practices of hegemonic capitalists.  (continued...)

The government of Norway has decided to do a service to humanity, by building a huge 'doomsday seed vault' for our post-apocalyptic future. They hope to have represented ALL of the world's varieties of domesticated crops. A monumental task... like backing up the hard drive of human civilization. (continued...)

I've been meaning to post something about the widening crisis among apiculturists in some of the world's most important food exporting nations. For those who havent been paying attention; beekeepers are reporting massive mysterious dieoffs in their hives...hives totally abandoned, without even the bodies of dead bees, yet untouched by foragers, among other strange symptoms. It's been termed Colony Collapse Disorder and I havent read one article about it that isnt quite alarmist (and rightly so), but this article from the Associated Press stood out. Not only is it thoroughly "mainstream", it's probably the most apocalyptic of all the bee extinction articles I've seen. (continued...)

Some interesting news from the neuroscientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign... apparently, as many have long believed, 'culture' clearly modifies even the adult brain. Of course the possible ways in which we are altered by our environment are nearly limitless -- if culture alters our visual perception at such fundamental levels then what about emotion or memory, or the very nature of consciousness.  (continued...)