Another Another Monday Linkdump

Yet another Monday linkdump.

* Rep. John Lewis and four other congressmen were arrested today in front of the Sudanese embassy protesting the genocide in Darfur.

* Quantifying the seven deadly sins.

* Dinosaurs may not have been killed by the Chicxulub impact after all. This example of the scientific method working is naturally taken up by anti-intellectuals at the Corner to prove the scientific method doesn’t work.

* More on the connection between swine flu and industrial agriculture.

* The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize?” is now the official song of Oklahoma, instantaneously making the state 1000% more awesome.

Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize we’re floating in space?
Do you realize that happiness makes you cry?
Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?

* Scientific American concurs.

Polygraph 22: Call for Papers

Polygraph 22—Call for Papers
http://www.duke.edu/web/polygraph/cfp22.html

Special Issue: Ecology and Ideology

The contemporary moment abounds with speculation concerning our ecological future. Specialists in a variety of fields forecast immanent catastrophe, stemming from a combination of climate change, fossil-fuel depletion, and consumer waste. The recent bestowal of the Nobel Peace Prize on a group of scientists studying climate change indicates the degree to which "peace" has come to signify ecological balance; even the declaration by the Vatican of a new set of "7 Deadly Sins for the modern age" includes pollution in an attempt to grapple with the potential of individuals to inflict ecological damage on a global scale.

In the name of an impending crisis felt to be collectively shared, new political, cultural, and intellectual alignments are being forged, just as seismic shifts in the flow of global capital once again threaten to "redistribute" the world’s resources and people. Ecological crisis has become a 24/7 media event, canvassing the planet in the imagery and rhetoric of disaster. From the halls of research and policy to activist documentary and apocalyptic fantasy, at the news desk, podium, pulpit, classroom, and computer monitor alike, all channels are united by a single underlying conviction: the present ecological catastrophe has humanity as its cause.

Precisely because the answer seems so obvious, we want to know: why now? Where are the points of antagonism in the midst of such apparent consensus, and what is at stake in their difference?

The Polygraph Editorial Collective invites papers concerning any aspect of ecology’s relationship to ideology, both interrogating ecology as a location for critique of global capitalism and analyzing the ways in which ecology functions as an ideology in its own right.

Potential areas of interest include:

Political Ecology
Globalization and ecology
Marxism and ecology
"Environmental accounting" as a challenge to the free market
Ecology and capital / consumerism
Ecology as growth market

Eco-Disaster
Peak oil and climate change
Biofuels and the food crisis
Overpopulation and Neo-Malthusianism
Ecology as a rhetoric of control
Figurations of eco-disaster in popular culture

Religion and Ecology
Green apocalypticism and green evangelism
Ecology and world religion

Ecology and gender
Recent articulations of eco-feminism
Eco- & transnational feminisms
Women’s work and the global chain of production
Agricultural work and reproduction

Ecologies against ecologies
"Light" vs. "dark green" environmentalism (i.e. deep ecology)
Primitivism and technofuturism
The status of international Green movements

Polygraph welcomes work from a variety of different disciplines, including critical geography, cultural anthropology, political economy, political theology, science studies, and systems theory. We also encourage the submission of a variety of formats and genres: i.e. field reports, surveys, interviews, photography, essays, etc.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE
December 31, 2008

ISSUE EDITORS
Gerry Canavan
Lisa Klarr
Ryan Vu

CONTACT
polygraph22cfp@gmail.com

New Sins Redux

indexed takes a crack at the “new sins” story from yesterday. Click to enlarge:

The Vatican’s New Sins

My Vatican correspondent sends along news that the the Catholic Church has a list of seven new deadly sins deemed more appropriate for this age of globalization. It sounds like a McSweeney’s setup, but like most crazy things you hear about the Catholic Church it’s 100% true. Wikipedia has your bullet points:

* Environmental pollution
* Genetic manipulation
* Accumulating excessive wealth
* Inflicting poverty
* Drug trafficking and consumption
* Morally debatable experiments
* Violation of fundamental rights of human nature

Be good.