Officers Put on Leave After Pepper Spraying Protesters | Truthout

The University of California, Davis, said on Sunday that two police officers had been placed on administrative leave after using pepper spray on seated protesters in a widely recorded encounter on Friday afternoon.

Reflecting widespread anger over the police behavior, the university chancellor, Linda P.B. Katehi, said Sunday that she would insist that the investigation be completed in 30 days. A day earlier, she had said it would take 90 days.

Meanwhile, students and others affiliated with the Occupy U.C. Davis movement planned for a Monday-afternoon protest on campus. A Facebook page for the protest asked attendees to call for Ms. Katehi’s resignation and to “show solidarity and support to the students who were beaten and sprayed by U.C. Davis police in riot gear.”

The Facebook page also promoted a way for sympathizers to donate tents and pizza for the rally. The Amazon.com page set up for donations indicated that more than 70 tents had already been donated by Sunday morning.

The use of pepper spray came after students and other protesters set up tents on campus, an occupation tactic that has been used in cities and towns across the country. As police officers took down the tents, some protesters linked arms and refused to stand up from a sidewalk on the campus quad, even when police officers tried to pick them up to arrest them.

In one of the many YouTube videos of the spraying, bystanders chant, “Don’t shoot students” before an officer shakes a red pepper spray canister and sprays a line of the protesters with orange-tinted pepper spray. The protesters’ faces and clothes are quickly covered in the pepper spray. Some protesters are heard screaming and crying as they are arrested. One bystander is heard screaming: “These are children. These are children.”

Eleven protesters were treated after being pepper-sprayed. Two were sent to the hospital. Ten protesters were arrested, cited and released on misdemeanor charges of unlawful assembly and failure to disperse, according to the university.

After the episode, a police official suggested that the police officers felt threatened and encircled by the protesters. The videos, however, do not show evidence of threats.

The University said Sunday in a statement that two police officers had been “suspended,” but the university later clarified that the officers had been placed on administrative leave with pay pending the investigation, a common procedure in cases like this one.

The university did not identify the two officers, but they were well known to students on the campus. The home and cellphone numbers for one officer was widely distributed on the Web, and that officer’s voicemail box was full by midday Saturday.

The university said that it had been flooded with comments, as well.

Reached by telephone on Sunday, Mitchel Belson, the associate vice chancellor for university communications, said, “We’ve been inundated with people sending messages.” He added, “It literally brought down our servers.”

In her statement on Sunday, Ms. Katehi said: “I spoke with students this weekend, and I feel their outrage. I have also heard from an overwhelming number of students, faculty, staff and alumni from around the country. I am deeply saddened that this happened on our campus, and as chancellor, I take full responsibility for the incident. However, I pledge to take the actions needed to ensure that this does not happen again.”

She also said: “These past few days our campus has been confronted with serious questions, which will challenge us for many months and years to come. We have created great universities which are challenged in their capacity to accommodate our human needs of expression, anger, frustration and even civil disobedience together with the need to feel safe. We need to find a way to change that while at the same time remaining true to our mission of teaching, research and service. We need to think hard and together on how to accomplish this.”

Ms. Katehi held a news conference on Saturday afternoon where she resisted calls for her resignation. Students and other protesters gathered outside the news conference location, and for a time afterward she did not come out of the building. The protesters decided to clear a pathway for her to exit; they sat down and watched in silence as she walked to her car.

Something has shifted in this country! Maybe greed and buying influence are not so fashionable anymore... Maybe a positive tide for reason and restoring a true democracy is beginning to build from the grassroots...

UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car

On Friday, police officers at the University of California, Davis doused students with pepper spray for sitting together with locked arms. This act was perceived as a “threat,” according to the officers. Last night, students lined the way between UC Davis Chancellor Katehi’s office and her car, and sat in silence as she walked out of the building to go home. The silence is deafening in the video

It has been both incredibly moving and saddening to see the polarized reactions on this message board. I am shocked and disheartened at the hate speech that people carelessly flick around. I hope that the people who are touched by this personal and vulnerable film also express themselves and I hope that the people understand the pain that was inflicted that day was also emotional. This was the first time I have witnessed violence in this form. This is the first time I have felt this helpless. I have never screamed in horror before- this is what you are hearing here.

I was horrified, I was helpless, my friends were being assaulted by the people (the police) who I always trusted to protect us.

They (The police and the administration) claim that public health and safety was a risk by setting up the tents, they say that we are at risk because of our Health and Safety if we were camping, they say that they cannot "watch over us" if we live on campus in a tent.

The police department and the UC Davis administration say all this and yet they are the ones who injure us.

We created a community and protected it, we protected each other, we sat together, ate together, spoke together, cared for each other, made music, laughed, educated one another, held workshops on social justice, held workshops on the politics of OW, held one another in respect and compassion. This camp was a space for addressing and discussing the complicated systemic issues that we are all facing. This was a space for listening to everyone.

We are not all given equal opportunities to speak as our race, gender, nationality, physical ability and sexual orientation often prevent us from being heard. This is why I want this film to be public. I want everyone to see what happened. I am not interested in debating or arguing the points of OWS or commenting on why we were protesting a proposed 81% fee increase in the UC System. If you are interested in understanding the damaging effects that privatizing the University will have, please search for "Wendy Brown: Saving the University Part 6"

Here is what matters: I am interested in creating community spaces on college campuses or elsewhere, where everyone has an opportunity to speak and all of our voices are heard because together we are stronger.

I am disgusted by this violence, I am disgusted that UC Davis administration allowed this to happen, I am disgusted that people sitting in the comfort of their homes can write such hateful messages, I am disgusted by this entire situation.

============
See also:
http://www.alternet.org/story/153136/ows_continues_to_dominate_the_zeitgeist%3A_outcry_over_abuse_of_students_at_uc_davis_grows%2C_right-wing_plan_to_smear_protests_exposed?page=entire

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/20/the_roots_of_the_uc_davis_pepper_spraying/ - The roots of the UC-Davis pepper-spraying BY GLENN GREENWALD

Something has shifted in this country! Maybe greed and buying influence are not so fashionable anymore... Maybe a positive tide for reason and restoring a true democracy is beginning to build from the grassroots...
Hope so...   Monte

Farmland Values Make Biggest Jump in Decades | AGWEB.com

NOVEMBER 17, 2011
By: Sara Schafer, AgWeb.com Business and Crops Online Editor


RELATED STORIES
Nebraska Cropland Up a Staggering 38% to 41%!
Corn Belt Cropland Values Up 25%
Trends in Farmland Values

While your farmland may look about the same as it did last year, it’s now worth a whole lot more. Around 25% more if you live in the Corn Belt states.

This week, the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago and Kansas City, district 7 and 10, released its third quarter farmland data. Both districts saw some of the strongest farmland value gains since the late 1970s.

The Chicago Fed bank, which serves the northern two-thirds of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, the lower Peninsula of Michigan and southeastern Wisconsin, reports favorable credit conditions and interest rates for agricultural producers boosted values.

The Chicago Fed states that further strengthening of agricultural credit conditions during the fall and winter was anticipated by their survey respondents.

The Kansas City Fed bank, which serves Kansas, northwest Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and the Mountain States of Colorado, Wyoming and northern New Mexico, also cited a positive financial environment. District farm incomes were higher than year-ago levels, despite the extensive drought seen in much of the area.

Other key value drivers, the Fed notes, were strong competition for the limited of farms for sale in the growing season and robust livestock demand.

Here’s an overview of the farmland value gains by state. (Percent change from previous year).

The Federal Reserve System

Distric 7 (red) and District 10 (purple) saw record farmland value increases this year.


Watch out for a busted bubble to occur... !!! Monte

Making Biochar With Scrap Wood - YouTube

http://www.michiganbiochar.com Mark shows in this first of two videos how to take scrap wood and make biochar that can be used as a soil supplement.

In this video, we show you the finishing steps to making biochar from scrap wood.

Criticism, Violence and Roosting Chickens | Truthout

Wednesday 16 November 2011
by: Richard D. Wolff, Truthout | Op-Ed

Protesters with the Occupy Wall Street movement in Zuccotti Park in New York, Nov. 15, 2011. (Photo: Marcus Yam / The New York Times)

The 99 percent offered criticism of the 1 percent. They exposed and made clear what most Americans know. They struggled peacefully to inform and mobilize public opinion. They won huge numbers of hearts and minds. The 1 percent in the US did what their counterparts in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and so on did earlier this year. First, they tried to deny the 99 percent the media access needed to reach the people. That failed. Then, they tried scattered police intimidation and pressure to stop the criticism. That failed. Then, Democratic Party operatives tried to convert the Occupiers to become Obama enthusiasts for next year's election. That failed, too.

So now, the weapon of criticism wielded by the 99 percent suffers the counter criticism of violence by servants of the 1 percent. No one will miss which side resorted to organized, massive violence so early and so unnecessarily in this conflict. As in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, having failed to win hearts and minds, US government agencies cover their failure by resorting to violence. Chickens raised abroad return home to roost as they often do. Consider the image: New York Police Department machines and personnel destroy the free library that had functioned so well in Zuccotti Park.

New York has acquired newly renamed mayor: Mubarak Bloomberg. Situated atop the 1 percent, he gave the order to "clear and clean" Zuccotti Park. This mayor, who presides over some of the world's filthiest tunnels and stations - that daily threaten the public health of millions of subway riders - suddenly acquired an obsession with cleanliness in the small Zuccotti Park. This mayor - whose city handles garbage by piling it in bags on the street that forever break and scatter their contents across the streets - wants us to believe he is concerned about public safety.

Will the failures that renamed New York's mayor spread to yield a Mubarak Obama too? Or will the Arab Spring - so blithely praised by Secretary of State Clinton as "freedom struggles" - resurface here to confront the Clintons with their hypocritical complicity in repression policies at home?

The deepening economic inequality, the moneyed corruption of politics and the collapsing fortunes and prospects of the mass of Americans: none of those basic conditions and causes of Occupy Wall Street have been addressed by Bloomberg or Obama. Instead, they seek to repress those who expose and oppose those conditions.

Meanwhile, the system that keeps reproducing those conditions - a capitalism becoming increasingly intolerable - loses more bases of support. In times like these, the criticism of weapons risks losing to the weapon of criticism. Will the Arab Spring be reborn as the American Winter?

Justin Hall-Tipping: Freeing energy from the grid | Video on TED.com

What would happen if we could generate power from our windowpanes? In this moving talk, entrepreneur Justin Hall-Tipping shows the materials that could make that possible, and how questioning our notion of 'normal' can lead to extraordinary breakthroughs.

Amazing science... Inspiring talk... Monte

Should NCAA Athletes Be Paid? - YouTube

The NCAA is making billions of dollars off of college sports, should college athletes be paid?

Roland Martin talks with Taylor Branch, civil rights historian, about his new book The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA.

Big Money, Big Controversy Surround College Sports - YouTube

Historian Taylor Branch joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss his "The Atlantic" cover story "The Shame of College Sports," which calls for a complete overhaul of the way college athletics works.

Penn State, my final loss of faith - Guest Voices - The Washington Post

By Thomas L. Day

I’m 31, an Iraq war veteran, a Penn State graduate, a Catholic, a native of State College, acquaintance of Jerry Sandusky’s, and a product of his Second Mile foundation.

And I have fully lost faith in the leadership of my parents’ generation.


Penn State football coach Joe Paterno arrives home Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011, in State College, Pa. (Matt Rourke - AP)

(Read Day’s follow up to this post in his chat Monday with readers here. )

I was never harmed by Sandusky, but I could have been. When I was 15, my mother, then looking for a little direction for her teenage son, introduced me to the Second Mile’s Friend Fitness program. It was a program resembling Big Brother, Big Sister with a weekly exercise regimen.

Instead of Sandusky’s care, I was sent to a group of adults, many of whom were in their 20s. They took me from a C-student to the University of Chicago, where I’m a master’s student now. They took the football team’s waterboy and made a 101st Airborne Division soldier.

I was one of the lucky ones. My experience with Second Mile was a good one. I should feel fortunate, blessed even, that I was never harmed. Yet instead this week has left me deeply shaken, wondering what will come of the foundation, the university, and the community that made me into a man.

One thing I know for certain: A leader must emerge from Happy Valley to tie our community together again, and it won’t come from our parents’ generation.

They have failed us, over and over and over again.



I speak not specifically of our parents -- I have two loving ones -- but of the public leaders our parents’ generation has produced. With the demise of my own community’s two most revered leaders, Sandusky and Joe Paterno, I have decided to continue to respect my elders, but to politely tell them, “Out of my way.”

They have had their time to lead. Time’s up. I’m tired of waiting for them to live up to obligations.

Think of the world our parents’ generation inherited. They inherited a country of boundless economic prosperity and the highest admiration overseas, produced by the hands of their mothers and fathers. They were safe. For most, they were endowed opportunities to succeed, to prosper, and build on their parents’ work.

For those of us in our 20s and early 30s, this is not the world we are inheriting.

We looked to Washington to lead us after September 11th. I remember telling my college roommates, in a spate of emotion, that I was thinking of enlisting in the military in the days after the attacks. I expected legions of us -- at the orders of our leader -- to do the same. But nobody asked us. Instead we were told to go shopping.

The times following September 11th called for leadership, not reckless, gluttonous tax cuts. But our leaders then, as now, seemed more concerned with flattery. Then -House Majority Leader and now-convicted felon Tom Delay told us, “nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes.” Not exactly Churchillian stuff.

Those of us who did enlist were ordered into Iraq on the promise of being “greeted as liberators,” in the words of our then-vice president. Several thousand of us are dead from that false promise.

We looked for leadership from our churches, and were told to fight not poverty or injustice, but gay marriage. In the Catholic Church, we were told to blame the media, not the abusive priests, not the bishops, not the Vatican, for making us feel that our church has failed us in its sex abuse scandal and cover-up.

Our parents’ generation has balked at the tough decisions required to preserve our country’s sacred entitlements, leaving us to clean up the mess. They let the infrastructure built with their fathers’ hands crumble like a stale cookie. They downgraded our nation’s credit rating. They seem content to hand us a debt exceeding the size of our entire economy, rather than brave a fight against the fortunate and entrenched interests on K Street and Wall Street.

Now we are asking for jobs and are being told we aren’t good enough, to the tune of 3.3 million unemployed workers between the ages of 25 and 34.

This failure of a generation is as true in the halls of Congress as it is at Penn State.

Perhaps the most vivid illustration this week of our leaderless culture came with the riots in State College that followed Paterno’s dismissal. The display resembled Lord of the Flies. Without revered figures from the older generation to lead them, thousands of students at one of the country’s best state universities acted like children home alone.

This week the world found the very worst of human nature in my idyllic Central Pennsylvania home. I found that a man my community had anointed a teacher and nurturer of children, instead reportedly had them hiding in his basement. The anger and humiliation were more than I could bear. I can’t wait for my parents’ generation’s Joshua any longer. They’ve lost my faith.

Thomas Day is a graduate student at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

Up with Chris Hayes drops systemic analysis on Penn State

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Dave Zirin: Were Paterno and Penn State “Too Big to Fail?” | Dylan Ratigan

When it came to the money behind Penn State and Joe Paterno, were they “Too Big to Fail?” This term today is synonymous with powerful financial institutions, but has money started to control our institutions of higher education as well? Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation, discussed it today with Dylan.

The NCAA, always eager to demonstrate their toughness when dealing with recruitment violations and even the hint of money in athletics, has been noticeably absent from the fallout in the Penn State scandal. If it is their responsibility to uphold the integrity of college athletics, where have they been?

“The NCAA is nowhere on the ethics of anything,” says Zirin. “It is not an ethical organization. It’s all built on the basis of revenue-producing sports, particularly basketball and football.”

Which suddenly lends a little clarity to the NCAA’s radio silence on the Joe Paterno scandal. While NCAA president Mark Emmert collects a salary of $2 million a year – along with 14 vice presidents of the organization sitting around $400,000 a year – student-athletes responsible for those salaries and the other revenue can face harsh punishments for selling their game jerseys.

So was it all about the money that Joe Paterno brought in to Penn State through his fame and image?

“Too many people had a vested interest in his legend. And that meant cover-up. That meant, at all costs, the fiction of Joe Paterno’s Penn State had to survive and allegations of horrible, horrible child abuse had to be hidden,” continues Zirin.

And hence we discover that the moral basement for these schools that generate a high percentage of revenue from sports – 60% at Penn State – does not really exist. In order to protect their institution they will go to any length and sacrifice anyone that stands in their way.

Isn’t it time “Too Big to Fail” stops failing the people at every turn? Watch the segment from today, and let us know what you think:

Did the fact that so much money is involved with Penn State football make “Too Big To Fail?”

Fan Culture, Rape Culture, and the World Joe Paterno Made

Joe Paterno Statue at Penn State flickr image By happy via

Meet John Matko. John Matko is a 34-year-old Penn State class of 2000 alumnus, distraught by the recent revelations that legendary Coach Joe Paterno and those in charge allegedly shielded a serial child rapist, assistant Jerry Sandusky. He was livid that students chose to riot on campus this week, more upset about Paterno's dismissal than anything else. He was disgusted that the Board of Trustees decided to go ahead as planned with Saturday's Nebraska game just days after the revelations became public. John Matko felt angry and was compelled to act. He stood outside Saturday's Penn State-Nebraska game in Happy Valley and held up two signs. One read, "Put abused kids first." The other said, "Don't be fooled, they all knew. Tom Bradley, everyone must go." [Tom Bradley is the interim head coach.]

The response to Matko gives lie to the media portrayal of last Saturday's game. We were told the atmosphere was "somber", "sad" and "heart-rending", as "the focus returned to the children." The crowd was swathed in blue, because, we were told, that is the color to awareness of child abuse (also the Penn State colors) The team linked arms emerging from the tunnel. They dropped to a knee with their Nebraska opponents at midfield before the game. Once again, broadcasters told us, "the players were paying tribute to the victims of child abuse." We were told all of this, and I wish to God it was true.

I don't doubt the emotions in Happy Valley are genuine. I don't doubt the searing shock and pain that must be coursing through campus. But this is the pain of self-pity not reflection. It's the pain of the exposed not the penitent. Let's go back to John Matko. Matko stood with his signs behind a pair of sunglasses. He wasn't soapboxing, or preaching: just bearing silent witness. It was an admirable act but no one bought him a beer. Instead, beer was poured on his head. His midsection was slapped with an open hand. Expletives were rained upon him. His signs were also kicked to the ground and stomped.

As the Washington Times wrote, "Abuse flew at Matko from young and old, students and alumni, men and women. No one intervened. No one spoke out against the abuse."
One disapproving student said, "Not now, man. This is about the football players."

And with those nine words, we see the truth about Saturday's enterprise. It was about the football program, not the children. It was morbid theater where people were mourning the death of a jock culture that somewhere along the line, mutated into malignancy. It's a malignancy that deprioritized rape victims in the name of big-time football.

The signs of this malignancy did not emerge overnight. Looking backward, there are moments that speak of the scandals to come. In 2003, less than one year after Paterno was told that Sandusky was raping children, he allowed a player accused of rape to suit up and play in a bowl game. Widespread criticism of this move was ignored. In 2006, Penn State's Orange Bowl opponent Florida State, sent home linebacker A.J. Nicholson, after accusations of sexual assault. Paterno's response, in light of recent events, is jaw-dropping. He said, "There's so many people gravitating to these kids. He may not have even known what he was getting into, Nicholson. They knock on the door; somebody may knock on the door; a cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do? Geez. I hope -- thank God they don't knock on my door because I'd refer them to a couple of other rooms."

Joanne Tosti-Vasey, president of Pennsylvania's National Organization for Women in Pennsylvania, was not amused. With chilling unintentional prescience, Tosti-Vasey responded, "Allegations of sexual assault should never be taken lightly Making light of sexual assault sends the message that rape is something to be expected and accepted." They called for Paterno's resignation and short of that, asked to dialogue with Paterno and the team. Neither Paterno nor anyone in the power at Penn State accepted the invitation.

This is the world Joe Pa made. It's a world where libraries, buildings, and statues bear his name It's a world where the school endowment now stands at over $1 billion dollars. It's a company town where moral posturing acted as a substitute for actual morality. In such an atmosphere, seeing the players and fans gather to bow their heads and mourn Saturday wasn't "touching" or "somber" or anything of the sort. It was just sad. It was sad because they still don't get it.

One PSU student, named Emily wrote the following to si.com's Peter King, "Truth is, if not for Paterno's philanthropy and moral code (until his fatal lapse of judgment), I and thousands of others wouldn't be here right now. If not for Paterno ".Pennsylvania State might still be an agriculture school and State College might be lucky if there were a Wal-Mart within a 30-mile radius. Paterno made a huge mistake, but that doesn't mean he's not a good man."

Bullshit. Emily's words ring as false as the apologists for the Vatican, Wall Street, the military command at Abu Ghraib and any industry deemed "too big to fail." The same moral code that Emily praises just can't be the same moral code that covers up child rape. To do so is to make the very notion of morality meaningless. Emily's gratitiude that her school isn't "30 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart" can't justify defending Paterno. To do so, makes you complicit in the crimes and the cover-up. It also ensures that such a thing could happen again.

On Saturday, while Matko endured physical and verbal rage of the PSU faithful, hundreds gathered around the Paterno statue outside the stadium, laying down flowers and gifts. The pain might run deeply in Happy Valley but the cancer runs deeper. To really move forward, the malignancy must be removed. Fire everyone. Shut down Happy Valley football for a year. Do whatever you have to do to make sure that the world Joe Paterno made has seen its last day.

OCCUPY TOGETHER! - YouTube

Taking a Stantis: Current Affairs

Joe Pa


Nittany Lyin'


Two institutions with sad and sick leaders that care more about losing their "cash cow" and "power" then doing what is moral and right... Monte

Harvard Business Review: Gates, Not Jobs, Deserves Recognition | PCWorld

Analysis: Steve Jobs has received well-deserved public acclaim, but Bill Gates might be a businessperson to admire, and the model for our children to emulate.



Since his death, Steve Jobs has received an enormous amount of well-deserved public acclaim. But a piece in the Harvard Business Review argues that Bill Gates, not Steve Jobs, should be the businessperson we most admire, and be the model for our children to emulate.

The piece was written by Maxwell Wessel, who is a researcher at the Harvard Business School's think tank that focuses on innovation, the Forum for Growth and Innovation.

His central argument is that although Steve Jobs was a visionary and likely "our generation's most important leader in the world of business," Bill Gates was a better model for us as complete people. He says:

While Jobs should be who MBAs and industrial designers try to emulate, I'm not sure he's who we should idolize. That respect should be bestowed on someone we talk less and less about, Bill Gates.

His argument is simple: Bill Gates sees his ultimate legacy as helping others and changing the world via philanthropy, while Steve Jobs saw his ultimate legacy as building a great company. He quotes from a note that Gates sent to the Harvard community: "I hope you will reflect on what you’ve done with your talent and energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you work to address the world’s deepest inequities, on how well you treat people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity."

Then Wessel concludes:

As much as I love Apple, Inc, I would happily give up my iPhone to put food on the plates of starving children. Steve Jobs turned his company into a decade long leader in the truly new space of mobile computing. Bill Gates decided to eliminate malaria. Who do you think we should be putting up on a pedestal for our children to emulate?

Not to take anything away from Steve Jobs, but I absolutely concur with Wessel's conclusion.

Chainsaw Saw Milling - Slabbing Logs - Hines Farm

Stated slabbing a few logs today with mill... it went well...


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Related Links:
http://www.permies.com/t/12861/woodland-care/anyone-ever-rip-cross-cut#118094

David Crosby & Graham Nash at Occupy Wall Street; Echoes of Woodstock | Open Culture

First came Willie Nelson, Pete Seeger, and Arlo Guthrie, and now Crosby & Nash (sans Stills). Playing 11-8-2011 at Occupy Wall Street, their short set included Military Madness, What Are Their Names, They Want It All, Teach Your Children (above), and Long Time Gone, which they sang during their heyday at Woodstock more than 40 years ago. A long time gone, indeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_Your_Children - About this great song... Monte


Teach Your Children

You, who are on the road
Must have a code
That you can live by.
And so, become yourself
Because the past
Is just a goodbye.

Teach, your children well
Their father's hell
Did slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's
The one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would die
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

And you (Can you hear and)
Of tender years (Do you care and)
Can't know the fears (Can you see we)
That your elders grew by (Must be free to)
And so please help (Teach your children)
Them with your youth (You believe and)
They seek the truth (Make a world that)
Before they can die (We can live in)

Teach your parents well
Their children's hell
Will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's
The one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

Fall on Hines Farm

Home grown, flowers, pumpkins, ducks, and wood...


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Penn State and Berkeley: A Tale of Two Protests - Edge of Sports

By Dave Zirin

Last night, two proud universities saw student demonstrations that spiraled into violence. On the campus of Penn State University in State College Pennsylvania, several hundred students rioted in anger after the firing of legendary 84-year-old head football coach Joe Paterno. At the University of California at Berkeley, 1,000 students, part of the Occupy USA movement, attempted to maintain their protest encampment in the face of police orders to clear them out.

At Penn State, students overturned a media truck, hit an ESPN reporter in the head with a rock and made every effort at arson, attempting to set aflame the very heart of their campus. They raised their fists in defense of a man fired for allegedly covering up the actions of a revered assistant who doubled as a serial child rapist. The almost entirely male student mob was given the space by police to seethe and destroy without restraint.

At Berkeley, the police had a much different response. Defenseless students were struck repeatedly with batons, as efforts were made to disperse their occupation by Sproul Hall, the site of the famed Mario Savio–led free speech battles of the 1960s.

Two coasts and two riots: a frat riot and a cop riot. Each riot, an indelible mark of shame on their respective institutions.

The difference is that at Berkeley, the Occupiers—a diverse assemblage of students, linking arms—pushed back and displayed true courage in the face of state violence. They would not be moved. These students are a credit to their school and represent the absolute best of a young generation who are refusing to accept the world as it is.

At Penn State, we saw the worst of this generation: the flotsam and the fools; the dregs and the Droogs; young men of entitlement who rage for the machine.

No matter how many police officers raised their sticks, the students of Berkeley stood their ground, empowered by a deeper set of commitments to economic and social justice.

No matter how many children come forward to testify how Joe Paterno’s dear friend Jerry Sandusky brutally sodomized them on their very campus, the students at Penn State stood their ground. They stood committed to a man whose statue adorns their campus, whose salary exceeds $1.5 million and whose name for years was whispered to them like he was a benevolent Russian czar and they were the burgeoning Black Hundreds.

Theirs was a tragic statement that proud Penn State has become little more than a company town that’s been in the lucrative business of nursing Joe Paterno’s legend for far too long.

I spoke this morning to a student who was at Sproul Hall and another resident who was a bystander at State College. The word that peppered both of their accounts was “fear:” fear that those with the space and means to be violent—the police at Berkeley and the rioters at Penn State—would take it to, as Anne, a Berkeley student said to me, “a frightening point of no return.”

I would argue that this “point of no return” has now actually been reached, spurred by Wednesday night’s study in contrasts.

November 9 was a generational wake-up call to every student on every campus in this country. Which side are you on? Do you defend the ugliest manifestations of unchecked power or do you fight for a better world with an altogether different set of values? Do you stand with the Thugs of Penn State or do you stand with Occupiers of Berkeley? It’s fear vs. hope, and the stakes are a hell of a lot higher than a BCS bowl.

Growth Has an Expiration Date

Growth Has an Expiration Date from Compass Summit on FORA.tv

Tom Murphy: The Fossil Fuel Joyride Is Over

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/conference/compass_summit_2011

Tom Murphy, associate physics professor at the University of California San Diego, projects energy needs for future enerations to argue that current ways of living are unsustainable. Disputing the argument that technology can save humanity from a peak oil crisis, Murphy states, "the fossil fuel joyride that we have experienced has clouded our judgment."

RETHINKING SUSTAINABILITY

Growth has an Expiration Date

Tom Murphy, Associate Professor of Physics, University of California San Diego

Compass Summit, a forum for true interaction and exchange, examines some of today's most pressing problems through the lens of global citizenship, recognizing that human ingenuity is an unlimited resource.

Knocking on Heaven's Door

Knocking on Heaven's Door from Compass Summit on FORA.tv

Are Politicians More Willing to Talk God Than Science?
Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2011/10/25/Knocking_on_Heavens_Door

Are politicians more comfortable discussing religion than science? Harvard physicist Lisa Randall discusses the role that scientists play in public discourse, stressing the importance of their participation.

The Story of Broke

The United States isn’t broke; we’re the richest country on the planet and a country in which the richest among us are doing exceptionally well. But the truth is, our economy is broken, producing more pollution, greenhouse gasses and garbage than any other country. In these and so many other ways, it just isn’t working. But rather than invest in something better, we continue to keep this ‘dinosaur economy’ on life support with hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money. The Story of Broke calls for a shift in government spending toward investments in clean, green solutions—renewable energy, safer chemicals and materials, zero waste and more—that can deliver jobs AND a healthier environment. It’s time to rebuild the American Dream; but this time, let’s build it better.

Perennials VS Annuals: The battle to end all wars!

Wes Jackson and crew at The Land Institute take us through the differences between perennial and annual plants and how they affect our world and croplands.

Sharpen Your Chainsaw So It Cuts Like Crazy

Autumn is the best time of year for cutting firewood in my book. The air is cool, bugs are gone and impending winter makes it easy to get excited about the need to stock up on homemade heating fuel, even if what you cut now will still take a year to dry before it’s ready to burn. But despite all the reasons for getting excited about making your own firewood, the exercise depends entirely on having a sharp chain on your saw. This is key. A dull chain is as useless as it is dangerous, and relying on some professional shop somewhere to sharpen your saw for you is about as practical as relying on your parents to tie your work boots. Unless you happen to cut wood within a few hundred yard of a saw shop, you really need to develop the skills to do the work yourself. After sharpening my own saws for 25 years with a file and guide, I graduated to using an electric chain sharpener a couple of years ago, and I certainly can recommend the Oregon unit I use. The results are outstanding – better than a new chain – though I still consider hand filing to be an essential self-reliance skill. Hand filing makes the most sense for casual chainsaw users because the tools you need are inexpensive and the skills required translate into greater competence no matter what how you sharpen your saw. To learn more about sharpening saws by hand with a file, check out my online tutorial on the subject at www.SteveMaxwell.ca/chainsaw-tool-sharpening Pay special attention to the section that covers adjusting the height of depth gauges. This is often overlooked and is the leading cause of an otherwise sharp chain not cutting up to its potential.

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/hands-on-how-to/sharpen-your-chainsaw-so-it-cuts-like-crazy.aspx#ixzz1cTMELbpL

Tebow Exposed | The Nation

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Charlie Rose - A discussion about Occupy Wall Street with journalist Chris Hedges and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

Wonderful interview... honest and serious discussion about the OWS movement... Monte

Glenn Greenwald Explains How The Law Is Used To Destroy Equality & Protect The Powerful

Right on... Monte

DC Douglas' "Why #OccupyWallStreet? 4 Reasons."

Actor, voice over talent and non-political figure D.C. Douglas chimes in with his take on OWS - Occupy Wall Street.

Everyone should understand this...   Monte

The Shocking, Graphic Data That Shows Exactly What Motivates the Occupy Movement

The corporate media may obsess about what Occupy Wall Street is all about, but these images should make it clear.

October 23, 2011



What are the Occupy Wall Street protesters angry about? The same things we’re all angry about. The only difference is the protestors turned their anger into public action. Occupy Wall Street lit the embers and the sparks are flying. Whether it turns into a genuine populist prairie fire depends on all of us.

Now is not the time for wonky policy solutions, as the media meatheads are calling for. Rather, it’s time to air our grievances as loudly as possible, which is precisely what Wall Street and its minions fear the most. Here’s a brief list of why we should be angry and the charts to back it up.

1. The American Dream is imploding...

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The productivity/wage chart says it all. From 1947 until the mid-1970s real wages and productivity (economic output per worker hour) danced together. Both climbed year after year as did our real standard of living. If you’re old enough, you will remember seeing your parents doing just a bit better each year, year after year. Then, our nation embarked on a grand economic experiment. Taxes were cut especially on the super-rich. Finance was deregulated and unions were crushed. Lo and behold, the two lines broke apart. Productivity continued to climb, but wages stalled and declined. So where did all that productivity money go? To the rich and to the super-rich, especially to those in finance.

2. Our wealth is gushing to the top 1 percent...

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Actually the top tenth of one percent. Because of financial deregulation and tax cuts for the rich, the income gap is soaring. Here’s one of my favorite indicators that we compiled for The Looting of America. In 1970 the top 100 CEOs earned $45 for every $1 earned by the average worker. By 2006, the ratio climbed to an obscene 1,723 to one. (Not a misprint!)

3. Family income is declining while the top earners flourish...

 

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As women entered the workforce, family income made up for some of the wage stagnation. But now even family incomes are in trouble. Meanwhile, the incomes of the richest families continue to rise.

4. The super-rich are paying lower and lower tax rates...

 

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To add financial insult to injury, the richest of the rich pay less and less each year as a percentage of their monstrous incomes. The top 400 taxpayers during the 1950s faced a 90 percent federal tax rate. By 1995 their effective tax rate – what they really paid after all deductions as a percent of all their income – fell to 30 percent. Now it’s barely 16 percent.

5. Too much money in the hands of the few combined with financial deregulation crashed our economy...

 

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When the rich become astronomically rich, they gamble with their excess money. And when Wall Street is deregulated, it creates financial casinos for the wealthy. When those casinos inevitably crash, we pay to cover the losses. The 2008 financial crash caused eight million American workers to lose their jobs in a matter of months due to no fault of their own. The last time we had so much money in the hands of so few was 1929!

6. We’re turning into a billionaire bailout society...

 

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We bailed out the big Wall Street banks and protected the billionaires from ruin. Now we are being asked to make good on the debts they caused, while the super-rich get even richer, some making more than $2 million an HOUR! It would take over 47 years for the average family to make as much as the top 10 hedge fund managers make in one hour.

7. The super-rich still control politics...

 

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Both political parties are occupied by Wall Street. For nearly an entire generation they have competed with each other to gain campaign contributions in exchange for tax breaks and regulatory loopholes for the richest of the rich. Today’s so-called financial reforms are porous, while the money continues to flow to both parties.

8. Unemployment is a catastrophe...

 

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The reckless gambling on Wall Street tore a hole in the economy sending millions to the unemployment lines. Wall Street caused the enormous spike in unemployment and no one else – not the government, not home buyers, not China.

9. Our prospects for the future are growing dim...

 

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It’s bad enough that unemployment is sky-high. But it’s even worse when you can’t find a job for months, even years. Right now the number of unemployed for 26 weeks or more is at record levels. Many of the long-term unemployed will never work again.

10. The big banks are getting even bigger...

 

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Too big to fail is alive and well. Our nation’s biggest banks are growing larger and larger with no end in sight. Despite what politicians say, the taxpayer will bail out the big banks again. And the big banks know it.

Stand up and be counted!

Americans are a patient people. Mass movements do not form very often. Most of us hoped that after the crash, the big banks would be broken up, the casinos would be shut down and the gamblers would be punished. At the very least, we expected that the elite financiers would pay for the damage they created – the jobs destroyed, the neighborhoods wrecked, the services cut. It didn’t happen. Finally something clicked. A small number of kids stood up and got noticed. And now it’s growing. We see an outlet for our frustration, our justifiable anger, our disappointment in leaders who sold out.

We don’t know where it’s all going. But this is the time to stand up and be counted – literally. The currency of a populist revolt is numbers in the street. Let’s show our anger where it will be seen. And let us take heart from the words of Franklin Roosevelt who during his first inaugural address in 1933, led the first occupation of Wall Street:

Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True, they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money.

Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored conditions. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.

They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.

The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money, it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow-men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be values only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit, and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.


Les Leopold is the executive director of the Labor Institute and Public Health Institute in New York, and author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do About It (Chelsea Green, 2009).

Elizebeth Joy --- I guess I have a new blog. / Why we’re raising our kids to be godless heathens.

Our kids are not being raised to follow a religion. Instead, we are instilling these intrinsic values and beliefs in them:

Be Kind and Gentle to everyone and everything. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Have love for humanity and the universe.

Enjoy this life as much as you can. Assume this is all you are going to get (there may not be an afterlife).

Search for beauty and good in everything. Everything has a positive side. If you don’t see it, create it.

Test yourself, your ideas and beliefs. Trust what your senses and intuition tell you. The more extraordinary the claim, the more convincing the evidence must be to support it.

Use Reason and Creativity to solve problems, and don’t count on anyone else solving them for you. You are empowered.

Take care of your body. If it’s not working right, the rest of this list can be much more difficult.

Use your Powers for good. Make the world a better place for yourself and everyone else by doing what you can.

You are an animal, and you have a place in the world as all animals do. Try not to abuse your position.

Learn as much as you can and pass on your knowledge.

No person is better than you, and you are not better than any person. Mutual respect is the key for the survival of the human race.

Choose your ethics and stick to them. Do not let another person tell you that your beliefs are wrong, and learn to tolerate differences in opinions.

Live without fear. Most fear is unhealthy and unhelpful. Use your gut instinct to choose how to respond the best way in a situation where you may be in danger, but do not live in that state.

Ask for help when you need it, and offer it when you can.

Believe in yourself and what you can accomplish. Always look for new ways to be amazed by yourself, and new ways to transcend your own limits.

Follow the rules of the place where you are. Sometimes they don’t make sense to you, but do your best to follow them. If you really don’t like the rules, or believe that they are hurtful, then find a new place to be.

Gravity works.

We believe that all people should have the right to research faith and belief systems with an unbiased heart, and to then choose to follow one, or choose not to follow one. We also believe that there is no One Right Way.

My kids know about Christianity. They have heard stories about Jesus and what he did while on Earth. They know that there is a book called the Bible where you can read about him and his religion. They also know bits and pieces about Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Paganism, Buddhism, and other religious beliefs.

They know that some people believe that there is a “magical” being or beings called gods. They’ve also heard about reincarnation and that some people believe that our souls keep coming back as different living things (Carmen really likes this one and wants to come back as a bird). They have been to church and temple and understand that some people go there all the time to talk to (and about) their gods. They know that people wear different outfits, and that sometimes these are based on the rules of their respective gods.

What they have NOT heard is that any of these beliefs or practices is “wrong.” Just different. They also have not yet been told that some people believe that others should be hurt or killed because they believe something different. I don’t want to scare them when they are still so young, after all….

So far, even though they are little heathens, they are doing just fine. They are bright, ethical, and do not appear to be spiritually lost. So, we’re going to stick with what we’re doing, and encourage them to study different beliefs as they grow. At the very least, it will help them to understand what others believe and where they come from. If or when they choose to follow a religious or spiritual path, I will learn as much about it as possible, and I will stand behind their decision and understand it as best as I can…. much like any other choice they will make in their lives.

U of Illinois Biochar Group Fall Meeting

Speaker Illinois Biochar Group

Date Nov 7, 2011

Time10:00 am - 11:45 am

Location Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, One E. Hazelwood Dr., Champaign, IL 61820

Cost Free

Sponsor Illinois Sustainable Technology Center

Contact Nancy Holm

E-Mail nholm@istc.illinois.edu

Phone 217-244-3330

Event type meeting

Originating Calendar Illinois Sustainable Technology Center seminars and events

The Illinois Biochar Group (IBG) will hold its fall meeting at ISTC from 10 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. on Nov. 7, 2011. A seminar by Dr. Jean Bogner will follow at noon. For the meeting, several IBG members will present updates of their work with biochar. There will be discussion of future meetings and collaboration on research. For more information about the Group and events, see www.biochar.illinois.edu.

Grand Kids & Pumpkins Hines Farm

Cole and Kala Riding Harvesting Trailer  Larger Image


Cole and Kala  Larger Image


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Earlier in the Year (2011) Eileen, Kala & Cole Doing the "Hard Work" in the Garden while I am doing the Picture Taking :-)  ...  Larger Image

Grand Kids Harvesting Pumpkins From Hines Farm Garden

Jimmy and Alexis picking their pumpkins... Larger photo

Aubrey de Grey - longer, healthier life!

Aubrey de Grey passionately talks about the ultimate quest for significantly longer, healthier life!

David Sinclair - Can a pill a day help keep aging away?

David Sinclair talks about resveratrol and wonders - Can a pill a day help keep aging away?

How to Grow Garlic: Organic Gardening

Garlic is as beautiful in the garden as it is easy to grow.
By Chester Aaron

Soil preparation: Garlic will tolerate some shade but prefers full sun. While I've seen cloves sprout in gravel pits, garlic responds best in well-drained, rich, loamy soil amended with lots oforganic matter. Raised beds are ideal, except in very dry regions.

Planting: To grow garlic, you plant the cloves, the sections of the bulb; each clove will produce a new bulb. The largest cloves generally yield the biggest bulbs. To get the cloves off to a strong start and protect them from fungal diseases, soak them in a jar of water containing one heaping tablespoon of baking soda and a tablespoon of liquid seaweed for a few hours before planting. Plant garlic in the fall.

Spacing: Place cloves in a hole or furrow with the flat or root end down and pointed end up, with each tip 2 inches beneath the soil. Set the cloves about 6 to 8 inches apart. Top the soil with 6 inches of mulch, such as straw or dried grass clippings mixed with leaves. You'll see shoots start growing right through the mulch in four to eight weeks, depending on your weather and the variety you've planted. They stop growing during winter, then start again in spring. Leave the mulch in place into spring; it conserves moisture and suppresses weeds (garlic competes poorly with weeds).

Watering: Garlic needs about an inch of water each week during spring growth. If you have to augment rainfall with the garden hose, stop watering by June 1 or when the leaves begin to yellow in order to let the bulbs firm up.

Scape Sacrifice: By mid-June, your garlic will begin sprouting flowery tops that curl as they mature and ultimately straighten out into long spiky tendrils. These savory stalks, known as scapes, should be removed to encourage larger, more efficient bulb growth. However, before adding severed scapes to the compost pile, try incorporating their mild garlic flavor into a delicious scape pesto, scape dip, or scape soup.

Fertilizing: Start foliar-feeding your garlic every two weeks as soon as leaf growth begins in spring (typically in March) and continue until around May 15, at which point the bulbs begin to form, says Darrell Merrell, host of the "Garlic Is Life" Festival in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Merrell uses 1 tablespoon liquid seaweed mix and 1 tablespoon fish emulsion mixed into a gallon of water.

Harvesting Hints When half to three-quarters of the leaves turn yellow-brown, typically in late June or early July (depending on the variety and the weather), it's harvest time. Carefully dig up each bulb; do not pull, or you may break the stalk from the bulb, which can cause it to rot. Once it's harvested, get it out of the sun as soon as possible.

Tie the garlic together in bundles of 6 to 10 bulbs (label them if you've grown more than one variety) and hang them to cure for about four to six weeks in a shaded, dry, and preferably drafty area.

When your garlic is thoroughly dry, trim the roots, taking care not to knock off the outer skin. Cut off the stalks about 1½ inches above the bulb if you plan to keep the garlic in bags. Recycled mesh onion bags are perfect for storage.

How to Plant Garlic: Organic Gardening

Planting Garlic: Step 1 Break a garlic bulb apart into individual cloves, being careful to keep the papery skins covering each clove intact. Then fill a quart jar with water and mix in one tablespoon of baking soda and one tablespoon of liquid seaweed. Soak the cloves in this mixture for two hours prior to planting to prevent fungal disease and encourage vigorous growth.


Planting Garlic: Step 2 In the meantime, prepare your bed for planting. Garlic grows best in rich, well-drained soil that is free of weeds. Dig a furrow about 3 inches deep. Place the presoaked cloves into the furrow, spacing them 6 to 8 inches apart. Be sure the flat root end is down and the pointy end is up.

Planting Garlic: Step 3 Cover the cloves with 2 inches of soil and sidedress the furrow with compost or scratch in granulated organic fertilizer. Water the bed in well and cover it with 6 to 8 inches of straw mulch. You should see shoots poking through the mulch in four to six weeks. The garlic stops growing in the winter months and resumes in spring.

For more tips on planting, growing, & harvesting garlic, see our Garlic Growing Guide.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: Wall Street Protests

The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous and secretive economic and political force in America.

If this country is to break out of the horrendous recession and create the millions of jobs we desperately need, if we are going to create a modicum of financial stability for the future, there is no question but that the American people are going to have to take a very hard look at Wall Street and demand fundamental reforms. I hope these protests are the beginning of that process.

Let us never forget that as a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, this country was plunged into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes and life savings as the middle class underwent an unprecedented collapse. Sadly, despite all the suffering caused by Wall Street, there is no reason to believe that the major financial institutions have changed their ways, or that future financial disasters and bailouts will not happen again.

More than three years ago, Congress rewarded Wall Street with the biggest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world. Simultaneously but unknown to the American people at the time, the Federal Reserve provided an even larger bailout. The details of what the Fed did were kept secret until a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that I sponsored required the Government Accountability Office to audit the Fed's lending programs during the financial crisis.

As a result of this audit, the American people have learned that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in low-interest loans to every major financial institution in this country, huge foreign banks, multi-national corporations, and some of the wealthiest people in the world.

In other words, when Wall Street was on the verge of collapse, the federal government acted boldly, aggressively, and with a fierce sense of urgency to save our financial system from collapse with no strings attached.

Now that the middle class is collapsing and a record-breaking 46 million Americans are living in poverty, the Federal Reserve has failed to act with the same sense of urgency to make sure that small businesses receive the affordable loans needed to put millions of Americans back to work and prevent millions of Americans from losing their homes.

As a result, Wall Street is back to making record-breaking profits, handing out record-breaking compensation packages, and taking the same risks that caused the financial crisis in the first place. Meanwhile, 25 million Americans are unemployed or under-employed; middle class families are making $3,600 less than they did 10 years ago; the foreclosure rate is still breaking new records; and the American people are still paying over $3.40 for a gallon of gas.

The financial crisis and the jobs crisis have demonstrated to the American people that we now have a government that is of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent and for the 1 percent, as Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz eloquently articulated. The rest of the 99 percent are, more or less, on their own. We now have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major, advanced country on Earth. The top 1 percent earn more income than the bottom 50 percent, and the richest 400 Americans own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.

Now that Occupy Wall Street is shining a spotlight on Wall Street greed and the enormous inequalities that exist in America, the question then becomes, how do we change the political, economic and financial system to work for all Americans, not just the top 1 percent?

Here are several proposals that I am working on:

1) If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. Today, the six largest financial institutions have assets equal to more than 60 percent of GDP. The four largest banks in this country issue two thirds of all credit cards, half of all mortgages, and hold nearly 40 percent of all bank deposits. Incredibly, after we bailed out these big banks because they were "too big to fail," three out of the four largest are now even bigger than they were before the financial crisis began. It is time to take a page from Teddy Roosevelt and break up these behemoths so that their failure will no longer lead to economic catastrophe and to create competition in our financial system.

2) Put a cap on credit card interest rates to end usury. Today, more than a quarter of all credit card holders in this country are paying interest rates above 20 percent and as high as 59 percent. When credit card companies charge 25- or 30-percent interest rates they are not engaged in the business of "making credit available" to their customers. They are involved in extortion and loan-sharking. Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase should not be permitted to charge consumers 25- to 30-percent interest on their credit cards, especially while these banks received over $4 trillion in loans from the Federal Reserve.

3) The Federal Reserve needs to provide small businesses in America with the same low-interest loans it gave to foreign banks. During the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve provided hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign banks and corporations including the Arab Banking Corporation, Toyota, Mitsubishi, the Korea Development Bank, and the state-owned Bank of Bavaria. At a time when small businesses can't get the lending they need, it is time for the Fed to create millions of American jobs by providing low-interest loans directly to small businesses.

4) Stop Wall Street oil speculators from artificially increasing gasoline and heating oil prices. Right now, the American people are being gouged at the gas pump by speculators on Wall Street who are buying and selling billions of barrels of oil in the energy futures market with no intention of using a drop for any purpose other than to make a quick buck. Delta Airlines, Exxon Mobil, the American Trucking Association, and other energy experts have estimated that excessive oil speculation is driving up oil prices by as much as 40 percent. We have got to end excessive oil speculation and bring needed relief to American consumers.

5) Demand that Wall Street invest in the job-creating productive economy, instead of gambling on worthless derivatives. The American people have got to make it crystal clear to Wall Street that the era of excessive speculation is over. The "heads, bankers win; tails, everyone else loses" financial system must end. Most important, we need to create a new Wall Street that exists not to reward CEOs and investors for the bets they make on exotic financial instruments nobody understands. Rather, we need a Wall Street that provides financial services to small businesses and manufacturers to create decent-paying jobs and grow the economy by productive means. Think of all of the productive short- and long-term investments that could be made in our country right now if Wall Street used the money it has received from the federal government wisely. Instead of casino-style speculation, Wall Street could invest in high-speed trains; fuel-efficient cars; wind turbines and other alternative energy sources; affordable housing; affordable prescription drugs that save people's lives; and other things that America desperately needs. That is what we have got to demand from Wall Street.

6) Establish a Wall Street speculation fee on credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures. Both the economic crisis and the deficit crisis are a direct result of the greed and recklessness on Wall Street. Establishing a speculation fee would reduce gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy, and significantly reduce the deficit without harming average Americans. There are a number of precedents for this. The U.S had a similar Wall Street speculation fee from 1914 to 1966. The Revenue Act of 1914 levied a 0.2-percent tax on all sales or transfers of stock. In 1932, Congress more than doubled that tax to help finance the government during the Great Depression. And today, England has a financial transaction tax of 0.25 percent, a penny on every $4 invested.

Making these reforms will not be easy. After all, Wall Street is clearly the most powerful lobbying force on Capitol Hill. From 1998 through 2008, the financial sector spent over $5 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions to deregulate Wall Street. More recently, they spent hundreds of millions more to make the Dodd-Frank bill as weak as possible, and after its passage, hundreds of millions more to roll back or diluter the stronger provisions in that legislation.

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are shining a light on one of the most serious problems facing the United States -- the greed and power of Wall Street. Now is the time for the American people to demand that the president and Congress follow that light -- and act. The future of our economy is at stake.

A sensible clear voice from one US Senator...  it is time for the 99% to get behind his "just proposals"  ... Monte