Taste Gaza: Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt Prepare a Dagga Salad

Dandelion Salad

Image by Oxfam International via Flickr

lauraflanders·Mar 30, 2013

Co-Authors, Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt prepare a Dagga Salad and talk about the making of Gaza Kitchen. Go to GRITtv.org to see the full story.

“Under blockade from Israel and blocked off by Egypt, the sliver of land that is the Strip is most often seen in the West (when it’s seen at all), as a war zone or a humanitarian disaster, but the place is more than its pain. As Schmitt and El-Haddad show us, Gaza is also its food, it’s culture; not only what’s been lost, but also what is deliciously surviving.”

Eating Horses in Paris by Michael Parenti

Image by banlon1964 via Flickr

by Michael Parenti
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Michael Parenti Blog
www.michaelparenti.org
February 28, 2013

In 1951, only five years after World War II ended, I managed to make my way to Paris where I landed a job as a courier diplomatique (messenger boy) for the United Nations Sixth General Assembly. Despite the years of war and deprivation, Paris still was a special place with its history, its cafes, galleries, bridges, ornate edifices, and narrow winding cobblestone streets, some seemingly as old as the city itself.

Our Strange TV Food World by Joseph Natoli

by Joseph Natoli
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
February 21, 2013

Image by Isaac Singleton Photography via Flickr

Gulliver’s Travels in Food & Farming: Chronicle Two

“[O]ur culture’s food madness tips into food psychosis, at least among those with keen appetites and the means to indulge them.” — Frank Bruni, “Dinner and Derangement,” NYTimes October 18, 2011

When the War Comes Home by Jill Dalton

by Jill Dalton
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
recoveringarmybrat, Jan. 12, 2013
January 19, 2013

Image by tsweden via Flickr

YET ANOTHER MASS SHOOTING

Our country’s rocked by yet another mass shooting this time in Newtown, Connecticut.  This time a 20-year-old kid, Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, in their home then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School where he killed six adults including the principal and 20 children before killing himself.

Chris Hedges: American Culture is Deeply Violent

Image by bbum via Flickr

with Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
January 19, 2013

canawareness·Jan 16, 2013

McMaster university, Hamilton, Ontario January 15 2012.
Chris Hedges speaks to a full room of people at the Gandhi lecture on non violence. He clearly states that American gun culture is rooted in white supremacy and a fear of black people. Then states that the American founding fathers where enthusiastic about committing genocide.

First Pioneers by William T. Hathaway

by William T. Hathaway
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
December 2, 2012

Image by noahbloom via Flickr

Amazing but true: The first European settlers in what is now the USA weren’t English Puritans or French fur trappers but Sephardic Jews. Before the Mayflower sailed to America, Jews had fled the Spanish Inquisition and settled in what is now Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Although they were eventually absorbed into the mainstream culture, they built a real Jewish life here.

Who were these first pioneers? What happened that forced them to flee? What did they encounter in this far land? These questions fascinate me, and as I read what little we know about them and imagine their lives, a story emerges:

A Thanksgiving Day Fast For Peace By Gary Corseri (2005; repost)

First published on Dandelion Salad in 2008. Originally published in 2005.

By Gary Corseri
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Nov. 20, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

“Our lives flow from our beliefs, and our beliefs are conditioned by our daily actions. As we act, so we build our character and so we become.”

***

“Because of the industrialization of food production, we eat artificially colored, flavored, refined, processed, irradiated, engineered, and chemical-laden products that confirm we will eat virtually anything and everything.”

Ralph Nader: The Corporatization of Your Dreams

Dandelion Salad

Image by watchingfrogsboil via Flickr

with Ralph Nader

Oct 25, 2012 by jeannekyle

[Presented by Speakers Committee and the Political Student Assembly, a part of USC Program Board.

Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate & Former Green Party Candidate for President, will be at USC to discuss "The Corporatization of America" and what it means for your dreams, as well as his new book.]

The Perversion of Scholarship by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
July 30, 2012

Image by the|G|™ via Flickr

Fraternities, sororities and football, along with other outsized athletic programs, have decimated most major American universities. Scholarship, inquiry, self-criticism, moral autonomy and a search for artistic and esoteric forms of expression—in short, the world of ethics, creativity and ideas—are shouted down by the drunken chants of fans in huge stadiums, the pathetic demands of rich alumni for national championships, and the elitism, racism and rigid definition of gender roles of Greek organizations. These hypermasculine systems perpetuate a culture of conformity and intolerance.  They have inverted the traditional values of scholarship to turn four years of college into a mindless quest for collective euphoria and athletic dominance.

To Be Or Not To Be… Subversive by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
July 9, 2012

Image by anirvan via Flickr

Cultures that endure carve out a protected space for those who question and challenge national myths. Artists, writers, poets, activists, journalists, philosophers, dancers, musicians, actors, directors and renegades must be tolerated if a culture is to be pulled back from disaster. Members of this intellectual and artistic class, who are usually not welcome in the stultifying halls of academia where mediocrity is triumphant, serve as prophets. They are dismissed, or labeled by the power elites as subversive, because they do not embrace collective self-worship. They force us to confront unexamined assumptions, ones that, if not challenged, lead to destruction.

Chris Hedges: Public Libraries are the Heart of Any Functioning Civilized City

with Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
June 24, 2012

Image by Blake W.B. via Flickr

Jun 22, 2012 by wworldp

Chris Hedges explains why a print based culture is important. Corporate interests promote mindless celebrity trivia instead of real news, vaporize our heritage, and use the media to turn minds into mush. This shifts attention from their take over of government as well as destruction of the environment and society. Remarks were made at Free Library of Philadelphia event for his book “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt”.

Chris Hedges: The Whole House of Cards Is Coming Down

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

with Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
June 17, 2012

Interviewed by William Stranger

by DharmaCafe.com
http://vimeo.com
June 14, 2012

Media Lies, Corporate Ties, and Truth Dies? … Don’t Count on It! by Andrew Gavin Marshall

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com
June 18, 2012

Image by pena2 via Flickr

I’m Here to be as Annoying as Humanly Possible to Those in Power

Our media is a melting-pot of misinformation, bought and owned by billionaires and oligarchs, whether it is public, private, or foundation-funded. Information is integral, propaganda is power, and media is money. Control of the media leads directly to control of the minds of those who consume it, and like all patterns of consumption, it is sustained by profit, but its purpose is much deeper, more pervasive and permanent: social control.

Welcome to the Asylum by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
April 30, 2012

Exploitation by Diego Rivera in the Palacio Nacional (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When civilizations start to die they go insane. Let the ice sheets in the Arctic melt. Let the temperatures rise. Let the air, soil and water be poisoned. Let the forests die. Let the seas be emptied of life. Let one useless war after another be waged. Let the masses be thrust into extreme poverty and left without jobs while the elites, drunk on hedonism, accumulate vast fortunes through exploitation, speculation, fraud and theft. Reality, at the end, gets unplugged. We live in an age when news consists of Snooki’s pregnancy, Hulk Hogan’s sex tape and Kim Kardashian’s denial that she is the naked woman cooking eggs in a photo circulating on the Internet.

Alain de Botton: Religion for Atheists, interviewed by Chris Hedges

with Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
April 2, 2012

Image by Arenamontanus via Flickr

C-SPAN
March 12, 2012

Mr. de Botton, an atheist, argues that rather than mocking religion, atheists and agnostics should steal the best ideas from world religions, such as the methods for building strong communities, overcoming envy, and forging a connection to the natural world. The philosopher essayist discusses his concepts with former seminarian and author Chris Hedges.