Bad Buisiness: Nuclear Power

New World Notes #373, 27:17 (April 28)
Broadcast quality MP3 (38 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (14 MB)

 Mid-20th-century propaganda. Coming soon! Nuclear-generated electricity that's clean, plentiful, and too cheap to meter

Vermont's creaky nuclear power plant was finally shut down. Not for the 500 best reasons but because it simply wasn't profitable to run. Turns out, nuclear power never did make any business sense, anywhere, and it's making less business sense each day.  Noted management consultant Jeremy Rifkin and veteran power-system administrator David Freeman each explains why.
 
So why do government and the nuclear industry keep promoting this failed product? In part, because it's a fig-leaf for nuclear weapons development, says Freeman.

Freeman talk--condensed and edited by KD--courtesy of tucradio.org.  The video of Rifkin's remarks is available on YouTube.

Entergy Corp.'s Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant (2004)

Work, Debt, and Crisis

Part 1: New World Notes #371, 29:11 (April 14)
Broadcast quality MP3 (40 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

Part 2: New World Notes #372, 28:19 (April 21)
Broadcast quality MP3 (39 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

A fine audio collage--originally titled Capital Games--by Chazk, a.k.a. Virtual Renderings. An intriguing and sometimes rocking blend of satire, music, and also analysis by several voices (among them Richard Wolff's).

The piece explores the economic problems of our time--fallling wages, consumer debt, overwork, unemployment, decline of manufacturing, corrupt politicians, crooked banks and bankers, soaring corporate profits, and stratospheric executive salaries ... among others.

More by Chazk. An extensive, free archive of Chazk's / Virtual Rendering's collages is available.  You'll find a link in this Web site's "Worth a Look" section, on the gray sidebar on your screen's right.

Women, War, and Violence

New World Notes #370, 29:18 (April 7)
Broadcast quality MP3 (40 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

Modern warfare kills and injures many more civilians than soldiers--and female civilians are especially hard hit. Filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson discusses rape as a war tactic in Congo. Then Ynar Mohammed speaks of the violence against and oppression of women in Iraq ever since the U.S. invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Plus some commentary by KD and a song by Bonnie Raitt.

This installment is a replay of one of New World Notes' first broadcasts, #16, from June 2008. With a new introduction by KD.

Thanks to Mike McCormick and his show Mind Over Matters for the Jackson talk, and thanks to democracynow.org for the Ynar Mohammed interview.  I have edited and condensed both.

Illustration: Jacques-Louis David, Intervention of the Sabine Women, 1799