April 20 | Film | The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream

Via: Robert McKeown, Shiny Object

Reminder!
Tomorrow, 4/20. 7 PM.
Admission: $5.00.
Location: Fools Foundation - 1025 19th St, Sacramento.
That's off of K St, between 19th and 20th, next to the back end of the Old Spaghetti Factory. Digital projection on to a big screen. Seating is on folding chairs - feel free to bring a pillow or cushion, or even your own folding chair!

"The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream"

Just in time for Earth Day and the return of skyrocketing gas prices!

Since World War II, North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. As the population of suburban sprawl exploded in the past 50 years, Suburbia became the American Dream.

But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, "The End of Suburbia" explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary.

The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket even more in the coming years, how will the populations of suburbia react to the collapse of their dream? Are today's suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow? And what can be done NOW, individually and collectively, to avoid The End of Suburbia?

Hosted by Barrie Zwicker. Featuring author and New York Time contributor James Howard Kunstler, Peter Calthorpe (urban planner, author and lecturer), Professor Michael Klare (contributor to The Nation, Scientific American and numerous others), Richard Heinberg (Peak Oil educator and research fellow at the Post Carbon Institute), Matthew Simmons (CEO of Simmons and Co, former energy advisor to George Bush and one of the world's leading experts on Peak Oil), Michael C. Ruppert (From the Wilderness), Julian Darley (founder, Post Cabon Institute), Colin Campbell (retired petroleum geologist for Texaco, BP, etc, and author of "The Coming Oil Crisis"), Kenneth Deffeyes (Princeton professor and former associate of M. King Hubbert), Ali Samsam Bakhtiari (Senior Expert in the Corporate Planning Directorate of the National Iranian Oil Co) and Steve Andrews(Denver-based energy consultant).

Dan Jacobson, Legislative Advocate for Environment California is scheduled to be in attendance to speak about related statewide issues and legislation.

"Foresees a very-near-future in which drastically reduced global oil and natural gas supplies have particularly disastrous consequences for a bedrock 20th-century American lifestyle. Convincing... Assembled with straightforward competence." -- Variety.

Coming up next week, April 27, the experimental indie horror film "Hannah House"

May's schedule will be coming out next week, but here's a couple of previews:

Coming up on Saturday, May 19 - in addition to our regular Friday evening screenings, we will be holding a film-based fundraiser for Equality California, which will include a screening of the marriage equality documentary, "We the People." West Sacramento mayor Christopher Cabaldon is currently scheduled to be in attendance to speak with folks, and we are also working on at least one member of the State Assembly who is active in this issue! Ticket prices are still to be determined, as well as some other details, but they should be ironed out shortly. We also currently plan for advance tickets to be available for this very special evening.

Also coming in May - the exclusive Sacramento premiere of Curt Johnson's controversial new documentary, "Your Mommy Kills Animals," which aims to present a scrupulously-neutral portrait of the current state of the animal rights movement.

You can also always check http://www.shiny-object.com/screenings/

Thank you again, and we hope to see you tomorrow!!

Small Press | Unfair Postal Hikes

Via: Jamie FitzGerald, Poets & Writers

Lopsided rate hikes for small magazines
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007

Please support efforts by AGNI and many other magazines and small presses to combat an unfair postal hike that promises to damage what’s left of a viable free press in this country.

from Bob McChesney:

On very rare occasions I send a message to everyone in my email address book
on an issue that I find of staggering importance and urgency. This is one of
those times.

There is a major crisis in our media taking place right now; it is getting
almost no attention and unless we act very soon the consequences for our
society could well be disastrous. And it will only take place because it is
being done without any public awareness or participation; it goes directly
against the very foundations of freedom of the press in the entirety of
American history.

The U.S. Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical
reformulation of its rates for magazines, such that smaller periodicals will
be hit with a much much larger increase than the largest magazines.

Because the Post Office is a monopoly, and because magazines must use it,
the postal rates always have been skewed to make it cheaper for smaller
publications to get launched and to survive. The whole idea has been to use
the postal rates to keep publishing as competitive and wide open as
possible. This bedrock principle was put in place by James Madison and
Thomas Jefferson. They considered it mandatory to create the press system,
the Fourth Estate necessary for self-government.

It was postal policy that converted the free press clause in the First
Amendment from an abstract principle into a living breathing reality for
Americans. And it has served that role throughout our history.

What the Post Office is now proposing goes directly against 215 years of
postal policy. The Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical
reformulation of its mailing rates for magazines. Under the plan, smaller
periodicals will be hit with a much larger increase than the big magazines,
as much as 30 percent. Some of the largest circulation magazines will face
hikes of less than 10 percent.

The new rates, which go into effect on July 15, were developed with no
public involvement or congressional oversight, and the increased costs could
damage hundreds, even thousands, of smaller publications, possibly putting
many out of business. This includes nearly every political journal in the
nation. These are the magazines that often provide the most original
journalism and analysis. These are the magazines that provide much of the
content on Common Dreams. We desperately need them.

What the Post Office is planning to do now, in the dark of night, is
implement a rate structure that gives the best prices to the biggest
publishers, hence letting them lock in their market position and lessen the
threat of any new competition. The new rates could make it almost impossible
to launch a new magazine, unless it is spawned by a huge conglomerate.

Not surprisingly, the new scheme was drafted by Time Warner, the largest
magazine publisher in the nation. All evidence available suggests the
bureaucrats responsible have never considered the implications of their
draconian reforms for small and independent publishers, or for citizens who
depend upon a free press.

The corruption and sleaziness of this process is difficult to exaggerate. As
one lawyer who works for a large magazine publisher admits, It takes a
publishing company several hundred thousand dollars to even participate in
these rate cases. Some large corporations spend millions to influence these
rates.Little guys, and the general public who depend upon these magazines,
are not at the table when the deal is being made.

The genius of the postal rate structure over the past 215 years was that it
did not favor a particular viewpoint; it simply made it easier for smaller
magazines to be launched and to survive. That is why the publications
opposing the secretive Post Office rate hikes cross the political spectrum.
This is not a left-wing issue or a right-wing issue, it is a democracy
issue. And it is about having competitive media markets that benefit all
Americans. This reform will have disastrous effects for all small and
mid-sized publications, be they on politics, music, sports or gardening.

This process was conducted with such little publicity and pitched only at
the dominant players that we only learned about it a few weeks ago and it is
very late in the game. But there is something you can do. Please go to
www.stoppostalrateh ikes.com and sign the letter to the Postal Board
protesting the new rate system and demanding a congressional hearing before
any radical changes are made. The deadline for comments is April 23.

I know many of you are connected to publications that go through the mail,
or libraries and bookstores that pay for subscriptions to magazines and
periodicals. If you fall in these categories, it is imperative you get
everyone connected to your magazine or operation to go to
www.stoppostalrateh ikes.com.

We do not have a moment to lose. If everyone who reads this email responds
at www.stoppostalrateh ikes.com, and then sends it along to their friends
urging them to do the same, we can win. If there is one thing we have
learned at Free Press over the past few years, it is that if enough people
raise hell, we can force politicians to do the right thing. This is a time
for serious hell-raising.

And to my friends from outside the United States, I apologize for cluttering
your inbox. If you read this far, we can use your moral support.

From the bottom of my heart, thanks.

Bob

Robert W. McChesney
www.mediaproblem.org
www.freepress.net
Department of Communication
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign



There's an online petition for publishers here:
http://action.freepress.net/campaign/postal_publications?rk=rdxY8gE1VEcBE


And here's a quick rundown of what happened according to freepress.net:

Earlier this year, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) rejected a postal rate increase plan offered by the U.S. Postal Service. Instead they opted to implement a complicated plan submitted by media giant Time Warner. (Click here to read the decision and click here for a timeline.)

Under the original plan, all publishers would have a mostly equal increase (approx. 12 percent) in the cost for mailing their publications. The Time Warner plan overturned this level playing field to favor large, ad-heavy magazines like People at the expense of smaller publications like In These Times and The American Spectator. It penalizes thousands of small- to medium-sized outlets with disproportionately higher rates while locking in privileges for bigger companies.

(With thanks to Adam Pieroni, Jill Patterson, and many others who have begun to mobilize against this rate change. Devised by Time Warner and adopted by the Postal Rate Commission? This smells like Dick Cheney’s energy policy ...)