Topic: Culture & Society

In the last year, the popularity of bamboo sheets and other bamboo products has shot up almost as quickly as the plant itself. This versatile natural fiber has many qualities prized especially by the linens industry - including antimicrobial properties and 'breathability.' As customers spring for more eco-friendly products, bamboo has found its way not only into sheets, but towels, clothing and flooring as well.

From Brooklyn, New York, Cameroon (West Central Africa), to Kwazulu-Natal (South Africa), African documentary filmmaker, Boniface Ndemping Wewe, aka The Ngonyama "Lion" of Brooklyn, and his co-narrator Barbara Temfack Wewe peruse some of the ills (ritual murders and body part extraction for different macabre purposes, rape of little girls as an erroneous cure for AIDS) and stereotypes about contemporary Africa.

An increasing number of Americans have become concerned with whether or not electronic machines accurately record and count votes. To require voter-verified permanent paper ballots and increase voter confidence and accessibility, U.S. Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey and U.S. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida have sponsored virtually identical bills (HR811 and S559) that are intended to correct some of the significant, if unintended consequences of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

As anyone of my generation, or especially the generation preceding, can tell you, John Wayne was the most popular cowboy star of all time. In his day, the western was the de facto leader of all the film genres, loved by nearly everyone. The film studios churned-out "B" westerns weekly, with the likes of singing cowboys Roy Rogers or Gene Autry, and many "A" pics, like High Noon or Shane became bone fide classics.

A former Minister of National Defense of Canada believes that advanced technology from extraterrestrial civilizations could help all nations put an end to our addiction to oil, and reduce greenhouse gases.

Most of us baby boomers were caught off guard when it was announced several weeks back that Bob Dylan was celebrating his sixtieth birthday. It didn’t surprise us, mind you, since all of us from that generation have gotten used to graying or thinning hair, wrinkles and sags, a gradual decline in energy, and all of the rest that accompanies getting older. But the thought of Dylan getting ready to collect his social security... Well, it doesn’t make sense somehow.

sTaRe Network Active Media, a distributor of quality arts and letters via new mediums, announced today the acquisition of a verified Illuminati manuscript entitled The Number 23, written by the recently deceased Robert Anton Wilson (January 18, 1932 -- January 11, 2007).

Independent market research firm, The MindClick Group, today released the findings of a new study detailing consumer attitudes toward climate change: more than 60 percent of U.S. consumers hold government and big business directly accountable for global warming. The MindClick Consumer Global Warming Monitor (GWM) is a quarterly examination of how concern for global warming is affecting U.S. consumers' purchase habits, perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. The study, which polled 532 U.S. consumers online, was conducted in January 2007 using data collection software and U.S. consumer panels from GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.) based in Seattle, Wash. Designed to provide business leaders with an unbiased point-of-view of the American consumer, MindClick's groundbreaking GWM has identified five distinct market segments that explain U.S. attitudes and opinions about global warming as follows:

Author Daniel Pinchbeck has just debuted Prophet Motive, a new exclusive monthly column for the Conscious Enlightenment Publishing family of magazines, which includes Conscious Choice, Whole Life Times, Common Ground, Seattle's Conscious Choice and www.ConsciousChoice.com.

Favorlist.com began as a social experiment to spread good deeds through a free online community. It is now quickly gaining popularity as the number of favors granted nears 10,000 in its first few months of existence.