Startling news: Sweden now recycles 99 percent of its waste.

At least that’s what people are saying, including an official website of Sweden itself: “Less than one per cent of Sweden’s household waste ends up in a rubbish dump.” There may be less to this statement than meets the eye, but before I address that issue, I need to pause at the jolt of ecstatic excitement and jubilant incredulity I felt for a moment — that maybe the resource-consuming, planet-destroying, multinational political and economic system I’m part of is capable of correcting its own insanity, committing itself to a sustainable future and embracing the circle of life.

I’ve gotten used to living with despair: that so little of our effort, energy, intelligence and determination are invested in creating a sustainable future; and, indeed, that humanity’s macro-organizations, its national governments, its multinational business enterprises, expend their enormous power not only contributing to the devastation but sabotaging every effort to make it stop.

Dostoievski once had a character imagine what a head would think if for some seconds it were aware of having been cut off by an executioner's guillotine, or if somehow it were aware for a full minute, or even for five minutes.

I should think such a head would think thoughts entirely dependent on the circumstances and that the type of blade that committed the murder wouldn't affect the thoughts too greatly.

I loved you, it might think, thinking of its loved ones. I did well there, if might think, thinking of its accomplishments. I'm sorry, it might think, dwelling momentarily on its deepest regrets -- as likely as not relatively trivial incidents in which the head together with its body had hurt someone's feelings.

I've died in a war, the head might think, despite opposing wars. I took the risk and enjoyed the thrill, yet the injustice remains. I didn't launch the war. I didn't make millions off it. I didn't win votes from it. I tried to tell people what it was, and here I am no better than a soccer ball about to cease existing as a consciousness.

Many journalists probably got into the field for the same reason I did: because they were inspired by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and their courageous work to unravel the Nixon era’s Watergate scandal.

A 1976 film based on their efforts, All the President’s Men, was likely the strongest recruiting tool the journalistic profession ever had.

In contrast, Kill the Messenger may be journalism’s weakest recruiter. It may even persuade some would-be reporters to forge a new career path.

True, the film shows journalism at its best in the form of Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner), a reporter who fights to reveal an alleged connection between the CIA and inner-city drug sales. But it also shows modern journalism at its worst in the form of major media outlets (including The Washington Post) that seem more eager to leap to the CIA’s defense than they are to give Webb’s findings a fair hearing.

Dateline: Beavercreek, Ohio, 8:51pm October 6, 2014

At least 15 activists with the Ohio Student Association (OSA) are currently occupying the Beavercreek, Ohio police headquarters as of Monday, October 6, 2014. Their demand: Justice for John Crawford. In August, Crawford, a 22-year-old African-American man, was shot without warning in a local Walmart while holding an air rifle, ironically in a state that allows the open carry of A-Ks and other military assault weapons.

James Hayes, organizer with the OSA told the Free Press that, “We expect justice and we will push for justice on behalf of John Crawford.”

Hayes said the Student Association has posed three questions to Beavercreek Police Chief Dennis Evers:

1)      What is the police force going to do about the officer who shot Crawford, Officer Sean Williams, who has killed two people in the past few years?

2)      What is the police force going to do about the 911 caller Ronald Ritchie, who lied to the police, which led to the death of Crawford?

3)      What are the Beavercreek Police going to do about their training and protocol regarding deadly force?

The Ipps were nice enough to have the Columbus Free Press debut their video for “You Need To Bleed” off their new record Everything Is Real which was released on Spencer Morgan’s SuperDreamer Records.

The clip itself is a bleached-out, psychedelic colorful foray in bubbly liquids that resembles a 70’s PBS Science show if the science show was an art show instead.

If the clip reminds you of the Times New Viking/Columbus Discount Records-era of Columbus,Ohio music that is because the Ipps are made up of 3 members of Necropolis (Emily Davis, Bo Davis, Matt Bisaro.)

The other member is Michael O’Shaughnessy who played in another CDR band: El Jesus De Magico.

Obviously the song references the controversial medical practice of Bloodletting.