Short Takes: News From All Over

Spuddenfreude
By Naomi Buck, The Walrus
Germans love Linda. She's sweet and nice looking. She's also a potato. Linda -- or at least the patent on her -- is owned by Europlant, a German agribusiness manufacturer that is trying to pull her from the market and replace her with a more disease-resistant type of potato called Belana. But fans of Linda, like farmer Karsten Ellenberg, with help from Slow Foods groups and Greenpeace, are trying to keep Linda alive by preserving strands of their favorite potato for possible use in other countries. 'She doesn't belong to a company,' says Ellenberg, 'she belongs to the common good.' -- Bennett Gordon
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/article.pl?sid=06/05/12/0332249

Power Glass
By Blaine Brownell, Transstudio
Power Glass may change the way you look through windows. XsunX, a California-based tech company, has developed a translucent coating that can harvest solar energy shining on windows, but also allows viewers see through it. This way, monolithic office buildings could be covered in energy conductors, and the employees could still see out. The company claims that Power Glass has 'as much as a 100% efficiency-to-cost gain' over those big black solar panels that people are used to, in part because it's produced at just a fourth of the cost. (Thanks, WorldChanging.) -- Bennett Gordon
http://transstudio.com/tm/2006/05/power-glass.htm

The Unseen, Uncounted Casualties of the Death Penalty
By Michael Kroll, New America Media
For witnesses to state-sponsored executions, the experience can be horribly traumatic when something goes wrong, as things often do. But even when all goes according to plan, executions can be psychologically damaging for those who watch. Michael Kroll, who witnessed his friend's execution, tells the stories of wardens and executioners who have been deeply scarred by the process of putting people to death. Said one warden who presided over approximately 75 executions: 'Sometimes I wonder whether people really understand what goes on down here and the effects it has on us.' -- Bennett Gordon
http://tinyurl.com/ekdcr

With Hurricane Threat to New York, Allstate Cancels Policies, Leaving Homeowners Vulnerable
By Saeed Shabazz, Amsterdam News via Voices that Must Be Heard
With towns still picking up the pieces left by Katrina and an especially powerful hurricane season forecasted, the insurance giant Allstate has taken preemptive measures against providing insurance to those most likely to be hit by a hurricane. The company recently announced it would not renew policies for 28,000 homeowners in and around New York City, and many believe the company did so because of the elevated risk of insuring homes that could be hit by a hurricane. The move has New York residents in an uproar, and state Senator Jeff Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester) is pushing legislation that would get 'tough on regulating these out of control insurers.' -- Nick Rose
http://www.indypressny.org/article.php3?ArticleID=2653