Director Michael Moore reveals America's
excessive love affair with capitalism. Get your copy of this revolutionary documentary film
that Entertainment Weekly called "The most important and urgent political
film of our time."
Join in the dialogue on politics, health care, current events and more! CLICK HERE to read and post your comment.
Plus: "CAN BLOGGING SAVE JOURNALISM?" Is print media in peril? Does cyberjournalism pose a threat to in-depth investigative reporting? Read this fascinating article by Jason Lee Miller, editor of WebProNews.com.
This newspaper is dedicated to my mother and father, who taught me to always stand for my truth, remain fearless and never ever give up.
The Sedona Observer also dedicates this site to our literary heroes - writers, journalists, muckrakers and social reformers - whose work helped to shed light on the social injustices of their time: Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Henry David Thoreau, John Swinton, Jacob Riis, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, Karl Marx, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dickens and others.
Their legacy to expose corruption through the tip of their pens serves as an inspiration for our work here in these media-impaired times.
It is our intention to carry their torch and keep the spirit of muckraking alive in an era when it remains more desperately needed than ever.
A LABOR OF LOVE
We do not accept advertising to prevent outside control of our editorial content. So we're not making a penny off this publication. The Observer, therefore, represents a gift to the Sedona community, Arizona and all of America to uphold the First Amendment and to eliminate censorship.
How about making a donation to support a free press? That way we can hire more professional journalists and offer them a living wage for their contributions.
No amount is too small. If every reader gave just one dollar, we could pay a couple of writers to help us create some riveting articles. If every reader gave five dollars, we could publish daily.
Click here to make a donation or to sponsor a free press.
The Observer will be exchanging content with the Rogue Valley Independent Media Center site for the mutual benefit of regional and national audiences. Stay tuned for exciting new reports!
LABOR PAINS
LABOR DAY REPORT
September 6, 2010
Americans need workplace rights now more than ever in the 21st century -- at least those few who still have their jobs left.
With the highest unemployment and foreclosure rate in history and a severe lack of social services, the system has turned its back on its bankrupt citizens and left them for dead, without medical care, jobs, financial assistance, short-term disability and even their very own homes. As increasing numbers of Americans lose everything they ever had, the question becomes: WILL YOU BE NEXT?
PLUS: DOWN AND OUT IN SEDONA
As jobs crumble and Yavapai County holds the highest unemployment rate in the state, the Working Poor are fast becoming the Hungry Poor in this affluent city.
The filmmaker reflects on the past, present and future of his movies, as well as the state of media and medicine in America.
"It's up to the media to do its job.Print newspapers have about a year of life left. We have to figure out new media, new voices and A NEW FORM OF JOURNALISM WITH NEW BUSINESS MODELS that run MORE CONTENT and FEWER ADS..." -- Michael Moore, answering a public question during the Sedona Film Festival after the screening of "Capitalism: A Love Story."
BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART 2
Finding Hope in the Sad, Sorry, Pathetic
State of Dis-Union
Published January 28, 2010
Can America find opportunity in calamity? Despite the dismal outlook, hope lies in finding solutions via innovative collaboration as we move toward a WE versus ME society of higher consciousness. Only by releasing old paradigms of being, doing and having and reinventing ourselves, our workplaces and our lifestyles, individually and collectively, can we find positive transformation and maybe even new jobs.
Medical pioneer and SottoPelle® founder saves lives by promoting good health through hormonal balance
Published January 23, 2010
by Catherine J. Rourke
What medicine and media aren't telling you about hormones can cost you your health, your wallet and, in some cases, even your life. In his new book, Life Regained: The Real Solution to Menopause and Andropause, Dr. Tutera reveals the secret to hormonal balance and for men and women alike. MORE...
PLUS: YOUR HORMONES, YOUR HEALTH!
Dr. Tutera comes to Sedona March 10. Click HERE for more info about his free lecture.
ONGOING INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
INVISIBLE SEDONA
Swept under the rug:
forgotten folks and ignored issues
by Catherine J. Rourke
Published July - December 2009
This ongoing compilation of exposés reveals the truth about the everyday reality of the city's invisible people, struggling to make ends meet in an affluent community that thrives on their cheap labor. In order to tell her tales, Rourke rides with trash collectors, burns toast with waitresses, flushes toilets with janitors and chases fire trucks with EMTs, peeling through the layers of affordable housing and immigration issues as well as archaic labor laws. She chronicles the triumphs, trials and tribulations of the city's service workers, celebrating their contributions to society and posing possible solutions to Sedona's economic challenges.
The Observer reviews Michael Moore's newest film about the very paradigm this newspaper loves to hate and blames for every malady in American life, from the health care debacle and poverty to unemployment and even the demise of journalism. MORE...
While the ubiquitous Pepto-Bismol pink appears ubiquitously on everything from NFL uniforms to Barbie dolls and even donuts in "search for the cure," the sad truth is that the cure already exists but remains suppressed to ensure the profits of a multi-trillion dollar industry laughing all the way to the bank off women's unnecessary pain and suffering. It takes American capitalism to turn a disease into a blatant marketing opportunity...
Click here to read the Observer's full investigative report:
Sedona’s Health Care Emergency Siren Keeps Resounding − Two Years Later – as One Resident’s Cry for Help Remains Ignored by a Heartless Health Care System
Everyone in America knows Joe the Plumber. Now meet Joe the Handyman, of Sedona, Ariz. − shortchanged, defaulted, repossessed and practically foreclosed on everything he’s ever worked for, saved for and lived for. Then, in March 2008, Joe Dimarcolost the most precious thing of all: his beloved wife, Andrea, to cancer. Joe believes her life could have been saved with proper medical and financial support. MORE…
"We need to challenge the insurance companies, not appease them. There’s no evidence that suggests they’re constructive players, or are likely to do anything except defend their own parochial interest." Read MORE from Seattle-based political essayist and author Paul Rogat Loeb ...
Seattle-based political essayist Paul Rogat Loeb offers profound insights for our times in these excerpts from his books
The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear and
Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time.MORE...
TIME FOR A NEW REVOLUTION?
Published March 21, 2009
The Sedona Observer encourages readers to burn their credit reports and listen to the following call from Thomas Paine for a Second American Revolution. We agree it's time for Americans to raise their pitchforks and storm the detached Bastille in Washington forking our taxes over to the "Let them eat cake" financial elite in our modern-day Versailles on Wall Street.
As old economic paradigms disintegrate, authors Kent and Maria Carr offer new guidelines for Americans to create a WE versus ME society that benefits everyone.MORE ...
As of press time, Senate Republicans continue to block the nomination of Hilda Solis due to her progressive stance in support of the nation's workers. With nearly two months lapsing since the December 19 nomination, the Senate will finally determine this week whether or not Solis will serve as the nation's next Secretary of Labor. For American workers, their fate inevitably hangs in the balance. MORE ...
What are the social, economic and spiritual trends transforming capitalism into a new, more holistic version of itself? It is our time.This is our place. We are creating the future now by the level of consciousness we invoke in everyday choices and activities. MORE...
Sedona Community News - Video
Published February 9, 2010
Mr. Adams Goes to Washington
Sedona Mayor Rob Adams talks about his recent meeting with senators and other political reps in Washington, D.C., to obtain $15 million for three vital city projects
No corporate jets, no tin cups. Just straight talk from the Sedona mayor to congressional leaders about obtaining the city's share of the
2009 Stimulus Appropriations Bill
for various municipal enhancements by the end of 2009.
For many Americans, the dream once included a home of one’s own, a good job with decent pay, affordable health care and a sense of security that would carry them into retirement. Now, with that dream shattered by a blizzard of pink slips, foreclosures, lost benefits, bankruptcies, frozen wages and mounting medical bills, people are wondering what happened to the American dream. MORE ...
Global spiritual film distributor and environmental activist Jim Law, of Sedona-based VOICE Entertainment, is one of those people moved to tears of joy by a tree. In 2007 he led a grass-roots citizen campaign to save Sedona’s sycamores – approximately 60 heritage, 300-year-old trees slated for demolition due to the Highway 179 road expansion project near the city’s Tlaquepaque landmark.
As a result of his collaborative effort with many other community leaders and activists, a majority of the trees were salvaged. While the story “Barking Up the Wrong Tree” (The Sedona Observer, Oct. 21, 2007) documents a chronology of this remarkable campaign, it’s time to revisit the status of the road reconstruction project and gauge its influence over the past year on the trees and surrounding environment. MORE ...
The Beatitudes often come in handy for someone like Father John Dear, a 49-year-old Jesuit priest who has dedicated his life to a path of nonviolence. Like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many other change agents before him, the passion for peace has only paved the way to prison. MORE ...
Enough is enough! What will it take to regulate runaway phone company bandits with their oppressive contracts, cryptic fees, hidden costs and unethical marketing campaigns that manipulate and dupe American consumers? Read this Observer undercover investigation of one company's unethical and fraudulent attempt to ditch the truth.
Demand affordable and accessible health care for all Americans now and put your money back in your wallet. We'll deliver this petition along with your comments to our representatives in Washington. SIGN HERE.
Changing the Economics of Journalism: No government control, no corporate monopolies, no advertisers. Why The Sedona Observer offers readers the best of all worlds, blending 18th century journalism principles with 21st century technology to uphold our First Amendment freedoms.
Join a new movement designed to end the fragmentation and fierce competition currently dividing members of the Fourth Estate, who should be bound together to report the truth. Click here for more information.
And now the good news:
Health-Care Heroes
We know they're out there. Nurses, doctors, healing centers and practitioners who go the extra mile and treat people with compassion, dignity and respect. Send your story suggestions, ideas and comments to: editor@SedonaObserver.com.
For many Americans, the dream once included a home of one’s own, a good job with decent pay, affordable health care and a sense of security that would carry them into retirement. Now, with that dream shattered by a blizzard of pink slips, foreclosures, lost benefits, bankruptcies, frozen wages and mounting medical bills, people are wondering what happened to the American dream. 
The Beatitudes often come in handy for someone like Father John Dear, a 49-year-old Jesuit priest who has dedicated his life to a path of nonviolence. Like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many other change agents before him, the passion for peace has only paved the way to prison. 
