My Word

John Robbins

http://www.foodrevolution.org/

"Maybe we aren't on a one-way road to oblivion. Maybe we're standing at a crossroad, facing what may be the most important choice human beings have ever faced, a choice between two directions. In one direction is what we will have if we do nothing to alter our present course. By doing nothing, we are choosing a world of pollution and extinctions, of widening chasms and deepening despair, a world where humanity moves ever farther from achieving its highest aspirations and ever nearer to living its darkest fears.

Our other choice is to actively engage with the living world. On this path we work responsibly and joyfully to make our lives, and our societies, into expressions of our love for ourselves, for each other, and for the living Earth. In this direction we honor our longing to give our children, and all children, a world with clean air and water, with blue skies and abundant wildlife, with a stable climate and a healthy environment.

If you live with fear for our future, you are not alone.

If you live with dreams of a better world, you are not alone.

We all live, now, with both the pain and the possibility we carry in our hearts, both the despair and the hope that we may yet learn to live in harmony with our precious and endangered Earth. There is not a person alive today who does not, at some level, know we are facing these two directions, and understand how much is at stake.

I am aware how strong are the forces of ignorance, greed, and denial in our society. I know it is possible that we won't make it.

But I am also aware of how strong is the longing and the love of life in the human heart. And so I know it is possible that we will make it, that we will create a sustainable economy that protects the living systems of the Earth, that we will come to be part of the world's repair. The power of darkness in our world is great, but it is not as great as the power of the human spirit. We can learn to provide for our needs and limit our numbers while cherishing this beautiful planet and its creatures. It is in our nature to honor the sacredness of life.

What is at stake today is enormous; it is the destiny of life on Earth. At such a time, walking a path of honoring ourselves and the living planet is our responsibility as citizens of the planet, but it is something more, as well.

It is also a joy, and a privilege."
- John Robbins, The Food Revolution

Scientists Issue Warning About Chemical in Plastic
By Marla Cone
The Los Angeles Times

Thursday 02 August 2007

In an unusual effort targeting a single chemical, several dozen scientists on Thursday issued a strongly worded consensus statement warning that an estrogen-like compound in plastic is likely to be causing an array of serious reproductive disorders in people.

The compound, bisphenol A or BPA, is one of the highest-volume chemicals in the world and has found its way into the bodies of most human beings.

Used to make hard plastic, BPA can seep from beverage containers and other materials. It is used in all polycarbonate plastic baby bottles, as well as other rigid plastic items, including large water cooler containers, sports bottles and microwave oven dishes, along with canned food liners and some dental sealants for children.

The scientists - including four from federal health agencies - reviewed about 700 studies before concluding that people are exposed to levels of the chemical exceeding those that harm lab animals. Infants and fetuses are most vulnerable, they said.

The statement, published online by the journal Reproductive Toxicology, was accompanied by a new study by researchers from the National Institutes of Health finding uterine damage in newborn animals exposed to BPA. That damage is a possible predictor of reproductive diseases in women, including fibroids, endometriosis, cystic ovaries and cancers. It is the first time BPA has been linked to female reproductive tract disorders, although earlier studies have found early-stage prostate and breast cancer and decreased sperm counts in animals exposed to low doses.

The scientists' statement and new study - along with five accompanying scientific reviews that summarize the 700 studies - intensify a highly contentious debate over whether the plastic compound poses a public threat. So far no governmental agency here or abroad has restricted its use.

Representatives of the plastics industry on Thursday lambasted the scientists as alarmist and biased, and said they based their conclusions on inconsistent and uncertain science.

"Considering many of these people have made their views known in the past, is there any surprise? Is there really anything new?" said Steve Hentges of the American Chemistry Council's polycarbonate/BPA group.

Hentges said the scientists who signed the consensus statement were self-selected, leaving out many experts, and that many have conflicts of interest because they have either studied BPA and reported effects or "have already taken a very clear advocacy position.

"They are completely at odds with the findings of every governmental scientific body that has reviewed the same science," he said.

Two government scientific committees in Europe and Japan recently decided there is insufficient evidence to restrict the compound. Europe's food safety agency decided in January that the data were inconclusive, largely because of metabolic differences between mice and humans, and because it is uncertain the amounts people are exposed to pose a human health threat.

Next week, a U.S. expert panel convenes to decide whether to declare BPA a human reproductive toxin, which could be a first step toward federal regulation. The review by the panel of the federal Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction, part of the National Institutes of Health, has been controversial. The Times reported in March that its preliminary report on BPA was written by a consulting firm with financial ties to the chemical industry that has since been fired by the Center.

Frederick vom Saal, a University of Missouri at Columbia reproductive toxicologist, said the scientists' statement on BPA "is very different than any other approach to any chemical."

"We now have, without a doubt, the most comprehensive set of documents covering every aspect of bisphenol A and the hope here is that government panels will actually look at this information, digest it, and incorporate it into their decision-making," said vom Saal, who is the most vocal scientist studying BPA.

No studies have been conducted looking for effects in people, and one goal of the scientists who signed the statement is to generate human research.

Jerrold Heindel, a scientist with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences who organized a meeting last fall to begin drafting the statement, said even though there have been no human studies of BPA, there is now so much animal data that the 38 experts believe that potential human damage is likely. More than 150 studies have found health effects in animals exposed to low doses.

"We know what doses the animals were given, and when we look at humans, we see blood levels within that range or actually higher, which is a cause of concern and should stimulate more human research," he said.

Did you know...
The US is now the 3rd most populous nation after China and India
1 person is born in US every 7 seconds
Add people coming to US from other countries, subtract deaths, for a net gain of 1 person every 11 seconds.
For a very graphic representation of this see the Population Clock here: http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html

Since I sat down at the computer (too many hours ago), over one thousand people have been added.

In 1900 the world population was approx. 1.6 billion. It is now 6,550,997,5565. (Don't ask me how they get that figure.)

But here's the rub -
It took several million years to reach the first billion.The second billion was reached in 130 years. Today we add a new billion every 11 years.

Next time I will tell you how many animal species have been eliminated.

we can't keep this up, folks.

from Greenpeace:

International — Just weeks after we uncovered US rice on supermarket shelves in Europe contained illegal genetically engineered (GE) rice, the scandal keeps growing with more illegal GE rice being discovered. In the latest blow for the GE industry, the world's largest rice processing company has stopped importing US rice into Europe due to the threat of contamination.

Ebro Puleva, which controls 30 percent of the European rice market, has stopped importing US rice due to the presence of an illegal GE rice strain. The rice strain causing the contamination is called LL601 and has not been approved for human consumption anywhere in the world. The company responsible for the contamination is Germany's Bayer who ended field trials of LL601 in the US five years ago. However, the LL601 rice escaped the field trials and has now contaminated an unknown number of conventional rice fields across the US.

Greenpeace investigations recently found another illegal GE rice contamination outbreak. This time it is from China and is a variety of rice called Bt63. Like the US however, Bt63 rice also escaped field trials and has now been found in processed rice imports into Europe. The extent of both GE contaminations is still unknown with new discoveries of contaminated rice occurring almost daily across Europe.

The move by Ebro Puleva to stop importing US rice follows a summer of scandals, with illegal GE contamination found in rice products all over Europe as well as in Japan. As a result of Bayer's recklessness, the global food industry is facing massive costs associated with this contamination, including testing costs, product recalls, brand damage, import bans and cancelled imports and contracts.

At least three multi-million dollar class action lawsuits have been filed by US rice farmers against Bayer CropScience already, as farmers struggle to protect their livelihoods from GE contamination. To compound Bayer's legal problems, they may soon be in the legal sights of Ebro Puleva too. The world's largest rice company has indicated that they expect to bring legal actions against Bayer as well.

"By imposing a blanket ban on rice imports from the US, Ebro Puleva has acknowledged how real and costly the risk of GE contamination is," said Jeremy Tager, GE campaigner from Greenpeace International. "With GE now as uneconomic as it is unacceptable, governments in countries that grow or import GE must stop placing farmers, consumers, the environment and industry at such high risk."

The illegal GE rice scandal continues to rage just as the WTO has finally published a ruling on a case brought against the EU by the US, Canada and Argentina over Europe imposing restrictions on the importing of GE food. At its heart, the dispute is about whether trade laws trump environmental laws - and surprise, surprise, to the WTO it is trade law rules."

The WTO is clearly unqualified to deal with complex scientific and environmental issues, and yet, when there is a conflict between trade and environmental considerations, it is the WTO that gets to decide which rules rule; it's like putting the fox in charge of the chickens," said Daniel Mittler, Trade Policy Advisor at Greenpeace International.

The latest GE contamination scandal shows that once GE organisms are released into the environment, the consequences for consumers, farmers and traders are enormous. The WTO has no place determining what people should eat and illegal GE rice has no place on the dinner tables of consumers anywhere in the world.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/banned-290906#

`Flat Daddy' cutouts ease longing

[By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff August 30, 2006 ]

Maine National Guard members in Iraq and Afghanistan are never far from the thoughts of their loved ones.
But now, thanks to a popular family-support program, they're even closer.
Welcome to the ``Flat Daddy" and ``Flat Mommy" phenomenon, in which life-size cutouts of deployed service members are given by the Maine National Guard to spouses, children, and relatives back home.
The Flat Daddies ride in cars, sit at the dinner table, visit the dentist, and even are brought to confession, according to their significant others on the home front.
``I prop him up in a chair, or sometimes put him on the couch and cover him up with a blanket," said Kay Judkins of Caribou, whose husband, Jim, is a minesweeper mechanic in Afghanistan. ``The cat will curl up on the blanket, and it looks kind of weird. I've tricked several people by that. They think he's home again."
At the request of relatives, about 200 Flat Daddy and Flat Mommy photos have been enlarged and printed at the state National Guard headquarters in Augusta. The families cut out the photos, which show the Guard members from the waist up, and glue them to a $2 piece of foam board.
Sergeant First Class Barbara Claudel, the state family-support director who began the program, said the response from Guard families has been giddily enthusiastic.
``If there's something we can do to make it a little easier on the families, then that's our job and our responsibility. It brings them a little bit closer and might help them somewhere down the line," Claudel said yesterday.
``You know, this is my motto: `Deployment isn't a big thing, it's a million little things.' These families go through a lot."
...
``He goes everywhere with me. Every day he comes to work with me," said Judkins, who works in a dentist's office. ``I just bought a new table from the Amish community, and he sits at the head of the table. Yes, he does."

"People are suffering, the world is suffering, and relief is being asked for, cried for, prayed for. Another human story exists to replace the self-destructive mythic addictions of modernity. A story of human lifeways repatterned onto principles of organismic growth and evolution, healthy ecological relations, and recognition of the worlds of spirit and vitality. This story comes from an in-place wisdom native to this earth, and it is breaking like a wave upon this planet. The knowledge that runs this story is now growing like mycelium through the cultural deadwood of the colonizers. It is coming out of the forests and deserts and mountains, out of the many earth-based cultures whose wisdoms are spreading through the air (and electronic) currents of world. It is working through people in the West who are returning home to the community of life, who are engaged in healing themselves and others of the chronic homesickness that manifests in so many of the ills of modernity. This is what the world-wide renaissance in the way of the plants is about."

from:
tribes » Health & Wellness » Ayahuasca » topics »
dietatopic posted Fri, September 15, 2006 - 1:44 PM by little light...

A three-year-old book by the radical author Noam Chomsky remains at the top of the Amazon.com's bestsellers list, after a plug by Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, during a UN speech last week.
"Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance," published in 2003, shot up from 26,000 to number one after Chavez urged Americans to read it.
Chavez had held up Chomsky's book and said Americans should read it "instead of watching Superman movies", to learn the truth about the abuses of the US government.



Aljazeera

Irwin fans 'in revenge attacks'

Dead stingrays with their tails cut off have been found in Australia, sparking concern that fans of naturalist Steve Irwin may be avenging his death.
Mr Irwin, a TV personality known as the "Crocodile Hunter", was killed while diving in Queensland when a stingray's barb stabbed him in the chest.
Since then, 10 stingrays have been found mutilated on Queensland beaches.
Government officials said they were investigating the deaths and there could be prosecutions.
Two stingrays were found at a beach north of Brisbane with their tails cut off, while eight were found on another beach on Monday, The Australian reported.
Wayne Sumpton of the state fisheries department said it was not clear if the incidents were connected to Mr Irwin's death.
He said fishermen who inadvertently caught stingrays sometimes cut off their tails to avoid being stung, but such a practice was uncommon.
'Protect wildlife'
Michael Hornby, a friend of the late naturalist and executive director of Mr Irwin's Wildlife Warrior fund, condemned any revenge killings.
"We just want to make it very clear that we will not accept and not stand for anyone who's taken a form of retribution. That's the last thing Steve would want," he said.
"I hope everyone understands we have to protect wildlife now more than ever. This is what Steve was all about."
Stingrays are normally placid, but when they feel under threat, a sharp, poisonous spine in their tail flicks up.
A public memorial service for Mr Irwin will be held next week.

(Sept 1, 2005)

The first US catastrophe of the post-911 world and it went about as many of us would have predicted.
People of color/ poor people/ people who possess no power were treated worse than animals.
Recall the very first images of people wading through chemical- laced,
sewage-laden water and make every Black face White. Can you really
imagine that the situation would have been allowed to deteriorate as it has?

Imagine middle-class white people in that hell-hole formerly known as
the Superdome. Can’t quite picture that? Oh..that’s right. Black people
don’t really mind living in those conditions. And they like pickin’ cotton too.

All human beings are worthy. But some are more worthy than others. Do
you suppose the New York Times will publish biographies of each of the dead of Katrina as they did of 911?

Years from now will the public be still talking of the trauma these people (those who survived) experienced?

No, because what you get depends on who you are.

What about the trauma of the Palestinians compared to the trauma of the
Jewish settlers? One is huge and we hear little or nothing about it.
One is small and we hear about it every day for a week.

The government does not care for the least of us. That should not come as a surprise. The least of us are treated differently. So one shot fired at a Chinook helicopter, and rescue attempts are put on hold. That is collective punishment. Just like one Palestinian turns himself into a suicidal bomber, so Israel invades and destroys entire villages.

Collective punishment and racism. One of you did this to us, so we will turn our might on all of you. Doesn’t matter that the one act had nothing to do with the other.
I’m glad to see the Black Caucus, Jessie Jackson, Reverend Sharpton and
especially the Nation of Islam, getting involved. What would Malcolm do?
Malcolm would be there with the people sitting on the freeway, with the
people outside the Superdome. If Malcolm were here, wouldn’t be any
bullets flying at helicopters trying to evacuate the sick and dying. Malcolm would know how to turn that desperation into constructive action.

What would Mumia say? I hear Mumia’s voice. I hear that distinctive cadence, can’t quite make out the words. He will have the right words when words fail us all.

When all else fails blame the victim. FEMA head Mike Brown: "They"
chose not to evacuate and now they are causing me all this damn trouble. Somehow 911 victims didn’t get blamed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Damn. Ain’t that just like Black folk, causing all that trouble.

20 foreign countries and the U.N. to date have offered assistance.
Where are the corporate donations?? Where are the food companies, the water companies, the baby food companies?

What you get depends on who you are.

I recall trying to persuade people that Palestinians also grieve when
their children die. I know..seems kinda like asserting that the sun rises, but there it is. If we were watching fair-skinned babies dehydrate right before the camera’s eye..?

Charles Barkley, aka The Mouth, where are you? Sure would be nice if
some athletes - or teams - or owners - gave even a couple of million. Chump change to them. Now that would be community service. Bill Gates - are you watching your TV?

60% of some police precincts not showing up for work!!? What is that
about?! It got too hard, so I won’t show up?

I hear a lot of folks are praying. I’m praying too. I’m praying for an
end to racism. Those Black folk settled on the lowest-laying land in New
Orleans, because it was land where no one else wanted to live.

I’m praying for an end to classism. Those who had cars and money escaped. I’m praying for an enlightened leadership in our country which puts people above profits.
This is not a natural disaster.

Final comment: I never thought I would say this but I think for the
most part CNN and MSNBC did a good job. Of course looting was exaggerated. In some cases cable news did a great job, such as when Anderson Cooper let his emotions show and actually broke down on the air. The reporters on the ground saw the misery and did not attempt to filter it. They did not sugar coat the horror. I shudder to think how much worse, if we were not seeing these images every day, every hour. I suspect that some of these reporters have been forever changed. Give them credit- they kept asking - where is the aid? They argued with the politicians and the bureaucrats and they challenged them.
And (for-the-moment)Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans -
Let’s show some support for him when (if) this ordeal is over. He said the four- letter word, IRAQ and surely is going to be out of a job.


rasheeda