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Banning Circumcision

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There’s a group in California that is trying to get circumcision of boys banned.  I cannot understand the routine circumcision of boys–with exception for religious rites, such as the Jewish tradition.

When I had my firstborn, my son, in the early eighties, I was with the new crowd of questioning why this procedure was being done?  I guess I was more of rebel that I had thought because I didn’t want to do it to him, and the family thought I was bonkers.  Something happened, however, when a nurse was cleaning my son and doctor had to perform an emergency procedure and cut into the foreskin after it failed to return to normal position (I’m trying very hard not to get too graphic here).    After about five days, I was questioning whether this was a good idea, and caved to family pressure to have him circumcised.  One of my many regrets…

Here’s a link to Parents mag that discusses the pros and cons of it.   I used to read this mag as a guide and you can tell by the wishy-washy article that it was difficult to justify not getting a circumcision.  One of the stupidest reasons is that “I don’t want him to look different than everyone else…”

I say leave the kid alone, and if there are repeated urinary tract infections or some other health issue, then by all means have it removed…but to do so because you *may* have issues without really testing the waters doesn’t make sense.   It’s like removing the tonsils because the kid may have repeated infections.

And if the kid decides later in life that he wishes to remove it then he has that option.

And I feel the same way about ear-piercing.  I see little baby girls with ears pierced and I cringe.  Let the child make up her own mind on whether she wants pierced ears or not.

Lastly, one has to wonder at what kind of psychological damage this does–a baby being hurt like that by adults has to have some sort of impact.  I know that they did not use anesthetic when my son was circumcised–I’ll always wonder what that did to him.  They actually tried to tell me that babies don’t feel pain.  What utter crap.

Vandana Shiva

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More from the organic farmers’s group–this article on Vandana Shiva, an intelligent, feminist activist who is a delight to watch whenever she appears on DN!   She doesn’t back down and she has sound arguments to all the corporate-speak.

From the article:

Why do you refer to the term seed slavery?

In another time, some people thought it was alright to own other people as slaves. In our times some corporations think it is alright to own life on earth through patents and intellectual property rights (IPR). Patents are granted for inventions, and life is not an invention. These IPR monopolies on seeds are also creating a new bondage and dependency for farmers who are getting trapped in debt to pay royalties. This is why 270,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide.

Word.

Be sure to click on the Puztai link.  Wow. This falls under  “if you have nothing to hide…”  then why are you trying to quash this information and silence a scientist who made such a discovery…?

 

List of Heirloom Seeds

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A member of the organic farmers group I belong to posted this website promoting heirloom seeds with lists of companies that provide them.  I thought I’d pass it along to anyone interested.

Here’s the main page and think it’s a pretty cool site on the harm caused by Monsanto, et al.   (As a side note~look at the end of this article–boy, does that hit close to home! <sigh> 1996…pre-9/11…)

Link to their “booklet” on the website–can’t read it all but the first few pages look very good.

Here’s another informative article.

Dennis Banks on DN

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DN! has a clip up of Dennis Banks on Columbus Day, or Indigenous Peoples Day.  

I never learned about how Columbus and the Spaniards treated the Native peoples until college.  They would  sharpen their knives and then cut the Natives to see if they were sharp enough, they raped the women, and worked the men, women, and children until they literally dropped dead mining gold.   There are horror stories of babies being pulled from their mothers’ arms and being fed to dogs.  And then there was the religious bullying of converting them to Catholicism because their spirituality intimidated the Spaniards.

Paradise lost…

 

Are you optimistic…

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Chicago the band has posted this up.  Wow.

The pictures of New Orleans after Katrina really cause you to draw in a breath…how little things have changed, eh?

Limbaugh has been harping on how the Koch Conservatives are not racists, and how President Obama brought up how the Stafford Act was not enforced for the restoration effort after 9/11 in New York City nor for the other hurricane (the name escapes me at the moment) in Florida….but it was enforced for the victims of Katrina…

They state there was no racism involved in the non-effort of Bush.

My experience was different.

In my hometown (I should probably say the place I grew up in, because “home” has a warm, fuzzy feeling, and this was a cold, dark negative place) had a radio station that had changed ownership and was airing Limbaugh on the AM side.  When Katrina hit, they were asking for donations.  They specifically stated that the money would go to a certain county in Mississippi.  I asked someone with knowledge about demographics if this particular county voted Repub or Dem.  The answer:  Repub.

They were only going to send money to this county.  What a disgusting display of coldness towards human beings.

Holy Crap

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Secret Cold War tests in St. Louis…

From the story:

But in 1994, the government said the tests were part of a biological weapons program and St. Louis was chosen because it bore some resemblance to Russian cities that the U.S. might attack. The material being sprayed was zinc cadmium sulfide, a fine fluorescent powder.

Now, new research is raising greater concern about the implications of those tests. St. Louis Community College-Meramec sociology professor Lisa Martino-Taylor’s research has raised the possibility that the Army performed radiation testing by mixing radioactive particles with the zinc cadmium sulfide, though she concedes there is no direct proof.

…makes you wonder what they’re doing now, in unsuspecting neighborhoods, for the war on terrorism?

My thoughts went to the chemtrails and how much they affect me and others.  I’ve definitely noticed a correlation between behavior and continuous (daily) spraying of trails.  When I had this last migraine, they had been spraying five or six trails at a time, all day,  every day, for three weeks.  (And I noticed that just before the elections in 2008, they were spraying the hell out of the skies for the four days prior to election day–keep your eyes on the skies before this election, folks, and see if you see the same phenomenon.)

Here’s a report on a news station:

I’ve read this this website before, but I can’t remember if I posted it.  A little dramatic, but I think there is cause for concern.

I went to the Environmental Working Group website, and could find nothing on the chemtrails.  Nothing on the Union for Concerned Scientists, either.

Joe Marmon has sued California authorities for contaminating the air.

Here’s a European take on the chemtrails phenomenon.

Czech Republic:

Da bees

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Well, it’s refreshing that some countries are paying attention.  And acting on it.

Purdue Research on the problem here: http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2012/120111KrupkeBees.html

What bothers me when researchers report that the pesticides are causing the problem, instead of advocating eliminating pesticides and using beneficial (complimentary) methods of insect control, they want t come up with some other scientific method.

It’s like throwing a rock through a window and trying to correct the damage by putting a newspaper over it….doesn’t really address the problem, does it?

To me, it kind of feels like avoiding responsibility–avoiding the harder choice of trying to work with nature instead of against it.  Farmers in Indiana never met a tree they liked–if you look at Indiana on the map, you can pick it out from the other states by the absence of trees.  One of the reasons I admire Michigan and Ohio is they actually seem to like trees and it’s pleasant to drive through the states.  (Well, I could say something about Ohio drivers, but I’ll save that for another time….:)

So…the farmers remove as many trees from the acres as they can because they want to use every inch of space for crops…but the problem is that they remove the habitats of the birds that eat insects.  It also creates more wind erosion by taking away the windbreaks…hence drier soil that is more susceptible during drought.

It takes more work to factor in all of this, and the motivation just isn’t there.  It’s just too easy to apply chemicals to control for insects, weeds, and fertilize.

 

Women of Togo March

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…I guess the go-for-a-week-without-sex-thing didn’t work out so well.  No mention of it, anyway.

In other news, Koch Conservatives are urging women to keep their clothes on for other reasons….

You know, I’m almost disappointed that the election is coming up so soon…things are just starting to get interesting…

…chastity belts will be the next thing advocated by these groups…

Slooooow Food

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…versus Fast Food.  Here’s a link to the Slow Food website.  As the website states, Slow Food is a way of life–a sustainable way of feeding ourselves without destroying the environment (and ourselves) in the process.

Carlo Petrini founded the Slow Food movement after the first McDonald’s opened its doors in Italy.

The National Heirloom Expo is held annually to draw attention to what’s happening with the GMO seeds and to promote heirloom seeds (non-GMO).

Seed Savers website here.   Another website here.

Finally, here’s Treehugger.com, where those dirty effing hippies must hang out.  🙂

Note that in the comments, the readers state there is a controversy with Seed Savers being stacked with corporate toadies….intrigue among the seeds. <sigh>

A rather depressing article here. 

Bill and Melinda Gates controlling the world food supply along with Monsanto is a scary thought.  It’s apparently not enough for them (Gates)  foisting “education reform” on the children of the United States…

…and his comments on environmentalists being against GMO’s speak of his true intent…

As the Grist article states, organic farming has proven to be effective during times of drought, more so than chemical-based farming.  And it goes on to remark about organic/sustainable farming being ideal for the poor communities.  It’s a no-brainer to me:  you put food scraps in a compost pile that turns into a rich soil that you put back into the ground.  This rich compost returns nutrients and beneficial microbes back to the soil.  One of the problems with chemical farming is that it strips the land of nutrients and the soil deteriorates, requiring more water than compost-rich soil.  Any poor person could do that–returning food scraps back to the soil is free.

An interesting article here.

John Ikerd is a retired professor out of the U of Missouri.  He’s an advocate of sustainable farming and has written extensively about it. Link here.

The problem that most folks are unaware there is a problem.  They go to their grocers, see rows of fresh food and shelves stocked to the hilt, and think everything is great….

…and the only thing left will be GMO food that makes them ill…