Diane Ravitch has a link up to this blog by a teacher fighting for public education. Being hit from all sides, for sure. We’re dealing with a sophisticated network that has $$$ behind it. It’s hard to fight against that, but as Seamus says, I want to be able to look at my children and grandchildren and tell them I fought for public education with all that I had.
Category Archives: bullying
Senators who voted against GMO labeling
(**edited to add tryptophan link.)
organic consumers has a post up on pressuring ten senators who voted against the Sanders’ amendment to allow states the right to label GMO food.
All we’re asking for is the right to know what is in our food! We’re not asking them to ban GMO’s…although that’s certainly a dream of ours…we’re just asking for the right to refuse to eat food that is bad for us.
This is especially an issue for Celiacs, who can be seriously affected by genetically modified food that we cannot digest properly, and will only add to the leaky gut syndrome, possibly causing an emergency situation caused by gut inflammation.
A debate (sort of) here. The increase in gut inflammation since the 30s can easily be attributed to our increased use of wheat flour and undiagnosed Celiac / gluten intolerance. I personally think it has been there, but now is becoming worse because of the GMO’s. It just makes sense to me.
Here’s a trailer to the video by Dr. Smith : Genetic Roulette. Glad to see Dr. Huber of Purdue University featured. He has spoken out about the changes to the bee population. I’m also glad to see other M.D.’s on board with this.
And then there’s this. Holy crap, it’s worse than I thought…! So, even if you stop eating GMO foods, you’re still subjected to this monster via your gut flora. Holy crap.
The above page had a link to the Japan tryptophan disaster, but the link was dead. I found it here.
It’s interesting that tryptohpan, which is a natural amino acid, was banned in supplement form…but it’s quite all right for GMO’s to go without scrutiny or restraint. Many in the natural supplements industry felt that tryptophan was targeted because it was a natural supplement, that competed with Big Pharma. This just adds more credibility to that claim. If you’re Big Pharma or Monsanto, you can get away with it.
Here’s another page on GMO which mentions the Showa Denko incident.
Helping ourselves
commondreams has this up. Be sure to look at all the videos–well worth the time.
The idea is so simple it’s like “duh!”
I have a quibble, though, with Klein saying that it’s up to the Left to “seize the moment”. There are those who are NOT in the Tea Party on the Right who also need and want to find a solution to the crashes around us. I say this because the Left has not been of the same mind — I was shot down on a progressive website when I advocated buying American so we could put people back to work. I knew that Washington wasn’t going to get off its collective duff and do anything about the job loss. (NAFTA being a good example of monumental job loss.)
I just don’t think people have been given the skills or knowledge to feel confident enough to take over a business if the owners want to sell out. I think it may be a case of learned helplessness? Not believing in yourself can be such a huge obstacle that one stops before even getting started.
Perhaps the “teach-ins” of 2013 should be “Business 101: how to own a business without going belly-up nor bankrupting the environment on your way to the bank…”
The Native Americans learned this a loooong time ago–nature was not a second thought. They did not separate their actions from nature.
It’s still so incredibly stupid that business has ignored the laws of nature, as if we could exist without clean water, clean air and chemical free food…
Well…exist is probably a bad word choice…since we are existing right now…perhaps thriving is the better word. All one has to do is look at folks’ skin and see that we are not thriving, but existing. The skin is such a barometer of what’s going on in the insides…not doing too well by that account.
Anyway, Washington isn’t going to help us…most likely profiting off of NAFTA…so, it’s up to us if we want to save ourselves.
Silencing Teachers
Diane Ravitch has this up on the firing of teacher Mike Weston. He spoke his mind about valid issues in education….and was fired for it.
And, of course, Gates Foundation’s dirty little fingers are in the pie, as well….
Weston spoke out against the Gates’ teacher evaluation test, ironically named Empowering Effective Teachers…gah, how he must have laughed himself silly when thinking up that name….for it is about disabling them, instead…
Note that Weston was questioning the curriculum for those not on the college-bound track. I took the non-college path in high school because I never thought I would be able to attend, and I can say that there is such a chasm there between them. I don’t think dumbing down the kids by not challenging them is the way to go. How are they ever going to know their potential?
More about Mike Weston here.
Caging Birds
I was flipping through the channels and saw that PBS was going to air a Nature spot featuring Hummingbirds. Ah, I thought, a nice evening’s show.
Nope.
First, the hummers were doing their thing and going from flower to flower to get the nectar. It showed ones with the ruby throat, ones with super-long beaks, and so on.
Then the show flips to the laboratory where a scientist is studying them. The camera zooms into a hummer striking the glass “wall” in its confusion. As the narrator tells the story of the scientist wanting to study the endurance of the hummer, it shows them attaching what looked to be a row of paper clips to the hummer’s feet, as it struggles to fly upward.
Well, that was it for me.
I can’t stand seeing animals caged. I can’t understand why a scientist feels the need to, in essence, torture this bird that was once free to fly wherever it wanted.
And to those who would say, “hey, it’s getting food and is sheltered from predators…what’s the big deal…?”
To that I would say “Freedom is a big deal.”
That bird losing its ability to roam wherever and whenever and just being let alone without someone poking at it –well, that’s what Spirit is about. That’s what feeds the Soul. If that bird could talk, it would tell you the same thing.
Remember Fu Manchu?
The really chilling thing is….we’re not that far behind…
Enbridge pipeline
I don’t know why this story wasn’t carried by the mainstream media, leaving Hoosiers in the dark about this monster….on second thought, they did. Unfortunately, this was in the Indianapolis market, but even with cable TV, was out of range for their broadcast area.
And if anyone needs a little reminder of why the conservatives love Hillary Clinton….(you’re asking what?? You’ll notice, as I have, that they will alternatively trash her and then say “she’s not so bad…”. ) And why they luvs them some Bill, too. Teflon. Clinton. From the president who brought us NAFTA, gutting the financial industry protections that were put into place after the Great Depression, the misspent Haiti disaster funds….and on….
Making a silk purse…
…out of a sow’s ear is an old saying, but applicable here to describe the continued damage of No Child Left a Mind…which has not improved the public schools, and in my opinion, made them worse.
You cannot test potential.
You cannot eliminate arts and music from education. Arts and music teach creative expression. It’s with creativity that one can imagine solutions to problems that one might not have otherwise thought of. Teaching to the test only teaches children to memorize answers, not think creatively or outside the box.
Politicians have no business setting education standards. It’s obvious by continuing the failed policy of No Child Left Behind that they don’t have a clue.
When a reporter touches a nerve…
…and scoops a big newspaper…look out. (**edited to clarify)
I can’t say that I remember the Gary Webb episode. And you would think this would have been huge enough to be covered in my journalism classes or any of the communications classes I had at the university I attended. Nope. Perhaps it was too new at the time–and the facts were not well known.
The story is so compelling. Not only for the bullying of Webb, but how crack cocaine was spread through the country.
Webb was vindicated by a 1998 CIA Inspector General report, which revealed that for more than a decade the agency had covered up a business relationship it had with Nicaraguan drug dealers like Blandón.
~~~~~~~~~~
If you click on the Dateline video on the fdl website, the reporter asks Rick Ross if he had any responsibility in what happened (his pushing drugs among African Americans?) And he answers that it was his responsibility for it.
The question arose about whether Webb thought the CIA wanted to get the African American community hooked on drugs….Yes, it is someone’s responsibility for taking drugs…if you don’t take it, then you can’t get addicted to it. I don’t do drugs, but from what I have heard, cocaine is highly addictive—so…if the drug pushers know this (and I’m pretty sure if they were selling it in Nicaragua, they knew of its addictive qualities)—then they knew all they had to do is to get someone to take it once, and they had a customer for life…kind of like the tobacco industry trying to get people hooked on cigarettes.
…and why aren’t the “ruthless billionaires” in jail, too??
The Webb story is a sad commentary on competitiveness, bullying, exposing criminal activity and doing what you think is the right thing…makes one wonder if we truly want to do good in this country?
I just wish Webb could have seen that what he did was important. But to not get his ego wrapped around his career–that he had much to contribute in whatever path he took. If he would have held on a couple more years, he would have been amazed at the internet, and perhaps his investigative skills would have been used for internet reporting. (I’m also wondering why LAWeekly didn’t give him a job after the bullying episode left him unable to secure a position with other papers?)
Manning trial starts today
(hat tip commondreams)
If they are successful with prosecution, we can kiss our Consitution good-bye. The First Amendment guarantees one the right to speak out to air one’s grievances against the government. I don’t believe that this was the only way that Bin Laden could have gotten his information or even if it was paramount to him attacking us. They attacked us on 9/11 without the help of Manning…but the agencies knew of Osama and their own mistakes allowed the attack. It’s so much easier to make someone else the fall guy when trying to deflect attention from your own mistakes. And I don’t believe the charge of “aiding the enemy” is true in this case. Intention is *everything* in criminal trials and I don’t believe that Manning’s intention was aiding bin Laden, but to highlight what was happening to inform the American public, which was not being informed by the mainstream media.
And if you read to the end, you see that the chilling effect is already taking place…whistleblowers are afraid to come forward with information.
Chilling, indeed.
Biracial Cheerios
Apparently, the website comments section had to be disabled after this commercial appeared. I really wish that everyone had to take biological anthropology–then they would know that the term “race” really doesn’t apply–we all emerged out of Africa a long, long time ago…and there is no such thing as racial purity.
Perhaps the government should sponsor genetic testing of the lineage of these haters to show them their family tree ain’t so pure, after all.
Heads would explode.
And, as a side note, the comment that General Mills is not racist–they’re happy to poison folks with GMO’s if they’re white, black, red, or yellow is spot on.
Eagle 
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