Category Archives: communications/media

They’re buying air, land, water…

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Good God, it’s come to fruition…

…how in the hell does one, in good conscience, try to make a profit off of something one had no hand in creating…?  What kind of soulless being thinks it’s okay to do such a thing?

From the story:

Like other aspects of neoliberalism, the commodification of nature forestalls democratic choice. No longer will we be able to argue that an ecosystem or a landscape should be protected because it affords us wonder and delight; we’ll be told that its intrinsic value has already been calculated and, doubtless, that it turns out to be worth less than the other uses to which the land could be put. The market has spoken: end of debate.

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Exactly.  Once the price tag has been set, the $$$ will trump all other values…because one cannot put a price tag on beauty, on value to other beings besides two-leggeds (because all the rest don’t matter, according to these folks), nor can a value be assigned when the benefits are unknown, as most of the natural world’s benefits aren’t known until they’re lost…

West Nile

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…well, it’s that time of year for the Health Dept to put out its dire warnings of West Nile virus, spread by mosquitoes.  This is an annual warning by the dept. so you would think that thousands of people die of the disease...nope.

Here’s  a story on a death by West Nile.  Note that it’s the first one since 2007:  http://www.statesman.com/news/local/west-nile-death-first-since-2007-2425637.html

The state’s Health Dept. was recommending people use DEET to avoid mosquitoes, and subsequently, the virus.  I was at the beginning of chemical awareness and asked the director of the office I was in whether citronella was as effective.  He said yes, but citronella had to be applied every 30 minutes.  When I asked about an article I had just read about DEET being linked with epileptic seizures, he confirmed that it did cause seizures in some people.  So, I asked why the public wasn’t informed of this, and that citronella was a non-chemical solution, he blew me off. The health dept. denied people information so that they could make their own decisions.  This was another reason I left that job.

Here’s  a link (gov) on it: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002763.htm

Here’s a less biased link:  http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/2005/DEET-Cox-NCAP17oct2005.htm

A good link here.  She outlines the dangers and then gives helpful suggestions on natural repellants.   When I still had my house, I would light three or so citronella candles before going out to the patio, and never had a problem with being bitten.  And I also had natural citronella bug repellant wipes that I used when I was out.

I tried to look up deaths from DEET, and there are few reported cases.  Since it is known to cause seizures, and other neurological issues, I have to be skeptical of the statistics–how many had seizures that caused death, but it was not attributed to DEET?  Since there is such denial in the medical profession of the devastating effects of chemicals (toxins) on our health, I’m just not that confident that they are inquiring about the chemicals a person uses.

Greenwald on Extremism Normalized

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…continuing to boil the frog…

From the comments section, a few posters are arguing about the uninformed public making poor choices because…they’re uninformed.  SiouxRose makes the point that a single mother with 2 kids doesn’t have the time to do what we do–looking for the news on the internet…because she sure the hell isn’t getting the information she needs to make an informed decision on the network news.

Then another poster comments that people need to take responsibility.

The problem with that is  with media consolidation into the rightwing mania, the information access is extremely limited.  It’s difficult to get accurate, mostly unbiased (there’s no such thing as un-biased) news reported by intelligent individuals with a grasp of the subject at hand.  Like I reported earlier, the only station that reports news like it used to be reported, prior to Reagan’s assault on the Press and Marketplace of Ideas, is a rightwing station.  They report every half hour.  The other stations?  You’re lucky if you get the news in the morning, and then you’re SOL for the rest of the day.  Nothing. Nada.  And when the storm hit my area, there was nothing the next day–Saturday–to tell folks what was happening and where they could go for a cooling center.  But you can be sure that there will be half-hour segments when/if a ter__ist event is happening.

So…to blame the public for not getting access to information is blaming the wrong folks–they already have very little power.    And if you’re like me, you only get access to news through the internet.  As has been said before–you control information, you control people.

I just wish there were as much outrage over the consolidation of media and the end of the Fairness Doctrine as there is against war.

Following the trail…

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I picked up an old copy of The Nation over the weekend, the date:  10-1-2001.  It was the first issue after 9/11, and prominently featured the twin towers on the cover.  In it was a story that I don’t recall reading, and given the upheaval of that moment in time, I probably didn’t read it.

However, the story was worthy of the cover had it not been for the tragedy of the weeks before–

The report by Amy Bach, an attorney, was on the Federalist Society and its infiltration into law schools all over the country.

In it, she showed the web of connections that this “society” was constructing–conservative law students (Antonin Scalia was one) who didn’t like their liberal law professors’ point of view, and wanted to do something about it.  That something was the Federalist Society to encourage conservative students to organize, and then make connections to the power players in the White House and the Supreme Court.

Bach names names and one of them is Jeff Sutton.  He argued the cases Alexander v. Sandoval and University of Alabama et al v. Garrett. (link here: http://www.civilrights.org/monitor/vol11_no4/art1p1.html)

I did a search to see where Sutton was now–here:  http://www.onu.edu/node/34771

and here:  http://abovethelaw.com/tag/jeffrey-sutton/

Well, of course he was nominated to a judge position by Bush.

From the article:

“…it [Federalist policy] benefits big business, it’s anti-egalitarian, it shuts plaintiffs like the poor and disabled out of courts, and it rolls back the New Deal notion that the courts have a role to play in helping the downtrodden.”

However, Bach noted organizations of progressive and centrists, one of which is the American Constitution Society.  The problem with getting organized is that progressives are not as narrow-minded, but independent in thought.  It’s soooo much easier to organize when your targets are the poor, disabled, women, minorities, etc.–you know, people who have less power to fight back.

Ag in Indiana

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We’ve apparently been noticed by Washington–the Ag Undersecretary is here seeing the amount of crop damage due to the drought. Link here:  http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/indiana/usda-undersecretary-to-visit-allen-county-farm

I was listening to the rightwing radio station this morning (It took me so long to find a nooz station that actually has a live reporter because it was with the same station that broadcasts Limbaugh, Hannity, and whatshisname.  Unfortunately, it also means that the nooz is slanted towards the rightwing mindset…so, yeah…) and they had the Undersecretary on.  The guy was talking in farm terms that the public is not familiar with–anyone with any public speaking training knows that you have to keep the terms to common everyday terms so everyone will understand it.  Even the rightwing morning host said he didn’t understand what was just said—and the undersecretary didn’t try to clarify–I can’t figure out if he doesn’t have a clue (not likely) or if it was deliberate.

He did say that they have planted more corn this year than previous years, so the crop was not going to be that devastated.  The morning host said something like “You mean that even though we’re looking at a lot of crop loss here, that there isn’t going to be that much of an impact?”  To which the ag secretary said “no.”  Then the host asked about the prices.  The ag secretary said that prices were going up.  Um-hmmm…I smell a rat.  If the corn crop hasn’t been impacted in a severe way, then why the hell are the prices going up?

Can you say “speculation”?  I knew that you could.

As a side note, I found this with Michael Pollan on the cows being fed corn/grain instead of letting them feed on grass.  (Warning: parts are very graphic).

It’s very simply explained that they have systems that allow them to digest grass, not corn.  And the really disturbing aspect is how they used to allow them to mature to 4 to 5 years, but now have it down to 14 months, going to 11 months.  Mo money Mo money Mo money.

Another disturbing aspect is when the calf is separated from its mother–the mother bellows for days and days he says.

From the page:

There are] 35,000, 50,000, 100,000 animals in the space of a couple of hundred acres. And in the middle of the city is rising the single landmark, which is the feedmill. It’s several stories high. It’s silvery. It’s sort of this cathedral in the midst of this, and everything rotates around it. …

But they really are medieval cities in many respects, I realized, because they are cities in the days before modern sanitation. They’re from the time when cities really were stinky. When they were teeming and filthy and pestilential and liable to be ridden with plague, because you had people coming from many, many different places, bringing many, many different microbes into a concentrated area where they could spread them around.

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The problem with this is that the antibiotics are affecting the people eating them:  resistance, and encouragement of candida and other nasty bugs in the gut, cause such grief. And of course, doctors are not taking this into account any more than they’re taking diet into account when a patient presents with a problem.

So…even though we don’t have 14th century disease right now, with the destruction of a person’s immune system through their gut, it’s setting up a bad set of circumstances that have that potential.  We already have super bugs that are not treatable by even the most strongest antibiotics.

And I can’t even begin to understand the mindset that says that cows don’t care if they’re sick from not having their proper food, or being crammed in together standing in their manure, or  the mother cow losing her calf before its time (the fact that she bellows is your first clue) …

It is curious how Michael Pollan says it’s dangerous to say that an animal is impacted by the way humans treat it–I’ve heard old farmers call cows “bossy” because of their personality…so how is it dangerous to state observations that confirm the animals are more than machines?

Pollan states he bought a cow and raised it to market, but was not allowed to go into the kill floor.  A red flag.

Animals give us life and deserve to be treated with respect.  Stuffing them with corn that ferments in their insides, packing them in lots too small to move around freely with piles of manure, injecting them with drugs to counteract all of that doesn’t ring of respect.

At the end of the article, Pollan is asked about irradiation. Says it’s probably fine.  Yeah, radiating food would be just what is needed after all of the above…Good Grief.

From the dark side…

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…I try not to give Limbaugh more attention, as they say whatever you give attention to gives it power…but today, as I moved the dial past Limbaugh’s show, I couldn’t help myself…

He is heavily trying to divert attention from the Bain/Romney deal by arguing that corporations are not people…so, therefore, there is no way that Romney could have had anything to do with Bain sending jobs overseas.  Romney makes patronizing speeches about bringing jobs back to the U.S.–saying he “knows what it takes” to bring jobs back–yeah, it takes workers willing to work for $3.00 an hour…(While Limbaugh continues the slams on those on welfare–you lazy good-for-nothings, getting off your ass and get a freaking job….)

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Next we have a racist and sexist statement all rolled into one:  “Elizabeth Warren, Indian squaw…”

First, he and his ilk were all over her for claiming to be a Native American…even after it had been in the news that she was, in fact, Native American.  Now he degrades her and her heritage by that racist statement.  Squaw is a derogatory term the French gave the women–it means vagina. I believe they also named the Grand Tetons…I’ll leave your imaginations to what female body parts that name refers to…

 

Farm Bill

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I’m late with this, but it’s nice to know others are out there fighting for those of us most affected by this.  The cuts in food stamps…i.e., the “Eat Shit” campaign of those compassionate conservatives who think all life is precious…as long as you’re a conservative and wealthy….poor people should just dry up and blow away and “decrease the surplus population…”

From the email sent to the organic advocates group I belong to:

Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) and other hill champions are coordinating Members
of Congress to make ‘one minute’ speeches in opposition to the House Ag
Committee’s proposed cuts to SNAP. When you call your Members of Congress
today, ask him/her to speak out on the House floor in support of SNAP
tomorrow, *July 10 at noon or on Wed., July 11th at noon*. If interested,
House offices should contact LaDavia Drane (ladavia.drane@ mail.house. gov)
in Rep. Fudge’s office. “One Minutes” are first come, first serve.

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“House Republicans think a working poor household with $2,000 in assets
shouldn’t be getting food stamps – an average of $1.50 per meal – but they
don’t seem to have problems with far wealthier insurance companies and
agribusiness getting much bigger handouts from the Farm Bill,” noted Dunlea.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the House bill would cut spending
over ten years by more than $35 billion, the Senate bill $23 billion.****

“****America* ***’s children, seniors and 1.5 million veteran households
facing a constant struggle against hunger deserve better from Congress,”
said Senator Gillibrand of the House bill.****

The House bill does not include several amendments attached to the Senate
bill, including one that required those getting subsidized crop insurance
to comply with conservation requirements and another that reduce by 15
percentage points the share of crop insurance premiums the government pays
for farmers with adjusted gross incomes of more than $750,000. Currently
the government bears an average 62 percent of crop insurance premiums

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The quote from Henry Kissinger popped in my head. Link Here:

http://www.corporate-aliens.com/quotes/getquote.php?Henry-Kissinger&quoteid=1427

Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.
Yeah, that about sums up the disaster the world is in right now, doesn’t it?
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A really good article here on conventional versus organic farming.  I take issue with the yields being 25 percent more in conventional farming–I’ve read differently–especially when it comes to drought conditions.  Rodale did a comparison of conventional versus organic farming and found that the crop loss from bugs, etc., was minimal, and when they were in a drought, the organic soil was better able to retain moisture, helping the crop to survive.  If you look at the soil samples in the article, it’s plain to see the difference in soils. I used to have a compost bin at my house, and it was so amazing to put food scraps in the bin, along with leaves, sticks, and stuff, and see it magically transform into rich compost.  Compost is amazing in that it can help break up clay soils and will also help sandy soils to hold moisture.
In the ecology textbook I’m reading, they bring up an important point:  pesticides not only kill the bugs the farmers don’t want on the crop, but they also kill off beneficial bacteria in the soil which the plants need to thrive.  Also, I’ve read that the outbreaks in salmonella and e. coli could easily have been avoided with organically grown food–the beneficial bacteria love to eat them.
Here in the corn belt, we are experiencing a severe drought.  They have pretty much given up on the corn crop, and are unsure about soybeans.  Again I wonder at the wisdom of so much land being devoted to grains, instead of growing nuts, which don’t require chemicals to grow, and the trees help soil erosion.
Also, people are watering their lawns, which drives me up a wall–they cut the grass to two or less inches, and then wonder why the grass dies.  Grass should be grown to at least 3 inches so the roots will grow deeper, allowing it to find moisture when it’s dry out.  I never had a problem with my grass dying when I still had my house/lawn.  But you never, ever hear about this when they’re talking about people watering their lawns.
Finally, I like the idea of subsidizing farms based on how much carbon they leave in the soil.  Great idea.  Probably won’t go anywhere if Monsanto doesn’t like the idea…