Category Archives: indiana

Growing concern over super bugs and super weeds

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common dreams has this link up on the octopus of GMO corn and the emerging super bugs that are resistant to the pesticides….

…and of course, their answer is to….throw more pesticides after them.

We all saw this coming, so why are Monsanto and Syngenta still allowed to market this monster?

Congress, can you hear the American public that you love to  *quote*  all the time?  Can you hear us above the *clink* of money in your pocket? (Be sure to click on the media link and its pathetic and sometimes belittling coverage).

Vilsack, can you cut your ties with Monsanto and do what is right for the environment and our health?

Here’s a report about GMO’s in the waterways in my own backyard.  This is a freaking nightmare.

As a side note, here’s an article on aerial spraying and untested chemicals.  Gees-o-pete, does anyone stand up to the chemical industry??

Oh beautiful…

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…for spacious skies…

It was a wonderful summer morning for a bike ride here in Hoosierville…

Peaceful….not too many cars.

Several SUV’s pass me with canoes attached. …every single one of them was in a hurry to go….canoeing.  Something of an oxymoron, isn’t it?  I mean, canoeing is about the most peaceful, slow-paced thing you can do, and here they were speeding around this bicyclist to get where they can take a lazy ride on the wonderful river….(if you have never been canoeing, I highly recommend it.  It will blow you away.)

Biologists say that if you see many different species within a certain area, it’s an indication of the health of that area–the more diverse, the better the ability to sustain life.  For instance, I’ve seen many cranes flying overhead, in addition to the usual Blue Jays, Robins, Turtle Doves, Redwing Blackbirds, buzzards, deer, ground hogs, coyotes, etc.  Today, I got to see two beautiful birds that must be related by their similar black wings…but they had different colored bellies–one had a striking yellow, and the other had a striking blue.  They flew the same, too, with quick flutters.  They reminded me of finches, but when I tried to find them, the stupid search engine was showing blue birds from the search words of “yellow bellied birds”.  (Um, yeah, computer geeks, your search engine sucks.)

I got to see an old spot that I loved when here last—a quiet spot over the river, with a small country bridge spanning  it.  I hopped off my bike and just stood there, watching the river flow quietly.  I see a leaf from a tree slowly follow the river currants.   Birds sing in the overhanging trees.

After awhile, I switch to the other side of the bridge, and there a huge tree has fallen from the bank and hangs there on an improvised mini-island where mud and branches and leaves have gathered.  I noticed something on the mini-island….is it a snake?  Yes, it is, coiled up to get warm in the sun.    I think this may be it–hard to tell since I was twenty feet above, but it looks very similar.   I continue to survey the island and see two more snakes close by, sunning themselves.  As my eyes follow the fallen tree, I notice it has become a host for renewal, as plants have begun to sprout from its decaying trunk….out of death, comes life….I looked more closely at the plants and see yet another snake hidden among the greenery.  I look back at the first snake, and…it’s gone.  I keep looking in the area, thinking I missed it….but no snake.  It had silently slipped into the water…

As I ride along the country road, I see where three poor baby frogs have met their demise.  Gees–o-pete, they have deer crossing signs, and duck crossing signs….why not frog crossing signs?  Yeah, I know, people aren’t likely to slow down for them, either….but at least you can see deer coming at you….froggies…eh, not so much.

Continuing the nice ride, I go past houses that have been torn down.  I wonder what happened to the former owners.  One is just a crawl space…..a shell of what once was.  Another is a platform that formerly housed a mobile home.  A hibiscus still stands as a testament of someone whom once lived there that loved flowers.

Dogs bark, but fortunately are tethered….well, except a pair of huge hounds that barked at me and started to come towards me as I peddled past, but stopped at the property line.

I figured I was safe….must have one of those electric fences.

Ha.

When I turned around to go past again, this time I had two things against me—I was getting tired and I had to pedal up a small hill to get past the dogs.

First rule of bike riding–never get so tired that you can’t out pedal a fast dog.

So….I’m only slightly apprehensive as I’m beginning to pedal faster to get up the hill and not antagonize the dogs.

They were waiting for me on the porch this time….

And, yeah, they weren’t as restrained…as one came out of the yard and barked and got right next to my exposed leg….I’m waiting for it to try to take a bite…

Fortunately, today wasn’t my day to see how good their homeowners insurance was…:p

He got right up to me, but didn’t take that fateful bite.

Whew.

The nice thing about being on a bike versus walking or jogging past is that you can reasonably pedal fast enough to get away.  I did this with a white german shepherd once, too.  Talk about your heart in your throat….

Wonderful morning.  I feel closer to the Great One when I’m out riding bikes or just walking…connecting to something bigger than me…

Hope you’re all having a good day, too.

The dirty nine

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Nine state legislators were flown on a chartered flight and…well, you can read the rest here.

From the article:

The tar sands of Alberta are estimated to be the third largest reserve of crude oil on the planet. But the process of turning the tar-like bitumen into a refined product that can be used as fuel is extremely energy intensive and highly polluting. The former NASA scientist James Hansen, warned that the extraction and use of Canadian tar sands would mean “game over” for the climate. TransCanada is the operator of the proposed KXL pipeline, which would carry the tar sands to Texas for processing and likely for exports to markets abroad.

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I think it’s really important to highlight NASA scientist James Hansen’s statement on this because most folk think that folks who believe in climate change are “fringe” liberals, when they’re not.  Dr. Hansen is a prime example of that.

More:

TransCanada, which is a member of ALEC, sponsored ALEC’s Spring Task Force Summit in Oklahoma City in May 2013, alongside other corporations with tar sands interests including BP, Devon Energy and Koch Industries. TransCanada’s Vice President Corey Goulet presented to legislators at the conference during a session called “Embracing American Energy Opportunities.“

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Dimon stayed in touch with Adams’ office over the proceeding months, providing his staff with further materials about Keystone XL, including a set of talking points stamped with the TransCanada logo.

By February 14, Adams had an updated draft that had been reviewed by the Ohio legislative service commission, the non-partisan body that assists legislators with drafting legislation. Adams staffer Ryan Crawford sent this language to Rob Eshenbaugh, a lobbyist with Ohio Petroleum Council, the state affiliate of the American Petroleum Institute. “Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,” Crawford wrote to the lobbyist. Eshenbaugh responded with some requested changes, which Crawford then incorporated into the bill.

 

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So…yeah….pretty glaring examples of not so subtle bribery.  Unethical. Unethical. Unethical.

I have something of a quibble with the story saying that the XL has become a national issue….where were you when Enbridge was getting the northwest Indiana pipeline approved even though it runs near Lake Michigan and other sources of water?  Does anyone know why Indiana is ignored?    I’d like to know why we don’t matter….somebody tell me, please.

 

 

 

 

Deer infected with neurological disease

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CMD also reports of a neurological disease in Wisconsin deer that is like mad-cow disease.    The DNR reports that there have not been any documented cases where the disease has been transferred to humans….but they’re not exactly testing for it, either, according to this report.  I did a quick check of Indiana’s DNR website, and they have not reported the disease in the state.  Yet.  But the report is from 2008, so they may be stricken in the last five years.

It just blows my mind that they are so lackadaisical about it.  They’d much rather deny your eating raw milk (that has beneficial enzymes) than deny you venison.

Just think about the recent reports of horse meat being served as beef in restaurants…yeah, you get the picture.  And we have poor folks who are probably harvesting road kill in order to eat.  Not saying that I have actual knowledge of this, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn this has been going on.  Poor people without health insurance are not going to go to the doctor.  They would end up in emergency rooms —who would know to look for the disease?

The biggest question of all–why are they now becoming so sick?  It seems that since 2006, it has rapidly climbed.  Why?

I know you all are going to groan, but with the gut affecting the neurological function, I have to think it’s related to the gut….and there might be a connection between GMO’s and the deer now suffering so much neurologically.  Deer love corn.  Corn is now all GMO (unless specifically grown organically, but as we have explored before, GMO corn is pollinating organic and non-GMO corn–from this excellent blog on how serious genetic manipulation is:

Another concern is the natural cross-breeding of crops in adjacent fields, resulting in the transfer of transgenes into organic and conventional (non-genetically-engineered) crops.

Sadly, farmers who become the victim of natural crop cross over are often subject to lawsuits: Monsanto has repeatedly filed patent infringement lawsuits against farmers who may have inadvertently harvested GM crops mixed into their non-GM crops. Farmers insist these crops are the result of cross-pollination from GM crops planted a field or two away; Monsanto claims the farmers obtained Monsanto-licensed GM seeds from an unknown source, and mixed them into their seed sources without paying royalties to Monsanto.

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Another recent blog on GMO.

So…think they’ll test these diseased deer for a) Celiac-like gut inflammation; and b) GMO infected gut flora?  Nah.  That would make too much sense.

Moyers on ALEC

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Center for Media and Democracy has this up on Bill Moyers covering the dirty dealings of American Legislative Exchange Council.  It states that this was all over the nation on PBS stations this weekend.  If it was on my local station, I saw no advertisement of it, so I missed it.  (Boy, do I miss FW, which has such a kick butt public radio station, and three PBS stations, as well. )

Luckily, there is a link here to watch the show online. Also, there is a link for finding out which of your own state’s representatives belong to ALEC.  I found a couple of surprises, there, such as Win Moses, who was the former mayor of Fort Wayne, and John Gregg, the guy who just ran for governor.  Mike Pence was not listed, but yeah, he seems to be doing their bidding:

mikepence.com/newsletter/pence-hires-atkins-policy-director

See…this exposure of ALEC is a double-edged sword–you’re getting the word out and people are paying attention, but they (ALEC)  will find ways around it by people who are off in the wings, such as Atkins.

Top Chef Colicchio on GMO’s

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“…spraying Agent Orange on our food….”  A pretty stunning statement…glad to see Melissa Harris-Perry allowing him to speak out.

Green Pasture has this up on Dr. Huber’s speech on glyphosate.  (Purdue is pooh-poohing his assertions.  I found a web page from Purdue that says that Dr. Huber was exaggerating the implications.  Um-hmmm….a Purdue scientist with many, many years of experience is now suddenly incompetent?  I don’t think so.   There might be some reasons $$$ why…Purdue and other universities speak against Dr. Huber.)

From the article:

Huber spoke about a range of key factors involved in plant growth, including sunlight, water, temperature, genetics, and nutrients taken up from the soil. “Any change in any of these factors impacts all the factors,” he said. “No one element acts alone, but all are part of a system…When you change one thing,” he said, “everything else in the web of life changes in relationship.”

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Word.

Anybody who has grown a garden can attest to all the factors named above that impact your garden’s productiveness.  Like I said, it truly is a miracle how a plant can grow from a tiny seed.  The wonder of it all never ceases to amaze me.   And it also never ceases to amaze me how scientists feel they know better than nature.

 

As Dr. Huber asserts–if a plant is in a weakened state, it will not be able to fight off disease (or pests).  Everybody thinks that you *have to* spray bug killer and you *have to* use fertilizers to have a healthy plant, when it is a healthy soil (through composting) that creates the healthy plant and subsequently, the ability to fight off disease and pests.

More:

Huber reported on what he described as a newly discovered pathogen. While the pathogen is not new to the environment, Huber said, it is new to science. This pathogen apparently increases in soil treated with glyphosate, he said, and is then taken up by plants, later transmitted to animals via their feed, and onward to human beings by the plants and meat they consume.

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He said laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of the organism in pigs, cattle and other livestock fed these crops, and that they have experienced sterility, spontaneous abortions, and infertility.

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Pretty sobering, eh?

Here’s the Rodale report on organic versus conventional farms.  This is one of the best reports I’ve ever seen.  I used this report back in 1999 (?) to counteract a Hudson Institute toadie’s assertion that organic farms did much worse than conventional—if I recall correctly, it was Dennis Avery who made the assertion.

He actually said in the article that he read in Organic Gardening that they had problems with low yields and bugs.  I happened to subscribe to it at the time, and there was no such thing in that article!  It reported the opposite:  that yields were good, and only a few plants were affected by bugs….and the best part was that with composting, the organic fields were able to retain moisture much better than the conventional soil, therefore, the organic field’s plants weathered a drought better than the conventional field.

 

 

 

Enbridge pipeline

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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….

 

Back….

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…I’m here….waiting for the crash, so to speak….this is usually the day that I start to feel the effects of the round…

Anyhoo, I’m here.

I thought I’d post the symptoms of mercury poisoning again for the benefit of those who might be new here.

This page is very informative.  You can see the dramatic effect of the mercury poisoning on her. In 2010, my face slightly drooped but not quite as dramatically as hers.  But I was severely toxic, there is no doubt.

Before I self-diagnosed myself, I was so sick that I was sleeping only four hours per night.  My chronic fatigue was so bad that after work,  it was all I could do to fix dinner and then crash the rest of the night.  It’s hard to admit, but my dishes went unwashed for days because of the exhaustion.  I also had hand tremors along with the severe short term memory loss.  It was during this period that I forgot my own children’s names!   I truly believe that I had Parkinsons’.  I was afraid to tell anyone what was going on.   It was a terrible, lonely period.

Thank God I was led to the cause of my symptoms.  My Guardian Angel kept putting “mercury” in front of me.  Like most people, I trusted my dentist to tell me the truth and doctor to be smart enough to diagnose what was wrong.  It was hard to go against what I was being told and what my symptoms were telling me.

What a miracle the body truly is that I could be that sick and recover from it. (Or I should say continue to recover from it.)

I have been blessed.