Wisconsin, bless their little hearts, have drafted a resolution that they are a “TPP-free” zone. The negotiations have been shielded from public scrutiny but the article states that bits have leaked out and…it’s scary as hell–a Monsanto lobbyist is leading the negotiations.
From the article:
Countries, including those in the European Union, could also find it increasingly difficult to ban, or even require the labeling of, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) if biotech companies determine that those countries’ strict policies restrict fair trade and infringe on the companies’ “rights” to profit.
To top it off, corporations would be allowed to resolve trade disputes in special international tribunals, effectively wiping out hundreds of domestic and international food sovereignty laws. Products labeled fair trade, organic, country-of-origin, animal-welfare approved, or GMO-free, could all be challenged as “barriers to trade.”
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It’s an attack on local autonomy….the right to decide what is best for your community.Good Grief, these corporations can.not.get.enough.profits. Greed, greed, greed.
…next, they’ll discover that water is wet….just a little snarky, there…
So, they’re talking about Bravo products for making yogurt on the support group. I checked the website and OMG, they want 550 euro for a three months’ supply! I started to smell a rat.
I found this blog with a video of the lead scientist. I stopped the video about half way through when he starts with the arrogant attitude that this can’t be given to the general public…because it’s just too, too, complicated a product….that needs a scientist to direct the stupid person taking it….Pshaw.
Anyway, I thought I’d pass this along. I don’t know if it will help, but I do know from the GAPS diet that all health begins in the gut, and anything that helps restore normal gut flora would help that person’s overall health and immune system.
….but there’s one little issue–getting four other states to also require GMO labeling. Nice way to get the GMO labeling crowd off your back while appearing to actually do something.
But in 2005, the last year results were available, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found pesticide residues on 98 percent of the apples it tested. All the residue was at levels within federal guidelines.
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Yum.
The problem with reports like this is that they try to say the Alar scare was over the top and scaring people needlessly….when they should be scaring people because we’re living in a toxic soup. This has to be part of the reason people are so apathetic towards chemicals being used in their homes, their workplaces, their food, their water, their soil, and their air….
Petula Dvorak has this up on the Native Americans and this holiday we celebrate.
The Native Americans I talked to said they’ve all heard of someone who doesn’t celebrate the holiday the way it’s presented in food magazines and Hallmark television specials. But all the people I talked to said they hold on to the original message that the Wampanoag had that day — a harvest feast to give thanks.
“Thanksgiving is like every day for us. Giving thanks is a big part of the native cultures. So the basic message of the holiday, that’s still part of who we are,” said Ben Norman, 32, a member of the Pamunkey tribe in Virginia.
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And that’s what it means to me, too—being thankful for every day and every meal and all that is provided for us.
The Native Americans recognize that all is connected. What we do over *here* affects something over *there*. We cannot take and take and take without there being repercussions. The traditional Native Americans humbly acknowledge that with taking only what they need.
The Europeans described America as a wilderness. The Native Americans knew better and carefully managed the great ecosystem–you could drink from any river or stream….the fish were plentiful because they weren’t overfished and they didn’t contain mercury and other toxins…you could breathe…
They were portrayed as heathens that needed “saving” by missionaries. Instead of trying to understand their spirituality, the Europeans sought to force their religion upon them. Native Americans don’t have Churches where one goes to pray once a week and then forget everything that is taught…rather, they see spirituality in everything they do—everything is connected to the Creator.
I just wanted to acknowledge their culture and all that was lost.
Because young, hopeful, eager teachers need any spare change you can give…. (hat tip to Diane Ravitch).
I wish I could say this is just happening to the teaching profession, but alas…it’s been going on in the private sector, as well, for, oh, at least seven years. It was just understood that you didn’t take breaks. What? You need a lunch? Well, okay, but be quick about it. What? You need a bathroom break? Well, okay, but you’ll have to clean it, too, while you’re in there….
Yep. It’s the dirty little secret nobody talks about. (The above was reference to a store owned by people professing to be progressive Dems, too. Um-hmm..)
Yes, the teaching profession was insulated from this for awhile, but alas, it too, has been sucked into the black hole that was once this magnificent country….bankrupted by bankers who produce nothing and corporate CEO’s who actually think they’re worth the millions paid to them.
I was trying to think of a profession this hasn’t hit–the medical profession and the lawyers, the bankers, and, of course, Congress, who never seem to have to pay their dues with the rest of us; are the only ones I could think of.
Bank tellers, however, have been impacted, along with others.
So…I went looking again for stuff made in the United States of America…in fear that perhaps nothing is made here anymore…only slightly cynical…
I found this very cool fabric manufacturer. I soooo want to buy that fabric!
And this. (Note the theme of organically grown crop)
I saw recently where James Taylor was supposed to sing the Star Spangled Banner, and started singing “America, the Beautiful”…God Bless him. I want to put a vote in for America, the Beautiful for our national anthem. The Star Spangled Banner sings of war and bombs but America the Beautiful sings of the beauty of our country, the abundance, and the brotherhood (as yet to be realized, but a worthy goal).
A beautiful, crisp morning as the sun rises….now moved across the horizon for the winter sleep…
I saw six deer this morning. Sometimes they will stop and just observe me, but mostly they just run off, with white tails bobbing up…it never ceases to amaze me how they can be standing still in front of a four foot tall fence and leap over it with such athletic grace. They like apples, by the way. A momma deer and baby were seen nibbling apples one morning while they hung from the tree. You’ll see a half-eaten apple on the ground and know that it was lunch for a deer.
I went out the other morning, and the birds were singing as if it were a Spring day. It caught me off guard….this is Fall, right…? :p
There were cardinals singing, Blue Jays sounding the warning, and another bird I couldn’t identify singing its little heart out. Funny.
I’ve seen a bird that is mostly grayish black that at first I thought was a junco, but it’s tail looked like a sparrow’s and it was too big to be a junco.
The hummingbirds have long since sought warmer climates. I miss their antics. They spend more energy fighting over the food, when there is plenty there, rather than conserving the energy they used fighting so they wouldn’t need so much food….I know there is a lesson for mankind in there, somewhere….
You remember the hornet’s nest I mentioned? Something happened to it–we had about three days of rain (no chemtrails to interfere), and then we had really windy days….so it may have been the combination that caused the nest to lose its outer wrap (for want of a better word). It literally had torn off the wrap down to the honeycomb-like inner chambers. I guess birds could have gotten to it, too, but I’ve never seen that. Not that I’ve seen that many hornets’ nest….in my youth, when I lived around the woods, but not since moving to the city.
Here’s an informative blog on hornet’s nests. I learned something today–I saw the honeycombs of the torn hornet’s nest but I did not realize they actually made honey! It makes perfect sense, though, because they need something for the pupae. However, I wanted to double check this, and another site said they did not make honey.
Continuing the search, I found this:
I also learned that the Maya believe hornets/wasps learn the hut owner’s scent and leave them alone….but may go after visitors. Interesting. Hornets generally do leave people alone….unless they mess with them. There was one story of my childhood where one of the neighborhood kids thought it would be funny to poke a hornet’s nest. Um-hmm….you can guess what happened…hornets mad as hell swarmed him. They had to get a hose to get them off. Yep, he never did that again…
I found this interesting blog on hornet nest destruction. Apparently, bears will tackle anything. This site is pretty interesting with discussions on biodiversity. Someone posted a video on biodiversity but it advocates eco-tourism, and setting aside small tracts of land for preservation. I think both of these ideas send the wrong message. Tourism is tourism and the more people that trample the ground, disturbing the wildlife, the more stress they bring to resources and the life forms there–not to mention more pollution by using motorized vehicles. I shake my head at folks who drive up in SUV’s to the parks….the irony seems lost on them on the damage their vehicles cause by consuming gas and polluting with exhaust, which are destroying the nature that they seek.
And the setting aside tracts of land is a noble idea–but in my view, it absolves the rest of the occupants of the land their responsibility to take care of the land they’re on. In other words, it’s like they’re saying “we have this land over here that is being preserved, therefore, you can pollute the hell out of the other land that isn’t in the preserve.” It’s still missing the HUGE point that we cannot separate the land by lines….as much as we have been brainwashed into thinking that it is possible to do just that.
Water runoff polluted with pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified forms, mercury, etc., will migrate from the unprotected land to the protected land. Toxic air will flow over the protected land. There is no way to keep a tract of land pristine while the land surrounding it is poisoned. Just like we see with the nuclear accident in Japan–what happens in one area affects another that has nothing to do with it. We have to see that everything we do affects another–to take care.
Another link someone posted is something near and dear to my heart–natural water filtration a la natural swimming pools. Pretty cool, eh? Last one in is a rotten egg! 🙂
Also, there is a thread on endangered invertebrates. Interesting read.
Michael Twitty has a link up to a piece on soul food. I like how he characterizes it as not necessarily West African, but a food of an enslaved people.
I recently made collard greens with chicken fat to flavor it….and I couldn’t believe the difference in taste. It took the bitterness out and added something sweet to it. I also put in chopped garlic cloves. Yum.
A member of the mercury support group posted a link to this video:
Another member questioned this guy’s assertions, because it seems like he is promoting his website and services and trying to scare people. Good Grief, I wouldn’t be able to eat anything according to this guy. He also fails to mention toxins in the body, and specificallly, heavy metal poisoning, which causes many of the autoimmune symptoms. And he doesn’t advocate for organic food consumption as a way to regain one’s health.
He doesn’t state whether he has additional training with a degree in nutrition, as Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride does, so I’m not as inclined to believe all of his assertions.
Rice is allowed on the GAPS diet, but I react to it. Same with corn. It’s an individual thing that everyone has to figure out for themselves. I get a tell-tale red rash around my neck (redneck, heh) that shows up when I eat something that causes my body to react.
I do agree with his assertions that gastrointestinal symptoms are not the most prominent symptoms, as I did not have huge symptoms there, but do have more of the neurological with the migraines and such.
National Sustainable Agricultural Association has this action alert up on the latest fight for your food, family farms, and organic farms. Again, we have corporate interests battling against….well, stuff that benefits the average person…..like clean air, water, and chemical free food.
Not to mention the diseases sure to come with the filthy practices of the factory farms. (A side note~ chicken manure IS worth some money, if left to season. It’s one of the best fertilizers out there. And natural to boot.)
From the link:
Carole Morison: Perdue showed up on the farm when the Food, Inc. film crew was here. When the company finally figured out who was visiting, we received a letter threatening contract termination for “violating bio-security.” Their threat stemmed from me not having people sign a log book that the company had placed on our farm to monitor our visitors.
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Oh.My.God. Can you say Big Brother? I knew that you could. Violating bio-security? Seriously? bwahahahahaha, that’s rich! How do they figure “security” is involved? “Security” is the new “cloak” word—something to hide behind when you want to coerce people to do something against their better instincts….
And this is yet another example of the Too Big Too Fail as a way to monopolize a market–the detrimental aspects are seen with bullying these farmers to give into their demands “or else”, to unhealthy practices that most folks would find appalling if they knew, to the environmental impact of upsetting the ecology by having so many chickens crammed into such a small space.
And speaking of monopolizing the market, my blog here on Senators who voted against GMO labeling, links to gut inflammation, etc.
Eagle 
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