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.
Teacher under Construction has this up on a documentary by a student asking the same questions that conscientious parents, teachers, and the public who care about education are asking.
“Why do people tell me to think outside the box when they barely ever let me out of it….??”
~~~~~~~
….out of the mouths of babes…
This is funny….and yet….
“Relentless standardized testing is the ONLY WAY to stop children from learning to think for themselves….
….the children must ALL be taught to think ALIKE…they must not ask questions or use their imaginations…”
~~~~~~~
I posted these links in a comment on Diane Ravitch’s blog yesterday, but they are still awaiting moderation….so I thought I’d post them here:
Bill Clinton’s Big Ideas for education. Note the mention of Eli Broad in the audience.
From the article:
One of his big ideas for U.S. education: “We have to move toward somewhat local operational control but a national commitment to a longer school year, better trained and better paid teachers, to principals and superintendents who can actually be held accountable for results
~~~~~~~~~~
What the hell does that mean? Oh, I forgot for a second that he’s a politician speaking doublespeak….let’s try to deconstruct, shall we?
“local operational control for a national commitment” = we have to be sure we have toadies willing to foist this crap onto the kids even when it’s evident that it is detrimental to them, by holding onto tax dollars paid by the public and not releasing them until these schools follow our mandates.
“better trained” = teachers that are pressured into teaching to the test so that their kids will pass (and not feel like idiots) so their school won’t “fail” and be closed…..to reopen with for charter profiteers.
“better paid” = bwahahahahahahaha
“principals and superintendents who can be held accountable” = what does “held accountable” mean, anyway? By what standards? Who decides? Gates? Broad? Clinton? Rhee?
Bill Gates and Clinton Global Initiative.
Note the Big Brother aspect of videotaping teachers….always done with a positive twist–to “improve” the teachers’ performance. Um-hmmm….to monitor the teachers to ensure that they teach only the rigid No Child Left a Mind.
And the final sentence says it all:
It is startling, however, to hear Gates state so bluntly the power of teachers.
He is concerned that they may be able to thwart his plans. And Gates isn’t someone who is used to being thwarted.
~~~~~~~~~~
Joanne Barkan’s excellent piece that I’ve posted before but bears repeating.
More news from Diane: Eli Broad secretly funded anti-public school, and anti-union initiatives. I see that Broad has the politician doublespeak down: he publicly states he is for something, but then he funds efforts against that very thing. Yep–keep people off balance and questioning, that’s the key. Note that Gov. Brown felt compelled to be “nice” to Michelle Rhee to keep in good favor with Eli Broad to get the tax increase passed. That’s how they work it, folks….kiss the toad and he just might turn into a prince….
This is also more proof that these folks are not paying enough in taxes if they have this kind of money to throw around….and why Citizens United needs to be overturned.
Someone posted this quote:
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Absolutely, Dr. King. Absolutely. And the ability to think critically with creativity with character is not going to be had with a for-profit school run by hedge fund managers who see kids as machines to be built with little regard for humanity, democracy, and potential.
This is sobering news. Note that the article doesn’t go into diet, but if GMO’s were introduced in the 90s, and strokes started increasing at that time….is anyone going to look into the connection?
Also, colorectal cancer has increased in youth at the rate of 13% from 1992-2005. The article goes for the easy blame of fast food….without exploring the GMO connection or toxic environment. I’m not saying that fast food isn’t a factor, because it is not healthy, but they need to go more deeply.
Also, neither of these articles explore economic factors where the families buy processed food because it’s cheaper, and the family’s health suffers because of it.
Breast cancer rates among the young, and especially young black women, are rising, too–tripling from 1976 to 2009. Red flags all over the place, folks.
For me personally, one of my lumps has shrunk, the other has stayed the same, a little over a year after discovery. Interestingly, I had read somewhere that women with fibrocystic breast disease respond well to iodine. If you recall, last year, about this time, I had three breast lumps and they were increasing in size. After increasing my iodine, one disappeared and the other stayed the same size.
Within the mercury poisoning group, there is great debate about low thyroid and iodine. Some folks are adamantly against iodine, saying if one has Hashimoto’s (which I suspect I have because it is autoimmune and goes with Celiac), that iodine will make it worse. That hasn’t been my experience. With the shrinking breast lumps, I would say that my intuition has been right in increasing the iodine.
Mercury interferes with iodine absorption. the Barium sprayed from chem trails interferes with iodine absorption. These are most likely factors in the increases in cancer, since the thyroid is a master gland controlling nearly every important body function, from the pituitary to the adrenals, to the gut, to brain function. This is serious stuff, and messing with the environment is coming around to bite us in the arse.
Apparently, there is a square knish shortage due to a factory fire in New York. I had no idea what a knish was until this piece, so thanks for enlightening this writer. It sounds yummy.
~~~~~~~~~
In other food blogs is Michael Twitty’s piece on the life of a slave. A great glimpse into history we don’t usually read about. It’s well written–puts the reader into the daily struggle for them. I was thinking when he wrote about catching the fish, that the fish must have tasted so good being caught in non-polluted waters. And even though the work was hard, it must have been nice to work outside in the sunshine….don’t misunderstand me–I know it was very hard, but I personally really enjoyed working on a farm. I even liked it when the rain came down. I would be weeding the old fashioned way of pulling them, and a grasshopper might leap onto a leaf nearby…..or a butterfly come floating past….birds singing….
Diane Ravitch highlights a blog by David Greene.
From the post:
When Hinshaw compared the rollout of these school policies with incidences of A.D.H.D., he found that when a state passed laws punishing or rewarding schools for their standardized-test scores, A.D.H.D. diagnoses in that state would increase not long afterward.
Nationwide, the rates of A.D.H.D. diagnosis increased by 22 percent in the first four years after No Child Left Behind was implemented.
~~~~~~~~~
Bingo. Greene says it’s not a causal, but yeah, I disagree. It’s certainly one of the causes, in addition to toxins in the environment and probably GMO’s.
And it’s not that the kids are suddenly stricken with this subjective “disease”—rather, they are a) made to feel inferior by testing that isn’t really able to define what their brain cells are capable of (potential); and b) put under pressure by teachers and parents who must teach to the test in order for the school to keep from being downgraded to “failing” in order for them to get the money from the Federal gov’t to keep the school open….and do it all again the next six months….
That is a HUGE burden to put on a kid. For shame.
He links to A World Without Privacy by Joe Nocera of the NY Times. He talks of “The Circle” of a hybrid of internet companies like Google, F_cebook, and Twitter and the information they gather. Even if you don’t subscribe to the last two, your privacy can be taken away from you by family members and friends who do use them. That is probably how Nocera’s acquaintances/colleagues were connected to him.
And they say you should not expect privacy in today’s world. I say, unless you express in writing your willingness for someone else to have private information, then, yes, you have an expectation….and a right to privacy. And giving up the right to privacy should not be coerced, as in, you have to click on this agreement to use our website.
Singing praise for judge’s ruling. SWN loses bid to continue injunction.
Drums are not weapons
Songs are not weapons
Here’s a good piece from the Guardian writer Martin Lukacs. He said there has been media coverage of the event…perhaps in Canada, but in the U.S.? Doing a quick search, I only saw one U.S. reference by a blogger. Otherwise….*crickets* It’s pretty telling when you see the nightly news plastered with commercials from BP and other energy companies. All the news that money can buy, folks…
Lukacs makes a good point with how the coverage is slanted towards painting the First Nations people as violent, but not forthcoming with the great harm fracking will cause….and how many people will die from cancer and other diseases caused by the benzene and mercury and other horrible stuff in the chemicals used. And of course, the media fails to mention the resulting earthquakes.
From Lukac’s article:
But Premier David Alward, hell-bent on opening up the province to shale gas, has spurned consultation with First Nations and the rest of the population. His latest step is demonization. “Clearly, there are those who do not have the same values we share as New Brunswickers,” he cynically announced on Friday. But the opposition to the Premier’s shale gas agenda is not just a supposedly isolated Indigenous community: it is two of every three people in Atlantic Canada. Little wonder he has repeatedly rejected a referendum on shale gas. It turns out the residents of Elsipogtog aren’t criminal deviants. They are the frontline of a fight for the democratic and environmental will of New Brunswick
~~~~~~~~~
Now you’re talkin’. The taxpaying public does not want fracking!
Stephen Harper’s history is a little warped, eh? Um, I’m pretty sure there were people here before we ( “we” being Canada and U.S.) before there were lines drawn by the Europeans. And the people here were pretty much organized Nations. They were here for 10,000 years and were much better stewards of the land and water. You could drink from any stream. There was no trash strewn across the land. You could breathe.
Lukacs also brings up the repeated breaking of laws by those in power who then point fingers. Do as I say, not as I do….
The fishing rights battles are eerily similar to the same battles in the U.S. with the Native Americans, having their boats rammed, and state officials created an atmosphere of incitement by showing films of Native Americans fishing in areas to the commercial fisherman who thought it should be theirs. What was truly insulting to the Indigenous was the assertion by the Conservation Officers that the Native Americans would “overfish” the waters…when they had always practiced balance–they never took more than they needed. If anything, it was the commercial fisheries that were destroying the fish populations. The story is told in the book Now that the Buffalo is Gone by Alvin Josephy. Robert Satiacum was jailed for standing up for their rights. Meanwhile, his wife and other women warriors defied the state officials by continuing to fish, using their wits to evade capture. They were eventually caught, but I have to smile to myself in admiration of their wit and courage for fending them off as long as they could.
More pics here of the women warriors.
This was on instagram–a surveillance plane over a Chief’s religious ceremony.
Eagle 
You must be logged in to post a comment.