Category Archives: voters

Leaving a Mark

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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.

Senators who voted against GMO labeling

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(**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.

Silencing Teachers

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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.

 

Making a silk purse…

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…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.

 

Manning trial starts today

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(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.

Energy regulation

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CSPAN featured Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of Federal Energy Regulatory  Commission.  Politico has this up.

A couple of callers commented on Wellinghoff’s demeanor.  He seemed to be no-nonsense.  He was formerly a consumer energy advocate.  It seemed that he was pro-consumer…but I couldn’t shake a bad feeling I had…

…he mentioned fracking as a viable practice for extracting natural gas at least two or three times during the short interview…and my heart began to sink…

He barely mentioned off grid and solar power, although when he did mention it, it was in a positive light.  What I would like to see is federal support for off grid classes in communities.  Let people create their own power for their needs, instead of huge coal plants and monstrous pipelines that spill oil (something else he said he was for.)

I hope that I’m wrong, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s going towards the fracking industry.  He kept repeating that it could be done in an environmentally sound way.  Bullshit.

A woman caller had the same sentiment as me when she revealed that she is suffering from breast cancer due to methane gas released from fracking.  She said that he was feeding people a line and that her own governor was selling her state out from under the people.  (Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the state.)

Wellinghoff would not back down and repeated that fracking could be done in an environmentally friendly way. <sigh> So…another former consumer advocate has been bought off…

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Speaking of pipelines….

Why am I hearing about this after the fact?  Where was public radio BEFORE this took place?

And the Save the Dunes group apparently knew about it but, hey, as long as Enbridge *cough* promises to not spill any of its nasty ole’ oil into our rivers, lakes, and streams, hey, it’s okay with them….because, you know, Enbridge has such a stellar history of concern for the environment and the people and animals that inhabit it.  /very snarky, indeed.

From the article:

“IDEM, through its certification, is allowing Enbridge to disregard alternate pipeline routes and other opportunities to reduce and eliminate water quality impacts, in likely violation of the Clean Water Act,” said Kim Ferraro, staff attorney at the Hoosier Environmental Council.

Both Michigan and Illinois have laws governing interstate pipeline routing, requiring companies to assess environmental and community risks, but currently Indiana does not.

Good Grief….my head is about to explode…

 

 

 

Why Detroit Matters

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I’m bopping around the web this morning reading up on Detroit….I just can’t get the dumping of petroleum coke out of my mind.

Whatever happens to Detroit happens to all of us….

Here’s a piece up on a refinery fire…by Marathon…where the residents were not even told what was going on.  It is just unconscionable that these folks were not told what was going on and that some were evacuated but others across the street were not.

This piece spouts the pro-corporate view that anything that supports the environment is bad for business.  Tell me, what good is business if so many are sick or even dead because of toxic overload?  Who will be left to buy your product?

From the article:

The document claims city planners fail to take into consideration that Metro Detroit’s poor and minority neighborhoods are already deluged with excessive pollution and contaminated industrial, commercial, and hazardous waste sites.

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Claims of “environmental injustice” (and environmental racism) are little more than catch phrases used by green activists to draw attention to the purportedly disproportionate negative effects of pollution in poor and minority communities. The accusation is that federal, state, and local governments have conspired to permit more pollution in impoverished black communities than in affluent ones.

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He goes on to say that there are the same health problems in more affluent neighborhoods.  He thinks the problem is their lifestyle rather than the toxic environment.  I think that’s too simplistic as it doesn’t take in the whole picture.  It is known that mercury damages a person’s DNA.  So…if the parents of affluent African Americans were poor and lived in these more toxic areas, being exposed to lead and mercury and arsenic, their DNA will be affected and pass that on to their children.  It gets worse with each generation.  Also, toxins do not stay in a particular geographical area, although it will be more concentrated in that area, it will drift, and also cause health issues (on a lesser scale) to those in affluent neighborhoods.

As far as environmental racism…it is a well known occurrence.  Probably should be better categorized as environmental “poor-ism” because it’s done towards the poor.  I say this with the thought in mind that it does not follow blacks whom have moved into more affluent neighborhoods.  Perhaps one can say that it is because whites also share that neighborhood.  Well….I guess you could say that, BUT then whites also share the poor neighborhoods with blacks….which leads me to conclude that it is against the poor rather than exclusively against blacks.

The last line about the gov’t allowing the poor to bear the brunt of toxins ignores the above~~you don’t see the petroleum coke being dumped on the Koch’s front lawn, do you?  When that happens, you can tell me that gov’t officials have not discriminated against the poor.

I notice that the author was once a commissioner….so I am left to wonder whether he, in his official capacity, willfully went along with poisoning the poor and is now trying to justify it?

On to the financial woes of Detroit, I found some interesting articles.

This one details the bad news. Note that they’re going after unions.  HUGE RED FLAG that Disaster Capitalism and ALEC are in the midst.  (related to this is a strike by fast food workers to form unions.)

This article on Slate paints a different picture of the stuff going on behind the scenes.  Note the link to the NY Times’ article on Dan Gilbert trying to make a fortune rebuilding the city…

The article talks about the cityscape with abandoned houses, empty spaces after demolition of houses, and the population dwindling from 2 million down to 700,000.    When reading that Gilbert’s solution is to bring business in, to spur people walking the streets (shoppers)…and it strikes me that there is so much opportunity here….but it feels like trying to fix the problem with the same old, same old…

With all the demolished houses…what about the urban farmer?  I know that would be difficult if the ground were polluted, as Detroit seems to be the dumping ground, but if the soil were not toxic, why not encourage that? It would help those in the inner cities to feed themselves as well as sell produce to earn income.

Why not encourage planting of trees to help the air quality?  As I blogged before, we need to include nature into our plans and stop ignoring the impact we have on nature and the colossal impact nature has on us.

It also ignores the devastating impact that Big Box stores have had on our local economies.  Walmart moves in….independent small businesses die…and entire downtowns are destroyed…not only do the businesses die, but our feeling of connectedness dies with them…

 

Mommy, the IRS is picking on me!!

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Really, the repub party should go from the “party of NO’ to the “party of whine”.  Good God, can they play the victim…

They were seeking approval to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This would require them to be “social welfare,” not political, operations. There are significant advantages to being a 501(c)(4). These groups don’t pay taxes; they don’t have to disclose their donors—unlike traditional political organizations, such as political-action committees. In return for the tax advantage and the secrecy, the 501(c)(4) organizations must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates.

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Since when is asking questions “singling-out” someone?  Asking questions is the IRS’s job.  And the last line of the above quote is enough to revoke their tax exempt status.

George Will is trying to compare this to Watergate.  Seriously?? How lame.

If Republicans had controlled both houses of Congress in 1973, Nixon would have completed his term. If Democrats controlled both today, the Obama administration’s lawlessness would go uninvestigated.

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Committee members of Watergate- Senate:  three repubs on it.

A brief on the Watergate affair.

On CSPAN this morning, they had Jenny Martin, the CEO of Tea Party Patriots.  She was playing the victim well–without really offering any hard evidence of the accusations of the IRS…even when asked for specifics by a caller.  I listened carefully to her mini-speeches, and once when she began to divulge what actually occurred, she caught herself and went back to “safe mode” without giving the details.  Hmmm….

Meanwhile, when the point was made that the IRS has been inundated by groups  applying for tax exempt status, so there was possibly a backlog AND good reason to scrutinize these groups that don’t want to pay taxes.  (The irony here is that the Tea Party is all about reducing government workers, but it would appear that the backlog is created because of a lack of skilled workers to process them…)

It is clear that Tea Party Patriots is a political group and they promote their political causes aggressively…so why shouldn’t the IRS ask them pointed questions about their fundraising and their activities??  If you want to avoid taxes, you’d better be prepared to answer some questions.

(Gah, I never in a million years thought I’d be sticking up for the IRS.  Lord knows they’ve used their strong arm tactics on me–when I lost my house, they actually wanted to charge me for taking a profit(!!) and then when I owed a measily $200 (and didn’t have the money to pay them) they threatened to take what was left after the crash and burn. I did eventually pay it off in installments. but it was difficult at that point in time. )