I heart Valerie Plame

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Valerie Plame was on CNN talking with Wolf Blitzer a little while ago.  I tried to locate her interview on their site…but it’s nowhere on there and I’m too tired to look deeper for it.

She talked about the newest revelation of the CIA operative in Iran…who disappeared while on assignment.  She said the analyst who sent him there had no business doing so.  A further explanation on CBS stated that three analysts were fired after his disappearance.

Plame stated that since 9/11, the defense dept has been overtaken by defense contractors.  She named the amount, but I forget how much– a large amount, though.  She is all for cutting the amount of defense contractors to shrink the dept back to manageable size. (paraphrasing)

Watch your back, Valerie.  John F. Kennedy had the same thoughts….

 

Tell the USDA No GMO apples

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organic consumers has this up on the latest nonsensical bioengineered frankenfood product…

…because it makes soooo much sense to bioengineer an apple not to turn brown…

Anybody else have deja vu about Alar??

From the story:

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….

<sigh>

Washington State Judge rules against Charters

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Well, this is welcome news–a judge has ruled that public funds cannot be used for charters under private management.  Yes!!  A win for public schools!

Staley, Farmer’s Advocate

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I found this while looking up farmers for the previous blog.  I thought it was a great historical piece.  He died in 1988….seems like yesterday, but now 25 years past.

Now the only ones with power are Big Ag factory farms.  Why is it that we have no enforcement of antitrust laws??  Can someone tell me?

The History of Land Grabs

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This post by Gene Logsdon is powerful.  It’s personal, too, as I thought of losing my home and how devastating that was…

Logsdon mentions the Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith; I couldn’t find the exact author Logsdon mentions for the Highland Clearances, but I found this and this that seem to be the same subject.

It was stunning to read Logsdon’s piece on it and how often this has been used as a tool for the wealthy to grab even more for themselves.  I thought back to the years I was growing up and how farmers were portrayed as backwards, slow, less sophisticated…and now I wonder at this being planned..

Feminist scholars made  a connection between the Puritan Salem witch hunts and wealth.  They stated that the women who were hanged were either poor which means low regard in the community, or they were single wealthy women whom owned land.  This was significant then because women could not outright own land–they had to inherit it from their fathers or husbands.  So the women owning land were a huge threat to the status quo.  Land means power…and it came with rights not afforded to the ones without land.

Also, there was a prejudice against the single status of the wealthy women, because women who were married and wealthy were able to escape the noose….while the single ones were not.

The portrayal of farmers as hayseeds, something to look down upon reminded me of what they did with the women after World War II. (as a side note~ I found this amusing blog on the war propaganda.)  It’s really stunning how much public opinion can be swayed against our better instincts and interests.  One of the things I have read from the Depression survivors is that they didn’t go hungry because many were still in the country and could raise their own food.  Now we’re “citified” and don’t have the resources to raise our own food….thereby more dependent on the food stamp program.  Ironic, isn’t it??

In addition, I have to wonder at the web of how much this has contributed to climate change–not only adding more toxins to the environment by industry, but by cutting us off from the land–harder to see how we are destroying the environment when we don’t feel as connected to it, eh?

U.S. wetlands in danger

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80,000 acres have been lost. 

“While they comprise less than 10 percent of the nation’s land area, they support 75 percent of our migratory birds, nearly 80 percent of fish and shellfish, and almost half of our threatened and endangered species. We can’t sustain native wildlife for future generations without protecting and restoring the coastal wetlands that support them,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe.

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A commenter from Florida says 60% of their wetlands have been lost.

A depressing aspect is that some would like to attach a monetary value to the wetlands.  In my view, there isn’t any way to adequately do such a thing.  It’s priceless.  When it’s gone, we are too.  And when I say “we”  I mean every living thing–the fish, the birds, the no-see-ums…all those things that are connected.

And this article doesn’t even take into account the pollution of plastic, mercury, and other toxins to the remaining wetlands.

…our “kidneys” are failing because of our neglect and lack of proactive life changes.  It’s so haaard to make adjustments. /snarky and whiny, for sure.