Aaron Swartz

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I found this interesting post on Aaron Swartz, which raises more questions than it answers…

I found another post on this site Saturday, but couldn’t find it again looking today.  It mentioned a post by Marcy Wheeler on what was going on with Aaron Swartz and his suicide after being hounded by authorities.  (Be sure to click on the NY Times link, which explains a little better.)  More here.

This chills one to the bone.  And what exactly was he downloading that caused such concern?  The articles dance around it. Anyway, Aaron Swartz believed that the information out there that was paid for by taxpayers deserved to be easily accessed–that is, without paying high $$ to join JSTOR or any other program to gain access.  It was noted that many documents are being electronically copied with limited access to the public.  This is incredibly disturbing, as everyone knows that Information is Power. And knowledge can inform the American citizen what their government is doing. (This is why stuff like Kindle worry me–taking information off of physical books and putting them in electronic gadgets that require a battery and software to view is dangerous in that if either of those fail to work, the information is inaccessible.  One can easily see how this can turn into denial of information–book burning a la the information age.)

The thing is…Swartz had legal access to the information, via Harvard!  He had the legal right to access. He was trying to make a point that the copyright laws protected electronic information that the taxpayers paid for, but were denied access to.  Now, think of the library books one checks out…they are copyrighted materials, but one can still access the information via a library card.  I think Swartz was applying those same principles to his providing this information.  Note that JSTOR refused to prosecute him once they learned he had legal access.

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Beyond Vietnam

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Susie Madrak has a post up on MLK’s birthday celebration.  This is my view, too, on how everybody brings up “I Have a Dream” speech, and then fail to acknowledge his “Beyond Vietnam” speech (which he gave a year to the day before his murder).

He was expanding from the Civil Rights protests towards protesting the condition of the poor and of the terrible consequences of war.  This was more of a threat to the status quo than anything he had done prior.  Indeed, even his friends that had supported him during the Civil Rights era were abandoning him when he started advocating for the poor and protesting against war.  According to those that knew him, he never felt so alone.

He knew that advocating those positions was dangerous.

And he did it anyway….

 

A good option?

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As I was walking the other day, I thought about the states that legalized marijuana in the past election…and something about it bugged me.

Something that David Crosby said in a 60s documentary popped into my head:  while talking about the positives of the peace movement of the 60s, he remarked that cocaine had been the downfall of it all.

Whenever I see repubs suddenly change their opinions in a 180 degree direction, it gets my attention.  A few of them have been advocating legalization of small amounts of pot in this conservative area…another reason to question their motives.

Now, you can call me a conspiracy theorist (wouldn’t be the first time), but there is something going on….and I don’t know about you, but I could see pot doing the same thing as cocaine did—stopping a positive movement by messing with people’s cognitive function.  I’m not sure of all the effects of pot, but that is one of them, along with possible lung cancer and heart issues.  I’m not looking down my nose, mind you, I tried it when I was seventeen. (I’m one of those who wonder what all the fuss was about–it really did nothing for me).

I’m just putting this out there because I think it needs to be said.  I mean, I look at Timothy Leary, and see him as an under-the-radar drug pusher.  I was pretty young when he was in his element of “Tune in, turn on, drop out” (or whatever version), but had the opportunity to revisit his mindset again when I started in college in the 90s.  We read a bit of his assertions back in the day –he had used scare tactics, much as the conservatives are using now, to advocate for LSD and other drug legalization–saying that there would be agents in helicopters hunting down people using drugs and other scare tactics.

And I don’t get the videotaping his death…ego?  Pfft.  I don’t want to be videotaped, I want to go quietly, just me going to God.  And I don’t even want a headstone—I like what my aunt did–she had her ashes spread over San Francisco Bay.    After I’m gone, I hope that there will be people around to remember me…but if not, no stupid headstone and no video of me will truly speak of who I was and what I did while here….

(A side note–and this may or may not have anything to do with Leary, but he had a wife and daughter commit suicide.  So much for finding happiness in drugs.)

So…I guess this post is about a warning not to repeat the same mistakes of the 60s….

 

 

 

 

More compelling evidence…

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Good Grief, how many children/adults have to suffer?

Why isn’t the evidence is for public viewing.?  Pretty evident that Big Pharma is culpable, and getting away with it because if you can keep the information from being in the public sphere, more folks will be unaware and less likely to realize their child or their selves have symptoms caused by vaccination.  And as this story illustrates, the court cases can have motion after motion filed and be dragged on for years, and only someone of means could afford to pay an attorney to fight their case.  In other words, more profits for Big Pharma…

Exploring the link between diet and health

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I wanted to explore the health factors that indicate heavy metal poisoning and the African Americans.

I found this link on BET.  Diabetes can be caused by heavy metal poisoning, and high blood pressure is linked to the adrenals and kidneys which can be severely affected by heavy metal toxicity, therefore, affecting blood pressure. And, of course, heavy metal poisoning is closely associated with autistic symptoms.  I say “symptoms” because I’m not sure that the poisoning causes autism, but it most definitely causes autistic symptoms, as has been my experience.

Here’s another site.  I’ve come across a couple of websites geared towards the African American link to autism, but they are exploring the issue of comparison between whites and blacks being diagnosed later.  I’m trying to get away from that because it’s not helpful.  It is not going towards the issue itself of autism and the possible causes behind it.  It’s upsetting to me because the blanket statement that whites get diagnosed sooner than blacks is not my experience, nor others who also diagnosed themselves.   I, a white person, was not diagnosed by any damn doctor, after years of low thyroid, adrenal issues, chronic fatigue, migraines, and the symptoms of autism of wanting to be left alone, wanting to stay in my house and never leave it, diminishing communication skills, memory loss, hyperfocusing, exaggerated startle response, etc.

When I searched for a link with African Americans and heavy metal poisoning, I again came up empty.

I searched “chronic fatigue and African Americans and found this.  As I read the paragraph:

Psychosocial variables may influence the experience of chronic fatigue, especially in individuals of color. Overarching psychosocial realities such as the endemic nature of ethnic/racial discrimination and the complexity of the acculturation process may bear on the experience of fatigue. This study evaluated whether the acculturation process was related to chronic fatigue and racism among African Americans and Latinos. While associations among the predicted variables were not statistically significant, distinct divisions among levels of acculturation appeared between African Americans and Latinos. Membership in a community of color likely increases the complexity of the experience of chronic fatigue in a manner that requires further investigation.

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Okay, what I’m reading from this is that the psychobabble is stating that chronic fatigue is a psychological problem.  Pfft.  Yep, they’ve been telling women that for decades…didn’t even acknowledge that it was a true physical condition until very recently.  These women were just lazy and hypochrondriacs who needed to get a life, when in reality they were the first to suffer the effects of low thyroid and adrenal fatigue from a toxic environment.

Reading this website, the symptom onset after a traumatic event, either physical or emotional, with the compromised immune system is a red flag for an inflamed gut from Celiac or gluten intolerance.  It’s the final straw that breaks the body. I have issues with the link to the psychological, although stress does affect the immune system, I don’t think it’s the cause of it.  It’s too convenient to blame psychological stress than to explore things such as heavy metal toxicity and/or leaky gut. It’s been proven that gluten intolerance can cause psychological symptoms, and this has been known since before WWII.  Therefore, the psychological stuff comes *after* the leaky gut or whatever physical issue is beleaguering the body, not necessarily the other way around.

As a side note, I found this link.  I had forgotten about the Gulf War syndrome being the first serious acknowledgement that chronic fatigue was an actual physical ailment and not psychological.  And the link between Gulf War syndrome and vaccines should not be ignored.

From the website:

“Despite these agreements between FDA and DoD, and DoD’s official subsequent decision to administer the vaccine voluntarily, many PGW veterans claim that they were not told what vaccine they were being given, or what the risks were, either orally or in writing. Many report that they were told not to tell medical personnel that they had received a vaccination, even if the vaccination caused pain or swelling. No record of the vaccine was available in medical records; as a result, physicians who were concerned about any local or systemic reactions were uninformed about the possible causes. Veterans who claim they were harmed by the vaccine or pyridostigmine frequently have no proof that they were vaccinated or took the pills, or that they had an adverse reaction. Moreover, virtually none of the soldiers received more than two of the botulism vaccinations, even though DoD informed FDA they would administer the three shots necessary for protection…

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So, folks…you should run right out and get that flu vaccine.  Run! NOW!

 

North Haven, Connecticut

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I came back to look at the Cluster link…and North Haven, Connecticut caught my eye.  I wondered how close it was to Newtown.

From the Cluster website:

Researchers have doubled the scope of their investigation into brain cancer cases at a jet-engine manufacturing company and are requesting another two years and an additional $4 million to complete the work. This study was prompted by the deaths of at least several dozen workers from the same rare, very fast-growing form of brain cancer. The study initially had been expected to look at the medical and work records of about 100,000 current and former workers. But that number increased to 200,000 during routine searches of company records, said a biostatistician at the University of Pittsburgh who is conducting a portion of the research. The due-date for the study is 2008, but researchers now want to push back the completion deadline to 2010.

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I looked at the distance between the two cities: about 42 miles…close enough to possibly affect them?

When I looked up Newtown contamination, I found this. <sigh>

These piles are contaminated with high levels of metals including cadmium, lead, tin, chromium, copper, zinc, and nickel, as well as PCBs.

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…the only one missing is mercury, but the article does mention that it was a site of aluminum smelting.

So…you have poisons giving people brain cancer and 40 miles away, you have the toxic soup further messing with brain function, if they were lucky enough not to become sick (at least noticeably sick, i.e., cancer).  But many others will likely suffer from chronic fatigue, low thyroid/adrenal function, ADD, memory loss, and on…and they won’t likely be counted.  It’s sooo much easier to ignore a problem when you only count those most severely affected, and not the overall decline of health of many others….and if someone commits a horrible crime because of those toxins…

The susceptibility to disease

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I was thinking about my post here over the weekend, and thought I should expand on it.  I write what I know (which is what they tell you), but perhaps I was being myopic.

I did a search on susceptibility and African Americans, but had very few articles to choose from.  I found this. 

Here are some of the issues I have with this article–

One is that pollution stays in one place, so it affects just the nearest geographical area.   It spreads all over.  Articles on it here and here and here.

Air pollution in FW is particularly bad–there were many, many ozone days last summer where I could not go outside for any length of time.  I thought I could at least jog in the morning of an ozone day, but was sadly mistaken when I started wheezing as I climbed the stairs to my apartment afterward.

The lung disease thing I am confused about because in my building, the only folks with oxygen tanks are whites–several of them.  And nearly all the ones in wheelchairs are white.  At one time, there have been seven whites in wheelchairs, several more using walkers  but only one black gentleman in a wheelchair.  Just my own little world….

I suspect that heavy metals are affecting African Americans, but like whites, are not being noticed or investigated.  The information may be out there, but I didn’t see it in my research.  I would love to explore this more.

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And no, I don’t think that nuclear energy is the answer (if one wants to reduce coal production to lessen the impact of lead, arsenic and mercury in the environment).  Nuclear has many, many problems, one of which is thyroid cancer levels go up around nuclear power plants.  I think one of the first things that has to occur is for Americans to stop wasting so much energy and going off grid would be the first step–one has to be more conscious of the energy they use if they are responsible for that energy. Another step would be to build sustainable housing, like earth ships. Gotta love that name.  And I love the design on this page—Isn’t that cool? Who would think such an artsy design is also sustainable?

A paper here by Joseph Mangano on the rising thyroid cancer rates and nuclear energy. (PDF)

A map on disease clusters here.

Yep, the evidence is out there that we are killing ourselves with the toxic environment.  I’d rather sacrifice a little and be able to breathe than have the conveniences of modern life that are killing us, slowly.

A trail of bullets…

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C.J.Chivers of the New York Times had this up over the weekend–a post on ammunition being supplied to Africa.  I thought I’d post it because of the focus on Africa.  Perhaps it’s just me, but it seems that Africa is becoming a focal point…or perhaps it was always there, but ignored?

Anyway, I thought that it’s striking that a lot is said about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but not of small arms ammunition and shipping it to other countries.

The question one has to ask is…why?  What do they hope to gain?  Is it for their political benefit or just plain guns profits?