Archive for April, 2009

The Future of Food

April 29th, 2009


It’s Up To You. That’s the last line in The Future of Food, a film that documents a serious threat to all people of the world: will we continue to have free choice to grow and consume diverse foods, or only food controlled by a few huge corporations motivated primarily by profits rather than producing quality, healthful foods?

Monsanto, one of the most aggressive mega-corporations, has been steadily gaining control of the food supply in county after country. Monsanto buys politicians with huge campaign contributions for legislation that gives it special privileges and tax subsidies for its crops.
Monsanto influences research by major donations to universities. It even powerhoused court decisions to reverse legal limits of patents on life itself, and subsequent court decisions ruling in favor of its genetically modified plant technology, against independent growers and consumers who prefer to avoid GMO foods.

And with its enormous clout, it uses those patent laws to put small farmers and seed cleaners out of business, eliminating competitors and sources of heritage, non-GMO seed stocks in the world.
The first line of defense is information. We have to know of threats to our basic needs in order to act. The information in this film is vital to your family and to us all. Watch it here. – CW

Flu bugs and your heath

April 28th, 2009


Your bacterial cells outnumber your
human cells 10 to 1 — and that’s a good thing.
I’m old enough to remember the last swine flue “epidemic.” Government health agencies raised the alarm, rushing to vaccinate as many people as were willing.

In the aftermath 1 person died of flu, but 29 died from complications of the vaccine. It is irresponsible of the health industry to tout its products without mentioning their side effects; and often those side effects are worse than the condition they’re supposed to relieve.
Remember, we live in a beneficial bacterial bubble that protects us against viruses and bad guy bacteria. The rare viruses that do get past our barriers mutate so rapidly that vaccines and drugs can’t keep up, so they’re usually ineffective.

This interview with health research Gary Null and Dr. Howard Robins offers a spectrum of preventive or recovery care that you can use to stay healthy.
And this video with Princeton microbiologist Bonnie Bassler is an enjoyable peek at recent laboratory research into our bacterial partners and foes. The trend in science is to work better with bacteria rather than thinking we can or should simply try to eradicate them.

Two Big Secrets Our Government Never Told Us

April 26th, 2009

Big bureaucracies like the post office never delivered state-of-art service, because monopolies lack consequences for poor performance. We grumbled but still trusted clumsy bureaucracies to look out for us. Then Intelligence failed to warn of 9-11, the US Army Corps of Engineers’ New Orleans levees broke, bureaucratic response after Katrina was horrific, we got mired in unending wars on countries that never threatened us, and all of the highly-paid government economists and our representative got it wrong and tanked our economy.

Big Secret Number One
For decades the run-up to the economic crisis was hidden from us by the people we elected to watchdog our interests.

Since 1913 the secretive Federal Reserve Bank had monopoly control of US money and credit. Severe depression, multiple bubbles, and recessions happened under the Fed’s control, but generations of Congress demanded no accounting of this private cartel.

Finally, legislative bill HR1207 now seeks to audit the Fed’s spending, to find out where trillions of our money has gone.

You can help find out; telephone or email your representative. Tell him/her to support HR1207 because you want no more secrets.
The Congressional Switchboard is: 1-877-851-6437, just ask to be connected with your rep’s office. We pay them to listen and to work for us.

Since Congress ignored the American people who overwhelmingly said NO to bailouts, we must put far more pressure on our representatives, or find new reps who will support the people.

Big Secret Number Two
Way back in 1999, leading fluoride authority Hardy Limeback (B.Sc., Ph.D in Biochemistry, C.C.S., head of the Department of Preventive Dentistry for the University of Toronto, and president of the Canadian Association for Dental Research) apologized for previously championing fluoride added to public water.

“For the past 15 years I had refused to study the toxicology information that is readily available to anyone. Poisoning our children was the furthest thing from my mind,” he told an assembly of faculty and students at the University of Toronto.

Interviewed in the US, he said, “The vast majority of all fluoride additives come from Tampa Bay, Florida smokestack scrubbers. The additives are a toxic byproduct of the super-phosphate industry. Tragically, we’re not just dumping toxic fluoride into our drinking water; we’re also exposing unsuspecting people to deadly elements of lead, arsenic, and radium.”

Dr. Limeback found that regular ingestion of fluoride alters the basic architecture of human bones, making them weaker and brittle. He points out, cities that never fluoridated — in Canada and all across the industrialized world — have cavity rates lower than in cities with fluoridation.

But a decade after Dr. Limeback’s announcement, the Food and Drug Administration has given no warning to consumers, and American municipalities still fluoridate water. It’s another example of careless or corrupt bureaucracy favoring corporate profits and political payoffs over public welfare.

To regain our rights, citizens must push back a bureaucratic elite grown too big and powerful. Unlike recent generations, we can do our own research on the internet and begin taking responsibility away from inept, authoritarian bureaucrats.

Here’s a candid interview with Dr. Limeback, and one of his articles, with footnotes.

Earth Day and every day — the Gift and giving back

April 23rd, 2009


The earth is a gift that all of us get to open each day of our lives.
And every day we find new beauty, infinite possibilities. But we humans are earth’s young ones, just learning to use its gifts. We stumble often, hurting the earth and ourselves.

Each of us can take responsibility to use the gifts of the earth well. Small acts of peace and beauty day by day will nurture neighborhoods, build gardens, bridges, a free and peaceful country, a bountiful world. Start with yourself, show the way, and the world will follow.

In his photosYann Arthus-Bertrand’s shares wonder and love for the earth; to see more photos from his book The Earth From Above, click here.

Earth day

April 22nd, 2009

We are blessed. Happy Earth Day 2009