Have Bees Become Canaries In the Coal Mine? Why Massive Bee Dieoffs May Be a Warning About Our Own Health | | AlterNet

Have Bees Become Canaries In the Coal Mine? Why Massive Bee Dieoffs May Be a Warning About Our Own Health | | AlterNet: Have Bees Become Canaries In the Coal Mine?

Have Bees Become Canaries In the Coal Mine? Why Massive Bee Dieoffs May Be a Warning About Our Own Health By Jill Richardson, AlterNet Posted on February 12, 2012, Printed on February 18, 2012 http://www.alternet.org/story/154039/have_bees_become_canaries_in_the_coal_mine_why_massive_bee_dieoffs_may_be_a_warning_about_our_own_health It's often said that we have bees to thank for one out of every three bites we take of food. In addition to producing honey, honeybees literally criss-cross the United States, pollinating almonds, oranges, melons, blueberries, pumpkins, apples, and more. And while carrots are a biennial root crop that are harvested long before they flower, all carrots are planted from seed, and honeybees pollinate the carrot flowers that produce the seeds. Other species of bees, both social and solitary bees, pollinate other crops. And the populations of all these species of bees are in decline. The decline of bees has been in the headlines for several years, and theories to explain their deaths abound. But perhaps there is not just one single cause. University of California San Diego professor of biology James Nieh studies foraging, communication and health of bees. "I would say it's a combination of four factors; pesticides, disease, parasites, and human mismanagement," says Nieh. Bees might be weakened by having a very low level of exposure to insecticides or fungicides, making them more susceptible if they are attacked by viruses or parasites. "It's kind of like taking a patient who is not doing so well -- very weak, poor diet, exposing them to pathogens, and then throwing more things at them. It's not surprising that honeybees are not very healthy." One class of pesticides, neonicotinoids in particular has received a lot of attention for harming bees. In late 2010, the EPA came under fire from beekeepers and pesticide watchdog organizations. This happened when Colorado beekeeper Tom Theobald spoke out about how the EPA allowed clothianidin to be used without any proof it was safe and despite the fact that the EPA's own scientists believed it "has the potential for toxic risk to honey bees, as well as other pollinators." At that time Theobald had reported losing up to 40 percent of his bees, and now, things are looking even worse. "As a business, I think it's over," he says. "I think my business is no longer viable. I'll continue to keep bees as best I can and may be able to pull off a halfway decent crop for another year or two but the trendline is down and over the edge of a cliff and that's typical of what's going on nationally." A recently published study sheds a little more light on the impact of clothianidin. The study, which focuses on pesticide exposure in bees, looks at two pesticides that are used by treating seeds prior to planting. Each corn seed contains enough pesticide to kill 80,000 honeybees. Once the plant develops, all parts of the plant -- including the pollen collected by bees -- contain lower doses of the pesticide. One of the main revelations of the study is that bees get a hefty dose of these pesticides, clothianidin and thiamethoxam, during spring planting as the seeds are coated in talc to keep them from sticking together and then much of the talc enters the environment either with the seed or behind the planter through its exhaust fan. The study found the pesticides on the soil of fields -- even unplanted fields -- and on nearby weeds, as well as in dead honeybees and in pollen collected by honeybees. Clothianidin is used on both corn and canola in the U.S., and while corn does not rely on honeybees for pollination (it is wind pollinated), the study found that "maize pollen comprised over 50 percent of the pollen collected by bees, by volume, in 10 of 20 samples." Tucked in the middle of the study is a bombshell: "The levels of clothianidin in bee-collected pollen [from treated maize] that we found are approximately 10-fold higher than reported from experiments conducted in canola grown from clothianidin-treated seed." This is significant because the pesticide clothianidin was deemed safe to bees by the EPA following a study of bees exposed to treated canola, a minor crop in the United States. However, according to the study, the pesticide dose bees are exposed to in the U.S. is usually ten times that, as corn (maize) covers more than 137,000 square miles in the U.S. -- an area larger than the state of New Mexico. So even though bees aren't pollinating corn directly, they still may be getting a toxic dose of pesticides from it. To beekeepers, the news is not terribly surprising. Beekeeper Dave Hackenberg says, "You talk to more and more beekeepers across the country that don't really understand what's going on that are losing bees in the spring of the year when nobody's really spraying. You ask if there's corn there, and yeah, there's corn everywhere." Hackenberg, a commercial beekeeper with 3,000 hives, somewhat unwittingly alerted the world to the mass deaths of bees after suffering major losses of his own bees in November 2006. "We were knocking our heads out trying to figure out what went wrong," he recalls. First he checked the hives for mites but found none. He called in experts from Penn State, who worked day and night, combing through the hives, and taking all kinds of samples. "Within four or five days they said 'We're finding stuff we've never seen before and you definitely don't have the virus we were looking for.' They saw paralysis in the bees, crystallization in their intestines, things that nobody had seen before, but nobody looked probably." Several months later, Hackenberg's troubles were written up in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Within two days, his story appeared in 487 newspapers around the world. Hackenberg says that, for beekeepers, "Somebody changed the rules and forgot to tell us." In addition to pesticides and diseases, using bees to pollinate monocultures and moving the bees around the country might be factors in their decline. Just as a person needs a varied diet, so do bees. According to Nieh, moving bees (as beekeepers like Hackenberg do several times a year) may cause them to lose some adult foragers. Bees begin their adult lives as nurse bees, become guard bees, and then spend the last few weeks of their lives as foragers. "Adult foragers learn where their home is based on solar and landscape cues." When they move, the adult foragers may leave the colony to gather honey and be unable to find their way home. "This may not be too difficult for the hive to weather, but it's just one more thing for an already weak colony," says Nieh. "The loss of a certain number of bees would not normally be fatal to the colony, but would not be good for a weakened colony." "Monoculture and a homogeneous diet could be harmful, but the main thing is that bees are exposed to what we spray on crops, including fungicides that can harm bees because they have synergistic effects with insecticides and other toxins," says Nieh. "These factors are all combining in unexpected ways." Nieh's research found that a very low dose of the pesticide imidacloprid, a relative of clothianidin that came onto the market in the mid-1990s, makes bees become, in essence, pickier eaters. "We find that it changes the sugar preferences of bees so that bees which previously would have accepted sugar solutions or nectars that were not very sweet, now will only feed at nectars that are much sweeter. And this is a problem because the amount of nectar out there that is very sweet is relatively limited. There is far more availability of nectar that has lower sugar concentrations ... Overall, this results in fewer calories flowing into the colony." Hackenberg isn't doing as poorly as he was several years ago, but he attributes that to feeding the bees protein and supplements like brewers yeast and eggs and "kicking them in the pants with all kinds of nutrition because what they are gathering out there in nature is not what it's supposed to be." Hackenberg says, "We -- America or the world -- has messed up the bees' diet. Not only the bees' diet but everyone else's diet. We just don't have the nutrition that's out there in the food and bees are telling us this because what they are bringing home -- they can't make it anymore. We're supplementing them... and the bees are eating it... But go back 10-15 years ago, we didn't need this stuff." A key question is whether the problem is simply a laundry list of unrelated factors (i.e. pesticides, disease, parasites, etc.) or whether those factors interact synergistically to kill bees. For example, does a sub-lethal dose of a relatively new pesticide make bees susceptible to die from a disease they would normally be able to recover from? This is important because it impacts the way the EPA should handle regulation of pesticides. If pesticides kill some bees, but parasites or diseases kill others, then the EPA's role is to merely ensure that the doses of pesticides used are low enough that they don't kill bees while scientists do their best to uncover how to treat parasites and disease. However, if low doses of pesticides weaken bees, making them susceptible to death by other causes (just like AIDS makes a patient susceptible to diseases that would not kill a healthy person), then the EPA will need to take more action. Beekeepers see their bees as the canaries in the coal mine. All living beings are exposed to the cocktail of pesticides and other chemicals in our midst, each in sub-lethal doses but all mixing together and interacting in our bodies. Many Americans, like bees used to pollinate monocultures, do not eat very healthy or nutritious diets, and our stressful and sedentary lifestyles put us at even more risk of succumbing to illness. Are the bees giving us a message we should be heeding? Dr. Nieh suggests that large growers could keep their own bees to give them "skin in the game." Currently, he says, one "focus is how much do I have to pay this year to rent honeybee colonies." If farmers kept their own bees, they would be "really invested in keeping these colonies healthy because these are the colonies that are pollinating their cash crop." Additionally, reducing the movement of bees around the country would slow the spread of diseases. Nieh also sees a potential conflict of interest in the way that pesticides are approved by the EPA. "The approval process of pesticides would benefit from greater transparency and probably should undergo a more rigorous review process than it has in the past," he says. "It is a problem to require someone, a company like Bayer that has a vested interest in the approval, to pay for studies to show their pesticide is harmless." For average Americans, in addition to eating foods grown without the use of pesticides, there are easy ways to support bees -- both honeybees and native bees. To attract and nourish pollinators, plant flowers in varieties of shapes, sizes and colors. Native plants are the best to attract native species of bees. Plant flowers in clumps instead of singly or in rows, and be sure that there is something blooming at all times during the year (at least, when your yard or garden is not covered in snow). Bees also need a water source, preferably shallow water so they will not drown. For more advice, visit the Xerces Society website. Jill Richardson is the founder of the blog La Vida Locavore and a member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board. She is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It.. © 2012 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/154039/

300,000 Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto in Federal Court: Decision on March 31st to Go to Trial | NationofChange

300,000 Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto in Federal Court: Decision on March 31st to Go to Trial | NationofChange:

Little did Willie Nelson know when he recorded “Crazy” years ago just how crazy it would become for our cherished family farmers in America. Nelson, President of Farm Aid, has recently called for the national Occupy movement to declare an “Occupy the Food System” action.

Nelson states, “Corporate control of our food system has led to the loss of millions of family farmers, destruction of our soil…”

Hundreds of citizens, (even including NYC chefs in their white chef hats) joined Occupy the Food System groups, ie Food Democracy Now, gathered outside the Federal Courts in Manhattan on January 31st, to support organic family farmers in their landmark lawsuit against Big Agribusiness giant Monsanto. (Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association v. Monsanto) Oral arguments were heard that day concerning the lawsuit by 83 plaintiffs representing over 300,000 organic farmers, organic seed growers, and organic seed businesses.

The lawsuit addresses the bizarre and shocking issue of Monsanto harassing and threatening organic farmers with lawsuits of “patent infringement” if any organic farmer ends up with any trace amount of GM seeds on their organic farmland.

Judge Naomi Buckwald heard the oral arguments on Monsanto’s Motion to Dismiss, and the legal team from Public Patent Foundation represented the rights of American organic farmers against Monsanto, maker of GM seeds, [and additionally, Agent Orange, dioxin, etc.]

After hearing the arguments, Judge Buckwald stated that on March 31st she will hand down her decision on whether the lawsuit will move forward to trial.

Not only does this lawsuit debate the issue of Monsanto potentially ruining the organic farmers’ pure seeds and crops with the introduction of Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) seeds anywhere near the organic farms, but additionally any nearby GM fields can withstand Monsanto’s Roundup herbicides, thus possibly further contaminating the organic farms nearby if Roundup is used.

Of course, the organic farmers don’t want anything to do with that ole contaminated GM seed in the first place. In fact, that is why they are certified organic farmers. Hello? But now they have to worry about getting sued by the very monster they abhor, and even have to spend extra money and land (for buffers which only sometimes deter the contaminated seed from being swept by the wind into their crop land). At this point, they are even having to resort to not growing at all the following organic plants: soybeans, corn, cotton, sugar beets, and canola, …just to protect themselves from having any (unwanted) plant that Monsanto could possibly sue them over.

“Crazy, crazy for feeling so…..”

Join NationofChange today by making a generous tax-deductible contribution and take a stand against the status quo.

The farmers are suffering the threat of possible loss of Right Livelihood. They are creating good jobs for Americans, and supplying our purest foods. These organic farmers are bringing Americans healthy food so we can be a healthy Nation, instead of the undernourished and obese kids and adults that President Obama worries so much about us becoming.

So what was President Obama doing when he appointed Michael Taylor, a former VP of Monsanto, as Sr. Advisor to the Commissioner at the FDA? The FDA is responsible for “label requirements” and recently ruled under Michael Taylor’s time as FDA Food Czar that GMO products did not need to be labeled as such, even though national consumer groups loudly professed the public’s right to know what is genetically modified in the food system. Sadly to remember: President Obama promised in campaign speeches that he would “let folks know what foods are genetically modified.” These are the conflict of interests that lead to the 99% movement standing up for the family farmers.

Just look at the confusing headlines lately that revealed that mid-western farms of GM corn will be sprayed with 2,4-D toxins found in the deadly Agent Orange. Just refer to the previous lawsuits taken all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court by U.S. Veterans who tried to argue the dangers of Monsanto’s Agent Orange, and high rates of cancers in our soldiers who had to suffer the side effects from their wartime exposures in Vietnam.

In 1980 alone, when all this mess started with corporations wiping out the livelihoods of family farmers, the National Farm Medicine Center reported that 900 male farmers in the Upper Midwest committed suicide. That was nearly double the national average for white men. Even sadder is the fact that some of the farmers’ children also committed suicide. Studies show that when one generation of family farmers lose their farms, then the next generation usually can’t revive the family business and traditions later.

Jim Gerritsen, President of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, has pointed out that there are 5th and 6th generation family farmers being pushed off their farms today, and because of a “climate of fear” (from possible lawsuits from Monsanto), they can’t grow some of the food they want to grow.

These farmers are the ones who have been able to survive the changes over the past twenty years by choosing to go into the budding niche of organic farming. Now look at what they have to deal with while trying to grow successful businesses: Monsanto’s threats.

Even organic dairy farmers have had to suffer lawsuits ( from Monsanto) when they labeled their organic milk “non-BGH” referring to Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone used by conventional dairies.

Consumers want organic food, and they want America’s pure food source to stay protected in America. Made in America, organically, is the way of the future, and family farmers and seed businesses should be free to maintain their high standards for organic foods. They deserve protection from Big Agribusiness’ dangerous seeds trespassing on their croplands, not to mention the use of pesticides and herbicides on GM crops. The organic industry has an “organic seal” which is also important to the success of family businesses, and even that stamp of quality is threatened by the spread of Monsanto’s GM seed contaminating their pure seed banks.

The Banking industry is also partly to blame. Years before the mortgages and home fiasco we have now, the farmers were the first to feel the squeeze. I interviewed Willie Nelson in the 1980’s, and he mentioned even then the high rates of farmer suicides, and that Farm Aid was receiving letters from family farmers saying the banks had “called in their loans”, even though “we had never missed a payment”. Was this just a veiled land grab for fertile lands, or to intentionally bankrupt independent family farmers?

It was so inspiring years ago when Michelle Obama planted an organic garden at the White House. It was a great precedent for the future, but what happened? It was ruined when they discovered sewer sludge from previous Administrations had contaminated their beautiful soil where the organic vegetables were planted. Just one small upset but it was remedied for future plantings. What about our whole country’s organic food supply being contaminated by previous Adminstrations’ bad choices? Why did they ever allow Monsanto to introduce genetically engineered seeds into our pure, organic, and heirloom stockpiles across America in the first place?

Recently, the Obama Administration, in an effort to boost food exports, signed joint agreements with agricultural biotechnology industry giants, including Monsanto, to remove the last barriers for the spread of more genetically modified crops.

But in this recent lawsuit filed by the Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association, it was argued that a previous contamination of a “genetically engineered variety of rice”, named Liberty Link 601, in 2006, before it was approved for human consumption, “extensively contaminated the commercial rice supply, resulting in multiple countries banning the import of U.S. rice.” The worldwide economic loss was “upward to $1.285 billion dollars” due to the presence of GMOs…

What are everyday Americans going to do to turn it around, to get rid of Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds and its dangerous threat to America’s heirloom and organic seed caches?

There is high rate of cancer in America, and eating healthier, especially organic foods, has been shown to have great benefits in beating cancer and other diseases. When we have Agribusiness threatening independent family farmers, which leads to the farmers feeling so scared that they don’t even plant their organic crops that Americans need, then perhaps we can all see what the 99% Occupy Movement is trying to say about their conflict of interest and seemingly abuse of powers.

Willie Nelson just released a new poem on You Tube: “We stand with Humanity, against the Insanity, We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for… We’re the Seeds and we’re the Core, We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for; We’re the ones with the 99%.”

Monsanto’s practices are a clear example of the wrong direction that the 99% want our country to go in. How about shining some light on Monsanto, and before it is too late, realize the dangers of genetically modified seeds which are contaminating the world’s food supply.

“Crazy, crazy for feeling so…… 99%

300,000 Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto in Federal Court: Decision on March 31st to Go to Trial

By Jane Ayers

Little did Willie Nelson know when he recorded “Crazy” years ago just how crazy it would become for our cherished family farmers in America. Nelson, President of Farm Aid, has recently called for the national Occupy movement to declare an “Occupy the Food System” action.

Nelson states, “Corporate control of our food system has led to the loss of millions of family farmers, destruction of our soil…”

Hundreds of citizens, (even including NYC chefs in their white chef hats) joined Occupy the Food System groups, ie Food Democracy Now, gathered outside the Federal Courts in Manhattan on January 31st, to support organic family farmers in their landmark lawsuit against Big Agribusiness giant Monsanto. (Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association v. Monsanto) Oral arguments were heard that day concerning the lawsuit by 83 plaintiffs representing over 300,000 organic farmers, organic seed growers, and organic seed businesses.

The lawsuit addresses the bizarre and shocking issue of Monsanto harassing and threatening organic farmers with lawsuits of “patent infringement” if any organic farmer ends up with any trace amount of GM seeds on their organic farmland.

Judge Naomi Buckwald heard the oral arguments on Monsanto’s Motion to Dismiss, and the legal team from Public Patent Foundation represented the rights of American organic farmers against Monsanto, maker of GM seeds, [and additionally, Agent Orange, dioxin, etc.]

After hearing the arguments, Judge Buckwald stated that on March 31st she will hand down her decision on whether the lawsuit will move forward to trial.

Not only does this lawsuit debate the issue of Monsanto potentially ruining the organic farmers’ pure seeds and crops with the introduction of Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) seeds anywhere near the organic farms, but additionally any nearby GM fields can withstand Monsanto’s Roundup herbicides, thus possibly further contaminating the organic farms nearby if Roundup is used.

Of course, the organic farmers don’t want anything to do with that ole contaminated GM seed in the first place. In fact, that is why they are certified organic farmers. Hello? But now they have to worry about getting sued by the very monster they abhor, and even have to spend extra money and land (for buffers which only sometimes deter the contaminated seed from being swept by the wind into their crop land). At this point, they are even having to resort to not growing at all the following organic plants: soybeans, corn, cotton, sugar beets, and canola, …just to protect themselves from having any (unwanted) plant that Monsanto could possibly sue them over.

“Crazy, crazy for feeling so…..”

The farmers are suffering the threat of possible loss of Right Livelihood. They are creating good jobs for Americans, and supplying our purest foods. These organic farmers are bringing Americans healthy food so we can be a healthy Nation, instead of the undernourished and obese kids and adults that President Obama worries so much about us becoming.

So what was President Obama doing when he appointed Michael Taylor, a former VP of Monsanto, as Sr. Advisor to the Commissioner at the FDA? The FDA is responsible for “label requirements” and recently ruled under Michael Taylor’s time as FDA Food Czar that GMO products did not need to be labeled as such, even though national consumer groups loudly professed the public’s right to know what is genetically modified in the food system. Sadly to remember: President Obama promised in campaign speeches that he would “let folks know what foods are genetically modified.” These are the conflict of interests that lead to the 99% movement standing up for the family farmers.

Just look at the confusing headlines lately that revealed that mid-western farms of GM corn will be sprayed with 2,4-D toxins found in the deadly Agent Orange. Just refer to the previous lawsuits taken all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court by U.S. Veterans who tried to argue the dangers of Monsanto’s Agent Orange, and high rates of cancers in our soldiers who had to suffer the side effects from their wartime exposures in Vietnam.

In 1980 alone, when all this mess started with corporations wiping out the livelihoods of family farmers, the National Farm Medicine Center reported that 900 male farmers in the Upper Midwest committed suicide. That was nearly double the national average for white men. Even sadder is the fact that some of the farmers’ children also committed suicide. Studies show that when one generation of family farmers lose their farms, then the next generation usually can’t revive the family business and traditions later.

Jim Gerritsen, President of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, has pointed out that there are 5th and 6th generation family farmers being pushed off their farms today, and because of a “climate of fear” (from possible lawsuits from Monsanto), they can’t grow some of the food they want to grow.

These farmers are the ones who have been able to survive the changes over the past twenty years by choosing to go into the budding niche of organic farming. Now look at what they have to deal with while trying to grow successful businesses: Monsanto’s threats.

Even organic dairy farmers have had to suffer lawsuits ( from Monsanto) when they labeled their organic milk “non-BGH” referring to Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone used by conventional dairies.

Consumers want organic food, and they want America’s pure food source to stay protected in America. Made in America, organically, is the way of the future, and family farmers and seed businesses should be free to maintain their high standards for organic foods. They deserve protection from Big Agribusiness’ dangerous seeds trespassing on their croplands, not to mention the use of pesticides and herbicides on GM crops. The organic industry has an “organic seal” which is also important to the success of family businesses, and even that stamp of quality is threatened by the spread of Monsanto’s GM seed contaminating their pure seed banks.

The Banking industry is also partly to blame. Years before the mortgages and home fiasco we have now, the farmers were the first to feel the squeeze. I interviewed Willie Nelson in the 1980’s, and he mentioned even then the high rates of farmer suicides, and that Farm Aid was receiving letters from family farmers saying the banks had “called in their loans”, even though “we had never missed a payment”. Was this just a veiled land grab for fertile lands, or to intentionally bankrupt independent family farmers?

It was so inspiring years ago when Michelle Obama planted an organic garden at the White House. It was a great precedent for the future, but what happened? It was ruined when they discovered sewer sludge from previous Administrations had contaminated their beautiful soil where the organic vegetables were planted. Just one small upset but it was remedied for future plantings. What about our whole country’s organic food supply being contaminated by previous Adminstrations’ bad choices? Why did they ever allow Monsanto to introduce genetically engineered seeds into our pure, organic, and heirloom stockpiles across America in the first place?

Recently, the Obama Administration, in an effort to boost food exports, signed joint agreements with agricultural biotechnology industry giants, including Monsanto, to remove the last barriers for the spread of more genetically modified crops.

But in this recent lawsuit filed by the Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association, it was argued that a previous contamination of a “genetically engineered variety of rice”, named Liberty Link 601, in 2006, before it was approved for human consumption, “extensively contaminated the commercial rice supply, resulting in multiple countries banning the import of U.S. rice.” The worldwide economic loss was “upward to $1.285 billion dollars” due to the presence of GMOs…

What are everyday Americans going to do to turn it around, to get rid of Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds and its dangerous threat to America’s heirloom and organic seed caches?

There is high rate of cancer in America, and eating healthier, especially organic foods, has been shown to have great benefits in beating cancer and other diseases. When we have Agribusiness threatening independent family farmers, which leads to the farmers feeling so scared that they don’t even plant their organic crops that Americans need, then perhaps we can all see what the 99% Occupy Movement is trying to say about their conflict of interest and seemingly abuse of powers.

Willie Nelson just released a new poem on You Tube: “We stand with Humanity, against the Insanity, We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for… We’re the Seeds and we’re the Core, We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for; We’re the ones with the 99%.”

Monsanto’s practices are a clear example of the wrong direction. How about shining some light on Monsanto, and before it is too late, realize the dangers of genetically modified seeds which are contaminating the world’s food supply.

“Crazy, crazy for feeling so…… 99% .

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/300000-organic-farmers-sue-monsanto-federal-court-decision-march-31st-go-trial-1329059467. All rights are reserved.

Little did Willie Nelson know when he recorded “Crazy” years ago just how crazy it would become for our cherished family farmers in America. Nelson, President of Farm Aid, has recently called for the national Occupy movement to declare an “Occupy the Food System” action.

Nelson states, “Corporate control of our food system has led to the loss of millions of family farmers, destruction of our soil…”

Hundreds of citizens, (even including NYC chefs in their white chef hats) joined Occupy the Food System groups, ie Food Democracy Now, gathered outside the Federal Courts in Manhattan on January 31st, to support organic family farmers in their landmark lawsuit against Big Agribusiness giant Monsanto. (Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association v. Monsanto) Oral arguments were heard that day concerning the lawsuit by 83 plaintiffs representing over 300,000 organic farmers, organic seed growers, and organic seed businesses.

The lawsuit addresses the bizarre and shocking issue of Monsanto harassing and threatening organic farmers with lawsuits of “patent infringement” if any organic farmer ends up with any trace amount of GM seeds on their organic farmland.

Judge Naomi Buckwald heard the oral arguments on Monsanto’s Motion to Dismiss, and the legal team from Public Patent Foundation represented the rights of American organic farmers against Monsanto, maker of GM seeds, [and additionally, Agent Orange, dioxin, etc.]

After hearing the arguments, Judge Buckwald stated that on March 31st she will hand down her decision on whether the lawsuit will move forward to trial.

Not only does this lawsuit debate the issue of Monsanto potentially ruining the organic farmers’ pure seeds and crops with the introduction of Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) seeds anywhere near the organic farms, but additionally any nearby GM fields can withstand Monsanto’s Roundup herbicides, thus possibly further contaminating the organic farms nearby if Roundup is used.

Of course, the organic farmers don’t want anything to do with that ole contaminated GM seed in the first place. In fact, that is why they are certified organic farmers. Hello? But now they have to worry about getting sued by the very monster they abhor, and even have to spend extra money and land (for buffers which only sometimes deter the contaminated seed from being swept by the wind into their crop land). At this point, they are even having to resort to not growing at all the following organic plants: soybeans, corn, cotton, sugar beets, and canola, …just to protect themselves from having any (unwanted) plant that Monsanto could possibly sue them over.

“Crazy, crazy for feeling so…..”

Join NationofChange today by making a generous tax-deductible contribution and take a stand against the status quo.

The farmers are suffering the threat of possible loss of Right Livelihood. They are creating good jobs for Americans, and supplying our purest foods. These organic farmers are bringing Americans healthy food so we can be a healthy Nation, instead of the undernourished and obese kids and adults that President Obama worries so much about us becoming.

So what was President Obama doing when he appointed Michael Taylor, a former VP of Monsanto, as Sr. Advisor to the Commissioner at the FDA? The FDA is responsible for “label requirements” and recently ruled under Michael Taylor’s time as FDA Food Czar that GMO products did not need to be labeled as such, even though national consumer groups loudly professed the public’s right to know what is genetically modified in the food system. Sadly to remember: President Obama promised in campaign speeches that he would “let folks know what foods are genetically modified.” These are the conflict of interests that lead to the 99% movement standing up for the family farmers.

Just look at the confusing headlines lately that revealed that mid-western farms of GM corn will be sprayed with 2,4-D toxins found in the deadly Agent Orange. Just refer to the previous lawsuits taken all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court by U.S. Veterans who tried to argue the dangers of Monsanto’s Agent Orange, and high rates of cancers in our soldiers who had to suffer the side effects from their wartime exposures in Vietnam.

In 1980 alone, when all this mess started with corporations wiping out the livelihoods of family farmers, the National Farm Medicine Center reported that 900 male farmers in the Upper Midwest committed suicide. That was nearly double the national average for white men. Even sadder is the fact that some of the farmers’ children also committed suicide. Studies show that when one generation of family farmers lose their farms, then the next generation usually can’t revive the family business and traditions later.

Jim Gerritsen, President of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, has pointed out that there are 5th and 6th generation family farmers being pushed off their farms today, and because of a “climate of fear” (from possible lawsuits from Monsanto), they can’t grow some of the food they want to grow.

These farmers are the ones who have been able to survive the changes over the past twenty years by choosing to go into the budding niche of organic farming. Now look at what they have to deal with while trying to grow successful businesses: Monsanto’s threats.

Even organic dairy farmers have had to suffer lawsuits ( from Monsanto) when they labeled their organic milk “non-BGH” referring to Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone used by conventional dairies.

Consumers want organic food, and they want America’s pure food source to stay protected in America. Made in America, organically, is the way of the future, and family farmers and seed businesses should be free to maintain their high standards for organic foods. They deserve protection from Big Agribusiness’ dangerous seeds trespassing on their croplands, not to mention the use of pesticides and herbicides on GM crops. The organic industry has an “organic seal” which is also important to the success of family businesses, and even that stamp of quality is threatened by the spread of Monsanto’s GM seed contaminating their pure seed banks.

The Banking industry is also partly to blame. Years before the mortgages and home fiasco we have now, the farmers were the first to feel the squeeze. I interviewed Willie Nelson in the 1980’s, and he mentioned even then the high rates of farmer suicides, and that Farm Aid was receiving letters from family farmers saying the banks had “called in their loans”, even though “we had never missed a payment”. Was this just a veiled land grab for fertile lands, or to intentionally bankrupt independent family farmers?

It was so inspiring years ago when Michelle Obama planted an organic garden at the White House. It was a great precedent for the future, but what happened? It was ruined when they discovered sewer sludge from previous Administrations had contaminated their beautiful soil where the organic vegetables were planted. Just one small upset but it was remedied for future plantings. What about our whole country’s organic food supply being contaminated by previous Adminstrations’ bad choices? Why did they ever allow Monsanto to introduce genetically engineered seeds into our pure, organic, and heirloom stockpiles across America in the first place?

Recently, the Obama Administration, in an effort to boost food exports, signed joint agreements with agricultural biotechnology industry giants, including Monsanto, to remove the last barriers for the spread of more genetically modified crops.

But in this recent lawsuit filed by the Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association, it was argued that a previous contamination of a “genetically engineered variety of rice”, named Liberty Link 601, in 2006, before it was approved for human consumption, “extensively contaminated the commercial rice supply, resulting in multiple countries banning the import of U.S. rice.” The worldwide economic loss was “upward to $1.285 billion dollars” due to the presence of GMOs…

What are everyday Americans going to do to turn it around, to get rid of Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds and its dangerous threat to America’s heirloom and organic seed caches?

There is high rate of cancer in America, and eating healthier, especially organic foods, has been shown to have great benefits in beating cancer and other diseases. When we have Agribusiness threatening independent family farmers, which leads to the farmers feeling so scared that they don’t even plant their organic crops that Americans need, then perhaps we can all see what the 99% Occupy Movement is trying to say about their conflict of interest and seemingly abuse of powers.

Willie Nelson just released a new poem on You Tube: “We stand with Humanity, against the Insanity, We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for… We’re the Seeds and we’re the Core, We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for; We’re the ones with the 99%.”

Monsanto’s practices are a clear example of the wrong direction that the 99% want our country to go in. How about shining some light on Monsanto, and before it is too late, realize the dangers of genetically modified seeds which are contaminating the world’s food supply.

“Crazy, crazy for feeling so…… 99% .

Messages are Double Spaced for the Recipient | Slipstick Systems

Messages are Double Spaced for the Recipient | Slipstick Systems:

Edit the Template

In Outlook 2007:

Close Outlook. (If you get a message that the template is read only, Outlook is not closed.) Locate NormalEmail.dotm and open it for editing. You'll find it in the templates folder at C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates (Vista), To easily access this folder in Windows XP or Vista, paste

%appdata%\Microsoft\Templates\

in the Start search dialog (Vista) or the address bar of Windows Explorer.

1. Right click on NormalEmail.dotm and choose Open. This will open the template in Word as a template.
2. Right click on the Normal style button in the ribbon and chose Modify.
3. Click Format in the lower left and choose Paragraph.
4. In the Spacing section, change the After value to 12 points.
5. Save and close the template.

Now when you write a new message you'll press enter once and have white space when recipients read the message in any client or web browser. Replies will use the style sheet of the original message.

The 10 Most Seductive Drugs -- And Their Fascinating History | | AlterNet

The 10 Most Seductive Drugs -- And Their Fascinating History | | AlterNet: The 10 Most Seductive Drugs -- And Their Fascinating History

The 10 Most Seductive Drugs -- And Their Fascinating History

A brief journey through time, from ancient Sumeria to modern New Jersey, uncovers the mysterious origins of the world's most beloved substances.

February 9, 2012 |

Want to get the latest on America's drug & rehab culture? Sign up for The Fix's newsletter here.

1) Alcohol: Ancient Sumeria

Fans of alcohol are in good company; this is a drug that's been in use since the dawn of human time—if carbon dating of jugs found in Jiahu, China to around 8,000 BC is to be believed. But it wasn’t until we settled into agricultural societies that the wine really got flowing. Written records from ancient Sumeria document the uses and quantity of the beer—called "kash"—that was brewed. They even indicate that Sumerians had regulated drinking places similar to modern-day bars. The booze, for its part, was considered worthy of offering to the gods, and even thought to have a civilizing effect: The Epic of Gilgameshmentions a wild man named Enkidu who was seduced to join civilization after he drank seven jugs of beer, “became expansive and sang with joy.” (A harlot was also, apparently, involved.)

2) Peyote: Mexico

Mescaline—the psychoactive ingredient in the peyote plant that's native to Mexico and the Southwest US—has probably been used in religious ceremonies since 3780–3660 BC, according to carbon dating of dried buttons found in a cave on the Rio Grande in Texas. Written records began once Catholic Spanish conquerors arrived in Mexico and were alarmed by the practice of eating or drinking peyote during religious festivals. In an effort to discourage use, priests were in the habit of asking their new congregationalists to confess to having experienced the drug’s hallucinogenic effects, right after they asked “Have you eaten the flesh of man?” and “Do you suck the blood of others?”

3) Marijuana: Siberia

Think medical marijuana is a new phenomenon? Not exactly. Chinese emperor Shen Nung first recommended brewing the leaves into a tea to relieve the symptoms of menstrual cramps, rheumatism, gout, malaria and even—hilariously—absentmindedness back in 2737 BC. Scythians, a people that lived in Siberia around the 7th century BC, were more into the drug for the fun; they were known to throw marijuana seeds onto stones that were heated during funeral ceremonies, inhaling the fumes to become intoxicated. Russian archeologists began to suspect that both male and female Scythians smoked marijuana regularly for pleasure when they found primitive pot pipes in tombs in 1929.

4) Opium: Greece

Those Sumerians were really into their substances. In addition to brewing beer, they also cultivated the opium poppy, which they called “the joy plant.” The Sumerians passed on their knowledge of opium-induced joy to the Assyrians, who in turn passed it on to Babylonians, Egyptians and Greeks. By the time of the Greek classical period, farmers on the island of Cyprus had invented harvesting knives of surgical quality to get the most out of the poppies, and extracts of the flower were a common additive to the poison hemlock cocktail used in executions. During this period, poppies were considered of such usefulness in inducing sleep and forgetfulness that they are often depicted as part of the clothing or possessions of three gods of the Greek pantheon: Hypnos (sleep), Nix (night), and Thanatos (death).

5) Coco: Peru

Early use of coca leaves resulted from a fortuitous correlation between optimal growing weather and the high altitudes in the South American Andes Mountains. From the reign of the Inca until the South American revolutionary wars, native laborers and soldiers chewed the leaves to increase alertness and oxygen intake, helping them fight, ferry goods or messages over long distances, or mine without requiring much food or rest. As one European visitor noted in later years, “Where Europeans would have halted and bivouacked, the ill-clad, barefooted Indians merely paused, for a short interval, to chew their Coca.”

6) Laudenum and Morphine: Great Britain/USA

The opium poppy may have been discovered in the Near East, but the processing of it into innocuous-seeming salts, injections and liquids was a product of the industrial revolution in the West. In the 1800s, white women in particular were fond of a liquid opium preparation called laudanum that was sold through mail order companies and at local apothecaries. This preparation was also a favorite of English writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who may have been inspired to pen his poem Kubla Khan while in a laudanum-induced dream. After the US civil war, injured soldiers with morphine habits expanded the need for opium products, and opium-smoking dens started popping up in major cities like New York and San Francisco.

7) Cocaine: Austria

Once Coca was synthesized into cocaine and introduced to the world at large in the late 1800s, it found an unlikely proponent in the world’s most famous psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud. Even after attempting to cure a friend’s morphine habit by introducing him to the drug (the man died, addicted to both drugs, within seven years), Freud touted cocaine as a cure for everything from headaches to depression to sexual impotence. Not unexpectedly, he used quite a bit of the white lady himself, writing licentious letters to his fiancée containing such passages as: “When I come, I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward, you should see who is the stronger—a gentle little girl who doesn't eat enough, or a big, wild man who has cocaine in his body... I am just now busy collecting the literature for a song of praise to this magical substance.”

8) Amphetamine: Germany

German scientist Lazăr Edeleanu first synthesized amphetamine in 1887, and it became a useful cold remedy and diet pill throughout the world over the next 50 years. Once World War II broke out, however, amphetamine—along with injectable methamphetamine produced in Japan—became a weapon on a par with submarines and fighter planes. Thousands of soldiers on all sides of the conflict were issued drugs to keep them awake during all-night bombings, and Japanese kamikaze pilots used methamphetamine before every flight. The German blitzkreig, in particular, is well known for having been influenced by the use of meth among pilots. By the end of 1940, however, the German army had cut back substantially, having determined that the substance was incredibly addictive.

9) MDMA: USA

Though it was discovered in 1912 by a chemist working for Merck, not much was known about the psychoactive effects of MDMA until an eccentric chemist named Alexander Shulgin synthesized it as part of a pet project at Dow Chemical in 1967. When Shulgin gave a small gift of the drug to a psychologist friend, it became the focus of therapeutic zeal in the psychology community, with one doctor even calling it “penicillin for the soul.” Soon after, MDMA popped up in the club dance scene in Dallas, and the DEA held hasty meetings to add the drug to the illegal schedule—fighting tooth and nail with psychologists all the way. Shulgin, meanwhile, wrote and published a book called PIHKAL, short for Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved, which is still known worldwide as a club drug cookbook.

10) Benzodiazepines: New Jersey

While researching potential tranquilizers for Hoffman-LaRoche in New Jersey in the 1930s, Polish American scientist Leo Sternbach discovered the benzodiazepine that came to be known as Librium. Next came Valium and Klonopin—both of which were also discovered by Sternbach. Before long, the high anxiety culture of the mid-20th century led to increased use of benzos and thousands became addicted. Sternbach, meanwhile, continued his successful career, likely because he never developed an addiction to the drugs himself. “My wife doesn't let me take [them],” he once told the New Yorker.

Former neuroscientist Jacqueline Detwiler edits a travel magazine by day, but moonlights as a science writer. Her work has appeared in Wired, Men's Health, Fitness and Forbes.

Giving up speed for quality

Giving up speed for quality | Eric Weaver: We’ve joined every niche social site and accepted nearly every friend request. Strangers know which conferences we’re attending, acquaintances know what we’re reading or buying, and coworkers can see every place we check in, before, during and after work hours. Where are the boundaries? What was the point? Was it worth it?

For the last six years, partially out of interest, partially out of a desire for keeping up to date on the tools, I’ve joined pretty much any social site that I could find. Squidoo, Vox, Posterous, Marzar, XING, Plaxo Pulse, Upcoming, Spock, ProfileFly, Xigi, Hi5, Tagworld, Skobee, Blip.fm, Last.fm, iLike, Virb, Panoramio, Picli, 8Tracks, BrightKite – plus at least 100 more. Many are long gone, rolled up or shut down. But I joined them all; to learn and to connect. To keep my view of the social world as wide as possible.

Through each network, hundreds of friend requests rolled in. Former coworkers. People I’d met at a conference. Unknown friends of known friends. Friends of my wife, friends of my kids. I added all but the total unknowns, to see what the value of each site was in terms of network volume. To see what happened.

The answer: I spent a ton of time and got very little back.

Don’t get me wrong: I love connecting with people and I get a tremendous amount of value from doing so. And I had to join each community to learn. But my Return on Time Investment has been rather low.

Sure, it brings back memories to see where my former coworkers at DDB check into an old haunt. It’s fun to find that several Social Media Club friends and acquaintances are attending #barcampseattle. I really dig getting exposed to music I really like through former colleagues on Blip.fm. But the rest? I have never connected with former European coworkers through XING. I have gotten nothing but porn spam from Windows Live Spaces and Hi5. I used Picli for two seconds and stopped. Which makes me question:

1. Should I continue to accept every new friend request from someone I don’t know but with whom I have shared friends?
2. Should I allow acquaintances and former coworkers to connect on Foursquare? And if my checkins are for fun, not for work, should I allow current colleagues to see my every destination?
3. Should I invest the time to maintain profiles on the outlier sites like Squidoo or Epinions – in the hopes that one day, I will connect in a meaningful way? Do they really increase my search rankings?
4. At which point does the happy Social Media Kool-Aid wear off (example: Quora)?
5. When do I get my offline life back?

Now that we’ve joined everything, added everyone, and sampled every site: what comes next?

Time for pare-down. Fewer sites, fewer friend connections, fewer hours spent in front of a monitor.

Time to get my life back

After six years of this, I want my offline life back. Drinks with my friends where we have to actually TALK to learn what we’ve been up to. Kayaking. Hiking. Camping. Photowalks. Karate classes. All the things I used to do before I got hooked on this delicious addiction to social knowledge.

When we’re time-starved, we speed up and shorten our social interactions, so that, just like an addict, we can have MORE. Speed becomes a game, and the faster we can go, the more we can learn, and the larger volume of news/updates/photos/videos we can ingest.

But information and speed addiction reinforces a focus on the online life instead of the off. Kids can keep your brain present, but it just ratchets up the intense desire for time maximization. We start squeezing every ounce out of every second. That tyranny of the clock penalizes us in ways we don’t even begin to understand.

No offense, but…

As of today, I am disconnecting from most of the vast number of communities I’ve joined. I am disconnecting tangential acquaintances from most of my social networks. Don’t take it personally. I just want my life back. You know: close friends, hanging out, impromptu trips to the Cascades, working on my car, mowing my lawn. I am forcing a mental move from a volume/speed-based mentality to a quality mentality. Quality of interactions, quality of connections, quality of life. No more waking up and checking my phone to see who messaged me while I was sleeping.

Quality of life does not come from speed of life. It doesn’t come from information addiction or intensive time optimization. It comes from focus and being present. And also from taking your foot off the personal gas pedal. Fear of loss (friends, work opportunities, income) may make you think that’s a bad idea. But I don’t want to live with fear of loss.

Quality of life will create the abundance we all seek. Not speed.

This post is probably a bit rambling. But only because I want to stop writing, get offline and enjoy the sunshine.

So if we get disconnected, if you hear less from me, if you can’t see where I check in and can’t follow what I am reading, don’t take it personally.

Who Gives a Tweet - Carnegie Mellon University

Who Gives a Tweet - Carnegie Mellon University: Who Gives a Tweet

Who Gives a Tweet

Twitter users say only a little more than a third of the tweets they receive are worthwhile. Other tweets are either so-so or, in one out of four cases, not worth reading at all.

This is according to a recent new study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, MIT and Georgia Tech.

"If we understood what is worth reading and why, we might design better tools for presenting and filtering content, as well as help people understand the expectations of other users," said Paul André, a post-doctoral fellow in Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) and lead author of the study.

Twitter users choose the microblogs they follow, but that doesn't mean they always like what they get.

Twitter says more than 200 million tweets are sent each day, yet most users get little feedback about the messages they send besides occasional retweets, or when followers opt to stop following them.

André and his colleagues — Michael Bernstein and Kurt Luther, doctoral students at MIT and Georgia Tech, respectively — created the website "Who Gives a Tweet?" to collect reader evaluations of tweets. They will present their findings Feb. 13 at the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Seattle, Wash.

People who visited "Who Gives a Tweet?" were promised feedback on their tweets if they agreed to anonymously rate tweets by Twitter users they already follow. Over a period of 19 days in late 2010 and early 2011, 1,443 visitors to the site rated 43,738 tweets from the accounts of 21,014 Twitter users they followed.

Overall, the readers liked just 36 percent of the tweets and disliked 25 percent. Another 39 percent elicited no strong opinion.

"A well-received tweet is not all that common," Bernstein said. "A significant amount of content is considered not worth reading, for a variety of reasons."

Despite the social nature of Twitter, tweets that were part of someone else's conversation, or updates around current mood or activity were the most strongly disliked.

On the other hand, tweets that included questions to followers, information sharing, and self-promotion (such as links to content the writer had created) were more often liked.

"Our research is just a first step at understanding value on Twitter," Luther said. "Other groups within Twitter may value different types of tweets for entirely different reasons."

Nevertheless, the analysis confirms some conventional wisdom and suggests nine lessons for improving tweet content:

• Old news is no news: Twitter emphasizes real-time information. Followers quickly get bored of even relatively fresh links seen multiple times.
• Contribute to the story: Add an opinion, a pertinent fact or add to the conversation before hitting "send" on a link or a retweet.
• Keep it short: Followers appreciate conciseness. Using as few characters as possible also leaves room for longer, more satisfying comments on retweets.
• Limit Twitter-specific syntax: Overuse of #hashtags, @mentions and abbreviations makes tweets hard to read. But some syntax is helpful; if posing a question, adding a hashtag helps everyone follow along.
• Keep it to yourself: The cliched "sandwich" tweets about pedestrian, personal details were largely disliked. Reviewers reserved a special hatred for Foursquare location check-ins.
• Provide context: Tweets that are too short leave readers unable to understand their meaning. Simply linking to a blog or photo, without giving a reason to click on it, was "lame."
• Don't whine: Negative sentiments and complaints were disliked.
• Be a tease: News or professional organizations that want readers to click on their links need to hook them, not give away all of the news in the tweet itself.
• For public figures: People often follow you to read professional insights and can be put off by personal gossip or everyday details.

André said it may be possible to develop applications that can learn a user's preferences and filter out unwanted content.

Or apps might display some information differently; location check-ins are unpopular tweets, but might be valued if plotted on maps.

But it's also possible that users are willing to tolerate unwanted content, he added. Some people may follow others out of social obligation. Others may dislike certain types of tweets, but value them in the aggregate as helping them keep track of people or issues.

"Social media technologies such as Twitter pose questions regarding privacy, etiquette and tensions between sharing and self-presentation, as well as content," André said.

"Continued exploration of these areas is needed for us to improve the online experience."

Fluoride Health Effects Database

Fluoride Health Effects Database: Fluoride & the Thyroid

Summation - Fluoride & the Thyroid:

According to the US National Research Council, "several lines of information indicate an effect of fluoride exposure on thyroid function."

Fluoride's potential to impair thyroid function is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that -- up until the 1970s -- European doctors used fluoride as a thyroid-suppressing medication for patients with HYPER-thyroidism (over-active thyroid). Fluoride was utilized because it was found to be effective at reducing the activity of the thyroid gland - even at doses as low as 2 mg/day.

Today, many people living in fluoridated communities are ingesting doses of fluoride (1.6-6.6 mg/day) that fall within the range of doses (2 to 10 mg/day) once used by doctors to reduce thyroid activity in hyperthyroid patients.

While it may be that the thyroid in a patient with hyperthyroidism is particularly susceptible to the anti-thyroid actions of fluoride, there is concern that current fluoride exposures may be playing a role in the widespread incidence of HYPO-thyroidism (under-active thyroid) in the U.S.

Hypothyrodisim, most commonly diagnosed in women over 40, is a serious condition with a diverse range of symptoms including: fatigue, depression, weight gain, hair loss, muscle pains, increased levels of "bad" cholesterol (LDL), and heart disease.. The drug (Synthroid) used to treat hypothyroidism is now one of the top five prescribed drugs in the U.S.

As recommended by the US National Research Council: “The effects of fluoride on various aspects of endocrine function should be examined further, particularly with respect to a possible role in the development of several diseases or mental states in the United States.”

Fluoride & the Thyroid - Overviews:

Letter from Dr. Richard Shames - Letter to Palm Beach Board of County Commissioners, May 1, 2006

Health Warning: The Thyroid and Fluoride - Paul Connett, PhD, September 2003

Fluoride & the Endocrine System: Presentation to 2nd Citizens' Conference on Fluoride - Kathleen Thiessen, PhD, July 2006

History of the fluoride/iodine antagonism - Parents of Fluoride Poisoned Children, 2000-2006

Fluoride & the Thyroid - US National Research Council (2006):

“In summary, evidence of several types indicates that fluoride affects normal endocrine function or response; the effects of the fluoride-induced changes vary in degree and kind in different individuals. Fluoride is therefore an endocrine disruptor in the broad sense of altering normal endocrine function or response, although probably not in the sense of mimicking a normal hormone. The mechanisms of action remain to be worked out and appear to include both direct and indirect mechanisms, for example, direct stimulation or inhibition of hormone secretion by interference with second messenger function, indirect stimulation or inhibition of hormone secretion by effects on things such as calcium balance, and inhibition of peripheral enzymes that are necessary for activation of the normal hormone.”
SOURCE: National Research Council. (2006). Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. p 223.

“The effects of fluoride on various aspects of endocrine function should be examined further, particularly with respect to a possible role in the development of several diseases or mental states in the United States.”
SOURCE: National Research Council. (2006). Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. p 224.

“several lines of information indicate an effect of fluoride exposure on thyroid function.”
SOURCE: National Research Council. (2006). Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. p 197.

“it is difficult to predict exactly what effects on thyroid function are likely at what concentration of fluoride exposure and under what circumstances.”
SOURCE: National Research Council. (2006). Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. p 197.

“Fluoride exposure in humans is associated with elevated TSH concentrations, increased goiter prevalence, and altered T4 and T3 concentrations; similar effects on T4 and T3 are reported in experimental animals..”
SOURCE: National Research Council. (2006). Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. p 218.

“In humans, effects on thyroid function were associated with fluoride exposures of 0.05-0.13 mg/kg/day when iodine intake was adequate and 0.01-0.03 mg/kg/day when iodine intake was inadequate.”
SOURCE: National Research Council. (2006). Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. p 218.

“The recent decline in iodine intake in the United States could contribute to increased toxicity of fluoride for some individuals.”
SOURCE: National Research Council. (2006). Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. p 218.

“Intake of nutrients such as calcium and iodine often is not reported in studies of fluoride effects. The effects of fluoride on thyroid function, for instance, might depend on whether iodine intake is low, adequate, or high, or whether dietary selenium is adequate.”
SOURCE: National Research Council. (2006). Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards. National Academies Press, Washington D.C. p 222.

Fluoride & the Thyroid - Studies Available Online:

FULL TEXT - pdf:Bachinskii PP, et al. (1985) Action of the body fluorine of healthy persons and thyroidopathy patients on the function of hypophyseal-thyroid the system. Probl Endokrinol (Mosk) 31(6):25-9.

FULL TEXT - html: Day TK, Powell-Jackson PR. (1972). Fluoride, Water Hardness, and Endemic Goitre. Lancet 1:1135-1138.

FULL TEXT - html: Steyn DG, et al. (1955). Endemic Goitre in the Union of South Africa and Some Neighbouring Territories. Union of South Africa. Department of Nutrition.

FULL TEXT - html: Wilson D. (1941). Fluorine in the aetiology of endemic goitre. Lancet Feb 15: 212-213.

See also:

FULL-TEXT (html): Lin Fa-Fu; et al (1991). The relationship of a low-iodine and high-fluoride environment to subclinical cretinism in Xinjiang. Iodine Deficiency Disorder Newsletter Vol. 7. No. 3. (August).

Local alternative dentist

BarefootGardener : Message: tooth care advice from our local alternative dentist: I was browsing through John's blog just now and read his rant about fluoride and
his search for alternative tooth care. I think I have a bit of information to
contribute to that which might be helpful to someone.

We are lucky to have right in our area an alternative dentist who not only
doesn't believe in fluoride, he also doesn't believe in conventional fillings.
Some years ago my husband and I had ours replaced by him with ones that are not
only less toxic, they are also white...makes it almost look like you've never
had a cavity. It has helped me with some of my chronic fatigue issues. I am
very glad I have had his procedure done.

His name is Dr. Behm and he is located in downtown Clearwater.
His website is:
http://www.saveyourteeth.com/

Read especially the page called "The Secret" for his take on how to care for
your teeth.

He also recommends removing the conventional fillings from your mouth because
they are a source of mercury poisoning. Dentists routinely experience the Mad
Hatter syndrome AND the hatter was mad because in his day mercury was routinely
used in the manufacture of hats. I will warn you that that is a very expensive
proposition, though.


- Sent using Google Toolbar

WAKE UP

AMERICAN - FREEDOM: Our institutions will not get
better, until more of the general population participates and takes responsibility for their piece in the revamping process.

- Sent using Google Toolbar

SO MANY PEOPLE are expecting Superman to show up and get everything done for them. Like electing the next clown to office. What a joke. Whether it's Ronald McDonald or Bozo will never change anything. What ever clown puppet they put in place will never change anything. The system is broken, our votes are meaningless when the media only props up clowns for us to choose from.

The 2-Minute Move That Will Elevate Your Personal Brand | Fast Company

The 2-Minute Move That Will Elevate Your Personal Brand | Fast Company: When it comes to building your own personal brand, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn get all our digital love. However, for the majority of business professionals, the hundreds of people you're emailing day in and day out make up the most important social network you have.

Tools like Smartr help personalize the inbox experience, assigning photos, titles, and email history to names. Tout offers you the tools and templates you need to track and schedule your messages. What's missing for most people in this day-to-day email equation is a helpful and memorable email signature.

This precious real estate at the bottom of every message is often filled with either too much or too little information (or, worse, dead space). Sifting through my own inbox, there are few signature stand-outs among thousands of contacts.

- Sent using Google Toolbar

got this from their linkedin page:
http://www.linkedin.com/today/fastcompany.com

media military industrial complex

Robert Greenwald and Reporter Michael Hastings Take on the Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War Machine | | AlterNet: the “media military industrial complex,” is significant. And I do not think it's a question of just sort of attacking some bad journalists, although that can be done, but I'd like you to talk about the institutional way that Pentagon approaches this.

MH: Well, one point on Stephen Colbert's speech: it's now considered sort of this amazing speech because it was, but at the time a lot of journalists panned it. Oh, they hated it because it hit too close.

I mean, look, there are a lot of excellent journalists doing great, great work. But the reason I called it the “media military industrial complex,” and one of the sort of insights that I have had is that they call it the Pentagon Press Corps, right? And you sort of think, oh, well it means the people who kind of watch over the Pentagon and perform the media's watchdog function, but no, it's an extension of the Pentagon. For the most part.

I mean, when was the last time anyone at the Pentagon broke a story that wasn't pre-approved? It's very, very rare. And the reason why it's so difficult -- and this gets to the information operations and the public affairs -- it's a very difficult story to tell because you're lifting up the curtain on what have become very common practices for journalists to do.

And I noticed this first in Iraq when things were going horribly -- this is in 2005, 2006, 2007 when I was there. And the spokespeople in the military public relations apparatus would just lie to your face. Every day they would lie. It was general Caldwell who was one of the spokes people there who I would sit next to at these briefings and he would say everything's fine, you know? And there might have been four car bombs that morning.

And what's been scary is that these sort of information operations tactics ... most journalists consider them no big deal. And when you try to point out, 'hey, this isn't right.' you get your head chopped off.

I did a story about this information operations team trained in psychological operations that was being asked to spin and influence visiting senators. Did the media respond by saying, 'let's launch an investigation, let's make sure we don't do this?' No, they responded by attacking the whistle blower and then at the same time saying, 'oh, it's no big deal, this is fine. Of course generals use their information operations psy-ops guys to put together material, it's not a big deal, it's just normal public relations.'

But wait a second here. This is not just normal public relations -- there are entire operations in the Pentagon whose goal is not just to influence the enemy's population but in fact the more important goal is to influence the U.S. population. And the line that used to be, or was supposed to have been the red line between public relations and information operations, meaning one you use on Americans and one you use on the enemy, they are tearing that firewall down. So you have generals with public media handlers and they have these contracting companies that are collecting data on who's tweeting what and they have different Twitter “sock-puppets” that they've put up to try to manipulate all these different social media.

And at some point they're essentially waging this global information war against their own citizens. So that, to me, is the most disturbing trend of it all. And General Petraeus at one point said the most important thing about Iraq was information operations, information operations, information operations. And in the context he was saying it, he meant in terms of convincing the Iraqi people that things were going well. But the real people he was convincing were back in Washington. That's who the target of all the spin really is.

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Will the Young Rise Up and Fight Their Indentured Servitude to the Student Loan Industry? | | AlterNet

Will the Young Rise Up and Fight Their Indentured Servitude to the Student Loan Industry? | | AlterNet:

Will the Young Rise Up and Fight Their Indentured Servitude to the Student Loan Industry?

The solution to class exploitation and abuse is always the same: Get conscious, get angry, get energized, and get organized.

January 24, 2012 |

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In October 2011, the White House announced, “Currently, more than 36 million Americans have federal student loan debt.” By the end of 2011, student loan debt had exceeded $1 trillion. Two-thirds of college seniors graduate with student loans, including over 62 percent of public university graduates. According to the Project on Student Loan Debt, they carried an average of $25,250 in debt in 2010, but many have far greater debt than that average. And nowadays, with high unemployment, even higher underemployment, the inability to pay bills, and accumulating interest and penalties, the lives of student loan debtors can quickly turn into financial nightmares.

Indentured Servitude? I’ll be paying for my student loans for the rest of my life....A large portion of my earnings goes to the Wall Street elites that have commoditized and securitized my loans....I knew at the time I signed the student loans (again and again) that I would be responsible...what I didn’t figure was the cost to my children —Jeff Vincent, AlterNet

How outlandish is it to say that the spirit of indentured servitude has been revived in the United States? What can young people and their parents do to prevent student loan debt servitude, and what can all of us do to help liberate student loan debtors who are currently doomed to decades of financial misery?

Colonial Indentured Servants and Modern Student Loan Debtors

In colonial America, historians estimate that between one-half and two-thirds of white immigrants arrived as indentured servants. Indentured servants in England were in servitude typically for one year, while indenture in America was typically four to seven years. Today in the United States, student debt is an even longer debt commitment than colonial indentured servitude. The standard Stafford federal loan is, for example, 15 years, and with waivers and refinancing, it is not uncommon for Americans to be paying off student loans well into middle age.

In “Student Debt and the Spirit of Indenture,” Carnegie Mellon University professor Jeffrey Williams concludes, “College student loan debt has revived the spirit of indenture for a sizable proportion of contemporary Americans.” Williams points out that college loan debt, like indentured servitude, “looms over the lives of those so contracted, binding individuals for a significant part of their future work lives.”

Similar to students signing their college loan papers, indentured servants also “freely chose” their servitude. In colonial times, while the elite saw indentured servitude as a freely chosen and fair economic deal, the servants themselves routinely saw it as an exploitative system of labor, a form of time-limited slavery. Like colonial indentured servants who “freely chose” to sign papers agreeing that they would pay off their debt directly in labor, modern student loan debtors “freely choose” to sign papers agreeing to pay off their debt. However, this is a choice that the financial elite do not have to make.

Like colonial indentured servitude, the student loan contract is virtually unbreakable. Student loans are enforced by garnishing wages, and unlike most other forms of debt, student loan debt is almost never forgiven even in personal bankruptcy.

Similar to some indentured servants, some student loan debtors—most famously, Michelle and Barack Obama—do go on to prosper. However, half of those who attend college don’t graduate, and many college graduates do not get high-paying jobs and struggle to make debt payments for much of their adult lives.

The Chronicle of Higher Education (October 20, 2010) reported, “Over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees (over 8,000 of them have doctoral or professional degrees), along with over 80,000 bartenders, and over 18,000 parking lot attendants....The growing disconnect between labor market realities and the propaganda of higher-education apologists is causing more and more people to graduate and take menial jobs or no job at all.”

Conversations with Young People about Class and College

Several years ago, I was speaking to a group of high school seniors, and I mentioned that my experience is that the adult world tries to scare young people about so much crap, that the net effect is for young people not to take anything we say seriously. I told them that most mistakes are useful learning experiences, but that there are two things that should concern them because they are very difficult to overcome, and I then moved on to another topic. A sea of hands went up, and several students shouted out demanding that I tell them what the two things were. So I told them: One, it’s difficult to overcome driving drunk and killing somebody; and two, it also tends to drag your life down if you have a kid with someone you can’t stand.

These days, however, I’ve had to modify what I say to high school kids. My recent experience is that, for more people, even more depressing than having a kid with someone you can’t stand is running up a gigantic student loan debt. So, now I talk with young people in groups, individually, and their parents about student loan debt hell.

Many young people among the 99 percent, in my experience, have been socialized not to have “class consciousness.” So, we discuss how kids from 1 percent families can go to expensive colleges without any career plans, party, flunk out, go to another expensive college, and have no student loan debt—and can fall back on either the family business, a trust fund, or a career in politics. While the 1 percent can afford—without loans—to shell out whatever money is necessary for college, many of the 99 percent will have a “debt sword” that hangs over their heads for a significant part of their lives.

The 1 percent and the corporate media have succeeded in making the terms “class consciousness” and “class war” taboo, which is part of the reason why they are winning the class war and enslaving the 99 percent.

College Decision-Making for the 99 Percent

Today, high school students hear repeatedly that they are losers if they don’t go to college, and their parents are made to feel like failures if their kids don’t go to college. For the 99 percent, the truth is that it may make sense to go college, or it may not. College may make sense if you want to earn a living at something that requires a college-level certification. But college may not make sense, especially if you are not motivated for it, or your career desires don’t require a degree and certifications.

Exiting from the modern world-religion view that not attending college is sinful and shameful, let’s look at it soberly. Colleges offer 1) learning; 2) certifications and accreditation; and 3) partying and potential for meeting people.

While learning does take place in college, it is just as easy to gain knowledge outside of college. Most college learning is book learning, and one need not go to college to read books. Moreover, most of us have learned much of what we use to make a living and survive through experience, not through coursework.

It is true, however, that without a college degree and specific certifications, one simply will not be hired for certain jobs. While much of what I learned in my formal schooling was worthless or worse than worthless, I needed degrees for credentialing and licensing. The same is true for teachers and other professionals. But there’s little reason not to get that degree as inexpensively as possible.

High school students are intimidated by media, peers and even some guidance counselors to worry about the so-called prestige of an institution, and parents are guilt-tripped to pay for prestigious institutions. I tell young people and their parents that in more than 25 years of private practice, no client has asked me what university I went to before they made an appointment. Furthermore, no publisher or editor has ever asked me where I received my education before they published my books or articles. So if you need to get some certification, shop around for the most inexpensive financial deal.

Besides learning and credentialing, colleges do offer a certain kind of socializing and partying that one does not get via independent study. However, is the typical college partying worth the price tag? How expansive is the typical socializing that goes on at colleges compared with many other ways of mixing it up with the world that are far less expensive?

I have worked with many extremely intelligent young people who simply don’t like school. They can be shamed into going to college, or they can be exposed to a math that, from my experience, will very much interest them. Specifically, help them add up the money that will be spent on college. Add that to four years’ lost income from not working. What’s the total? $150,000? $200,000? More? Then consider financial resources—specifically, how much debt will likely accrue? How much money per month will that debt will cost? How long will that debt persist? If their parents were going to contribute some money toward their schooling, what could their children do with it instead of going to college? Use it to start up a business? Buy a home that is free and clear?

For the $100,000 price tag of four years of tuition plus room and board for the University of Cincinnati or Ohio State University (both public universities), one can buy two homes free and clear in a safe neighborhood where I live in Cincinnati, then live in one, rent out the other, and sit on them until the real estate market improves. I know intelligent, industrious and hardworking young non-academics who passed on college and student loan debt, and are now in their 30s and own their own homes, have money in savings, have successful businesses and are enjoying life, and whose major pain is sorrow for some of their student debtor friends.

Working with teenagers, young adults and their parents, I have discovered that the corporate media has given many of them a distorted sense of life with regard to risk. Specifically, many of them have been socialized to believe that the least risky path is the most prestigious college that one is admitted to. While young people have been socialized to be terrified of not having a college education or not receiving a degree from a prestigious institution, they have not been told about the risk of carrying huge debt.

The Political Battle: Liberation for Debt Slaves

Class consciousness is the starting point in both the prevention of and the liberation from debt slavery.

The 36 million Americans carrying federal student loan debt, the millions of others with private student loan debt, their parents who have co-signed on this debt, and other families who have been in this sinking boat or will soon be in that boat are an extremely large class. This group is actually a larger one than many other groups in American history that have won civil and economic justice for themselves through political struggle.

Some in desperation have urged for voluntary default on student loans. However, Occupy Student Debt views this campaign as ill-conceived, “We strongly advise anyone with student loan debt NOT to participate in this form of protest, especially given that the law, as currently written, allows lenders and collectors to profit from defaults.”

What have other victimized groups—from African Americans to Latin Americans to gay Americans—in U.S. history done that has worked to gain social and economic justice? For one thing, they have made it clear to politicians that they will not vote for any politician who does not take actions to correct their victimization. So to begin with, members of this large group of student loan debtors and their families should show up at all candidate forums—including Obama’s—and assault politicians with questions:

Do you think it is fair that gambling debt can be discharged in bankruptcy, but not the student loan debt of a working class person who tried to get a college education and couldn’t find a decent-paying job?

Why is it that public universities are not free or low cost in the United States when they are in many nations in the world?

Why is it that politicians don’t worry about the “moral hazard” of bailing out large banks and insurance companies, but are concerned about debt forgiveness for student loan debtors when such forgiveness would be a “stimulus package” for the U.S. economy?

Beyond confronting the politician clowns in the circus, pressure needs to be applied directly to the circus owners who have orchestrated current bankruptcy laws and who have a stake in higher tuition in public universities. In “Meet 5 Big Lenders Profiting from the $1 Trillion Student Debt Bubble” (November 28, 2011), AlterNet’s Sarah Jaffe documents how Sallie Mae (originally called the Student Loan Marketing Association, the largest student lender in the United States, created in 1972 as a government-sponsored enterprise but fully privatized in 2004), along with Wells Fargo, Discover, NelNet, and JPMorgan Chase have ripped off students and their families. These giant corporations care only about are their stock prices; and student loan debtors and their families can threaten stock prices by creating nasty publicity, by bringing pressure on institutional investors to divest, and utilize other ways that compel concessions.

Over the last twenty years, the financial-industrial complex’s lackey politicians have altered bankruptcy laws so as to make it almost impossible for student loan debtors to declare bankruptcy, but these laws can be changed again to make student loan debt as easy to discharge in bankruptcy as is gambling debt. Also, if giant banks today can “buy money” from the Federal Reserve for almost nothing, then student loan interest rates should also approach 0 percent. Moreover, U.S. public universities were once free or extremely low cost, and that can be the case again, especially if the U.S. government stops spending trillions of dollars on wars that the majority of Americans oppose.

Part of class consciousness means recognizing the size of one’s class and thus its political power. Class consciousness also means becoming angry by victimization and using that anger to energize organizing. In much of the world today, as I detail in Get Up, Stand Up, the 99% can get a B.A. and even an advanced degree without accruing any debt, as tuition and fees in public universities in many nations are either free or extremely low. That can be true again in United States if the 1% had reason to recalculate that they better once again throw the 99% a bone or two to keep us from demanding real power. Today, the 1% is emboldened and unafraid to completely piss on the 99%.

The solution to class exploitation and abuse is always the same. Get conscious, get angry, get energized, and get organized. Then strategically threaten the wealth and control of the 1% so they are forced to make concession. Expect a counterattack from the 1%, and counter it with even greater pressure for more economic justice.

>Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite (Chelsea Green, 2011). His Web site is www.brucelevine.net.