Just finished my MRI…

Elly and Cassandra say I had a seizure going into the test… apparently I was “babbling”…but I don’t remember it. I was under the MRI’s spell for about an hour. Now we are having dinner and getting ready to drive back home.

They have added 2 more doctors appointments in Hagerstown tomorrow. There goes my last day off. I’ll be glad when the brain surgery is all over with this weekend.

Posting from my iPhone is a new experience for me. These fat fingers on a teensy keyboard really means not much writing. Sorry.

Down at Georgetown having lunch before tests…

Georgetown Hospital

If you ever have to do something at Georgetown University Hospital, let me recommend a wonderful on-campus restaurant, Empire and Company, a great classic buffet with a side pizza parlor.

We arrived an hour and a half early leaving time for my wife, daughter and me to have lunch and discuss this afternoon’s tests and what we are required to bring with us. I’ll do a blood test just before we go over and see if I need any insulin before the tests.

I’d like to thank all of you e-mailers and commentators and friends for contacting me and wishing me well and praying for me (can you believe it, an old, publicly avowed atheist like me?). I probably won’t be back to this until much later tonite or tomorrow morning, my last day at home this week. I’ll be back with a report on what’s going on.

Meanwhile, General Petraeus may be off the news and we can get back on to the economy.

Related articles

• Expert: Petraeus Scandal Revelations ‘Damaging Politically’ to the FBI (voicerussia.com)
• Bono To Deliver Keynote Address on Social Movement at Georgetown Monday (washington.cbslocal.com)

Lunch with the family…

Oy! Three flights of stairs!

My sister took Elly and me, my mother, my son and his wife, my two daughters and three of my grandsons to lunch at Lightfoot’s, a former bank turned into a restaurant in Leesburg, VA. Supposedly, this restaurant is at a halfway point between my mother in Manassas and Elly and me in Harpers Ferry (and my daughter Penny and her kids in Williamsport, MD.)

This was put together so everyone could give me their best wishes before I go into the hospital next week and for all of them to wish me their best.

Buddy and Rachel

We were up three flights of stairs in a private room in this old bank building, where we (or at least me with my current balance and dizziness) slowly walked up and then spent two hours in one place.

It’s full of old French theatre posters, which was sort of neat for my 12-year-old grandson John who is learning French in school this year…”Mais oui!”

My Mother

My son Bud and his wife Rachel are in from Wisconsin.. they’ll be flying back early tomorrow. Penny and the boys, of course, only live a little bit away from us and will be involved in watching me when I recuperate so Elly can go into Hagerstown Community College and work.

Me, of course

My daughter Cassandra who will be here for another week is coordinating all the hospital and doctor stuff with Elly. She is a very organized and impressive woman and has everything going on schedule… more tests next week before surgery, hospital be rental for after (not sure why I need this, but I’m told not to argue.)

Anyway, I can’t get over thinking that this is everyone’s chance to say goodbye to me in case anything goes wrong in surgery (I think there’s a 7% chance or something.)

No radio shows this coming weekend… perhaps the week after. Let’s hope.

Related articles

• My daughter, Cassandra, has come down from Connecticut and is helping my wife coordinate all the brain surgery problems… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Ever make out a “living will?” (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)

So how is Romney’s plan to send Foodstamps to the states going to effect his voter base?

That is a good question, after looking at this article in the Bloomberg News. Here’s a clip:

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said in May that he’d written off votes from 47 percent of Americans who are collecting government aid. Turns out many of them are part of his political base.

Seventy percent of counties with the fastest-growth in food-stamp aid during the last four years voted for the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data compiled by Bloomberg. They include Republican strongholds like King County, Texas, which in 2008 backed Republican John McCain by 92.6 percent, his largest share in the nation; and fast-growing Douglas County, Colorado.That means Romney is counting on votes from areas where lower-income people have become more reliant on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as food stamps.

Let’s see how it really fits his base support. Get the word out!

Related articles

• Republican-Heavy Counties Eat Up Most Food-Stamp Growth – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• Terry O’Neill: The Romney-Ryan Budget: Reward the Rich, Punish the Rest (huffingtonpost.com)
• Romney attacked over climate change as activists tap post-Sandy concerns (guardian.co.uk)

Busy weekend for me.

This is a busy weekend as Elly and her Sustainable Shepherdstown group are

The Goddess of House Cleaning

having a pot luck supper at our house and we have to do a lot of cleaning today and tomorrow morning. This morning I was up early and cleaned the first floor bathroom. After my radio show I’ve been assigned to the living room… much better than the kitchen!

Tonight we have a movie preceded by a dinner with an old friend of ours who is coming into town because she ha a daughter at Shepherd. So we have a weekend that is really filled up and I’m still getting over my recent health problems which I’m likely to be doing for the next couple of months. Ain’t life great.

 

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• Clean House: Use A Cleaning Bucket or Caddy (ext.homedepot.com)

 

My thanks to all of you who responded to my personal notice yesterday…

 

I can’t tell you how much your sympathy and suggestions meant to me. Just getting through this part of my life is so difficult. This poor old fatman (22 pounds down on my diet in the second month) has to come to some kind of way of extending his purpose.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to direct theatre again… can’t get to rehearsals and can’t find a theatre group that might want to do one of my experimental pieces. That is pretty depressing, too, having been creating such events since 1967.

Oh well… lots of blog writing to do what with a big election coming up (that’s how this blog started years ago)…at least that exercises my mind.

 

Romney is Monsanto’s Candidate…there go our farms!

You know that this blog has a long history of exposing and criticizing Monsanto for the chemical destruction of what once was our fresh food products —Monsanto, whose dark history features scandals involving PCBs, Agent Orange, bovine growth hormone, NutraSweet, IUD, genetically modified (GM) seed and herbicides, reaching back to the 1970s and ’80s.

Those of us who support the remaining organic food growers, and who grow our own out of necessity, have set Monansto as the most evil of challenges.

If we go way back to Romney’s beginnings with Bain Capital when he was 30 years old, who do you think his largest client was, and who remains his friend today? You guessed it. Monsanto. This matters for a number of reasons:  it sheds on Romney’s self-ballyhooed business experience; Romney helped create Monsanto corporate objectives that clash with planetary concerns; If Romney is elected, this enemy of environmentalists will have a very old friend in the White House.

Monsanto’s former CEO John W. Hanley is in fact the only business executive outside of the Bain founding family to so shape Romney’s career—jumpstarting the two companies, Bain & Company and Bain Capital, that account for all but two years of Romney’s much-ballyhooed business experience.

Monsanto, who currently produces Genetically Modified corn, soybean, alfalfa and other seeds, which are  engineered to resist Roundup and increase yield, faces many global disputes, and has lost two recent, at least $2 billion, court decisions in Brazil -  5 million soy farmers sued them. The Brazilian farmers’ issue is also a source of frustration for US farmers—the contracts farmers are forced to sign pledging not to save seeds for future harvests, a common farm custom that resale-fixated Monsanto has hired a seed police army to stop.

“Roundup Ready” seeds, of course, are completely responsible to the success and safety of Roundup itself. However,“super-weeds” are developing a Roundup tolerance, requiring more and more spraying to work. This is harmful both ecologically and financially  for farmers.The seeds, introduced in the Bain years with Bain boosting, Roundup’s supposedly “biodegradable” and “nontoxic” claims, have led to false advertising findings. This is part of Romney’s business trustworthiness and acumen.

In the presidential campaign, Romney is deliberately vague . He’s moved publicly in Monsanto’s direction on the company’s genetically engineered ethanol and farm subsidies, appears aligned with it on labeling (Monsanto wants to avoid labeling its fruits and vegetables with the 5 digit code, different for organic competitors), and his spokesman Shawn McCoy said this month that the candidate was “concerned by the effect that the Obama administration’s crushing onslaught of regulations is having on agriculture.” Read from this what effect the Obama administration will have on one of his largest campaign contributors.

Related articles

• mitt is a monsanto man (thegreenhorns.wordpress.com)
• Protesters Blockade Monsanto Seed Facility in California (earthfirstnews.wordpress.com)
• Monsanto Allowed to Put Genetically Modified Food on Your Plate (blogs.lawyers.com)
• GMO Update: New Study Shows Increasing Rootworm Resistance to Monsanto’s Bt Corn (eatdrinkbetter.com)
• Walmart Signs Deal With Monsanto to Sell Un-Labeled GMO Corn (friendseat.com)
• Lisa Cerda – Monsanto: A Modern Day Plague (prn.fm)
• Sept 16: Global Week of Action Against Monsanto (occupyventura805.wordpress.com)

Art and Commerce Meet in a Fabulous Format…

Before you do your food shopping this week let me ask you a question. Are you planning on buying tomato soup?  If so, you could bring home some Andy Warhol for your pantry.

Campbell‘s announced Wednesday that a new limited-edition line of Warhol-themed condensed tomato soup cans will go on sale starting Sept. 2 at most Target stores across the country.

These cost 75 cents each and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Warhol’s first paintings of the familiar soup cans.

PHOTOS: Turning 50 in 2012

The soup will come in a variety of intensely colored cans meant to mimic Warhol’s pop-art style. The artist exhibited his soup-can paintings in 1962, and they became his signature works.

Campbell’s said the new cans are being sold in partnership with the Andy Warhol Foundation, which controls the licensing of the artist’s name and images.

Related articles

• Campbell channels Andy Warhol for new cans (kfwbam.com)
• Campbell’s to introduce new soup can labels inspired by Andy Warhol (oregonlive.com)
• Campbell’s Soup to release special edition Andy Warhol line (deathandtaxesmag.com)
• Campbell Soup to offer limited-edition Andy Warhol cans at Target (mercurynews.com)
• 15 minutes of fame with Andy Warhol inspired Campbell’s soup (rt.com)
• Campbell’s turns to art icon (toledoblade.com)
• Campbell Soup Cans Go Warhol (freshforms.wordpress.com)

My son is now a married man and I am a tired old fat guy…

 

Morning after… I’m sitting in the lounge at the Milwaukee Hilton catching up on e-mail and my blog while my wife and my daughters go over to Buddy’s house (or should I say Will’s? No, I can’t get used to that… he’s been Buddy to me since the day he was born) for a brunch (I can’t deal with the stairs up to Bud’s house after my bone-breaking accident… and I had an extra fall yesterday walking down some narrow stairs at the Oriental Theater during wedding pictures time… so I’m staying here until they get back.)

This afternoon at 3:00 we catch the first of two trains… this one to Chicago and the next to Martinsburg, WV. We’ll be traveling for next 20 or so hours. What fun.

During Buddy and Rachel’s wedding reception last evening we had a brief rainfall… and, in a sign that I see as good luck for the married couple… it was followed by a Rainbow. What are the odds of that happening? This was magic!

Elly and I had breakfast this morning with my cousin Bob, his wife Suzie and his daughter SueSue and her boyfriend. They’re driving back to Chicago later. It was nice seeing them
The lovely young woman who works this waiting lounge just brought me some ice water… they are so pleasant here…and I think I’ll take a little nap if i can get away with it. Once we head out for the train I’ll have no Wi-Fi again until we get home tomorrow, so I can’t do much more on the blog.

Be good to each other.

 

Wedding rehearsal day… Have to make sure it’s not done wrong.

Today Bud and Rachel (known as Will and Rachel to their friends… his mother and I seem to be stuck on Buddy) will rehearse tomorrow’s wedding, then we will have the Rehearsal Dinner which we will be paying for.

We had breakfast here at the Hilton with my daughter Cassandra and her husband, Matthew. I understand my other daughter, Penny, and her kids are now in the hotel somewhere as are my mother and my sister. These Hiltons are making a lot of money off this one family!

More later…

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• Wedding Etiquette: Events Before the Big Day (crane.com)
• Social Etiquette: The Rehearsal Dinner (eventsbysocialgraces.com)

Musical Theatre Fans… Here’s the best political parody I’ve heard so far this year…

If you’re a Les Mis fan like me, you’ll love this piece, “One Term More”, based on “One Day More.”

Here are the lyrics if you want to sing along:

One Term More!
A time to celebrate democracy,
Repeal Republican hypocrisy.
This man who would unseat Barack’s
A bleak choice at the ballot box.
One Term More!
A G.O.P. perdition-bound,
All sense of right & wrong eroded.
One Term More!
With laws that let ‘em stand their ground,
Republicans are locked & loaded.

Contraception’s now a sin,
Screwing G.M. in the clutch.
Incivility’s a virtue,
Homophobic. Out of touch.
Filibusters. Budget scrums.
Ultrasounds & speculums.
To the Dark Side they’ve succumbed.

Soon Election Day will dawn,
We were meant to hold this seat!
At the ballot box of freedom,
Unemployment’s in retreat!
Now the battle lines are drawn,
And Detroit’s back on its feet!
Will you take your place with me!

The time is NOW the vote is NEAR!
One Term More!
One more day to re-election,
And until the music stops,
We will fight to save the jobs of
Teachers, firemen & cops!
One Term More!
One more day to resolution,
We’ll defeat those fetid nuts,
We are fed up with pernicious
Talk of prostitutes & sluts!

Watch ‘em throwing up,
Minting malcontent,
Drinkin’ all that tea’s
Made them incontinent!

Dissembling persists,
Divisiveness prevails,
Calling colleagues Communists
Is OFF the rails!

Listen to them spew,
“Femi-Nazi” rage,
Misogynistic rants
From the Jurassic Age!

To Obama’s second inning,
He’ll drive home another run!
Norma Rae let sisters sing,
Rosa Parks let freedom ring!
For Obama’s just beginning,
Yes! The West Wing WILL be won!

AND we’ll get the Dream Act DONE!

My place is here, I vote with you!
One Term More!
Emboldened by Star-Spangled myth,
We want a JEDI…NOT a SITH!!!

Petty partisan obstruction’s
Why we’ve gridlock on the Hill!
One Term More!
Healthcare is a right,
Medicare’s a must,
Don’t let rogue Republicans
Betray that trust!

Speaking of betrayal,
Bullied by his peers,
Tackled to the ground,
Screams turned into tears.

Hunting down the queer,
Cutting off his hair,
SPIKED the ball, yet… “Can’t
Recall” if he was there???

It’s his character we question!

Mom, apple pie & Chevrolet,
Don’t let ‘em down Election Day!

That’s when we will determine
What our God in Heaven has in store!

ONE MORE TERM!

OTRA VEZ!
(One More Time!)

ONE TERM MORE!!!

 

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Sunday Farmer’s Market in Shepherdstown…

Since I am trapped in my recliner with my broken bones, Elly has already gone without me over to the Shepherdstown Farmers Market to buy our weekly supply of organic vegetables and field-raised meats that show up there. We are fortunate in our geographic area to have several farmers markets…  Saturday is the one at Morgan’s Grove and of course we also have them in Charles Town and Martinsburg and recently we saw signs for one one over in Hagerstown at the VFW Hall.

Our local farmers make a point of raising organic foods and for that we can be thankful. There are plenty of places in this country where organic foods are not available. Also, GMO foods are becoming more and more pervasive in our grocery stores. Thank you, Monsanto.

I hope you have great food available to you wherever you are. and I hope the organic food world expands everywhere. Support your farmers markets.

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• Cheaper Produce at the Farmers Market? It’s True (madeinusanews.com)
• Fab Finding Follow-Up: Farmer’s Market Fashion (fabsugar.com)
• What Are Common Organic Foods? (answers.com)

War on Health

 

I’m happy to present Gary Null‘s documentary: War on Health, The FDA‘s Cult of Tyranny.

If you are worried about organic foods, raw dairy products or other things being available, or if you are afraid of GMOs in your food, this will startle you:

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• Watch War on Health: The FDA’s Cult of Tyranny (foodfreedomgroup.com)
• Organically Farmed vs. Locally Produced (theepochtimes.com)
• War on Health: FDAs Cult of Tyranny (Trailer) (therealfoodchannel.com)

 

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose…

 

WATERFORD, Conn. —Say you are a 17 pound lobster named Larry living in a tank in a Connecticut restaurant, just waiting to be bought, boiled, buttered and eaten. Not a pleasant thought, is it.

A lobster that big could be anywhere between 70 to 100 years old… he’s lived through the great social and political events of the last couple of generations. Should he be in this situation?

Carrying Larry out to sea…

Fortunately for Larry, a Connecticut man, Don MacKenzie, purchased him at the restaurant, then released him back into Long Island Sound. MacKenzie says the local kids were calling the huge crustacean “Lucky Larry”.

“It takes seven years for him to even become a lobster big enough to keep,” saidMacKenzie. “For a lobster to live this long and avoid lobster traps, nets, lobster pots … he doesn’t deserve a bib and butter.”

MacKenzie won’t say how much he paid The Dock restaurant to take Larry off the menu Tuesday.

“Let’s just say that it’s the most expensive lobster I never ate.”

Turning Larry Loose…

Here at Under The LobsterScope we have great admiration for McKenzie who saw a creature in a deadly situation and saved his life. Larry thanks him and we do, too. It makes me feel proud to come from Connecticut.

 

The next time your pals say there is no such thing as Global Warming, show them this:

If this doesn’t convince them, suggest they go live in the grain producing areas of the midwest. That should back up their belief (but don’t laugh too hard.)

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Attend a National Demonstration Against Fracking in Washington, D.C. — Saturday, July 28

 

I am passing this on to all my readers in the Washington DC area and around here in Shepherdstown and Harper’s Ferry who don’t mind a 90 minute drive. This is very important for West Virginia, already subject to the disaster that is Mountain Top Removal in the coal industry, which is about to be subject to widespread fracking.

This is from the Center for Biological Diversity:

A fossil fuel rush is sweeping the United States — with terrible consequences.  The oil and gas industry is surging into new areas all over the country as quickly and cheaply as possible, largely as a result of advances in fracking technology.
Fracking is a dangerous oil and gas drilling technique that threatens waterfowl, fish and endangered species like the California condor, not to mention human health. In addition to intense local pollution, fracking also emits methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, and represents an increased dependency on fossil fuels when a rapid transition to clean, renewable energy should be our first priority.

“Natural gas” has been marketed as the clean alternative to traditional sources of oil, even though fracking routinely employs toxic chemicals like lead, arsenic, chromium 6 and benzene. This extreme drilling technique is set to explode across the United States, run by a largely unregulated industry.

We must demand that decision makers inside the Beltway take action to stop dangerous oil and gas industry practices before the damage is done. Join us on Saturday, July 28, in Washington, D.C., for a rally at the Capitol to demand a stop to dangerous drilling that hurts public health, water and air.

RSVP here.

What: Stop the Frack Attack: A National Call to Action

When: Saturday, July 28; rally starts at 2 p.m.

Where: The West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol

We’re joining with groups all over the nation for this day of action. Check out this video invite from Josh Fox, producer of the documentary Gasland, and Mark Ruffalo, star of this summer’s action hit The Avengers.

For more information on this and other Center for Biological Diversity activities, visit our events page.

Rose Braz, Climate Campaign Director
rbraz@biologicaldiversity.org
(415) 436-9682, Ext. 319

Related articles

• Stop the Frack Attack (sfgate.com)
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• Stop the Frack Attack (sierraclub.typepad.com)
• Celebrities to protest fracking in D.C. this month (bizjournals.com)
• Stop The Frack Attack -Rally In DC (baltidome.wordpress.com)
• House of Representatives trying to stop new fracking rules (switchboard.nrdc.org)

 

Why I will never eat at Chick-fil-A…

 

Because of it’s management’s consistent push of fundamentalist Christianity upon it’s customers, whether they are Jews, or Buddhists, or Muslims, or atheists like me, I have stayed as far away from Chick-fil-A as I could. If I were starving I would still avoid it. Restaurants should be concerned with making food and not making converts.

Recently, the President of Chick-fil-A, Dan Cathy,  came out as radically anti-gay… from opposition to gay marriage as well as opposition to gay employees. Does McDonalds do this? Burger King? Boston Market? Well, no.

Let me recommend that you avoid these guys, too. If you really feel a need to eat at the Rush Limbaugh of fast foods, just think about how every buck you spend there is supporting an ignorant society.

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• Chick-fil-A goes public with opposition to gay marriage (marketday.msnbc.msn.com)
• Mayor Menino on Chick-fil-A: Stuff it (bostonherald.com)
• The President Of Chick-Fil-A Thinks Gay Marriage Is Inviting God’s Judgment (buzzfeed.com)
• Chick-Fil-A’s anti-gay stance sparks online outrage (with poll) (vancouversun.com)
• The Left’s War On Chick-Fil-A (VIDEO) (radio.foxnews.com)
• Chick-Fil-A Admits To Supporting Hate Groups (queerlandia.com)

 

80% 0f Antibiotics are Fed to Farm Animals – and it’s killing us!

Here’s something we should all be aware of (especially when we go food shopping):

I hope you signed the petition… and look for the label in the meat department that tells you your steak is from a cow raised without antibiotics.

Related articles

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• Declaring independence from drugged up meat by buying antibiotic free this July 4th (switchboard.nrdc.org)
• Poultry Farming: Enrofloxacin in the antibiotics (insomniacanonymous.wordpress.com)
• The CAFO – MRSA Connection (ediblearia.com)
• Avoiding antibiotics in meat getting harder: report (ctv.ca)
• Why Is Something That Is Killing Thousands Every Year Still Legal? (upworthy.com)
• Consumer Reports scrutinizes antibiotic use in food production (cbsnews.com)
• Your meat on drugs: Will grocery stores cut out antibiotics? (grist.org)

Will Monsanto be allowed to poison us?

Just when we thought there might be some federal control over the spread of genetically modified vegetables and grains, a so-called “Monsanto rider” has been quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill. This  would require – not just allow, but require – the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed.

All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask, and the questionable crops could be released into the environment where they could potentially contaminate organic crops and lay waste to a healthy food supply.

Unless the Senate or a citizen’s army of farmers and consumers can stop them, the Republican (read “industry”) dominated House of Representatives is likely to make this dangerous rider the law very soon.

Here is what the Center For Food Safety officially had to say about the biotech industry’s latest attempt to circumvent legal and regulatory safeguards:

Ceding broad and unprecedented powers to industry, the rider poses a direct threat to the authority of U.S. courts, jettisons the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) established oversight powers on key agriculture issues and puts the nation’s farmers and food supply at risk.

In other words, if this single line in the 90-page Agricultural Appropriations bill slips through, it’s Independence Day for the biotech industry, and Monsanto comes out on top.

This is the time to contact your Representative and complain… by telephone and in writing… to keep the “Monsanto Rider” out of the law.

Related articles

• Monsanto rider: New bill could make biotech companies immune to courts (rt.com)
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• Monsanto rider: New bill could make biotech companies immune to courts – RT (2012indyinfo.com)
• Monsanto rider: New bill could make biotech companies immune to courts (EndtheLie.com)

I needed something to laugh at this afternoon… so here it is:

From Conan’s show: Jack McBrayer (Kenneth on 30 Rock) & Triumph The Comic Insult Dog Visit Chicago’s Weiner’s Circle (a famous site of vulgar insults.)

You’ll get a kick out of this (language not safe for prudes.)

When you shop for fruit and tomatoes, look at the stickers.

From Dear Ruth O’Donnell:

• Ruth O’Donnell shared General Knowledge‘s photo.

  

  
  

  Those stickers on fruits and veggies tell you quite a bit! 4 numbers mean they were conventionally grown. 5 numbers starting with number 8 means they are genetically modified (GMO). And 5 numbers starting with 9 means they were organically grown.

  Tag n share!

Related articles

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• Pesky Produce Stickers (chipwellness.wordpress.com)
• Produce Code (snopes.com)
• New GMOs Poised to Destroy Farmer’s Market Favorites (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
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• Battle brewing over labeling of genetically modified food (mercurynews.com)
• Are There GMOs in Your Backyard Garden? (blogher.com)

I’m not happy with the World…

…but I can’t do anything about it on a scale that would change anything.

Listening to politicians on the morning news babble at each other that they will not do anything about jobs or or education or ANYTHING unless the debt is reduced (which most economists will tell you is a false concern in relationship to income)… and then seeing that they do NOTHING while they are in session to work with each other or the President, and ignore the wishes of the voters.

Then I see the report on Global Biodiversity which shows that we are gobbling up the Earths resources at an unreplaceable rate (we are “outstripping the Earth’s resources by 50 percent — essentially using the resources of one and a half Earths every year, according to the 2012 Living Planet Report, produced by conservation agency the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)”

Natural resources — and the rate at which humans burn through them — rarely appear on policymakers’ balance sheets.

- Emily McKenzie, the director of the WWF’s Natural Capital Program

Tie all this in with the ignoring of Global Warming which is leading us further down the path to an unliveable planet.

The fact that we are still at war in the Middle East and are committed there for at least a dozen more years with billions of tax dollars being spent and no budget cuts to aid the economy is frightening. In my lifetime there have been relatively few years when we were not at war with SOMEONE… and the claims that this would all lead to peace are now nothing but laughable.

So my thoughts come back again to “what can we do?”

Elly and I have replaced all our light bulbs with the energy controlled ones and, even then, we sit in the dark most of the time to keep electricity down. We are growing our own food now (and buying and trading with local farmers.) We are planning to add chickens.

I am working with groups like Sustainable Shepherdstown to promote local job growth and development of our  local and regional small businesses.

I am campaigning against Monsanto, Dow and the rest for poisoning our foods and making it more difficult to get organic seeds in the market… yet they are taking over the food industry at rates that are more than alarming (for instance, Kellogg buying out Kashi has removed the latter from the organic food makers and now fills their products with GMO grains.)

But I wake up every morning more depressed than the day before… worried about the future for my children and my grandchildren (currently four of them).

Do you worry about all of this as well? Do you try to do anything about it, or just throw your hands up and resign yourself to it?

Let me know.

 

Related articles

• US lifestyle would need 4 earths to sustain: WWF report (mytechnologyworld9.blogspot.com)
• Report Says Global Biodiversity Has Plummeted 30 Percent In The Last 40 Years (businessinsider.com)
• WWF report criticizes Canadians’ ecological footprint (canada.com)
• WWF: Two Earths Needed By 2030 (huffingtonpost.co.uk)
• Only global poverty can save the planet, insists WWF – and the ESA! (go.theregister.com)
• Living Planet Report 2012 From WWF Looks At Ecological State Of The Earth (huffingtonpost.com)

Best Commercial Idea I’ve Seen This Year…

Do people steal your lunch out of the refrigerator at work? A company called “the” has come up with the answer: anti-theft lunch bags.

For $8, you receive 25 plastic sandwich bags with strategically placed green splotches on the surface, to make the contents inside look like something no one would want to steal, let alone eat.

Five percent of the lunch bag proceeds will go to Freedom From Hunger.

To order go HERE.

We must out-fund Monsanto’s Lobbyists (or die eating our unlabeled veggies!)

Volunteers across California are making history. On May 2nd, the California Right to Know campaign turned in nearly 1 million signatures to place a ballot initiative to label GMOs on the November 2012 ballot.

But this is only the beginning. We know that Monsanto and their minions will do everything in their power to spread lies and confuse voters. They have proven this time and again and most recently in Vermont and Connecticut where citizens in those states overwhelmingly supported bills to require labeling of genetically engineered foods.

Only a few days after voters in California qualified the historic initiative to label GMOs, Monsanto and biotech lobbyists were working behind closed doors in Connecticut to kill the bill that would have made it possible for the residents in that state to know what’s in their food.1 In the final hours of the 2012 legislative session, the biotech industry succeeded in getting Connecticut’s governor and House leaders to strip the bill of its labeling requirement as it was on the verge of passing with bipartisan support. Now, this year alone, governors in Vermont and Connecticut have both caved under the biotech industry’s threats to sue them if they pass a bill to label GMOs. This is an outrage!

While these backroom shenanigans can’t happen in California, since the ballot initiative will be put to a vote of the people, we know that Monsanto’s minions will be up to their usual dirty tricks. Already, a powerful biotech front group is starting to spread misleading stories in the media and distorting the real facts about the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act of 2012.

This has been called “the Food Fight of Our Life” and we need your help in making sure that we succeed in November.

Will you chip in to make GMO labeling a reality? Only with your help can we win in November!

We can win in California, but we need your help today! Here’s how. Between May 1 and May 26, a broad coalition of food, farm, health, public interest, and environmental groups all over the country, joined by leading organic food companies, will attempt to raise one million dollars to support the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act, a citizens’ ballot initiative, and other state GMO-labeling campaigns.

In an extraordinary gesture of support and solidarity in the fight for GMO labeling in California, Mercola.com, the largest alternative health website in the world, along with a group of leading organic companies including Nature’s Path, Lundberg Family Farms, and Eden Foods, and other nonprofit organizations, have pledged another one million dollars to the “Drop the Money Bomb on Monsanto” campaign – but only if we reach our goal of $1 million by May 26.

Please help us raise $1 million by May 26 for the California Right to Know GMO Labeling Campaign so we don’t miss out on this $1 million matching gift!

http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/591?akid=549.271844.mqPu-i&t=10

Thank you for contributing what you can today – Together we can win!

Now’s the time. Let’s drop the money bomb on Monsanto and take back our food supply!

Thanks for participating in food democracy,

David Murphy

President, Food Democracy Action!

P.S. All money raised for this campaign will go through Food Democracy Action!, a 501(c)4 allied organization of Food Democracy Now!, focused on grassroots lobbying and legislative action. Donations are not tax-deductible. Thank you for your support!

Source:

1. “GMO ‘Right to Know’ campaign in CT fails — Lawsuit threatened”, Digital Journal, May 5, 2012

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/590?akid=549.271844.mqPu-i&t=12

Related articles

• You’ll Probably Accidentally Eat This Toxic Food Today (articles.mercola.com)
• Food Manufacturing Editorial – Don’t Run from GMO Labeling (foodidentityblog.com)
• GMO Legislation Update: Monsanto Trumps Democracy in Vermont, Connecticut (eatdrinkbetter.com)
• GMO Labeling Initiative WILL Be On The Ballot In CA (12160.info)
• Something Historical is About to Happen – But Your Participation is Critical (articles.mercola.com)
• California Wants to Label GMOs (eatdrinkbetter.com)
• The Toxin So Dangerous It’s Causing Catastrophic Birth Defects (foodfreedomgroup.com)
• Millions against Monsanto: The food fight of our lives (blogginghounds.wordpress.com)
• California public to vote on GMO Label Act; Biotech lies begin (blacklistednews.com)

Genetically Modified foods should be labeled…

…we have a right to know what we are eating, and the right to refuse to eat GMO foods.

Just Label It! We have the right to know.