This is one from the archives(prior blogs, etc.).  While genetically engineered food is now no longer ‘new’ info, it remains news to many, and a hot topic.  Yes, it is long but  an interesting article. It’s worth noting that in the process of genetically engineering wheat for resistance to disease, and increased yield, the casualty in this was nutrition.  We all have heard about the sharp increase in obesity in this country over the last few decades. It is no accident that there is a direct chronological correspondence between the genetic engineering of the the seeds, and the rapid drop off in nutrition. So, it is not surprising that a person would be motivated to eat more, out of hunger, if their body is telling them that what they’re eating is not providing enough nutrients.  This is, in part, what has led many in the health foods/healthy diet community to turn to spelt and quinoa as alternatives, among others.

It’s worth noting, while reading info on this topic, that a secondary issue is that Monsanto, among others, have argued strenuoulsy — and successfully in court — that their genetically-engineered seeds are intellectual property, and and thereby fall under copyright protection. While this is highly questionable, IMHO, it nevertheless compromises the natural order, in large part because most of these seeds are engineered to produce fruits and vegetables which do not produce seeds. This means that farmers must buy seeds, each season, to grow more crops, instead of the natural order where each harvest generates seeds for the next planting. Genetic engineering changes all of that.  IMHO, that is a crime against nature.

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Genetic Engineering of Food

A new technology is changing the face of American agriculture. It’s called genetic engineering. Touted as the most exciting scientific advancement of our time, the solution to world hunger, and the greatest invention of the decade, genetically engineered foods have made their way onto our grocery shelves this year. But a growing number of scientists, physicians, clergy, consumers, business leaders and governments all over the world are voicing concerns over the proliferation of these foods into the market place.

What is genetic engineering and how does it work?

According to its developers, the technology of genetic engineering, was created to improve food production, reduce the use of pesticides and herbicides, and increase yields to feed our growing world. Though it has grabbed the support of our government, many scientists believe this technology reduces the nutritional value of our foods, perpetuates our international dependence on the chemical treadmill, and disrupts the flow of intelligence in the genetic sequence of our ecosystem.

Supporters assert that genetic engineering is a natural extension of traditional crossbreeding, where traits from the same or closely related species are interbred. In fact, it is radically different.

According to the Environmental Defense Fund, “Scientists can now readily shift genetic material from one species to virtually any other species. Genetic material can also be synthesized in the laboratory and then transferred into organisms. As a result, a virtually limitless number of genetically encoded substances…can now be added to organisms used as food.” Many of these substances have never been a part of the human food supply.

Dr. John Fagan, internationally recognized molecular biologist and former genetic engineer states, “We are living today in a very delicate time, one that is reminiscent of the birth of the nuclear era, when mankind stood at the threshold of a new technology. No one knew that nuclear power would bring us to the brink of annihilation or fill our planet with highly toxic radioactive waste. We were so excited by the power of a new discovery that we leapt ahead blindly, and without caution. Today the situation with genetic engineering is perhaps even more grave because this technology acts on the very blueprint of life itself.”

DNA, as defined by the Canadian Institute of Biotechnology, is nature’s blueprint for creating the individuality of a living organism. Genetic engineering manipulates an organism at the very source of its uniqueness, and fundamentally changes it, for better or for worse. Unfortunately, when this technology is applied to the foods we eat, unexpected side effects occur because, as Dr. Fagan states, “genetic manipulations cannot be controlled completely and precisely.”

Dr. Fagan goes on to say, “Genetic engineers can cut and splice genes very precisely in the test tube, but the process of putting those genes into a living organism is extremely imprecise, inaccurate, and uncontrolled. Such manipulations can cause mutations that damage the functioning of the natural genes of the organism. Once a gene is inserted into an organism, it can cause unanticipated side effects. Mutations and side effects can cause genetically engineered foods to contain toxins and allergens and to be reduced in nutritional value.”

What is our government doing?

According to the Council for Responsible Genetics (CRG), “The FDA has shrugged(shirked) its responsibility for regulating genetically engineered foods…a precautionary ’safety proven first’ policy has been scrapped in favor of corporate economic interests.” Current FDA policy allows individual companies to determine the extent of their pre-market safety testing.

CRG goes on to say, “If they (the companies) perceive no danger to consumers, companies are not required to state that their products have been genetically manipulated or to reveal the source of implanted genes; nor are they required to make the results of their safety tests available to the public. The FDA will not have a complete set of information regarding genetically engineered foods on the market, so there will be no way to trace who or what is
responsible should a problem occur.”

And problems do occur:

In 1989, the New England Journal of Medicine reported a tragic health crisis caused by a genetically engineered food supplement, tryptophan. Thirty-seven people died from this product, while 1500 others were permanently disabled and 5000 became very ill.

And when Pioneer HyBrid used a Brazil nut gene to create a genetically engineered soybean, it caused allergic reactions. Fortunately, this problem was detected before the soybeans went to market, and consumers were not harmed.

Despite these documented incidents and increased warnings from the international scientific community, the FDA continues to claim they find no scientific evidence to support the assertion that bio-engineered foods are unsafe. And they continue to maintain their current “honor system” approval process allowing the biotech industry to monitor itself, and release many new genetically engineered products for commercial distribution without thorough pre-market safety testing, advance notice or labels.

How can the FDA justify the release of these products without long-term safety testing or labels? The official government position states that transgenic foods are “substantially equivalent”, or essentially the same, as their natural predecessors. Therefore, they don’t need to be labeled as different.

But the logic doesn’t work. Altering the DNA of an organism changes it on its most fundamental level. No one knows what consequences this kind of manipulation will bring.

What’s on the market?

Dairy products from cows injected with a genetically altered hormone (rBGH), and corn, potatoes, soybeans, squash, cotton, papaya, tomatoes and canola, spliced with the DNA of bacteria and viruses. From infant formula to soda, pizza to chips, genetically engineered foods and their derivatives pervade the American diet.

We find this very disturbing. Who can guarantee our children won’t get cancer or our grandchildren won’t have birth defects from genetically engineered foods? Are they safe for pregnant women? What about the millions of newborns who are fed infant formulas made with genetically engineered soybeans, or the millions of Americans who suffer from food allergies?

These concerns alone are enough to demand rigorous, long-term, pre-market safety testing. But genetic engineering doesn’t just endanger the health of our families.

Environmental Concerns

Many scientists believe that genetic engineering threatens our wildlife, alters natural habitats, creates dramatic imbalances in our environment and exposes the entire ecosystem to unanticipated and potentially uncontrollable side effects. Unlike chemical or nuclear contamination, gene pollution cannot be contained or cleaned up. The natural process of cross-pollination will carry genetically engineered organisms to neighboring fields and beyond, creating new, unknown and potentially harmful species.

Yet biotech supporters state objections to these concerns as well. For example, Monsanto’s spokeswoman Karen Marshall says she is mystified that environmentalists would object to Roundup Ready soybeans because they were specifically engineered to reduce herbicide use.

But it’s not that simple. Some scientists estimate that not only will herbicide use triple as a result of herbicide-resistant crops, but will ultimately give rise to herbicide-resistant weeds as well. Why? Because farmers, knowing that their crops can tolerate the herbicides, will spray more liberal doses of herbicides on the fields to destroy the weeds. And eventually those weeds will also become resistant to the herbicide, because the genes for resistance will cross-pollinate with the weeds, leaving us with not just Roundup Ready soybeans, but Roundup Ready weeds.

The National Corn Growers Association expressed surprise as well, stating that their product actually reduces the use of pesticides. But in telling this story, the Association neglects to inform the public that the reason for this is that the genetically engineered corn actually contains a gene that produces its own insect-killing toxins. The EPA now registers the corn as a pesticide, and not a vegetable at all.

Safety First

In science, safety cannot be assumed. It must be proved by the scientist. The history of science is a history of ideas. Some good, some bad, some dangerous, some benign. It is the experiments, the research, the testing, and ultimately time, that pronounces the verdict. The reality is genetic engineering is too new and potentially too hazardous for any of us-consumers, scientists, farmers, government officials and corporate executive-to be in a hurry to take it out of the labs and put it onto our dinner tables.

The bottom line is that no one knows if these foods are safe, for us or our environment. We have all become subjects in a highly controversial experiment, without our knowledge or consent. At the very least genetically engineered foods must be labeled so that we can choose for ourselves whether we will eat them or not.

Despite a survey by Novartis showing that 93% of Americans want genetically engineered foods labeled, our government not only refuses to require labels, it continues to support the biotech industry’s desire to suppress labels even when individual food manufacturers want to provide their customers with complete information on this issue.

The government must reverse its position and establish stringent pre-market safety testing on these foods, and keep them out of our fields and our kitchens until they are scientifically proven safe for our environment and our families. Until those protocols are in place, federal regulations must mandate the clear and accurate labeling of all genetically engineered foods.

As citizens, we must take responsibility for the future. We are at a time in our world’s history where we can no longer afford to violate the laws of nature in our haste for progress. We must not only acknowledge, but honor the intimate relationship we share with everything in the universe. We need to shed our national addiction to profit-driven, quick-fix solutions, and make a decision as a society to embrace technologies that support all of life, technologies that not only uphold and promote our collective growth, but do not damage anyone or anything in the process.

There is an order in the universe, a seamless web that nourishes and connects us all-from the tiniest seed, to the beating of our hearts, to the stars in the galaxies. Every time we act without reference to this underlying intelligence of natural law, we harm ourselves, we harm each other, and we harm our planet.

If we align ourselves and our society with the nourishing power of nature, we will create a civilization that upholds the integrity and dignity of life for all of us.

Please join us!

This paper was prepared by the Natural Law Party and by Mothers for Natural Law, a non-profit educational organization coordinating a national public awareness campaign on the dangers of genetic engineering. Our understanding of this issue comes from some of the most distinguished scientists in the country including: Dr. John Fagan, former NIH molecular biologist, Dean of the Graduate School, Maharishi University of Management; Dr. Rebecca Goldburg, Environmental Defense Fund; Drs. Margaret Mellon and Jane Rissler, Union of Concerned Scientists; Dr. Liebe Cavalieri, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University; Dr. Sheldon Krimsky, Tufts University; Dr. Gary Kaplan, Cornell University Hospital; Dr. John Hagelin, Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, Maharishi University of Management; The Council for Responsible Genetics; The Humane Society; Dr. Michael Hansen, Consumer Policy Institute; Dr. Fred Kirschenmann, Farm Verified Organic; Dr. Marion Nestle, New York University.

Mothers for Natural Law
P.O. Box 1177
Fairfield, Iowa 52556
Phone (515) 472-2809
Fax (515) 472-2683

e-mail: mothers@safe-food.org

web site: www.safe-food.org

The Natural Law Party of the United States of America
1946 Mansion Drive
Fairfield, Iowa 52556

Phone (515) 472-2040
Fax (515) 472-2011

Web site: www.natural-law.org

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Due to some comments on Facebook, I have chosen to add some links about heirloom seeds or heritage seeds — sometimes referred termed as legacy seeds — which are non-hybrid seeds, and there are even some organizations established for the exchange & preservation of this body of seeds, sometimes referred to seed banks.

Yes, I know this is my second post @ Avatar, and, though there has been a number serious discussions/articles, none I’ve seen are as incisive & precise as this one, the one out of the Vatican notwithstanding. It raises the level – and context – of the discussion to a completely different level, imho…

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“The real story of what happened to Native Americans is a story no one wants to hear, because of the challenge it presents to the way we choose to see ourselves.”

Avatar, James Cameron’s blockbusting 3-D film, is both profoundly silly and profound. It’s profound because, like most films about aliens, it is a metaphor for contact between different human cultures. But in this case the metaphor is conscious and precise: this is the story of European engagement with the native peoples of the Americas. It’s profoundly silly because engineering a happy ending demands a plot so stupid and predictable that it rips the heart out of the film. The fate of the native Americans is much closer to the story told in another new film, The Road, in which a remnant population flees in terror as it is hunted to extinction.

But this is a story no one wants to hear, because of the challenge it presents to the way we choose to see ourselves. Europe was massively enriched by the genocides in the Americas; the American nations were founded on them. This is a history we cannot accept.

In his book American Holocaust, the US scholar David Stannard documents the greatest acts of genocide the world has ever experienced. In 1492, some 100m native peoples lived in the Americas. By the end of the 19th Century almost all of them had been exterminated. Many died as a result of disease. But the mass extinction was also engineered.

When the Spanish arrived in the Americas, they described a world which could scarcely have been more different from their own. Europe was ravaged by war, oppression, slavery, fanaticism, disease and starvation. The populations they encountered were healthy, well-nourished and mostly (with exceptions like the Aztecs and Incas) peaceable, democratic and egalitarian. Throughout the Americas the earliest explorers, including Columbus, remarked on the natives’ extraordinary hospitality. The conquistadores marvelled at the amazing roads, canals, buildings and art they found, which in some cases outstripped anything they had seen at home. None of this stopped them from destroying everything and everyone they encountered.

The butchery began with Columbus. He slaughtered the native people of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) by unimaginably brutal means. His soldiers tore babies from their mothers and dashed their heads against rocks. They fed their dogs on living children. On one occasion they hung 13 Indians in honour of Christ and the 12 disciples, on a gibbet just low enough for their toes to touch the ground, then disembowelled them and burnt them alive. Columbus ordered all the native people to deliver a certain amount of gold every three months; anyone who failed had his hands cut off. By 1535 the native population of Hispaniola had fallen from 8m to zero: partly as a result of disease, partly as a result of murder, overwork and starvation.

For the rest of the article…

This is intriguing info, especially when coupled with some research I’ve done over the years seeking to link the anthropological work of R. Singer & J. Wymer @ the cave at Klasies River mouth & the Blombos cave with other finds in southern Africa. This info is significant, imho, because of the astronomical links, and the foundation of geometry in application. Yet, I also feel any & all should be cautious when touting a claim like “The Oldest Man-made Structure on Earth.” This sparks a much more vast discussion in this arena than has been previously held, to my knowledge.

In an area of South Africa known as Mpumalanga, South African explorers have supposedly discovered what the are proclaiming as the oldest man-made structure on Earth. There are several photos & diagrams on the MaKomati home site, referencing the ruins which have been found.  For all these scientists’ apparent commitment to the culture they are ‘discovering’ and seeking to ‘preserve’, I find it highly ironic that they chose to name the stone calendar(a la Namoratunga or Stonehenge) after the scientist who discovered it, and, even stranger, is it’s “affectionate” appellation — “Adam’s calendar.”  C’mon folks….

Anyway, check out the info, and let’s expand the conversation…

This raises a long simmering issue which has plagued many aspects of our community from scholars & artists to musicians and *leaders* — how do we, in a positive/noncontentious way, critique & engage one another around our work, our collective responsibilities, the maintenance/upliftment of our culture, and nurture, in the process, as Dr. West suggests?…and we should be keenly mindful of the distinction he asserts between “succe$$” and “greatness.” This is crucially important in the discernment of value(s), and endurance of one’s work over time.

We live in a highly competitive society, which places contention above cooperation.  Those who were around remember when there was only one flavor, one *representative* allowed overall, or in a given niche.  As our presence multiplied, there was room for Flip Wilson(Geraldine) AND Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Moms Mabley AND Redd Foxx.  But, when Sidney Poitier was the ONLY, a different level of care & responsibility applied. Does that mean we should allow members of our community to run us down, to belittle or brutalize segments of our community — as rappers have done to our women?  No.  Is Dr. West’s proscription for sensitive dialogue called for in all cases?  Perhaps not, but it should at least be the FIRST choice, the first effort, before we step to other more serious means.

There may be a few — a very few AA’s who use computers — who do not know the name of Octavia Butler, an award-winning speculative fiction author. In case there are some of you who are unfamiliar with this extraordinary AA woman/author, follow the link.

Octavia Butler @ book signing

I was fortunate to meet Octavia a few times in the 80’s, at a conference of the IBWA Los Angeles, where she spoke, and at some meetings of LASFS, where she held court in a rather odd social dynamic…which would require a separate post.  She was a gloriously tall and dark sister, proud and articulate, though a bit shy.  Of her works, Mind of My Mind was my favorite. I can only say, if you have not read Octavia Butler, you are in for one good surprise…

The Huntington Library announcement is available in PDF.

A big FYI to folks connected to the SF Bay area, doing NGO and community services. A potentially useful resource… Follow links to complete online resources.

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Rebuilding Together San Francisco Offers Free Repair and Renovation Work for Nonprofit Organizations

Rebuilding Together San Francisco provides free repairs and renovations for San Francisco-based nonprofit organizations and community service facilities as part of its annual Rebuilding Weekend program on the last weekend of April.

Rebuilding Together organizes volunteer teams to provide repair and renovation work for low-income homeowners, nonprofits, and community centers. The type of work completed includes (but is not limited to) interior painting, minor plumbing, electrical, landscaping, carpentry, safety modifications, flooring, appliance upgrade, general beautification, etc.

The deadline for facility applications is November 30, 2009.

Visit the Rebuilding Together Web site for further information and the facility application.

More & more of the same…..folks need to PAY ATTENTION!!! Try reading some international news instead of the oatmeal hype we get here…

One of the rampant atrocities scathing the globe is the abuse of poor countries by wealthy corporations, by offering BIG $$$ in exchange for the dumping &/or abandoning of toxic waste in the national waters of these nations. While this is not news, it is no less heinous. The most recent example is Trafigura, a British oil trading giant which has agreed to a multimillion-pound payout to settle a huge damages claim from thousands of Africans who fell ill from tonnes of toxic waste dumped illegally in one of the worst pollution incidents in decades.

There are several aspects of interest to this story, including the initial denial of injury by Trafigura, to the paying of a multi-million pound bounty to the government of Ivory Coast — without any admission of liability, which got their president, Claude Dauphin, out of a Cote d’Ivoire jail, and resulted in pending criminal prosecution against Trafigura being dropped(article).

Also of interest are the efforts of Trafigura to squelch news reportage of the incident, and its unfolding debacle, by ‘leveraging’ Britain’s libel laws(article).

It is specifically worthwhile to take the time to read the full series of articles, to apprise oneself of the sequence of events, the steps/actions taken by Trafigura, and the final unraveling of the story in the British press.  Now, ask yourself two questions:

• Do you remember reading or hearing about this in the domestic USA press at any time going back to the event of the dumping in 2006?  If not, what does that tell you?
• Secondly, like many crimes, specifically rape, most such events go unreported, even by the victim, as a result of the government being bought off(which occurred in this case), or the victim nation and its people are considered so inconsequential that their plight doesn’t even show up on UN radar.

If  we consider these aspects with any degree of critical thinking, then immediately it becomes clear that this ‘rape of the earth’ is not an isolated incident.  Accountability seem to be the clarion call of this age…and it needs to be shouted MUCH MORE LOUDLY!!!

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How UK oil company Trafigura tried to cover up African pollution disaster

by David Leigh
16 September 2009

The Guardian can reveal evidence today of a massive cover-up by the British oil trader Trafigura, in one of the worst pollution disasters in recent history.

Internal emails show that Trafigura, which yesterday suddenly announced an offer to pay compensation to 31,000 west African victims, was fully aware that its waste dumped in Ivory Coast was so toxic that it was banned in Europe.

Thousands of west Africans besieged local hospitals in 2006, and a number died, after the dumping of hundreds of tonnes of highly toxic oil waste around the country’s capital, Abidjan. Official local autopsy reports on 12 alleged victims appeared to show fatal levels of the poisonous gas hydrogen sulphide, one of the waste’s lethal byproducts.

Trafigura has been publicly insisting for three years that its waste was routine and harmless. It claims it was “absolutely not dangerous”.

It has until now denied compensation claims, and its lawyers repeatedly threatened anyone worldwide who sought to contradict its version. It launched a libel case against BBC Newsnight, forced an alleged correction from the Times, demanded the Guardian delete articles, and yesterday tried to gag journalists in the Netherlands and Norway with legal threats.

But the dozens of damning internal Trafigura emails which have now come to light reveal how traders were told in advance that their planned chemical operation, a cheap and dirty process called “caustic washing”, generated such dangerous wastes that it was widely outlawed in the west.

The documents reveal that the London-based traders hoped to make profits of $7m a time by buying up what they called “bloody cheap” cargoes of sulphur-contaminated Mexican gasoline. They decided to try to process the fuel on board a tanker anchored offshore, creating toxic waste they called “slops”.

For the rest of the article, including audio report

Folks, if you’re not hip to this, ya gotta check this out. There are a great many *scandals* being continually revealed within our society. I dare say that this is in the top 2 or 3. As a good friend of mine, Laurence Rozier notes often on his Meshverse blog, the mechanism for conducting business, ‘protecting’ intellectual property — even how it is defined — is in the process of irrevocable change.

Part of this question involves a redefinition of “theft/stealing”, as well as “property” itself. This is an ongoing discussion, so feel free to leap in…..

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The Hidden Truth Behind Drug Company Profits
by Johann Hari

This is the story of one of the great unspoken scandals of our times. Today, the people across the world who most need life-saving medicine are being prevented from producing it. Here’s the latest example: factories across the poor world are desperate to start producing their own cheaper Tamiflu to protect their populations – but they are being sternly told not to. Why? So rich drug companies can protect their patents – and profits. There is an alternative to this sick system, but we are choosing to ignore it.

To understand this tale, we have to start with an apparent mystery. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been correctly warning for months that if swine flu spreads to the poorest parts of the world, it could cull hundreds of thousands of people – or more. Yet they have also been telling the governments of the poor world not to go ahead and produce as much Tamiflu – the only drug we have to reduce the symptoms, and potentially save lives – as they possibly can.

In the answer to this whodunit, there lies a much bigger story about how our world works today.

Our governments have chosen, over decades, to allow a strange system for developing medicines to build up. Most of the work carried out by scientists to bring a drug to your local pharmacist – and into your lungs, or stomach, or bowels – is done in government-funded university labs, paid for by your taxes.

Drug companies usually come in late in the process of development, and pay for part of the expensive, but largely uncreative final stages, like buying some of the chemicals and trials that are needed. In return, then they own the exclusive rights to manufacture and profit from the resulting medicine for years. Nobody else can make it.

Although it’s not the goal of the individuals working within the system, the outcome is often deadly. The drug companies who owned the patent for Aids drugs went to court to stop the post-Apartheid government of South Africa producing generic copies of it – which are just as effective – for $100 a year to save their dying citizens. They wanted them to pay the full $10,000 a year to buy the branded version – or nothing. In the poor world, the patenting system every day puts medicines beyond the reach of sick people.

For the rest of the article…

Chicken a la Carte is one of those films which will rearrange your vision, your values, what you thought was *real.*  Winner of the 56th Berlin International Film Festival, and judged the most popular short film, these awards may surprise you as you watch it…but won’t when you get to the end.  It pretty much speaks for itself.  I will simply say, if we can each remember the images of this film the next time we get ready to complain about something….

A colleague sent this video to me on Facebook, and I marveled, even before I watched it, at the very idea of what they were attempting, which is included below. Like so much in our world these days, genius is too often misidentified, misunderstood, exploited, even denied.  We are clear now that genius includes more than intellectual and artistic/creative endeavors, but encompasses a much broader context of human experience.  Some will argue that we all possess some element of genius.  Perhaps, but let us not dilute its meaning in an effort to be inclusive and *even-handed.* Nature is not even-handed, to this extent.  At one level, all aspects of existence are Divine.  Yet, it is safe to say that some aspects of existence, expression and behavior may not seem so.  Part of this exercise, in shifting the context/parameters of our perception is the challenge of stepping outside the enculturated memes and ‘normative standards’, which we digest — and then become — just like the food we eat.

So, then what is genius?  How do we define it, recognize it, engage it, respect it? Is there a difference between mastery and genius, or the latter require the fermentation of the former to reach full bloom?  Clearly, genius is one of those rare things in existence which cannot be faked or pretended, nor is it generally reasonable for one to claim this for themselves.  It is often considered to be, most appropriately, an appellation given or bestowed, one clearly earned by the evidence of one’s ability and works.