Saturday, February 20, 2010
Perspective. . .
That Does Not Allow Denial.
by The Good People of GoodPlanet.org
A 1-1/2 hour movie called...
“Home”
Proof of the complex simplistic truth of...
“It's too late for pessimism” - is now a shared reality for us all.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Bad Words
From the dictionary......
"Liberal"
[fr.L liberalis, suitable for a freeman, generous, fr. liber free]
1: of, relating to, or based on the liberal arts
2: GENEROUS, BOUNTIFUL, 3: not narrow in opinion or judgement
4: TOLERANT; also: not orthodox, 5: not conservative
also related to liberty and liberate........
maybe it's not such a bad word after all.
Gay Marriage in Mexico City is OK
Desecha Corte recursos de tres estados contra bodas gays
Improcedente que usen este tipo de juicios otros estados para reformas del DF: ministro Sergio Valls.
"Notimex
Publicado: 19/02/2010 14:15
México, DF. El ministro de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación (SCJN), Sergio Valls, desechó por notoriamente improcedentes las controversias constitucionales que presentaron tres estados contra los matrimonios entre homosexuales en el Distrito Federal.
Valls Hernández emitió los acuerdos mediante los cuales determinó que existe un motivo "manifiesto e indudable de improcedencia" que da lugar a desechar de plano las controversias constitucionales que presentaron los estados de Morelos, Guanajuato y Tlaxcala contra ese tipo de bodas en el Distrito Federal.
El ministro lo estimó así en virtud de que otros estados del país no pueden usar este tipo de juicios para impugnar reformas como las aprobadas en el Distrito Federal."
In English:
Dismisses Supreme Court objections by three states against gay marriages.
Imprudent for other states to use this type of judgment for Mexico City reforms: Supreme Court Justice Sergio Valls.
"Notimex
Published: February 19, 2010 14:15
Mexico City. The Supreme Court Justice (SCJN) Sergio Valls, dismissed due to notoriously improcedent the constitutional controversies presented by three states against gay marriages in Mexico City.
Valls Hernandez released the decision through which he determined that there exists a "notorious and undoubtable improcedent" motive that leads to completely reject the constitutional controversies the States of Morelos, Guanajuato, and Tlaxcala presented against this type of weddings in Mexico City. The Justice decided so based on the fact that other states cannot use this type of judgements to impugnate reforms like those approved in Mexico City".
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Bertrand Russell - A Legacy of Activism
Bertrand Russell was born in Wales in 1872. His parents were John and Catherine Russell (Lord and Lady Amberly), and his godfather was the English philosopher, John Stuart Mills. His grandfather, Lord John Russell (1804 – 1874) was Prime Minister of Great Britain on two separate occasions. Tragically, Russell’s parents and younger sister died when he was three years old. He subsequently lived with his paternal grandparents in England.
As a young man, he studied in Cambridge and was friends with such notables as Alfred North Whitehead, Ludwig Wittgenstein, GE Moore and John Maynard Keyes. Philosophically, Russell broke away from Hegelian Idealism and shifted his emphasis to logical and linguistic analysis.
He is renowned for his works in technical philosophy and mathematics. In 1910, he published the Principia Mathematica with his colleague, Alfred North Whitehead; this work is considered to be one of the most profound academic treatises of the twentieth century. An integral part of this master work was the concept of logicism, which holds that mathematics could be reduced to a few basic ideas and principles of logic. He is also famous for the so-called Russell’s’ Paradox or the theory of types.
What is not so well known is his lifelong battled against social injustice and state-sponsored violence. He was profoundly sensitive to the suffering of mankind. His definition of the good life is one, “Inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” In his lifetime, Russell combined his impassioned and unassailable logic with political action in defense of reason and human happiness. He was so ardent in his convictions that he was imprisoned twice by the British government.
In his working lifetime, he wrote some four hundred letters to the editor between 1904 and 1969 regarding such topics as World War II, Fascism, McCarthyism, the Cold War and the threat of Nuclear Annihilation. In addition he wrote eighty books and several thousand articles. He had a lifelong interest in the areas of social conscience and human rights. According to Russell, “Three passions simple but overwhelmingly strong have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and an unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”
In regards to his politics, Russell supported the principles of socialism in his book, German Social Democracy, but took issue with Marx’s idea regarding the necessity for violent revolution to supplant the status quo. In 1906, he ran for Parliament as a member of the Liberal Party and lost the election.
In 1914, he went to Harvard to teach and there he met TS Eliot, the famous poet. During his stay at Harvard, he wrote Our Knowledge of the External World, a collection of lectures published in 1914. In this book, Russell struggles with the difficulty that the individual has in comprehending the external world. He was an empiricist who incorporated the logic of mathematics into his thinking.
Russell joined the pacifist cause during World War I and was an adamant opponent of military conscription. In 1916 he was fined for pamphleteering on behalf of conscientious objectors and was dismissed from his lectureship at Cambridge. His opposition was seen as so threatening that by 1917 the government forbade him to travel abroad, and in 1918 he spent 6 months in prison for his anti-war writing; notable among these are – Why Men Fight (1916) and Justice in War Time (1917).
In the years leading up to World War II, Russell foresaw the approaching calamity in Europe. He was a strong advocate of pacifism and urged pacifism as an alternative should war come. He detailed his views in his books, Which Way to Peace published in 1936 and Power: A New Social Analysis published in 1938. In this latter work one of his conclusions was that military force or “naked power” is a fundamental aspect of human history, and is at the foundation of the monopoly of violence which we call the State. Furthermore, in his analysis, he determined that military force is used predominantly for the control of territory.
In his work entitled, Religion and Science, Russell compared the extremist and fanatical views of those who aligned themselves with communism and fascism to the religious fanaticism that retarded scientific and human progress some 300 years after Copernicus. His prescription for an escape from this mindset was individual free thought and a balance of scientific rationality and compassion. On account of his controversial views and influence, he was blacklisted and was unable to find work or publish his views. This would haunt him throughout the war.
Following the Second World War, the prospect of annihilation of human civilization with the advent of the atomic bomb and Cold War politics dominated his writing and thinking for the remainder of his life. He collaborated with Einstein and together they issued the Russell-Einstein Manifesto on July 9, 1955. In it they state,
_______________________________________________________
“In the tragic situation which confronts humanity, we feel that scientists should assemble in conference to appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction, and to discuss a resolution in the spirit of the appended draft.
We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism.
Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but we want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings and consider yourselves only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history, and whose disappearance none of us can desire.
We shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it.
We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?”
_______________________________________________________
Russell was also the President of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Committee of 100. He both advocated and practiced civil disobedience, and as a consequence of his activism was arrested at the age of 89. During the Cuban missile crisis that nearly resulted in nuclear Armageddon, Russell exchanged telegrams with Premier Khrushchev and President Kennedy pleading that they step back from the brink of nuclear war.
Even at the age of 91 (1963), he remained active and founded the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation advocating world peace and human rights. Nine heads of state were sponsors of this foundation including Prime Minister Nehru of India. He was also an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and initiated an International War Crimes Tribunal in accordance with the principles set down by the Allies at Nuremburg.
He died in 1970. Bertrand Russell was both a renowned man of letters (he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950) and a man of conscience and deep moral conviction. He left a remarkable legacy of thought and action that remains relevant to this day.
As a young man, he studied in Cambridge and was friends with such notables as Alfred North Whitehead, Ludwig Wittgenstein, GE Moore and John Maynard Keyes. Philosophically, Russell broke away from Hegelian Idealism and shifted his emphasis to logical and linguistic analysis.
He is renowned for his works in technical philosophy and mathematics. In 1910, he published the Principia Mathematica with his colleague, Alfred North Whitehead; this work is considered to be one of the most profound academic treatises of the twentieth century. An integral part of this master work was the concept of logicism, which holds that mathematics could be reduced to a few basic ideas and principles of logic. He is also famous for the so-called Russell’s’ Paradox or the theory of types.
What is not so well known is his lifelong battled against social injustice and state-sponsored violence. He was profoundly sensitive to the suffering of mankind. His definition of the good life is one, “Inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” In his lifetime, Russell combined his impassioned and unassailable logic with political action in defense of reason and human happiness. He was so ardent in his convictions that he was imprisoned twice by the British government.
In his working lifetime, he wrote some four hundred letters to the editor between 1904 and 1969 regarding such topics as World War II, Fascism, McCarthyism, the Cold War and the threat of Nuclear Annihilation. In addition he wrote eighty books and several thousand articles. He had a lifelong interest in the areas of social conscience and human rights. According to Russell, “Three passions simple but overwhelmingly strong have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and an unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”
In regards to his politics, Russell supported the principles of socialism in his book, German Social Democracy, but took issue with Marx’s idea regarding the necessity for violent revolution to supplant the status quo. In 1906, he ran for Parliament as a member of the Liberal Party and lost the election.
In 1914, he went to Harvard to teach and there he met TS Eliot, the famous poet. During his stay at Harvard, he wrote Our Knowledge of the External World, a collection of lectures published in 1914. In this book, Russell struggles with the difficulty that the individual has in comprehending the external world. He was an empiricist who incorporated the logic of mathematics into his thinking.
Russell joined the pacifist cause during World War I and was an adamant opponent of military conscription. In 1916 he was fined for pamphleteering on behalf of conscientious objectors and was dismissed from his lectureship at Cambridge. His opposition was seen as so threatening that by 1917 the government forbade him to travel abroad, and in 1918 he spent 6 months in prison for his anti-war writing; notable among these are – Why Men Fight (1916) and Justice in War Time (1917).
In the years leading up to World War II, Russell foresaw the approaching calamity in Europe. He was a strong advocate of pacifism and urged pacifism as an alternative should war come. He detailed his views in his books, Which Way to Peace published in 1936 and Power: A New Social Analysis published in 1938. In this latter work one of his conclusions was that military force or “naked power” is a fundamental aspect of human history, and is at the foundation of the monopoly of violence which we call the State. Furthermore, in his analysis, he determined that military force is used predominantly for the control of territory.
In his work entitled, Religion and Science, Russell compared the extremist and fanatical views of those who aligned themselves with communism and fascism to the religious fanaticism that retarded scientific and human progress some 300 years after Copernicus. His prescription for an escape from this mindset was individual free thought and a balance of scientific rationality and compassion. On account of his controversial views and influence, he was blacklisted and was unable to find work or publish his views. This would haunt him throughout the war.
Following the Second World War, the prospect of annihilation of human civilization with the advent of the atomic bomb and Cold War politics dominated his writing and thinking for the remainder of his life. He collaborated with Einstein and together they issued the Russell-Einstein Manifesto on July 9, 1955. In it they state,
_______________________________________________________
“In the tragic situation which confronts humanity, we feel that scientists should assemble in conference to appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction, and to discuss a resolution in the spirit of the appended draft.
We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism.
Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but we want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings and consider yourselves only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history, and whose disappearance none of us can desire.
We shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it.
We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?”
_______________________________________________________
Russell was also the President of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Committee of 100. He both advocated and practiced civil disobedience, and as a consequence of his activism was arrested at the age of 89. During the Cuban missile crisis that nearly resulted in nuclear Armageddon, Russell exchanged telegrams with Premier Khrushchev and President Kennedy pleading that they step back from the brink of nuclear war.
Even at the age of 91 (1963), he remained active and founded the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation advocating world peace and human rights. Nine heads of state were sponsors of this foundation including Prime Minister Nehru of India. He was also an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and initiated an International War Crimes Tribunal in accordance with the principles set down by the Allies at Nuremburg.
He died in 1970. Bertrand Russell was both a renowned man of letters (he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950) and a man of conscience and deep moral conviction. He left a remarkable legacy of thought and action that remains relevant to this day.
Why is China afraid of the Dalai Lama?
President Obama met Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalia Lama for more than an hour today in the Map Room of the White House, a move signaling Obama's solidarity with Tibet's quest for human rights and his willingness to irritate the communist Chinese government.
Following the meeting, the Dalai Lama told reporters he spoke to Obama about human rights and promoting religious harmony. The Dalai Lama says he has admired America since his childhood as a champion of "democracy, freedom and human value." He also praised Obama for "always showing his genuine concern" for Tibet.
Obama made no public remarks at the meeting. White House reporters were not permitted to photograph the president and the 74-year-old exiled Buddhist monk. The White House released a photo of the meeting later today.
The Dalai Lama, who, like Obama, has won a Nobel Peace Prize, left China for India in 1959 and has built a global following for Tibetan human rights. He leads a government in exile in Dharamsala, India.
Every U.S. president dating back to George Herbert Walker Bush has met the Dalai Lama.
Almost a year ago, the Dalai Lama accused China of turning Tibet into "Hell on earth." His holiness advocates autonomy for Tibet. Some younger Tibetans have been prodding the Dalai Lama to press for independence. China, which rules the rugged Tibetan region with stern military might, rejects autonomy and independence.
In a statement released by the White House, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama "stated his strong support for the preservation of Tibet’s unique religious, cultural and linguistic identity and the protection of human rights for Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China."
Gibbs said Obama also praised the Dalai Lama's "commitment to nonviolence and his pursuit of dialogue with the Chinese government. " Obama has prodded both sides in the struggle to re-open dialogue. Talks between envoys for China and Tibet resumed in January, something Gibbs said Obama "was pleased to hear about."
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has denounced the meeting.
"China resolutely opposes the visit by the Dalai Lama to the United States, and resolutely opposes U.S. leaders having contact with the Dalai Lama," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said.
Obama told Chinese leaders last fall he intended to meet with the Dalai Lama. Obama did not see his holiness during an extensive trip to the US in September of 2009, a move interpreted as an attempt to curry favor with Chinese leaders.
Gibbs said today Obama and the Dalai Lama "agreed on the importance of a positive and cooperative relationship between the United States and China.”
Before speaking to reporters briefly outside the White House, the Dalai Lama used his hand to imprint the image of a tiger in a snow bank outside the Briefing Room. The Chinese New Year, the year of the tiger, began Feb. 14. (fox news)
Mossad
Beware of men with tennis racquets.
Mossad has often come under criticism for perceived excessive actions against Israel's enemies. It has been criticized for carrying out assassinations, abductions and torture. It has also been accused of violating international law. (read more)
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
On closer inspection
“The meaning of a sentence is derived from the original words by an active, interpretive process. The original sentence which is perceived is rapidly forgotten and the memory is then for the information (meaning) contained in the sentence.” ~ J. Sachs, 1967.
In the 1960’s, psychologists broke away from the long-standing traditions of behaviorism, and the field of cognitive psychology emerged. This act of secession was inspired by advances in fields such as neuroscience, cybernetics and linguistics. In the area of language development, psychologists adopted linguistic principles, introduced by Noam Chomsky, as a method for measuring verbal learning and behavior. These principles were more consistent with natural observations of language development. Chomsky’s model recognizes that language is expressed on at least two different levels ~ a ‘surface structure’, representing the audible/visible properties of a sentence (i.e. morphemes and syntax) ~ and a ‘deep structure’, representing the underlying semantic relationships conveyed by a sentence.
What they found is that the deep structure of a sentence is what people retain. Surface-structure is purged within milliseconds and no longer available for recall. The resulting memory is not a literal transcript of written or spoken language. It is more like a coded network of related concepts and ideas derived from the original sentence, as well as from the past experience of the listener. What we come away with is a feeling of resonance and familiarity, based largely on beliefs and experience ..and not necessarily the meaning intended by the speaker.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Where is Osama bin Laden?
The Taliban are retreating in Afghanistan
Alexander the Great fought there
Alexander is no more
The Afghans are there
Where is Osama bin Laden?
Alexander the Great fought there
Alexander is no more
The Afghans are there
Where is Osama bin Laden?
From the Mexico US Border
I have a dream and you have a dream and everybody
has a dream something no no no that is the worst
thing to do write something beautiful beautiful
another lie on the border another beautiful lie
that will help us forget Juárez is alive and well
and living in El Paso.
Written by:
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
A poet living in El Paso.
has a dream something no no no that is the worst
thing to do write something beautiful beautiful
another lie on the border another beautiful lie
that will help us forget Juárez is alive and well
and living in El Paso.
Written by:
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
A poet living in El Paso.
Circus Maximus
"The Society of the Spectacle"
by Guy Debord
The Society of the Spectacle is a critique of contemporary consumer culture and commodity fetishism. Before the term "globalization" was popularized, Debord was arguing about issues such as class alienation, cultural homogenization, and the mass media.
Debord traces the development of a modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation: "All that was once directly lived has become mere representation." Debord argues that the history of social life can be understood as "the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing." This condition, according to Debord, is the "historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life."
With the term spectacle, Debord defines the system that is a confluence of advanced capitalism, the mass media, and the types of governments who favor those phenomena. "... the spectacle, taken in the limited sense of "mass media" which are its most glaring superficial manifestation...". The spectacle is the inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people, in which passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine activity. "The spectacle is not a collection of images," Debord writes. "rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images."
In his analysis of the spectacular society, Debord notes that quality of life is impoverished, with such lack of authenticity, human perceptions are affected, and there's also a degradation of knowledge, with the hindering of critical thought. Debord analyzes the use of knowledge to assuage reality: the spectacle obfuscates the past, imploding it with the future into an undifferentiated mass, a type of never ending present; in this way the spectacle prevents individuals from realizing that the society of spectacle is only a moment in history (time), one that can be overturned through revolution.
Debord's aim and proposal, is "to wake up the spectator who has been drugged by spectacular images, through radical action in the form of the construction of situations, situations that bring a revolutionary reordering of life, politics, and art". In the situationist view, situations are actively created moments characterized by "a sense of self-consciousness of existence within a particular environment or ambience".
Debord encouraged the use of détournement, "which involves using spectacular images and language to disrupt the flow of the spectacle."
When Debord says that, "All that was once directly lived has become mere representation," he is referring to central importance of the image in contemporary society. Images, Debord says, have supplanted genuine human interaction.
Thus, Debord’s fourth thesis is "The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images."
In a consumer society, social life is not about living but about having; the spectacle uses the image to convey what people need and must have. Consequently, social life moves further, leaving a state of "having" and proceeding into a state of "appearing;" namely the appearance of the image.
"In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the false."
(read more)
No more Bread and Circus
Young people do not want Winter Olympics
They want housing and jobs
Vancouver now, Seattle yesterday
Another world is possible
They want housing and jobs
Vancouver now, Seattle yesterday
Another world is possible
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
mirror mirror
Oberon enters this story on page 194...
BEAUTY is the 5th Sherri Tepper book I've read, mostly projecting future adaptation of humankind..
BEAUTY is the 5th Sherri Tepper book I've read, mostly projecting future adaptation of humankind..
The Antikythera mechanism
The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient mechanical calculator (also described as the first known mechanical computer) designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was recovered in 1900–01 from the Antikythera wreck, but its complexity and significance were not understood until decades later. It is now thought to have been built about 150–100 BC. Technological artifacts of similar complexity did not reappear until the 14th century, when mechanical astronomical clocks appeared in Europe.
Professor Michael Edmunds of Cardiff University who led the most recent study of the mechanism said: "This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind. The design is beautiful, the astronomy is exactly right. The way the mechanics are designed just makes your jaw drop. Whoever has done this has done it extremely carefully...in terms of historic and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa." (read more)
Friday, February 12, 2010
Ancestry
HOMAGE TO THE
TREE SHREW
TREE SHREW
It is interesting for me to learn how much the tree shrew can tell us about human nature. They were one of the first primates on the evolutionary branch leading to humans. Neuro-anatomical studies reveal that they were also the first primate to evolve a highly elaborate and differentiated visual system. Psychological tests show that this development gave rise to the ability to perform two tasks with equal skill: 1) focusing attention on interesting features (while filtering out irrelevant information) and 2) swiftly shifting attention to other interesting (or alarming) features in the environment.
We take these contributions for granted now, but both abilities were not equally present in mammals before the tree shrew. It is an adaptation that had survival value, allowing them to track prey without losing sight of their predators – a trick of nature that makes them equally suited to act as hunters, as well as survive being hunted as prey. We appreciate these contributions when something goes wrong, resulting in one form of attention deficit or another. I think we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to these little beings. They mark the beginning of neocortical evolution in man.
Don't be a sinner
For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
-Albert Camus
-Albert Camus
Thursday, February 11, 2010
How Three Firms Came To Rule The World
"One often hears the statement that agriculture is changing and we must adapt to the changes", says William Heffernan, a professor of rural sociology at the University of Missouri. "Few persons who repeat the statement really understand the magnitude of the changes and the implications of them for agriculture and for the long-term sustainability of the food system. It is almost heresy to ask if these changes are what the people of our country really want or, if they are not what is desired, how we might redirect the change. These changes are the result of notoriously short-sighted market forces and not the result of public dialogue, the foundation of a democracy. Neither are the changes the result of some mystical figure or an 'invisible hand'."
Earlier this year the Farmers' Union hired Heffernan to undertake a study on consolidation in agricultural trade. Heffernan concluded that once you disentangle a web of subsidiaries, mergers, joint ventures, parternships, side agreements, marketing arrangements and alliances you find that "three food chains dominate the global food production system". These chains are: Cargill/Monsanto; ConAgra and Novartis/ADM. Even so, Heffernan notes that because of lax reporting requirements it's difficult to get a fix on precisely what these companies own and how they go about doing business. "Cargill has operations in 70 countries and it's a privately held firm. How do we get all of the necessary information? We've exposed the tip of the iceberg, but exposure only indicates the type of information needed to understand the global food system."
Heffernan points to the Cargill/Monsanto cluster as one of the most dangerous of the new alliances. In 1998 Monsanto and Cargill announced that Cargill had sold its vast seed operation to Monsanto (the world's leading biotech outfit) and entered into an agreement with the chemical company to develop new kinds of crop biotechnology. This alliance presents distinct benefits to both companies but dangers to consumers, farmers and the environment. A case in point is the alliances' so-called terminator gene. "No longer will Monsanto have to depend on access to farmers' fields for collection of tissue samples to make sure farmers do not keep seed from one year's crop to plant the following year", Heffernan warns. "Use of the terminator gene will mean that all crop farmers must return each year to obtain their seed from seed firms, just as corn producers have had to do for the past half-century."
If the press, which rarely mentions agricultural issues anymore, doesn't take this turn of events seriously, the corporate leaders of the agri-conglomerates certainly do. And they are not the least bit bashful about what's at stake. Dwayne Andreas is the politically wired former CEO of Archer Daniels Midland. He recently boasted to Reuters that he wanted to make ADM the world's dominant agriculture firm because, to his way of thinking, there's simply nothing more powerful than controlling the world's food supply. He said agribusiness is more powerful than the oil industry.
"The food business is far and away the most important business in the world," Andreas said. "Everything else is a luxury. Food is what you need to sustain life every day. Food is fuel. You can't run a tractor without fuel and you can't run a human being without it either. Food is the absolute beginning." (read more)
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Hello
I browsed around this blog, and the one with pictures by Oberon.
I hope I don't disappoint my host.
Nudity! Oh my, oh my.
I am a poor kid from downtown Mexico City. I never went to any nude anything there. The closest experience is having a free thinking father, that used to take baths with us kids. Two boys and two girls. I forgot when he stopped that, maybe I was six, I really don't remember. But one thing is for sure I was not raised as a prude like some kids in that huge megalopolis.
You may wonder how the city is. Today it is legal to adopt, no matter the sexual orientation of the parents. The federal government, conservative, is calling that city regulation into question. Two political parties one in the left, and one in the right, are vying for power in the 2012 presidential election.
I went to study at Santa Barbara, California, when I was 23. More Mesa Beach was my introduction to that weird gringo habit of taking your clothes off in front of strangers. I absolutely did not.
Sometime earlier, or after, I forgot by now, a bunch of friends in a lark, male and female went skinny dipping to some swiming pool in campus. Kid stuff, I guess. I was fitting in, or something.
Since then I haven't taken any part in such so.
I respect people that do it, but I am not going to go out of my way to start organizing a group like that here at the edge of the "elites' territory" in Acapulco. I am in Chilpancingo, and I would be "different" if I start to promote such social practices.
I read, going into that photography and poetry site, that some people find it objectionable, to post photographs, like the ones Oberon chose to put there.
I don't. I am more concerned about a possible collapse of civilization, than More Mesa Beach types going around with their sexual organs in display.
I may try my hand on some poetry in English here, though. If you read Spanish, I have a site for that in:
poeciaz.blogspot.com
I already have two followers there!
I hope I don't disappoint my host.
Nudity! Oh my, oh my.
I am a poor kid from downtown Mexico City. I never went to any nude anything there. The closest experience is having a free thinking father, that used to take baths with us kids. Two boys and two girls. I forgot when he stopped that, maybe I was six, I really don't remember. But one thing is for sure I was not raised as a prude like some kids in that huge megalopolis.
You may wonder how the city is. Today it is legal to adopt, no matter the sexual orientation of the parents. The federal government, conservative, is calling that city regulation into question. Two political parties one in the left, and one in the right, are vying for power in the 2012 presidential election.
I went to study at Santa Barbara, California, when I was 23. More Mesa Beach was my introduction to that weird gringo habit of taking your clothes off in front of strangers. I absolutely did not.
Sometime earlier, or after, I forgot by now, a bunch of friends in a lark, male and female went skinny dipping to some swiming pool in campus. Kid stuff, I guess. I was fitting in, or something.
Since then I haven't taken any part in such so.
I respect people that do it, but I am not going to go out of my way to start organizing a group like that here at the edge of the "elites' territory" in Acapulco. I am in Chilpancingo, and I would be "different" if I start to promote such social practices.
I read, going into that photography and poetry site, that some people find it objectionable, to post photographs, like the ones Oberon chose to put there.
I don't. I am more concerned about a possible collapse of civilization, than More Mesa Beach types going around with their sexual organs in display.
I may try my hand on some poetry in English here, though. If you read Spanish, I have a site for that in:
poeciaz.blogspot.com
I already have two followers there!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Not at all
these days my complaint is with
the way the world is going
i don't like what i see at all
no, not at all, not at all
Think
Thank you for inviting me here Oberon.
I hope my thoughts help others.
You can start by checking my Relevant Science blog.
I hope my thoughts help others.
You can start by checking my Relevant Science blog.
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