Apology and correction
In our June 28th story about "18 foods you don't need to buy organic", there was one major error - sweet corn.
One of our alert readers has pointed out that the majority of corn grown in the US now is GMO "roundup ready" corn, so the story was mistaken.
What?
GMO sweet corn is genetically engineered to be herbicide resistant (Roundup Ready) and to produce its own insecticide (Bt Toxin). Like all GMOs, genetically modified sweet corn has not been thoroughly tested to ensure that it is safe for consumption.
GMO sweet corn is genetically engineered to be herbicide resistant (Roundup Ready) and to produce its own insecticide (Bt Toxin). Like all GMOs, genetically modified sweet corn has not been thoroughly tested to ensure that it is safe for consumption.
Who?
While GMO sweet corn has been produced in the past by Syngenta, this is the first attempt by a biotech company to corner the sweet corn market.
While GMO sweet corn has been produced in the past by Syngenta, this is the first attempt by a biotech company to corner the sweet corn market.
Where?
GMO sweet corn can be found in the produce aisle of your local food store and at farmers’ markets and farmstands. It can also be found in processed foods that contain sweet corn
GMO sweet corn can be found in the produce aisle of your local food store and at farmers’ markets and farmstands. It can also be found in processed foods that contain sweet corn
For our readers in Mount Dora, Scotts Farms' corn is non-GMO, delicious and sold on #441 from a stand opposite the airport just before the 429 interchange, and from their farm store in Astatula.
For everyone else - ask your supermarket manager if the corn is GMO, or anywhere else you are thinking of buying from.....
Some very good stories this week.....#1 and #2 are recommended reading......
1/ The opening paragraphs in this intelligent, reasoned story is what I have thought for some time, but as he says, I'm wrong. The theory he disagrees with is only when things get really bad will the people revolt, like what's happening now in Kansas or Louisiana, but that's not what happens. What it takes for people to rise up and make change is hope....
This discussion is about corruption, money in politics and why Bernie Sanders is doing well vs Hillary.....and Patrick Smith who wrote this is no fan of Hillary....
This article shifted my thinking a little, and if you're open to new ideas it might change your mind too.....if you are paying attention to politics, this is essential background reading.....excellent!
Bernie Sanders (Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin/Salon)
One of the things progressives often get wrong has to do with how fundamental change comes about. The standard reasoning is that people are stirred when they hit the bottom of the bottom—a condition of diminished expectations. It takes an economic depression, or a lot of political repression, to prompt people to rise. We need things to get worse before they get better. Let the suffering come.
This appears to be an entirely logical dialectic. But politics as desperation, as we might call the thought, rarely, if ever, proves out. Almost always it turns out to be an error.
Follow this line, and you want the Kochs to smash what remains of the political process to smithereens. You want the Supreme Court handing down ever more irrational judgments, you want more cops-in-camo shooting African-Americans, you want more unemployment and more reckless ambition among the foreign policy cliques. Then, you declare, people will be stirred out of the stupefied apathy that grips this nation.
We ought to ask ourselves this July 4 the extent to which we are given to this argument. Speaking only for myself, I made the mistake too many times too many years ago not to have learned how wrong it is.
2/ The Greeks have just voted "No" to the EU austerity regime, and it's likely Greece will be leaving the Euro zone and going back to the drachma. But why did they make this decision? This is the first article to really lay out in clear terms what has happened in Greece, why it happened and that it will be affecting many more countries besides.....
Very, very interesting.....
According to mainstream media, the current economic crisis in Greece is due to the government spending too much money on its people that it went broke. This claim however, is a lie. It was the banks that wrecked the country so oligarchs and international corporations could benefit.
Every single mainstream media has the following narrative for the economic crisis in Greece: the government spent too much money and went broke; the generous banks gave them money, but Greece still can’t pay the bills because it mismanaged the money that was given. It sounds quite reasonable, right?
Except that it is a big fat lie … not only about Greece, but about other European countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland who are all experiencing various degrees of austerity. It was also the same big, fat lie that was used by banks and corporations to exploit many Latin American, Asian and African countries for many decades.
Greece did not fail on its own. It was made to fail.
In summary, the banks wrecked the Greek government and deliberately pushed it into unsustainable debt so that oligarchs and international corporations can profit from the ensuing chaos and misery.
3/ Jon Stewart with a nine minute riff on God's gift to comedians, Donald Trump......some good laughs here......
On his last show before what will be his final two-week summer break, Jon Stewart decided there was only one person he really wanted to talk about: his old friend Donald Trump.
After a week in which, one by one, Trump’s business partners all but evaporated, Stewart said, “I am shocked that so many people were OK doing business with Donald Trump up to this point.”
“But you know our PC culture immediately moves to shut controversial speakers up and censor them,” Stewart added, “by interviewing them everywhere all the time.”
Trump’s non-apology tour culminated on CNN last night when he told Don Lemon of immigrants who are sexually-assaulted while trying to cross the border, “Somebody’s doing the raping!”
“Touche,” Stewart said, before adding “It is hard to get mad at Donald Trump for saying stupid things, in the same way you don’t get mad at a monkey when he throws poop at you at the zoo. It’s a monkey. It’s what they do. In some ways it’s on you for watching. What does get me angry is the ridiculous, disingenuous defending of the poop-throwing monkey.”
From there, Stewart played clips of Fox News hosts and fellow president candidates alike defending Trump for supposedly speaking the truth about the problem of illegal immigration. “But that’s not what he said,” the host explained, while slowing the soundbite in question down enough so that even Rep. Steve King (R-IA) could understand it.
And a Mexican laborer was asked what he thinks about Trump....one minute viral video....and good for him!
4/ After the July 4th holiday it's appropriate to reflect on America's role in the world, and what is it's role is in the global order. If you listen to the right wing, we should act like the supreme superpower and impose our will by force on countries that show any kinds of independent thinking.
But where has this doctrine got us? How is our military might used?
Tom Engelhard with a great analysis of "American Exceptionalism".....
This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch.
The rise and fall of great powers and their imperial domains has been a central fact of history for centuries. It’s been a sensible, repeatedly validated framework for thinking about the fate of the planet. So it’s hardly surprising, when faced with a country once regularly labeled the “sole superpower,” “the last superpower,” or even the global “hyperpower” and now, curiously, called nothing whatsoever, that the “decline” question should come up. Is the U.S. or isn’t it? Might it or might it not now be on the downhill side of imperial greatness?
Take a slow train — that is, any train — anywhere in America, as I did recently in the northeast, and then take a high-speed train anywhere else on Earth, as I also did recently, and it’s not hard to imagine the U.S. in decline. The greatest power in history, the “unipolar power,” can’t build a single mile of high-speed rail? Really? And its Congress is now mired in an argument about whether funds can even be raised to keep America’s highways more or less pothole-free.
Sometimes, I imagine myself talking to my long-dead parents because I know how such things would have astonished two people who lived through the Great Depression, World War II, and a can-do post-war era in which the staggering wealth and power of this country were indisputable. What if I could tell them how the crucial infrastructure of such a still-wealthy nation — bridges, pipelines, roads, and the like — is now grossly underfunded, in an increasing state of disrepair, and beginning to crumble? That would definitely shock them.
And what would they think upon learning that, with the Soviet Union a quarter-century in the trash bin of history, the U.S., alone in triumph, has been incapable of applying its overwhelming military and economic power effectively? I’m sure they would be dumbstruck to discover that, since the moment the Soviet Union imploded, the U.S. has been at war continuously with another country (three conflicts and endless strife); that I was talking about, of all places, Iraq; and that the mission there was never faintly accomplished. How improbable is that? And what would they think if I mentioned that the other great conflicts of the post-Cold-War era were with Afghanistan (two wars with a decade off in-between) and the relatively small groups of non-state actors we now call terrorists? And how would they react on discovering that the results were: failure in Iraq, failure in Afghanistan, and the proliferation of terror groups across much of the Greater Middle East (including the establishment of an actual terror caliphate) and increasing parts of Africa?
5/ Three minutes that will make you think.....an insightful little video that might make you ashamed.....or change......
Looking at it again I realize it's a little unfair in the beginning sequence, but the principle is the same.....the ones who have the least are more generous in spirit that people who have the most....
But make up your own mind.....
6/ A very good critique of how our colleges have become corporations, and are ruthlessly exploiting their customers i.e. your child or grandchild and their employees, the professors who are teaching them.
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
Higher education wears the cloak of liberalism, but in policy and practice, it can be a corrupt and cutthroat system of power and exploitation. It benefits immensely from right-wing McCarthy wannabes, who in an effort to restrict academic freedom and silence political dissent, depict universities as left-wing indoctrination centers.
But the reality is that while college administrators might affix “down with the man” stickers on their office doors, many prop up a system that is severely unfair to American students and professors, a shocking number of whom struggle to make ends meet. Even the most elementary level of political science instructs that politics is about power. Power, in America, is about money: who has it? Who does not have it? Who is accumulating it? Who is losing it? Where is it going?
Four hundred faculty members at New York University, one of the nation’s most expensive schools, recently released a report on how their own place of employment, legally a nonprofit institution, has become a predatory business, hardly any different in ethical practice or economic procedure than a sleazy storefront payday loan operator. Its title succinctly summarizes the new intellectual discipline deans and regents have learned to master: “The Art of The Gouge.”
The result of their investigation reads as if Charles Dickens and Franz Kafka collaborated on notes for a novel.
7/ Sometimes you see these little clips that are designed to make you question things, like this one from a conservation group. It's narrated by Julia Roberts, and she is speaking for "Mother Earth". The point of it is even though we humans are doing our best to ruin the planet, Mother Earth will survive long after we are gone as a race because She takes the long view, i.e. in millions of years. We don't.....
Two minutes that should make you think, unless you work for an oil company......
Nature doesn't need people. People need nature. That's the message of the provocative, celebrity-studded campaign Conservation International (CI) is launching today. Nature Is Speaking aims to raise awareness that people need nature in order to survive.
The campaign features a series of short films voiced by some of the biggest names in Hollywood including Penélope Cruz, Harrison Ford, Edward Norton, Robert Redford, Julia Roberts, Ian Somerhalder and Kevin Spacey. In the series, Nature reveals serious misgivings about the way humans are treating the Earth from the viewpoint of a cast of characters — from Mother Nature to The Ocean and The Rainforest.
"I have fed species greater than you, and I have starved species greater than you … I am prepared to evolve. Are you?" asks "Mother Nature," voiced by Julia Roberts in the first film of the series.
8/ The Pope has been getting a lot of flak from the right wing including many of the Republican Presidential candidates and several Supreme Court justices for daring to call for action to help the planet...
Good story from Matt Taibbi......
Pope Francis issued his encyclical on the environment last week, irking many conservative pundits. Francesco Zizola/NOOR/Redux
When Pope Francis recently wrote an encyclical letter condemning the polluting impact of global capitalism, conservative maven Michelle Malkin was offended. "Holy Hypocrisy!" she declared:
I'm normally not a big fan of the Catholic Church, or popes in general. But if anyone should be allowed to adopt a "sanctimonious" tone, it's probably a pope, right? Isn't an air of moral superiority part of the job description?
Malkin might have been joking, but she doesn't usually go for Art Buchwald-style funny in her prose. Moreover, it came in the middle of a passage in which she unironically called the pope a hypocrite for criticizing global capitalism and using air conditioning at the same time.
This is the same bizarre argument that right-wing columnists pulled out during Occupy Wall Street, when, for instance, Charles Krauthammer called protesters hypocrites for complaining about corporate capitalism even as they drank Starbucks, wore Levis and used iPhones.
9/ I've put this in again as it's the best version of "Stairway To Heaven" ever, with a full orchestra, choir, backup chorus and someone who can sing!
Heart in a live concert in from of President Obama and also the surviving members of Led Zeppelin.....you can see Jimmy Page in tears....
Heart showed a whole lotta love for Led Zeppelin at the Kennedy Center Honors, which aired last night, with a spot-on performance of (what else?) "Stairway to Heaven." With Jason Bonham, the son of Zep's late, original drummer John Bonham, manning the skins, the Wilson sisters cranked out the classic alongside a small orchestra and choir that had Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones nodding in approval, not to mention some minor headbanging from President Obama right before the solo kicked in.
10/ Another look at the Pope's encyclical, with a look at the contents and how cleverly it was written.....from a story in the Times.....
In the days just before its publication, those involved in drafting the pope’s controversial eco-encyclical Laudato Si’ were much exercised about how it would be received by conservative critics. But Pope Francis, Vatican insiders tell me, was unfazed. He remains so in the face of the onslaught of criticism that has indeed ensued.
The pope’s acceptance that global warmingis almost certainly man-made has irked the vocal minority with more skeptical views. They say Francis has overlooked the ability of technology to provide solutions to climate change. They’ve upbraided him for ignoring the role of free markets in lifting millions out of poverty. They’ve criticized his dismissal of birth control as the answer to an overcrowded planet.
The truth is that Francis saw all that coming. As the dust settles, after the whirlwind that accompanied its publication, closer examination of the encyclical reveals that the pope implanted within it strategies to rebut these attacks. Laudato Si’ turns out to be one of the shrewdest documents issued by the Vatican during the past century. It has revealed Francis as a wily and sophisticated politician of the first order.
Francis learned a lesson from the American conservatives who branded his previous papal manifesto, Evangelii Gaudium, as Marxist. His eco-encyclical contains a raft of defenses against critics who dismiss it as the work of some kind of left-wing maverick.
11/ A classic Bud Lite ad - "The Clothing Drive".....yes the beer tastes like rat pee, but their ads are the best.....one minute.....
12/ There have been some victories for thinking people this week, and one was the Confederate flag's removal from Statehouses and major retailers, including WalMart. But don't be fooled - their actions weren't "good corporations" doing the right thing, it was pure commerce and public relations.
(Credit: Shutterstock)
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
When Alabama Governor Robert Bentley ordered the removal of four flags that flew on state Capitol grounds Wednesday morning, his reasons for doing so sounded familiar.
“This is the right thing to do,” he told AL.com. “We are facing some major issues in this state regarding the budget and other matters that we need to deal with. This had the potential to become a major distraction as we go forward. I have taxes to raise, we have work to do. And it was my decision that the flag needed to come down.”
Translation: I don’t think my state can afford the financial strain of being viewed as racist at this time.
Sure, Bentley said the killings in Charleston, S.C., that claimed nine lives also played a role in his decision, but his specific use of the words “budget” and “I have taxes to raise” clearly reflect his true motivations. Money and perception.
The atrocity of Dylann Storm Roof, a white supremacist, walking into a black church and shooting nine people apparently wasn’t reason enough. But even a quick look at recent and past events that forced institutions’ hands when challenged for upholding and defending racist symbols, practices or people, the money trails economic motives are never far behind.
Take the case of former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, for example. The NBA forced Sterling to sell the team after audio of him making racist remarks against black people (most notably, Magic Johnson) were made public. The revelations rocked the league and serious conversations over how to handle Sterling ensued, but it was the 20 advertisers who either left or severed ties with the organization over Sterling’s comments that accelerated the league’s move to force the Clippers to sale.
13/ This is interesting - a magazine tried to determine using available data which large cities, medium and smaller cities in the US most resembled the demographic composition of the country as a whole. The results aren't that surprising.....Jacksonville and Greater Orlando were both rated quite high, but guess which smaller city was least resembled the US? The Villages of course, which has more angry old white people than anywhere in the US....
Seriously though, The Villages is purposely whitebread and over 55, so what other result would one expect?
It’s hard to define what is or isn’t American. Although we can’t patent freedom, we can safely lay claim to buffalo wings, bluegrass and David Letterman. But we can’t have it all. Contrary to popular belief, English isn’t our official language. And the rumor that New York’s Italian immigrants invented pizza? That’s been laid to rest. Heck, even Lady Liberty is formerly a French citizen. Mother America relies on such cultural identifiers to color her personality, and we have rapid diversification to thank for that.
But how do we quantify our nation’s identity? One way to do so is by parsing demographics. Characteristics such as ethnic makeup, household size, educational attainment and household characteristics can encapsulate America’s uniqueness from a statistical vantage point.
You might wonder, then, why this study is relevant to you. And the reasons abound. If you’re a parent, for instance, you may consider relocating your family to a city that exposes your children to more diversity. Others might prefer a location that exceeds national standards of education or income, signs of progress. Entrepreneurs might use the information to find a suitable launching pad for their business ideas. And if you’re a marketer, the data can predict the success of a product’s national rollout by testing it in a popular market.
14/ More and more people are waking up to the fact that Big Ag is poisoning them, and turning to organics. But the food corporations aren't stupid - they are fighting back through the corporate media and front groups issuing bogus reports on how GMO's with glyphosate are good for you, why cows need massive antibiotics and how chickens enjoy being tortured.
Good story......
At the turn of the last century, the father of public relations, Edward Bernays, launched the Celiac Project, whose medical professionals recommended bananas to benefit celiac disease sufferers. Those pitched on the sweet fruit’s miraculous properties didn’t know the project was actually created for the United Fruit Co., the largest trader of bananas in the world.
The creation of front groups — independent-sounding but industry-backed organizations — as a public relations strategy dates at least as far back as Bernays’ day. But a new report by Kari Hamerschlag, a senior program manager at the environmental nonprofit Friends of the Earth; Stacy Malkan, a co-founder of the food industry watchdog U.S. Right to Know; and me shows that such tactics are continuing with ever more scope and scale today.
The report, released today, exposes the growth of food-industry-sponsored front groups and other covert communication tactics in the past few years. While food industry spin is not new, we’re seeing an unprecedented level of spending and deployment of an ever wider array of PR tactics. We argue this rise of industrial food spin is a direct response to mounting public concerns about industrial agriculture as well as a growing interest in sustainable food and groundswell for organic products.
Increasingly, the American public is raising questions about toxic chemicals used in farming, routine antibiotics used in livestock production and genetic engineering in agriculture. The booming organic food business is one sign: Sales of organic food and products in the United States are projected to jump from $35 billion in 2013 to $170 billion in 2025 — a direct threat to the profits of the processed food, animal agriculture and chemical industries engaging in such spin.
http://america.aljazeera.com/
15/ These are the kinds of outrages you never hear about - in the recent budget Miami Beach had $750,000 allocated to help with the installation of pumps to stop seawater intrusion into the drainage system at high tides. As you know Miami Beach is one of the most vulnerable parts of Florida for rising sea levels, and it's also one of the major economic engines for tourism for the State.
So what did our despicable, corrupt weasel of a Governor do? He line-item vetoed the pumps from the budget, in effect saying "screw you Miami Beach, you're on your own"......
Is this a great State or what?
Florida Governor Rick Scott just swiped away a life preserver from Miami Beach.
Among the budget vetoes he announced yesterday was the city’s request for $750,000 to help pay for its $400 million pump program. The program, Scott said, “did not provide a clear statewide return for the investment.”
Mayor Philip Levine is calling it “the budget cut heard ‘round the world.”
“Miami Beach is one of the major economic engines of the county and the state of Florida, and one would believe that assisting us in our fight to make our city more resilient would be one of the greatest returns on investment the state could ever make,” he told Fusion.
Todays video - An iPad magician appearing on the Ellen DeGeneres show. What's an IPad magician, you ask? Watch this and find out...very clever.....
Todays Jewish joke
A rich Arab walks in a bar and is about to order a drink when he sees a guy close by wearing a Jewish cap, a prayer shawl and traditional locks of hair. He doesn't have to be Einstein to know this guy is Jewish.
So he shouts over to the bartender so loudly that everyone can hear: 'Drinks for everyone in here, bartender, but not for the Jew over there'.
Soon after the drinks have been handed out, the Jew gives him a big smile, waves at him, then says: 'Thank you', in an equally loud voice.
This infuriates the Arab. He once again loudly orders drinks for everyone except the Jew.
As before, this does not seem to bother the Jewish guy. He continues to smile, and again yells: 'Thank you'.
The Arab asks the bartender: "What's the matter with that Jew? I've ordered two rounds of drinks for everyone in the bar but him, and all he does is smile and thank me."
The bartender replies: 'He owns the place'.
As before, this does not seem to bother the Jewish guy. He continues to smile, and again yells: 'Thank you'.
Todays Welsh joke
A Welshman, Scot and Englishman are walking when they come across a lantern and a genie pops out and grants them one wish each.
The Scot says: “I am a sheep herder, like my dad before me. I want my country to be full of lovely sheep farms.”
Whoosh, and so it was.
The Englishman was amazed and says: “I want a wall around England to keep those damned Scots and Welsh out.”
Bang, there was a wall around England.
The Welshman says: “Tell me more about this wall.”
The genie says: “It’s 200 feet high, 100 feet thick, it goes all around England, and nothing can get in or out.”
The Welshman says: “Fill it with water.”
Todays religious joke
The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in acourthouse is this:You cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,"and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges andpoliticians...It creates a hostile work environment.
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