Well it is not another reason so much as another example of the why Congress and appointed officials score so low in voter satisfaction polls.  In fact I am not positive the hearings described below actually took place in Congress, but they were headed by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack  and Attorney General Eric Holder.  These are just more hearings to explore the obvious, get valuable face time on camera for the participants, and once again accomplish nothing for the U.S. citizen.  The hearings address concerns of the Obama administration over the continuing consolidation of U.S. food production into the hands of a few giant agribusinesses. These “concerns” that seem to require more grandstanding hearings are nothing more than the same concerns millions of ordinary citizens and experts have had for years, maybe even decades.

One of the main targets of these hearings is Monsanto Corporation.  Monsanto is the poster company for large agribusinesses controlling as much of the food production and delivery system as they can.  Monsanto itself is just doing what companies are supposed to do for their owners or shareholders, but I believe the tactics and philosophy they use is a threat to the safety of our food.  To use just one example, can anyone really believe that inserting a gene into corn that makes it resistant to the effects of glyphosate, (Roundup), is a safe way to get more corn into our food supply?  Corn drenched with the herbicide glyphosate, may indeed be more productive since it has less competition from weeds, but the real issue is; should we even allow the use of chemicals like Roundup on our food?  Corn is the largest part of the U.S. diet, part of almost every type of processed food and drink produced.  Even though many of us know that this cheaply produced corn is not a healthy part of the human diet, it is here in huge proportion now and will probably be here for decades to come.

More hearings to explore the obvious for nothing more than political gain is a waste of taxpayer resources.   As time goes by, the Obama administration and supporters in Congress are proving they are basically inept when it comes to accomplishing any of the “change” they were elected to implement.  More hearings are probably just a feel good session for the politicians involved, and a slight inconvenience for the companies called to sit before these panels .  Maybe I am wrong and some good will come out of this, but I would not hold your breath.  Anyway here is a link to a great article by the blog Simple Thoughts:  Simple solutions for complex problems.  The posting summarizes these hearings and what is hoped to come out of them.  It also touches on the issue of Monsanto patenting seeds and genes, leading to farmers having almost no choice but to go with the Monsanto program or face financial ruin.

Original Article From: Healthy Living For People And Planet Earth

Another Reason For Political Distrust

This week’s unusual search is: “dirty air by oil in taft, ca”. As can be seen by this one, sometimes a phrase will expose the weaknesses that still exist in search engine logic.  This week’s featured searcher was looking for something very specific, something that is definitely not on this site.  However when looking at the phrase it is very apparent why this site was returned at the top of the search results.

Well, appearing near the top of search results is a good thing on this end no matter how flawed the search engine result was.  I hope the searcher found something interesting to read while here.  Who knows, maybe they were the person who submitted this post to StumbleUpon and brought in several hundred visitors just this morning!

Original Article From: Healthy Living For People And Planet Earth

Sunday Search of the Week 3-14-2010

Japan is fighting hard to prevent limitation on their harvest of BlueFin Tuna from the Atlantic and The Mediterranean Sea.  Just like they fought limitations on the harvesting of whales, Japan refuses to admit that the Bluefin Tuna is in trouble.  The reality, however, is that the Bluefin Tuna population is in danger of collapse.  The difficulty of getting Japan to agree to limits arises from the huge money involved.  A single Bluefin Tuna can bring anywhere between $2,000.00 and $20,000.00! The Bluefin Tuna is not what you find in the can you make your sandwich with.  That tuna is usually albacore and as long as you choose the “chunk light” version rather than the “solid white” version I don’t think you are contributing to any species harm.   Here is a link to a good article summarizing the Bluefin Tuna issue and Japan’s reluctance to agree to harvest limitations.

Original Article From: Healthy Living For People And Planet Earth

Bluefin Tuna Needs Protection

Estimates of the World’s population in the year 2050 range up to as high as 10 billion.  I think it will be less as the current trend towards lower population growth continues.  The world is a 6.8 billion now and growing.  This is an interesting site where you can see the growth in real time.  Whatever the real number as the years go by, how everyone will eat is a real problem.  Many of us in the developed world, and especially those that are not poor citizens of the developed countries, tend to lose sight of the reality of food issues for the majority of people.  For most people of the world, organic carrots, grass fed beef, or non-gmo soybeans are as foreign as the concept of “disposable income”.  Of course I am one of the lucky ones who can try my best to buy healthy, ethically produced, food.  I can buy local produce, shop in a food co-op, and generally afford to be an ethical consumer.  If you are also fortunate in that regard, you should be shopping ethically also.  But what about everyone else?  It is not a pretty picture.

As discouraging as it can be, I sometimes I have a hard time seeing how 8 billion people will eat without the practices of modern agribusiness, genetically modified crops, and the vast array of chemicals I often rage against.  The world’s population is mostly poor and those people are moving from the countryside, where they once grew their own food, to cities.  They need to eat and they have very little money.  In the world of science and agriculture there is not even a debate over what will be needed to feed the world beyond the gates of the privileged populations of the developed world.

What got me thinking and somewhat discouraged today was reading a couple of articles and press releases that came through my news reader this week.  Here is just one example. Tell me what you think please.  I really believe that we are doing right by spending our money on food that has been ethically produced, on food that is healthy and wholesome, and whenever possible, on food that is produced in our local communities.  Is that a naive concept?  I don’t think so.  We do our best and if only 10 percent of the world’s population will ever be able to afford this diet, at least it is 10 percent.  But right now even though 10 percent might be able to afford to eat ethically, perhaps 2 percent currently are doing it.  It is that other 8 percent we need to convince.

Original Article From: Healthy Living For People And Planet Earth

Can The World Really Afford To Eat Ethically?

Original Article From: Healthy Living For People And Planet Earth

Wordless Wednesday 3-10-2010

This week’s search is very strange: “where do you think people is going with“

I did the search myself and found this post.  There are a bunch of interesting comments on the post and sometimes it is a comment that brings in an odd search result.  I don’t see the logic in this one though.  Somehow Google did though!

Original Article From: Healthy Living For People And Planet Earth

Sunday Search of the Week 3-07-2010

At first, I thought this was an bad, early, April Fool’s Day joke.  But, after reading several explanations, it seems to be a fact, our days are now shorter as a result of the recent huge earthquake in Chile.  Except for the unfortunate souls that perished in the quake, we will all live a bit longer than we would have as measured by time spent on earth.  Weird eh?  Here is a link to an article that explains it pretty well.

 I would not be too concerned with this though.  It falls into the same sort of category as the whole “the faster you go, the slower you age” thing.  You know, someone speeding down the freeway is aging slower that someone asleep in the sun at the beach.  Interesting in concept, but irrelevant to everyday life… my favorite sort of thinking!

Original Article From: Healthy Living For People And Planet Earth

Did You Know? Quake Shortened Day Length

Original Article From: Healthy Living For People And Planet Earth

Wordless Wednesday 3-03-2010

Recently several news stories got me wondering again why it is that so many problems get discussed, then forgotten, then discussed again, then ignored, and so on with nothing ever happening to address or fix the issue.  I think the two recent examples caught my attention because they were both things I have written about in the past.  By no means am I the only one that has raised these specific concerns so the people responsible for the recent stories have no excuse for acting like they were breaking news.  I suppose it could be looked at that any publicity is better than none, but at what point will we as a society stop talking and actually get something done?

The first example was a one hour program on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show that talked about how water will be in short supply in the future.  Now Diane Rehm is a great, one of the best actually, talk show hosts.  But sometimes I wonder if her producers research what has already been said and written about the topics they pick for their shows.  Often it seems like the host believes that their topic is being discussed for the first time.  At one point during the show on water shortages, Ms. Rehm asked the guest something along the lines of “will water be the next oil’?  Where have we heard that before?  Yes, there and in many other places as well.

The next example is less specific, but no less frustrating.  Several articles recently in large news outlets have talked about the problem of pharmaceuticals in much of the world’s drinking water.  Again, many of these addressed the issue like it was breaking news.  Now of course it isn’t, but I guess these writers need to feel they are on the cutting edge of their profession or something rather than pointing out themselves that they are raising old news and that it might be time to stop talking and start doing something.  There is no way that people taking medicine are going to stop using toilets so can it really be that hard to start filtering out these drugs from the water supply.  It could be done either or both at the waste treatment side and the drinking water purification side of the supply line.

I have always been a person who, (naively?), thinks that problems should just be identified and solved without the endless years of talk and do nothing grandstanding.  I probably would have been a terrible politician eh?  On the other hand maybe what we need is a Congress full of problem solvers… and a lot leaner on the preening peacocks!

Original Article From: Healthy Living For People And Planet Earth

Water Wars and Pharmaceutical Waste – Again

This week’s search is another odd one. I have no idea what post the searcher landed on, but a Google search for the phrase turns up almost nothing. A search for just “Tuna Fruit” returns 29,000 results though. Anyway, this week’s search is:
“how to eat tuna fruit”

Original Article From: Healthy Living For People And Planet Earth

Sunday Search of the Week 2-28-2010