The Green Revolution

Rural Cuquio, Mexico is increasingly receiving attention from major agribusinesses: Monsanto, DuPont, etc.  What benefits could be motivating these corporations from setting up shop in a place where incomes range from $0 – $1.05 an hour?  Cuquio is a region of campesinos, poor subsistence farmers.  Allegedly the presence of these businesses would be mutually beneficial but according to this article that doesn’t seem to be the case. While Monsanto et. al promise higher yields, start up costs are higher, not to mention health risks.   Farmers untrained in the use of toxic pesticides  are poisoning frogs, the soil, and themselves.

“The local doctor in Cuquio says that two of every 10 patients who visit him during the rainy season months of June through October each year are poisoned by agrochemicals. Three or four die each year.”

Though tragic in itself, these three or four annual deaths may become overshadowed as farmers already struggling for survival are being diverted by the loud voices of large corporations that offer quick chemical-induced fixes, from sustainable solutions that would secure more fruitful harvests over time (such as those proposed by Mexican agronomist Juan Alba Quezedo).

Obama’s “New Normal” and Mid-East Media

I was in the kitchen getting Isaac’s lunch ready and turned on the radio expecting to jump into the middle of “The Story” with Dick Gordan.  Instead the voice of the host was female (I didn’t catch her name) and the program was “On the Media” a show that addresses various media outlets around the world.  I initially planned on moving on to the more familiar, “Democracy Now!” but became fascinated as the host moved from an interview in which she discussed the “New Normal” of international relations and militarism being established under Obama to Iraqi independent programming (apparently the typical Iraqi is much more savvy at discerning b.s. from their news providers)  to “Tash Ma Tash,” a Saudi Arabian sitcom that challenges cultural norms.  I also managed to get a little crush on an Arabic television host, Ahmad Al-Shugairi, who airs a special program during Ramadan, challenging Muslims to be attentive to the teachings of the Prophet that effect everyday life (this episode is on waste management – if only I knew what he was saying!).  I definitely plan on tuning into this program and highly recommend it!

St Augustine, Harry Potter and the definition of evil

I found this amazing lecture while researching the issue of the church and pop culture for my college small group.

I’m not a jerk, I just have a mild case of face blindness

Can I wear a button that says that?

strangers-in-the-mirror

Does anyone else feel like they have this?  I know Aimee does.

In most cases, I’ve got to see a person about 8 times before I can conjure a visual of their face in my mind.  And while I am USED to seeing my own reflection in the mirror at this point in my life, for many years I was always surprised by it…the person looking at me never looked like who I expected to see.  My audio memory for people is uncanny though….but only for people’s voices, not for music or other noises.

So, your brain learns and memorizes visual and auditory information differently…..and it also processes HUMAN (vs objects, places, etc) information differently also.  So bizarre.

Does anyone have any favorite links to other interesting info on memory or brain processing?

continuing the trend

The following is a commentary inspired by this New York Times article that I received on the Catholic Worker listserv:

“It all happened so long ago, it is, in many respects, America’s
forgotten war, the terrible war in Korea. It ran from June of 1950
until July of 1953. I do not, here, make any defense of the North
Korean regime (nor, for that matter, of the authoritarian South Korean
regime in 1950).  But simply note that one reason for the ability of
the North Korean leaders to maintain control over an economy which
long ago collapsed, is that the cost of the war was so terrible that
it instilled a profound fear (and hatred) of the United States.

Two million North Koreans were killed – half of them civilians.
900,000 Chinese troops were killed. South Korea lost well over a
million lives – many of them civilians.

The American bombing of the North reduced the country to rubble. When
the war ended, the Americans made substantial economic investments in
South Korea, as did Japan, making possible a remarkable economic
recovery and rise in living standards. But China in 1953 was far too
poor to make huge investments. North Korea was on its own.

The New York Times story is part of an ongoing report of US murder of
civilians – some of them political prisoners, most of them simply
civilians, which occurred during the war.

1953 is so distant now that the records are open. The dead have turned
to dust. But one legacy is the strange regime of North Korea, which
cannot feed its own people, but found money to build nuclear weapons.”

This put me in mind of another article I’d read recently on CommonDreams about civilian deaths and drone bombings.

Scientists please

I just saw this guy on the Colbert Report and he was so fascinating.

Can everyone in the family promise to at least attempt to guide our kids towards science?  Theoretical Physicists are the coolest people at ANY gathering!!!

“We are so arrogant.  We are so conceited……we think they (aliens) are going to visit us.  I don’t think so.”
We are ants next to a super highway wishing the people building it would come and share their technology with us.  ha!!

Is Peace Possible?

“…we need not except that view [that peace is impossible, that mankind is doomed], our problems are man made, therefore they can be solved by man…no problem of human destiny, is beyond human beings…”

It occurred to me while listening to this that I have never heard a full speech by JFK.  Kennedy’s American University Commencement Address  was recommended to me by a friend and though I didn’t fully agree with everything, I found it powerful, moving, and as relevant as ever.

The following are some of the lines that jumped out at me:

“There is no single, simple key to this peace; no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process — a way of solving problems.”

“Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly towards it.”

“it is also a warning, a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats…No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue.”

“we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combat ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle, with suspicion on one side breeding suspicion on the other, and new weapons begetting counter-weapons.”

“So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”

(This one I wish was true) “The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough — more than enough — of war and hate and oppression.”

Why does the white man have so much cargo?

Jared Diamond began his quest to discover the roots of inequality when an acquaintance, native to Papua New Guinea, asked why the white men had so much more “cargo” than the people of Papua New Guinea.  The theories that arose out of his study were published in the book “Guns, Germs and Steel”.

National Geographic did a documentary series based on Jared Diamonds book, which explores Diamond’s conclusions on why some civilizations have historically enjoyed tremendous prosperity and development while others languished.  The three part series is an intriguing study of Diamonds exploration – well worth watching.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Noam Chomsky’s Day Off

The Onion’s account of Noam’s attempt to take a day and just kick back.  Spoiler alert: he doesn’t have as much fun as Ferris.

Millers and Bakers Want in on Engineering New Wheat

In the past, U.S. bakers and millers have been resistant to genetically modified wheat.  That resistance appears to be turning into support, but under the condition that the bakers and millers can be more involved in the seed designing process.

Genetically modified wheat is now seen by many as inevitable and the leading baking and milling companies want to make sure the biotech wheat is something they can sell their customers on.   “We’re not one hundred percent convinced that our customers will go for a GMO wheat unless it has enhanced characteristics,” says Hayden Wands, director of procurement at Sara Lee Corp.  It is thought that if, in addition to yield improvements, nutritional improvements are built into the seed, then the GMO wheat will be an easier sell to a resistant market place.

The miller’s and baker’s shift from opposition to conditional support should be a big win for Monsanto who has been aiming to restart its effort to develop and sell GMO wheat.  Monsanto in the past has seen their efforts to expand their influence into wheat hampered by strong public opposition to their herbicide-tolerant, “Roundup Ready” GMO wheat.

For more on millers and bakers yielding to the push for genetically altered wheat, see the report at Reuters.

For more on Monsanto, see the documentary previously posted at Knosha.

Also of interest is Michael Specter making his case for GMO’s at a TED.