Sounding Circle

Thursday, August 18, 2005

USDA Admits to 1000 Violations of Mad Cow Rules 0 comments

18 Aug 2005 @ 23:45 USDA Admits to 1000 Violations of Mad Cow Rules August 15, 2005 USDA Finds 1,000 Violations of Mad Cow Rules By REUTERS WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal food safety inspectors found more than 1,000 instances since 2004 where U.S. meat plants cut corners or violated regulations aimed at preventing the spread of mad cow disease, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Monday. The USDA said it released documents to the American Meat Institute and the consumer group Public Citizen showing that federal inspectors filed 1,036 noncompliance reports from January 2004 to May 2005 involving the removal of the brain, skull and spinal cord of cattle aged 30 months and older. The materials are considered to carry the highest risk in spreading the brain-wasting disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The USDA banned them from the human food supply a few days after the December 2003 discovery of the first U.S. case of mad cow disease in a Washington state dairy cow. The nation's second confirmed case of BSE was discovered earlier this summer in a Texas beef cow. Public Citizen said the documents showed instances where U.S. meat plants did not distinguish between older and younger animals, banned materials were not removed and tools not properly cleaned. ``I think there still has to be a concern about meat from an infected animal making it into the food supply,'' said Tony Corbo, legislative representative for Public Citizen. ``It is not a fail-safe system.'' The meat industry disagreed. ``Some groups will no doubt attempt to use this information as evidence of possible operational problems and even a food safety concern, when nothing is further from the truth,'' said Jim Hodges, president of the AMI Foundation. AMI said the noncompliance reports represent just one-tenth of 1 percent of the 46 million cattle slaughtered nationwide during the 17-month period. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said its federal meat inspectors strictly enforced the regulations to keep BSE out of the human food supply. ``These data demonstrate inspection program personnel took immediate action when they determined that regulators were not being strictly followed. The analysis demonstrates public health was protected,'' the agency said in a statement posted on its Web site. The documents were released to the industry and consumer groups in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, and were not made public by the USDA. Public Citizen said it was still reviewing all the documents, and would need several days to summarize the noncompliance reports. The U.S. Food and Drug and Administration has separately been considering tougher safeguards against mad cow disease for the past 18 months. The FDA in 1997 banned the use of cattle Remains [except cattle blood and cattle fat - JS] as a protein supplement for cattle, but consumer groups have urged the FDA to extend the ban to feed for poultry, pigs and pet food.

San Francisco: Sweatfree, Local, and Organic 1 comment

18 Aug 2005 @ 23:45 San Francisco: Sweatfree, Local, and Organic San Francisco Bay Guardian Sweating slave labor As state agents conduct sweeping raids, San Francisco is poised to pass the country's strongest anti-sweatshop law By Camille T. Taiara As activists and bureaucrats chiseled out the final details of a historically rigorous, sweat-free purchasing standard for San Francisco, state agents raided dozens of garment manufacturing plants throughout California. The actions shed light on the stubborn ills of substandard wages and working conditions in the clothing industry. But labor advocates say raids have only a limited impact on the problem and San Francisco's pending law may offer a more systemic remedy. "These sweeps promote fear and intimidation, create more unemployment, and don't genuinely address the root causes of these labor violations and sweatshop conditions," said Alex Tom, an organizer at the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA). The Economic and Employment Enforcement Coalition, a new, interagency task force, raided 135 garment factories in the Bay Area and southern California Aug. 3 through 5. Thirty of those shops are in San Francisco and Oakland, and most of the violations investigators found locally consisted of shops operating without a license or violating worker compensation laws, according to details released to the Bay Guardian by the California Department of Industrial Relations. DIR spokesperson Renee Bacchini couldn't tell us how many of these had been shut down, but the department expects civil penalties for Bay Area shops to total more than $100,000. In the past, many manufacturers simply filed for bankruptcy to avoid paying any fines, then reopened, said Tom, who works directly with San Francisco's mostly middle-aged, monolingual, female, and Chinese garment workers. Tom argues that free-trade policies are the real culprits: Local manufacturers can't hope to compete with companies that take advantage of dirt-cheap labor and meager workplace standards abroad. In the early 1990s, San Francisco's garment industry employed about 20,000 people, he said. Now that number has shrunk to 2,000 a 90 percent decrease. "Since April we've had about 900 workers come to us who've been laid off as a result of globalization," he told us. Thanks to the CPA, Global Exchange, the Asian Law Caucus, and dozens of other organizations that joined the Sweatfree Bay Area Coalition, though, San Francisco's pending sweat-free legislation could breathe new life into the dying industry while ensuring that local manufacturers pay a decent wage and follow the rule of law. The proposed law would establish a Sweat-Free Advisory Group charged with devising a workable plan for granting preference to local clothing manufacturers. The ordinance also requires that the city contract a private, nonprofit agency not funded by any corporations to monitor the contractors and subcontractors selling goods to San Francisco, and post detailed findings on the Internet, including the wages paid to their employees. Following intense, last-minute negotiations between labor advocates and local officials, the city agreed to include language in the proposed ordinance that will both grant preference to locally produced goods and support freedom of association for workers abroad making it the first of its kind. "For us to be involved in the sweat-free campaign, it had to include the local preference," said Tom, who was among the strongest advocates for including such language in the ordinance. At first, the city had left the local preference regulation out of the legislation. Many clothing suppliers, explained Wade Crowfoot, Mayor Gavin Newsom's liaison to the Board of Supervisors, are large companies. "We didn't want to eviscerate the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise ordinance," which grants preference to smaller, underprivileged firms, he told us. But the two sides were able to work out a deal that met both their needs. And practical details were also hammered out to prioritize workers' rights to organize independently, while stopping short of boycotting goods from countries like China and Vietnam, where laborers are only allowed to belong to state-sponsored unions. "San Francisco will be able to use this legislation as leverage to improve working conditions in those factories" and support workers' struggles rather than penalizing them as a result of their countries' unfair laws, Valerie Orth, Global Exchange's sweat-free campaign organizer, told us. The Board of Supervisors' Budget and Finance Committee passed the amended proposal Aug. 4. With Newsom and Sup. Tom Ammiano as its principal sponsors, the bill is expected to sail through the full board Aug. 16. Newsom already included $100,000 in this year's budget to enforce the new laws. "We intend to continue such funding in subsequent years to ensure effective enforcement of the ordinance," he vowed in a June 27 letter in which he also lent his support to resolutions encouraging the purchase of fair-trade and organic products. "San Francisco will be setting the highest standard in the country," Orth said. Upward of 70 anti-sweatshop ordinances exist across the nation, but they fail to set such strict standards and generally lack the means of enforcement, she explained. San Francisco buys $600 million worth of goods every year, which gives it some purchasing muscle in the market. But sweat-free advocates have set their sights even higher. "Part of our goal is to create an infrastructure that could be replicated anywhere in the country," Crowfoot told us. Former state senator Tom Hayden, now an adjunct professor at New College of California, has committed to marketing the model nationwide in the hope of creating a broad consortium of municipalities that would act as one, he said. "Nationally, the sweat-free movement has been looking to San Francisco," Orth said. She's looking forward to the day when "we have 15 or 20 really strong sweat-free ordinances [and can operate] together as a block." Aug. 28, join the Sweatfree Bay Area Coalition in a victory party featuring an anticapitalist revival sermon by Reverend Billy, all-star Afrobeat by Albino!, trip-hop by Zonk, song by the Labor Chorus, Latin-infused rock by Valerie Orth, slam poetry and dance by Team!, and a sweat-free fashion show. 4-8 p.m., Project Artaud Theater, 450 Florida, SF. $10-$20 donation. (415) 575-5541.  More >

Alexander Cockburn: A Meat-Oriented History of the World 2 comments

18 Aug 2005 @ 23:44 Alexander Cockburn: A Meat-Oriented History of the World August 16, 2005 [link] First of Four Parts: Peter's Dream A Short Meat-Oriented History of the World from Eden to the Mattole By ALEXANDER COCKBURN Start with God. 'And [Peter] saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.' (Acts 10: 11?13.) The Bible is a meat-eater's manifesto. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were vegetarian. They fed on grains, nuts and fruits. Then Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil-or at least that's the way Adam explained it to God. They were cast forth from the Garden, plunging mankind into original sin from which redemption can come only through the grace of Christ, whose flesh is eaten periodically in the form of the Eucharist. Hardly were Adam and Eve out of Eden before God was offering 'respect' to the flesh sacrifice of Abel the keeper of sheep and withholding 'respect' from Cain the tiller of the ground. Next thing we know, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, slew him and we were on our way. [1] Man's Dominion Ringing in Man's ears was the Almighty's edict, as reported in Genesis 1:26?28: 'Let us make Man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominio. . .over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. . .Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it.' Thus did the biblical God launch humans on the exploitation of the rest of the natural world, theirs for the using. [2] Dominion over 'Un-Christian' nature was at the heart of it, as C.S. Lewis spelled out frankly enough: 'Atheists naturally regard. . .the taming of an animal by man as a purely arbitrary interference of one species with another. The "real" or "natural" animal is to them the wild one, and the tame animal is an artificial or unnatural thing. But a Christian must not think so. Man was appointed by God to have dominion over the beasts, and. . .the tame animal is therefore, in the deepest sense, the only "natural" animal-the only one we see occupying the place it was made to occupy.' [3] Such arrogance towards non-human creatures was similarly displayed towards women and human slaves. Not long after His commands in Genesis about animals we find God-in the row immediately following the Fall-telling Eve that 'in sorrow shall thou bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.' So far as human slaves were concerned, once again the slave-owners were able to point to Genesis 9, 25?7 and God's curse on Canaan, and the children of Ham: 'A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.' The early Christians never rejected slavery. [4] The Butcher Slaves Throughout the sixteenth century, intelligent people were having doubts about the distinctiveness of humans or their superior station in the Great Chain of Being. Montaigne wrote that there were no important differences between humans and other animals. The latter, he said, displayed powers of logic, discrimination, judgement, cunning and even religiosity. [5] Such sentiments were powerfully abetted by the growing distaste among intellectuals like Erasmus, Sir Thomas More and Montaigne for hunting, a pursuit whose refinements had transfixed the upper classes for five centuries. 'And thus with their butchering and eating of beasts,' Erasmus wrote in In Praise of Folly, at the start of the sixteenth century, 'they [the genteel hunters] accomplish nothing at all unless it be to degenerate into beasts themselves. . .' Montaigne concluded, 'It is apparent that it is not by a true judgment, but by foolish pride and stubbornness, that we set ourselves before the other animals and sequester ourselves from their condition and society.' [6] Sir Thomas More's Utopia, published in 1516, brings together some of these themes: Outside the city are designated places where all gore and offal may be washed away in running water. From these places they transport the carcasses of the animals slaughtered and cleaned by the hands of slaves. They do not allow their citizens to accustom themselves to the butchering of animals, by the practice of which they think that mercy, the finest feeling of our human nature, is gradually killed off. A few pages further on, More's Utopians 'have imposed the whole activity of hunting, as unworthy of free men, upon their butchers-a craft, as I explained before, they exercise through their slaves.' There was a long-running popular myth that butchers were at various periods excluded from English juries, on the grounds that their trade had coarsened their powers of moral discrimination. [7] The Breaking of Soft Machines From these humane sentiments of the sixteenth century we approach the seventeenth century and Descartes, who regarded humans as machinery imbued with the divinely bestowed intellectual essence. Animals were mere machinery. At Port-Royal, the Cartesians cut up living creatures with fervour and, in the words of one of Descartes' biographers, 'kicked about their dogs and dissected their cats without mercy, laughing at any compassion for them and calling their screams the noise of breaking machinery.' The butchering industry has always been stoutly Cartesian in outlook for obvious reasons. 'The breeding sow', an executive from Wall's Meat Co. wrote in National Hog Farmer in the late 1970s, 'should be thought of, and treated as, a valuable piece of machinery whose function is to pump out baby pigs like a sausage machine.' [8] As a Christian you either concluded with Descartes that animals did not suffer, that their cries were of no greater consequence than the snap of a clock spring breaking, or you reckoned God had a deeper plan, hard for humans to comprehend. John Wesley, the Methodist divine, thought that animal suffering offered 'a plausible objection against the justice of God, in suffering numberless creatures that had never sinned to be so severely punished.' Wesley's answer was a sort of Pythagorean metempsychosis, whereby at the last trump they would be resurrected with human intelligence and, thus equipped, enjoy life everlasting. [9] But the core text for Christians remained the edict in Genesis, along with the divine injunction to St Peter to kill and eat with God's blessing. St Francis of Assisi may have had strong rapport with the birds of the air, but in the New World the Franciscans, Jesuits and Dominicans pioneered cattle ranching. [10] In 1638, the Jesuits abandoned a mission east of the Rio Plata in what is now Uruguay, leaving behind five thousand head of cattle. These and other herds multiplied at a staggering rate. By 1700, Felix de Azara reckoned the cattle in what is now Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay at 48 million, most of them feral. [11] Further north, these religious orders founded ranches on Marajo, the island in the mouth of the Amazon, in Sonora, in Texas and in Alta California. By the early nineteenth century, the mission herds in Alta California were estimated at anywhere from 200,000 to 400,000 longhorns of Spanish descent, parents of the gigantic herds later driven to the inferno of the Chicago stockyards. [12] Christians have no dietary sanction against eating the flesh of creatures other than themselves. The many days-most notably Fridays in the old Roman Catholic calendar-of non-flesh consumption, were penitential in function. Lent was similar. Contrary to common belief, Hindus do not have a religious interdict on the eating of meat. As in More's Utopia, the attitude is caste-based, with Brahmins (intellectuals and priests) and Vaisyas (merchants) regarding meat-eating as the province of Kshatriyas (warriors) and Sudras (labourers). Tanning and butchering are done by the Untouchables. Meat-eating is regarded by Brahmins as unclean, and caste mobility in Hindu society is often expressed by giving up meat and becoming vegetarian. Many modern Christians do not care much for the prescriptions in Genesis and use the same sort of language one Bishop of Durham once did about the Resurrection: it was all a lot of bother about a heap of old bones. (God responded by striking Durham Cathedral with a lightning bolt, serving the Bishop right.) But the theology still has strength. In an influential essay published in 1967, 'The Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis', Lynn White Jr. discussed the verses from Genesis 1: 26?28 about man's dominion over the earth and concluded that 'we shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man.' An Earthly Paradise Thus was the gauntlet thrown down. In 1991, I heard it being picked up by us Representative Bill Dannemeyer, talking to a crowd of businessmen in the Eureka Inn, in Eureka, northern California, some two hours north of where I live. 'We should understand,' Dannemeyer told the crowd, 'that this environmental party has in its objective a mission to change this society, to worship the creation instead of the creator. You have to understand their theology. I can't prove this by empirical analysis, but my gut reaction to their thoughts is simply this: if you go through life and you don't believe in a hereafter and all you see before you today are trees, birds. . .if anybody begins to consume those things, you can get excited about that because it's your whole world. And this is where the militancy comes.' Five years later, at a gun rally outside Detroit, I heard similar execration heaped on environmentalists for preferring rats to humans, plus a savage attack on Jeremy Bentham, the eighteenth-century English utilitarian who famously declared in his Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation, published in 1780, that animals have rights and that 'the question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?' Bentham drew explicit comparisons between the rights of animals and the rights of slaves, equating the abolitionist cause for human slaves with the cause of rights for animals. Alluding to the French Code Noir of 1685, regulating the status of slaves in the West Indies and forbidding their murder by their masters, Bentham expressed the hope that animals would also thus be saved from their torturers and that one day 'the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum' would be equally insufficient reasons for maltreatment. Soon after the Second World War, Bertrand Russell wrote: If men developed by such slow stages that there were creatures which we should not know whether to classify as human or not, the question arises: at what stage in evolution did men, or their semi-human ancestors, begin to be all equal?. . .An adherent of evolution may maintain that not only the doctrine of the equality of all men, but also that of the rights of man, must be condemned as unbiological, since it makes too emphatic a distinction between men and other animals. [13] In his marvellous book on hunting, A View to a Death in the Morning, Our culture offers to justify that [too emphatic] distinction by viewing human beings as separate from nature and innately superior to it. At the same time, however, we view the natural order as sacred and establish elaborate machineries to protect it from human intervention. Though different subcultures place different stress on these two views, probably most of us would assent in some degree to both. But it is obvious they do not fit very well together. Our vision of nature as man's holy slave is both incoherent and dishonest, like the patriarchal Victorian vision of Woman as a sort of angelic chattel. The incoherence and dishonesty inherent in that Victorian ideology were eventually corrected by recognizing that the similarities between master and chat tel had greater moral and political importance than the differences. Since there proved to be no morally interesting differences between women and men, the only way men could preserve their self-respect and integrity was to extend citizenship to women. The same was true of masters and slaves and of whites and blacks. In each of these cases, a heavily marked status boundary ultimately had to be given up because it was intellectually indefensible. And if the cognitive boundary between man and beast, between the world of history and the world of nature, is equally indefensible, we cannot defend human dignity without extending some sort of citizenship to the rest of nature-which means ceasing to treat the non-human world as a series of means to human ends. Tomorrow, Part 2: Porkopolis This essay appears as part of Dead Meat Footnotes [1] God's line is that it's Man's and Woman's fault. He set up a vegetarian world, and then the founding parents, exercising free will, wrecked everything, and creatures fell to eating one another. 'Vegetarianism was also encouraged by Christian teaching, for all theologians agreed that man had not originally been carnivorous. . .Many biblical commentators maintained that it was only after the flood that humans became meat-eaters; in the period of disorientation following the Fall they had remained herbivorous. Others, noting that Abel was a herdsman, suggested that it was the Fall which had inaugurated the carnivorous error, and that the liberty of eating flesh which God gave Noah was merely the renewal of an earlier permission. Commentators argued over whether meat-eating had been permitted because man's physical constitution had degenerated and therefore required new forms of nutriment, or because the cultivation of the soil to which he was condemned required a more robust food, or because the fruits and herbs on which he had fed in Eden had lost their former goodness. But everyone agreed that meat-eating symbolised man's fallen condition. 'God allows us to take away the lives of our fellow creatures and to eat their flesh,' wrote Richard Baxter in 1691, 'to show what sin hath brought on the world.' The death of brute animals to supply the wants of sinful man could even be made a paradigm of Christ's atonement.' Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World, New York 1983. [2] Man is 'this thing,' Francis Bacon wrote in The Wisdom of the Ancients, as he proposed his principles of scientific investigation in the early seventeenth century,' in which the whole world centres, with respect to final causes; so that if he were away, all other things would stray and fluctuate, without end or intention, or become perfectly disjointed and out of frame; for all things are made subservient to man, and he receives uses and benefits from them all. . .so that everything in nature seems made not for itself, but for man.' In Bacon's view, the Fall had suspended man's sovereignty over nature; and to restore this prelapsarian dominance was the proper aim of all science, whose true aim, as he put it in the Novum Organum, is 'to extend more widely the limits of the power and greatness of man,' and to endow him with 'infinite commodities.' Tyson or Purdue should have Bacon's portrait on every chicken shed. Always alert to the possible utility of nature to man, Bacon was riding along in his coach in the early English spring of 1626, when the notion of experimenting with frozen chicken crossed his mind. He stopped the coach, descended, bought a fowl and stuffed it with snow thus contracting the chill from which he soon died in Lord Arundel's house a few weeks later. Bacon discusses vivisection in somewhat muffled terms: 'To prosecute such inquiry concerning perfect animals by cutting out the foetus from the womb would be too inhuman, except when opportunities are afforded by abortions, the chase, and the like. There should therefore be a sort of nightwatch over nature, as showing herself better by night than by day. For these may be regarded as night studies by reason of the smallness of our candle and its continual burning.' Novum Organum, Book ii, 41. But while Bacon was indulging himself in these niceties, his doctor, William Harvey-who also looked after Arundel-was busy vivisecting. Bacon published the Novum Organum in 1620. Harvey published his treatise on the circulation of the blood, De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Frankfurt in 1621. It began with the words, 'When, by many dissections of living animals, as they came to hand. . .I first gave myself to observing how I might discover. . .' He presumably discussed his work with Bacon, who did not feel affronted enough to change doctors. On the other hand, see the extraordinary passage on vivisection, amnesia and pain, 'Le Prix du Prográs', in Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment, Verso, London 1979 (this was presumably Adorno): Despite these admirable remarks, Adorno and Horkheimer do not seem to have had much empathy with animals, if 'Man and Animal'-which comes a few pages later in the book-is anything to go by. Walter Benjamin's paragraph on 'Gloves' in One-Way Street, Verso, London 1979, expresses a positive revulsion towards animals. Like Adorno and Horkheimer, he was better at describing domination than affinity. [3] C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, New York 1962. Cited in Matt Cartmill, A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature through History, New Haven 1993. Christian and Marxist shook hands over this deal. Cartmill reports that in the 1930s 'some Marxist thinkers . . .urged that it was time to put an end to nature and that animals and plants that serve no human purpose ought to be exterminated.' [4] The historian Geoffrey de Ste. Croix declared that he was not aware of any general Christian condemnation of slavery before the petition of the Mennonites of Germantown in Pennsylvania in 1688, and the Mennonites were founded by a sixteenth-century Anabaptist, whose attitude to property was communist in outlook. See G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. London 1981. [5] 'Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant. He feels and sees himself lodged here, among the mire and dung of the world, nailed and riveted to the worst, the deadest and most stagnant part of the universe, on the lowest story of the house and the farthest from the vault of heaven, with the animals of the worst condition of the three [i.e. those that walk, fly and swim], and in his imagination he goes planting himself above the circle of the moon, and bringing the sky down beneath his feet. It is by the vanity of this same imagination that he equals himself to God, attributes to himself divine characteristics, picks himself out and separates himself from the horde of other creatures, carves out their shares to his fellows and companions the animals, and distributes among them such portions of faculties and powers as he sees fit. How does he know, by the force of his intelligence, the secret internal stirrings of animals? By what comparison between them and us does he infer the stupidity that he attributes to them?' Amplifying his essays a few years later, Montaigne added after the passage just quoted, the famous sentence 'When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?' From 'Apology for Raymond Sebond,' The Complete Essays of Montaigne, translated by Donald M. Frame, Stanford 1965. [6] By the mid sixteenth century Giovanni Battista Gelli, a Florentine scholar, was writing Circe, a dialogue in which the enchantress of the title tells Ulysses she will restore the animals she transmogrified back into his original crew, so long as he can secure their agreement. The animals remain unpersuaded. You men, the doe replies to Ulysses's invitation to resume the form of a woman, 'make mere slaves and servants out of us. . .Among animals, any animals you want to name, the female partakes equally with the male in his pleasures and diversions.' Only one, an elephant, makes the return journey and shouts triumphantly, 'What a marvelous sensation it is to be a man!' But he was a philosopher. R. Adams, ed., The Circe of Signior Giovanni Battista Gelli, Ithaca 1991. Cited in Matt Cartmill, A View to a Death in the Morning. [7] Sir Thomas More, Utopia, edited by Edward Sturz, Yale 1964. Keith Thomas discusses the legend of jury exclusion of butchers in Man and the Natural World. [8] Quoted in Animal Factories by Jim Mason and Peter Singer, New York 1990. [9] See Cartmill, A View to a Death in the Morning. This concept of eighteenth-century promotion was resumed by a French biologist, Charles Bonnet, who thought that man would eventually move on 'to another dwelling place, more suitable to the superiority of his faculties', and then the beasts would be elevated accordingly: 'In this universal restoration of animals, there may be found a Leibniz or a Newton among the monkeys or the elephants, a Perrault or a Vauban among the beavers.' [10] Christians were deeply involved in the development of the human slave trade between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, since enslavement could be the prelude to conversion, just as the 'beef Christian' Indians of the Californian ranchos run by the Franciscans took on board spiritual grace along with their ribeye. The vaqueros tending these Western herds could maybe trace some of their skills in part back through Andalucian and Marisman herders to the West African Fulani of the pre-Columbian era, some of whom may have been taken as slaves to Spain. See Terry Jordan, North American Cattle-Ranching Frontiers, Albuquerque 1993. [11] Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900, Cambridge 1986. [12] See Terry Jordan, North American Cattle Ranching Frontiers. Jordan suggests this in the context of his estimate that cowboys of African descent were extremely uncommon on the western cattle frontiers. [13] Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, New York 1945.  More >

Exciting Research in Solar Energy that Could Conceivably Alleviate Energy Crisis 0 comments

18 Aug 2005 @ 23:42 Exciting Research in Solar Energy that Could Conceivably Alleviate Energy Crisis From: Environment News Service Quantum Dots and Smart Materials the Future of Solar Energy WASHINGTON, DC, August 16, 2005 (ENS) - Reactors heated by focused, concentrated sunlight in thermal towers that reach temperatures over 3,000 degrees Celsius ... nanostructured materials such as quantum dots ... solar cells that achieve 50 percent efficiency - these are not the stuff of science fiction. These technologies are predicted to be the reality of solar power by mid-century. A workshop of 200 scientists from the United States, Europe and Asia met in April to examine the challenges to developing solar energy as a competitive energy source and to pinpoint the basic research directions that show promise. The cross-disciplinary group of solar energy scientists spanned academia, national laboratories, government, and industry. Their report, issued Friday, identified 13 priority research directions with the ³potential to produce revolutionary, not evolutionary, breakthroughs in materials and processes for solar energy utilization.² More energy from sunlight strikes the Earth in one hour than all the energy consumed on the planet in a year, and world demand for energy is projected to more than double by 2050 and to more than triple by the end of the century, the scientists said. They called sunlight is "a compelling solution" to our need for clean, abundant sources of energy because it is readily available, free from geopolitical tension, and poses no threat to our environment through pollution or to our climate through greenhouse gas emissions. Emerging with "a sense of optimism" from the four day workshop, the scientists said the technology to bridge the gap between our present use of solar energy and its undeveloped potential "defines a grand challenge in energy research." Bridging this gap requires revolutionary breakthroughs that come only from basic research, they said. "We must understand the fundamental principles of solar energy conversion and develop new materials that exploit them." Workshop chair Dr. Nathan Lewis is a chemistry professor at the California Institute of Technology. (Photo courtesy CalTech) The Basic Energy Sciences Workshop on Solar Energy Utilization was chaired by chemist Dr. Nathan Lewis of the California Institute of Technology and co-chaired by George Crabtree Materials Science Division director at Argonne National Laboratory. Workshop participants discussed solar energy conversion systems in three categories - solar electricity, solar fuels and solar thermal systems. Dr. George Crabtree is Materials Science Division director at Argonne National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy Argonne) The scientists agreed that there is considerable common ground underlying the three conversion routes of sunlight to electricity, fuel, and heat, the scientists agreed. Each follows the same functional sequence of capture, conversion, and storage of solar energy, and they exploit many of the same electronic and molecular mechanisms to accomplish these tasks. A major challenge is tapping the full spectrum of colors in solar radiation. The absorbing materials in the current generation of photocells and, artificial photosynthetic machines typically capture only a fraction of the wavelengths in sunlight. Designing composite materials that effectively absorb all the colors in the solar spectrum for conversion to electricity, fuel, and heat would be a crosscutting breakthrough, the scientists said. Then the captured solar energy "must be transported as excited electrons and holes from the absorber to chemical reaction sites for making fuel or to external circuits as electricity," the scientists explained. "Nature transmits excited electrons and holes without energy loss through sophisticated assemblies of proteins whose function we are just beginning to understand with genome sequencing and structural biology," they said. Today's rapid advances on the scientific frontiers of nanoscience and molecular biology provide a strong foundation for future breakthroughs in solar energy conversion, the workshop participants agreed. An electronic circuit fabricated on a flexible plastic substrate. Solar cells are being developed that can be integrated with such organic electronic devices. (Photo Nicole Cappello courtesy Georgia Tech) A host of new materials to replace silicon are now under investigation, including inexpensive plastic photocells, thin polycrystalline films, organic dye injectors, and quantum dots. The vast majority of solar panels today are made of silicon. These devices are called first generation, and make for highly stable and efficient solar cells, but, because of the material processing necessary, it is expensive to make first generation solar cells, and levels of efficiency in electricity production range from around 10 to 20 percent. A more recent alternative involves constructing solar cells using thin films with the potential to produce solar energy at a reduced cost. These thin film cells are called second generation, and are cheaper, but they have more difficulty absorbing radiation and are not very efficient. Scientists have been seeking a third generation - a low cost semiconductor material that would have a tunable bandgap, allowing the manufacturer to control the absorptive properties of the solar cell. Quantum dots appear to fill the bill. Quantum dots are semiconductor crystals typically between 1 and 10 nanometers in diameter, a nanometer being a billionth of a meter. Each quantum dot contains a tiny droplet of free electrons. A contoured structure of quantum dots, with the blue dots extending farthest from the base. (Photo courtesy NREL Solid State Theory Group) Quantum dots offer tunable optical and electronic properties that can work around the natural limits of traditional semiconductors. They could form the basis of new computers, and the workshop scientists believe they could be useful as the basis of new solar electric cells. "Quantum dots are especially exciting for their tunable absorption wavelength, their quantum conversion efficiency above 100% through multiple-exciton generation, and their easy fabrication through self-assembly," the workshop scientists said. Quantum dots can be made into flexible sheets, put into liquid form, or made to be transparent, and they cost relatively little compared with bulk silicon semiconductor material and thin films. One manufacturer, Evident Technologies, says quantum dots can theoretically achieve the third generation goal of greater than 60 percent efficiency at $100 or less per square meter of paneling that would be necessary to make photovoltaic solar cells economically competitive with other forms of energy. In addition to electric energy, solar radiation can be converted to heat energy, and the scientists concluded that solar thermal conversion can replace much of the heat now supplied by burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. Solar concentrators focus sunlight collected over a large area to a line or spot where heat is collected in an absorber. A 10-kilowatt prototype of the Advanced Dish Development System being evaluated at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. May 2004. (Photo courtesy Sandia) Temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees Celsius can be generated to drive chemical reactions, or heat can be collected at lower temperatures and transferred to a heat storage medium like water for distributed space heating or steam to drive an engine. But research is needed to develop thermal storage materials that accumulate heat efficiently during sunny periods and release heat slowly during dark or cloudy periods, the scientists said. Their report notes that progress in research proposed at the workshop also could lead to artificial "molecular machines" that turn sunlight into chemical fuel inexpensively and efficiently. Basic research could enable scientists to coax cheap materials to perform as well as expensive materials, they said. They believe "smart materials" could be developed based on nature¹s ability to transfer captured solar energy with no energy loss. They forsee self-repairing solar conversion systems and new materials for high-capacity, slow-release thermal storage. The Bush administration supports the development of solar energy, said Dr. Raymond Orbach, director of the U.S. Energy Department's Office of Science. "The tax credits contained in the historic energy bill signed by President [George W.] Bush will greatly help expand the use of renewable energy," Orbach said. ³This research will help improve a critical component of renewable energy, solar technology, in the future."

Government Approves Hazardous Irradiation of Shellfish 1 comment

18 Aug 2005 @ 23:42 Government Approves Hazardous Irradiation of Shellfish From: Environment News Service Irradiation of Oysters, Mussels, Clams Approved WASHINGTON, DC, August 16, 2005 (ENS) - When it comes to announcing new regulations that allow ionizing radiation to be used on food, the U.S. government always calls the process "safe." Today The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it is amending the food additive regulations "to provide for the safe use of ionizing radiation for control of Vibrio species and other foodborne pathogens in fresh or frozen molluscan shellfish" such as oysters, mussels, clams. But Wenonah Hauter, director of the Food Program for the campaign group Public Citizen, is not so sure. Calling the FDA's decision to permit the use of irradiation on oysters, clams and mussels "misguided," Hauter says despite years of consumer resistance to eating irradiated food, "the government continues to forge a path down which very few consumers are willing to tread." "Grocery stores rarely carry irradiated meat because it doesn't sell. The National School Lunch Program has yet to order a single pound of irradiated ground beef despite the federal government's 2003 approval of such purchases for the program," said Hauter. "Several food irradiation facilities have closed their doors in the past two years due to lack of business." The FDA is promoting irradiation despite the fact that questions about long-term health impacts of irradiation remain unanswered and despite the fact that alternatives exist, she said. On August 8, FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford told the International Congress on Meat Science and Technology that the risk of food-borne illnesses in shellfish can be reduced by cutting the time from harvest to refrigeration, freezing, and using high pressure or mild heating. He said, "85-90 percent of Vibrio illnesses in the Gulf Coast states could be eliminated if the product were iced within four hours or refrigerated within one hour of harvest." On August 13, the agency conducted a public hearing in Alabama to present findings from a risk analysis for Vibrio parahaemolyticus, a bacteria found in oysters that causes food poisoning. Irradiation was one of many treatments mentioned in the study, but the study's conclusions contained no endorsement of irradiation or evidence that it is the best mitigation technique. The FDA quotes the World Health Organization that concluded that while levels of some vitamins are decreased when food is irradiated at doses relevant for food irradiation, few vitamins are severely affected, with the exception of thiamine and vitamin E. "These losses are small (on the order of 10 to 20 percent or less) at or below an overall average absorbed dose of 10 kGy (kiloGray) and are comparable to losses seen with other forms of food processing, such as thermal processing and drying," the FDA said. The FDA cites the international non-binding Codex organization made up of member governments who say this level of radiation is "of no concern." A long risk analysis of all the historical data on food irradiation follows in the Federal Register notice of this change in the regulations, found here. In the end, the FDA concludes irradiation is "safe" and no environmental impact statement is required. Again, Hauter is not so sure. "Few studies have been done on the effects of irradiating shellfish," she says, and one study cited by the FDA risk analysis study as demonstrating the effectiveness of irradiation also finds that irradiation doses at very low levels produced an unpleasant yellow byproduct. "The risk analysis does not discuss the safety or nutrition issues surrounding this or other byproducts, such as the class of irradiation byproducts called alkylcyclobutanones," Hauter says. "These have been linked with tumor promotion and genetic damage and are produced when fat is irradiated. Shellfish have fat, so alkylcyclobutanones could be formed when shellfish is irradiated." Alkylcyclobutanones are not mentioned in the FDA analysis. Today in the United States irradiation is legally applied to a variety of foods including wheat flour, white potatoes, pork, poultry, meat, fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices. "The government should ensure a procedure is safe before permitting its use," Hauter says. "We urge the FDA to rescind this rule and deny other pending petitions that would allow more kinds of food to be irradiated."  More >

Experimental Hybrid Cars Can Get Up to 250 MPG 0 comments

18 Aug 2005 @ 23:40 Experimental Hybrid Cars Can Get Up to 250 MPG--But U.S. Automakers Aren't Interested From Published on Tuesday, August 16, 2005by the Associated Press Experimental Hybrid Cars Get Up to 250 Mpg by Tim Molloy Politicians and automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is years or even decades away. Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage. It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret < a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries that boosts the car's high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even less fuel. Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car. Like all hybrids, his Prius increases fuel efficiency by harnessing small amounts of electricity generated during braking and coasting. The extra batteries let him store extra power by plugging the car into a wall outlet at his home in this San Francisco suburb < all for about a quarter. He's part of a small but growing movement. "Plug-in" hybrids aren't yet cost-efficient, but some of the dozen known experimental models have gotten up to 250 mpg. They have support not only from environmentalists but also from conservative foreign policy hawks who insist Americans fuel terrorism through their gas guzzling. And while the technology has existed for three decades, automakers are beginning to take notice, too. So far, DaimlerChrysler AG is the only company that has committed to building its own plug-in hybrids, quietly pledging to make up to 40 vans for U.S. companies. But Toyota Motor Corp. officials who initially frowned on people altering their cars now say they may be able to learn from them. "They're like the hot rodders of yesterday who did everything to soup up their cars. It was all about horsepower and bling-bling, lots of chrome and accessories," said Cindy Knight, a Toyota spokeswoman. "Maybe the hot rodders of tomorrow are the people who want to get in there and see what they can do about increasing fuel economy." The extra batteries let Gremban drive for 20 miles with a 50-50 mix of gas and electricity. Even after the car runs out of power from the batteries and switches to the standard hybrid mode, it gets the typical Prius fuel efficiency of around 45 mpg. As long as Gremban doesn't drive too far in a day, he says, he gets 80 mpg. "The value of plug-in hybrids is they can dramatically reduce gasoline usage for the first few miles every day," Gremban said. "The average for people's usage of a car is somewhere around 30 to 40 miles per day. During that kind of driving, the plug-in hybrid can make a dramatic difference." Backers of plug-in hybrids acknowledge that the electricity to boost their cars generally comes from fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases, but they say that process still produces far less pollution than oil. They also note that electricity could be generated cleanly from solar power. Gremban rigged his car to promote the nonprofit CalCars Initiative, a San Francisco Bay area-based volunteer effort that argues automakers could mass produce plug-in hybrids at a reasonable price. But Toyota and other car companies say they are worried about the cost, convenience and safety of plug-in hybrids < and note that consumers haven't embraced all-electric cars because of the inconvenience of recharging them like giant cell phones. Automakers have spent millions of dollars telling motorists that hybrids don't need to be plugged in, and don't want to confuse the message. Nonetheless, plug-in hybrids are starting to get the backing of prominent hawks like former CIA director James Woolsey and Frank Gaffney, President Reagan's undersecretary of defense. They have joined Set America Free, a group that wants the government to spend $12 billion over four years on plug-in hybrids, alternative fuels and other measures to reduce foreign oil dependence. Gaffney, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, said Americans would embrace plug-ins if they understood arguments from him and others who say gasoline contributes to oil-rich Middle Eastern governments that support terrorism. "The more we are consuming oil that either comes from places that are bent on our destruction or helping those who are ... the more we are enabling those who are trying to kill us," Gaffney said. DaimlerChrysler spokesman Nick Cappa said plug-in hybrids are ideal for companies with fleets of vehicles that can be recharged at a central location at night. He declined to name the companies buying the vehicles and said he did not know the vehicles' mileage or cost, or when they would be available. Others are modifying hybrids, too. Monrovia-based Energy CS has converted two Priuses to get up to 230 mpg by using powerful lithium ion batteries. It is forming a new company, EDrive Systems, that will convert hybrids to plug-ins for about $12,000 starting next year, company vice president Greg Hanssen said. University of California, Davis engineering professor Andy Frank built a plug-in hybrid from the ground up in 1972 and has since built seven others, one of which gets up to 250 mpg. They were converted from non-hybrids, including a Ford Taurus and Chevrolet Suburban. Frank has spent $150,000 to $250,000 in research costs on each car, but believes automakers could mass-produce them by adding just $6,000 to each vehicle's price tag. Instead, Frank said, automakers promise hydrogen-powered vehicles hailed by President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, even though hydrogen's backers acknowledge the cars won't be widely available for years and would require a vast infrastructure of new fueling stations. "They'd rather work on something that won't be in their lifetime, and that's this hydrogen economy stuff," Frank said. "They pick this kind of target to get the public off their back, essentially."

Students Purchasing More Green & Organic Products for Back to School Needs 0 comments

18 Aug 2005 @ 23:39 Students Purchasing More Green & Organic Products for Back to School Needs From: Center for a New American Dream - www.newdream.org Aug 16, 2005 Press Release August 16, 2005 Contact: Sarah Roberts Sarah@newdream.org 301-891-3683/ cell 202-255-8332 College Students Spend Cash Wisely As They Search for Back-To School Products That Reflect Positive Values Survey shows 91% of college students and 88% parents say they would be likely to purchase environmentally friendly products if they were available at stores they shopped at. Takoma Park, MD According to a back-to-school survey commissioned by Center for a New American Dream, an environmental nonprofit, nearly all (93%) of college students agree that American consumers can conserve resources, protect workers, and build a better world by shopping carefully for environmental and fair trade products. The survey shows a growing number of college students, eight in ten (89%), are willing to spend extra money for products produced by companies that pay workers good wages and provide desirable working conditions. Second only to the December holidays when it comes to spending, the back-to-school retail season offers an opportunity for consumers to make a difference by supporting environmentally and socially responsible products with their dollars and collective voices. This year college students plan to spend average of $1,539 on back-to-school shopping, compared to the estimated $574 parents expect to spend. With more campus cash to go around, retailers that sell fair trade and environmental friendly products may see increased sales among a new set of conscious consumers. "College students are bringing their values into the marketplace. Companies need to wake up and provide more environmental and fair trade products if they want to win lifelong loyalty from young consumers," says Betsy Taylor, president of New American Dream. According to the survey, a majority of students (88%) want their campus store to offer more environmental and fair trade products. Some campuses are leading the charge. Duke University and Middlebury College offer recycled paper, notebooks, binders, and fair-trade clothing in their campus bookstores. According to Betsy Taylor, "people are starting to realize that simple consumer choices can help resolve complex problems such as global warming, deforestation, and depletion of the Earth's precious natural resources." New American Dream offers tips and product information for students and parents to help them find those necessary school items without straining their wallets or the environment. At www.shopbacktoschool.org, you will find a buying guide directing consumers to environmentally and socially responsible products like clothes, backpacks, electronics, paper, personal care items, and much more. Top Five Tips for Back-to-School Shopping: 1. Before heading out to shop, dust off leftover notebooks, pens and pencils from last year and re-use, re-use, re-use. 2. Look for products made from recycled materials. If you don't find any, bring some suggestions to the attention of the store manager. There are numerous options for recycled paper, notebooks, scissors, paper clips, and binders for example. 3. While searching for a new laptop or computer and other electronics, look for the "Energy Star" label. This guarantees you use less energy when you "power up." Also keep in mind many manufacturers offer refurbished computers at a fraction of the cost of brand new machines more information visit www.newdream.org/computers. 4. Avoid unnecessary packaging. It¹s wasteful and often ends up in our landfills and streams. 5. When searching for the latest in fashion, check labels for sweatshop free and organic cotton materials. Visit www.shopbacktoschool.org for more product information and a virtual green dorm room tour for the savvy student. Please contact Sarah Roberts at 301-891-3683, if you would like to interview with Betsy Taylor of the Center for a New American Dream or college students about their experiences on campus or parents. # # # The Center for a New American Dream helps Americans consume responsibly to protect the environment, enhance quality of life, and promote social justice. We work with individuals, institutions, communities, and businesses to conserve natural resources, counter the commercialization of our culture and promote positive changes in the way goods are produced and consumed. www.newdream.org Back-to-School Stats Back-to-School Poll Highlights The following statistics are results are from one online poll of 553 parents who have children 18 years of age or younger and a second 512 college students ages 18-23. All data has been re-weighted to be representative of the U.S. population (2000 Census). The poll was conducted by Widmeyer Research & Polling for the Center for a New American Dream. The margin of error is +/- 4.2% (95% confidence level). * 8 in 10 (83%) of students have purchased an environmentally friendly or fair trade products in the past year. * Nearly all (93%) of students say they American consumers can conserve resources, protect workers, and build a better world by shopping carefully for environmental and fair trade products. * More than 3 in 5 parents (62%) say they will spend MORE on back-to-school shopping this year compared to last year. Only 23% say they will spend LESS. * More than a third of (36%) college students will you spend an average of $1,539 on "back to school" shopping this year, including school supplies, clothing, electronics, and other major purchases. * Nearly all parents (96%) are familiar with environmentally friendly products and 3 in 4 (75%) have purchased them in the last year. Nearly 9 in 10 parents (88%) say they would be likely to purchase environmentally friendly products if they were available at stores they shopped at. * 3 in 5 parents (60%) are familiar with fair trade products and more than 1 in 3 (38%) have purchased them in the last year. More than 7 in 10 parents (73%) say they would be likely to purchase fair trade products if they were available at stores they shopped at. * 2 in 3 parents (66%) say they would be likely to spend a little more money for products produced by companies that pay workers a fair wage and provide good working condition. * A majority of parents (80%) agree that American consumers can conserve resources, protect workers, and build a better world by shopping carefully for environmental and fair trade products. Additional Back-to-School Stats According to the National Retail Federation 2004 Back-to-College Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey... * College students and their parents spend $25.7 billion on back-to-school merchandise, almost twice as much as what is spent for primary education. * Americans spent roughly $40.5 billion on back-to-school and back-to-college merchandise in 2003. * Parents and students will spend $7.5 billion on electronics, $8.8 billion on textbooks, $3.2 billion on clothing and accessories, $2.6 billion on dorm or apartment furnishings, $2.1 billion on school supplies, and $1.5 billion on shoes. * Before returning to campus, college students and their parents will pump $25.7 billion into the economy, nearly twice as much as what will be spent on elementary through high school students ($14.8 billion). * The average freshman, who will likely be moving away from home for the first time, plans to spend $1205.97, primarily on electronics ($759.97). * Juniors, who may be moving off campus for the first time, plan to spend $811.83 on average, with nearly one-third of their spending ($278.47) devoted to dorm and apartment furnishings. * Sophomores' and seniors' spending will be significantly less ($444.66 and $425.23 on average, respectively). * The $40.5 billion that will be spent on back-to-school and back-to-college merchandise this year should account for more than four percent of total annual GAFS (general merchandise stores, clothing and clothing accessories stores, furniture and home furnishings stores, electronics and appliances stores, and sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores) sales, second only to the holiday season. Environmental and Labor Impacts * 3.4 million tons of printing and writing papers are purchased each year during the back-to-school season. (American Forest and Paper Association) * In the United States, more than 90% of printing and writing paper comes from virgin tree fiber. (Conserveatree) * One ton of 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper saves 24 trees and 4100 kilowatt hours of electricity. (Conserveatree) * In 2000, 84 million pounds of pesticides were sprayed on the 14.4 million acres of conventional cotton grown in the United States. (Environmental Protection Agency) * Each T-shirt made from 100% organic cotton saves one-third of a pound of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. (Environmental Protection Agency) * Sales of clothing made from organic fibers like organic cotton increased by an average of 11% each year between 1996 and 2000. (Sierra Club) * More than half of the 22,000 sewing shops in the United States violate minimum wage and overtime laws. 75% of U.S. garment shops violate safety and health laws. (Department of Labor) * Many backpacks and binders are made with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) which when made or burned for disposal creates dioxins, which are linked to cancer and developmental and reproductive disorders. Over 14 billion pounds of PVC are currently produced per year in North America. (Healthy Building Network)

Antibiotic-Resistant Pig Disease Spreads in China, Killing 39 People 0 comments

18 Aug 2005 @ 23:38 Antibiotic-Resistant Pig Disease Spreads in China, Killing 39 People Antibiotics and the Food System dwallinga@iatp.org ============================================================ [link] n_use_of_antibiotics/ Posted 8/18/05 Pig Disease Throws Spotlight on Use of Antibiotics HONG KONG -- The spread of a pig-borne disease in southwest China and the high death toll have thrown the spotlight on the widespread and indiscriminate use of antibiotics in Asia, giving the bacterium added resistance. Streptococcus suis, which has rarely spread to humans in the past and should have been relatively easy to control if treated early with antibiotics, has infected 214 people in Sichuan province in recent weeks, killing 39 -- a mortality rate of nearly 20 percent. Reports that many victims died within a day of showing symptoms have also added to the disquiet. Hong Kong's Health Authority late on Tuesday said a butcher at a leading supermarket chain had become the fourth person to become infected with the bacterium in the territory since the outbreak in China was first reported in June. The pig scare comes amid reports of a bird flu virus hitting parts of China, Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. The H5N1 strain has killed more than 50 people across Asia, most in Vietnam, and led to the culling of some 140 million birds. "Streptococcus suis is not a very resistant bacterium -- we can normally kill it by penicillin. But the government has suggested using much stronger antibiotics... Maybe the bacterium has mutated to a more resistant strain," microbiology professor Li Mingyuan, of Sichuan University, told the South China Morning Post recently. The pig and bird diseases have raised questions about the over-aggressive use of antibiotics in animals as well as humans. Bacteria have a will to survive and react to frequent and improper use of antibiotics by becoming resistant. Experts in Hong Kong say bacterial resistance must be tackled quickly. ANTIBIOTICS USELESS AGAINST VIRUSES "Penicillin can be used in New Zealand and America to kill bacteria like Streptococcus pneumoniae (a major cause of pneumonia). But in Hong Kong, resistance is so bad that even if penicillin works for you, you will have use take higher doses or you have to use other antibiotics," said Raymond Mak, a pharmacist at Queen Elizabeth Mary Hospital in Hong Kong. "Streptococcus pneumoniae is not only resistant to penicillin, its resistance to quinolones is becoming worse," he told Reuters in an interview, referring to a class of powerful antibiotics. Scientists blame bacterial resistance in Hong Kong to improper and overprescription by doctors, many of whom readily dispense antibiotics to patients who may just have colds or the flu -- for which antibiotics are totally useless as they can't fight viruses. Antibiotics are also readily available over the counter. "Bacteria are just living things, they want to live. If you put a lot of pressure using particular antibiotics, they will become resistant and continue to live. They will mutate, use all means to get around it," said microbiology professor Margaret Ip at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong. Many doctors also prescribe antibiotics that cover a wide range of bacteria without doing proper lab tests. The scientists say such practices must be stopped or mankind will face a shrinking pool of antibiotics that work. William Chui, pharmacology honorary associate professor at the University of Hong Kong, warned: "We haven't got enough antibiotics to choose from because their shelf lives are getting shorter. Before, it took 20 years. Now a drug faces resistance in 10 or even five years. "You take between 20 to 30 years to develop an antibiotic, so we have to conserve our pool and use them only when we need to," Chui said, adding that governments needed to monitor the use of antibiotics in both humans and animals. Story from REDNOVA NEWS: [link] Published: 2005/08/17 06:55:00 CDT (c) Rednova 2004

Three Walmart Willies Stories 0 comments

18 Aug 2005 @ 23:37 Wal-Mart hit with $1.15 Million for Environmental Violations in CT [link] newsid=15040280&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dep t_id=517515&rfi=6 New Haven Register 08/16/2005 Wal-Mart will pay $1.15 million fine Gregory B. Hladky , Capitol Bureau Chief HARTFORD < Wal-Mart has agreed to pay a $1.15 million fine and correct a slew of environmental violations at 22 of its Connecticut stores, violations that state officials said showed a systematic disregard for the law. The violations primarily involved pollution that flowed into storm drains on Wal-Mart properties from construction work, improperly stored or handled fertilizer, pesticides, waste oils and other potentially hazardous products. Advertisement "There is a pattern of national disregard by Wal-Mart in this area," said state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. He said that, in Connecticut, state officials found no documentable damage from Wal-Mart¹s violations, but that "there was a high potential for harm." Last year, Wal-Mart officials paid a $3.1 million fine to settle a federal lawsuit concerning storm-drain pollution from the company¹s construction sites in Tennessee, Utah and several other states. State Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy said the comprehensive Connecticut settlement announced Monday is the first of its kind in the nation. "Today¹s settlement sends, we hope, a very strong message," McCarthy said. "The message is that it doesn¹t matter how big you are, you can¹t break the law." Marty Heires, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the world¹s largest retailer has already corrected most of the environmental problems cited in the settlement. "We wanted S to get this thing behind us and move forward," said Heires. "We are pledging our compliance at every level." The Wal-Mart-owned stores cited by the state for violations included operations in all parts of Connecticut. The state found violations at 22 of the company¹s 33 Connecticut stores, including two Sam¹s Club stores, which are owned by Wal-Mart. In the New Haven region, violations occurred at stores in Orange, Shelton, Branford, Wallingford, and Derby. "As big as it was, Wal-Mart failed to get it right," said Blumenthal. "Its failure was one of corporate culture, going to the upper levels of this corporationS The violations were widespread, systematic, repeated," he said. "No corporation, no one, no matter how powerful or big, is above the law," said Blumenthal. "Wal-Mart¹s competitors have a right to know that Wal-Mart is not above the law." McCarthy said the state¹s efforts to get Wal-Mart to comply with state environmental regulations began in 1999 but that officials at the company "refused to take it seriously." She said the violations included fertilizer and pesticides that were washed into storm drains by rain and snow melt. Several Wal-Marts also sold a root killer that has been banned by the federal government. The $1.15 million settlement will result in a direct payment to the state of $600,000, while $500,000 will go to various municipalities to help them with local compliance with state stormwater regulations. McCarthy said $50,000 of Wal-Mart¹s fine will be used to help protect the Mattabesett River in Cromwell, which she said was one of the potential victims of Wal-Mart pollution. "Wal-Mart pledges to cooperate fully with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection to avoid issues of this type in the future," Del Sloneker, senior vice president of operations, Wal-Mart Stores Division, said in a prepared statement. "We have made a major effort to address environmental concerns at our stores in Connecticut," Sloneker said. "We will continue to do all we can to assure that our associates in these stores not only know the environmental laws of the state but comply with them consistently and actively." The Connecticut settlement will also require Wal-Mart to submit plans for managing stormwater on its properties. The company will also have to hire a consultant to conduct seven bi-annual audits to make sure that its stores are complying with all environmental regulations. In addition, the company will be required to hire a consultant on stormwater management for all its Connecticut construction sites for the next five years. Blumenthal said a 2003 court order obtained by the state required Wal-Mart to correct many if not all of the violations cited by the state. "We¹re listening, we¹re cooperating, we¹re taking steps to be sure these types of things don¹t recur," said Heires. -------------------------------------- Fact Sheet on Wal-Mart: The Death Star of American Commerce Wal-Mart's True Cost to Taxpayers "Because Wal-Mart fails to pay sufficient wages, U.S. taxpayers are forced to pick up the tab. In this sense, Wal-Mart's profits are not only made only on the backs of its employees-but on the [back] of every U.S. taxpayer." Representative George Miller (CA) The cost of a single Wal-Mart " $36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families " $42,000 a year for Section 8 housing assistance, assuming 3 percent of the store employees qualify for such assistance, at 6,700 per family " 125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families, assuming 50 employees are heads of household with a child and 50 are married with two children " 100,000 a year for additional Title I expenses, assuming fifty Wal-Mart families qualify with an average of two children " $108,000 a year for the additional federal health care costs of moving into state children's health insurance…assuming 30 employees with an average of two children qualifying " 9,750 a year for the additional costs for low income energy assistance (1) Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart," a report by the Democratic staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives, February 16, 2004, [link] What Wal-Mart gets from your local, state, and federal tax dollars " Free or reduced-price land " Infrastructure assistance " Tax-increment financing " Property tax breaks " State corporate income tax credits " Sales tax rebates " Enterprise-zone (and other zone) status Good Jobs First, Walmarts' U.S. Expansion has Benefited from More Than $1 Billion in Economic Development Subsidies [link] Wal-Mart and food " Wal-Mart started selling groceries in 1988 and 15 years later it is now the largest distributor of food in the world. " Wal-Mart gets 68 cents of every food dollar spend in the United States, with 30 cents going to marketing, transportation and packaging. Farmers get 2 cents of every food dollar. " For every one Supercenter that will open, two supermarkets will close. Since 1992, the supermarket industry has experienced a net loss of 13,500 stores. Fickes, Michael. "Big Boxers have big expansion plans." Retail Traffic. 1 December 2002. Wal-Mart and labor abuses " Wal-Mart has racked up huge fines for child labor law violations. The rich company reportedly makes children younger than 18 work through their meal breaks, work very late and even work during school hours. Several states have found Wal-Mart workers younger than 18 are operating dangerous equipment, like chainsaws, and working in such dangerous areas as around trash compactors. (The New York Times, 1/13/04; The Associated Press, 2/18/05; The Hartford Courant, 6/18/05) " By demanding impossibly low prices, Wal-Mart forces its suppliers to produce goods in low-wage countries that don't protect workers. A worker in a Honduran clothing factory whose main customer is Wal-Mart, for example, sews sleeves onto 1,200 shirts a day for only $35 a week. (Los Angeles Times, 11/24/03) " Wal-Mart has a shameful record of paying women less than men. Wal-Mart pays women workers nearly $5,000 less yearly than men. Some 1.6 million women are eligible to join a class-action lawsuit charging Wal-Mart with discrimination. (Richard Drogin, Ph.D., 2/03; Los Angeles Times, 12/30/04) Wal-Mart and the environment " In October 2004, the United States sued Wal-mart for violating the Clean Water Act in 9 states, calling for penalties of over $3 million and changes to W-M building codes. [U.S. v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 2004 WL 2370700] " The United States Environmental Protection agency fined Wal-Mart $1 million, settling allegations that Wal-Mart violated the Clean Water Act with dirt discharges while building stores in Massachusetts, New Mexico, Okalahoma, and Texas. [Wal-MartLitigation.com] " Wal-Mart was fined $765,000 for violating Florida's petroleum storage tank laws at its automobile service centers. Wal-Mart failed to register its fuel tanks, failed to install devices that prevent overflow, did not perform monthly monitoring, lacked current technologies, and blocked state inspectors. [Associated Press, 11/18/04] " The average supercenter attracts 3,315 car trips a day (Terrain magazine) " A 250,000-square-foot supercenter with a 16-acre parking lot will produce 413,000 gallons of storm runoff for every inch of rain. Each year, such a lot would dump 240 pounds of nitrogen, 32 pounds of phosphorus, and 5 pounds of zinc into local watersheds while creating heat islands. (Terrain magazine) Wal-Mart general facts " Of the 100 most powerful economies in the world, Wal-Mart ranks #19 " In 2003, sales associates, the most common job in Wal-Mart, earned on average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861.The 2003 poverty line for a family of three was $15,260. ["Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?", Business Week, 10/6/03] " Wal-Mart employs 1.2 million Americans. It is the largest employer in the United States. This fact sheet was put together by the Organic Consumers Association --------------------------- The Wal-Mart Thought Police The Wal-Mart Thought Police By Amy Schiller, Campus Progress Posted on August 16, 2005, Printed on August 16, 2005 [link] Wal-Mart, America's largest retailer, prides itself on being a "family-friendly" store, with smiley faces guiding stressed-out breadwinners to a land of low-cost, guilt-free consumption. Indeed, there are mega Wal-Marts that inhabit spaces the size of five football fields, and the total square footage of all of the Wal-Mart stores nationwide tops 25 million square feet. As you have probably heard, the "everyday low prices" at these concrete boxes of utopian consumption have tremendous costs for our environment, our workers, our wages, our communities, and the public coffers. But they also come at the expense of free speech and artistic expression, as the corporation targets items that often include progressive criticism of conservative values. Based in Bentonville, AR, the brand behemoth has become the self-appointed culture police by screening the music, books and magazines that many Americans will be able to access -- in a number of communities, Wal-Mart is the only convenient store in the area stocking culture products. Take, for example, Wal-Mart's refusal to sell Sheryl Crow's self-titled album in 1996, citing objections to a lyric that criticized Wal-Mart for selling handguns (a practice that the chain has since discontinued), which they felt was "unfair and irresponsible." Much as Crow probably appreciated the paternalistic advice, as the No. 1 CD retailer in the world (yes, the world) with sales accounting for 10% of total domestic CD sales, a Wal-Mart boycott can result in hundreds of thousands in lost album sales. The record industry, never too proud to bend over for sales, has started issuing two versions of the same album, one "sanitized." Sometimes this entails altering the cover art, as John Mellencamp was asked to do for his album Mr. Happy Go Lucky, whose cover featured an angel and devil in the background. Nirvana actually changed its song title from "Rape Me" to "Waif Me" for the Wal-Mart version. Both they and the Goo Goo Dolls came under fire for portraying babies in their cover art as well. The cover of the Goo Goo Dolls album titled "A Boy Named Goo" featured a baby covered in blackberry juice; Wal-Mart banned it and only reversed its decision under pressure from the media. Wal-Mart's official statement on music is as follows: "Wal-Mart will not stock music with parental guidance stickers. While Wal-Mart sets high standards, it would not be possible to eliminate every image, word or topic that an individual might find objectionable. And the goal is not to eliminate the need for parents to review the merchandise their children buy. The policy simply helps eliminate the most objectionable material from Wal-Mart's shelves." Objectionable material like a book cover with a comedian posing with an American flag and a bald eagle? Actually, yes. The huge bestseller, America: the Book, featuring Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the rest of the Daily Show crew, was banned from Wal-Mart in 2004. Granted, the company objected to the infamous page 99 featuring obviously photoshopped naked pictures of Supreme Court justices (just think, now we can all look at Justice O'Connor's wrinkled, saggy flesh with great nostalgia.) Stewart is not the only comedian with a book banned by Wal-Mart, though; a shipment of George Carlin's When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops was returned, citing a mistake in ordering the book in the first place. A mistake which probably had nothing to do with Carlin's cover of himself inserted into the Last Supper. Perhaps there is some legitimacy (however hysterical) to their objections to irreverent images. Yet the political bias inherent in Wal-Mart's criteria became clearer when Wal-Mart's merchandiser for films found Robert Greenwald's acclaimed documentary, "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War," (produced with the support of the Center for American Progress) inappropriate for Wal-Mart. For no conceivable reason could a documentary involving no gratuitous violence, expletives, or sex be inappropriate, other than its criticism of a conservative political administration. Pathetically, the rationale for these items is that they "would not appeal to the majority of our customers" or would offend those proverbial family values. Fine, if they know their designated market and have complaints pouring in from their consumers. Except that those two books were both fixtures on the bestseller list for months and Sheryl Crow, Nirvana and the Goo Goo Dolls are top selling entertainers. And those items that are not religiously objectionable demonstrate the degree of hypocrisy within the "family values" standards. Even something as potentially broadly appealing, positive, and utterly non-offensive as a T-shirt reading "Someday a woman will be president" was pulled from the sales floor because "the message goes against Wal-Mart family values." So old school patriarchy and sexism are Wal-Mart values? Seems a little retrograde and moot in the age of "take your daughter to work day." Frighteningly and hypocritically, the family-values red flag was absent for the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which describes a vast Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. Booksellers like Amazon.com that do offer it at least include a disclaimer that describes it as a "pernicious fraud," and "one of the most infamous, and tragically influential, examples of racist propaganda ever written." Wal-Mart's site, in contrast, says "If S The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs." Yet another example of the cloak of "family values" serving as a euphemism for a more sinister ideology. (If the book actually featured a cover image of Jews milking children for blood, then would Wal-Mart ban it?) Furthermore, ever wonder who is buying those oversize drink coasters also known as Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly's perniciously partisan publications? Their publishers readily admit that Wal-Mart's merchandising and promotion basically fueled their bestselling runs. The crown jewel of Wal-Mart's commercial triumph is the dystopic end-of-days series Left Behind. As reported in the New York Times, Tyndale House, publisher of the Left Behind series, credits Wal-Mart with a pivotal role in turning the evangelical thriller "Armageddon" (No. 11 in the Left Behind series) into the best-selling novel in the country. As Melani McAllister wrote in The Nation, "these novels work [because] they seamlessly integrate an apocalyptic religious view with a strongly conservative political vision, and locate both in a universe of supernatural action adventure in which good and evil are fully and finally revealed." Left Behind books do not include any actual sex, except for when the faithful rail against abortion and immorality, though they include plenty of violence between good (evangelical warriors complete with fighter planes) and evil (the Antichrist fronting as a smooth-talking UN ambassador.) Granted, the Left Behind series is hardly comparable to Maxim magazine, but really, it could be considered the equivalent of evangelical porn. Not to beat a dead metaphor, but they're all about self-gratification and ultimate rapture. As many have noted, a lot of purchasers for right-wing screeds probably buy them for the element of fantasy and self-affirmation, particularly those who believe that the war in Iraq and conflict in Israel herald the impending end times. In all seriousness, the most self-defeating attitude for progressives would be to give an elitist sneer to those who shop at Wal-Mart, shrugging our shoulders not only at Wal-Mart's censorship but at its union busting, sex discrimination, and reprehensibly stingy health plans for already underpaid workers. To Wal-Mart shoppers: There's nothing wrong with wanting religious or G-rated entertainment material in your own home, and wanting to shield children from materials that you find offensive. But it is a problem when the biggest retailer in the country -- a staple for millions of people -- only offers up a sanitized world of culture that is comprised primarily of "Veggie Tales" videos and Toby Keith albums (wonder if they include the "gonna put a boot in your ass" lyric). Still, this bleak picture seems to be changing, as anti-Wal-Mart groups gain strength and actually win some victories. In early August, Salon.com reported on the increasingly successful anti-Wal-Mart publicity efforts from organizations like Wal-Mart Watch and Wake Up Wal-Mart. These organizations have been particularly successful in mobilizing union members while making the public aware of the costs of sustaining Wal-Marts, including the millions and millions spent providing public health care assistance to the thousands of Wal-Mart employees who do not receive company health care. Political change is happening too on the state and local level. Legislative efforts are underway to prevent more Wal-Marts from moving into communities like Inglewood, CA, and to enforce stricter labor laws for those that already do exist. And far from being restricted to perceived "liberal, anti-corporate" enclaves, even conservatives such as the Republican speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives have started to address the financial burden Wal-Mart's health care negligence places on states. Crucial, and hopefully successful, as these campaigns are, another lesson to take from Wal-Mart's censorship policy is the danger of corporate conglomizoration that stifles free media under the misleading name of radically conservative "family values."