Living :: Salt Spring News :: Daily News Of and For Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada

Photo: Rosa Park/Globe and Mail

Grocer's approach to business: Solid values
Diane Jermyn Globe and Mail Canada August 25, 2010

Right: Anthony Longo, president and CEO of Longo Brothers Fruit Market Inc. “Think about food – it’s something we ingest, it’s in our bodies. We have a saying that if you wouldn’t feed it to your family, you don’t sell it to our customers.”

Forget feuds like the McCain brothers‘ nasty battles. Longo’s, a family-run independent grocery chain in the Greater Toronto Area, presents a united front. Anthony Longo, president and CEO of Longo Brothers Fruit Market Inc., says working with family members can be a lot of fun. But with 15 of them employed full time and a bunch more helping out part-time, it can be challenging. But Mr. Longo, who grew up from boyhood in the family business, says the key lies in a nugget of advice they received from a succession planning coach years ago. “Always make sure the family serves the business; not the business serves the family,” says Mr. Longo. “We’ve stuck by that credo.”

Originally founded as a small fruit and vegetable market on Toronto’s Yonge Street in 1956 by Mr. Longo’s father, Joe Longo Sr., and his brothers Tommy and Gus, the company today has 4,100 employees and is opening its 23rd store this September – a 47,000-square-foot market in downtown Toronto. The company also owns and operates Grocery Gateway, an online grocery retailer. ... Mr. Longo’s advice to other business people is that integrity follows you around for life. If you make bad decisions – cut a corner or two, or do something inappropriate – it’s going to haunt you.

Young cheesemaker says goodbye to Wisconsin
Kimberly Hartke Hartke Is Online! USA August 19, 2010

Dairy farmer Scott Trautman and cheesemaker Bill Anderson. Anderson had hoped to make cheese with milk from Trautman's Wisconsin farm--but a license was denied by the state.

... My name is Bill Anderson. I am 25 years old. I was born and raised in Wisconsin, and have lived here for my entire life. Though I grew up in the suburbs of Milwaukee, I just completed the entire Wisconsin cheese maker licensing program, and passed the final exam yesterday. I should also mention that my mother grew up on a diversified family-run dairy farm in central Wisconsin. However, this week I am making the biggest move of my life. I am moving to Athens, Ohio, to start an artisanal cheese program for Snowville Creamery, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. But before I leave my home state, I would like to share some of my thoughts and observations with this Board of Directors [of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection]. As someone who greatly cherishes local sustainable agriculture, artisanal cheese, and the community of people who share those values, it was not an easy decision for me to leave Wisconsin and seek opportunities elsewhere.

Today, America’s Dairyland stands at a crossroads. There is a clear choice before you: Agriculture or Agri-business? Shall we sacrifice the family dairy farm at the alter of profit and commerce? Or shall we nourish the types of culinary and agricultural traditions which make nations like France and Italy famous — and might I add, models for our Wisconsin cheese makers today? Conducting business is a reality in our modern market-driven economy. However, it would be a grave mistake for us to believe that the interests of business ought to trump human concerns such as environmental quality, health, social justice, and local democracy. Sadly, my experience in Wisconsin has led me to believe that this state is increasingly placing the values of commerce and industry over the interests of the people of the state, particularly in the realm of agriculture. ... [R]aw milk is not the only issue which illustrates this trend. This state of Wisconsin has aggressively pursued premises registration, and attempted to prosecute Amish farmer Immanuel Miller for his religious objections to the National Animal Identification System. Fortunately, the judge in his case vindicated him in no uncertain terms, laying to waste the state’s rationale for the NAIS and premises registration. It would be behoove every member of this board to read the judge’s ruling in Immanuel Miller’s case. Another example of this troubling trend is the continued expansion of large CAFO dairies, their heavily subsidized manure digesters, and the Livestock Facility Siting Review Board which greatly limits the power of local communities to regulate these factory farms. My final example is rather personal. I was recently hassled by the division of food safety, over my cheesemaker license application, for citing the Wisconsin law pertaining to cheese maker and butter maker licenses — Wisconsin Statute 97.17. This section clearly states that it shall not apply to a person making up a product on the person’s farm. ...

It is never easy to confront entrenched moneyed interests, and there will always be struggle and conflict whenever one does. But it is absolutely essential that these commercial interests be confronted. If I come back to Wisconsin in 5 or 10 years, I hope to return to a state that cherishes and protects its local foods and family farmers. I would be greatly saddened to return to a state overrun with factory farms, in which the small diversified sustainable dairy farm has been driven to the brink of extinction by overzealous regulators and corporate interests. ...

Related: Here is an essay by Bill Anderson concerining "Old World Traditions in Raw Milk Cheese". The uniqueness of each region shapes the type of cheese. Those cheese traditions are rooted in the culture and culinary traditions of the region.

... Throughout Europe, there are many distinct, unique, and localized cheeses, each of which express a particular region, geography, soil type, animal breed, and cultural traditions. The French notion of “terrior” (pronounced ter-wha) or the “taste of place” is best known amongst wine connoisseurs, but is perhaps even more applicable to cheese. In many European countries these traditions are protected by law under various designations (Protected Designations of Origin) known as AOC in France and Switzerland, DOP in Italy and Spain, and PDO in England. For example, any cheese which carries the name “Camembert de Normandie” must be made exclusively from raw milk, and produced and aged in Normandy. Strict rules protect the artisanal scale of the cheese production, to prevent industrialized cheese manufacturers from co-opting the term. Though most generic Camembert made in France is pasteurized and mass produced, the term “Camembert de Normandie” is reserved exclusively for the artisanally produced raw milk cheese.

There are countless examples of such protected cheeses, as well as other artisanal raw milk cheese from both America and Europe, that you’ll get to read about. This first series will focus on European cheeses, with American artisanal cheese reserved for a future series. ...

Even most doctors won’t know about the growing disagreement in the medical community about how low your blood pressure should be. Back in 1999, more than 800 doctors, pharmacists and scientists from dozens of countries around the world signed a letter to then director general of the World Health Organization, Gro Harlem Brundtland, saying that the new hypertension guidelines, developed with pharma’s help, of course, set new international targets for blood pressure, which resulted in “increased use of antihypertensive drugs, at great expense and for little benefit.” Pharma with its own people on the committee deciding the blood pressure guidelines? Mon Dieu!

But that’s the way the world works and it works the same with drug company officials diddling with the setting of targets regarding blood sugars and cholesterol and just about everything else we measure that can be altered by taking a drug. What happens is that these committees inevitably set targets so low, the population of people told to take drugs grows exponentially. What a great way to make money. God bless capitalism. - Alan Cassels

Counting what “counts” in healthcare
Alan Cassels Common Ground British Columbia Canada August 2010

Albert Einstein might have been talking about the way we currently monitor our health when he said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

One thing is for sure; when it comes to our own health, the medical system we have created expects everyone to do a lot of counting. In our zeal to count things, we are told to strive for “targets” and to push for lower numbers of blood pressure, blood cholesterol or blood glucose and a lower BMI (body mass index). Amidst all the counting, we often forget the fact that those numbers are surrogates for the things that actually ‘count’ – the quality of your life and your health – and we should never lose sight of that. We measure, calculate and count and some people even fill their lives with the ‘busywork’ around their health numbers hoping that something – better health, maybe? – will be achieved. If you ever find yourself feeling guilty about your numbers – your apparent “high” blood pressure, or your “high” blood glucose – take some solace in this: numbers concerning your health may seem like objective measures and worth fighting for, but the meanings we construct around them are anything but objective, as they’re so often shaped by the twisting fog of bias, superstition and fear. The numbers aren’t as important as the meanings we attach to those numbers and those meanings are often way out to lunch.

The over-arching problem with much medical measuring and counting is that it wastes valuable time that could be spent on activities that could actually make a difference to our health. It also causes unnecessary worry and needlessly turns people into patients, making us all obsess about the wrong things and sometimes making us do foolish things that make us sicker. But before you accuse me of health heresy and send a mob of angry doctors to lynch me, let’s take a closer look at some of this stuff. ...

Related: Feds found Pfizer too big to nail, so they looked the other way on massive fraud
David Gutierrez Natural News USA August 21, 2010

When the world's largest pharmaceutical company was found to have engaged in a massive illegal marketing campaign, federal prosecutors decided the company was too big to punish -- so they let it set up a shell corporation to take the blame.

In 2001, the FDA approved Bextra for the relief of arthritis and menstrual cramps, but did not approve it for more severe surgical pain. Yet Pfizer aggressively promoted the drug to anesthesiologists and surgeons -- "anyone that use[d] a scalpel for a living," in the words of one internal company document. Company employees also told doctors that the FDA had approved Bextra as safe in doses as high as 40 milligrams, whereas the agency had actually only approved doses up to 20 milligrams. Yet when the government threatened Pfizer with prosecution for off-label marketing fraud, it realized that a conviction would, under federal law, require that Pfizer be excluded from Medicare and Medicaid -- and that this would probably put the company out of business. "If we prosecute Pfizer, they get excluded," said federal prosecutor Mike Loucks. "A lot of the people who work for the company who haven't engaged in criminal activity would get hurt." Prosecutors were also concerned that forcing the company out of business might take important drugs off the market. "We have to ask whether by excluding the company, are we harming our patients," said Lewis Morris of the Department of Health and Human Services.

So Pfizer and the government agreed that a subsidiary of the company would plead guilty instead. That subsidiary, Pharmacia & Upjohn Co. Inc., was formed in 2007 to plead guilty to another charge and has never conducted any business. "It is true that if a company is created to take a criminal plea, but it's just a shell, the impact of an exclusion is minimal or nonexistent," Morris said. In the end, Pfizer ended up paying $1.5 billion in fines and another billion to settle multiple lawsuits -- the equivalent of three months' profit.

Back to school? Bring your own toilet paper
Stephanie Clifford New York Times/CNBC USA August 15, 2010

At Pauoa Elementary School in Honolulu, every student must show up with a four-pack of toilet paper.

When Emily Cooper headed off to first grade in Moody, Ala., last week, she was prepared with all the stuff on her elementary school’s must-bring list: two double rolls of paper towels, three packages of Clorox wipes, three boxes of baby wipes, two boxes of garbage bags, liquid soap, Kleenex and Ziplocs. “The first time I saw it, my mouth hit the floor,” Emily’s mother, Kristin Cooper, said of the list, which also included perennials like glue sticks, scissors and crayons. Schools across the country are beginning the new school year with shrinking budgets and outsize demands for basic supplies. And while many parents are wincing at picking up the bill, retailers are rushing to cash in by expanding the back-to-school category like never before. Now some back-to-school aisles are almost becoming janitorial-supply destinations as multipacks of paper towels, cleaning spray and hand sanitizer are crammed alongside pens, notepads and backpacks. ...

On the list for pre-kindergartners at McClendon Elementary in Nevada, Tex.: a package of cotton balls, two containers of facial tissue, rolls of paper towels, sheaves of manila and construction paper, and a package of paper sandwich bags. Pre-kindergartners in the Joshua school district in Texas have to track down Dixie cups and paper plates, while students at New Central Elementary in Havana, Ill., and Mesa Middle School in Castle Rock, Colo., must come to class with a pack of printer paper. Wet Swiffer refills and plastic cutlery are among the requests from St. Joseph School in Seattle. And at Pauoa Elementary School in Honolulu, every student must show up with a four-pack of toilet paper. ...

In Canada too. Pencils and notebooks? Ha! Try baby wipes and Band-Aids. Education cuts make the list of must-have school supplies ever longer,

Helping parents survive back-to-school shopping
Katie Hewitt Globe and Mail Canada Last updated August 17, 2010

... Thanks to ongoing classroom cuts, the list of must-have supplies keeps on growing – new this year at one school: photocopy paper – along with parental anxiety. ... Here is a sample of supplies that some schools have asked parents to provide for each child:

Baby wipes

Ziploc bags

Paper towels

Facial tissues

Photocopy paper

10 Duo-Tangs, each a different colour (some as shade-specific as “dark blue’)

Large pencil cases (2)

Hand sanitizer

Yellow Post-It notes (2 pack)

Box of Band-Aid bandages

Noted: Hydro hike looms with break to industry
Robert Benzie and Rob Ferguson Toronto Star Ontario Canada August 17, 2010

Homeowners could be zapped with an extra $48 in annual hydro costs after Premier Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet quietly approved a break on electricity rates for huge industrial users, the Star has learned. ...

All the standard bafflegab and rationalizations are reported in the article. But the truth remains: Ontario homeowners are being forced to subsidize big business. Back when we were young, operating costs and taxes were regarded as a cost of doing business and corporations covered them out of income. Not anymore. Taxes are regressive, not progressive as they used to be. Everything is being forced onto the working and middle class individual. And tolls, user fees, and surcharges further force the burden of infrastructure onto the individual (not the collective) while business pays less and governments offer fewer and fewer services. Such is the mean-spirited, cruel ideology which rules our nation today.

Preface; Most Canadians concerned over food safety: Poll
Laura Stone Postmedia News/Vancouver Sun Canada August 12 2010

A woman works to sterilize meat processing and packaging equipment at the Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto August 21, 2008. Photo: Mark Blinch/Reuters

OTTAWA — A majority of Canadians is concerned with the safety of their food and most say they trust food that comes from Canada more than imported food, results of a poll suggest. Some 77 per cent of Canadians said they were either "very" or "somewhat" concerned with the safety of the food they eat, up from 66 per cent in 2007, according to results of the Ipsos Reid poll conducted for Postmedia News. Another 87 per cent agree that they trust food that comes from Canada more than food that comes from abroad, with 85 per cent of respondents saying they make an effort to buy locally-grown and produced food. "There is an increased awareness of your own personal well-being and health and the food that you eat," said Sean Simpson, a senior research manager at Ipsos Reid. ...

While 91 per cent of Canadians said that, in general, they trust the safety of the food that they eat, the poll shows a growing concern over food safety in general, that reflects an increased concern over food production, said Simpson. "Even if you trust in the food that you eat, in the back of your mind, you're maybe wondering how it's prepared, where it came from, those kinds of things," he said. The findings also suggest a majority of Canadians, at 68 per cent, believe Canadian food is safer than imported food. While Canadians strive to eat locally, some 37 per cent believe that Canadian food is more expensive than imported food, but almost 70 per cent agree that they are willing to pay more for it. [And, the pollsters say, that "contributes to the overall feeling of well-being, and support for the local economy."] ...

There is always some risk involved whenever we consume wild food or food grown and produced by ourselves or others. No food is 100% safe, including fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat, milk, cheese, and so on. Care certainly must be taken when food gathering or shopping. The onus is on the individual to be informed and selective.

The sordid history of nutritional guidelines from government agencies is also discussed in this book and Bond explains how this came into being. It started in 1917 when food groups were first established by the USDA with recommendations to the public about what and how much to eat of each group. A couple of updates later in 1942, we find that starchy carbohydrate sources like potatoes are included amongst the “other vegetables and fruit” while eggs and beans have suddenly become part of the “meat, poultry, and fish” category. In 1956, the revisions continued in an attempt to simply things even more to create the infamous four basic food groups until 1979 when the category “fats, sweets, and alcohol” was added with the idea of “moderation” introduced regarding portion sizes and calories. Then in 1980, the USDA introduces their first-ever Dietary Guidelines for Americans which further convoluted the issue by presenting an updated version every five years since in an attempt to “educate” the public. Bond says this flip-flopping with the changes to the prescribed diet has to do with pressure from special interest. Industries directly impacted by the pronouncements from the federal government about diet will fight tooth and nail to protect their financial interests and do whatever they can to prevent any negative publicity. In the end, he says the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines are “not a gold standard–on the contrary, they are a weak and deceitful compromise between all the competing interests” which is a “major cause for concern” as we seek to educate the public about the vital importance of traditional diets on health. - Jimmy Moore, "Summertime 2010 Book Review Series: Deadly Harvest By Geoff Bond"

Intro: Thanks to the good folks at The Bovine for pointing us to this story.

Visit this page for its embedded links.

Guest blog post: 4 reasons why France is raw milk heaven
Jimmy Moore's Livin' La Vida Low Carb Blog USA August 12, 2010

Hey “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Blog” readers! I’m still having a good time being on vacation with Christine’s family in the state of Indiana this week, but I’ve got a special guest blog post I wanted to share with you from a reader who hails from the country of France and is absolutely perplexed by all the legal hangups over the sale of raw milk in America. As someone who grew up in the United States and now living with her husband in a different culture altogether that embraces raw milk as a regular part of their daily livelihood, she wanted to tell us about the incredible ways it is being used by the French in their diet. ... Special thanks to Sarah for offering up this outstanding column that will certainly educate you about what is happening elsewhere in the world with raw milk even if we are still somewhat backwards here in America. ...

My name is Sarah and I’m an American ex-patriot living in France. I have to say I listen to stories of the regulated raw milk market back in the States with great puzzlement. I’m an American living in France and here raw milk is everywhere. It’s not as prevalent as pasteurized milk, of course, (even the French have moved to industrialized production of most foods), but the French are very protective of their gastronomic history. That history is heavily rooted in cream…and butter…and cheese. Despite the fact that Louis Pasteur (the inventor of “pasteurization”) was French, the highest-quality, most-sought-after dairy products are all made from raw, not pasteurized, dairy. Here are 4 reasons why France is raw milk heaven: ...

I can buy raw milk at the local organic supermarket or at the cheese market near our house. People who live in the countryside might just get it from their neighbor. On vacation this summer we came across this at the entry of a big chain supermarket in the Center region of France:

That’s right: it’s a self-service raw milk dispenser like the self-service filtered water dispensers I remember in American supermarkets as a kid. On the left side, you buy your bottle. On the right, you insert your money and get your raw milk. ...

Items: Rocky Mountain “moo” shine and raw milk temperance
Alliance for Raw Milk Internationale USA August 11, 2010

Revered by some as “natures perfect food,” and yet demonized by others as “deadly poison,” milk, one of the most innocuous liquids known to man, is now the subject of possibly the biggest food fight of its kind. Mild mannered farmers coming to words with government agents, food safety attorneys, and irate consumers while “big dairy” farmers manipulate legislators and lobby for legislation that weighs heavily in their favor. So, what’s all the hullaballoo?

Like moonshine in the US Prohibition Era, raw milk is being targeted as unhealthy and dangerous, but unlike moonshine, raw milk that is produced following strict code of cleanliness and correct nutrition for the animals producing it, is safe. Even for babies. In the absence of mother’s milk, raw milk can be combined with other ingredients to make a baby formula that helps babies thrive, and meets the nutritional needs of babies much better than powdered or canned baby formula can. Also, unlike alcohol prohibition, today’s heavy regulation and bans on raw milk seem to be spurred more by big agriculture and the dairy industry to suppress unwanted competition, rather than a genuine desire to protect public health by a nanny state run amok. ...

Health Canada: Raw milk is super dangerous!
P.M. Jaworski Western Standard blogs Canada August 11, 2010

Eager to keep us safe, Health Canada issued a press release to remind us that drinking raw milk is really dangerous, and we shouldn't do it. In fact, don't eat anything that hasn't been processed, pasteurized, or bleached. If you want to avoid getting sick, eat at McDonald's or Tim Horton's, and only eat there if the person behind the counter is wearing plastic gloves, and the items are separately packaged. ...

The latest press release comes on the heels of Michael Schmidt's successful defense of his cow-share gambit in court. The health-o-crats levelled 19 charges against Schmidt and his cow-share scheme, but Schmidt was victorious in court, planning to expand his cow-share idea. That idea? Instead of selling ("distributing") raw milk, which is illegal, Schmidt sold shares in his cows, making each of the people who wanted to drink raw milk part owners of the cow. Health Canada wants to make sure that the health- and safety-conscious amongst us know where they stand on the issue. So here, for you lovers-of-things-wrapped-in-plastic, is the press release, just below the fold: ...

Related: The hallowed ground of the traditional church supper is the latest battlefront in New Brunswick's pre-election campaign. Chief medical officer of health Dr. Eilish Cleary reportedly was taken aback that the regulations have now become a focus of political debate. That fact, in our mind, is even scarier than, well, raw milk.

Rules threaten church suppers?
Nick Moore Times & Transcript New Brunswick Canada August 13, 2010

FREDERICTON - The age-old New Brunswick tradition of community breakfasts and church hall suppers, which are likely to attract many politicians during this fall's provincial election campaign, may become an election issue of its own. The opposition Progressive Conservatives are claiming that Department of Health regulations, first proclaimed last November, are threatening the future of these events, which raise money for non-profit groups. The Liberal government, on the other hand, says the rules don't threaten the suppers and the Tories are fear-mongering ahead of the election.

The regulations require non-profit groups to inform the province about community suppers they have planned while providing proof that there is safe drinking water on tap in the kitchen. The regulations also come with an expectation that volunteer kitchen workers have some [certified] knowledge about food safety handling and storage practices. Community groups would also have to get an annual licence to hold suppers. ...

New Brunswick's top medical officer defended the regulations, calling them a good thing that wouldn't prevent traditional community or church hall suppers from happening now or in the future. "We're trying to do it in a way that isn't onerous on the churches," said Dr. Eilish Cleary, the province's chief medical officer of health. "The objective is to really make sure food, if being served at these events, is served in a way that lowers the risk to the public. The perception that these events are safe isn't always the case." ...

Photo right:Salade Niçoise. Photo: Culinate

Jim comment: Arne is a friend of mine. Arne is a commercial fisherman and he and his wife, Julia, are proprietors of The Fishery on Salt Spring Island, a first class retail fish market. Some of my fondest memories are going out with Arne in pursuit of albacore tuna. Three-to four-year-old albacore begin their journey off the coast of Japan and migrate across the Pacific Ocean, arriving off the coast of California in the spring. During the summer months, schools of fish travel northward feeding along the West Coast upwelling front. Their offshore range is approximately twenty to a hundred nautical miles or more off the Pacific Coastline. These three- to four-year-old albacore range from 4-12 kg (9-26 lbs) in size. Albacore flesh is tasty fresh (try it grilled in a salade Niçoise). It remains so after having been put by (either canned, frozen or smoked.) Recent studies from the U.S. and Canada show that the albacore caught by the albacore fishing fleet off the coasts of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California have far lower mercury levels than supermarket 'white' or 'solid' tinned tuna. See: "Mercury Content in Pacific Troll-Caught Albacore Tuna (Thunnus alalunga)", published in 2004. Kelly Myers is a chef and writer in Portland, Oregon. She is also the co-director of Market Chefs, an organization dedicated to inspiring and teaching consumers to cook local foods.

Eat North Pacific albacore tuna
Kelly Myers Culinate USA August 12, 2010

Albacore on the grill.

The first time I snatched a bit of albacore off the grill, its crispy edges melted in my mouth. This is good stuff, I thought with surprise. I grew up on canned tuna. Eating albacore fresh — a mainstay, albeit more spendy, of the canned market — was inconceivable.

Every summer, juvenile albacore from three to five years old migrate from the waters off Japan to the North Pacific, following a warm current to an area off the continental shelf that is a dense feeding ground filled with baby fish and squid. The albacore come here to eat and put on weight. When caught, the young tuna are fattier than their mature counterparts, and high in omega-3 fatty acids. That makes them quite delectable, with a flavor milder than that of sockeye salmon, another fish high in omega-3s from the North Pacific with good summertime availability. Yet not many people know about albacore season, which runs from about July to October off the coasts of Oregon, Washington, California, and British Columbia. The fishery now boasts certification from the Marine Stewardship Council as sustainable and well-managed. The West Coast albacore fishery uses a hook-and-line method called trolling that results in very little bycatch. ...

Fresh albacore is sold in loins or steaks. The loins are a little bigger around than pork tenderloins and, conveniently, can be seared whole before slicing. You can also cut the loins into two-inch chunks and thread them on skewers with thin lemon slices and bay leaves that have been soaked in water. Cubing the fish exposes more surface area to seasoning and to the smoke of the grill. Grill the skewers until medium-rare, then serve them with salmoriglio, a Sicilian sauce for fresh fish made of lemon juice, olive oil, and fresh thyme or oregano. The worst thing you can do to albacore is to overcook it. You are going for rare to medium-rare, like you would cook any other tuna. Take it off the heat as soon as it’s cooked on the outside and pink in the middle, and remember that carryover heat will make the tuna cook a bit more. ...

Jim again: Summertime, summertime, sum sum summertime! Here's a simple way to do your albacore steaks on the barbie. Marinate them in extra virgin olive oil in the fridge for about an hour. Sprinkle them with salt and freshly ground black pepper and cook on the grill about five or six minutes, turning once. (For extra flavor, scatter a handful of alder, apple, or hickory chips over the hot coals.) Serve and drizzle with lime juice. Pair with a white or red wine of your choice. (I like a crisp, dry Pinot Gris from Salt Spring Vineyards or a Pinot Noir from Garry Oaks Winery, but, what the hey, Champagne or a chilled Pilsener works for me, too.) If you want, grill a few extra steaks and use the slightly smokey flesh to make a tuna casserole the next day.

Jim Cantalupo, chairman and CEO of McDonald's Corporation with Chinese Olympic champion diver Guo Jingjing in Beijing. Photo and following text: Courtesy Bryan Eggers' Junk Food News site. Here's part of the text in the press release: "As a TOP (The Olympic Partners Program) sponsor and Official Restaurant of the Olympic Games, McDonald's serves its world-famous food to the thousands of athletes, coaches and spectators in attendance. This eight-year renewal continues McDonald's exclusive marketing rights in the restaurant and food service category for the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy; the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China; the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada; and the 2012 Olympic Games, which will be awarded to a host city in July 2005. 'McDonald's has been a proud Olympic partner for nearly three decades because we believe in the spirit and ideals of the Games,' said Jim Cantalupo, McDonald's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. 'As a global brand serving 47 million customers every day, we share the same core principles of teamwork, excellence and being the best that make the Olympic Games a model of excellence for the world.'" Jim comment: Worse than creepy that Macdonald's marketing initiative is. But hey, 'they' all do it, don't they? In the leadup to the Vancouver Winter Games when the torch went by a school, every child was given a Coca-Cola branded Olympic flag to wave. It all has me muttering "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now...." Debs Gardner, too, finds the Olympics/Macdonald's connection creepy.

Olympic-sized irony?
Debs Gardner Seattle Local Food - Food Is Love USA February 24, 2010

I haven’t been following the Olympics. Not out of any lack of love for winter sports; I think they’re gorgeous, but I don’t have a TV and have been pretty busy writing a thesis and keeping up with grad school. So I was surprised today when my cousin mentioned over lunch that McDonalds was a sponsor. We were both pretty taken with the irony. Eating fast food isn’t going to give anyone the kind of physical health they’ll need to be an Olympic athlete, and would impair such a goal. Is this just another way we’re duping kids? McDonalds has a bunch of special logos for the Olympics; here’s their kid-targeted one:

We’ve gotten to a point where tobacco companies can be sued for marketing to kids, but McDonalds can imply their food will help kids grow up to be Olympic athletes. Where cheap fast food comes with cheap toys, and where fast food is one of few affordable options for people with minimal income, who then lack health insurance to deal with its consequences.

This problem feels too institutionalized and large. I derive some hope from the history of changes in tobacco legislation, but only so much. The regulations on fast food often focus on the wrong things (e.g. salt and saturated fat rather than sugar and polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acids). Also, despite tobacco regulations, kids still start smoking every year, and tobacco companies still use insidious marketing, especially outside the U.S. ...

Right: Anna Lappé. She ends the following interview with this sentence: "Going back to what I said earlier about the need for us to be creating all this soil that can store carbon — those who are living on the land are on the front lines. They will be most affected by climate change, but they are also in a position to help us heal the planet."

Anna Lappé: The environmental activist
Interview by Twilight Greenaway Culinate USA May 4, 2010

Anna Lappé — the daughter of Frances Moore Lappé, who wrote the seminal Diet For a Small Planet — is carrying on a legacy of food activism, working to deepen our understanding of the ways food and the environment intersect. With her mother, she co-wrote Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet.

With Bryant Terry, she co-wrote Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen. And now her new book, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, addresses one of the most pressing issues of our time. This interview originally appeared in the CUESA newsletter.

Why do you think there has been so little in the media connecting food to climate change?

There are a number of reasons that all work together to create a sort of perfect storm of media blackout. One is that we’ve had a primary focus on carbon dioxide — and for good reason. Carbon dioxide currently accounts for the largest percentage of manmade greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But methane and nitrous oxide, two of the other [lesser known] greenhouse gases, have a much higher global-warming potential. They are less discussed in the media, but they really jump to the forefront if you’re talking about agriculture and livestock, the biggest drivers of those emissions.

I think the second reason is that people have felt that talking about food is kind of untouchable, politically — that people are afraid of a public response if you start talking about putting caps on agriculture. Some people worry that it will lead directly to hunger, and no one wants to be seen as complicit in creating more hunger. I would argue, and I try to communicate this in my book, that it’s actually precisely the opposite — that in talking about a food and agriculture system that’s good for the climate, we’re also talking about a system that’s better for people, and can more directly address hunger.

There’s also the politics of choice. People often believe they can’t tell people what to eat. But 10 to 20 years ago, we were saying, “We can never tell people what kind of car to drive, or not to drive one at all; that’s too personal!” And look how that messaging has become completely accepted today.

We led off this post with the ridiculous (fast food corporations). We will end it with a touch of the sublime. Putting food by is an act of outstanding spiritual, intellectual, and moral worth.

The art of burying bones
Ari LeVaux Flash in the Pan USA July 20, 2010

As summer spins away on the seasonal carousel, salting away some sweet and savory stash is like grabbing a few brass rings along the way.

Dogs bury bones. Squirrels hide acorns. Farmers make hay when the sun shines. Seasonal rhythms of scarcity and abundance are responsible for many such animal behaviors and human clichés, because stashing food when the stashing’s good is as natural as sleep, love, and running from wild animals. A stockpile of grub provides a sense of security like having money in the bank.

Over the years, storing food has become as much about art as survival, as people figured out ways to maximize flavor and beauty as well as nutrition. Thus we can thank winter for pickles, prosciutto, kimchi, jam, jerky, sausage, fruit leather, and many other examples of delicious foods with long shelf-lives.

Now that the growing season is on, these farsighted gastronomic opportunities are available by the bushel. But most of the herd tends to wait until the traditional end-of-summer harvest season to make their pesto, salsa, and chili paste. In some respects this makes sense: The great supply of food during harvest season can saturate the market and push down prices. And sometimes the product is better having waited-kale and collards boast more sweetness after a frost or two have fallen, for example. But if you’re serious about stocking your pantry with an abundance and diversity of food, it pays to follow a season-wide strategy rather than put off your stashing until the end. Stocking up early and often will save you from being overwhelmed during harvest season, while ensuring a select group of short-season produce makes it into your winter diet. Peas, corn, apricots and cherries, for example, are long-gone by the time the frost is on the pumpkins, so you lose if you snooze on these treasures. ...

Food: The ultimate secret exposed
Alex Jones & Aaron Dykes Infowars.com USA July 29, 2010

Includes two videos (Part 1 9:51; Part 2 5:01.)

The grocery store, along with your kitchen sink, are two of the most dangerous places in the world.

In a special video, Alex Jones addresses one of the darkest modes of power the globalists have used to control the population– food. The adulteration of the planet’s staple crops, genetically-altered species and intentionally-altered water, food and air all amount to a Eugenics operation to weaken the masses and achieve full spectrum domination.

People the world over, but especially in the United States are under chemical attack. Deadly and dangerous toxins ranging from Aspartame to Fluoride, GMO, Mercury-tainting, pesticides, cross-species chimeras, plastic compounds in chicken, high fructose corn syrup, cloned meat, rBGH and new aggressive GM species of salmon have all entered into our diets and environments– whether we want it or not. ...

Related: Genetically modified salmon present a number of risks to consumer health and environment
Wenonah Hauter Food & Water Watch/Common Dreams USA August 3, 2010

As rumors swirl that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may allow the sale of genetically modified (GM) salmon to consumers, flaws in the review process surrounding this controversial disruption to the natural food chain are coming into focus. The FDA, which has been tasked with overseeing the public's health, could approve the divisive science experiment as early as this fall - a decision that consumers strongly oppose. If approved, the salmon would represent the first genetically modified animal sold as food to unsuspecting consumers (currently, there are no labeling requirements in place to assist consumers in identifying and avoiding GM foods).

Unfortunately, many in the aquaculture industry seek to genetically engineer fish to speed up production of their product. In this case, the company lobbying the FDA for approval, AquaBounty Technologies, wants to combine salmon genes that control growth hormone with a gene from another fish, the ocean pout. The ocean pout gene would keep the growth hormone in production, effectively creating mutant salmon that grow at twice the normal rate.

Unfortunately, the FDA's tests (historically used to determine if a non-GM food was safe) were created before GM products became a reality and are insufficient in determining the long-term, unforeseen consequences of the GM salmon in question. Put simply, these dated tests cannot determine the salmon's full allergenicity and toxicity. And toxic they are - a recent study commissioned by the European Union revealed that fish that have been modified to grow faster also have a higher tolerance to the toxins in their environment. Researchers expressed concerns that both these toxins and the growth hormones would end up in consumers. In addition to the FDA's inability to test for the full range of consumer health threats introduced by GM foods, the agency's tests do not include a review of the GM animals' environmental impacts. This is unacceptable, as European researchers also found that genetically modified fish ‘have a considerably greater effect on the natural environment than hatchery-reared non-transgenic species when they escape. ...

The Kindle swindle?
'snoopdoggydog' The Smirking Chimp USA August 3, 2010

Amazon, Apple are being probed for e-book price fixing. That is the corporate way in our culture. But as the post below points out, there is a fascist 'easter egg' in the e-readers' concept. No doubt, all those corporate-endowned journalism schools are already training future Winston Smiths.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com -- In the e-book price wars, Apple and Amazon might be enjoying an unfair advantage, Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Monday as he announced an investigation of their contracts with book publishers.

Blumenthal fired off letters to each company requesting that their attorneys schedule a meeting with his office to discuss their deals with five of the largest e-book publishers in the U.S.: Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins and Penguin.

Both Amazon and Apple have agreements with those publishers that ensure they'll receive the best prices for e-books over any of their competitors, Blumenthal said in a prepared statement.

While such deals aren't straight-out illegal under antitrust laws, they're also not always legal either, Blumenthal said in his letters.

All the more reason to keep reading books unfiltered by the digital oligopoly. Once all books go online, rewriting them will be a piece of new reality creation cake. Minitrue never had it so good.

Noted: People living off the grid might be kind of loony, but they also might be onto something.

America loves living off the grid
Alan Bisbort The Smirking Chimp USA July 29, 2010

The idea of living "off the grid" has wide appeal in America, where "rugged individualism" seems genetically implanted in "the people." Who doesn't want to cut the umbilical cord to the oil, gas and electric utility? Who doesn't want people to just leave them alone? Ah, the joys of being off the grid: No cops, bill or tax collectors, Mormons or Girl Scouts showing up at the door. No neighbors to speak of, or to, and everyone in the general vicinity armed to the teeth. A regular libertarian wet dream, no?

A new book by Nick Rosen, Off the Grid, offers some anecdotal proof that this idea is at least possible and arguably gaining popularity now in America due to the damaged economy. Rosen even offers a few persuasive reasons why, to quote his subtitle, "more space, less government, and true independence" might be worthwhile. A British filmmaker, he spent months traveling the U.S. to places where people are living off the grid on urban houseboats, communes, in tents, yurts and converted shipping containers -- in short, places that generate their own power and grow their own food and don't call the cops about every little hassle. His case-studies comprise everybody from self-proclaimed "environmentalists" and pot farmers to right-wing survivalists and "business travelers." Ah, but there's the rub. For every Mennonite farmer he visits, there's a self-righteous Unabomber-style crank just down the highway. For every middle class "get out of the rat race" dreamer, there's an embittered group of men just waiting for the FBI to make their day (and martyrdom). To be fair, the people he meets are, because of Rosen's engaging prose, interesting to visit on the page, but you wouldn't want to live there, so to speak. Their allegiance is to an idea of freedom that includes a small circle of like-minded comrades ... and nobody else. It is the thinking of end-timers, even if most of the people he meets don't hold to any apocalyptic biblical beliefs. ...

As it happens, another recent book, this one by Connecticut author David Owen, makes an equally persuasive case for the exact opposite approach. In Green Metropolis, Owen touts the value of staying on the grid -- with a vengeance. Owen, a veteran journalist who lives in Washington, Conn., offers good reasons for, as his book's subtitle says, "living smaller, living closer, and driving less," citing them as "the keys to sustainability." ...

From our desk dictionary:

extravagant 2 a : exceeding the limits of reason or necessity b : lacking in moderation, balance, and restraint

Marc Mezvinsky with Hillary Clinton, his bride Chelsea Clinton and father-in-law President Bill Clinton after the couple's wedding in Rhinebeck, N.Y. Photo: © Genevieve de Manio via Getty Images. Some wanted to know about the gown and the gift bags. Others want to know how and why a poor boy from Hope, Arkansas—who spent his life in 'public' service—was able to pay for a $3 million dollar extravaganza.

First, the 'news': Chelsea Clinton wedding day secrets: Details from the big day, from the first dance to gift bags
"The Early Show" CBS News USA August 2, 2010

(CBS) It was the wedding everyone has been waiting for. First daughter Chelsea Clinton wed longtime beau Marc Mezvinsky in front of 400 guests at Astor Courts in Rhinebeck, N.Y., on Saturday. But what really happened on the big day?

CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano reported Clinton wore a Vera Wang dress after all. Speculation circled that she would either wear one of Wang's creations or an Oscar de la Renta dress. She appeared in family photos in an ivory silk organza strapless gown with a beaded belt. The 30-year-old bride was walked down the aisle by her father, the 42nd president, Bill Clinton. The groom, Marc Mezvinsky, wore a Burberry tux, and in keeping with his Jewish faith, a yarmulke. The ceremony combined both families' religious traditions with a rabbi and Methodist minister.

According to the Washington Post, during a reading, the minister lost his place but the bride helped him remember the next line. Security was tight, Quijano reported. Guests wore identification bracelets to board a bus to the ceremony. But that didn't stop a few wedding crashers who tried to join in. The Post also reports the couple's first dance was to an Etta James classic, "At Last." The father of the bride waltzed his daughter around the floor to Frank Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight." Guests received a gift bag with local wine, pretzels and sweets. Quijano added on Sunday morning, a caravan of Land Rovers and black sedans ferried guests to the finale: brunch at the 500-acre Grasmere Estate near Rhinebeck. So what was the highlight of the wedding weekend? ...

Chelsea Clinton, Marc Mezvinsky wedding details: "Like a family wedding"
Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger Washington Post USA August 2, 2010

Marc and Chelsea, at the altar under their floral chuppah. Photo: © Genevieve de Manio via AP. "The wedding of Bill and Hillary Clinton's only child was noteworthy for being, you know, just a really nice wedding." Visit this page for its embedded links.

Few guests will ever forget the sight at a certain wedding in Rhinebeck, N.Y., on Saturday night: A former president and the current secretary of state beaming as they balanced precariously in chairs hoisted above the dancing crowd. Other permanent memories: The bride, Chelsea Clinton, helping the minister remember the next line of verse when the breeze flipped his page over too soon. And then later, trading her silk strapless Vera Wang wedding gown for a slinkier little white number as she took the floor with her bridegroom, Marc Mezvinsky, for a cutely choreographed dance to "At Last." The wedding party was formidable -- a dozen bridesmaids and nearly as many groomsmen -- and so too was security: Guests needed specially issued ID bracelets to board a bus to the ceremony. A few sharply dressed crashers who tried to blend in with the crowd were quickly rebuffed. The party raged until 4:30 a.m. But otherwise, the wedding of Bill and Hillary Clinton's only child was noteworthy for being, you know, just a really nice wedding. ...

Frank Giustra, the Canadian mining magnate who has become one of the biggest backers of Bill's philanthropy, made the guest list. For a quarter-century, Giustra worked behind the scenes on a string of deals in the world of junior mining finance, finding money for companies hoping to extract gold in Mexico, cobalt in Cameroon, uranium in Kazakhstan, platinum in South Africa or oil in Colombia. In the process, he made billions for himself and a cadre of loyal associates through a Byzantine system of shell companies, furtive share purchases and elaborate compensation schemes. According to his Wikipedia entry: Giustra is now chair of Endeavour Financial, a merchant banking firm which finances mining companies. He became close with former US President Bill Clinton during fundraising efforts for tsunami relief in 2004. Giustra is a member of the board of trustees of the Clinton Foundation. Giustra provided his corporate jet for Clinton's fundraising campaign in Africa. The two play the card game Oh Hell during flights. Vancouver Magazine ranked Giustra as number 10 in its Power 50 list of the most powerful people in Vancouver. Giustra is also a director of the International Crisis Group, an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization whose mission is to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts through high-level advocacy.

And now, an opinion: Let them eat cake: Chelsea Clinton's wedding to Goldman Sachs banker
Paul Craig Roberts CounterPunch/SOTT.net USA July 31, 2010

Photo: © Genevieve de Manio via Getty Images. Let them all eat great big wedding cake: Bill Clinton walks his daughter down the aisle during her wedding to Goldman Sachs investment banker Marc Mezvinsky at the Astor Courts Estate on July 31, 2010 in Rhinebeck, New York. A congressman for Iowa in the 1970s, Mezvinsky's father (Edward "Ed" Mezvinsky) was indicted in March 2001 and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 charges of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud. He was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for defrauding banks and individuals of $10 million. He was released from federal prison in 2008 and remains on federal probation until 2011. According to ABÇ News, Dec. 1, 2009 : "In their heyday, Ed Mezvinsky and his then wife Marjorie, herself a former Democratic congresswoman from Pennsylvania as well as an ex-TV reporter, were part of the political and social elite in Philadelphia. The Mezvinskys were close to Bill and Hillary Clinton and were frequent guests at the White House. Prosecutors say Mezvinsky exploited his ties to the Clintons, including his son's relationship with Chelsea, to woo investors to contribute more money to his schemes."

... Now comes the politicians's daughter as celebrity. According to news reports, Chelsea Clinton's wedding to investment banker Mark Mezvinsky on July 31 is costing papa Bill $3,000,000. According to the London Daily Mail, the total price tag will be about $5,000,000. ... The additional $2,000,000 apparently is being laid off on US Taxpayers as Secret Service costs for protecting former president Clinton and foreign heads of state, such as the presidents of France and Italy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair....

Before we attend to the poor political judgment of such an extravagant affair during times of economic distress, let us wonder aloud where a poor boy who became governor of Arkansas and president of the United States got such a fortune that he can blow $3,000,000 on a wedding. The American people did not take up a collection to reward him for his service to them. Where did the money come from? Who was he really serving during his eight years in office? How did Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, end up with an annual income of ten million pounds (approximately $15 million dollars) as soon as he left office? Who was Blair really serving? These are not polite questions, and they are infrequently asked.

While Chelsea's wedding guests eat a $11,000 wedding cake and admire $250,000 floral displays, Lisa Roberts in Ohio is struggling to raise contributions for her food pantry in order to feed 3,000 local people, whose financial independence was destroyed by investment bankers, job offshoring, and unaffordable wars. The Americans dependent on Lisa Roberts' food pantry are living out of vans and cars. Those with a house roof still over their heads are packed in as many as 14 per household according to the Chillicothe Gazette in Ohio. The Chilicothe Gazette reports that Lisa Roberts' food pantry has "had to cut back to half rations per person in order to have something for everyone who needed it." Theresa DePugh stepped up to the challenge and had the starving Ohioans write messages on their food pantry paper plates to President Obama, who has just obtained another $33 billion to squander on a pointless war in Afghanistan that serves no purpose whatsoever except the enrichment of the military/security complex and its shareholders. ... The Great American Superpower, which is wasting trillions of dollars in pursuit of world hegemony, has 22% of its population unemployed and almost 17% of its population dependent on welfare in order to stay alive. The world has not witnessed such total failure of government since the final days of the Roman Empire. A handful of American oligarchs are becoming mega-billionaires while the rest of the country goes down the drain. And the American sheeple remain acquiescent.

Wedding footnote: We know Frank Giustra made the wedding guest list. We know that Vince Foster, Deputy White House Counsel during Bill's first term as President of the United States, and also a law partner and friend of Hillary Rodham Clinton, did not attend the wedding. Foster died a relatively young man of 48 on July 20, 1993. Did the father of the groom attend? Nobody's telling if he did. "His whole life, he wanted the home run. He didn't want to operate a business. He wanted to make millions in one home run," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Zauzmer of Ed Mezvinsky at the time of Mezvinsky's 2003 trial. We hope (for his sake) 'Fast Talking Eddie' got to go to his son's nuptials, dubbed by the press, 'America's Wedding of the Century.'

Ed Mezvinsky and Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky. Photo: Corbis. Mezvinsky's first wife, Myra Shulman, divorced him not long after he was elected to Congress. Within a couple of years, he was married to Margolies, a beautiful and bright TV reporter, a Washington celebrity who won Emmys for NBC. Ed Mezvinsky's nickname among pool reporters in the 1970s was "Fast Talkin' Eddie." The former star athlete turned politician spent four years in the U.S. House of Representatives before going into business for himself, hatching a string of fraudulent activity the FBI later said infiltratated nearly every one of his business deals between 1980 and 2000. Federal prosecutors described him as a one-man crime wave. Below is a 10-year-old story from an Iowa newspaper's archives.

Whirlpool of lies swallows Mezvinsky
Mike Kilen Des Moines Register USA August 3, 2003

Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. - Ed Mezvinsky was a whiz at taking people's money.

A quarter-million here, a half-million there - 8,000 transactions in five years. When shady African businessmen opened a suitcase of money, he was there to inspect it. When wealthy American investors were looking for a good return, he was there to offer one.

He was "Fast Talkin" Eddie." That's what political reporters privately called him in the 1970s.

He was also the golden boy from Ames, the former all-state football end and member of the Ames High School state championship basketball and track teams of 1955. He ran political campaigns equally as all-American - on principles of good government, accountability, protecting the weak.

After his 1972 election to Congress, the Democrat was barely unpacked before he was named to the Judiciary Committee's Nixon impeachment investigation. He wrote a book in 1977 about how he was appalled at President Nixon's lies and schemes, how he choked up when Nixon resigned, "a spectacle of a man brought to a wretched end."

Mezvinsky knows about wretched endings.

He is 66 and serving the beginning of an 80-month sentence in federal prison for numerous charges, including bank, wire and mail fraud. He took people's money - more than $10 million - in elaborate lies and schemes. "Fast Talkin" Eddie" wants to talk publicly for the first time since the day three years ago when 10 FBI agents stormed his mansion in a Philadelphia suburb and hauled out more than 80 boxes of incriminating documents. ...

Out of respect for the bride's special day, we won't mention her Mommy and Daddy's decades' long activities which were eventually investigated under the popular generic of 'Whitewater.' Bill and Hillary were never charged but 15 other persons were convicted of more than 40 crimes, including Bill Clinton's successor as Governor of Arkansas, who was removed from office.

The United States is not necessarily an easy place to take up the banner of letting go; we’re likely to call it “giving up” ... - Kerry Howley

Letting go
Atul Gawande New Yorker USA Dateline August 2, 2010

.. For all but our most recent history, dying was typically a brief process. ... These days, swift catastrophic illness is the exception; for most people, death comes only after long medical struggle with an incurable condition—advanced cancer, progressive organ failure (usually the heart, kidney, or liver), or the multiple debilities of very old age. In all such cases, death is certain, but the timing isn’t. So everyone struggles with this uncertainty—with how, and when, to accept that the battle is lost. As for last words, they hardly seem to exist anymore. Technology sustains our organs until we are well past the point of awareness and coherence. ...

I confessed that I was confused by what [Sarah Creed, a nurse with the hospice service that my hospital system operates] was doing. I didn’t know much about hospice. I knew that it specialized in providing “comfort care” for the terminally ill, sometimes in special facilities, though nowadays usually at home. ... Wasn’t the goal of hospice to let nature take its course? “That’s not the goal,” Creed said. The difference between standard medical care and hospice is not the difference between treating and doing nothing, she explained. The difference was in your priorities. In ordinary medicine, the goal is to extend life. We’ll sacrifice the quality of your existence now—by performing surgery, providing chemotherapy, putting you in intensive care—for the chance of gaining time later. Hospice deploys nurses, doctors, and social workers to help people with a fatal illness have the fullest possible lives right now. That means focussing on objectives like freedom from pain and discomfort, or maintaining mental awareness for as long as possible, or getting out with family once in a while. Hospice and palliative-care specialists aren’t much concerned about whether that makes people’s lives longer or shorter.

People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal The difference between standard medical care and hospice is not the difference between treating and doing nothing, she explained. The difference was in your priorities. In ordinary medicine, the goal is to extend life. We’ll sacrifice the quality of your existence now—by performing surgery, providing chemotherapy, putting you in intensive care—for the chance of gaining time later. Hospice deploys nurses, doctors, and social workers to help people with a fatal illness have the fullest possible lives right now. That means focussing on objectives like freedom from pain and discomfort, or maintaining mental awareness for as long as possible, or getting out with family once in a while. Hospice and palliative-care specialists aren’t much concerned about whether that makes people’s lives longer or shorter.

Like many people, I had believed that hospice care hastens death, because patients forgo hospital treatments and are allowed high-dose narcotics to combat pain. But studies suggest otherwise. In one, researchers followed 4,493 Medicare patients with either terminal cancer or congestive heart failure. They found no difference in survival time between hospice and non-hospice patients with breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. Curiously, hospice care seemed to extend survival for some patients; those with pancreatic cancer gained an average of three weeks, those with lung cancer gained six weeks, and those with congestive heart failure gained three months. The lesson seems almost Zen: you live longer only when you stop trying to live longer. ...

Related: Cosmic selfishness ... or not? “I’m just really terribly curious,” Robin told me.... “Cryonics isn’t just living a little longer. It’s also living quite a bit delayed into the future.” To someone who believes that low-temperature preservation offers a legitimate chance at extending life, hostile spousal obstructionism can seem as willfully cruel as withholding medical treatment. Cryonicists have created support networks with which to tackle marital strife. Of the nonreligious white males who predominate in the ranks of cryonicists, many are software engineers, a calling that puts great faith in the primacy of information. “If you have a hard drive on a computer with a lot of information that is important to you, you save it,” says J.S., a 39-year-old cryonicist and software engineer who lives in Oregon and who will not allow his full name to be used out of fear that his wife would divorce him. “You wouldn’t just throw it into a fire. It’s clear to me that memories are stored as molecular arrangements. I’m just trying to preserve the memories.” - Kerry Howley reporting

Until cryonics do us part
Kerry Howley New York Times Sunday Magazine USA Webposted July 5, 2010

There are ways of speaking about dying that very much annoy Peggy Jackson, an affable and rosy-cheeked hospice worker in Arlington, Va. She doesn’t like the militant cast of “lost her battle with,” as in, “She lost her battle with cancer.” She is similarly displeased by “We have run out of options” and “There is nothing left we can do,” when spoken by doctor to patient, implying as these phrases will that hospice care is not an “option” or a “thing” that can be done. She doesn’t like these phrases, but she tolerates them. The one death-related phrase she will not abide, will not let into her house under any circumstance, is “cryonic preservation,” by which is meant the low-temperature preservation of human beings in the hope of future resuscitation. That this will be her husband’s chosen form of bodily disposition creates, as you might imagine, certain complications in the Jackson household. “You have to understand,” says Peggy, who at 54 is given to exasperation about her husband’s more exotic ideas. “I am a hospice social worker. I work with people who are dying all the time. I see people dying All. The. Time. And what’s so good about me that I’m going to live forever?”

The provenance of this disagreement remains somewhat hazy, as neither Peggy nor her husband, Robin Hanson, can remember quite when he first announced his intention to have his brain surgically removed from his freshly vacated cadaver and preserved in liquid nitrogen. It would have been decades ago, before the two were married and before the births of their two teenage sons. With the benefit of hindsight, Robin, who is 50 and an associate professor of economics at George Mason University, will acknowledge that he should have foreseen at least some initial discomfort on the part of his girlfriend, whom he met when they were both graduate students at the University of Chicago. “I was surprised by her response,” he recalls, “but that’s because I am a nerd and not good at predicting these things.” Robin is the kind of nerd who is very excited about the future, an orientation evident on his C.V., which lists published articles like “Economic Growth Given Machine Intelligence” (on why robots will give us growth rates “an order of magnitude” higher than we’ve currently got), “Burning the Cosmic Commons: Evolutionary Strategies of Interstellar Colonization” (on what behaviors we can expect from extraterrestrials) and “Drift-Diffusion in Mangled Worlds Quantum Mechanics” (it’s very complicated). His enthusiasm is evident in the way he talks about these ideas, hands in the air, laughing amiably every time he brings up the distance between his own theories and those of the mainstream. If he is in a chair, the chair is moving with him. ...

The United States is not necessarily an easy place to take up the banner of letting go; we’re likely to call it “giving up,” and there is of course no purer expression of this attitude than the pursuit of cryonics. Heads and bodies stored in steel tanks, awaiting the moment when medicine advances to the point where tissue can be repaired and bodies revived, are pointedly referred to not as remains or cadavers but as “patients.” A stopped heart is seen as no good reason to stop fighting for your life. ... As an economist with an interest in political institutions, Robin came up with the concept of futarchy, a form of government in which prediction markets would be used to determine the viability of various policies. He would like to live in a futarchy, and an effective cryonic preservation would improve his chances of seeing one. He also talks about what it means to be the kind of person willing to do what it takes to survive. “Our ancestors came across the oceans,” he says, “went across the continent. Many people, most, didn’t do those things. But I think of myself as the kind of person who is willing to suffer quite a bit of change in lifestyle, culture and context if it’s a matter of that or extermination.” ...

Photo: Steve Caplin

Jim comment: Nobody home today. So this post was programed several days ago to be uploaded by machine. Heil, Technocracy! Well, not really. The technocrats made a believable case for a kind of technological utopia, but their asking price was too high. Another exploded false panacea.

I have been and still am (through Sunday) at a friend's estate on Vancouver Island. If all has gone as planned, I travelled here (slowy by boat, foot and train); I have been reading poetry (slowly) on the bank of a meandering river; preparing meals (slowly) sourced locally—this land, the river and the nearby sea; and musing (carefully) on quality of life. Such memes as may be in my immediate experience, I have been discussing with friends in measured conversation. Such refined living is a true panacea.

Today's single post ponders: Has endlessly skimming short texts on the internet made us stupider? An increasing number of experts think so - and say it's time to slow down. Back home Monday.

The art of slow reading
Patrick Kingsley Guardian UK July 15, 2010

Visit this page for its embedded links.

If you're reading this article in print, chances are you'll only get through half of what I've written. And if you're reading this online, you might not even finish a fifth. At least, those are the two verdicts from a pair of recent research projects – respectively, the Poynter Institute's Eyetrack survey, and analysis by Jakob Nielsen – which both suggest that many of us no longer have the concentration to read articles through to their conclusion. The problem doesn't just stop there: academics report that we are becoming less attentive book-readers, too. Bath Spa University lecturer Greg Garrard recently revealed that he has had to shorten his students' reading list, while Keith Thomas, an Oxford historian, has written that he is bemused by junior colleagues who analyse sources with a search engine, instead of reading them in their entirety.

So are we getting stupider? Is that what this is about? Sort of. According to The Shallows, a new book by technology sage Nicholas Carr, our hyperactive online habits are damaging the mental faculties we need to process and understand lengthy textual information. Round-the-clock news feeds leave us hyperlinking from one article to the next – without necessarily engaging fully with any of the content; our reading is frequently interrupted by the ping of the latest email; and we are now absorbing short bursts of words on Twitter and Facebook more regularly than longer texts.

Which all means that although, because of the internet, we have become very good at collecting a wide range of factual titbits, we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, contemplate, and relate all these facts to each other. And so, as Carr writes, "we're losing our ability to strike a balance between those two very different states of mind. Mentally, we're in perpetual locomotion".

Still reading? You're probably in a dwindling minority. But no matter: a literary revolution is at hand. First we had slow food, then slow travel. Now, those campaigns are joined by a slow-reading movement– a disparate bunch of academics and intellectuals who want us to take our time while reading, and re-reading. They ask us to switch off our computers every so often and rediscover both the joy of personal engagement with physical texts, and the ability to process them fully.

"If you want the deep experience of a book, if you want to internalise it, to mix an author's ideas with your own and make it a more personal experience, you have to read it slowly," says Ottawa-based John Miedema, author of Slow Reading (2009). ...

Photo of the camp of the Great Reunion of 1913.The photo was published in the "Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg: Report of the Pennsylvania Commission", published by the state of Pennsylvania in 1914.

Comrades and friends, these splendid statues of marble and granite and bronze shall finally crumble to dust, and in the ages to come, will perhaps be forgotten, but the spirit that has called this great assembly of our people together, on this field, shall live for ever. -Dr. Nathaniel D. Cox, July 2, 1913

War fitted us for action, and action never ceases. - US President Woodrow Wilson, July 4, 1913, addressing the assembled at The Great Reunion of 1913, a gathering of Civil War vets surrounded by tourists and journalists.

Jim comment: I found myself thinking of this event over the holiday weekend. Its purpose, its hopes, and its violence which belied the hopes, struck me as analogous to our present war. In 1913, 54,000 old American Civil War soldiers came together in peace on the Gettysburg PA battlefield to celebrate American unity. An event still to remember. Several members of my family attended as Civil War veteran participants. Many others of my family were among the 200,000 observers. The pressure to perform the rites of unity must have been intense. Woodrow Wilson originally intended to avoid the 1913 Reunion altogether. He was the first Southerner elected president since 1848, and he wasn’t exactly thrilled about being compared to Lincoln. On July 4, 1913 the newly elected president gave in and delivered a speech that tipped its hat to the heroics of war. As Stefany Golberg wisely notes, time may heal all wounds but memory rips them right back open. To which I would add especially if you're invaded—yet again—for imperial purpose. In 1913, the United States and the world were in political turmoil. On the edge of the first World War, European alliances over political and territorial disputes were affecting the world market, national pride, and threatened a precarious peace between numerous foreign "democracies" and sovereign states. So it goes today.

The Great Reunion of 1913
National Park Service USA n.d.

The largest combined reunion of Civil War veterans ever held occurred at Gettysburg in 1913. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hosted the event and extended invitations to every surviving honorably discharged Union and Confederate veteran in the nation. It was scheduled to be a unique encampment, a combined reunion of members of the Grand Army of the Republic and United Confederate Veterans. The response was overwhelming and despite efforts to limit the numbers attending, over 50,000 veterans came to Gettysburg and settled into the great camp situated on the battlefield. Former foes walked together over the old battlefield and re-lived the terrible days where so many of their comrades had lost their lives. Not only were there veterans of Gettysburg, but men who had fought under McClellan at Antietam, Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, Sherman in Georgia, Grant in Tennessee, Bragg in Kentucky, Hood at Atlanta, and Ord at Appomattox. This was the largest gathering of former soldiers who had changed the face of a nation, torn it apart, and now delighted in its reunification. ...

Battle scars
Stefany Anne Golberg The Smart Set USA June 30, 2010

Includes 17 Library of Congress photos of the Great Reunion of 1913.

There’s a grand old tradition of celebrating the Fourth of July through dissent. Of famously dissenting July Fourths, the 1976 Bicentennial comes to mind, when World’s Fair-style displays of pyrotechnics and nautical parades were joined by civil rights protests nationwide (including a celebrity-organized rally on the National Mall by the People’s Bicentennial Commission featuring Jane Fonda and Dr. Spock). The most notable has to be the first Fourth of July, in 1776, when the founding fathers finalized the Declaration of Independence, which was, itself, met with a certain amount of dissent. Plenty of Americans were still loyal to the British government. They used the Declaration as an opportunity to publish their own dissenting tracts, like that of Thomas Hutchinson, who served a short stint as colonial governor of Massachusetts. Hutchinson proclaimed the newly independent nation to be the insidious effort of a few rabble-rousing conspirators. He also called members of Congress hypocrites for daring to write in the Declaration that “all men are created equal” when they themselves owned slaves. In this he had a point. In 1913 our nation, led by the government of Philadelphia, put together a Fourth of July extravaganza designed to hail the end of American disunity. The Great Reunion of 1913 commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the subsequent years of relative peace and harmony (save a “splendid little war” with Spain that lasted only four months).

The Great Reunion of 1913 was an amazing historical event, the largest gathering ever of Civil War veterans, who came together for a week of solidarity and celebration. On July 4, President Woodrow Wilson arrived and made a speech. But it was July 3 that people remember most. As part of the week’s festivities, thousands of old veterans — most in their 70s, the oldest 112 — took their respective places on the former battlefield and commenced with a tottering reenactment of Pickett’s Charge. At 3 p.m., the surviving Confederate soldiers of General Pickett’s division stormed Cemetery Ridge, a clattering assortment of long beards and crutches and canes. Slowly approaching the stone fence at Bloody Angle, some of the codgers croaked out the rebel yell when they were “surprised” by a group of men from the former Union Philadelphia Brigade. But instead of shooting each other, they all shook hands across the stone wall and exchanged ceremonial flags. Some fell into each other’s arms, weeping. Other just sat down in silence and looked sadly across the field.

The enthusiastic American press decided the Great Reunion was America’s strongest demonstration of national unity ever. “Nothing could possibly be more impressive or more inspiring to the younger generation than this gathering,” wrote The Washington Post. “But even more touching must be the emotions of these time-worn veterans, as they assemble on an occasion that in itself constitutes a greater victory than that of half a century ago, and one too, in which every section of a reunited country has common part.” The New York Times used the event to advertise American concord to the rest of the world, at that time edging closer to the most terrible war any would see: “The pilgrimage to Gettysburg…proclaims to the world the solidarity of the American people; it is a significant warning to any of the great powers who mistake our political upheavals and internal strifes for a lack of homogeneity among the States.” But the reunion was not all flowers, candy, and homogeneity. Time may heal all wounds but memory rips them right back open.

It took the government of Pennsylvania eight years and a lot of dough to host the Reunion. The idea was simple: set up a big tent city in Gettysburg and invite the old Civil War survivors to stay there for a week. They expected 20,000 and ended up with 50,000 — 50,000 senior citizens, Civil War veterans from both sides, camping out for a week in the battlefield that eventually decided the final outcome of the war. It’s astounding only nine people died. Each day had a scheduled program of speeches and meals and activities, but inevitably there was a lot of dangerous in-between time with nothing to do but reminisce. There was an incident in which an old blue coat and an old gray went at each with forks, and on July 2 seven men were stabbed in a hotel bar when someone made a disparaging remark about Lincoln. All this reminiscing forced the State Health Department to order town saloons to shut down no later than 11 p.m. ...

From our desk dictionary:

progress

Function: noun

1 a (1) : a royal journey marked by pomp and pageant (2) : a state procession b : a tour or circuit made by an official (as a judge) c : an expedition, journey, or march through a region
2 : a forward or onward movement (as to an objective or to a goal) : advance
3 : gradual betterment; especially : the progressive development of humankind

advance

Function: noun

1 : a moving forward
2 a : progress in development <mistaking material advance for spiritual enrichment — H. J. Laski> b : a progressive step : improvement <an advance in medical technique>
3 : a rise in price, value, or amount
...

advance

Function: verb

... 2 : to bring or move forward ...

Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress. Mohandas Gandhi

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Chinese boy and the bicycle
Alan Farago CounterPunch USA July 5, 2010

I graduated with a degree in Chinese Studies in 1976 from Yale. By coincidence a neighbor was a Yankee trader and entrepreneur who secured one of the first visas to China a few years earlier, when President Nixon helped push doors open to a nation that had been as closed as North Korea is today. I was hired at the age of 22 to be his door opener to unknown, future business opportunities and, in the summer of 1976, crossed the border between Hong Kong and the mainland. The rail line was controlled tightly as Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. Through a college friend, I met a wealthy Chinese woman who lived in Hong Kong. Half of her family had emigrated to Hong Kong when the Communists consolidated control of China in the 1940's; half remained in Shanghai where the family fortune had been established over many generations. In the intervening thirty years, the family in Hong Kong had built a new fortune in textiles. The half in Shanghai had been forced into poverty and oppressed as enemies of the state. By her description, they were prisoners in their own tiny apartments. By 1977 I still couldn't get into Studio 54. The new thing was Michael Jackson. David Bowie was androgynous. After a few visits to trade shows in Guangchou and Beijing, where only a handful of Americans had been allowed entry, I was given permission by the government to travel to Shanghai. As a businessman, or imagining myself to be one, I was such a rarity that the hotel did not know how to account for my stay. They wouldn't take cash. Couldn't. Didn't know how to. I was billed, later, and I still have the receipt: it bills me for hot water as a separate expense. Every day, a crowd of more than a thousand waited silently, patiently outside the hotel on the opposite side of the Bund, for a chance to glimpse catch an American in China.

In Hong Kong, later, my new friend immediately grasped the importance of my itinerary. She asked me a favor and pressed a hundred dollars in my hand. In Shanghai, I had been taken by my sponsors to the single retail store in the city for foreign exchange. The store was used as a showcase for visiting dignitaries and Communist officials. It was organized in the style of Soviet era display cases, dim lighting, heavy drapery, and a grim collective antipathy toward consumerism. Nevertheless, the store had a few radios, televisions, appliances, and new, shiny bicycles. Compared to the teeming millions on the streets of Chinese cities, these were like Rolls Royces. Now that I was heading back to Shanghai, my friend asked, would I meet her nephew -- a fifteen year old -- and buy him a bicycle? This question posed a number of obstacles I could not imagine. There were no telephones. She would write to them and alert them of my next visit. My trips to China were always point to point: either from hotel to office building or restaurant. In other words, familiar locations to taxi drivers whose orders for conservation required operation at night with headlights turned off. When I handed my driver an address in the Shanghai suburbs, he looked at me quizzically. I insisted and he pressed on. I couldn't tell you where we went, in a million years. But when I arrived it was clear everyone had been waiting for a long time. The building was non-descript within an apartment bloc of concrete construction within many similar structures: a dozen or so floors facing a small, cement inner courtyard. It was springtime. Everyone's windows were flung open. Hundreds of residents-- men, women, children-- all chattering, leaning out to watch as news had quickly preceeded my footsteps. I was directed up a flight of stairs to the tiny apartment: come, come, come.

Looking back at this moment, I understand how little I knew of the extraordinary wrapped in ordinary. These moments are all around us. Continually. At any point I could have been stopped because I was under constant surveillance. In Beijing, hall monitors sat at desks on every floor. Although I spoke Chinese, they would never speak but only look disapprovingly when I would bring a girl to my room. But in the streets, I would often have men pop through crowds on the sidewalk and address me in language school English. Now a father and son, a cup of tea and a plan that meant everything in the world. Through the open windows, the neighbors leaned in and listened. He would accompany his son to the hotel where I stayed. I would meet them outside. I would take the son into the hotel, to breakfast. We would become familiar to people watching me. I would take the son by taxi to the retail store, he would otherwise never be allowed to enter. I would buy the bicycle and we would leave then, together. ... I left China to work in a family manufacturing business. We were successful. We made structural strength elements for fiber optic cable among other engineered products. I gained a measure of financial independence to write my observations of the American spirit and our shared geography, unconcerned with whose views I might offend. The business was sold. Its products likely part of the Chinese supply chain. Today, the sales of General Motors in China jumped to 1.21 million autos, exceeding the market in U.S. for first time. It is all true.

Left: A Crystal Edition Gold Bike (available in a limited edition of only 10) is hand built and features "every visible surface" plated in 24 carat gold and more than 600 Swarovski crystals accenting the frame. Cost: €80,000. Photo: Swarovski-Studded Golden Bicycle. It doesn't compare in value to Alan Farago's 1977 gift to a 15-year-old Shanghai boy. Right: A contemporary Chinese auto—a Geely GE model at the Shanghai International Auto Show . Photo: Sulekha.com (India). Shanghai-based Geely Automobile is the first independent and largest private automobile manufacturer in the People's Republic of China. Geely signed a deal with Ford to acquire Volvo Cars for $1.8 billion on March 28, 2010 and is expected to close the deal by the third quarter of 2010.

Legend tells us only a gentle and pensive maiden has the power to tame the unicorn. Bless'd are the gentle and pensive Sisters at Radiant Farms. Though the modern popular image of the unicorn is sometimes that of a horse differing only in the horn on its forehead, the traditional unicorn also has a billy-goat beard, a lion's tail, and cloven hooves—these distinguish it from a horse. Marianna Mayer has observed (The Unicorn and the Lake), "The unicorn is the only fabulous beast that does not seem to have been conceived out of human fears. In even the earliest references he is fierce yet good, selfless yet solitary, but always mysteriously beautiful. He could be captured only by unfair means, and his single horn was said to neutralize poison." Hunts for an actual animal as the basis of the unicorn myth, accepting the conception of writers in Antiquity that it really existed somewhere at the edge of the known earth, have added a further layer of mythologizing about the unicorn. We wonder, have some of those hunts been financed by the U. S. Pork Board? The Board seems to fear unicorns and, as we see below, they have just hunted some unicorns, albeit dead ones.

U.S. Pork™ is an actual colossus. U.S. Pork™ cloaks itself in mythological raiment, but reality belies the fairy tale cloth.

U.S. Pork Board takes legal action against Unicorn meat ad over “the new white meat” tagline
The Bovine Ontario Canada June 21, 2010

Excerpted from ThinkGeek.com

“Recently we got the best-ever cease and desist letter. We’re no stranger to the genre, so what could possibly make this one stand out from the rest? First, it’s 12 pages long and very well-researched (except on one point); it even includes screengrabs of the offending item from our site. And we know they’re not messing around because they invested in the best and brightest legal minds.

But what makes this cease and desist so very, very special is that it’s for a fake product we launched for April Fool’s day It wasn’t the iCade, or the Dharma Initiative Clock, or even the Tribbles ‘n’ Bits Breakfast Cereal. No, it was the Canned Unicorn Meat. The very special but also very real letter is from the National Pork Board, who claims we’re infringing on the slogan “The Other White Meat,” a slogan they’re apparently thinking about phasing out anyways. A screengrab of the product page is below…..

Luckily, the Sisters at Radiant Farms, where the unicorns are nursed through old age before being slaughtered, canned, and brought to market at ThinkGeek, have nothing to worry about--this kind of use is protected as a parody. (We're hoping the NPB doesn't tell the Sisters that unicorns don't actually exist; it'd break their little sparkly hearts.) ...

We’d like to publicly apologize to the NPB for the confusion over unicorn and pork–and for their awkward extended pause on the phone after we had explained our unicorn meat doesn’t actually exist. From our press release [PDF]: “It was never our intention to cause a national crisis and misguide American citizens regarding the differences between the pig and the unicorn,” said Scott Kauffman, President and CEO of Geeknet. “In fact, ThinkGeek’s canned unicorn meat is sparkly, a bit red, and not approved by any government entity….”

...

Caviar is so 1980s. Unicorn is the sparkling, crunchy, savory meat of today's elite. Excellent source of sparkles!

Canned Unicorn Meat
ThinkGeek USA April 1, 2010 (before noon, of course)

...

Unicorns, as we all know, frolic all over the world, pooping rainbows and marshmallows wherever they go. What you don't know is that when unicorns reach the end of their lifespan, they are drawn to County Meath, Ireland. The Sisters at Radiant Farms have dedicated their lives to nursing these elegant creatures through their final days. Taking a cue from the Kobe beef industry, they massage each unicorn's coat with Guinness daily and fatten them on a diet comprised entirely of candy corn.

As the unicorn ages, its meat becomes fatty and marbled and the living bone in the horn loses density in a process much like osteoporosis. The horn's outer layer of keratin begins to develop a flavor very similar to candied almonds. Blending the crushed unicorn horn into the meat adds delightful, crispy flavor notes in each bite. We are confident you will find a world of bewilderment in every mouthful of scrumptious unicorn meat.

...

On the menu: Unicorns and lions
Morning Edition National Public Radio USA June 23, 2010

The brief audio and a transcript are available at this link.

There's an update to Tuesday's story about an online retailer that jokingly sold unicorn meat with the slogan "the new white meat." The National Pork Board, which protested, says it does understand unicorns don't exist. And an Arizona restaurant serious about promoting the World Cup offered a taste of Africa by putting lion meat on the menu. Lions are a protected species in Africa, but the owner says this meat came from a free-range farm in Illinois. ...

Related? Shadhavar is a type of unicorn in Persian folklore which resembles a gazelle with a single hollow horn. When wind blows through the horn, a melody is produced not unlike that from a flute. The music attracts both human and animal alike. Once an animal is near, the shadhavar will use the opportunity to attack its prey. Perhaps this is from whence comes Israel's great fear of Iran. Qu'en pensez-vous?

Salt mounds in Bolivia.

Salt
Wikipedia Last modified June 9, 2010

Salt is a mineral that is composed primarily of sodium chloride. It is essential for animal life in small quantities, but is harmful to animals and plants in excess. Salt flavor is one of the basic tastes, making salt one of the oldest, most ubiquitous food seasonings. Salting is an important method of food preservation. Salt for human consumption is produced in different forms: unrefined salt (such as sea salt), refined salt (table salt), and iodized salt. It is a crystalline solid, white, pale pink or light gray in color, normally obtained from sea water or rock deposits. Edible rock salts may be slightly grayish in color because of mineral content. Chloride and sodium ions, the two major components of salt, are needed by all known living creatures in small quantities. Salt is involved in regulating the water content (fluid balance) of the body. However, too much salt increases the risk of health problems, including high blood pressure. Therefore health authorities have recommended limitations of dietary sodium. ...

Salt is produced by evaporation of seawater or brine from other sources, such as brine wells and salt lakes, and by mining rock salt, called halite. In 2002, total world production was estimated at 210 million tonnes, the top five producers being the United States (40.3 million tonnes), China (32.9), Germany (17.7), India (14.5), and Canada (12.3). Note that these figures are not just for table salt but for sodium chloride in general. By 2007, China had become the world's largest salt producer, surpassing the U.S. ...

In Western cuisines, salt is used in cooking, and also made available to diners in salt shakers on the table. ... In many East Asian cultures, salt is not traditionally used as a condiment. However, condiments such as soy sauce, fish sauce and oyster sauce tend to have a high salt content and fill much the same role as a salt-providing table condiment that table salt serves in western cultures. ... Meta-analysis in 2009 found that the sodium consumption of 19,151 individuals from 33 countries fit into the narrow range of 2,700 to 4,900 mg/day. The small range across many cultures, together with animal studies, suggest that sodium intake is tightly controlled by feedback loops in the body, making recommendations to reduce sodium consumption below 2,700 mg/day potentially futile. ...

The fight over salt: Big Food vs. Us
Tom Laskawy Grist USA June 1, 2010

Visit this page for its embedded links.

The biggest loser in Michael Moss's New York Times exposé of the food industry's fight against salt restrictions isn't the food industry. It isn't government, either. In my view, the real loser is television chef Alton Brown: ... But let's not let Brown off the hook quite yet. He is welcome to cash anyone's check he chooses -- and certainly food company ads pay for Brown's Food Network shows. But at a certain point, you have to recognize when you're being used as a pawn in a larger battle. Brown, for all his expertise on the science of the kitchen, comes off as woefully ignorant about the politics of food. I have now spent more time talking about Alton Brown than Michael Moss did. The true heft of the article comes from Moss's exhaustive examination of the lengths the food industry will go to to defend what it sees as a crucial, "life-enhancing" ingredient. Without salt, the processed food industry can't exist, expert after expert testifies. This has, of course, been true for several thousand years. Salting food is one of the oldest forms of preservation and was instrumental in the rise of many an ancient empire (see Mark Kurlansky). But the empire at risk now is based not on military might or territorial conquest, but on salt-infused delights such as Cheez-Its, Lunchables, and Campbells Chicken Soup.

This particular battle has been going on for decades. What's most interesting about it is the ways the food industry has changed its arguments based on the prevailing mood and available data. As Moss describes it, in the 1970s the food industry concentrated on undermining the very science behind the health risks of high salt intake, claiming the research was inconclusive and insufficient. Then, as the data became too overwhelming, the industry switched to an economic argument -- that less salt would require higher-quality ingredients, and thus higher prices for the consumer. Lately, the industry has switched back to sidestepping the science, now claiming that an overall caloric intake reduction of 100 calories per day would have far greater public health benefits than a simple reduction in salt intake. But the goal of all these tactics is the same: to avoid having to use less salt in their products. What Moss doesn't mention is that the industry's use of such a defensive strategy is not limited to salt. Whether for soda taxes, television advertising, package labeling, or school food, the industry has a playbook based entirely on the idea of spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt among its critics as well as its customers. And the executives involved are often, if not always, fully aware of what they have been doing. Robert I-San Lin, the former head of R&D at Frito-Lay, told Moss that he had been "caught between corporate and public interests." Despite awareness of the health risks of salt dating back to the '70s, companies such as Frito-Lay ignored the data and engaged in a set of "diversionary tactics" to hold off regulation: ...

Despite what free-marketers like to say, there is indeed an unbridgeable gap between corporate and public interests (BP, anyone?). If the government is this easily swayed by corporate pressure, who exactly is there left to look out for us? It's time that the government stops catching cold every time Big Food sneezes.

As the military and families reel under an alarming increase in troop suicides, units and communities across the country are faced with the question of how and whether to memorialize those deaths. The social stigma attached to suicide, and differing views about what constitutes a war death, often play a role in deciding whose loss is commemorated on a wall, plaque or monument. - Geoff Ziezulewicz

Hal Roesch commanded the Virginia VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars (its mission is to "honor the dead by helping the living")] in 2009 and passed an official resolution supporting a more inclusive memorial. “To say somebody who was shot in a battle is more deserving to be put on the wall than someone who was flying into that combat zone who crashes is just absurd,” Roesch said. - Geoff Ziezulewicz reporting

Does a servicemember's suicide qualify him as a combat casualty?
Geoff Ziezulewicz Stars and Stripes USA June 3, 2010

Jose Velez, left, and his little brother, Andrew, back home, the last time they saw each other. Army Spc. Jose Velez died in combat in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004. Andrew was also deployed there and escorted his brother's remains home, something their older sister Monica believe led Andrew to take his life in Afghanistan in 2006. Photo courtesy of Monica Velez

Monica Velez sees no difference in the deaths of her brothers, Jose and Andrew. They both died in an Army uniform while serving their country. The American Legion doesn’t see it that way. At the Lubbock Area Veterans Memorial in Texas, Army Cpl. Jose A. Velez’s name is inscribed on the black granite wall honoring local residents killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jose, 23, was killed Nov. 13, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq. His little brother, Spc. Andrew Velez, 22, took his own life in Afghanistan in 2006. Despite Monica Velez’s pleas, American Legion Post 575 refuses to add Andrew’s name to the wall. “He’s probably in a better place and doesn’t care about it, but he worked for that recognition,” she said. Every three or four months, when she asks the group to reconsider, she gets the same answer: Andrew doesn’t belong there. ... The Velez family is welcome to buy a commemorative brick for $125, said Jerry Dickson, a member of the legion’s board of directors. But that black granite wall is only for combat deaths. Andrew Velez “had a choice,” Dickson said. “He took his own life. His brother did not. He was taken by the enemy. All of them up there lost their lives to the enemy.” There is no military guidance regarding what kind of deaths can be memorialized. Such decisions are left to local groups and military communities, decisions sometimes colored by personal views on suicide. ...

While the military has taken steps to remove the stigma of mental health issues, such efforts remain a work in progress, according to Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, director of Purdue University’s Military Family Research Institute. “There is this stigma still about suicides in our society,” she said. “People are worried about what other people might think.” Families of those who commit suicide or die in other noncombat incidents feel neglected and worry their loved one’s sacrifice won’t be remembered. “They often will say we worry she’ll be completely forgotten because she didn’t die in the war,” Neiberger-Miller said, referring to a case involving an airman who died in an airplane accident. “That’s the same case for suicides.” ...

Related: Father fights to get son's name on memorial
Geoff Ziezulewicz Stars and Stripes USA June 3, 2010

Marine Lance Cpl. Darrell Schumann in Iraq before his death in January 2005. Schumann, 25, died when the helicopter he was in crashed. Since 2008, his father has fought to get his son's name included on a war memorial in Richmond, Va. The board that oversees the memorial claims it is only for those killed in combat. Photo courtesy of Rick Schumann

The families of servicemembers who die by suicide are not the only ones who struggle to have their loved ones remembered. Rick Schumann’s 25-year-old son, Marine Lance Cpl. Darrell J. Schumann, had just finished fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, when he died on Jan. 26, 2005. He was en route to the Syrian border when the helicopter he was in crashed. In Virginia, where his family lives, the names of those who lost their lives in combat are inscribed on the Shrine of Memory at the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond.

Since learning in 2008 that his son’s name wouldn’t appear on the shrine, Schumann has waged a war of his own. He’s fighting to add the names of his son and about 30 others who have been banned because theirs were noncombat deaths. “They said it was because they weren’t killed in action, they were only killed in accidents,” he said. “I was very angry, not only for the fact my son wasn’t on there but for the 30 or so other names that weren’t up there.” Schumann researched the memorial, which goes back to World War II, and found that it included noncombat deaths from previous wars. Of the nearly 12,000 names inscribed there, at least 1,900 — roughly one in six — were noncombat-related deaths, according to an analysis that The Virginian-Pilot newspaper did after talking to Schumann. Still, members of the memorial board — a mix of state legislators and appointed officials — maintain that the memorial was intended only for combat deaths. “There’s guys that died on horseback” on the wall, Schumann said. “There’s guys that died in airplane crashes, guys that died drowning. There’s even a suicide on the wall.” The memorial board told Schumann that they were following protocol, which allows only combat deaths from Iraq and Afghanistan to be included. ...

Agricultural chemicals destroy the soil's natural ability to store and process carbon. Chemicals poison the air, water, and soil and our food. Powerful vested interests have a stake in the status quo.

The government says that consuming pesticides in low amounts doesn't harm you, but some studies show an association between pesticides and health problems such as cancer, attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder and nervous system disorders and say exposure could weaken immune systems. ... Some doctors warn that children's growing brains are the most vulnerable to pesticides in food. "A kid's brain goes through extraordinary development, and if pesticides get into the brain, it can cause damage," said Dr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. ... "To the extent you can afford to do so, [parents] should simply buy organic, because there have been some very good studies that shows people who eat mostly organic food reduce 95 percent of pesticides [in their body] in two weeks," Landrigan said. - CNN reporting

There is an inherent uncertainty in determining which substances are safe and which are not, and when their risks outweigh their benefits. Toxicity studies are difficult, because BPA and other, similar chemicals can have multiple effects on the body. Moreover, we are exposed to scores of them in a lifetime, and their effects in combination or in sequence might be very different from what they would be in isolation. - Jerome Groopman

Dorothy Felix watches an EPA crew gather samples for testing in Mossville, Louisiana. "This is a very important day. It's a day that should have come a long time ago," she says. Photo: CNN. After years of arguing by Mossville, Louisiana, residents that they live in a toxic area, their town is now investigated for possible federal cleanup. See Toxic town's advocate sees victory ahead

CNN special report: Toxic America

The plastic panic: How worried should we be about everyday chemicals?
Jerome Groopman The New Yorker USA May 31, 2010

Bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, may be among the world’s most vilified chemicals. The compound, used in manufacturing polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins, is found in plastic goggles, face shields, and helmets; baby bottles; protective coatings inside metal food containers; and composites and sealants used in dentistry. As animal studies began to show links between the chemical and breast and prostate cancer, early-onset puberty, and polycystic ovary syndrome, consumer groups pressured manufacturers of reusable plastic containers, like Nalgene, to remove BPA from their products. Warnings went out to avoid microwaving plasticware or putting it in the dishwasher.

On May 6th, the President’s Cancer Panel issued a report deploring the rising number of carcinogens released into the environment—including BPA—and calling for much more stringent regulation and wider awareness of their dangers. The panel advised President Obama “to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our Nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.” Dr. LaSalle Leffall, Jr., the chairman of the panel, said in a statement, “The increasing number of known or suspected environmental carcinogens compels us to action, even though we may currently lack irrefutable proof of harm.” ...

[Frederica Perera is a professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.] Perera’s finding that chemicals like PAH, which can also be a component of air pollution, are passed from mother to child during pregnancy has now been replicated for more than two hundred compounds. These include PCBs, chemical coolants that were banned in the United States in 1979 but have persisted in the food chain; BPA and phthalates, used to make plastics more pliable, which leach out of containers and mix with their contents; pesticides used on crops and on insects in the home; and some flame retardants, which are often applied to upholstery, curtains, and other household items. Fetuses and newborns lack functional enzymes in the liver and other organs that break down such chemicals, and animal studies in the past several decades have shown that these chemicals can disrupt hormones and brain development. Some scientists believe that they may promote chronic diseases seen in adulthood such as diabetes, atherosclerosis, and cancer. There is some evidence that they may have what are called epigenetic effects as well, altering gene expression in cells, including those which give rise to eggs and sperm, and allowing toxic effects to be passed on to future generations. In 1998, Perera initiated a program at Columbia to investigate short- and long-term effects of environmental chemicals on children, and she now oversees one of the largest and longest-standing studies of a cohort of mothers and newborns in the United States. ...

'Dirty dozen' produce carries more pesticide residue, group says
Danielle Dellorto CNN USA June 1, 2010

If you're eating non-organic celery today, you may be ingesting 67 pesticides with it, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group. The group, a nonprofit focused on public health, scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue. Most alarming are the fruits and vegetables dubbed the "Dirty Dozen," which contain 47 to 67 pesticides per serving. These foods are believed to be most susceptible because they have soft skin that tends to absorb more pesticides. "It's critical people know what they are consuming," the Environmental Working Group's Amy Rosenthal said. "The list is based on pesticide tests conducted after the produce was washed with USDA high-power pressure water system. The numbers reflect the closest thing to what consumers are buying at the store." The group suggests limiting consumption of pesticides by purchasing organic for the 12 fruits and vegetables. "You can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80 percent by buying the organic version of the Dirty Dozen," Rosenthal said. ...

Apples are among the fruits and vegetables dubbed the "Dirty Dozen," which contain 47 to 67 pesticides per serving.

The organic food solution
Women's Health Magazine USA March 2010

Long before organic food was a fashionable eco-trend, J.I. Rodale—who in 1930 founded Rodale Inc., publisher of Women's Health—began cultivating the organic movement. In 1942, he launched Organic Farming and Gardening magazine, and five years later, he created a nonprofit (now known as the Rodale Institute) to research the benefits of organic agriculture. J.I.'s son, Robert Rodale, was one of the first people to recognize the need for getting the USDA organic certification in place so the public can trust that when a food is labeled "organic," it truly is.

Eighty years after the company's inception, Rodale's commitment to exploring the many benefits of eating organic food has never been stronger. This month, Maria Rodale, chairman and CEO of Rodale, publishes Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe. This excerpt from the book gives you a taste of how much healthier an organic life can be: Organic farming is better for the environment—the evidence is clear. And research has shown that it's more profitable and productive over the long term. So why hasn't every farmer switched to organic methods, especially if farming organically can also stop the climate crisis, save the limited oil resources for other uses, and eliminate the majority of the toxins from our soil and water?

Because first, attitudes must change. And that starts with us. To help you understand the issues and give you ammunition to talk about them with others, here are nine things you need to know. No spin, just the facts (OK, with a few opinions thrown in for good measure). ...

US Solicitor General Elena Kagan went to bat for Monsanto
Take Action With the Grassroots Netroots Alliance USA n.d.

Visit this page for its embedded links.

US Solicitor General Elena Kagan, President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court, is the most recent in a long line of pro-biotech Obama appointees who include USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, National Institute of Food and Agriculture director Roger Beachy, FDA senior adviser on food safety Michael Taylor, USTR Agricultural Negotiator Islam Siddiqui, and USAID director Rajiv Shah.

As Solicitor General, Kagan submitted a friend of the court brief to the Supreme Court in favor of Monsanto’s appeal in Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms. Monsanto is trying to get the Supreme Court to force genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa onto the market, despite passionate opposition from organic consumers and farmers, and even though the USDA never did a proper Environmental Impact Statement. Geerston Seed Farms made the case that the USDA should have considered the fact that GE alfalfa would permanently contaminate their GE-free alfalfa seed. In 2007, a California US District Court agreed with Geerston, effectively banning Monsanto’s GE alfalfa. As Solicitor General, Kagan is supposed to represent the interests of the American people in matters that come before the Supreme Court. Instead, she went to bat for Monsanto. ...

Court nominees, but, given recent evidence that genetically engineered food causes sterility and infant mortality, and the damage Monsanto's RoundUp is doing, creating herbicide-resistant super weeds and ravaging the root systems of Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" plants, Kagan's position on agriculture policy has never been more important. President Obama's pick is even more troubling in light of a White House panel's warning that consumers should go organic to avoid the carcinogenic pesticides that lace conventional and genetically engineered food. ...

Provocative and groundbreaking, Slow Death by Rubber Duck reveals how the living of daily life creates a toxic soup inside each of us. Studies have shown that significant levels of toxic substances can leach out of commonplace items in our homes and workplaces. How do these toxins make their way inside us and what impact do they have on our health? And more importantly, what can we do about them? Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie, two of Canada's leading environmental activists, tackle these questions head on.

Kiss me goodbye and write me while I'm gone goodbye my sweetheart hello Vietnam

America has heard the bugle call and you know it involves us one and all
I don't suppose that war will ever end there's fighting that will break us up again
Goodbye my darling hello Vietnam a hill to take a battle to be won
Kiss me goodbye and write me while I'm gone goodbye my sweetheart hello Vietnam

A ship is waiting for us at the dock America has trouble to be stopped
We must stop communism in that land
Or freedom will start slipping through our hands
Goodbye my darling...

I hope and pray someday the world will learn
That fires we don't put out will bigger burn
We must save freedom now at any cost or someday our own freedom will be lost
Kiss me goodbye and write me while I'm gone. Goodbye my sweetheart, Hello Vietnam.

- "Hello, Vietnam." Written, recorded and performed by Johnnie Wright. Billboard Hot Country Singles number-one single, October 23, 1965 – November 6, 1965

Right: USMC Lance Corporal Ralph H. McWilliams in Vietnam, November 1967, equipped with M1961 web gear, Ka-bar knife, and LRP rucksack. (That head? Working dogs were used heavily in the Vietnam war. That's scout dog, Major, by McWilliams' side. A scout dog is trained to alert his troops to the presence of the enemy, but not to bark and tell the enemy where the dog's troops are. The detection of strangers is signaled by the dog in different ways but not by barking.) After action reports reveal that Major was WIA in July 1969. Semper fi, Major. Happy you survived your wounds. But now, for sure, RIP.

How I died in Viet Nam
George Evans New American Media USA April 30, 2010

April 30, 2010 marked the thirty fifth anniversary of the day the U.S. war in Viet Nam officially ended. It was not a clean break. It’s a day famous for, among other things, a photograph of the last U.S. helicopter ready to lift from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, dozens of people crowding a ladder like stairway up to the landing pad. We can tell they won’t make it up the stairs let alone fit in that tiny aircraft. It’s a poignant, lasting symbol for U.S. meddling in the affairs of other countries. By then, North Vietnamese troops had already invaded the city and were storming the presidential palace. Gerald Ford’s administration went to work conjuring lingo to convert defeat to victory for public consumption. A habit of deceit had applied to everything related to Viet Nam since John F. Kennedy, and is a major reason politicians have been forced to trick Americans into agreeing with U.S. military interventions ever since. The U.S. Viet Nam War was the mother of all deceptions—George Orwell would have had a field day with its euphemisms. Current warspeak phrases like “collateral damage” and “asymmetric warfare,” describing war crimes in Iraq or Afghanistan, are right out of the U.S. Viet Nam War playbook.

The war ended five years earlier than that day for me, but “ended” is yet another nuanced word where that war is concerned, just like the name of the war itself. “Vietnam” Americans call it, a synecdoche for everything related to the war, but which doesn’t distinguish between the war and the country, the name of which is two words, “Viet” and “Nam.” We invented the word Vietnam, and it has always bugged me, compelling me to mention and correct it at every turn. Actually, I died in Viet Nam. I’ve lived a rich and varied life the past forty years, but back in early 1970, I never made it home like I was supposed to. At least the me that was did not; that is, the one who died in Vietnam, Viet Nam. ...

Don’t get me wrong. Confessing I died in Vietnam is not meant to demean the memory of thousands of Americans (some of them dear friends) who never actually came back from Viet Nam except in coffins or on lists of the disappeared and missing, or millions of Vietnamese (some of them dear friends) who did not survive our twenty years plus presence in their country (though if we count the first American soldier who died there, in 1945, we lasted thirty miserable years). When my walking, talking living corpse returned from Vietnam (the war), Pittsburgh was hardly the city I left four years earlier. Plenty of flags were flying back then, but a lot of native sons had died in the interim, and the war’s dark face was exposed. To the city’s credit, I discovered an army of hippies and antiwar activists, though I was dead and not much interested until my corpse reanimated almost automatically by plugging into the hippie subculture. It was suddenly (the world) all about weed, women, and rock & roll, and I didn’t care if I never heard the word (or words) Viet Nam again, not ever. Period. Unfortunately, that was impossible. ...

"The most terrifying sound in the world is not the scream of a descending bomb nor the roar of a charging lion, but rather a click when you expected to hear a bang." - Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996), a famous American professional hunter and author. The .470 Capstick rifle cartridge bears his name.

US Army PFC John Henson (Columbia, South Carolina) of the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, cleans his XM16E1 rifle while on an operation 30 miles west of Kontum, Vietnam. 12 July 1966. As fewer and fewer people these days know, the original M16 was a bitter flop in Vietnam, prone to chronic jamming. A Marine squad was found dead near Khe Sahn with all their weapons jammed and cleaning rods down the bore.

The following story is one that I tell with some trepidation, since my experience(s) with the "Matty Mattel Mouse Guns" were not pleasant ones. In this time and place far separated from the grim reality of kill or be killed, the bitter memories of the "little black rifle that wouldn’t shoot" have started blending into the mists of long forgotten firefights. Some of the bitterness of those days of long ago will no doubt color the story somewhat, but in order for the reader to understand the story from the perspective of those of us who experienced the frustration, this is probably unavoidable. There seemed to be a callous disregard for the lives and well being of those individuals who willingly fought and often died using a seriously flawed rifle. This is their story then, for those who went in harm's way with the XM16E1, and most of all, for those who didn’t come back. May their sacrifices never be forgotten. Like most things, the reality of being armed with an ineffective weapon was of little import to those who were not risking their lives on a daily basis. - USMC small arms expert Dick Culver writing about the first fielding of the M16 rifle family ("The Saga of the M16 in Vietnam"). Dick Culver recalls his unit found a VC document that urged the guerrillas to salvage any weapon they could from the battlefield, with the exception of "the little black rifle".

Flash forward to the present day: Rage against the machine gun
Adam Weinstein Mother Jones USA May 24, 2010

Photo: US Army Staff Sgt. Liesl Marelli, Colorado National Guard/Flickr. Visit this page for its embedded links.

Thousands of frontline troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have been relying on World War I-era machine guns to survive combat—and as the weapons wear out, US contractors have been shipping the soldiers defective replacement parts, a Pentagon investigation has found. The cash loss doesn't amount to much—at most, $11 million—but the faulty parts left those thousands of soldiers in peril, the Department of Defense inspector general’s office (DODIG) said in a report released in January. The Pentagon's logistics agency, which was responsible for the gun-parts contracts, "is not providing effective customer support to the warfighter and is missing opportunities to identify contractors with performance problems and to obtain adequate compensation for deficient parts," the report concluded. That investigation—which is accessible on the DODIG's website (PDF) but has received little mention in the press—is one of several examples of contractor waste and abuse likely to be raised today at a hearing of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Washington, a source familiar with the commission’s agenda told Mother Jones.

The machine gun in question has been an American fixture for nearly a century: The M2 .50-caliber Browning, an 84-pound behemoth called "Ma Deuce" by generations of soldiers, entered military mass production in the 1930s, but versions of it have been around in some version since it was first designed by gunsmith John Browning in 1918. Nowadays, the heavy-duty weapon is most often mounted on military autos, from Humvees to the more heavily armored Bradley and Stryker fighting vehicles. As of March 2009, there were about 32,000 M2 machine guns in the military, according to the IG report. Roughly 10,000 of those are in the field in Afghanistan or Iraq. The M2’s longevity proves it's a tough, effective weapon, but its hundreds of moving parts wear down under heavy use. "The timing on this gun is just like the timing on a car, where you have a timing belt and a piston," Major Mike Pottratz, an Army weapons systems specialist, recently told Army Times. "If your timing belt breaks or is off…the gun will cease to function."

After receiving a bevy of complaints from field soldiers about the scarcity and poor quality of replacement parts—backorders took eight months, on average, to reach the war zone—DOD inspectors took a look at the materiel contractors were providing Army units. They tested 21 different spare parts as well as a 98-part kit, all of which were deemed "critical application items"—parts that are "essential to the preservation of life in emergencies…the failure of which would adversely affect the accomplishment of a military operation." The conclusion: "Contractors provided at least 7,100 nonconforming M2 gun parts on 24 contracts," the report stated. "As a result, increased risk was put on the warfighter." ...

Topic: Living