Saturday, November 16, 2013

Sustainable Housing

Just ran across this site on sustainable housing. It looks great and there is a school where you can learn more about the issues facing this movement. Enjoy!


Thursday, November 7, 2013

Vanishing Tribes Before They Pass Away


Enjoy these beautiful photographs of people...tribes...that live today much like they always have. They are captured here while they are still intact. Nothing is promised tomorrow.

http://www.boredpanda.org/vanishing-tribes-before-they-pass-away-jimmy-nelson/

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Films For Action Link

I just found a very valuable treasure. Check out this website and watch all kinds of video and documentaries on all kinds of topics. What a find!


http://www.filmsforaction.org/

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Journey of Man...

Interested in genealogy and where you came from? Check out this video...

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Damanhur's Singing Plant

I have been called a tree hugger most of my adult life. And now you might begin to understand how humans and plantlife can communicate - through the universal language of the cosmos - music!
 
Enjoy!
 
 
 

Health Benefits of Medical Cannabis

"If  people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines to take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."

Thomas Jefferson

Do you suffer from pain, epilepsy, migraines, depression, sleep depravation, loss of appetite, nausea, anxiety, Parkinson's disease, Crohn's disease, Alzheimer's Disease, MS or PTSD, or any of the common diseases that Americans have?


Please watch this video "Medical Cannabis And Its Impact On Human Health - A Cannabis Documentary." It busts the tired old myths of cannabis use and reveals all the health benefits to man. Thanks to Green Med Info TV and Sayer Ji.

Friday, September 6, 2013

American Farmers Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court...Sept. 5, 2013

PRESS RELEASE
9/5/2013
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jim Gerritsen
(207) 429-9765
Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association
American Farmers Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court to Seek Protection from Genetic Contamination and Invalidate Monsanto's Patents on Genetically Engineered Crops
 
New York - September 5, 2013 - A group of 73 American organic and conventional family farmers, seed businesses and public advocacy groups asked the U.S. Supreme Court today to hear their case against Monsanto Company challenging the chemical and biotech seed giant's patents on genetically engineered seed. In Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) et al v. Monsanto, the plaintiffs have been forced to sue preemptively to protect themselves from being accused of patent infringement should their fields ever become contaminated by Monsanto's genetically engineered seed, something Monsanto has done to others in the past.

In a June 10th ruling earlier this year, a three-judge panel at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that a group of organic and otherwise non-GMO farmer and seed company plaintiffs are not entitled to bring a lawsuit to protect themselves from Monsanto's transgenic seed patents "because Monsanto has made binding assurances that it will not 'take legal action against growers whose crops might inadvertently contain traces of Monsanto biotech genes (because, for example, some transgenic seed or pollen blew onto the grower's land).'"

"While the Court of Appeals correctly found that the farmers and seed sellers had standing to challenge Monsanto's invalid patents, it incorrectly found that statements made by Monsanto's lawyers during the lawsuit mooted the case," said Daniel Ravicher, Executive Director of the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) and lead counsel to the plaintiffs in OSGATA et al v. Monsanto. "As a result, we have asked the Supreme Court to take the case and reinstate the right of the plaintiffs to seek full protection from Monsanto's invalid transgenic seed patents."
 
The Petition filed today by lawyers for the family farmers may be found here.

The plaintiffs brought the pre-emptive case against Monsanto in March 2011 and specifically seek to defend themselves from nearly two dozen of Monsanto's most aggressively asserted patents on GMO seed. They were forced to act pre-emptively to protect themselves from Monsanto's abusive lawsuits, fearing that if GMO seed contaminates their property despite their efforts to prevent such contamination, Monsanto will sue them for patent infringement.

"We have been farming for almost forty years and we have never wanted anything to do with Monsanto," said Jim Gerritsen, an organic seed farmer in Maine and President of lead Plaintiff OSGATA.  "We believe we have the right to farm and grow good food the way we choose.  We don't think it's fair that Monsanto can trespass onto our farm, cjim gerritsenontaminate and ruin our crops and then sue us for infringing on their patent rights.  We don't want one penny from Monsanto. American farmers deserve their day in Court so we can prove to the world Monsanto's genetically engineered patents are invalid and that farmers deserve protection from Monsanto's abuse."

In the case, the plaintiffs are asking the courts to declare that if organic farmers are ever contaminated by Monsanto's genetically engineered seed, they need not fear also being accused of patent infringement. One reason justifying this result is that Monsanto's patents on genetically engineered seed are invalid because they don't meet the "usefulness" requirement of patent law, according to Ravicher. Evidence cited in the plaintiffs' court filings proves that genetically engineered seed has negative economic and health effects, while the promised benefits of genetically engineered seed - increased production and decreased herbicide use - are false.

As Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote in 1817, to be patentable, an invention must not be "injurious to the well-being, good policy, or sound morals of society," and "a new invention to poison people ... is not a patentable invention."  Because transgenic seed, and in particular Monsanto's transgenic seed, is "injurious to the well-being, good policy, or sound morals of society" and threatens to "poison people," Monsanto's transgenic seed patents are all invalid.

With the rapid adoption of Monsanto's genetically engineered seed technology, America's farmers have been faced with a rampant rise in superweeds, with more than 49% of U.S. farmers reporting glyphosate-resistant weeds on their farm in 2012, up from 34% that farmers reported in 2011. In addition, scientists are reporting the growing failures of Monsanto's genetically engineered insecticide-corn, with reports from scientists in the Midwestern corn belt states detailing the rise of super insects becoming resistant to the genetically engineered Bt toxin, leaving farmers vulnerable to the voracious corn rootworm, the number one threat to corn farmers.

"For the past twenty years, Monsanto has used its political and financial power to foist a deeply flawed technology on America's farmers, consistently underestimating the real risks of genetic engineering while putting America's farmers, the environment and the public in harm's way simply in the name of profit," said Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now!, a grassroots movement of more than 650,000 farmers and citizens. "As the leading arbiters of justice in the U.S., it behooves the Supreme Court to hear this important case to protect America's farmers from abusive patent infringement lawsuits and invalidate Monsanto's flawed patents as their products have been shown to be damaging to human health and the environment and failed to live up to the marketing hype."
 
Complete background on the OSGATA et al v. Monsanto lawsuit is available here. 
 
About OSGATA: The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association is a not-for-profit agricultural organization comprised of organic farmers, seed growers, seed businesses and supporters. OSGATA is committed to developing, promoting, and protecting organic seed and it's growers in order to ensure the organic community has access to excellent quality organic seed free of contaminants and adapted to the diverse needs of local organic agriculture. www.osgata.org 

What Does the Farm Bureau Have to Hide? | Food & Water Watch

What Does the Farm Bureau Have to Hide? | Food & Water Watch

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Joan Baez - Full 1965 Concert

 
In 1965 I was attending Coalinga Junior College in California. I was 19 and my boyfriend at the time was learning guitar. We would sing these songs by the hour. How nice to see that I can hear these songs today via You Tube.
 
Can you say hootenanny? We had a few in 1965. Sitting in the dorm, singing along.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Pagan To Be Firebombed Into Oblivion


Former residents, environmentalists and scientists are asking why any more lands, especially unique islands, should be bombed into oblivion. Read about it here. Then sign the petition.

Texas Town Goes Without Water

This is just the beginning...the water in our country is for sale and big corporations are taking it and buying it up. Fracking for fuel is not the answer to our energy problems. Try living without water.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Animals and Genetically Engineered Feed

"I suspect that one day future generations will remember the last three decades as a ridiculous age in American agriculture. This has been an age during which too many human beings treated animals and children like guinea pigs, feeding them genetically modified, chemically coated, antibiotic resistant experiments, despite the overwhelming evidence that these foods are serious risk factors for illness and disease. In today's world of widely accessible research and technological advances, the ability to produce abundant amounts of food without threatening biodiversity and our basic biological rights should be an expectation, not a goal."


Leah Dunham
America's Two-headed Pig




Torturing Animals With Monsanto's
Genetically Engineered Feed
 
Published in Truth-out
By Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers Association

"A Culture that views pigs as inanimate piles of protoplasmic structure to be manipulated however cleverly the human mind can conceive will view its citizens the same way - and other cultures."

 
We associate food with at most, pleasure, at the very least, survival. It's not too different for animals. Lambs turned out on new grass move "quickly over certain grasses to get to others – to nosh on clover and mustard grass, avoiding horse nettle and fescue along the way," writes Dan Barber in A Chef Speaks Out. Wild pigs, capable of seeking out the nutrients they need, "enjoy eating nuts, roots, fruits, mushrooms, bugs, rabbits, and, occasionally, dead animals."

But what happens when animals are confined in cramped, filthy environments and force-fed monoculture diets of genetically modified corn and soy?

A lot can happen. Calves are born too weak to walk, with enlarged joints and limb deformities. Piglets experience rapidly deteriorating health, a "failure to thrive" so severe that they start breaking down their own tissues and organs – self-cannibalizing – to survive. Many animals suffer from weak, brittle bones that easily fracture. Dairy cows develop mastitis, a painful udder infection. Beef cattle develop liver abscesses and an excruciating condition referred to as "twisted gut."

It all adds up to a lot of misery for animals unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of industrial agriculture's Big GMO Experiment.

The spotlight on animal rights in CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) is typically focused on cramped spaces and blatantly inhumane treatment. But some scientists, farmers and veterinarians are talking about another form of animal abuse: stuffing animals with feed grown from genetically engineered crops drenched in glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's RoundUp.

What they've uncovered should give us all pause. Because the symptoms veterinarians and researchers have observed in animals are not unlike many of the chronic, and increasingly prevalent, health problems plaguing humans today. Digestive disorders. Damaged organs. Infertility. Weak immune systems. Chronic depression.

"We've got a real mess," says Dr. Art Dunham, an Iowa veterinarian who has treated farm animals for several decades. Dunham is a staunch believer that GMO crops are wreaking havoc with the health of animals and humans. His daughter, Leah Dunham, who tagged along with her father on many a farm visit over the years, recently wrote America's Two-Headed Pig . Drawing on her father's clinical notes, and the work of scientists like Dr. Don Huber,  professor emeritus in plant pathology at Purdue University, Leah Dunham outlines some of the ways in which humans are adding to the suffering of farm animals by feeding them a glyphosate-tainted, GMO diet.

Leah Dunham would like to see the CAFO model drastically overhauled or abandoned. Her father believes it's more realistic to tackle the issue of GMO feed without attacking CAFOs. But father and daughter agree that the problems associated with today's industrial agriculture model extend beyond the health and well-being of animals:
"My father has pored over thousands of research papers in attempts to remedy the underlying causes of the illnesses described in this book. His work has embodied a commitment to healthy lands, creatures, and farms, as well as the hard work necessary to sustain them. After years of listening to him talk about his attempts to solve reoccurring health problems, I realized that most people don't have a clue as to how modern disease complexities affect farm animals. We both hope that this book will help all medical professionals, farmers, and consumers better address the true roots of various medical conditions, including nutrient deficiencies, clostridial infections, diabetes, and Parkinsons disease."
Leah Dunham says consumers are alarmed by news reports that focus on outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. But most are unaware that industrial GMO crops are "damaging our health in other, far more insidious ways – among them, by damaging the health of animals raised for food."

Read more here:







Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Little Black Boy Wonder: A Tribute To Trayvon Martin


Beautifully written and spoken...

Turning Plastic Into Oil

 
Japanese man designs a machine that will turn plastic litter into oil. Best thing is that it is affordable to operate and it will curb our CO2 emissions. This looks promising!

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

GMOs and Glyphosate Correlated With Declining Health

glyphosate
















To read several excellent articles about research that correlates the use of Glyphosate during food production and increased health issues for people of all ages, please visit Nancy Swanson's website here. And don't miss Stephanie Seneff's power point presentation  "Glyphosate: The Elephant In The Room" here.



President Obama's Economic Vision

Let's hear what the President has to say today... this is his economic vision for America.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs


What if ...

"What if our religion was each other
If our practice was our life
If prayer, our words.
What if the temple was the earth
If forests were our church
If holy water - the rivers, lakes, and oceans.
What if meditation was our relationships
If the Teacher was life
If wisdom was self-knowledge
If love was the center of our being."

~Ganga White, for the Rainforest Benefit, New York City, April 1998