Our World and Everything in It

It’s really weird how getting sick can break a person’s momentum. I was used to writing about 5 blogs per week, writing an essay or two along with that, and working on a book of all things. I get sick and bam, I’m perfectly contented to lay around in my jammies and watch reruns of “Cheers, Frazier, Just Shoot Me, Three’s Company, Reba…” and makeover programs for houses and people. I can see how America slips right into a comfort zone by not listening to one iota of news, not turning on any intelligent programs, not picking up Time Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, or Rolling Stone, or any of the myriad of environmental stuff like I get daily in the mail. It’s really pretty easy to be blind and numb to the world. But I did check my e-mail and that served as a pretty big tell all. I saw that the wolves were de-listed from the protected list. I immediately read about the backlash from doing that. Anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 phone calls lit up the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and big organizations like Earthjustice have already moved to take that decision to court. Gotta love all those organizations I’ve listed as links. They are on it immediately. I got e-mails that said “the fight has just begun!” I hope Earthjustic ties that decision up until Bush/Cheney are out of office.  

I got an e-mail back from Representative Dingell about the wolves too. Both he and Carl Levin don’t just e-mail back, they usually e-mail back some pretty good information about new bills that just hit the house or senate floor that pertain to whatever subject I’ve written about. For instance: Representative Dingell is one of the authors of the Endangered Species Act, and he’s very concerned over the decision to de-list wolves. He went on to say that on March 9, 2007, Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced H.R. 1464, the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act of 2007, which would assist in the conservation of rare felids and rare canids, including gray wolves, by supporting and providing financial resources for conservation programs. H.R. 1464 has been referred to the House Natural Resources Committee. He assured me that while he did not sit on this Committee, he would take my comments into consideration should the bill come before him. Boy it takes a long time for a bill to move.  

As I went on through my e-mail I found that Senator Debbie Stabenow is one of a handful of legislators that is working out the details of our new Farm Bill. Defenders of Wildlife wanted their members to call her about protecting habitat for the Swift Fox and other endangered species with the Farm Bill. Well since she’s a Michigan Senator and I found out she’s on the Farm Bill committee, sick or not, I called Lansing. This Farm Bill is so important to finally put a moratorium on those stinking CAFO’s, diversify our crops more, to quit putting high fructose corn syrup in all of our food, to reward farmers for good stewardship of their land like crop rotation, organic farming, and give subsidies to farmer’s to use part of their land for wind or solar energy so that if their crops suffer due to poor weather they still have income from alternative energy sources. Yep I spouted off all of it. Hey they want to hear from us. Well maybe not Bush/Cheney, or Kempthorne, Secy. of the Interior because so far they’ve paid little to no attention to petitions or phone calls about the wolves or aerial hunting. Some of the petitions I signed were for over 25,000 signatures, yet they turned a blind eye and ear to us anyway. Figures.  

All in all I got quite a lot of news just reading my e-mail. I see that Arctic drilling is still threatening the polar bear habitat and that conservation groups are arming for that battle while Bush continues to stall on whether or not to list the polar bear as an endangered species. Like I said before oil vs. polar bear, guess who’s going to die, unless we can keep the oil men at bay until they’re out of office. It’s going to be quite a year of fighting for the environment since the last leg of this administration is still 10 months long. 

The last e-mail I read today got me off my duff to start blogging again. I was reading Motley Fool about investments and there is a new kind of nuclear plant that is being built. I’ve never heard much about this type of plant and it peaked my interest. It seems there are plans for over 20 of these across the country. I’m going to read up on it and blog about it tomorrow. “They,” whoever they are, claim that these plants don’t use as much uranium fuel and there is less spent fuel in the end. My husband said that he read “they,” whoever they are, are digging out areas in the Nevada desert to dump the spent fuel from nuclear reactors “they” plan on building. Just something else I’ve got to know about, along with that deep well “they” are digging somewhere in Michigan to inject CO2 into. You know, I’m starting to feel better already.  There is a bunch of new stuff happening I just have to know about. A little vacation from the news is kind of nice, but I guess I’m just too curious, and a whole lot mistrustful of things that happen when I’m not paying attention to ever give up my interest in our world and just about everything in it.

I wrote a blog called “Pig Poo Who Knew” about the meatpacking business and CAFO’s when I read Rolling Stone’s incredible expose by Jeff Tietz called “Boss Hog.” It was such an eye opener about the cruelty of industrialized farming that I took a look at the horrid conditions in which chickens are raised too. http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/?p=100.  We seldom see any documentaries about the plight of farm animals on network television in the U.S. I presume it’s because of the food industry lobby. But in Great Britain it’s another story.

I ran across an article on Reuter’s online that states: “McDonalds sees animal welfare gaining ground in the UK.” McDonalds is anticipating that a British documentary airing on TV over there will really make a difference to farm animals particularly poultry. Admittedly, 91% of all the British know nothing about their food farms. In that case, insight into how the hens are raised should arouse quite a lot of concern. We don’t know all that much over here either and probably don’t know that chicken outsold beef at US McDonalds last year. So much for the Big Mac, and Quarter Pounder. The Reuter’s article stated that: “McDonald’s in Britain has served only free range eggs during the last 10 years,” and that “the company was currently looking at providing canopy cover for chickens to encourage hens to range more.” UK McDonalds is also looking into pig-rearing practices. It seems the poor pigs are confined, and distressed in such close proximity all the time they chew each other’s tails. The tails end up getting docked. There are infection issues I imagine, and all would be unnecessary if the pigs were raised humanely in the first place. Concern for their tails is a start. This is an intelligent animal also remember?  McDonalds UK said they don’t mind the added costs of humane farming if it served the public well. Everything comes back to the consumer. It’s our responsibility no matter how hard we try to shrug it off because if we don’t buy, things change. It’s that simple.

The actual UK documentary about the horrific way chickens are raised was highlighted in “The Independent” UK news and showcased on a website called “Chicken Out, Campaign for a Free Range Future.” “Chicken Out” is kind of catchy isn’t it? The covert filming for the documentary was done by an animal welfare group called “Compassion in World Farming” or CIWF. The article said it was about the grim life inside a chicken coop for 25 to 50 THOUSAND chickens. Imagine the ammonia stench? That would knock you down. It also stated: “Britain’s RSPCA called on supermarkets to quit selling the mass produced chickens.” Go RSPCA!

The British documentary will air on mainstream British television and be given a boost by chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver. They want to highlight what food animals go through in order to keep prices down and mass production up, and that free range chickens and organic birds are the way to go if the industry is ever going to change. Imagine some of our stellar chefs hosting a show on NBC or Fox that would air the extremely bad conditions of farm animals perpetuated by one of our big, national food suppliers? Yeah, that’ll happen. 

So what’s wrong with our media? Sure I’ve caught many articles in magazines and documentaries on PBS, and subscription TV channels about the horrid conditions for our farm animals, but 20 million Americans don’t have subscription TV. The rest that do aren’t getting-in-your-face documentaries. Let’s face it, our news media is not going to upset a major lobby like big meatpacker, Smithfield Foods, unless it’s Rolling Stone magazine of course. So I have to say kudos to the UK and the spirit of revealing the unnecessary cruelty of the food business to the mainstream public in an effort to change, whether their food industry takes a hit or not.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL0447565920080104
http://www.chickenout.tv/news.html?newsid=67.

I just read a scathing report about concentrated efforts by the Bush administration to distort and obstruct scientific facts about global warming over the past 6 years. It’s called “Six Years of Deceit” by Tim Dickinson, in this month’s issue of Rolling Stone. It’s a must read if you are at all interested how badly we’ve been lied to. It does a good job detailing everything and everyone involved in this huge denial machine, beginning in 2001 to the present.

I think it’s criminal. Global warming will have dire consequences for every living thing on earth and in short order. Any attempt to stop the flow of information that could save millions of lives is simply criminal. There is no other way to look at it. If you venture to argue the point, just remember your argument when you can no longer take a shower when you want, when your energy usage is limited, when you are forced to go on a diet because of food shortages, when the whole western population of the U.S. begins to migrate toward states with clean water, and when having homeowners insurance means absolutely nothing because there have been so many disasters in this country, insurance policies can’t possibly pay up. I keep asking if we are ready to move over here in Michigan. We think it’s bad that everyone is leaving the state now. Wait till the entire country attempts to move here for the water.

It sounds far fetched, but 8 million people without homes are already wandering the earth right now. 8 million people are an awful lot of nomads, refugees, whatever we want to call them, but they are human beings without a place to stay. Our own country is not that far from this scenario, if we don’t get a grip on global warming. Because we live in the automobile state, the fight to save that industry is causing a backlash on efforts to move forward to save the planet. The latest energy bill gives the American auto industry 13 years to come up with cars that get 35 miles per gallon? Thirteen years? Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow are part of the stall this time and will be hearing from me. Let them know what you think about the dismally, disappointing energy bill. I know what I’m doing when I go shopping for a new hybrid next year. I’ll buy Japanese with a clear conscience. The Rolling Stone article revealed that Ford Motor Company was in on some of the policy making for global climate change policy along with the likes of Exxon Mobil people. It’s totally unethical. Ford has been whining about profit loss and their only going to lose more by not getting in the race at all. I’m seriously thinking of trading my stock next, because Ford reminds me of Jefferson schools.

It wasn’t that long ago in my school district, Jefferson Schools that I ran into the same type of sad story telling straight from the superintendent. The school was hurting for money and every cut the school could possibly make, had been made. But through the Freedom of Information Act, I was able to procure the salary and perks for the same superintendent with the sad story. His benefits revealed a completely different story. So every time I hear Ford Motor Company’s spokesman talk about the hurt put on the auto industry by global warming initiatives, I think of Jefferson schools. Once I saw an expose of Ford officials on the program 20/20, my doubts were confirmed. The same spokesperson for Ford that whines about the company’s financial situation, flies a company jet every weekend to his winter home in Palm Beach and back again to Detroit on Monday. Just how bad is Ford supposed to be hurting? Regular weekend travel in a company jet is not an example of a company that’s in dire straights. And what about GM’s latest claim that hydrogen fuel cell cars will be mass-produced by 2020? One car company seems to be moving ahead, and another is still whining, getting sympathy from our legislators, while still another, Chrysler, who produced hydrogen fueled busses for another country 3 years ago, simply sells out. There are three different scenarios for three different American car companies. Go figure.

There are so many unethical practices in this White House that I think people are immune to it. Most of the experts working on global warming in departments like the EPA, are linked to big oil, particularly Exxon Mobil. Writer Tim Dickinson did a thorough job showing an unethical trail from beginning to end. There is an easy to read chart, titled ” The climate Cabal” that introduces the “industry hatchet men who shaped Bush’s do-nothing policy on global warming.”
Of course, there can be no real dirt on this White House without Cheney, and Karl Rove. They are both ingrained in this very big cover up. I blogged about Cheney in the 2001 elections. His voting record consistently vetoes any clean air, or water initiatives in lieu of lovely things like trash dumps, or coal burners. His former supporters and even college roommates made statements that they had never met anyone that had lower empathy for his fellow human beings than Dick Cheney.

The article “Six Years of Deceit” is a must read:

 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15148655/the_secret_campaign_of_president_george_bushs_administration_to_deny_global.

If you prefer an easy to watch slide show on the subject, Rolling Stone has provided that also at the beginning of the page above. Just click on the links.