Seeds Of Destruction

This is not a fun book. This is a really scary book that, as much as I hate to say it, we all need to read. I don't want to focus on what I DON'T want, so it goes against the grain for me to take in all this negative information, but if we don't know what is being done wrong, we don't know what we need to fix. Just remember to then focus on a world where this kind of thing no longer exists, and let's GET THERE TOGETHER!

Seeds of Destruction

The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

by F. William Engdahl

Global Research, 2007 ISBN 978-0-937147-2-2

GLOBAL RESEARCH ONLINE AND MAIL ORDER US$17.00 plus s and h (includes taxes where applicable) (List Price US$24.95 plus taxes)

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. "Control the food and you control the people."

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical World of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

Engdahl's carefully argued critique goes far beyond the familiar controversies surrounding the practice of genetic modification as a scientific technique. The book is an eye-opener, a must-read for all those committed to the causes of social justice and World peace.

Water - this film is amazing!!!!

I get tired of people over using the word "Awesome" but folks, this movie is purely awesome. This can change the way you look at and think about water forever, and I dare say, for some, it may change how you view life on our planet! It is a feature length film, so it is over an hour, but let me tell you it is well worth every second, and the further it goes, the better it gets and the more important the information becomes! This truly has the potential of being transformational for our world. http://www.viddler.com/explore/ConspiracyFact/videos/73/

First post in SOooo long - sorry. Life rocks along. Just a quick note to say that if you think writing letters and signing petitions doesn't work, guess again. Especially when it involves a company that depends of a good public image for success. Below is a reply I just received from General Mills:

Dear Mr. Taylor

Thank you for contacting us to express your concern regarding the use of milk from cows treated with rBST/rBGH in our Yoplait yogurt products. We have listened to your concerns and are writing to inform you that Yoplait products no longer source milk from cows treated with rBST/rBGH.

Although the U.S. Food and Drub Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Institutes of Health remain fully confident in the safety of products made from milk sourced from cows treates with rBST, Yoplait took the initiative to change its milk sourcing to provide consumers with the option to choose a category-leading yogurt with milk produced by cows not treated with rBST/rBGH.

Thank you for expressing your concerns to us, we take our consumers views very seriously. Enclosed is a certificate for a FREE cup of Yoplait Yogurt as a token of our gratitude.

Please not that some but not all of our packages will indicate this change. Rest assured that all of our products, as of August1, 2009, meet this standard.

We hope uyou continue to enjoy Yoplait Yogurt.

Sincerely

The Yoplait Team

This is excellent news. As we have seen so many times before, once one company gets on the right path, others can be more readily persuaded to follow.

A City that ENDED Hunger!

I apologize for the lack of posts lately - I have been busy! This came across my desk and is very much worth passing along. This is an article written by Francis Moore Lappe, who wrote "Diet For A Small Planet". I learned about her by reading her foreword in Masanobu Fukuoka's book "The One Straw Revolution".

The third largest city in Brazil has literally ended hunger for all its citizens, and the school lunches are loaded with wonderfully fresh local produce - if they can do it, we can do it! http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/food-for-everyone/the-city-that-ended-hunger

“I knew we had so much hunger in the world. But what is so upsetting, what I didn’t know when I started this, is it’s so easy. It’s so easy to end it.”
Adriana Aranha, former manager in the city agency.

Garlic Barrier

I mentioned in an earlier post about using a garlic spray that was very effective, and several people have asked what that was. It is called Garlic Barrier and I bought it at a local Organic nursery near my home, but found it online as well at http://www.garlicbarrier.com/ . The site is very informative and allows you to order directly. The spray does wear off eventually after enough sprinkler watering or daily rain showers, but it is easy to apply and quite effective. I just use a Zep utility spray bottle that I bought at Home Depot, but depending on how much area you need to cover, the company has other suggestions. And this stuff is SUPER potent - much stronger than you'd expect!

I really appreciate the idea of "natural" means whereby we can coexist with all the critters and not have to resort to killing anything just to grow some food for ourselves. I don't mean to get into the whole vegetarian issue here, but more to the thinking that there is usually an orderly, sensible, and EASY way to do things, what the Chinese would say was the Tao - the natural way of going with the flow. Everything has within it its own nature, and it is through genuine understanding by all parties that we may be able to learn to stay out of each others way!

As I also mentioned in an earlier post, my friend Ingrid plants "deer friendly" plants at the edge of her property, then plants a sort of line of demarcation of plants the deer prefer to avoid. I don't want to scare anybody off here, but I am going to also mention that she adds her own intention to this action, clearly intending the desired effect as she does what she does. It works. I have been totally amazed using similar methods with our own Golden Retrievers, Rock and Jazz, and other Goldens that we have "fostered" for Golden Retriever Rescue of Atlanta (http://grra.com/index.shtml) . Let me just tell you it will change your whole concept of what dogs - and all animals, birds, and humans - are capable of understanding when it is properly communicated! See it in your mind as though it has already been successful, and leave that intention with it. Life sure gets to be fun when you allow yourself to think like a kid again!

Cobra Head Weeder and Cultivator

I just bought a fabulous tool! It's the Cobra Head Weeder and Cultivator! It REALLY works well! It came highly recommended, but sometimes what works well for one person can be a let down for me. I will go way out on a limb for this and tell you to ORDER ONE for yourself! I have seldom seen anything this simple be this effective!

It will cut through hard dirt so easy it will surprise you, it will get under any weed or "volunteer" that you might need to remove from your garden, it will just about replace every other hand tool you own! They call it "the best tool on earth" and I am not going to quibble. I even tried it on a small maple seedling - if you have ever tried to pull one of those by hand, you have known disappointment! The Cobra Head lifted it out of the ground like magic!

My friend Ingrid sells the short handled version at (at a slight discount!) at http://www.landscapingrevolution.com/shop_online/garden_tools.html . I went to the company's site and see that they just added a long handled version, with three choices in handle lengths for "stand up" gardening! I was already thinking of nifty ways to mount this to a longer handle! I guess I'll be ordering the longest one they have soon enough! http://www.cobrahead.com/cobrahead_tools_longhandle.cfm

Rick Bayless

I don't know how many others are into Food TV, but I watched the series that just ended, Top Chef Masters, which pitted many famous chefs against each other to win the top prize of $100,000 for the charity of their choice. Rick Bayless, owner of Frontera restaurant in Chicago, is one of my favorite TV Chefs because of his total passion for Mexican cooking - he really wants to show the world that Mexican cuisine belongs alongside French, Italian, Asian, and all other cuisines of merit - that it is not just about tacos and refried beans! But the reason he is one of my favorites is that within his passion and love of what he does, one also sees kindness and caring, a real gentleman, a class act.

Rick won, and his charity is The Frontera Farmers Foundation. They help small farmers regroup, retool, and revise their operations to survive and thrive in today's world. We have all seen and heard about the alarming rate at which small farms are disappearing.

I grew up on what today is considered a small farm. It was a 10,000 acre cattle farm. Obviously, at a point in time that would NOT have been considered small. But that was before we had a clue how "big" the big farms would get when owned by gigantic corporations. But in the eighties, my dad was losing $150,000 a year. He didn't understand it how and why it was costing him more that ever in history to farm, and it was costing him more to buy groceries at the market than ever before, so where was the money going? Bigger is not always better for us!