Feeding Human Rice to Babies

Last December Ventria Bioscience, a biopharmaceutical company based in Sacramento, Calif., submitted permit applications to the USDA to grow about 200 acres of rice “engineered with human genes” in Scott, Mississippi and Cape Girardeau counties this year.
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Ventria's proteins have the potential to address health issues such as severe dehydrations due to diarrhea which kills approximately 1.3 million children under age 5 every year worldwide, Herbst said.
http://news.mywebpal.com/partners/865/public/news610782.html

Good news right? Major corporations are struggling to be the first to bring us solutions that would help save 1.3 million children a year. The numbers are from UNICEF and they offer a free and better solution available now.

Here is where Ventria gets the 1.3 million number they are using in press releases.
UNICEF:

UNICEF said that by expanding the number of women who exclusively breastfeed during their child’s first six months, at least 1.3 million infant lives could be saved this year.
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“Simply put, if a child dies a preventable death it’s because mothers and infants are not getting the basic support they need,” said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy.

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_22646.html

Now - people who don't apologize while promoting breastfeeding and the cheapest and best known access to health benefits that can be applied now with proper support aren't always well recieved. Maybe the millions spent in marketing and influencing attitudes have swayed us over time. I don't have that kind of money.

The problem isn't that a company is doing something other than encouraging
breastfeeding, it's their target demographic. UNICEF recognizes this
demographic of endangered lives as people "who don't get basic
support." This company's solution, besides using genetically modified
product on infants, isn't support - but rather another option to undermine the
cheapest and best solution to the problem they claim to be addressing.

If they were targeting the much, much, much smaller demographic within their actual demographic of mostly
third world women who can't breastfeed for some reason, I would say God bless
'em. Bless those moments when it's actually used for that. If it ever is. (Does that count as my apology?)

But - imagine the dollar amount invested in their campaign, being moved from state to state since at least 1997 trying to find a place to finally farm their research. Nestle, who is in violation of WHO's international guidelines for formula marketing and openly flaunts them, is a ready distributor who is already doing their own research on the same protein.

With millions of dollars tied up in research over many years, and the target demographic of healthy women who can fix the problem now with proper support named - they will want a return. Healthy breastfeeding doesn't turn a profit to anyone but individuals, communities and states who pick up later health benefits and costs.

WHO and UNICEF promote standards based on knowledge of how easy it is for new mothers and infants to get discouraged with breastfeeding - due to emotional and physical challenges, due to surrounding support and due to culture.

This company is already preparing to launch against a healthy demographic who is simply lacking support. It is feeding on a weakness and hoping to profit from it. The marketing barrage will rely on the lack of support persisting for these 1.3 million children a year. That is the quality defining this demographic.

If these women get support - their market and stated need disappears. If they start the free option of breastfeeding and stop the death of 3,500 children a day - this market is closed to them.

Imagine if a fraction of this research money, future marketing and distribution costs aimed at healthy women who lack support was spent now on support. As WHO, UNICEF and even the Human Rice makers acknowledge - 3,500 babies a day would be saved.

Instead - when they hit the market and spend millions more specifically targeting women and children whose central problem is a lack of support - they are further undermining the support.

With a problem that can be resolved free right now - a problem involving 3,500 children’s lives a day - multimillion and some multibillion dollar companies are sitting back watching the deaths while doing research and shouting "a solution is coming" when the solution already exists, and it's not the price they will charge for a process, technology and protein variance they patent.

It will be a solution you have to pay them for.

The other solution is free - an important component for many populations. It's breastfeeding and can start saving lives now. If the problem isn't resolved by the time they have a complete product - the lack of support will grow as a direct result of them relying on and feeding on the existing lack of support. Fewer children might die (as they market what may be the second best solution to just one problem at a cost) for that specific cause, but the overall problem of not supporting those who would provide children with the food that happens to be the cheapest and best for them will grow. In the end, those lives may simply be moved over into another category.

Rights Turns" using Small Steps


I just heard the author of Right Turns on the Al Franken Show. He has some "unique" ideas for someone who talks out loud to express. His complaints and reasons also show the major problem with his ilk.

He believes that the Civil Rights Act should not have been passed. His reasoning is that small business owners shouldn't be told who they can hire and who they should fire. He blames this on the small business owner ethic that helped bring his family into the middle class and up.

This is a case of running the true story through the righteous blender and rephrasing it to match whatever idea they have.


I just heard the author of Right Turns on the Al Franken Show. He has some "unique" ideas for someone who talks out loud to express. His complaints and reasons also show the major problem with his ilk.

He believes that the Civil Rights Act should not have been passed. His reasoning is that small business owners shouldn't be told who they can hire and who they should fire. Boycotts and marketing would have corrected the problem. He blames this on the small business owner ethic that helped bring his family into the middle class and up.

This is a case of running the true story through the righteous blender and rephrasing it to match whatever idea they have.

I have been in plenty of jobs (the super majority of them) where people made bigoted statements while in the hiring process.. The government never came in and many people probably think this doesn't happen much.

The govt didn't make them hire the people they looked down at so much. It surely didn't lower the pay of the women during one hiring project below the men who were hired.

Businesses are licensed and get to operate under certain rules in our society. They pay taxes and have accounting and reporting practices they must follow depending on the practice.

Asking them to give someone with dark skin the same consideration as someone with light skin, even though you believe they are genetically and spiritually abhorrent seems less interfering than controlling labor hours of children and employees, paid taxes and wage guidelines.

Using the Logic blender we could start whining about small businesses not able to hire small children or even adults and pay them 5 cents an hour while missing school and not permitting them to leave.

Businesses are members of our society and community.

Don't marry that Cambodian if you don't want to - but at least try to act like an American and give them the same consideration to be able to get ahead.

What a burden!

From Dixie to Torturers

Bush's first cabinet was a bit thick with neoconfederates and like minded people.

This term appears to be celebrating Human Rights Violaters.

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Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair, was promoted to deputy national security adviser to President Bush. Abrams, who previously was in charge of Middle East affairs, will be responsible for pushing Bush's strategy for advancing democracy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59235-2005Feb2.html

John Negroponte From 1981 to 1985 Negroponte was US ambassador to Honduras. During his tenure, he oversaw the growth of military aid to Honduras from $4 million to $77.4 million a year. At the time, Honduras was ruled by an elected but heavily militarily-influenced
government. According to The New York Times, Negroponte was responsible for "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinistas government in Nicaragua." Critics say that during his ambassadorship, human rights violations in Honduras became systematic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte

Al Gonzales In his position as White House Counsel, Mr. Gonzales was the architect for the legal strategy that set the stage for torture and abuses at Abu Ghraib and other U.S. military prisons around the world.
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/gonzales/index.asp

It would have been easy for the media to balance the continuous coverage of Kerry's insignificant position changes with, say Bush going from WMD to Iraqi freedom - or being against nation building while creating the new Haiti and Iraq.

President Bush: Flip-Flopper-In-Chief

It would have been easy for the media to balance the continuous coverage of Kerry's insignificant position changes with, say Bush going from WMD to Iraqi freedom - or being against nation building while creating the new Haiti and Iraq.

Better than the media, those running against him should have pointed it out in every breath they uttered in Kerry's defense.

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President Bush: Flip-Flopper-In-Chief - American Progress Action Fund

President Bush: Flip-Flopper-In-Chief - American Progress Action Fund: "From the beginning, George W. Bush has made his own credibility a central issue. On 10/11/00, then-Gov. Bush said: 'I think credibility is important.It is going to be important for the president to be credible with Congress, important for the president to be credible with foreign nations.' But President Bush's serial flip-flopping raises serious questions about whether Congress and foreign leaders can rely on what he says." Full Article

The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today - A Report by PFAW Foundation and NAACP: "In a nation where children are taught in grade school that every citizen has the right to vote, it would be comforting to think that the last vestiges of voter intimidation, oppression and suppression were swept away by the passage and subsequent enforcement of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965. It would be good to know that voters are no longer turned away from the polls based on their race, never knowingly misdirected, misinformed, deceived or threatened.Unfortunately, it would be a grave mistake to believe it."Full Article

Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today

Concerns over the elections were largely whitewashed with apathy and optimism. Portions of the Voter's Right Act are coming up for renewal. No voting problems in the US, right? Here are documented examples of old fashioned vote stoppers still in action today.

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The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today - A Report by PFAW Foundation and NAACP

The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today - A Report by PFAW Foundation and NAACP: "In a nation where children are taught in grade school that every citizen has the right to vote, it would be comforting to think that the last vestiges of voter intimidation, oppression and suppression were swept away by the passage and subsequent enforcement of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965. It would be good to know that voters are no longer turned away from the polls based on their race, never knowingly misdirected, misinformed, deceived or threatened.

Unfortunately, it would be a grave mistake to believe it."

Full Article

The other Sept 11th Report - Child Sex and Exploitation

This is a story that broke the day before the twin towers fell. I supported the strike against the Taliban and Al Qaeda - I hoped that while we were reacting to our own terror, we could see and address some of the things that affect us day to day as well. It's a sad case that contradicts our day to day stereotypes and expectations.

Full Report:
http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/~restes/CSEC.htm

"Seventy-five percent of the children we met on the streets are children from working class and middle class families and the simple majority of them are white,"
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/LAW/09/10/child.exploitation/

The report continues

"One of the other myths is that this is a problem [of] poor, inner city, mostly minority youth. We cannot confirm that to be the case, but rather just the opposite."
"Despite popular notions to the contrary," Estes said, "strangers commit fewer than 4 percent of all the sexual assaults against children."
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Study summary Among the findings of a study titled "The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico"

325,000 children are sexually exploited in the United States annually. Of that figure, 121,911 ran away from home and 51,602 were thrown out of their homes by a parent or guardian.

25 percent of exploiters of children are other children.

Children who engage in prostitution can earn between $200 and $1,500 per day.

75 percent of children who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation are from middle class backgrounds.

40 percent of the girls who engaged in prostitution were sexually abused at home, as were 30 percent of the boys.

Shark tale may trick you into loving your kids

Before there was Sponge Bob, there was Lenny the shark. In 2004, the American Family Association carried an "activism" article warning people about the movie coming "far too
close to taking a bite out of traditional moral and spiritual beliefs."

Is the story pro-gay or pro-family?

Before there was Sponge Bob, there was Lenny the shark. In 2004, the American Family Association carried an "activism" article warning people about the movie coming "far too close to taking a bite out of traditional moral and spiritual beliefs."


Is the story pro-gay or pro-family?

The article gives the producers some credit in saying that Lenny isn't explicitly gay in the story. Personally, with the voicing method, the conflict (he's a vegetarian shark) and the eventual outcome of Lenny dressing in a Lavendar tight outfit while cross dressing as a dolphin and dancing at teh car wash - stereotype or not, it sent a pretty clear message to me about the intended metaphor.

With Alan Keyes recently cutting off housing and education from his young daughter for coming out in her blog and in the streets of activism, and "family" groups attacking Sponge Bob for promoting tolerance - I really should expect someone to attack this story.

Metaphors or not, the plot is one where a father accepts his son even though "he's different" and won't fill his father's shoes in the "family business."

This attack on the story reaches deep into the world of metaphors to have it override everything that is on the surface. Acceptance of our children for what they are. Alan Keyes and the AFA don't appear to favor tolerance - not even of our children.

And let's be clear - tolerance isn't praise. It's the cynical approach that says "I'll let you exist in my presence even though I may despise you." Baby steps that some can't take.

What bothers me is that these people attack the basic family values of sticking together, going through rough times together and loving your children for what they are in favor of banishment and paranoia. How does the press and public respond? By tolerating them as legitimate voices for Family Values.

Whose family?

US settles white males' bias suit

The Bush administration has taken a cynical approach to civil rights, equality, etc.

Try tried to put Linda Chavez, a person who doesn't believe in the policies she would have to enforce, into the cabinet. That's ideal for dismantling the programs. They argued the Michigan affirmative action program was quotas, even though it wasn't. And they feed into the crowd of people who dominate the economy and boardroom and govt who feel oppressed,

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The Justice Department has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit with as many as 550 white men for $11.5 million, a rare win for the class of lawyers who say they were not chosen for high-profile jobs because of gender and skin color.
Full Article

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To be clear, I don't reject the idea they could have been discriminated against outright. It does seem, though, that it should have been tested in court. This case was a win for showing sympathy to a group of angst filled men. A win in court would have been actual vindication of their beliefs and claims.