bearing the burden

I do not have the answer for how to fix this.  And, that is the sad, unfortunate truth of much of what I write.

We have created a society where it is valued to smear products on our face, put chemicals in our food and homes, and where we walk through god knows what being emitted from business and cars.  As a result, our bodies get beaten up by this stuff.

Over the last few years, a group of women gave blood samples to determine the amounts of chemicals the body stores from exposure.  The thing that is important to know about these women is that they all work for various environmental agencies.  The significance is that these women, we can assume, are aware of toxic exposure in face products, make-up, non-organic foods, etc., and probably try very hard to stay away from those ingredients.  However, each of these women had anywhere from 25-45 foreign chemicals in their bloodstream.

Can you imagine what is in the blood stream of someone who is unaware?  Imagine the person who is heavily marketed to by various corporations.  Or, imagine the low income worker who is trying to scrape by a living and doesn’t have the priveledge of trying to stay away from this stuff.  And, then imagine a society that then will not give them healthcare when they get disease after disease from exposure.

It really is a shame.  The only thing we can do is stop using certain products ourselves and try to educate and advocate for as many people as possible so these chemcials are illeminated from the mainstream consumer goods.

opinion: Allergic to Learning

by Matt DeNoto

People are strange. How many of us go about our lives making the same mistakes over and over again? Even after we’ve been made aware of the mistake, it can still seem impossible to change our behavior.

Unfortunately, the same seems to hold true for us as a population. Change is slow and painful, and circumstances must become extreme before the motivation exists to take action.

Now that the Swine Flu ‘Epidemic’ seems to be doing exactly what logic and history have suggested it would – that is, fading from the public consciousness after being blown out of proportion – have we learned anything about rational reactions?

It has to do with the Green Revolution only insofar as we can’t concentrate on saving the planet if we’re busy being terrified of this week’s ‘disaster.’ And sadly, outside of trying to point out to those around us that there are better things to worry about, I fear there’s not very much that can be done to bring people around.

Climate change will continue to rear its ugly head, which means that in some form or another it will sporadically return to the public consciousness in frightening ways. But if we are unable to react in a reasonable way to a new strain of the flu, what’s really in store for us all when climate change ultimately begins to invade our lives in ways that we have not yet imagined? How will our panic-stricken, quick-to-judge, manic-depressive friends and neighbors react?

We are not, as a population, terribly level-headed. And to be frank, that part scares me more than climate change itself.

Will there ever come a time when we stop quibbling about silly distractions like trying to hold up gay marriage, or change children’s textbooks to weaken evolution, or wasting any journalistic resources to report what some celebrity did?

I remember not liking Math class as a kid. Especially Algebra. It didn’t make any sense to me why we had to learn all these bizarre formulas to manipulate variables. What made it worse was that I was GOOD at math, so my folks would encourage me to take more, harder Math classes.

Looking back now, it’s easier to appreciate the value of Math class. It was just never presented to me in the right way.

Math classes teach us more than how to work with numbers. They teach us how to solve problems, how to take a set of circumstances and analyze it to determine the best possible outcome. Other classes like History, Foreign Language, and even Science, generally deal more with rote memorization of facts and processes. The analytical tools we learn in Literature and Art classes are more subjective. Only Math teaches us something beyond what’s there in class. Math teaches us a skill. Math isn’t about numbers at all, it’s about learning how to process information.

Based on the grades our educational system has been getting over the past couple of decades, my conclusion is that our ability to think critically about the world as it is presented to us will continue to be severely underdeveloped.

Hopefully that’s just me making the same mistake again.

good information about the flu, from cdc

This at least seems valid and sound.

I know we are all done with this flu…. we are all sick of hearing about it.  Even the media is moving onto more attention grabbing topics.

I wanted to draw your attention to this interview through Grist.  Not only is it from someone that seems rational but it confirms what the media is not telling you: that, yes, indeed, this has its genetic origins in the grand old U.S. of A.

HERE is the interview.

it’s not just the food that is bad

It seems it may be in the wrapper, too.

There is a class of chemical called C8 or PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) which is used in some manufacturing processes and has been found in items like stain resistant carpeting and cookware.  It has been found in the bloodstream of peoples living in the areas which it is made and is known to cause a host of issues like cancer and infertility.

This has always been seen as a problem only to those people who have worked or lived by DuPont plants, as they are the primary manufacturer.  Because of the chemical being seen in large groups of people outside that area, scientists took a look to see where else it may be coming from.  And, they found out.

The chemical is used in the production of food wrappers, which is then leached into the food you eat, according to the Charleston Gazette.

Previous research by Tim Begley of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found that chemicals used to make food wrappers grease proof could migrate into some foods.

The new study examined a group of chemicals called polyfluoroalkyl phosphoric acid diesters, or diPAPs, which are used in food wrapper coatings.

Researchers found the chemicals in the low-parts per billion range, providing a much clearer link between consumer products and human exposure.

Obviously, I feel this is just one more reason to stay away from fast food, or other such items.  Although, not as prevalent as Bisphenol-A or phthalates, this is still a chemical that causes irreprable damage to the body.  More studies will be conducted, and you can be sure a marketing campaign for DuPont will ignite touting the benefits fo PFOA…. in the meantime, you might want to be wary of what your food comes in.

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