Entry # 11 Love Hate

I have a love hate relationship with blogging. This blog project has been an absolute roller coaster ride of emotion ranging from, “I can’t wait to write this blog,” to, “do I really have to write this blog.” For the most part I trudged through the negative emotions and published every topic I wanted to publish. 
At times inspiration was sparse and it took quite a bit of effort to write the topic I chose, but when inspiration struck me the posts were quickly written and the topic was fun. The repetitiveness of the blogs was a bit tedious at times. Typically I began to run out of original ideas on those repetitive posts; feeling as if I was writing the same points over and over again. 
One of the things I learned from this project was to watch the point of view in which I was writing. It is very easy for me to write in second person, as if I were talking to a specific reader. Second person point of view can be beneficial to get a point across to the reader as they are one singular reader not multiple readers. The drawback with this point of view is that the post can seem as if I am lecturing the reader and can be brushed off easily. This point of view also sounds much less formal than third person. In my opinion second person writing is not taken as serious as third person. 
Another part of the project I found to be extremely addicting was the page tracker. In the first few weeks I was obsessed with looking at how many views I had received. The tracker also tells what URL’s each post is being accessed with, how often and from what country. This addition quickly became unhealthy for me because I was constantly checking my views. It is a neat feature, but I had to correct my behavior before it became a bad habit.
 Overall I enjoyed this project because I could write and post pretty much at any time, with a few deadlines here and there. The flexibility of the deadlines became very helpful with my work schedule. Although at times the amount of work that was presented, along with other deadlines, became rather difficult to achieve. The result was semi forced posts due to the constriction of time. Luckily only a few posts reflect this and as a whole I feel that my posts are genuine, thought provoking ideas.
In a world where opinions are being shoved down our throats on a daily basis I can only hope the opinions on this page are fun to read. I hope the reader has taken away some of the insight I have to offer. One thing I would say to anyone who has been following along on this little adventure is to question everything; only in those questions will you find the truth. I hope this has helped the reader see a different way of thinking outside of their own reality. If you have taken away some insight then I am glad that you could join me on this adventure. I hope you loved it.

Entry # 10: Halloween

It’s that special time of the year, Halloween is almost upon us. Before Halloween was all about horror movies and cheap scares at haunted houses it was called Samhain, a pagan day of the dead. Samhain (pronounced sah-win or sow-in) was also a celebration of the end of harvest into the winter to come. The pagans that celebrated Samhain even went “trick-or-treating” they however did not receive candy; the homes often handed out food in exchange for singing a song. Now the holiday is a time for children to dress up as whatever they can imagine and get bags of candy, and the adults dress up and party. My favorite part of Halloween is special effects make-up. This video is from a few years back.

 I wandered around First Friday with my face a bloody mess and no one would look me in the eye. I could see people staring in my peripheral vision but when I faced them every single person looked away, as if they were afraid I was deformed. For that reason I think Halloween is great, it gives everyone the opportunity to create another identity. The children can be Ironman or Batman, while people like me can create a weird or grotesque façade. Halloween is the one night people can step outside the normal status quo. It is the one night to be another person.

Entry # 9: Lean, Finely Textured Beef

 

What is pink slime and why should consumers know about it? Pink

Lean, Finely Textured Beef

 slime is a meat filler product that was openly sold as “lean, finely textured beef” to fast food companies and grocery chains. This product is highly processed meat finely ground to a smooth texture and cleaned with gaseous ammonia. What this means is the part of the cow that becomes pink slime is the meat from the outer surfaces of the carcass. This meat is ground, heated

Squashed, Lean, Finely Textured Beef

 and put into a centrifuge to remove the fat to become 95 percent lean. From there it is pumped into tubes with ammonia. It is cleaned with ammonia because of the location of the meat being the outer edge of the carcass. Which means it is more likely to come in contact with bacteria. Several news outlets have done reports on pink slime, as a result, many fast food chains have stopped using this product in their food, namely McDonald’s. In turn, the cost of beef sky rocketed and the fast food industry was hurting for a more cost effective way to continue their business. So now it seems pink slime is back on the rise. The Wall Street Journal stated the production of pink slime has doubled since 2012. Who is using this product? The answer to that question remains a mystery that no one is telling.

Cooked, Lean, Finely Textured Beef

Think about that the next time you walk into a fast food restaurant and order your next meal.
That burger might possibly be pink slime grilled to perfection.

EC Entry # 8½: Food Inc

     Because of my activist background I was aware of the points Food Inc. has brought to the table of many Americans. The treatment of animals in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are appalling. Raising genetically modified chickens 22 days less than a non-modified chicken in order to create more white meat is a mistreatment alone. GMO chickens lead incapacitated lives; most are unable to walk. This is due to the growth rate of the muscles compared to bones and internal organs. Imagine your muscles growing at a rate that does not allow you to walk. To me that is a very sad existence. The beef industry is equally disgusting. The cows stand up to ankle deep in their own manure, and some cannot walk on their hooves, but their knees and hocks. The film showed a cow with a stomach plug so a veterinarian can look into its stomach without cutting it open. The veterinarian said this does not hurt the cow, yet they pan over to the cow’s head and it is drooling and frothing at the mouth. Seriously, that professional said the cow is not in pain; that is very hard for me to believe. These are the animals being fed to the American public not just through fast food, but through the local grocery store.

     The factory farm industry has been enabled and defended by the government. The reason for this is because most government officials writing the laws have very close ties to those corporations they are put in power to protect us from. If the politician themself was not previously working for those corporations they have been given large campaign donations in order to be in power. These companies that are poisoning us have their hands in the same laws that regulate the food that we eat. As a consumer we have limited choices on healthy eating; what we think is healthy is actually not. When I think of government and industrialized farming I see them as one in the same because of the correlation from corporation to politician pipeline. This in turn creates a greedy government because they have the same mentality with law making as they do coming from the industry. The politicians enable and defend those corporations regardless of the citizens they are in power to protect. Money over people no matter the consequence. 

     I was taken back by the amount of engineered corn byproducts. I knew corn was used a lot in food processing but the things that astounded me were: gluten, sorbitol, citric acid, ascorbic acid, baking powder, vanilla extract, xanthan gum, white vinegar, xylitol and margarine. The actual list of corn involvement in processed food is too much to write. This is a short list of the products I did not know were engineered byproducts of corn. I have never been a fan of engineered food but in todays market non-GMO food is very expensive. Most certified organic food is out of my price range. 

     Food Inc. touched very briefly on the environmental aspects of factory farming. More in-depth statistics of environmental impact is just as horrific as the mistreatment of animals in those factories. Methane is one of the main environmental issues created by CAFO farming. “Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide,” said Noam Mohr in his report on global warming. These CAFO farms produce roughly 37 percent of methane emissions according to the Environmental Integrity Project.

     Monsanto is the epitome of capitalism destroying the working class to profit off consumers. Monsanto is the definition of evil. They are a multinational corporation that started out making chemicals, DDT and Agent Orange to be exact. If you do not know about DDT or Agent Orange look it up, then think, “Holy cow these people are creating the food I eat?” This company is one that I would love to see burn to the ground. They are agricultural terrorists; bullying farmers into contracts to grow their GMOs and taking anyone and everyone to court for “patent infringement.” They know the average farmer does not have the financial support to continue fighting them in court for their bogus claims. Therefore the independent farmers settle out of court and nearly lose their business. Even if the farmer buys and grows non-Monsanto seeds but their neighbor does and their crop is infected by cross pollination the non-Monsanto farmer is sued by Monsanto for patent infringement. This is insane! I say the non-Monsanto farmer in return should be able to sue Monsanto for creating a crop that pollinates in the first place forcing their tainted product on them.  

     When I google search “FDA allowance of bacteria in beef” the results are frightening. No where on any of the public sites do they list what is the allowed level of bacteria in beef. What they do tell you is how to store and cook beef. All of the information online states to cook beef thoroughly. When I read this it tells me that a large majority of the beef I eat is potentially contaminated but if I cook it enough I will not get sick because heat kills bacteria. That is terrifying. One thing the Legislative and Executive Branch has done to protect American consumers is the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which was passed by President Obama in 2011. This law has key elements of Kevin’s Law allowing the USDA to shut down factories that do not pass safety inspections consistently. 

     So why does all this terrible information matter? What is the point of knowing where the food I eat comes from? Health. Diabetes, stroke, heart failure, cancer, asthma, depression, obesity; the list goes on and on. Why is that important? Well anyone who has any of these medical conditions will tell you, “Eat right. You don’t want to live like I do.” If you don’t believe that person then google “diabetic skin lesions” or “diabetic neuropathy.” Diabetes is a horrible disease that can be preventable in cases where diet is the main factor. It seems like a no brainer to me; I will pick spending a little more money on better food choices than medical bills and expensive medications any day.

Entry # 8: Imagine

This morning my Facebook news feed informed me that the US has bombed a hospital in Afghanistan wounding 37 people and killing 19, including 12 staff of Doctors Without Borders. The bombing was in Kabul, Afghanistan on Saturday, October 3rd at 2:15 am. The US military released a statement confirming the airstrike and saying that they were targeting individuals “who were threatening the force” and that “there may have been collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.”
The hospital treated everyone in the area regardless of political stance or citizenship, a policy that angered the Afghan Security Forces. There is speculation that this might have played a roll in the chosen location of the US attack. Police spokesman, Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, stated that Taliban fighters were using the hospital as a firing position. Which is in complete conflict of the statements of the survivors of the bombing and near by residents. All statements say no fighting took place near the hospital and that the hospital had a strict no weapons policy that everyone followed, even the Taliban, when being treated did not bring weapons into the facility.
The hospital staff called their military contacts as soon as the bombing started to let the military know that it was a hospital being bombed. Yet, according to the surviving staff the bombing continued 30 minutes after said call. The 37 people wounded were; doctors, nurses, pharmacists, patients and caregivers, 19 of those people are now dead. Half of the hospital has been destroyed beyond repair.
I want someone to try to explain this to me. Explain the logic in murdering people. The stipulation is do not explain this horrific murder using these words, “terrorism,” “terrorist,” “America,” “Afghanistan,” “Taliban,” “government,” “evil,” “bad guy,” “security,” “freedom” and “politics.” What is left for an excuse of the murder of these people? Nothing. There is no logical reason why this atrocity should have happened. The US military is not fighting for our freedom when they murder people in a hospital. Nor were they fighting for our freedom when they murdered a wedding party or the family gathering wood on a hillside. 
The American public needs to be more informed about the blood on their hands. After all, $596 billion of all taxes collected in 2014 were spent on military funding according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The next statement and question is, “I am only one person. What can I do to change how the government spends my taxes?” This is true and there is no easy answer. Some people will say vote others will say burn the whole system down because it is broken beyond repair. This is why voting does nothing, in my opinion. Has Obama done anything to stop the murder of Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians, Saudis, Pakistanis and Libyans? Did G.W. Bush do anything to stop the murder of those same people? Nope. So if the most conservative and somewhat liberal leaning politicians are preforming the same exact job with the same exact results, what is the difference? If people all around the world are being murdered by the US military with 17 percent of the public tax dollars, then the American public should have to live with hearing those consequences and hearing about them often in an unbiased report. Maybe then the public will start seeing humans as humans and not simply as a “terrorist.” Think about it like this, that 9 year old girl that survived a US airstrike but lost her whole family, now sees the US as the terrorist. The words “terrorist,” “evil” and “bad guy” are relative. Any of those words can be used against any person or government doing harm and damage to anyone.
If every citizen stood up and spoke out against acts like these maybe we could influence the politicians in power to respect human life no matter the country of origin. At the end of the day we are all humans and we need to recognize each other as such. In that recognition I believe we can achieve peace. Ultimately no life has more value over another. John Lennon had a few things right and this song is one of those ideas.

“Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one.”

I can only hope one day I will see everyone as a dreamer, so I know my fight for equal rights for every human, no one person excluded regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion, is achieved. 
“No one is free until we are all free,” MLK
Total liberation for all.