decacsinc

Contrary to a new cultural campaign by Hallmark and others, Father’s Day is not a holiday for black single moms.

I have an idea for a good Father’s Day present: a Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Inside is the definition for father:

A man who has begotten a child.
A male PARENT.
A father-in-law, stepfather, or adoptive father.

I would give the dictionary to deadbeat dads, but I’d also give it to those being duped into honoring single mom’s on Father’s Day.

The gift idea came while I was in Wal-Mart to buy a card for my dad. My wife, as she shook her head sadly, pointed to the category “Happy Father’s Day, Mom” in the Mahogany section. Mahogany is Hallmark’s brand for African Americans. I looked through the general Father’s Day card section, but couldn’t find the “mom” category.

Hmmm. Why?

Some people insist on making a buck by selling the idea that Father’s Day is also for single moms. Hallmark has been offering the mom cards for a few years, and a Web search also revealed a few entrepreneurs selling T-shirts, mugs and the like. Being a dedicated black father of three grown children who looks forward to this one day that celebrates what I willingly do every day, I find this offensive and even dangerous, particularly for the black community.

Nationally, 1 out of 3 American children live in homes where fathers are absent, according to the Center for Disease Control. The black rate is 2 out of 3. The message to the black community is that single motherhood is acceptable, so celebrate with a Mahogany card.

Bull.

Continued here

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Comments: By Nana Baakan

I am a single mother of two males and two females. My strength came from the Ancestors and spiritual guides, and my strong connection to the Creator. But I never identified as the mother and the father. Why? I heard that growing up. “I am your mother and your father.” What that came to mean for me, that my mother became the focus of all my issues.. since my father was absent. This retarded my mental health and emotional growth in many areas.

When I got older I began to realize that my feelings of abandonment were deeply seeded in the fact that my father left me. My mother never left me, (thought there were times that her abusiveness made me wish she would.) But my mother could never fill the gap my father left, no matter how many times she said that. In fact, her mothering skills were faulty, so how in the world could she be a “good” father??

My mother was/is an emotionally driven, high strung manipulator. This I say with no malice because that personality disorder is a product of her life as a small child, a child who lost both parents, one through death, the other through abandonment. So I refused to say that to my children, I am your mother doing the best that I can to be the best that I can to you and for you.

When my sons came of age, I looked for a male figure, rites of passage program or some other programs where men could share their experience, wisdom and just fool around with them as men do. My daughters’ father was also absent.. and they too are experiencing their own issues around that.

As adults, they are responsible for their relationships with their fathers. I stressed that to them and to their fathers. One can only be what one is….. we do realize that every man has a little woman in him and every woman has a little man in her, but seriously, to take on both roles is counterproductive. I am a mother raising children, I am a father raising children. Acknowledge me for my efforts, (and not on some holiday somebody else made up, but that’s another rant) and I will appreciate that. I like the idea of “find another male figure in the family and/or community that you respect to say Happy Father’s day to.” That works!!! The irony of it all is that both of my sons contacted me and said, Happy Father’s Day. It blew me away, because I thought I had made it clear to them. Just a side bar to let folks see how strong the consensus can override the reality.

June 16, 2011

By JIMMY CARTER
Atlanta

IN an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade. The commission includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard Branson, George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker.

The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America’s “war on drugs,” which was declared 40 years ago today. It notes that the global consumption of opiates has increased 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent and cannabis 8.5 percent from 1998 to 2008. Its primary recommendations are to substitute treatment for imprisonment for people who use drugs but do no harm to others, and to concentrate more coordinated international effort on combating violent criminal organizations rather than nonviolent, low-level offenders.

These recommendations are compatible with United States drug policy from three decades ago. In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the country should decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, with a full program of treatment for addicts. I also cautioned against filling our prisons with young people who were no threat to society, and summarized by saying: “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.”

These ideas were widely accepted at the time. But in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan and Congress began to shift from balanced drug policies, including the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts, toward futile efforts to control drug imports from foreign countries.

This approach entailed an enormous expenditure of resources and the dependence on police and military forces to reduce the foreign cultivation of marijuana, coca and opium poppy and the production of cocaine and heroin. One result has been a terrible escalation in drug-related violence, corruption and gross violations of human rights in a growing number of Latin American countries.

The commission’s facts and arguments are persuasive. It recommends that governments be encouraged to experiment “with models of legal regulation of drugs … that are designed to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.” For effective examples, they can look to policies that have shown promising results in Europe, Australia and other places.

But they probably won’t turn to the United States for advice. Drug policies here are more punitive and counterproductive than in other democracies, and have brought about an explosion in prison populations. At the end of 1980, just before I left office, 500,000 people were incarcerated in America; at the end of 2009 the number was nearly 2.3 million. There are 743 people in prison for every 100,000 Americans, a higher portion than in any other country and seven times as great as in Europe. Some 7.2 million people are either in prison or on probation or parole — more than 3 percent of all American adults!…………………….

Original Article

Russell Simmons; 40-Year War on Drugs…

(ThyBlackMan.com) Co-authored by Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.
40 years ago today, President Richard Milhous Nixon declared America’s “War on Drugs.” This failed war continues even today to have a devastating and debilitating impact on the lives of millions of Americans. We add our voices to the growing number of people of good conscience to demand a resolute end to this awful destructive and nonproductive war.
The “War on Drugs” has not only wasted more than a trillion dollars over the last four decades, but this misguided war has also caused millions of families and communities to be injured and decimated. Instead of a “War on Drugs,”  President Nixon should have declared a “War on Poverty,” because we all  know the bitter truth that the prolonged social disillusionment and self-destructive consequence of the petulant mire of decades of poverty for  millions of Americans actually sets the stage for the persistence of drug abuse, violence and hopelessness.

It’s most regrettable that the majority of voters in November of 68 underestimated Richard Nixon’s repressive policy intentions. How did Nixon manage to become president of the United States in the first place? The answer to this question is important in 2011 as the nation prepares for the 2012 elections.
The current sentiments of the so-called Tea Party are very similar to the regressive views of Nixon and Agnew back in the late 1960s. Nixon and Agnew ran a divisive but successful “law and order” campaign and were elected in 1968 in direct counter action to the profound social and political change in the consciousness of the majority of people who wanted real change in their lives. Thus, President Nixon was elected during a reactionary period in American history. It was a period of repression, and the so-called “law and order” theme really was a code phrase for solidifying the “status quo” on the right to prevent further progressive social change that had become characteristic of the early and mid 1960s.  More……….

Original Article

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Nana’s Comments: 


Drugs make the mad world go round. Without drugs there would be no need for many of the services provided to stop it, and there would be no need for the community services that aid the families hard hit by it.

The Black projects that are funded by the drug trade, the countries that are inundated with drug trafficking would be less susceptible to infiltration and the overthrow of governments, and remember behind the drugs are weapons, and the weapons cartels would lose too much money, and behind the weapons cartel is the international bankers and the international banksters would lose too much money out of their coffers, then political power would become obsolete because they would not be able to intimidate folks with their awesome weapons to control the masses, and on and on.

Heck even the Churches, who collect A great deal of money for saving souls, would have fewer souls TO SAVE and much less money to keep them going. And those addicted to drugs who finally get themselves together, would add more money to the pharmaceuticals who would of course prescribe millions of more dollars in rehabilitation drugs, supposedly designed to make the people drug free.

And wow, can you imagine the families that would heal and the babies that would be born drug free??

NOPE, THERE IS NO END IN SIGHT, AND CERTAINLY NO END TO THE FAKE WAR ON DRUGS, AS THIS WAR IS A FARCE TO COVER THE REAL CRIMINALS WHO SOLICIT (PAYING BEANS TO THE HARVESTERS), MANUFACTURE AND DELIVER THESE DRUGS TO THEIR VICTIMS, and quiet as it’s kept, many of these victims are the servicemen and women on both sides, who need these drugs to navigate through the atrocities of war, famine, bloodshed, rape, and pillage!

So come on now…. This ain’t gonna ever happen in our lifetimes or that of our children. And the only way they will make marijuana legal when it has been so profitable for it to be illegal is to find a way for all these folks to make a profit from legalizing it. Yeah, right!

Video: The truth about iPad and Foxconns Lies

STORY:
In 2010, Foxconn was under the spotlight of the media due to the suicide tragedies. At least 18 workers committed suicides and 3 survived. One year on from the spate of suicides, SACOM has high expectation on Foxconn and Apple to fulfil their promises to ensure decent working conditions at the factories. In spring 2011, SACOM visited Foxconn’s iPad production site in Chengdu. Rampant labour rights violations and harsh management remain. Workers always have excessive and forced overtime work. Sometimes, they have to skip meals if they cannot accomplish the production target. They have to stand for over 10 hours on shop floor and cannot talk with each other. They are exposed to chemicals aluminium dust but do not have adequate protection. And it is appalling that almost all the new workers have to undergo “military training”.

According to the interviewees, the big clients, including Apple, always have representatives in the factory to monitor the quality and productivity of the products. In other words, Apple is aware of the labour rights abuses at Foxconn. Despite the code of conduct of Apple dictates “under no circumstances shall workweeks exceed the maximum permitted under applicable laws and regulations.” In reality, Foxconn workers in Chengdu always have 80-100 overtime hours per month which are 2-3 times of the legal limit. Likewise, Apple always claims it will ensure the suppliers to establish measures to protect workers from occupational diseases. However, Foxconn workers who produce iPad do not have pre-post training about substance of the chemicals, no adequate protective equipment and no on-post health examination. On 20 May, an explosion erupted at Foxconn in Chengdu. The tragedy happened in the polishing department and involved an explosion of ultra-light dust. Workers complained to SACOM that the ventilation of department is poor. Workers polish the iPad cases to make them shinny. In the process, there is lots of aluminium dust floating in the air. Workers always breathe in aluminium dust even though they put on mask. When workers take off their cotton gloves, their hands are covered with aluminium dust. Regardless the explosion, this is detrimental to the health of workers.
Regrettably, Apple simply connives at the blatant labour rights violations at Foxconn.

NANA’S COMMENTS———————————————————–

I remember when this story first broke, and then I saw, folks, consumers rushing to acquire the iPad, totally oblivious to the dangers the workers experienced while creating these things/tools for consumers worldwide. To me, there-in lies the trouble with the Capitalistic societies that only care about the $$$$ but not the people. Profits over people is their motto. China has a lot of sweatshops, making cheap goods to be imported to America, their largest importers and around the world. All this happens under the sleeping eyes of the American Consumer and other Consumers world wide, who are hypnotized by the propaganda and the created desire to have the next and newest thing/toy… no matter what.

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Wildfires-Arizona-Wallow-fire-approaches-outskirts-Eagar-Ariz-Tuesday-June-7-2011/ss/events/us/060711arizwildfires/im:/110608/480/urn_publicid_ap_org_a74588aaa668424aa7e699f9fdaedd56/

Wallow fire approaches outskirts of Eagar, Ariz.

(AP Photo/Ashley Stevens)

Nana’s Comments:——————————————————————————–

Americans are getting an idea of what devastation looks like. Too often, there is cognitive dissonance among the populous. While rallying behind the war machine, laughing and cheering the death of another, looking away from the corrupt practices of corporate America in and around the world, ignoring the pain of mothers, fathers and children hurt by cluster bombs and destroyed homes and communities in fires caused by drones… they forget that what goes around comes around, the law of reciprocity prevails.

Now major areas of the US look just like the war torn regions of Iraq, Afghanistan & Pakistan, to name  few. People have become “evacuees, refugees, displaced persons” tucked away in shelters and being told, “don’t come back for three months” as is reflected in the lives of others across the waters. People have lost farmlands in floods similar to the farmlands lost in India. Infrastructure has been destroyed by tornadoes, similar to the bombs dropped from the air on Palestinians during the Israeli assault. Or NATO’s assault on Libya.

Will Americans wake up? Or will they continue to allow the war machine to take lives, lands, destroy families, kill innocents or will they see that their lives and their security is just as fragile and just as unpredictable and just as unprecedented as those who cannot be seen on the evening news. Will they wake up to the knowledge, that human beings everywhere are all connected and that one lost life is just as important as another, no matter their national or religious origins? Or will they emerge from their shelters seeking the government and insurance companies to put them back together, and rebuild their infrastructures lost because of these so-called Natural disasters?

And finally, will they receive a different resolve for their pain and losses than their comrades across the waters?

What Sugar Actually Does to Your Brain and Body
Adam Dachis —

We consume an enormous amount of sugar, whether consciously or not, but it’s a largely misunderstood substance. There are different kinds and different ways your body processes them all. Some consider it poison and others believe it’s the sweetest thing on earth. Here’s a look at the different forms of sugar, the various ways they affect you, and how they play a role in healthy—and unhealthy—diets.

Of course, if you already know how sugar works and how your body uses it, feel free to skip down to the final section about healthier sugar consumption.

The Different Types of Sugar

There are too many types of sugar (and, of course, sugar substitutes) to tackle in a high-level overview like this one, so we’re really only going to look at the two (and a half) that you regularly encounter: glucose and fructose.

Glucose

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Glucose is a simple sugar that your body likes. Your cells use it as a primary source of energy, so when you consume glucose, it’s actually helpful. When it’s transported into the body, it stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin. Your brain notices this increase, understands that it’s busy metabolizing what you just ate, and tells you that you’re less hungry. The important thing to note here is that when you consume glucose, your brain knows to tell you to stop eating when you’ve had enough.

But glucose isn’t perfect. There are many processes involved when you consume glucose, but one that occurs in your liver produces something called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_low_density_lipoprotein (or VLDL). You don’t want VLDL. It causes problems (like cardiovascular disease). Fortunately, only about 1 out of 24 calories from glucose that are processed by the liver turn into VLDL. If glucose were the only thing you ate that produced VLDL, it would be a non-issue.

Sucrose and High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

For our purposes, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and sucrose are the same thing because they’re both highly sweet and they both contain a large amount of fructose. Sucrose is 50% fructose and HFCS is 55% fructose (which is high compared to normal corn syrup, but pretty normal when compared to cane sugar). The remainder of each is glucose, which we discussed above. In most cases, fructose is bad for you because of how it’s processed by the body. Fructose can only be metabolized by the liver, which is not a good thing. This means a greater number of calories—about three times more than glucose—are going through liver processes and that results in a much higher production of VLDL (the bad cholestoral mentioned earlier) and fat. It also results in a higher production of uric acid and a lot of other things you don’t want, which is believed to lead to fun stuff like hypertension and high blood pressure.

On top of that, fructose consumption negatively changes the way your brain recognizes your consumption. This is because your brain resists leptin, the protein that’s vital for regulating energy intake and expenditure (which includes your keeping your appetite in check and your metabolism working efficiently). As a result, you keep eating without necessarily realizing you’re full. For example, a soda containing high amounts of fructose (which is most non-diet sodas) will do little to make you think you’re full even though you’re taking in large amounts of calories. Your brain doesn’t get the message that you really consumed much of anything and so it still thinks you’re still hungry. This is a very, very basic look at part of how fructose is processed and doesn’t even touch upon many of its other problems, but identifies the issue most people care about: fat production.

This isn’t to say fructose is all bad. It does have a practical purpose. If you’re a professional athlete, for example, it can actually be helpful. HFCS actually repletes your glycogen supply faster, which is useful when you’re burning it off, so the use of HFCS in sports drinks actually has a practical purpose for those who can quickly burn it off. It’s not so helpful for those of us whose life focus is not physical activity—unless we find ourselves in a situation where we need fast energy that we’re going to quickly burn off.

Processed vs. Unprocessed Foods

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Fruit contains fructose, but as any food pyramid or suggested intake ratios will tell you, fruit is okay. How is that possible if fructose is almost always bad? This is because fruit, in its natural form, contains fiber. Fructose doesn’t provide a satiety alert to let your brain know to tell you to stop eating, but fiber does this to a high degree. This is why you can eat fruit—despite the fructose content—without experiencing the same problems as, say, drinking a sugary soda. This is why fruit can actually be beneficial. The same goes for processed sugar. Sugar doesn’t exist naturally as sparkly white crystals, but as a really tough stick called sugar cane. It isn’t until you process the sugar can that you lose all the fiber it contains. Without the fiber, you only have the tasty but problematic part of the original food. That’s why processed sugars can cause problems.

So why not keep the fiber (or at least some of it)? Because when you process food, you’re not processing it for the purpose of eating immediately. Instead you’re processing it to ship all over the country, or even the world. To do this, you obviously can’t let the food expire or it will be useless when it arrives. Because fiber causes the food to go bad much faster, it needs to be removed.

Photo by Dee’s Illustrations

Additionally, many processed foods are even worse off because of their low fat content. Sure, low fat content sounds good, but just because you eat fat doesn’t mean you retain it. Your body can efficiently process and excreted fat, so fat intake isn’t a huge issue by default. Nonetheless, the past 40 years brought us a low-fat craze. Fresh food can still taste good without a higher fat content, but processing low-fat food makes it taste like crap. Companies understand this, and so they add a bunch of sugar (and often salt) to fix that problem. This process essentially exchanges fat your body can actually use for fructose-produced fat that it cannot.
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These are the main reasons why processed food is often an enemy if you want to stay healthy. This isn’t always the case, but it is far more likely than not. Check the sugar content on the back of every package of processed food you own or see at the grocery store and you’ll see it for yourself.
Healthier Sugar Consumption

Okay, so some sugar isn’t really bad for you but some sugar, like fructose in high amounts, is unhealthy. Since fructose is plentiful in many processed foods, how can you eat better and still enjoy the sweet things you like? What follows are some suggestions. Some require a bit of sacrifice and will be difficult—but more effective—and others are easy enough for anyone to incorporate in his or her diet. If you want to try and curb your sugar intake, be reasonable about what you can accomplish. Failure is a lot more likely if you try to pack in large amounts of change at once . When you cut back on anything slowly, it feels much easier and is more likely to stick.

Stop Drinking Sugared Beverages

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Of anything you can do, this is the most important. Fructose-heavy soda is remarkably problematic because, for reasons discussed above, you can keep drinking it while your body isn’t recognizing your sugar intake—so your body remains hungry. On top of that, a lot of soda (Coke is a great example) contains high amounts of sodium. Why would you want salt in your soda? You wouldn’t, but it makes you thirsty and prompts you to buy more soda to drink, so it’s great for the companies that make it. It also makes you pee (as does caffeine if your soda has that) so you’ll feel the need to drink more as well. This is masked by simply adding more fructose to the drink, which is another obvious problem.

All of that is bad, but what makes it so important to stop drinking soda is that you get absolutely nothing else with it. While other sugary items—such as a slice of cake or a donut—are no shining examples of nutrition, they at least contain some nutrients that will help to alert your brain that you’re actually eating. Fructose-heavy soda won’t do this, so it’s best to just cut it out entirely. This is the hardest thing but the most important. Cutting it out will make it easier to stop eating too much sugar (or anything, really), because you’ll be taking in far fewer calories that will go unnoticed by your brain.


What can you drink without issue? Water.

This may sound horrible to some people, but pretty much every other drink you can buy is a processed drink. This isn’t to say you can never have another sugared beverage again, but the more you drink them the harder it will be to control your appetite. If you want to incorporate sugared drinks and alcoholic beverages into your diet, try consuming them 20 minutes after you’ve eaten. You can use this same trick for desserts. (More on this in a minute.)

Eat Fiber with Your Sugar

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What Sugar Actually Does to Your Brain and Body

As previously mentioned in the section about processed and unprocessed foods, fiber is very necessary in curbing sugar intake. It does what fructose can’t do, and that’s alert you that you’ve consumed calories and you don’t need to eat anymore. Basically, fiber and fructose need to work together. Fiber is fructose’s unattractive but brilliant friend. Fructose makes up for fiber’s lack of sweetness while fiber makes up for fructose’s uselessness.

So how do you eat fiber with your fructose? Don’t eat processed foods. Get your fructose from fruit or other sources that contain built-in fiber.

Avoid Processed Foods with High Amounts of Sugar

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Full size
Cooking your own meals from unprocessed foods is almost always going to be a better option, but our busy lives make that difficult to accomplish for every single meal we eat. While avoiding processed foods altogether is a nice thought, it’s not very realistic. If you’re going to eat something processed, be sure to check the label for sugar content. If it is not a dessert food and the sugar count isn’t negligible, you should probably avoid it. If it contains HFCS early on in the ingredient list (or at all, really), you should probably avoid it. Buy whole wheat breads that are actually whole wheat. Avoid pre-packaged dinners whenever you can. Buy foods with more fiber. They’re likely to expire faster, which means more frequent trips to the grocery store, but that’s a pretty minor sacrifice to make.

Keep Sugar Products Out of the House

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What Sugar Actually Does to Your Brain and BodyIf you like dessert, don’t keep it at home. This is obvious, but it’s also one of the most effective options (you can’t eat something you don’t have). If you really want it, make yourself do a little work. Have dinner, and if you have a craving for dessert afterwards then go out and get some. Chances are it won’t take more than 20 minutes for that craving to die, as you’ll fill up and won’t want to eat anything else. In the event it doesn’t, go out and buy a reasonably-sized dessert. As long as you’re not inclined to do this regularly, prolonging the decision to eat dessert should help you out.

Don’t Cut It Out Entirely

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What Sugar Actually Does to Your Brain and Body
Photo by Nick Depree

If you’re currently eating quite a bit of sugar, or you really like it, cutting it out entirely is a bad idea. Not only is comfort food possibly good for your mental health, but it’s also believed that you can develop a dependency to sweet foods. As an experiment I cut out sugar for a month before writing this post. While the physical cravings were easy to curb, the psychological ones were much more challenging. Angela Pirisi, writing for Psychology Today, points to a study conducted by psychologist Dr. Bart Hoebel, who believes sugar creates an actual dependency:

Laboratory experiments with rats showed that signs of sugar dependence developed over the course of 10 days. This suggests that it does not take long before the starve-binge behavior catches up with animals, making them dependent. There is something about this combination of heightened opioid and dopamine responses in the brain that leads to dependency. Without these neurotransmitters, the animal begins to feel anxious and wants to eat sweet food again.

Artificial sweeteners didn’t change the dependence, leading Hoebel to believe that the sweetness was the main factor and not the calories. While the study couldn’t identify why these cravings exist, it could identify a dependency. If you’re cutting down on sugar, take it slowly.

Get Moving

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What Sugar Actually Does to Your Brain and BodyYour metabolism pretty much goes in the toilet when you don’t move around at all, making sitting the harbinger of death. We’re big on standing desks, which, for starters, helps your burn far more calories than sitting. It’s just good for you all-around. As with any level of physical activity, from standing to walking to running, calorie burn is a poor focus to have. Going for a 20-minute run is about equal to two thin mint cookies (unless you’re really fast, in which case you might get a third cookie). Burning off a fast food meal would require exercising for most of your day. It’s just not feasible for anyone. Physical activity helps because it reduces stress (which reduces appetite) and improves the way your metabolism functions (so less fat is produced when processed by your body). These things are much more important than calorie burn.

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Standing up is a good way to negate the effects of sitting down but you might not be able to do it all the time. If you can’t, make sure you get up and walk around at least every 30 minutes. If you just don’t want to stand up while you work, try doing it for only an hour a day. It’s a short amount of time and is better than nothing. Regardless of how much you sit, keep track of the time and try to engage in physical activity—even if it’s as mild as walking around—for as close to that amount of time as possible. Go for walks (or walk instead of drive), play a sport, exercise, clean the house, or do anything that keeps you moving around. Generally the entertainment you consume while sitting (television and movies) can still be consumed while you’re standing or moving around. This may not be your ideal situation, but it’s a good way to increase your physical activity without giving up a normally sedentary activity you enjoy.

Like with anything, sugar isn’t all that bad for you in moderation. The problem with sugar these days is that there’s a lot more of it in everything and it’s in practically everything. So long as you pay attention to what you’re eating and you don’t overdo it, sugar can be a pleasant part of your life few to no issues. The important thing is that you know what you’re consuming and make good choices as a result. The answer to this problem isn’t groundbreaking, but just a matter of paying attention.

Want to learn more about sugar and how it works? You’ll find a lot of links within this post to other studies and additional information that’s worth reading, but you also should check out Dr. Robert H. Lustig’s lecture on sugar (which was the initial reason for writing this), as well as Sweet Surprise, which is an HFCS advocacy web site that argues against the claims that it is bad for you.

You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter and Facebook. If you’d like to contact him, Twitter is the most effective means of doing so.

AP/Julio Cortez

Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, center, talks about a federal investigation of the Newark Police Department during a May 9 news conference with Newark Mayor Cory Booker, far left.

In a marked shift from the Bush administration, President Obama’s Justice Department is aggressively investigating several big urban police departments for systematic civil rights abuses such as harassment of racial minorities, false arrests, and excessive use of force.

In interviews, activists and attorneys on the ground in several cities where the DOJ has dispatched civil rights investigators welcomed the shift. To progressives disappointed by Eric Holder’s Justice Department on key issues like the failure to investigate Bush-era torture and the prosecution of whistle-blowers, recent actions by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division are a bright spot.

In just the past few months, the Civil Rights Division has announced “pattern and practice” investigations in Newark, New Jersey and Seattle. It’s also conducting a preliminary investigation of the Denver Police Department, and all this is on top of a high-profile push to reform the notorious New Orleans Police Department — as well as criminal prosecutions of several New Orleans officers.

The “pattern and practice” authority comes from a 1994 law passed by Congress after the brutal beating of Rodney King by white Los Angeles police officers, who allegedly yelled racial slurs as they hit him. The law allows the DOJ to sue police departments if there is a pattern of violations of citizens’ constitutional rights — things like an excessive use of force, discrimination, and illegal searches. Often, after an investigation, the police department in question will enter into a voluntary reform agreement with the DOJ to avoid a lawsuit and the imposition of reforms. Full Story: Salon.com

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Give Me a Friggin Break, Somebody Please!

It is Classic Obama, give this and take that. I have always equated him to a lover who never keeps a date, and then shows up with lavish gifts just when you were gonna kick him to the curb. Classic, and check it out Bill, when he brings charges against the Bush Neo-cons for their war crimes, I will be a believer. And then only after the trials have ensued and the charges meted out.. Other wise, my dear Mr. Obama is an Illusionist, (the Prestige, watch that one for sure) remember the movie?

While doing this in the front, he does that in the back. Like the US refusal to support the World Conference Against Racism. They are poised to veto the UN mandate, because of their alliance with Israel. What does it mean?? If he does not crack down on the real culprits, these steps are crumbs cast out to the hungry birds who need much more, Bill. US boycotts World Conference Against Racism. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/01/us-boycott-world-conference-racism_n_869971.html. This is a major slap in the face, especially in view of police brutality, which is predominately generated by racism. You see what I mean?? This is a classic, look, don’t look at what I ain’t doing, look at what little I am doing, and that is a lot considering, right??

Seattle ???
What about DC, Philadelphia, NY, Los Angeles, come on man, these atrocities hit the world news… Seattle??? Give me a break. Somebody, help a sistah out, what happened in Seattle that got the president’s attention?? I really wanna know, man!

Man, when people finally wake up, it is going to be some serious hullabaloo going on. Quiet as it’s kept, black folk have been the ones in the movies, etc, to show the compassion needed to help the other guy when the other guy wouldn’t help him out. So, deep in the heart of Texas, that thought was there for white folks. Course, I ain’t do no survey, I just been a black woman in America.. anyways, I can see how they would have voted for him, thinking he was gonna save the day. Bring some humanity into the office of President, but he didn’t. In fact, the only thing that makes him seem like the great Black Hope is his skin color. Everything else is the same shit, just different President! They picked the perfect dude, if white folks say anything, they are racist, and if black folks say anything, they are haters. You got give them credit for this one, it’s ingenious!!

Since the Elite consider everyone else as “useless bottom feeders” to me saying no to “abortion” is in effective, if it does not include, poverty, poor housing, poor education, unemployment, fluoridated water, Pesticides, preservatives, gmo food, sex & violence targeting the youth through music videos, movies, and video games, targeted bio-chemical warfare in poor communities, corporations who rob the Earth of its natural resources, Thieves & Robbers better known as Bankster and Corporate CEO’s, etc. The list is endless, but one thing that is for sure, the woman who wants and/or needs an abortion, has been victimized by the above in many more cases than not. 

Denying them abortions just leads them into the back alley of death and doctors who care not about their welfare, their health, or their destiny. We can Blame Obama, we can blame Margaret Sanger, but the reason there are so many abortions in the Black community is a deeper issue that needs to be addressed beginning with the slacking of the gap between the rich and poor.

The birth rate may have lessened by some minor degree points in the black community, but black folks overall, have far less incidence of abortions than that of whites, these white abortions seldom hit the mainstream news statistics. Whites have the privilege and the opportunity to have the “abortion” in a much less harmful environment than the blacks and poor whites do.

It always amazes me how people forget that Poverty is the major culprit. I also don’t understand why anti-abortion folks are not about paying more taxes to fund social services that will take care of the children who are born and who need to be cared for while their parents work two and three jobs. I don’t understand how the disconnect between having a child and the 18 or so years caretaking of the child that happens after birth, and no viable alternatives are offered to women who struggle to keep their heads above water.

I take this personally, because I never went to Planned Parenthood for an abortion, I had 4 children in 5 years, and we lived in poverty for their entire childhood, there were no community services that would assist me in taking care of my children’s needs. I believe that I was blessed to make it through, but when someone insists on taking the option of abortion away from a woman’s life??? What are they replacing that option with??

I do not think that women as a whole should just get pregnant and then have an abortion. I don’t believe that most black women function that way. Many are so caught between a rock and a hard place, they may most likely make the choice out of desperation. What are the nay sayers going to do about that?? Tell them to pray and God will provide? When you are poor… where is the God of Provisions?

People tend to forget about our President’s youth &upbringing. He was raced by Europeans, with European Goals, & ideology. He wasnt raised n da hood, so culturally he is NOT African-American like those born there, but a brown faced Euro-American going after the Elitist big piece of the pie that even he knows your average-pull-u=self-up-by=your­-bootstraps=Negro would have never gotten. We used to call them folks Oreo’s. It really applies to him. He is a elitist carrying card puppet.

Listen folks, it looks like oil & colonialism on the surface, but it’s the capturing of great lands round the world, their portals, stargates, sacred hidden treasures & mysteries, ley lines, vortexes, etc.

These folks want to master the Universe, not some little planet, they want to step out there fully loaded, having taken over the entire planet, they can show some muscle in their star wars. They are fools, but they are psychopathic driven fools. Look deeper. Gaddafi found a reservoir of water under that sand. 8th wonder of the world.These folks ain’t playing they want it all…

Tim Slocombe raises an American flag on a tree the day after a tornado struck Joplin, Mo., May 23, 2011. The twister, which touched down Sunday evening, killed at least 90 people and spread its destruction over a wide swath of the town, ripping apart buildings and cars and touching off fires. (Photo: Patrick Fallon / The New York Times)

The rapid and terrifying acceleration of global warming, which is disfiguring the ecosystem at a swifter pace than even the gloomiest scientific studies predicted a few years ago, has been confronted by the power elite with two kinds of self-delusion. There are those, many of whom hold elected office, who dismiss the science and empirical evidence as false. There are others who accept the science surrounding global warming but insist that the human species can adapt. Our only salvation—the rapid dismantling of the fossil fuel industry—is ignored by both groups. And we will be led, unless we build popular resistance movements and carry out sustained acts of civil disobedience, toward collective self-annihilation by dimwitted pied pipers and fools.

Those who concede that the planet is warming but insist we can learn to live with it are perhaps more dangerous than the buffoons who decide to shut their eyes. It is horrifying enough that the House of Representatives voted 240-184 this spring to defeat a resolution that said that “climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.” But it is not much of an alternative to trust those who insist we can cope with the effects while continuing to burn fossil fuels.

Horticulturalists are busy planting swamp oaks and sweet gum trees all over Chicago to prepare for weather that will soon resemble that of Baton Rouge. That would be fine if there was a limit to global warming in sight. But without plans to rapidly dismantle the fossil fuel industry, something no one in our corporate state is contemplating, the heat waves of Baton Rouge will be a starting point for a descent that will ultimately make cities like Chicago unlivable. The false promise of human adaptability to global warming is peddled by the polluters’ major front group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which informed the Environmental Protection Agency that “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations.” This bizarre theory of adaptability has been embraced by the Obama administration as it prepares to exploit the natural resources in the Arctic. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced recently that melting of sea ice “will result in more shipping, fishing and tourism, and the possibility to develop newly accessible oil and gas reserves.” Now that’s something to look forward to.

“It is good that at least those guys are taking it seriously, far more seriously than the federal government is taking it,” said the author and environmental activist Bill McKibben of the efforts in cities such as Chicago to begin to adapt to warmer temperatures. “At least they understand that they have some kind of problem coming at them. But they are working off the science of five or six years ago, which is still kind of the official science that the International Climate Change negotiations are working off of. They haven’t begun to internalize the idea that the science has shifted sharply. We are no longer talking about a long, slow, gradual, linear warming, but something that is coming much more quickly and violently. Seven or eight years ago it made sense to talk about putting permeable concrete on the streets. Now what we are coming to realize is that the most important adaptation we can do is to stop putting carbon in the atmosphere. If we don’t, we are going to produce temperature rises so high that there is no adapting to them.”

The Earth has already begun to react to our hubris. Freak weather unleashed deadly tornados in Joplin, Mo., and Tuscaloosa, Ala. It has triggered wildfires that have engulfed large tracts in California, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. It has brought severe droughts to the Southwest, parts of China and the Amazon. It has caused massive flooding along the Mississippi as well as in Australia, New Zealand, China and Pakistan. It is killing off the fish stocks in the oceans and obliterating the polar ice caps. Steadily rising sea levels will eventually submerge coastal cities, islands and some countries. These disturbing weather patterns presage a world where it will be harder and harder to sustain human life. Massive human migrations, which have already begun, will create chaos and violence. India is building a 4,000-kilometer fence along its border with Bangladesh to, in part, hold back the refugees who will flee if Bangladesh is submerged. There are mounting food shortages and sharp price increases in basic staples such as wheat as weather patterns disrupt crop production. The failed grain harvests in Russia, China and Australia, along with the death of the winter wheat crop in Texas, have, as McKibben points out, been exacerbated by the inability of Midwestern farmers to plant corn in water-logged fields. These portents of an angry Gaia are nothing compared to what will follow if we do not swiftly act.

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“We are going to have to adapt a good deal,” said McKibben, with whom I spoke by phone from his home in Vermont. “It is going to be a century that calls for being resilient and durable. Most of that adaptation is going to take the form of economies getting smaller and lower to the ground, local food, local energy, things like that. But that alone won’t do it, because the scale of change we are now talking about is so great that no one can adapt to it. Temperatures have gone up one degree so far and that has been enough to melt the Arctic. If we let it go up three or four degrees, the rule of thumb the agronomists go by is every degree Celsius of temperature rise represents about a 10 percent reduction in grain yields. If we let it go up three or four degrees we are really not talking about a planet that can support a civilization anything like the one we’ve got.

“I have sympathy for those who are trying hard to figure out how to adapt, but they are behind the curve of the science by a good deal,” he said. “I have less sympathy for the companies that are brainwashing everyone along the line ‘We’re taking small steps here and there to improve.’ The problem, at this point, is not going to be dealt with by small steps. It is going to be dealt with by getting off fossil fuel in the next 10 or 20 years or not at all.

“The most appropriate thing going on in Chicago right now is that Greenpeace occupied [on Thursday] the coal-fired power plant in Chicago,” he said. “That’s been helpful. It reminded people what the real answers are. We’re going to see more civil disobedience. I hope we are. I am planning hard for some stuff this summer.

“The task that we are about is essentially political and symbolic,” McKibben admitted. “There is no actual way to shut down the fossil fuel system with our bodies. It is simply too big. It’s far too integrated in everything we do. The actions have to be symbolic, and the most important part of that symbolism is to make it clear to the onlookers that those of us doing this kind of thing are not radical in any way. We are conservatives. The real radicals in this scenario are people who are willing to fundamentally alter the composition of the atmosphere. I can’t think of a more radical thing that any human has ever thought of doing. If it wasn’t happening it would be like the plot from a Bond movie.

“The only way around this is to defeat the system, and the name of that system is the fossil fuel industry, which is the most profitable industry in the world by a large margin,” McKibben said. “Fighting it is extraordinarily difficult. Maybe you can’t do it. The only way to do it is to build a movement big enough to make a difference. And that is what we are trying desperately to do with 350.org. It is something we should have done 20 years ago, instead of figuring that we were going to fight climate change by convincing political elites that they should do something about this problem. It is a tactic that has not worked.

“One of our big targets this year is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is the biggest front group for fossil fuel there is,” he said. “We are figuring out how to take them on. I don’t think they are worried about us yet. And maybe they are right not to be, because they’ve got so much money they’re invulnerable.

“There are huge decisive battles coming,” he said. “This year the Obama administration has to decide whether it will grant a permit or not for this giant pipeline to run from the tar sands of Alberta down to the refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. That is like a 1,500-mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet. We have to figure out how to keep that from happening. The Obama administration, very sadly, a couple of months ago opened 750 million tons of western coal under federal land for mining. That was a disgrace. But they still have to figure out how to get it to port so they can ship it to China, which is where the market for it is. We are trying hard to keep that from happening. I’m on my way to Bellingham, Wash., next week because there is a plan for a deep-water port in Bellingham that would allow these giant freighters to show up and collect that coal.

“In moral terms, it’s all our personal responsibility and we should be doing those things,” McKibben said when I asked him about changing our own lifestyles to conserve energy. “But don’t confuse that with having much of an impact on the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. You can’t make the math work one house or one campus at a time. We should do those things. I’ve got a little plaque for having built the most energy-efficient house in Vermont the year we built it. I’ve got solar panels everywhere. But I don’t confuse myself into thinking that that’s actually doing very much. This argument is a political argument. I spend much of my life on airplanes spewing carbon behind me as we try to build a global movement. Either we are going to break the power of the fossil fuel industry and put a price on carbon or the planet is going to heat past the point where we can deal with it.

“It goes far beyond party affiliation or ideology,” he said. “Fossil fuel undergirds every ideology we have. Breaking with it is going to be a traumatic and difficult task. The natural world is going to continue to provide us, unfortunately, with many reminders about why we have to do that. Sooner or later, we will wise up. The question is all about that sooner or later.

“I’d like people to go to climatedirectaction.org and sign up,” McKibben said. “We are going to be issuing calls for people to be involved in civil disobedience. I’d like people to join in this campaign against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It’s very easy to sign up. If you don’t own a little business yourself, you probably shop at 10 or 20 of them a week. It’s very easy to sign those guys up to say the U.S. Chamber doesn’t speak for me. We can’t take away their [the Chamber’s] money, but we can take away some of their respectability. I would like people to demonstrate their solidarity with people all around the world in this fight. The next big chance to do that will be Sept. 24, a huge global day of action that we’re calling ‘Moving Planet.’ It will be largely bicycle based, because the bicycle is one of the few tools that both rich and poor use and because it is part of the solution we need. On that day we will be delivering demands via bicycle to every capital and statehouse around the world.

“I wish there was some easy ‘end around,’ some backdoor through which we could go to get done what needs to be done,” he said. “But that’s not going to happen. That became clear at Copenhagen and last summer when the U.S. Senate refused to take a vote on the most mild, tepid climate legislation there could have been. We are going to have to build a movement that pushes the fossil fuel industry aside. I don’t know whether that’s possible. If you were to bet, you might well bet we will lose. We have been losing for two decades. But you are not allowed to make that bet. The only moral action, when the worst thing that ever happened in the world is happening, is to try and figure out how to change those odds.

“At least they knew they were going to win,” McKibben said of the civil rights movement. “They didn’t know when, but they knew they were going to win, that the tide of history was on their side. But the arch of the physical universe appears to be short and appears to bend towards heat. We’ve got to win quickly if we’re going to win. We’ve already passed the point where we’re going to stop global warming. It has already warmed a degree and there is another degree in the pipeline from carbon already emitted. The heat gets held in the ocean for a while, but it’s already there. We’ve already guaranteed ourselves a miserable century. The question is whether it’s going to be an impossible one.”
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Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.

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Comments: by Nana Baakan

You will probably be surprised to know that a plastic bottle is made from the same petrochemical as the fiber we call polyester!

All plastic products, many of the materials used to make the clothes you wear, or the carpet you walk on, plus hundreds of the other products we take for granted, are made from petrochemicals. As the name implies, a main ingredient in petrochemicals is oil.

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I hear Mr. McKibble (the new Climate Change Chicken Little), but I believe his fight is ludicrous when you look at the bigger picture.

http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm

The people who yell Climate Change, Global Warming, let’s go get the Corporations always fail to mention that the Corporations are giving us just what we are asking for, a comfortable way of life with all our modern gizmos! Who is willing to give up all the plastic stuff we are surrounded with? Fossil fuels supply us with a throw away world of things we can just dump. It provides us with depreciating things that we can always throw away and go buy a new one. It gives us breakable things that have no longevity, but they can be purchased at the dollar store, so we can always replace it. Fossil fuels give us more than gasoline in our cars, in fact, much more. Plastic is made from oil!! Petro-chemicals! We would have to go back to heavier, bulkier, glass and wood. So, is it the fossil fuels that is the problem or our desire to sustain our lifestyles that is the problem? Imagine getting off the oil drug??? Here is a partial list of the things made from plastics for your info.

http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm

Beauty queen Katya Koren stoned to death by Muslims for being in pageant
BY LARRY MCSHANE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, May 31st 2011, 11:21 AM

via Facebook
Katya Koren, 19, was stoned to death by three Muslim men because she participated in a beauty contest, officials say.

A would-be teen beauty queen was stoned to death after her participation in a Ukranian pageant reportedly infuriated local Muslim youths.

Katya Koren, 19, was targeted by three fellow teens who said her seventh-place finish in the beauty contest was a violation of Muslim laws, according to British newspaper reports.

One of the suspects, identified as 16-year-old Bihal Gaziev, told authorities that he had no regrets about the stoning because the dark-haired Koren “violated the laws of Sharia.”

The teen’s battered body was found buried in the forest near her village in the Crimea section of the Ukraine. She had disappeared a week earlier.

Koren, described by friends as a stylish dresser, finished seventh in the beauty pageant. The British newspapers said the girl, just like her attackers, was a Muslim.

Stoning became a major international issue last year when an Iranian woman was sentenced to die by the barbaric method after her conviction for adultery.

The woman had killed her abusive, drug-addicted husband – and was sentenced to serve 10 years for the killing. The adultery charge carried the death penalty.

But the woman’s life was spared after an international appeal for mercy, including a request from the Vatican for clemency.

lmcshane@nydailynews.com

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how to live–how do you know what rules to follow without following some sort of divine book/logic?

The mere fact that human beings believe they need someone to give them laws to follow tells the human being that they are too stupid to figure out what is right and what is not. As long as human beings resort to this type of leadership over their lives, they will continue to be irresponsible because that law is not written in the book, or because they knew the law and decided to break it. The law exists beyond any book or doctrine that any other human being can write, or re-write. the Universal Law is in every one’s soul, it is the law of responsibility, compassion, love and do unto others, etc. Having laws is an mental crutch giving someone license to ignore common sense, an economic trap, causing governments to fine, tax, torture and imprison, and a spiritual trap, separating human beings from their higher power and higher knowledge. Imagine how quickly governments, religious institutions and penal systems would go bankrupt if human beings took responsibility for themselves. If human beings evolved beyond the consciousness of needing some higher authority to dictate to them right/wrong and then punish them (sometimes brutally) when they transgress? Imagine the Change that would create in a world on its way to destruction because its inhabitants do not think for themselves, do not allow themselves to connect to Divine Consciousness and do not see themselves in every living thing. When people hurt one another, it is out of fear and separation. They are so separated from one another, the other becomes the point of contention and fear, and then comes the attack on that which they fear. Wars, torture, destruction, hatred, etc will continue on this planet till the end of times, as long as people fail to see themselves in the eyes of others.