“The Seed Underground”

Janisse Ray writes, “The Seed Underground” is a love letter to the quiet revolutionaries who are saving our food heritage.

"Ray begins The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food by explaining how we lost our seeds. Feeding ourselves has always been a burden for humans, she explains. “So when somebody came along and said, ‘I’ll do that cultivating for you. I’ll save the seeds. You do something else,’ most of us jumped at the chance to be free.”

But, according to Ray, when the dwindling number of farmers who stayed on the land gave up on saving seeds and embraced hybridization, genetically modified organisms, and seed patents in order to make money, we became slaves to multinational corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta, which now control our food supply.

In 2007, 10 companies owned 67 percent of the seed market. These corporations control the playing field, because they influence the government regulators. They’ve been known to snatch up little-known varieties of seeds, patent them, and demand royalties from farmers whose ancestors have grown the crops for centuries. The result is that our seeds are disappearing, and we miss out on the exquisite tastes and smells of an enormous variety of fruits and vegetables. More alarmingly, “we strip our crops of the ability to adapt to change and we put the entire food supply at risk,” Ray writes. “The more varieties we lose, the closer we slide to the tipping point of disaster.”

However, The Seed Underground is not a grim story. It’s a story about seeds, after all, which Ray calls “the most hopeful thing in the world.” Moreover, it’s a story about a handful of quirky, charismatic, “quiet, under-the-radar” revolutionaries, who harvest and stow seeds in the back of refrigerators and freezers across America."

Obama, 'Devil Made Me Do It'

Time is now to know where your food comes from.  Buy local organically grown or grow your own.

"...the Monsanto Protection Act’s success actually proves how corporations have more power than even the United States federal government. Monsanto’s lobbyists managed to slip the rider into the major bill, which — despite the rider — has virtually nothing to do with the topic."

Statement by the Press Secretary on H.R. 933

On Tuesday, March 26, 2013, the President signed into law:

H.R. 933, the "Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013," in which Divisions A through E provide fiscal year (FY) 2013 full-year appropriations through September 30, 2013, for the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and other related agencies; Division F provides for further continuing FY 2013 funding through September 30, 2013 for the remaining projects and activities of the Federal Government funded through discretionary appropriations not covered in Divisions A through E; and Division G includes across-the-board reductions for FY 2013 discretionary appropriations contained in Divisions A through F to assure compliance with the discretionary spending limits.

When One Lie + Another Lie = ‘Honesty’

In an article, entitled 

Big Dairy Petitions FDA to Allow Unlabeled Use of Aspartame in Dairy Products

written by Dr. Mercola the latest food assaulted with the threat of mislabeling is dairy products. 
"The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) have filed a petition with the FDA¹ requesting the agency “amend the standard of identity” for milk and 17 other dairy products. This was done to provide for the use of any safe and suitable sweetener as an optional ingredient — including non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame to deceive you by not having to indicate its use on the label."

"Artificial sweeteners are allowed to be added, but must currently be listed on the label. Quoting Section 130.10 of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, the IDFA and NMPF claim no extra labeling is required for artificial sweeteners because sugar is added to milk without labeling it, and 'the modified food is not inferior in performance,' and 'reduced calories are not attractive to children.'"

Victory Over Guilt

Where Do Seeds Come From?

Starting a home vegetable garden can be overwhelming at first.  High Mowing's article offers helpful information.

How to Choose? Open-Pollinated vs. Hybrid Varieties

 
Choose well now.  Our options are diminishing rapidly.

According to the report, Monsanto has alleged seed patent infringement in 144 lawsuits against 410 farmers and 56 small farm businesses in at least 27 U.S. states as of January of 2013. Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta together hold 53 percent of the global commercial seed market, which the report says has led to price increases for seeds -- between 1995 and 2011, the average cost of planting one acre of soybeans rose 325 percent and corn seed prices went up 259 percent. 

Buy organic seeds.  Grow of your own food.  Get together with neighbors and start a community garden.  Learn how to save your own seed.  NOW.

Nemo, a Special Snow Storm?

High blasting wind, snow measured in inches per hour, loss of visibility, flashes of lightning?
My cell phone just announced a Blizzard Warning with alarm noises!
Why does this storm have a name?

Certainly cute even with that angry face.

  I tell a story of a special storm with no name just The Snow Storm, December 1971.  Everything we owned stuffed into a '55 Chevy.  Nine dollars and a Standard Oil credit card, this was our third move since August when Jennifer was born.  Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri, and now to Minnesota.  Between Missouri and Minnesota is Iowa where corn grows and dirt blows in the summer.  In winter however, snow blows.  Lots of snow.  Feet of snow.

 The morning started with promise.  A bright, cloudless sky.  Decently comfortable for a winter day.  Al, me, baby Jennifer, and Inga, our miniature black and tan Dachshund piled into the car.  In seven or eight hours we'd  see our friends in Minnesota where a job and house waited for us.  Traveling with a nursing baby isn't difficult.  Don't need to stop for meals.  Changing diapers...cloth diapers...is tricky though.  But we should be there by tonight so a plastic bag to hold the dirties is sufficient.

 Half way there the sky thickened and the wind picked up.  Near Ames, IA, we stopped to call a college friend who warned us of the coming snow.  She tried to convince us to stop and spend the night with her.  No, we thought, better keep moving.  By sundown Mason City, the half way point between Ames and Minneapolis, was still miles off.  The snow swirled in the dark.  The headlights illuminated the trillions of flakes.  We couldn't see anything else.  Nothing at all.  

 When up ahead through the blizzard - lights!  The taillights and running lights of an 18-wheeler.  Speed up, speed up or we'll lose him.  Then his left turn signal blinked.  We were determined to follow him no matter where he went but he didn't turn.  Catching up to where his signal had flashed, we passed an abandoned car off to our left.  He had signaled us to make us aware of the car!  Several more times his signal flashed and several more times we passed abandoned cars.

 Up ahead the lights of a city appeared, Mason City...and the truck lights disappeared.  No tire tracks in the snow.  He had indeed vanished!  Left on our own, we ran the snow drifts in town.  Each drift deeper than the last until one drift would not let us go.  Two snowmobilers immediately ran out of a small building to push us out of the snow.  But they refused to push us forward and insisted we stop and come into the bar.  The owner cried when she saw Jennifer.  "I knew I was suppose to stay open."

 By morning bright sunshine replaced the storm clouds.  As soon as the snowplow passed, we started again. Dozens of abandoned cars lined the highway.  A black Monte Carlo left the pavement and ended up at a 45 degree angle in a huge drift near an overpass.  Who knows where the driver went?  

So even today, as I remember The Snow Storm, I know that angels drive 18-wheelers and God is in control.

Drone Memo

Obama and drones...The paper states that the U.S. would be able to kill a U.S. citizen overseas when "an informed, high-level official of the U.S. government" determines the target is an imminent threat, when capture would be infeasible and when the operation is "conducted consistent with applicable law of war principles."

The white paper suggests that such decisions would not be subject to judicial review and outlines a broad definition of what constitutes “imminent” threat.