To Females of all Ages, Sizes, Races and Sexual Orientation Everywhere!  Women’s Party Meeting Notice! Sept. 14^th at 7pm in Vancouver! Please email Gail at: gcotter@shaw.ca  for address of meeting place and to advise of your plans to attend.

Men, it isn’t that we don’t love you, but we want a women’s only space to organize and solidify our thoughts around what we envision for a women’s party.  We believe the old male dominated thinking of organizing around hierarchies and “winner take all” is killing our planet.  And us along with it, including our children.  We believe that women are capable of halting this mad race to the cliff, but in order to do this, we must first come together and agree on how to push many of the male imposed structures of society off the cliff first.  

We must confront a banking system that is privately held, corrupt, and leading us all to the poor house.  We need to confront Prime Minister Harper who believes that military acquisitions are a priority instead of the health and education of children, (or for that matter, even the repair of bridges and tunnels in Quebec.) We must devise means to confront a Prime Minister who believes that corporate enrichment is the god to be worshiped (while he is personally waiting for the Rapture) and the environment be dammed (oil sands and Asbestos.) We must also confront religious structures, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, as well as all patriarchal religions that deem women to be inferior because their gods say so. And they all do. More prisons?  Prisons only work for corporations.  And corrupt governments. We believe that if we take care of our people there will be no, or few, prisons.

As a Women’s Party we will want to look closely at how our court systems work.  We want to study and refute how the Supreme Court of Canada supports environmental degradation by upholding the bogus claims of logging and mining industries over the rights of citizens, including First Nations, to lead healthy lives.  And we most certainly will be looking at and considering action against the right of private corporations to hold patents on the essence of life itself; the private patents on plants, fish, and other animals, described as Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s.) We believe that as long as women are absent in the most important decision making bodies in the world we will have war, disease, both physical and mental, along with premature death accompanied by environmental destruction.

Sisters, if any of the above interests you, and you would like to be involved, please notify Gail through the email (gcotter@shaw.ca) to indicate that you wish to join us on Sept. 14^th in Vancouver and receive the street address.   One caveat…f you   are a news reporter, please don’t attend as a reporter.  Come as a woman who understands the perils we are all facing and the need to confront old ways, old means, old beliefs, and to help devise new ways and means of living lives of equality, of health, nourishment, and peace for all.  Mark your calendars.  Action is the mother of hope.   See you there.  Betty Krawczyk

TIME TO RETHINK PRIVATE PROPERTY

With our economy tanking in tandem with the US, and the Canadian environment turning to slush, I suggest, without shame or reservation, that we take a good look at where reverence for private property  has led us, and is leading us.

     I’m not talking about private homes, family farms, cars, trailers, boats, vacation places, small businesses or private money in the bank.  I’m talking about the right of large multinational corporations to own and destroy large swaths of our physical environment at will, even if this destruction affects hundreds, thousands, even millions of other people and other species.  Logging companies do this by clear cutting large tracts of forests, both public and private. 

These forests can include watersheds that feed into lakes and rivers and reservoirs, waterways that can flood valleys below during the rainy season following the clear cutting of forests above.  A classic example of this is a final report that was delivered (August 16) to the Comox Valley Regional District by Northwest Hydraulic Consultants.  This report concerned the serious flooding in Courtenay the past few years involving the Tsolum River.

The Comox Valley Record reported on the Courtney council receiving the report  (August 19) but didn’t mention that TimberWest Forest Corporation paid for the investigation, in part, into how their logging practices may have contributed to the flooding in the valley for the past two years.  Isn’t that interesting?  We have a situation where a logging company under suspicion funds, in part, the investigation of Courtenay flooding and the main local paper neglects to mention this. At least the Comox Valley Echo mentioned that TimberWest owns two thirds of the Tsolum River’s watershed and that the assessment itself was based on information particularly given by TimberWest.

Heavens to Betsy!   Do they think we are all as dumb as sticks?  They must.  But what is wrong with us that we stand for such nonsense?  TimberWest has one of the worst environment logging records on the books.  They clear cut to the bone.  And they are heavily into raw logs.  And I don’t think I have to tell you where our raw logs are going.  You’re right.  To China.  Why China?  Well, it isn’t just because the US housing market has slowed to a tear drop.  It’s because China forbids clear cutting in its own country.

That’s right.  Since the massive floods in 1998 that killed 3,000 people and destroyed 22 million acres of farmland China has rethought the practice of clear cutting.  And banned it everywhere in China.  And, would you believe…there is no longer any cutting of any kind in China’s old growth forests.

 China has stopped clear cutting her own forests, because she can effectively clear cut ours. And in the process also provide her people with employment by milling our raw logs over there.   China learned her lesson from the massive flooding of 1998 and the lesson was this…go clear cut somebody else’s forests.  Pick out a corporate ridden country like Canada that obviously doesn’t care about their forests, their wild animals, about flooding, about their people. And China would be right.  Our governments don’t care.  And because they don’t care, they shouldn’t be in charge of our forests. And large private logging corporations shouldn’t be in charge of anything.  They shouldn’t exist.  Not even on private land. 

 

Oh, yes.  The report filed by Northwest Hydraulic Consultants that was paid, in part, by TimberWest and based on information particularly from TimberWest, said that heavier rain was the cause of the Courtenay flooding, not TimberWest clear cutting. Surprised?

 (photo:Comox Valley Echo)

GENETICALLY MODIFIED PEOPLE ?

Genetically Modified People?

 Impossible?  Improbable?   Last year I would have said so.  Now I’m not sure.  Consider:  we already have genetically modified salmon ready to make their debut in BC fish farms.  Actually, the fish (dubbed FrankenFish by US media) are already here.  FrankenFish were born in Canada at Memorial and Queens Universities in 1996 and according to Biologist Bob Devlin, many are living in West Vancouver under big, white tents across from Marine Drive. Bob Devlin studies and cares for the FrankenFish. In an article featuring Mr. Devlin in the North Shore News (March, 2011.)  Mr. Devlin neglected to mention that the FrankenFish is patented.

Exactly what is a FrankenFish?  In this case an Atlantic salmon that has been grown from eggs that were injected with additional genes from an eel and Growth Factor IGF-1. They can grow to ten times the size of an ordinary salmon, still containing unknown quantities of IGF-1, a hormone that has been linked to early sexual maturation of human children.  A company called AquaBounty (US based) has a patent on this genetically modified salmon which is the very first animal to be genetically altered and then patented like corn and canola. 

The Harper government won’t even tell us what GMO foods are in our groceries and even if we knew, a patented salmon is a very big jump from a patented ear of corn.  But a patented genetically modified pig is not such a terribly big jump from a patented salmon as both are animals.  The FrankenPig already has his papers (Revivcor) and is waiting his turn to be officially tested for market.’

As horrible as this seems the worse may be yet to come.  In my opinion, given the power of the super rich and the super right wing, it is not inconceivable that the genetic modification of humans is also in the not too distant future.  Not for food, of course.  And not even, like robots, to perform repetitive or onerous tasks that most humans shrink from performing. What is it that our medical establishment is constantly calling for that is in very short supply?  You guessed it, human body parts.

Human body parts are in constant demand, especially by people who can pay big bucks for them, legally or illegally.  Human eggs can be genetically modified in the Petri dish as easily as salmon eggs and grown normally in the wombs of poor women in return for food for the women’s hungry families.  How could genetically modified humans be engineered to benefit corporations?

  FrankenPeople could be sterilized in the Petri dish, like FrankenFish, kept clean and healthy, and have extremely small brains.  When called upon, FrankenPeople would perhaps have several operations to remove various body parts before they would die from the operations, or be killed, humanely of course, having served their purpose.   FrankenPeople would never know they were created only to serve as body parts primarily for the corporate elite.   And the rest of us? 

Would we be persuaded that FrankenPeople might be okay in case we needed an organ transplant for a loved one and had the money?  A lot of money, of course, because the patent holder of FrankenPeople wouldn’t sell their items cheap. After all, they would argue, even though the processes of modifying FrankenPeople might have been engineered in public Canadian universities as was the FrankenFish, the holders could claim they invested enormous amounts of money in bringing FrankenPeople body parts to market. Science fiction? I’m not so sure. We have allowed patented genetically modified corn and grains without revolt.  Patented genetically modified salmon are already on our shores. The patented pig is next.  At what point do we as citizens refuse to cooperate with a sick and deranged economic system that doesn’t even realize how sick and deranged it is?  Where is that point? Sweet mother of us all, where is that point?

GMO's, DFO's and EXPLODING WATERMELONS

 BC policy makers seem as entranced with hormones that make food grow fast and fat as the Chinese farmers are whose watermelons have recently exploded from over enthusiastic applications.  Especially the BC Liberal Government is entranced with the use of hormones in the fish farm industry.

 Our provincial government, along with all three of our universities and in close cooperation with our Department of Fisheries and Oceans, are in the process of totally changing the hormonal composition of our salmon.  From the sex changing of males into females for fish farm pens to stocking our lakes and coastal waters with these hormonally disturbed fish without telling the public, has actually become the norm.  The hormonally changed fish also go through a process (artificial female triploidy) that makes them sterile.  Usually.   By never going through sexual maturation the salmon grow bigger and fatter.  But some few will remain able to mate with wild fish in our waterways, thus creating a veritable nightmare of increasing numbers of fish in the wild with screwed up hormonal compositions.

  Much of this sex hormone manipulation of BC salmon emanates from the work of Dr. Edward M. Donaldson, DFO, Professor Emeritus, and UVIC adjutant professor. So what, you might ask?  Doesn’t Dr. Donaldson have a right to do this?  No.  Not in secret, and not on our dime.  Dr. Donaldson should have been drawing his salary from the fish farms instead of from us.  And who are our publically funded universities serving?   The public?  Or private corporations like AquaBounty?   

AquaBounty (started at Memorial and Queens Universities) has patented a salmon that is no longer even a salmon.  The FrankenFish is part eel (eel genes have been sliced into the genetic structure of the fish) and grows up to four times the size of an ordinary salmon in less than half the time.  Did our BC universities know about this monster creation beforehand or was it a privately held secret by Memorial and Queens Universities back east?

  Of course our BC universities knew all about Frankenfish.   Because they’re already here and are being grown in BC.  Dr. Donaldson tells us in his REPRODUCTIVE CONTAINMENT OF GENETICALLY ALTERED SALMONIDS on page 114 “ Total containment has recently been implemented for the field testing of transgenic carp (FrankenFish) in the US… along  with Atlantic Salmon (still talking about transgenic fish, the ones that have been dubbed Frankenfish) imported into British Columbia…”

 And how does Dr. Donaldson suggest these FrankenFish salmon be held and grown in BC?  First, Dr. Donaldson says they must be held in a land based system “with a 24 hour security system, triple screening of out flows, treatment of the effluent, surround of field trial ponds with dry ponds, and provision for removal or poisoning of fish in the event that a flood is predicted. “ 

This is obviously serious stuff.  Almost like containing terrorists.  Patented terrorists. So, as these FrankenFish are already here, where are the land based containment facilities capable of complete security where the FrankenFish can be grown in absolute secrecy?  After all, how many exclusively land based, totally contained fish farms are there in BC?

Continued…

Dear Friends and Gentle People,

I want to thank everyone who sent me happy birthday greetings and amusing videos for my 83^rd birthday on August 4^th.  They were the toppings of a beautiful day of sunshine and renewed hope.  Of course growing older at age 83 is somewhat different than growing older at 43 or 63.  But not terribly.  Once one realizes that every living thing on this earth is in a natural process of birth, growth, death, and rebirth again (in whatever form) then one can relax into the process.  It’s when one realizes that every breath taken by a human being on this earth has been taken untold billions of time before by other organisms, including other humans, that our lives fall into perspective within the flow of time.  And then time itself appears stunning, fascinating, and brilliantly coloured, wherever one is within the process.  There.  This is my little homely on my 83^rd birthday.  And thanks again everybody. You’re all awesome.  Love, Betty K

WHY MONSANTO LOVES CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES

Monsanto also loves, besides two very important universities, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and one huge Frankenfish corporation named AquaBounty.   The FrankenFish (genetically modified salmon) was in fact, born in Newfoundland, at Memorial University in 1996. Two Memorial based  researchers, Garth Fletcher and Choy Hew, worked to create this fish that does not exist in nature, along with Peter Davies of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. (St. John’s Telegram: Jan. 24, 2011.)

 This work on genetically modified salmon was protected by Memorial University and Queen’s with the final patent coming in 1996.  At this point what had been a publicly funded venture became a totally private firm under the name AquaBounty Technologies, complete with a birth certificate in the form of their own private patent . But I would like to know how many people connected with these two universities now have stock, or stock options, in AquaBounty?

So we have two prestigious universities (Memorial and Queens) that took Canadian tax payers’ money to boost along and become part of an exercise that was secret, entirely corporate driven, without proof that genetically modified salmon (or other modified fish) did not pose a threat to the public health of Canadians or would not escape to breed with wild fish.   But this is only half the story.

The part that is really creepy concerns the patents for these genetically modified salmon. Enter Monsanto. And the US Food and Drug Administration.  That’s where the battle to certify Frankenfish is being fought.  And Canada?  Where the US goes is most certainly where Canada will go. And guess who will be sitting in advisory positions to the US government upon application for approval?

For one, Michael Taylor, the US Food Safety Czar.  He was previously an attorney for Monsanto. He was influential in getting other genetically modified foods approved. Another adviser to the US on Frankenfish is Alison Van Eenennaam.  She used to work for Monsanto. And also advising will be Kevin Wells, who works for a company named Revivicor, that is genetically engineering pigs (this from Jeffery Smith ,Natural Grocers.)  And the answer from the FDA will be coming soon enough to our markets.

 Canadian companies don’t have to label genetically modified food.  Wheat, corn, soy beans, we don’t really know what we’re eating.   And if the AquaBounty application is approved the flood gates will open wide like gaping jaws.  We won’t know when we could be eating FrankenFish, or FrankenPork, for that matter. But we should be acutely aware of one thing…the most evil of all corporations to ever to come into being may very well wind up with most or all of the patents on all genetically modified salmon, and when escaped GM fish (by accident or design) mate with wild fish, Monsanto can claim they own all, or most of, the salmon in the seas and rivers.  And make the claim stick.  Harper’s new conservative judges (four new ones, a majority before he leaves office) will make sure it sticks in Canadian jurisdiction.

But AquaBounty isn’t the only worry.  For twenty years, FDO researchers in BC have been experimenting with, and using sex hormones to satisfy fish farm demands for all female salmon in their pens.  And not stopping there, our DFO fish scientists, along with BC governmental approval, have stocked a large number of our lakes with these sex changed and sterilized fish.  Continued…

Action is the Mother of Hope  

Betty Krawczyk
Schiver Rhodes Publishing
www.schiverrhodespublishing.com