Words, Wind and Why Not

Swine Flu Vaccine Lawsuit Filed

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:58:00 +0000

Attorney James Turner filed a complaint Friday in federal court in the District of Columbia for a Temporary Restraining Order to halt the distribution, licensing and use of four swine flu vaccines.

Turner said, "The FDA is required by law to establish that a vaccine is safe and effective before it can be given to the public. We are arguing that they did not establish that the vaccine was effective, and did not establish that it was safe. They are trying to get it on the market by a waiver."

Turner also said, "There are no records of clinical trials or peer-reviewed studies demonstrating safety testing. And no medical professional has gone on record stating that H1N1 vaccines are safe for the public."

Legal Team
The lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Leslie Fourton, J.D., of New York City, is working with the respected Washington regulatory law firm of Swankin and Turner and a team of legal experts from around the country, including attorneys Larry Becraft, Ala; Alan G. Phillips, N.C.; and Ralph Fucetola, N.J. (aka "The Vitamin Lawyer").

James Turner, of Swankin and Turner, is also chairman of the board of Citizens for Health, a non-profit health activist organization. He was involved in stopping the administration of the 1976 swine flu vaccine when immunization had to be terminated not only because the feared epidemic failed to happen, but because thousands of Americans suffered adverse reactions, including Guillain-Barre syndrome, that in some cases led to paralysis and death.

Advice about Apple's I-Phone and Cells

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:28:00 +0000

Warnings, advice and general information about cell phones from Dr. Mercola.

John Taylor Gatto's "Things Educated People Do"

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:41:00 +0000

Really educated people ...

1) Establish an individual set of values but recognize those of the surrounding community and of the various cultures of the world.

2) Explore their own ancestry, culture, and place.

3) Are comfortable being alone, yet understand dynamics between people and form healthy relationships.

4) Accept mortality, knowing that every choice affects the generations to come.

5) Create new things and find new experiences.

6) Think for themselves; observe, analyze, and discover truth without relying on the opinions of others.

7) Favor love, curiosity, reverence, and empathy rather than material wealth.

8) Choose a vocation that contributes to the common good.

9) Enjoy a variety of new places and experiences but identify and cherish a place to call home.

10) Express their own voice with confidence.

11) Add value to every encounter and every group of which they are a part.

12) Always ask: “Who am I? Where are my limits? What are my possibilities?”

Reagonomic Zombies

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:10:00 +0000

I join Paul Krugman in his dismay over the ability of money to negatively influence politicians considering a public option for healthcare. Here's praying for some sanity and heroism to get this accomplished without Ted Kennedy and with whimpy politicians afraid to lose campaign contributions if they do what's best for the people of this country.

It's a must read article especially if you still think Reagonomics did any good.

R.I.P. Ted Kennedy

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:34:00 +0000

I am sad about the Papa Liberal's death. I've read and heard a lot of things about Senator Kennedy this week that I had not known. I didn't know how hard he fought for medicare, or to stop back alley abortions, or for people with disabilities to be treated with dignity, or for civil rights.

Jim Wallis (Left wing Christian): "Ted Kennedy showed you can have passionate and clear political commitments (nobody had stronger ones than he did) and, yet, still reach out to others with very different political views on the basis of shared moral values, love of country, and commitment to the common good.

"We desperately need to heed his voice now: "I hope for an America where we can all contend freely and vigorously, but where we will treasure and guard those standards of civility which alone make this nation safe for both democracy and diversity." His hope should be our goal today."

President Obama: "For nearly five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.

"His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives -- in seniors who know new dignity; in families that know new opportunity; in children who know education's promise; and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just, including me.

"In the United States Senate, I can think of no one who engendered greater respect or affection from members of both sides of the aisle. His seriousness of purpose was perpetually matched by humility, warmth and good cheer. He battled passionately on the Senate floor for the causes that he held dear, and yet still maintained warm friendships across party lines. And that's one reason he became not only one of the greatest senators of our time, but one of the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy."

Root Canals: There is no love tunnel.

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:35:00 +0000

You've probably heard of Dr. Weston Price who has studied indigenous people and their teeth. He also is one of the early dentists who warned against amalgam fillings and root canals. He made a lot of early connections between cancer and bad teeth. It seems that bacteria is the culprit that seeps into the bloodstream from the tip of the root area. Read here what he said about root canals: Root Canal Cover-Up Exposed

Here's to your BRIGHTIE WHITIES! Say cheese.

Mercury Dental Fillings (The AMALGAM Threat)

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:45:00 +0000

If you haven't figured out yet that mercury fillings are killing you, watch this video:

And don't listen to your old-foggie dentist who keeps telling you that you have nothing to worry about. Modern-trained dentists know better. Toxicologists know better. Anyone who knows about toxicity knows better.

Poetry

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:38:00 +0000

I didn't realize Woody was wise, but here he is, thinking, rhyming, summing it all up and making you want to sit under a tree and breathe.

The best article ever on taxes. Relearn all you know.

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:53:00 +0000

Taxes 101

Don't Worry!

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:15:00 +0000

"Worrying is using your imagination to create something you don't want."

--- Abraham Hicks

Sotomayor

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:53:00 +0000

I hope every Hispanic in this country watched the Sotomayor Supreme Court hearings. The arrogant behavior of Republican senators show that they still do not understand the link between their words and their thoughts. They still think it's 1970. And if you missed it, let me tell you, they still look at women as emotional, weak creatures prone to "meltdowns". The questions were so impertinent and irrelevant. I can't imagine a white man being grilled about his belonging to an all-white fraternity or business association as some kind of "proof" that he is a racist.

In The Nation, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, summed up an article on the same subject much better than I can:

"I was proud of Sotomayor's restraint, but I also wanted her to counter attack, to punch back, to show anger. She couldn't do so in part because she is bound by the rules of judicial decorum. She also couldn't do so because of the racialized, gender rules of political engagement that allow white men, from senators to firemen, to express outrage, indignation, and emotion, but disallow those same expressions from women of color.

"The Republican attacks on Sotomayor were not meant to derail her nomination. They were meant to degrade and humiliate as a warning: if you attempt to assert your equality within a system still dominated by white male racial privilege you may get a place at the table, but not without public punishment."

Amnesty International

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:56:00 +0000

Creative Distractions

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:55:00 +0000

Why do I relate to this? (Thanks to my friend Beth Watzke out in Portland for this little film.)

Michael Jackson Montage Footage

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:14:00 +0000

Very sweet.

They Lost Their Lives For Oil

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:14:00 +0000

There's evidence now that oil executives were telling Bush two years before the Iraq War that he needed to get rid of Saddam Hussein in order to stabilize U.S. oil prices.

Read an excerpt of the article "Eager to Tap Iraq's Vast Oil Reserves" here.

It says, "That April 2001 report, 'Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,' was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the US Council on Foreign Relations at the request of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

"In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world's second largest oil reserves.

"'Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East,' the report said."

Do Not Go Gently

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:08:00 +0000

to see this movie: Land of the Lost. Ok, most of you would never consider seeing a Will Ferrell movie. Just in case you agree to go because someone else wants to, don't! Don't Go Gently To That Movie! However, remembering the Sleestaks and seeing their lizardy zombie selves back in scary action was cool for a nano second. And remembering Chaca and that I was attracted to the little cave man was interesting too but only for a nano second. The rest was tortuous. I should have been paying taxes or pulling out my fingernails; it would've been more fun.

Today I Discovered a Hero.

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:06:00 +0000

I recently read about an amazing young man named Aaron Cohen. Maybe you've already heard about him, but I hadn't. I found him on this art site that had photos of Darfur. It is called Exhibit Darfur

Read the bio below about this guy. He's amazing.

Aaron Cohen is a human rights activist who draws his inspiration from the "Jubilee," the ancient law of debt forgiveness and slave liberation. Cohen has sought to establish a modern-day Jubilee movement to free slaves around the world.
Media stories have lauded his work implementing a contemporary Jubilee observance and have called Cohen a "Slave Hunter" for his efforts finding the victims of human trafficking and retrieving thousands from slavery. Cohen was awarded a Commendation from the County of Los Angeles for his efforts combating human trafficking, retrieving victims in Darfur, in California, and sub-contracting on government assignments overseas. On these international missions to Myanmar Burma and to war-torn Iraq-- Cohen worked undercover as a "john," and assessed the phenomenon of slavery from the inside. He was recently named by the World War II Memorial Foundation, the Immortal Chaplains, as the recipient of the 2008 Prize for Humanity. The award is given to "those who risk all to protect others of different faith or ethnic origin", and he was honored with a US Congressional Certificate of Merit for his service in 2008.

Aaron Cohen remains active in human rights missions in Sudan, Iraq, and Burma and is now building partners for upcoming missions this dry season to southern Darfur. "We're happy with the advocacy work the Darfur movement is accomplishing." Cohen said, "and now we have to help those men, women, and children on the ground who are sold into slavery, who are being persecuted, starved to death, or killed. If we work together we can save lives." Activists interested in supporting the humanitarian field work in Sudan this winter can contact Aaron Cohen directly at the email: abolishslavery@gmail.com. Winter missions to Darfur, Sudan will be funded through the Millionkids campaign.

How Dysfunction Helps the GOP

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:31:00 +0000

Here's an interesting blog article in today's Wall Street Journal (A11) that reminds us how GOP politics twists the facts to always keep their buddy billionaires reaping big rewards while hurting the American people and keeping government dysfunctional.

How is it, I want to know, that with such a mandate from the people, the Democrats still bow to GOP bully tactics when Republicans have been so dismal, such failures at running government? Why do they listen especially in regards to healthcare reform?

Read the whole article here.

I'm excerpting parts. The author is Wall Street Journal's Thomas Frank and his email is: thomas@wsj.com

"Remember the $400 hammer? How 'bout that $600 toilet seat?" asks a Conservatives for Patients' Rights TV commercial criticizing President Barack Obama's health-care plan. "Seems when Congress gets involved, things just cost more."

"As it happens, I do remember the incident of the $436 hammer, the one that made headlines back in 1984. And while it may "seem" in hazy retrospect as though it showed how "things just cost more" once those silly liberals in Congress get started, what the hammer episode actually illustrated was a very different sort of ripoff. The institution that paid so very much for that hammer was President Ronald Reagan's Pentagon. A private-sector contractor was the party that was pleased to take the Pentagon's money. And it was a liberal Democrat in the House of Representatives, also known as "Congress," who publicized the pricey hardware to the skies.

---

"We heard this bizarre reasoning during last year's campaign season. "Unless you're pleased with the way the federal government has been running anything lately," Gov. Sarah Palin declared last October, when the federal government had been answering to her fellow Republican for nearly eight years, "I don't think that it's going to be real pleasing for Americans to consider health care being taken over by the feds."

---

"I've always thought that P.J. O'Rourke was only half joking when he wrote, years ago, that "Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it." Conservatives grasp the grand strategic sweep of politics better than liberals, and consequently they have always seemed to understand that what they do when they're in charge can help to reinforce the myths that put them there.

---

"This is the perverse incentive that is slowly remaking the GOP into the Snafu Party. And in those commercials and those proclamations we should also discern a warning: That even if Democrats manage to set up a solid health-care program, conservatives will do their best, once they have regained power, to drop it down the same chute they did the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Maybe they will appoint a tobacco lobbyist to run the thing. Maybe they will starve it for funds. Or antagonize its work force. And as it collapses they will hand themselves their greatest propaganda victory of all. They will survey the ruins and chide, "You didn't really think government could work, did you?"

R.I.P. Peter Dancin' Pan

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:03:00 +0000

Burials

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:21:00 +0000

The UTNE Reader has an interesting article about composting bodies for burial that includes a deep freeze and a lot of shaking to shatter the frozen body into a million little pieces!

It uses The Walrus Magazine, an independent press that Utne awarded a prize to in 2009, as the source of the article.
The Walrus is interesting, too. Check that out if you have time.

Here is the bulk of the article.
"The Walrus reports on a new technique that may, it seems, be the greenest of them all. The process, called promession, sounds like a kind of high-tech version of composting (one that avoids all the arduous turning and, uh, odor-releasing of the down-home method). It was developed by Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak, who is planning to open the world’s first promatorium in Jönköping, Sweden, sometime next year. James Glave (for The Walrus) explains:

"'Think of the operation as a kind of corpse disassembly line. The dearly departed are first supercooled in liquid nitrogen to about minus 196°C, then shattered into very small pieces on a vibration table. “We wanted to make the body unrecognizable without using any kind of an instrument that you would see in a kitchen or garage,” [Wiigh-Mäsak] explains.'

"Next a vacuum is used to evaporate moisture while a metal separator, traditionally used by the food processing industry to remove stray foreign objects from meat products, shuffles aside fillings, crowns, titanium hips, and so on. (You can put that sandwich down now.) Finally, the vaguely pink crumbs are deposited in a large box made of corn or potato starch.

"Surviving family members bury the box in shallow topsoil and plant a tree or shrub on top. With the exception of perhaps a few broken remnants of plastic pacemaker, in a matter of months nothing is left but memories and some lush greenery."

And, yesterday, I had a conversation with my Iranian friend about burials there. Did you know that they only use coffins to carry the dead to the burial site. Once there, they lift the body from the box with a sheet and lower it into the hole using the ends of the sheet. The body is turned toward Mecca and the face is exposed from the sheet (and slapped, checking one last time for any sign of life). Then, a rock is placed over the head and the hole is filled with dirt. No wonder the middle east has so much oil!

By the way, may the lovely Neda rest in peace. To me, her death was a symbol of all the unnecessary deaths from unnecessary wars and from necessary ones. No matter the argument(s) between nations or leaders or between citizens and authority, shooting a gun at another person is always one beautiful soul killing another.

Here is a tribute to her that includes footage of her death. May this horrible act help us wake up to the reality of gun violence...especially when states use it on their own people.

Economic History

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:09:00 +0000

From a NYTimes article today by David Leonhardt:

"The story of today’s deficits starts in January 2001, as President Bill Clinton was leaving office. The Congressional Budget Office estimated then that the government would run an average annual surplus of more than $800 billion a year from 2009 to 2012. Today, the government is expected to run a $1.2 trillion annual deficit in those years.

"You can think of that roughly $2 trillion swing as coming from four broad categories: the business cycle, President George W. Bush’s policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama."

Read the entire Leonhardt piece here.

Biblical Vindication

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:37:00 +0000

Robert Wright's new book The Evolution of God makes an interesting case that God changes his mood throughout the Bible (He evolves!) as the situation for the Hebrews change.

Wright writes, "One thing I found is that some of the most belligerent, vindictive scriptures in the Hebrew Bible were written when Israelites were in roughly the mindset that Palestinians are in today. And some of the most tolerant, benevolent scriptures emerged after a change in Israel's political psychology much like the change Obama is trying to engineer in Palestinian psychology.

"For much of its early existence, Israel was a small nation in a tough neighborhood. It got pushed around by such superpowers as Assyria and, most famously, the neo-Babylonian empire, which in 586 BCE destroyed the Jerusalem temple and exiled Israel's elites. Like Palestinians today, Israelites felt humiliated and dispossessed; they weren't in control of their destiny.

"The result was a thirst for revenge."

I love it! Makes absolute sense to me. Read the whole article about his new book here. If you don't already subscribe to the Huffington Post, what are you waiting for? Subscribe and it'll come to your email daily, but also visit the home page where there are links to every major news site on the web, and then some.

Britain's Miss Aniela and Kiev's Vizerskay

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:48:00 +0000

I discovered some cool new photography this weekend. First there's Miss Aniela, whose work in its entirety can be seen on her blog at: http://missaniela.com/

I wish I could post these larger than what you see:

Then, there's a muy muy terrific photographer that really knocks my socks off from Kiev. Her name is Vizerskaya and her work can be seen at: http://www.modelmayhem.com

Don't miss all the small details in this work. Note the family portrait on the bottom of her shoe or the dogs on the building behind her. Terrific movement in this photograph of both beauty and beast.

The colors and texture are phenomenal.

Friday's Wisdom

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:29:00 +0000

Quote from Abraham Hicks:

"Even in your rightness about a subject, when you try to push your rightness toward another who disagrees, no matter how right you are, it causes more pushing against. In other words, it isn't until you stop pushing that any real allowing of what you want can take place."

Krugman Blames Reagan

CoconutCow@gmail.com (D.L. Hall) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:31:00 +0000

Krugman's NYTimes article today is a must-read. He points the blame for our current economic crisis to the moment when Reagan signed a bill allowing banks to deregulate.

"Attacks on Reaganomics usually focus on rising inequality and fiscal irresponsibility. Indeed, Reagan ushered in an era in which a small minority grew vastly rich, while working families saw only meager gains. He also broke with longstanding rules of fiscal prudence.

"On the latter point: traditionally, the U.S. government ran significant budget deficits only in times of war or economic emergency. Federal debt as a percentage of G.D.P. fell steadily from the end of World War II until 1980. But indebtedness began rising under Reagan; it fell again in the Clinton years, but resumed its rise under the Bush administration, leaving us ill prepared for the emergency now upon us.

"The increase in public debt was, however, dwarfed by the rise in private debt, made possible by financial deregulation. The change in America’s financial rules was Reagan’s biggest legacy. And it’s the gift that keeps on taking."

The entire article is worth a read. It gives historical analysis, and it ends, once and for all, the greedy, crazy rhetoric that we call Reagonomics.