Vegan streaker 'planned to attack queen'

DutchNews.nl

Tuesday 21 July 2009

An animal rights activist known as the vegan streaker has been arrested on suspicion of planning to attack queen Beatrix, his lawyer Gerard Spong told the Volkskrant on Tuesday.

The public prosecution department said earlier that Peter Janssen is suspected of preparing an attack and possessing a gun. Two computers were taken from homes in Wissekerke and Vught, where the 24-year-old's mother lives.

Later the department said Janssen was suspected of planning to attack the queen because she regularly wears fur in public. The arrest followed 'extensive' testimony, the department said.

'We think the police took action on the basis of an anonymous, vague tip,' Spong told the paper. He pointed out that no gun was found during the search of the properties.

Janssen will appear in court on Wednesday.

Headlines

Janssen, who was arrested earlier this year for releasing 2,500 mink on a fur farm, first hit the headlines a year ago when he disrupted filming of the Paul de Leeuw tv show, wearing only underpants.

He has also been caught streaking at the ABN Amro tennis tournament, a Champions Trophy hockey match and the Tilburg Ten Mile road race.

[Photo Peter Janssen a.k.a. the Vegan Streaker - credit ANP/Telegraaf]

Frank McCourt, R.I.P. - "I was put on this earth to write."

Everybody says follow your dream, or Joseph Campbell would say, "Follow your bliss." You have to. If it's deep enough, and authentic and profound and genuine, that's where you have to go. If you want to put on the collar of a clergyman, go and put it on. If you want to be a barefooted monk in the Himalayas, that's what you have to do. If you want to be a housewife, that's what you have to do. Because nature -- I know, I found out eventually why I was put on this earth. I was put on this earth to write. And as Thomas Carlyle said, "Happy is the man who has found his work." So I'm happy, and I hope everybody else finds that, too. - Frank McCourt, teacher & author, August 19, 1930 - July 19, 2009

The Gospel Imperative to Reconcile

Pluralist gives us the low-down post-General Convention 2009:

The seeking of reconciliation is on a far larger canvas than some bureaucratic religious arrangement. It certainly is about people and about bringing the larger society and its prejudices to be reconciled and healed with a group of people who have, for so long, been outside the acceptable and the unwelcomed.

Like Resolution D025 The Episcopal Church has recovered in C056 what it sees as this Gospel imperative, and yet done so whilst admitting the disagreement over the matter and the discernment that is still to go on. C056 is even more careful than D025, in that it is really about the gathering of liturgical resources for presentation to the next General Covention in three years time. Such is a long time to wait for any approved liturgy for same sex couples.

It baffles me that you can have pet blessing services here and there without as much as a murmur, drawing on some of the margins (or at best the often ignored) of the Christian tradition, but you cannot have blessings of gay and lesbian couples without causing a huge fuss. If that isn't an ongoing need for sorting out priorities and reconciliation, then I am at a loss for understanding such an imperative. Thus individuals in places seeking blessings should surely receive them, whilst a Church gathers such efforts up and sees what could be possible, relevant rites for such blessings.

But, of course, some are obsessed with Church bureaucracies for the sake of them, even when they don't exist. Again, if there is such a Communion structure that does not want to involve a Church that looks to bless loving relationships in all its structures, then go ahead and be excluding (as an institutional symbol of exclusion, not reconciliation at all): and it may just be an opportunity for those more organic and friendly means of establishing relationships to reassert themselves over the ambitions of the bureaucratic empire builders.

Daily Reading

From Speaking to the Soul

Daily Reading for July 20 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman

These slaves from Maryland were the last that Harriet Tubman piloted out of the prison-house of bondage, and these “came through great tribulation.” Stephen, the husband, had been a slave of John Kaiger, who would not allow him to live with his wife (if there was such a thing as a slave’s owning a wife). She lived eight miles distant, hired her time, maintained herself, and took care of her children (until they became of service to their owner), and paid ten dollars a year for her hire. She was owned by Algier Pearcy. Both mother and father desired to deliver their children from his grasp. They had too much intelligence to bear the heavy burdens thus imposed without feeling the pressure a grievous one.

Harriet Tubman being well acquainted in their neighborhood, and knowing of their situation, and having confidence that they would prove true, as passengers on the Underground Rail Road, engaged to pilot them within reach of Wilmington, at least to Thomas Garrett’s. Thus the father and mother, with their children and a young man named John, found aid and comfort on their way, with Harriet for their “Moses.” A poor woman escaping from Baltimore in a delicate state, happened to meet Harriet’s party at the station, and was forwarded on with them. They were cheered with clothing, food, and material aid, and sped on to Canada.

Notes taken at that time were very brief; it was evidently deemed prudent in those days, not to keep as full reports as had been the wont of the secretary, prior to 1859. The capture of John Brown’s papers and letters, with names and plans in full, admonished us that such papers and correspondence as had been preserved concerning the Underground Rail Road, might perchance be captured by a pro-slavery mob. For a year or more after the Harper’s Ferry battle, as many will remember, the mob spirit of the times was very violent in all the principal northern cities, as well as southern (“to save the Union”). Even in Boston, Abolition meetings were fiercely assailed by the mob. During this period, the writer omitted some of the most important particulars in the escapes and narratives of fugitives. Books and papers were sent away for a long time, and during this time the records were kept simply on loose slips of paper.

From The Underground Railroad: A Record Of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, &C., Narrating The Hardships, Hair-Breadth Escapes And Death Struggles Of The Slaves In Their Efforts For Freedom, As Related By Themselves And Others, Or Witnessed By The Author, by William Still (1872).
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15263/15263-h/15263-h.htm

Howard Dean, M.D. Supports the War Drug

JUAN GONZALEZ: In terms of the—to get back again to other issues right now, I’d like to ask you about the continuation and expansion of the American war in Afghanistan. Do you have concerns about—that this is becoming really President Obama’s war—

HOWARD DEAN: It is.

JUAN GONZALEZ: —and the impact on our country in the future?

HOWARD DEAN: Look, again, you know—and I don’t have to say anything nice; I’m not in the administration. But I’m with Obama on his conduct of the war. I always said, when I was running against the Iraq war, that Afghanistan was different.

Let me tell you what the stakes are now. And what I find incredibly refreshing about this president is he uttered words that Lyndon Johnson never said, which is that we cannot win this war militarily. He knows that from the get-go. Here’s what’s at stake. It’s not just the Taliban. I think we could probably control the Taliban and the al-Qaeda in the Northwest territories by doing some of the things we’re already doing—drones and air power and so forth. Roughly 50 percent of the Afghan people are women. They will be condemned to conditions which are very much like slavery and serfdom in a twelfth century model of society where they have no rights whatsoever. So, I’m not saying we have to invade every country that doesn’t treat women as equal, but we’re there now. We have a responsibility. And if we leave, women will experience the most extraordinary depredations of any population on the face of the earth. I think we have some obligation to try and see if we can make this work, not just for America and our security interests, but for the sake of women in Afghanistan and all around the globe. Is this acceptable to treat women like this? I think not.

AMY GOODMAN: We just interviewed an Afghan parliamentarian, Dr. Wardak. She said the opposite. She said, yes, she agrees with you on the way women are treated, but that this is worsening the treatment, that the increased number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan, the huge number of troops that are coming in right now, are alienating the Afghan population.

The above is an extract from an interview last week on Democracy Now! with Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont and establishment Democratic celebrity. It was also included in a post at Ten Percent, which I also recommend to BI readers for further context on the escalating, brutal war in Afghanistan.

Cross posted at Antimedius and The Peace Tree.

Photo: Ghazni protest in February against an attack on civilians by coalition forces.

Marching in the Light: IntegriTV Wraps up General Convention 2009

"How can you initiate someone and then treat them like they're half-assed baptised?"- The Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts (Retired) - the first woman bishop in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion - preaching at the Integrity Eucharist, General Convention, July 11 2009, Anaheim, CA

Caught Red-handed: Open Discrimination in Holland

Cross posted at The Peace Tree.

Yesterday, DutchNews.nl ran a story which appeared in the Dutch daily AD about Albert Heijn railway station shops banning Moroccan youth from working in them.

[S]everal branches of AH To Go in Amsterdam and at the Hague's main station include the words 'No Moroccans' in bold letters on a list of times and days when extra staff are needed.

The list was emailed to 31 AH To Go shops on June 4, the paper says. Branch managers who asked if this was correct were sent another email the same day with the text 'urgent, No Moroccans', the paper says.

AH To Go shops are small supermarkets where people can buy a sandwich or salad as well as essential supplies. Albert Heijn is part of the bourse-listed Ahold supermarket group.

If you read further, you'll see it's garnered quite a few comments.

That is REVOLTING.
I have also seen many places where it's made clear only men or young ladies wanted. They put the AGES and AH has done that as well right in the window!

Some aspects of life here are NOT advanced.. and open discrimination is one of them.
++++++++++
It's not only AH there are many other areas racial discrimination is going on (for confirmation please check it with the Human Rights Organizations, the UN department of human rights/Netherlands etc).

Yes, for me also its a shocking news that very openly extreme discriminating employment policies were shown even at the window's)

Discrimination is in every human society,country and continent.It's not only here in the Netherlands.

If the political leadership doesn't realize their responsibilities to unite Dutch Nation under the motto " We are one nation with different colours and traditions",then many more incidents are knocking at our door step. Which will effect every body!

We all have to condemn any discrimination by any one including the criminal acts by any one,with out naming a particular ethnic group.

We all know that whatever our actions or right or wrong,positive or negative at the end we have to receive back good or bad.

We all have to become a nation a force against those elements willing to disturb peace and harmony in our country.

The focus has to be positive,constructive and productive and that's the only way to obtain positive Civic Results.

++++++++++
As always, the Netherlands shows the world that it is a bastion of racism underneath its image of tolerance and weed smoking. Te UB needs to step in and make the Dutch government invest at least 3% of its GDP in anti racism education in schools, universities, workplace. The culture that was at the origin of apartheid and horrors in the spice islands of Asia has a long way to go in educating its Caucasian aborigine population about accepting others. Affirmative action is the only solution: at least 10% of gov employees and professionals in firms should be of non Caucasian origin in the Netherlands for the next 2 decades. The Obama meter says that the Netherlands is 300 year away from having an Obama as a president if things remain as they are.

Yesterday, the site ran an editorial:

Thursday 16 July 2009

The AD's story about branches of Albert Heijn's To Go stores being told not to employ Moroccans is a slap in the face to children prepared to work for less than €4 an hour, says Robin Pascoe.

Supermarkets are currently engaged in yet another price war, based on the myth that food should be cheap.

And one of the results of that is pressure on wages - paying your staff as little as you can get away with and preferring cheap youngsters who earn less than the official minimum wage.

There is a reason, therefore, that Holland's supermarkets are full of teenagers doing the repetitive, physical and never-ending job of stocking the shelves or manning the tills.

Working in a supermarket is very badly paid. As a 17-year-old, you will be lucky to earn more than €3.60 an hour. No tips.

These are jobs which in the big cities at least are largely done by children from an ethnic minority background. Middle-class white kids don't want to dirty their hands for such a trivial amount.

And yet, here we have a company - a division of Dutch Rail - which has decided some of its 'to go' stores at stations should not take on any more Moroccans. And why? According to one nameless individual, customers feel threatened.

There are two main points to be made here. Imagine if the company had said no Jews, or no Blacks, or no Germans? There would have been an outcry.

But no Moroccans? Well, there has been a bit of muttering about taking action against the staff involved and about apologising. But the follow-up coverage has been muted.

And where are the MPs demanding to know why people working for a state-owned company think this is acceptable and calling for heads to roll? Nowhere, so far at least.

It's hard enough to be a Dutch teenager with Moroccan roots in foreigner-hostile Holland. And this ban is not only racist, but it's a slap in the face to a group of youngsters who are prepared to work for such poor pay.

COMMENT: "... prepared to work for such poor pay."

Yeah, you can say that, as if they have a choice. I would suggest the youths are forced to take these jobs because there is nothing else for them.

Mr Pascoe has written about exploitation of workers. And he alludes to xenophobia and racism, but doesn't go deeper; he mentions neither the inherent systemic (covert) white privelege nor the growing Islamophobia throughout the country.

Insurance Exec Turned Whistleblower Wendell Potter Speaks Out Against Healthcare Industry

Democracy Now!:

WENDELL POTTER: ... I was a person who was often speaking for not just the company [Cigna], but sometimes the industry. I spent a lot of time working with my colleagues at other companies on task forces and trade association committees to help develop the strategy and the tactics. So, yes, I did a lot of that. So, as a consequence, I know pretty much the game plan that they have developed and used and the talking points that they use and send out to people who they think will say the things they want them to say.

AMY GOODMAN: And what are those talking points? What is the game plan of the health insurance industry?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, the game plan is based on scare tactics. And, of course, the thing they fear most is that the country will at some point gravitate toward a single-payer plan. That’s the ultimate fear that they have. But currently—and they know that right now that is not something that’s on the legislative table. And they’ve been very successful in making sure that it isn’t. They fear even the public insurance option that’s being proposed, that was part of President Obama’s campaign platform, his healthcare platform. And they’ll pull out all the stops they can to defeat that.

And they’ll be working with their ideological allies, with the business community, with conservative pundits and editorial writers, to try to scare people into thinking that embracing a public health insurance option would lead us down the slippery—excuse me, slippery slope toward socialism and that you will be, in essence, putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. That is—you know, they’ve used those talking points for years, and in years past they’ve always worked.

Watch and listen to the rest of the interview here.

Yee Haw!

FireDogLake has a post up about Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Apparently, he's done a turn-around on his idea for Texas secession.

A Reading for Today

A Celtic Dressing Prayer

Daily Reading for July 16

I am giving Thee worship with my whole life,
I am giving Thee assent with my whole power,
I am giving Thee praise with my whole tongue,
I am giving Thee honour with my whole utterance.

I am giving Thee love with my whole devotion,
I am giving Thee kneeling with my whole desire,
I am giving Thee love with my whole heart,
I am giving Thee affection with my whole sense,
I am giving Thee my existence with my whole mind,
I am giving Thee my soul, O God of all gods.

A Celtic dressing prayer, quoted in Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal (Liturgical Press, 1984).

(From Speaking to the Soul.)

Albert Heijn railway station shops ban Moroccan staff

From DutchNews.nl

Thursday 16 July 2009

A number of railway station branches of the Albert Heijn supermarket chain have been told not to employ staff of Moroccan origin, the AD reports on Thursday.

The paper says several branches of AH To Go in Amsterdam and at the Hague's main station include the words 'No Moroccans' in bold letters on a list of times and days when extra staff are needed.

The list was emailed to 31 AH To Go shops on June 4, the paper says. Branch managers who asked if this was correct were sent another email the same day with the text 'urgent, No Moroccans', the paper says.

AH To Go shops are small supermarkets where people can buy a sandwich or salad as well as essential supplies. Albert Heijn is part of the bourse-listed Ahold supermarket group.

Shocked

A spokesman for Albert Heijn's headquarters said the company was 'extremely shocked' by the news. The AH To Go branches are operated by a company called Servex, which is part of Dutch Rail (NS).

A spokesman for the NS apologied to 'everyone affected' and said measures are being taken at Servex. But he did not say what would happen to the staff responsible for the emails.

'Servex is responsible for personnel policy but must meet our guidelines,' he said.

The Telegraaf quotes an anonymous AH To Go worker as saying 'there are already enough young Moroccans working here'. 'It could be threatening for customers,' he told the paper.

Explanation

The Dutch anti-discrimination bureau said it had written to Albert Heijn asking for an explanation and was considering further action.

The bureau is also concerned about the different age limits set for various branches. For example, the Alkmaar and Rotterdam Alexander AH To Go stores only want staff aged 16 and 17 while in Utrecht they must be older than 19.

This too is against Albert Heijn policy, the spokesman said.

Tell Media: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate

From Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)

Please Distribute Widely!

Reforming the dysfunctional U.S. healthcare system is a major issue in the news these days. The goal of the reform efforts, we're told, is to expand coverage to the uninsured and to reduce costs. But what many experts and citizens see as the most sensible solution to these problems is kept out of the discussion by the corporate media.

Let's send a message to the TV networks: The insurance lobbies and many politicians don't want to talk about single-payer national health insurance. But that makes it all the more important that the media do.

Add your name to FAIR's petition to the TV networks at:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/592/t/9039/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1993

And then help us spread the word: please forward the link to the petition to your contacts; email this page to your friends and "share" the petition through social networking websites such as Facebook and Digg.

Standing with Disney Workers

‘We will not eat, meet or stay in the Disney Hotels until the workers invite us back.’ - Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire at a protest for Disney hotel workers rights, July 15, 2009

I love what Bp Robinson said, because his words respect the dignity of the workers who have cared for the delegates.

Elizabeth Kaeton was there, too, and reports that a "somber," lower-level Disney management type accepted the petition. Embarrassing for Disney to get bad PR from this action, no doubt. I suspect the corporate big-wigs are just smiling with relief back at headquarters: Phew! there was no strike!!

But, if the workers had decided to go on strike or had been in the midst of one, what would TEC do/have done? It could have got real ugly quickly. Would the clergy and lay delegates have still supported the workers?

What is TEC's and Integrity's policy when vetting convention locations? Before a booking confirmation, do they investigate how the workers' rights are respected by the corporations/municipalities that own/manage the hotels and convention halls? What about assurances of a liveable wage for workers?


From Integrity's blog

You’ve all heard about Disney’s support for LGBT – they’ve were even subject to a nine-year boycott by ultra-conservative American Family Association because of their ‘embrace of the homosexual lifestyle’. But their embrace no longer encompasses their employees – LGBT or straight.

Today Convention was invited to join a rally and march organized by the Episcopal Network for Economic Justice, Disneyland Hotel Workers and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) to fight unfair conditions for workers.

If I were to book into one of the Disneyland hotels across the street – just a standard room for one person for one night – it would cost me $310-$425 plus tax. This is not cheap accommodation. Someone earning minimum wage would have to work between 48 and 66 hours just for a room – no food, no tickets. The 2150 employees of the three Disneyland Hotels have been working without a contract since February 2008. These are the people who clean the rooms, cook the meals and carry the luggage. They’re the ones doing the grunt work that makes the magic possible.

Even though Disney earned $1.46 billion in the first half of 2009, and its CEO made $30.6m, Disney plans to reduce benefits for their lowest paid employees. We all know health insurance keeps costing more – but Disney wants its employees to start paying for family coverage, and it wants to reduce full-time positions, thus forcing employees to accept positions with no benefits and no rights.

Several bishops joined the rally at the beginning, including Jon Bruno and Sergio Carranza from Los Angeles who prayed for and blessed the assembled crowd which included workers from other hotels and hospitality businesses in the area. After over a thousand people marched from the Anaheim Arena to the Disneyland gates, they were addressed by both Bishop Gene Robinson and Bishop Barbara Harris who said honest workers should get honest wages, honest benefits and honest opportunities to support their families.

Caroline Hall for IntegrityUSA

Yesterday, I blogged about this action, as soon as it was announced.


Photo credit: Integrity

From the Mouths of Israeli Soldiers: Testimonies on Gaza Abuses

Over the past six months they have been collecting testimonies from soldiers that served in Operation Cast Lead about the reality of the war from their eyes and experience. I have read the document and was shocked at the stories on so many levels. The fact that white phosphorus was used as a weapon, the absolute destruction of Gaza, the “shoot first ask questions later” mentality, the atmosphere of sick untouchability of the commanders telling their troops to act brutally and finally the absolute lies that the State of Israel put out about its conduct in the Gaza war. The international media is beginning to cover the story and most of the news coverage today regards IDF using human shields during the Gaza campaign. What words can I put down as commentary for this? How do you discount the testimony of a soldier who was ordered to use human shields or destroy entire neighborhoods? - Joseph Dana on the Breaking the Silence testimonies by IDF soldiers who took part in Operation Cast Lead attack on Gaza last December and January

From Joseph Dana, the first of over thirty YouTube videos that Breaking the Silence will be releasing this week:



Word is indeed getting out: Joseph has more updates here. You can subscribe to his posts on his blog!

This is important for Americans - to understand what has happened, Share the stories with President Obama and your member of Congress and ask him/them - Is the US funding human rights abuses in Gaza? - by going here.

The Tortured, Homophobic Logic of His Grace, The Bishop of Durham

Scott Gunn, a priest from Rhode Island, tears apart the crap logic and homophobia of yesterday's editorial in The Times (and WaPo) by Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham, against a resolution passed at General Convention affirming that the LGBT baptized can have their calls to ordained ministry recognised. MadPriest, the vicar in Newcastle, reacts to Bp. Wright, too. Scott Gunn's blog post should be spread widely and printed in The Times and the Washington Post.

French Revolutionary Comedy

Forget the history books ( :-P ): here's Mark Steel!!!

Disney Be Faithful... to Your Employees (Updated)

Update below

From Anaheim, California - Elizabeth Kaeton blogs at TEC General Convention & will participate today in an action to show solidarity with hotel and convention workers.

This afternoon at 4:30, I will join hundreds of other Episcopalians here at Convention as well as other religious leaders from the area in supporting the Prayer Vigil and March organized by the group "Disney Be Faithful," representing 2150 employees of the three Disneyland Hotels: Paradise Pier, Grand Californian and Disneyland Hotel.

These workers clean the rooms, cook and serve the food, wash the dishes, and carry the luggage.

Disney wants to take away from its employees union family health insurance. They also want to take away full-time jobs, forcing many into positions with no health insurance at all, no vacation and less than full rights.

Disney's net income in the first half of the Fiscal Year 2009 was nearly $1.46 billion. In Fiscal Year 2008, Disney CEO Robert Iger made $30.6 million.

When I signed up to march last Monday, I was approached by one of the organizers with a request I agreed to but I'm still processing.

"Mother," he said (as I winced), "would you stay with us at the end of the march? We're asking some of the clergy to anoint the workers, and it would be wonderful to have you with us."

I was initially taken aback. 'Anoint' he said. What did he mean, really? Did he mean anoint with holy oils or just extend a hand in blessing?

I wanted to make certain I had a correct translation from his Hispanic, Roman Catholic culture to my progressive Western European, Anglo-Catholic understanding.

So, I asked.

"While we are marching," he said softly, "some of the people from Disney will be standing along the sidelines, filming us as we pass by. They will use that film as evidence to get us fired or to have our positions eliminated or downsized."

"You may not be aware, Mother," he said politely, "that for the workers, this Prayer Vigil and March is a big risk. We need to be anointed for the work of justice, after this event, so that we will find the strength to go back to our jobs. Just a little sign from God that He will continue to be with us after the support of this event."

"We know you have probably not brought your oils with you to this place, so we will have some for you. Will you help us? It would mean so much to some of us for a woman to anoint us for the work of justice."

"Anointed for justice."

I continue to find myself deeply moved by that request. There is something that strikes a cord of authenticity with the core values of what the church professes to be, but often is not.

I ask you, wherever you are, to pray with me and for me, that I may be a worthy vehicle of an anointing of God's healing and enabling power upon these workers.

Pray that we may catch a glimmer of God's justice promised of the Realm of God for these workers and their families.

UPDATE

The Reasons for the Action today:

Disney be faithful!
Disney is Faithful to its Shareholders:

• Disney’s net income in the first half of Fiscal Year 2009 was nearly $1.46 billion.
• Disney’s leaders are among the highest paid in the world. In Fiscal Year 2008, Disney CEO Robert Iger made $30.6 million.

Disney, Be Faithful to your Employees:

• Disney wants to take away our union family health insurance. We will be forced to pay up to hundreds of dollars per month for family health insurance. Many families will lose their insurance.

• Disney wants to take away full-time jobs and forcing many of us into “casual regular” positions with no health insurance at all, no vacation, and less than full rights.

Disney, its your turn to be faithful to us!

"Allons enfants de la patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé ...."

Juste pour aujourd'hui, je m'appelle "Jacques Renard." C'est le quatorze juillet! Salutations à tous!!

Private insurance is bad for your health

Online Journal (by John Jonik)

If an insurer is invested in, or does business insurance with, pharmaceutical firms, such an insurer has motive, opportunity and fiduciary duty to promote its investment property’s drugs over others that may be cheaper, more effective, and safer. Apparently, no laws prohibit this. Such an insurer has same motives to ignore, or not even look for, problems with drugs made by its investment properties. Such an insurer might also work to discredit, prohibit, or not authorize traditional natural unpatented drugs, herbs, vitamins, minerals and supplements.

An insurer invested in pesticides or bio-tech firms has a huge motive to ignore the harms and risks of pesticides (in typical cigarettes or elsewhere) and Genetically Engineered foods, and to fail to advise proper prevention such as avoidance of toxics and synthetics, and the use of organics.

With whatever control private insurers have over HMOs, hospitals, doctors, etc., one has to worry that patients may not receive proper medical diagnoses if medical staff avoids even looking for body burdens of industrial chemicals or radiation. It is hard to imagine how proper care can be administered if certain causes of illnesses are not sought or found.

What we have with private, investor insurers is a “company doctor” situation like in the old coal mine towns where a doctor finds that a miner has “a cold,” not black lung disease caused by unsafe work conditions.

Not a day goes by without reports that some natural thing, or people’s “behavior,” or natural plants (like tobacco), or “faulty” genes, or bad diet, or something,causes such-and-such problems. We only hear about industrial causes when a problem becomes too big to cover up.
[...]

The biggest hurdles the people face are corporatized mainstream media (including “public” broadcasting) and “public” ... officials who have gone AWOL from their duties to serve the public but who serve, instead, and above all, those insurers and any or all of their investment properties.

L'Heure zéro

A fidèle adaptation of Agatha Christie's Towards Zero. I coughed up $10 to see L'Heure zéro yesterday at the Roxy downtown (part of that 400 Champlain thing the city is sponsoring). Since I'm a Christie fan, it was a pretty good entertainment. And it had Chiara Mastroianni (daughter of Marcello and La Deneuve), the hunk Melvil Poupaud and Danielle Darrieux, still going strong at 92. Trailer (French):