Streetwise Dogs

The unique relationship between humans and dogs provides the opportunity to infer details about ancient people.

Watch this from the National Science Foundation about streetwise dogs.

Burlington Politics: No Show Officials

"The City Council Public Safety Committee reviews and makes recommendations to the City Council regarding issues of the health, safety and welfare of City citizens."

I am extremely disappointed that only one of the three public safety committee members was in attendance at last night's fluoride hearing. Especially since board of health members showed up to speak to their resolution passed by the board in January to remove fluoride from the city's water supply.

The Board of Health has limited statutory responsibility for the “prevention, removal or destruction of public health hazards and the mitigation of public health risks.” The Board of Health receives its authority from Vermont statute, Title 18, as well as from several sections of the Burlington City Charter. - Burlington Board of Health Statement of Purpose

My remarks last night to the public safety committee:

We can make resolutions, enact laws to regulate, even decrease the ppm of fluoride in our water,- as the city council has ordered - just to be safe. But we need to start looking at fluoride not just as a medication, but as a dangerous industrial product being added - untested - to our water. There have been no toxicological studies done on hydrofluorosilicic acid.

The following are questions that you and the other councilors should consider when you review our resolution and take your decision.

Why contaminate Burlington’s high quality drinking water with hydrofluorosilicic acid and its known co-contaminants
when other abundant, higher grade sources of fluoride remain available through toothpaste, mouthwash, and dental-fluoride treatments, all of which we do not swallow?

Keep in mind that fluoride has never been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for swallowing.

As it is illegal to dump hydrofluorosilicic acid anywhere in our environment, how are we justifying dumping it into Burlington’s drinking water supply? Aren’t our residents entitled to safe drinking water?

Are we honestly interested in the health and well-being of Burlington’s children when we take the cheapest industrial man-made toxic waste fluoride we can find, and dump it into our children’s drinking water?

Why are we listening to local dentists, Vermont Dental Society members, about systemic ingestion? This is a question I pose to my own dentist at each visit: Shouldn’t we be seeking advice from leading chemists, toxicologists, neurologists, endocrinologists, epidemiologists, oncologists, pathologists, and so forth – who are shedding new medical light on the dangers of artificial water fluoridation, and the synergistic health harms these chemicals pose in our water?

Why are we listening to the ADA, the Vermont Dental Society and other dental associations - all heavy
promoters of water fluoridation - when they hold no official responsibility or accountability for Burlington’s water fluoridation practice, policy or chemical additives? Doesn’t responsibility for what Burlington ultimately chooses to put into the drinking water rest squarely with the city?


Another question I pose to my dentist on each visit - and now ask you: What formal training do dentists have about the effects water fluoridation is having on our body organs and tissues, beyond the oral cavity? What formal training do dentists have concerning hydrofluorosilicic acid?

What gives Burlington the moral, ethical or legal right to inflict admitted mild to moderate dental fluorosis on any person, due to its water fluoridation practice at the ‘optimal’ level? What is your municipal financial plan for Burlington, should affected people pursue and achieve legal class action status and monetary award?

How will Burlington address the problem of known elevated blood lead levels due to accelerated lead leaching from leaded solder, leaded pipes and leaded brass fittings – caused by the highly corrosive hydrofluorosilicic acid put in the water distribution system at the suggested concentration?

Where has Burlington provided any cost accounting to offer ongoing fluoride-free bottled water, or home distillation system, or home reverse osmosis system; to those persons or families paying for municipal drinking water, but unable to drink fluoridated water? As a member of the local City Market co-op, I can refill my empty containers with fresh, filtered fluoride-free water at no cost. But not all Burlington members are co-op members. Does the municipality only value equality and equity for certain identifiable groups, but not others?

In Praise of British GI Resister Joe Glenton

Any really successful anti-war movement requires this kind of dissent.

The deepening environmental crisis

Sunday Herald (Scotland): "A new report highlights the biggest problems now facing the world. It warns that the environmental crisis is deepening every year. Human consumption is now 30% larger than nature’s capacity to regenerate. By 2015 the number of people suffering climate-related disasters could mushroom to more than 375 million a year. By 2030 as many as 660 million people could be affected, with economic losses rising to $340 billion a year. There are currently 15 wars taking place and the report predicts that 3 billion people will have no access to water by 2025."

Recommended that you click the link above to read the entire article.

Protest after shooting at Israeli LBGT Youth Club, 2 deaths

"First it was violence against Palestinians, then it was violence against Israeli peace activists, now it is also violence against homosexuals. You know where it starts, but you have no idea where it ends!"

Joseph Dana/ibn Ezra

Yesterday there was a shocking and horrifying terrorist attack against the gay and lesbian community that killed 2 young people and injured 15 more at a gay community center in the heart of Tel Aviv. The shooter is still out on the loose so although we don’t know his identity yet, it is easy to speculate it is an extreme rightwing and/or religious person. This is a hate crime and the clearest example of a terrorist attack since the shooter entered an unmarked building where he knew a meeting was taking place and it was in a basement, where the youth had no where to run to. The Israeli media should and must call it that. It doesn’t have to be an Israeli-Palestinian clash for it to warrant the term “terrorist attack.”

At the recent gay pride parade in Jerusalem last month – massively diminished in size and vigor since the 2005 stabbing of several people by a religious Jew – a small but noisy crowd chanted anti-gay slurs and held signs calling gays beasts and perverts. Two prominent figures of the settlement movement that we am unfortunately all too familiar with were there. Itamar Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel, both of whom live in the Israeli-occupied Hebron area and have, on repeated occasions, attacked Jewish-Israeli peace activists. In addition to physical violence, we have seen and heard Ben-Gvir verbally abuse Ezra Nawi for being homosexual, calling him a pervert and accusing him of raping little children. This is not isolated. In most places where we have come into contact with settlers, we have heard them equate our leftwing views with homosexuality, calling us disgusting and wimpy liberals who like it “up the ass.”

This morning, just hours after last night’s terror attack in Tel Aviv, the Palestinian Hanoun family of Sheikh Jarrah was physically evicted from their home by Israeli police and in their place, Jewish settler families (comprised mostly of teenage boys resembling classic hilltop youth) entered in their place. It is no coincidence that these events happened so closely together, as clearly the police and settlers who took over these houses in East Jerusalem are aware the media would be dominated by the murders in Tel Aviv.

Take these recent incidents and add them to the violent weekly protests of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem against the opening of parking garages; the violent protests and death threats with regard to the ultra-Orthodox mother who obviously neglected her child; the pipe bomb that exploded at Professor and peace activist Ze’ev Sternhall’s home last September; rightwing Knesset members organizing protests in Arab villages and participating in rallies shouting racist slurs against Obama that include the presence of outlawed Kahane enthusiasts; the settlers continued violence against Palestinians and Israelis and the IDF in the occupied West Bank, which includes children barely potty-trained throwing rocks at fellow Jews; and the murder of Yitzhak Rabin by Yigal Amir – and what you get is a clear picture of a trend that combines religious, messianic Judaism with the settling of the Land of Israel with violent rejections of democracy, liberalism and equal rights that is being waged against gays, lesbians, peace activists, academics and of course all Palestinians.

First it was violence against Palestinians, then it was violence against Israeli peace activists, now it is also violence against homosexuals. You know where it starts, but you have no idea where it ends!

Sewanee launches Center for Religion and Environment

The Rev. Phina Borgeson, Episcopal News Service correspondent for science and the environmen writes in Episcopal Life:

The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, has announced the creation of the Center for Religion and Environment, which connects its College of Arts and Sciences, School of Theology, and All Saints Chapel in a partnership to strengthen its mission in education, church and society. [...]

In an interview with ENS, Gottfried mused about the kind of programs the center might offer that could help dioceses and congregations involved in creation care. One possibility could be to provide resources for best practices, he said. The center might also foster environmental formation at various levels, such as for Bible study leaders and youth ministers seeking to strengthen eco-spirituality in their programs.

This is exciting news from Sewanee regarding The Episcopal Church's expanding mission to promote environmental stewardship. '...to bring together the resources of the university to address the challenge he calls "environmental formation" -- integrating "faith, practice, and the understanding of environmental issues for our students."

And Sewanee already has in place:

Sewanee's unique mix of resources includes its management of the Domain, 13,000 acres of sustainably managed and protected wild land on Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau which serves as a living laboratory for environmental sciences. The Domain also provides an experiential grounding and source of inspiration for those working on spiritualities of creation care or environmental policy. According to Gottfried, an environmental theology requires an experiential, not just an intellectual, grounding.

Amsterdam is not Sodom & Gomorrah

NRC/international: A 25-year-old film student from Amsterdam has taken on Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly over his misrepresentation of the Dutch capital.

It is a much-belated response, but 25-year-old Robert Nieuwenhuijs' July 27 video reply to Fox News' description of Amsterdam as a "cesspool of corruption" has nevertheless become a hit on the video-sharing website YouTube.

[Robert Nieuwenhuijs] saw the show on YouTube and felt affronted by O'Reilly's Amsterdam-bashing. He decided to post a video reply on YouTube, calling it . He looked up numbers about drugs use from American and Dutch national surveys and made some striking comparisons.

Dit is echt zo geweldig gedaan!!! The truth about Amsterdam! Makes me proud to have been born there!



Cross posted with some edits at Antemedius and also at The Peace Tree. Hat tip to 24oranges.

Ben & Jerry's lets it drip, drip, drip

Who knew? Ben & Jerry's ice cream supported waterboarding?

Rick Wolff on TRNN: Worse is yet to come

Upswing in stocks comes from profits due to cutbacks and concessions, worse is yet to come. Rick Wolff is interviewed on The Real News Network:

Single Payer Activists

David Swanson in Antemedius:

Following a pattern of civil resistance in Washington D.C. and around the country, citizens in Des Moines Iowa on Monday risked arrest to press for the creation of single-payer healthcare, the establishment of healthcare as a human right, and an end to the deadly practices of Iowa's largest health insurance company, Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Dr. Margaret Flowers, who has herself gone to jail for single-payer in our nation's capital, was on hand to speak in Des Moines. She called me with this report. Nearly a month earlier, on June 19, 2009, Des Moines Catholic Workers had delivered a letter (PDF) to Wellmark addressed to its CEO John Forsyth requesting disclosure of Wellmark's profits, salaries, benefits, denials and restrictions on care. The letter had not been acknowledged by Monday, and the Catholic Workers and their allies decided to take action again.

Thirty people arrived in the Wellmark lobby in Des Moines and asked to see Forsyth or any of the members of the board of directors or the operating officers. They were told that none were available, and instead the police arrived. Nine of the 30 refused to leave and were arrested. Flowers did not yet know what the charges will be but suspected trespassing. The nine latest supporters of single-payer to go to jail for justice are:

Mona Shaw, Renee Espeland, Frankie Hughes (age 11), and Frank Cordaro, all from Des Moines Catholic Workers; Leonard Simmons from Massachusetts; Robert Cook; Eddie Blomer from Des Moines; Kirk Brown from Des Moines; and Chris Gaunt from Grinnell, Iowa.

These nine and others like them around the country represent, I think, the incredible potential to energize the American public on behalf of a struggle for the basic human right of healthcare, a potential being blocked by the work of activist organizations that reach out from Washington to tell the public that single-payer is not possible, rather than reaching into Washington from outside to tell our public servants what we demand.

Here's a blog from Digby acknowledging the reduction of the public option from where it started to next-to-nothing. It's not clear whether Digby thinks it would have been smarter to start with single-payer, in order to end up with a better compromise than what you get by initially proposing the weakest plan you'll settle for. But Digby argues that proposing single-payer from the start would not have given single-payer itself any chance of succeeding, and this is proven -- Digby says -- from the fact that the public option is having such a hard time succeeding.

I can't prove this is wrong. Everything Digby writes is smart and to the point. But this does omit an important factor or two. Namely: single-payer turns an obscure wonkish policy mush into a clear and comprehensible civil rights issue. Even with it blacked out and shunned by the White House and astroturfing activist groups, single-payer still has people sacrificing and going to jail for it. Nobody goes to jail for a public option.* Nobody even knows what it is. Nobody will even know whether they got it if a bill is passed until experts debate the point for them -- at which point it's too late. Making healthcare a right rather than a legislative policy energizes people, and that potential has hardly been tapped and should not be written out of consideration.

John Nichols understands this, as does Glen Ford from Black Agenda Report.

Sunday Morning Music: The Great Simone

Look out for him in 6 years

French teenager Charles Guislain has is already being idolized among the fashionistas. Confident, bold ideas, iconoclastic, even. Some would say it's just teenage bravado, but I don't think so. He comes across pretty unassuming, as he makes the rounds during Paris Fashion Week 2009:

Gospel Music Giant: Horace Boyer 1935-2009

From The Lead: Horace Boyer, editor of the Episcopal Hymnal, Lift Every Voice and Sing, a beloved musician who loved teaching others to sing with passion, enthusiasm and excellence, has died at age 74.

I found YouTube links to two songs featuring the Boyer Brother --



You can also listen to "Going Back To God"

Well, kiss my wooden shoes!

Yesterday, in a continuing series on Texas Weird, I made another Yee Haw! post .

I've decided to start a new BI series/commentary in the same vein - Well, kiss my wooden shoes! - with a Dutch Weird angle.

And here's the first installment.

News on the aftermath of Queen's Day 2009 tragedies doesn't seem go away. The story linked below is about victimhood. It's not a purely American phenomenon. In the story linked below, we learn that some Cloggies will go to great lengths to make a euro, make a euro. But this story goes beyond the stereotypical ambulance chaser, bringing it to new lows, for the actions of these people certainly do that.

From DutchNews.nl

TV viewers claim Queen's Day attack damages

Friday 24 July 2009

A number of people who watched tv and internet footage of the Queen's Day attack, in which Karst Tates drove his car through the crowd killing eight people, are attempting to claim damages, the AD reports on Friday.

The paper says insurance company Reaal and damages claim specialists SAP in Amersfoort have been approached by people who want to make a claim for the shocking effect of the footage. The attack, in which bodies are seen flying through the air, was broadcast live on tv.

A spokesman for Reaal refused to tell the paper how many claims had been received.

But VU University law professor Arno Akkermans told the paper: 'I have spoken to them [Reaal] about it. They say they have had many claims and are looking for advice how to deal with them.'

Lawyer Jan Wilem Koeleman from SAP told the paper: 'a number of clients have registered their intention to claim damages after seeing television and other coverage'.

But a spokesman for the Dutch victims support body Slachtofferhup said the claims were 'inappropriate' and have no hope of succeeding.

More Facebook shenanigans to benefit advertisers...

at the expense of members.

FACEBOOK have agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures WITHOUT your permission. Click on SETTINGS up at the top where you see the Log out link. Select Privacy. Then select NEWSFEEDS and WALL. Next select the tab that reads FACEBOOK ADS. There is a drop down box, select NO ONE. Then SAVE your changes. (REPOST this on your profile to let your friends know!)

Shit, Facebook write that they "respect privacy rules," but make you jump all these loops to have it. It's all about make a buck, make a buck for the third party advertisers.

Power to the Honduran people...

RagING against the bank machine

My friend Krijn a.k.a. Karoline Online, the best and most popular drag artist (travesteit in Dutch) in Amsterdam, had been trying for a year to open up a private personal bank account at one of the largest Dutch banks. But INGbank has refused - they consider her profession like that of criminals and sexworkers. So, what did she do? Karoline contacted one of the biggest Dutch dailies - Telegraaf - to tell her story (Dutch).

And word is spreading about the discriminatory practice of the bank. Read it in Dutch here and here.

Karoline's photo, credit Tom Huis in 't Veld.

Yee Haw!

Another in BI's occasional posts about Texas Weird. I've always been troubled by the process of choosing school books in Texas. The Guardian runs a story about religious extremists' attempts further to control the curriculum.

[T]he issue is likely to lead to a heated political battle similar to the one in which the religious right tried to force creationism onto the curriculum. While it wasn't able to inject religious theories in to the classroom, the Texas school board did make changes to teaching designed to undermine lessons on evolution such as introducing views that the eye is so complex an organ it must have involved "intelligent design".
...
Other states will be watching what happens in Texas carefully as the religious right campaign seeks new ways to insert God in to the classroom after the courts limited the extent to which creationist theories could intrude on the teaching of biology. But religion is not kept out of schools entirely. Many children recite the pledge of allegiance in class each morning which includes a reference to the US as "one nation under God".

Insanity: What Israelis really think about the settlements, the U.S. and Obama

These astounding "person-on-the-street" interviews co-produced by Joseph Dana, Antony Lowenstein and David Jacobus in Jerusalem show shocking attitudes that just don't get exposure in the West, especially the U.S.

My LTE to Seven Days has been published

It was published today:

DUTCH TREAT
Since I have Dutch-American heritage, spent my kid-teen years in New Hampshire, and have an abiding love for the history and culture of the two countries, Kevin Kelley’s article was indeed a fascinating read [“Long Before Mexican Farm Workers, the Dutch Saved Addison County Dairying,” July 1]. He could have been describing many Dutch immigrants currently living in this country who came here at the same time as the families of the Addison County farmers. However, my Dutch father (he would have been 95 years old this year), married to an American in 1947 and naturalized in 1950, was atypical. He was left-leaning politically. He joined the Dutch merchant marine to escape the stifling atmosphere of the Netherlands and was glad to leave it there.

Unsurprisingly, the (Republican) farmers in the article frown on today’s Dutch society. But surely, the problems dealing with immigration, religion, culture and the effects of a global economy in the Netherlands are the same as we have in this country. My family recognized that neither country was perfect and was fascinated by the changes on return visits to friends and family in the “Old Country.” With typical Dutch stubbornness and unwavering arrogance, the immigrants described in your article cling to retrogressive traditions brought with them from Holland that are no longer sustainable, neither in 21st-century America nor in a vibrant, modern, innovative and multicultural Holland.