| Friday, July 18, 2003 |  |
| GENETICALLY MODIFYING CONSUMER RIGHTS | 3 comments |
 18 Jul 2003 @ 17:30GENETICALLY MODIFYING CONSUMER RIGHTS Monsanto is suing Portland, Maine-based Oakhurst Dairy for labeling their milk "Our Farmers' Pledge: No Artificial Growth Hormones." According to Monsanto, manufacturer of the genetically engineered recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (known as rBGH or rBST), Oakhurst Dairy does not have the right to let its customers know whether its milk is laced with genetically engineered hormones. Oakhurst says they've been labeling their products like this for four years, in response to consumer demand. Although rBGH has been banned in every industrialized nation in the world except for the United States, Monsanto continues to claim that rBGH-derived milk is no different from the natural stuff, despite documentation that rBGH milk contains substantially higher levels of a potent cancer tumor promoter called IGF-1. Monsanto sued two dairies and threatened several thousand retailers in 1994 for labeling or advertising milk and dairy products as "rBGH-free." Despite Monsanto's intimidation tactics, more than 10% of U.S. milk is currently labeled as "rBGH-free," while sales of organic milk and dairy products (which prohibit rBGH) are booming. In recent months a Monsanto-funded front group, the Center for Consumer Freedom, has launched a smear campaign against organic dairies, including Organic Valley, claiming they are defrauding consumers. For a full discussion on the rBGH controversy, see the rBGH section on the OCA website: HOW U.S. DEMOCRACY WORKS Question: How is it that every industrialized nation in the world has banned Monsanto's rBGH as unsafe, but it's legal (and unlabeled) in the United States? Answer: In order for the FDA to determine if Monsanto's growth hormones were safe or not, Monsanto was required to submit a scientific report on that topic. Margaret Miller, one of Monsanto's researchers put the report together. Shortly before the report submission, Miller left Monsanto and was hired by the FDA. Her first job for the FDA was to determine whether or not to approve the report she wrote for Monsanto. In short, Monsanto approved its own report. Assisting Miller was another former Monsanto researcher, Susan Sechen. Deciding whether or not rBGH-derived milk should be labeled fell under the jurisdiction of another FDA official, Michael Taylor, who previously worked as a lawyer for Monsanto. HOW MONSANTO'S POLICIES HAVE BECOME U.S. POLICY Prior to being the Supreme Court Judge who put G.W. in office, Clarence Thomas was Monsanto's lawyer. The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (Anne Veneman) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Calgene Corporation. The Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Searle pharmaceuticals. The U.S. Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, received $50,000 in donations from Monsanto during his winning campaign for Wisconsin's governor. The two congressmen receiving the most donations from Monsanto during the last election were Larry Combest (Chairman of the House Agricultural Committee) and Attorney General John Ashcroft. (Source: Dairy Education Board) More > |
| Photo Log 2 | 0 comments |
| 18 Jul 2003 @ 13:42 More from the collection of Leteia and Raymond.     |
| Wal_Mart To Forgo Tracking Chips | 0 comments |
 18 Jul 2003 @ 13:26Wal_Mart To Forgo Tracking Chips By Chris Baker The Washington Times July 17, 2003 Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will not track inventory by selling products tagged with tiny computer chips, a technology that one day could allow retailers to "follow" merchandise from the store shelf into a customer's home. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, and Gillette Co., the world's largest shaving-supplies maker, had planned to conduct a "smart shelf" trial at a Wal-Mart store in Brockton, Mass., this summer. Under the plan, Gillette would have embedded microchips in the packaging of its products sold in the store. The chips would have transmitted data to the store's managers, allowing them to know if its stock of the Gillette products was running low. The chips would have been part of a radio-frequency identification system, called RFID, the same technology that opens office doors for employees who carry "smart ID" cards and allows motorists with an "EZ pass" tag to breeze through highway toll plazas. Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN), an industry-watchdog group, organized a letter-writing campaign against Wal-Mart after the retailer confirmed plans for the trial last month. Several hundred e-mails were sent to the retail giant, according to Katherine Albrecht, the group's founder and director. Earlier, CASPIAN called for a worldwide boycott of Italian clothing making Benetton when it announced plans to attach RFID chips to its clothing. Benetton later abandoned the program. Wal-Mart did not bow to pressure when it shelved its smart-shelf trial plans, spokesman Tom Williams said. The retailer simply decided to use RFID to track inventory in its warehouses, not in its stores, he said. "We didn't cancel anything. We just didn't follow through with this particular idea," said Mr. Williams. Other retailers, including Target and Home Depot, are testing RFID at distribution centers and in storerooms, according to David Hogan, a senior vice president for the National Retail Federation trade group. "People are going to play in it, but I don't think you're going to see mass adoption of it until the end of the decade," Mr. Hogan said. Privacy advocates fear RFID will one day be pervasive. They say it is possible the chips could be embedded in clothing, carpeting and furniture, allowing retailers and other businesses to track everything a person purchases and brings into his home. "If you have these devices in everything, all things have the potential to be tracked at all times," Ms. Albrecht said. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research group, said retailers should be concerned about the implications of the chips. "I think the privacy rights of customers is looming in the background as the largest issue. I think the retailers are a little bit concerned," Mr. Rotenberg said. Other retailers have tested RFID in limited trials. Two years ago, for example, the Gap Inc. tested radio-frequency tags on denim clothes at a store in Atlanta, according to published reports. Industry executives say they are interested in using RFID technology to track products from the factory to the store, making inventory management much more efficient. The technology has not been perfected: Cellular telephones and other telecommunications equipment can interfere with RFID signals, and the cost of the microchips is prohibitive. Mr. Williams said Wal-Mart plans to install the technology in its 103 distribution centers across the nation by January 2005. RFID will allow the Wal-Mart warehouse workers to scan a single pallet of products rather than having to count the items individually. A spokesman for Gillette said the company has not decided if it will team with another retailer to test RFID in stores. Gillette is testing the technology in Europe, and it wants to wait until it has completed those trials, Eric A. Kraus said. "We're trying to gather as much information as possible on the viability of this technology," Mr. Kaus said. |
| Sex Workers and Civil Rights | 0 comments |
 18 Jul 2003 @ 13:19Sex Workers and Civil Rights By Kari Lydersen AlterNet July 18, 2003 "Pretty Woman" it isn't. A sex worker's life is filled with violence from clients and police; with discrimination and scorn from the general public; with drug addiction, homelessness and lack of health services. And by utilizing a "revolving door" approach where sex workers (the majority of them women) are incarcerated time and again but never offered the economic, psychological and social services they need, the criminal justice system only exacerbates the problem and violates the civil and human rights of sex workers in the process. These are some of the conclusions of a just-released study by the Sex Workers Project, an initiative of the Urban Justice Center in New York City. The study followed female, male and transgender street sex workers in New York City, and analyzed specifically how they have been affected by the city's infamous Zero Tolerance approach to law enforcement. Meanwhile similar results rampant violence, harassment, substance abuse, health and housing problems were documented in a Chicago study released in 2001 by the Center for Impact Research. That study found 1,800 to 4,000 girls and women are involved in on- or off- street prostitution activities in Chicago in any given year, along with about 11,500 people who trade sex for drugs. These numbers comparable in other major cities show that the mistreatment of sex workers is a significant national civil and human rights situation that affects thousands and thousands of women (and men) and by extension their children or other family members. The CIR study showed that 21.4 percent of women working as escorts had been raped 10 times or more, with comparable rates for other types of sex work. Meanwhile the rapes, beatings and other abuses male and female sex workers suffer are rarely prosecuted. ³Crimes against prostitutes usually go unpunished,² says the New York study, authored by Juhu Thukral. ³There is a tacit acceptance of this form of violence, usually committed against women. The overwhelming majority of sex workers did not go to police after they experienced violent incidents. Others who attempted to report violent crimes were told by police that their complaints would not be accepted, that this is what they should expect, that they deserve all that they get.² The results of the Chicago and New York studies mirror situations reported in anecdotes and quantitative studies done in other urban areas around the country. The treatment of sex workers by police, the courts and their clients as well as the general population should be seen as a violation of the civil liberties and human rights of these women, and on a larger scale, a collective violation of our society as a whole. "The police are getting away with murder," said Louise Lofton, a former sex worker in Chicago who said police would often arrest her just for being on a certain corner or stretch of street. "Maybe she was just trying to go to the store. Sometimes you're trying to leave to go somewhere but you know if you go down this street they'll get you." On a collective level, the mistreatment of female sex workers by police, johns and society represents a vicious form of sexism and misogyny. Sex workers¹ customers, the vast majority of whom are men, may be vilified by their spouses or communities when it is discovered that they regularly visit or have visited sex workers, but this behavior is treated as an individual act, not a condemnation of the man¹s entire existence. Women, on the other hand, are treated as if sex work is not just their ³job² or even their ³crime,² but their entire existence. Police officers and judges don¹t treat sex workers as women who have violated a law, they treat them as ³prostitutes,² actually often referring to them in much cruder terms. Likewise for johns who see them only as bodies or specific body parts at that; and for the homeowners or angry wives who want them out of their neighborhoods, seeing them as eyesores, temptresses or carriers of disease rather than human beings. This societal treatment of sex workers on the moral level is mirrored on the judicial level, where sex workers bear the brunt of the criminal justice system while johns usually get off relatively lightly. In 2002, the Chicago police department made 4,486 arrests for prostitution-related offenses. That included 953 john-related arrests and 67 arrests for pimping/pandering, so with the exception of some men arrested for male prostitution, women were arrested at about four times the rate men were. In Chicago and many other cities, johns are usually charged with violating city ordinances rather than actual crimes. They will have to pay about $700 in fines and to recover their impounded cars, but the incident won¹t go on their criminal record and if they¹re lucky their wives and neighbors will never even find out. Women, meanwhile, will spend at least a night or two in jail and may end up with months-long sentences and felony charges on a third or fourth arrest. Sex Workers Rights Groups Read on... More > |
| Nelson Mandela At 85 | 3 comments |
 18 Jul 2003 @ 12:56MANDELA AT 85 The Observer Sunday, July 6, 2003 Anthony Sampson, who has known Nelson Mandela for 50 years, pays a birthday tribute to the statesman who wants a quiet life but is still drawn to the public stage, the world icon who, in his old age, has grown angrier and more outspoken than ever. Last Wednesday, Nelson Mandela once again showed his unique moral influence, two weeks before he celebrates his eighty-fifth birthday with a banquet in Johannesburg. In Westminster Hall, he launched the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation which will bring part of the huge fortune built on diamonds and gold back to black South Africa. He heard tributes from Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, with whom he had talked at length at Number 10 beforehand. The Prime Minister made an impromptu speech explaining how Mandela 'symbolised the triumph of hope over injustice'. Mandela warmly thanked him but did not conceal their differences about the Middle East: 'We differ on one point - very strongly,' he said. Afterwards, Blair and Clinton supported the frail old man as he walked slowly down the hall between the audience of a thousand Rhodes Scholars who were clapping Mandela much more than them. It was a poignant image: the two much younger leaders still needed the moral support of the old man. How has a man with no formal political position retained such influence? Since Mandela retired as President of South Africa four years ago, when I wrote his authorised biography, I have talked to him often in London and South Africa, and have always been surprised. Since I first met him 50 years ago in Johannesburg, I have seen him in many different roles - as lawyer, revolutionary, prisoner, electioneer, President and global icon. At each stage, many people have expected a let-down or, at least, an anti-climax. But in retirement, he provides many new surprises. He has become a more outspoken and, sometimes, angry old man, protesting against injustices - and now most notably against the warlike attitudes of Britain and America in the Middle East. It's a confrontation which is now coming to a head. Yet, when he first retired, Nelson Mandela talked much about spending a quiet time with his family in his new house in his tribal village of Qunu, the poor but beautiful area of Transkei. He was content, he claimed, to leave the future of his country to his successor, President Mbeki. He no longer wanted to be known as Mr President, but as 'Madiba', his clan-name. Now, he sometimes still likes to pretend to be a forgotten figure, 'an unemployed pensioner', as he describes himself. He retells the story of a young girl who told him he was a silly old man who broke the law and went to jail. When I reintroduced my wife to him saying: 'You remember Sally?' he replied: 'Yes - but do you remember me?' Of course he knows perfectly well that everyone remembers him. (Meanwhile, his own memory remains prodigious into old age; like several of his long-term prison colleagues, his memory appears to have been improved by his time in jail, away from the distractions and soundbites of television and advertising.) The name Mandela is attached to streets, squares, scholarships and buildings across the world, and an elegant new bridge across central Johannesburg, which will be opened on his birthday. The manner of his retirement in 1999 is in itself a tribute to his achievement of a new South Africa. Five years earlier, before his own inauguration, most South Africans doubted whether elections could be held at all, in the face of violent threats by his opponents to boycott them. Now, South Africans of all colours take for granted that their country is a multiracial working democracy. This is Mandela's most valuable legacy. At his own inauguration, the new President, Thabo Mbeki, made a short, unpompous speech warning about threats elsewhere, including dangers from 'our own African predators', but he was confident about South Africa's future with a place for all races and a 'common destiny regardless of the shapes of our noses'. Read On... More > |