plasticmadness

This is not a random gullible green author raising the flag of veganism. It is a rather detailed research on how does the American meat industry works. Every claim and factual citation is properly referenced. Even when the reference is “just” a website (people will believe anything that is on the internet), there are ways to check further for the veracity of it.

You can also go farther than the author, and research the web for resources that try to debunk the things written on the book (not he he does not do that himself). The author gets to his own conclusion, and does not impose veganism on the reader. It’s up to the reader to make his own decisions, which, if you are smart enough and pay attention to the news, should not be a hard task.

In less than two months we have had two massive food recalls, all related to the factory farm meat industry: first there was the poultry and meat recall due to E.Coli contamination, and then there was the scandalous egg recall due to Salmonella. These only happen because the animals’ immune system is genetically designed so deficient that their bodies serve as playground to microorganisms. The factory farmed animals would never survive in case they were not fed tons of broad spectrum antibiotics everyday mixed with their food. As if that was not enough, you still have account improper management of the animal/meat througout the whole slaughtering process. Headlines like “Egg recall highlits the dangers of mass food production” only happen thanks to factory farms.  By reading Foer’s book, you would not have to read the article behind that headline. Because you would know instantly what would be written therein.

We (that is, human beings) are frequently lectured over self-medication and misuse of antibiotics; doctors and entire hospital staffs are blamed for bacterial resistance and the eminent “superbugs”. While there is truth in that, nothing can bear more guilt for imminent diseases (say H1N1) and “superbugs” than factory farms. It is a safe bet that you will never hear of the “Cat Flu” or “Dog Flu”. Because we do not eat cats and dogs. And even when we do (Koreans do), they are not produced in a genetically engineered immune deficient massive industrial scale fed broad spectrum antibiotics. Now chickens, pigs, fish and cow? The situation is so bad that I would not be surprised in case there was something that sounds as absurd as a “fish flu”. So please watch out for what (who) you eat and food safety. It’s not just about animal welfare, but our health depends on it too.

Comments Off | In: Books & Literature, Food and Nutrition, Health, Olivia, Public Health Matters | tags: animals, antibiotics, book reviews, books, food, food safety, Health, veganism, vegetarinism. | #

Today’s candidate is Dilma Rousseff.

Dilma Rousseff (PT – Partido dos Trabalhadores – Worker’s Party) is Lula’s sweetheart. Previously to candidacy she had been the Chief of Staff of Brazil – from 2005 until 2010 – in Lula’s mandate. In spite of having an administrative position of public notoriety, she had been living in the shadowy limbo of political (and public) oblivion until President Lula openly endorsed her candidacy around the middle of 2009.  Before President Lula openly and shamelessly* advocated for her, hardly any average Brazilian citizen knew exactly who Dilma Rousseff was or what she did. Back then she would always be 10 points behind in the polls, runner up to candidate José Serra (PMDB – Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira – Party of the Brazilian Social Democracy). After President Lula started openly campaigning for and with her, she started climbing all the way up on the polls, and is now about 10 points in front of candidate José Serra.

Dilma Rousseff never ran for any public post in her life. She is essencially an administrator who was fabricated into the ideal politician stereotype, based solely on Lula’s gigantic and astonishing popularity and public appeal. This article says exactly what I am talking about: My Name is Dilma Rousseff and I’m Running Again for President, Says Brazil’s Lula

All the above said, I am not saying here that Dilma would be a bad president simply because she never ran for office before.

Unlike her female concurrent Marina Silva, who had a poor life background in the Amazon forrest, Dilma Roussef is a urban, high middle class woman, born in the town of Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais. Already in her youth – 16 years old – she became interested in Marxism. Later while in college (UFMG, where she started a major in Economics,  later finished in another college, UFRGS, in the town of Porto Alegre.) she became a member of the socialist armed militia VAR-Palmares, one of the many youth groups that fought against the abuses of the ongoing military dictatorship (which started in 1964 with a coup d’etat). Dilma Rousseff was arrested and tortured by the military during three years of her life. After the end of military dictatorship she started her career in a number of administrative posts, always related with public administration and politics, and so on, until she became Lula’s Chief of Staff.

Dilma Rousseff, together with Marina Silva, is a good example of Brazil’s best: diversity. Both come from opposite backgrounds, one is a brown skinned, formerly illitarate child of the Amazon; the other is white, daughter of a rich European immigrant. Both are Brazilian. They have very different stories, but what they have in common is that both somehow involve suffering and giving yourself over to something bigger. Both are women. Both are candidates to president.

*The electoral law of Brazil determines that there is only so much the current chief of state can do to campaign in favor of his successor. President Lula crossed that line shamelessly many and many times, and has been fined in several thousands of Brazilian Reais for that, yet, he pays the fine and goes on breaking the law. The situation got to the curious point that Dilma will never pose with her Vice (and I’m afraid no one actually even knows who her vice is: Michel Temer, PMDB, President of the Brazilian Congress.)
I only mention this funny detail because undue campaign is something Lula vehemently condemned before he became president. Now he changed his mind, it seems.

Comments Off | In: Activism, Brazil, Olivia, Politics, Women's Rights & Feminism | tags: brazil, election, feminism, Politics, women. | #

Since a few weeks ago I became vegetarian and decided to increase the daily consumption of dietary fiber.

The following text has noting to do with that. It is more about how  fibergasted I was at the intensity of my last headache.

It  pounds my skull, pulsing, as a very very bad idea insisting to get out.

Each footstep evenly conducts itself up through my body into my skull, making my neurons resonate and my brain dance frantically like a gelatin about to part in the middle under the slightest pressure.

When the miminum light beam does not dim my sight enough to make it go white blind¹, I can see stars and planets and supernovas and all kinds of celestial bodies. Even being indoors².

Even the sounds of lower magnitude reverberate causing the jelly, I mean, the brain, to dance even more willingly and frantically.

(To think I always thought I was a bad dancer.)

The resonace spreads from my brain only to take over my body and suddenly I am dancing fully instead of only in my head (that’s what I call putting your ideas in practice…).

My skin gets pale and moist  from the dancing and my stomach announces the milk shake has been shaken enough already and going up the cup…

…and then I get home and take a miracle pill.

(What, you thought I was on drugs before all that happened?)

¹what the unskeptical lay people also know as “seeing God”?

²Probably would fit the diagnostic criteria for some random DSM-V diagnosis entitled to psychotropic prescription drugs.

P.S.:  this case has shown no valid statistical evidence of correlation between fiber ingestion, vegetarianism and altered mind states. I reamain a cereal eater and a vegetarian. Now just go eat your cereal and enjoy your salad, please.

1 Comment | In: Food and Nutrition, Health, Olivia, Personal | tags: digression, food, Health, migraine. | #