Will Blog for Food

The Recovery That Didn't Happen

Robert Reich has a new post: "When Will the Recovery Begin? Never."

Obama went with the conventional thinking which was that, if you save the banks and get them working again, the rest of the economy (meaning jobs) would soon recover and people would start consuming again. But WHA HOPPENED! They must be scratching their heads and thinking they made a big mistake. If they did A, then B was sure to follow - at least that was the conventional thinking as espoused by Summers and Geithner who convinced Obama.

It is finally starting to sink in that they've made a big mistake. Their theory didn't work out. And to think - THEY'VE WASTED TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS ON THE BANKS!

What to do now? The money is gone. They don't have money for another stimulus. Stimulus, schmimulus. What's needed is not another stimulus but A COMPLETE RESTRUCTURING OF THE WHOLE FRIGGIN ECONOMY!

The Federal government is broke; the states are broke. The whole nation has pauperized itself with military adventurism and job outsourcing. Instead of spending trillions on the banks, they should have taken them over and restructured them. Instead they let banks take money and use it to lobby government not to impose regulations on them which is exactly what is needed to restructure the economy. They let the banks take money from the taxpayers and use it for obscene bonuses! How stupid can these guys be. But they're middle of the road, remember. Can't outlaw lobbyists even if they use bailout money for lobbying and bonuses.

Meanwhile there is no mortgage relief, no job growth, unemployment benefits running out, welfare benefits stopped. This is nuts! The Democrats and their stupid half-measures in the name of bi-partisanship have screwed things up even more, but this is nothing to the screw job that would have happened if the Republicans had their way.

Obama is a centrist when what is needed is someone at least as radical as FDR. Obama doesn't want to offend anyone and he is ever conscious of his legacy as the first black President. So he takes a middle of the road approach.

But Geithner and Summers are increasingly looking like fools as their approach of funneling money to the banks at any cost is looking like all it accomplished was, well, funneling money to the banks. Nothing else happened. B didn't follow A as it was supposed to. They've spilled too much red ink. Now there's no ink left. Well, they could stop two wars and close down 800 military bases and use that money. But they'd never do that. That's unthinkable. Not middle of the road enough.

Pig Shit Threatens Environment

The following is from an article called "Boss Hog" by Jeff Tietz:

America's top pork producer churns out a sea of waste that has destroyed rivers, killed millions of fish and generated one of the largest fines in EPA history. Welcome to the dark side of the other white meat.

Smithfield Foods, the largest and most profitable pork processor in the world, killed 27 million hogs last year. That's a number worth considering. A slaughter-weight hog is fifty percent heavier than a person. The logistical challenge of processing that many pigs each year is roughly equivalent to butchering and boxing the entire human populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Columbus, Austin, Memphis, Baltimore, Fort Worth, Charlotte, El Paso, Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston, Denver, Louisville, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Las Vegas, Portland, Oklahoma City and Tucson.

Smithfield Foods actually faces a more difficult task than transmogrifying the populations of America's thirty-two largest cities into edible packages of meat. Hogs produce three times more excrement than human beings do. The 500,000 pigs at a single Smithfield subsidiary in Utah generate more fecal matter each year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of Manhattan. The best estimates put Smithfield's total waste discharge at 26 million tons a year. That would fill four Yankee Stadiums. Even when divided among the many small pig production units that surround the company's slaughterhouses, that is not a containable amount. Smithfield estimates that its total sales will reach $11.4 billion this year. So prodigious is its fecal waste, however, that if the company treated its effluvia as big-city governments do -- even if it came marginally close to that standard -- it would lose money. So many of its contractors allow great volumes of waste to run out of their slope-floored barns and sit blithely in the open, untreated, where the elements break it down and gravity pulls it into groundwater and river systems.

Although the company proclaims a culture of environmental responsibility, ostentatious pollution is a linchpin of Smithfield's business model. A lot of pig shit is one thing; a lot of highly toxic pig shit is another. The excrement of Smithfield hogs is hardly even pig shit: On a continuum of pollutants, it is probably closer to radioactive waste than to organic manure. The reason it is so toxic is Smithfield's efficiency. The company produces 6 billion pounds of packaged pork each year. That's a remarkable achievement, a prolificacy unimagined only two decades ago, and the only way to do it is to raise pigs in astonishing, unprecedented concentrations. Smithfield's pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a catchment pit under the pens, but many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs -- anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. The pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond.

The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals, can be lethal to the pigs. Enormous exhaust fans run twenty-four hours a day. The ventilation systems function like the ventilators of terminal patients: If they break down for any length of time, pigs start dying. From Smithfield's point of view, the problem with this lifestyle is immunological. Taken together, the immobility, poisonous air and terror of confinement badly damage the pigs' immune systems. They become susceptible to infection, and in such dense quarters microbes or parasites or fungi, once established in one pig, will rush spritelike through the whole population. Accordingly, factory pigs are infused with a huge range of antibiotics and vaccines, and are doused with insecticides. Without these compounds -- oxytetracycline, draxxin, ceftiofur, tiamulin -- diseases would likely kill them. Thus factory-farm pigs remain in a state of dying until they're slaughtered. When a pig nearly ready to be slaughtered grows ill, workers sometimes shoot it up with as many drugs as necessary to get it to the slaughterhouse under its own power. As long as the pig remains ambulatory, it can be legally killed and sold as meat.

The drugs Smithfield administers to its pigs, of course, exit its hog houses in pig shit. Industrial pig waste also contains a host of other toxic substances: ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorous, nitrates and heavy metals. In addition, the waste nurses more than 100 microbial pathogens that can cause illness in humans, including salmonella, cryptosporidium, streptocolli and girardia. Each gram of hog shit can contain as much as 100 million fecal coliform bacteria. Smithfield's holding ponds -- the company calls them lagoons -- cover as much as 120,000 square feet. The area around a single slaughterhouse can contain hundreds of lagoons, some of which run thirty feet deep. The liquid in them is not brown. The interactions between the bacteria and blood and afterbirths and stillborn piglets and urine and excrement and chemicals and drugs turn the lagoons pink. Even light rains can cause lagoons to overflow; major floods have transformed entire counties into pig-shit bayous. To alleviate swelling lagoons, workers sometimes pump the shit out of them and spray the waste on surrounding fields, which results in what the industry daintily refers to as "overapplication." This can turn hundreds of acres -- thousands of football fields -- into shallow mud puddles of pig shit. Tree branches drip with pig shit. Some pig-farm lagoons have polyethylene liners, which can be punctured by rocks in the ground, allowing shit to seep beneath the liners and spread and ferment. Gases from the fermentation can inflate the liner like a hot-air balloon and rise in an expanding, accelerating bubble, forcing thousands of tons of feces out of the lagoon in all directions.

continues here...

A Dialog on Health Care

These comments were posted on Robert Reich's blog post, "What Can I Do?":

John Lawrence said...

Angry,

Thanks for your reference to Food, Inc. It is playing locally. I'll try to see it.

Here's a novel idea. Why not tie rates for health insurance (whether public or private) to an individual's willingness to stay healthy? In other words incentivize healthy lifestyles by giving rate cuts on health insurance. Right now some employers are incentivizing employees to exercize. This could be increased by incentivizing healthy lifestyles. With all kinds of devices being computerized and wirelessly networked, I can imagine a teadmill, for instance, wirelessly connected to a doctor's office or a database which clocked the hours spent by a specific individual. Also scales and blood pressure measurements at home can wirelessly transmit crucial health statistics to a central database or doctor's office. Classes in nutrition could count as well as a willingness to consume healthy foods and vitamins. Food purchases could be tracked. Technology is there. This might sound a little Big Brotherish, but the gains in human health, happiness and productivity not to mention cost containment of the health care system would justify encouragement of healthy lifestyles in my opinion.

There are many ways a person's willingness to lead a healthy lifestyle regarding diet and excercise could be tracked, measured and evaluated and that data could be used to determine the rate a person should pay for health insurance. Those not willing to lead a healthy lifestyle should pay more because they will be a greater burden on the overall health care system. Obese people especially are more in danger of heart and kidney problems from Type 2 diabetes, heart attacks etc.

I think this emphasis on healthy lifestyles and incentivizing it by lowering individual rates for health insurance would do a lot for cost containment of the overall health care system and encourage individual responsibility for taking care of one's self and family.

Saturday, 04 July, 2009

Art A Layman said...

John:

This might sound a little Big Brotherish, but the gains in human health, happiness and productivity not to mention cost containment of the health care system would justify encouragement of healthy lifestyles in my opinion.

Jesus! A little?! Maybe we could expand your program to not only charging higher premiums to those not following - whose definition? - a healthy lifestyle but refusing them medical care altogether. This would save scads! The double whammy would be great too. They pay higher premiums but can't get needed care. Priceless!

I guess you're scrapping your "we're all in this together" position.

You present good ideas, from time to time, but going off the deep end might not bode well for your veracity.

P.S. Does that mean that each doctors visit will now require a breathalyzer test to see if I'm smoking?

Sunday, 05 July, 2009

Anonymous said...

Art Layman,

Excuse me. You are the one going off the deep end with a hyped up reaction to John Lawrence's well-meant reminder of the benefits of a healthful lifestyle. Even we who finished high school understand John is merely highlighting the good health positives of nutricious non-fat foods, routine exercise and less pills for every occasion. And that this will also help reduce national health care costs too. Jesus would be pleased if he saw this simple message accepted by more folks like perhaps, who knows, yourself. We can't be too serious about following healthy living habits. It'll save most of us a lot of money and discomfort in our older days.

Sunday, 05 July, 2009

John Lawrence said...

Angry, Art & Others,

I just saw the movie Food Inc. and is it an eye opener. Th number of incidences of e coli are directly related to the factory production of farm animals for slaughter in feed lots or chicken houses. First they feed the cows corn instead of hay which they evolved to eat. Corn produces bacteria in their gut including e coli whereas, if they were fed grass or hay this would not happen. Animals who eat hay produce manure which can be spread on fields as fertilizer, but animals fed corn including cows and hogs produce a toxic sludge. A hog waste pond recently threatened to pollute a major river.

My Grandfather was a farmer, and he grew the hay in his own fields which he fed to his cattle and then spread the manure back on the fields with a manure spreader. They all did this in the 1940s and 50s.

Cows in feed lots have to stand around all day in their own waste products and this translates into more e coli in the slaughterhouse. No wonder there are so many recalls of beef products! Also birds pick up the e coli and transmit it to adjacent crops like spinach.

If you saw this movie you would never eat another piece of beef or chicken from the super market and especially from a fast food place.

Industrialized meat production by just a small number of corporate giants like Smithfield and Tyson is literally killing us because it's laced with growth hormones and the FDA is staffed by former lobbyists from the industries they're supposed to regulate. Poor people can pay less for a fast food meal than if they bought vegetables at the super market, and 1 out of 3 people born since 2000 will have early onset Type 2 diabetes. If you are a minority, it will be 1 out of 2. High fructose corn syrup and industrialized meat production are major contributors to obesity especially from fast foods.

The other interesting thing is that Monsanto has added a patented gene to soybeans that lets the field be sprayed with pesticide without affecting the soybean production. Since it is a patented gene, the farmer can't save seeds for next year's crop because they legally belong to Monsanto. Monsanto sends out investigators to make sure no farmer saves seeds or else they are prosecuted. Even farmers who don't buy Monsanto's genetically modified soybean seeds can be prosecuted by Monsanto if some of the genetically modified seeds happen to cross pollinate in a non-Monsanto farmer's field.

Also posted on Will Blog For Food.

Sunday, 05 July, 2009

notsofast said...

john lawrence: what's next obesity camps in the desert? lol your authoritarian inclination is pretty typical for dems and well-meaning but completely unacceptable. personal, social and economic freedom and justice only exist when coercive power and authority are decentralized and eliminated; genuine socialism.

Monday, 06 July, 2009


Art A Layman said...

John:

If you're going to attempt to enlighten us could you be more specific? E-Coli, in and of itself, is not the problem, we all walk around with E-Coli bacteria in our intestines. It's a particular strain that is the problem, an acid-resistant strain.

The vast majority of UTIs that women get are caused by E-Coli bacteria entering the urethra.

You are tending toward paranoia

Monday, 06 July, 2009

Angry Citizen said...

John,

Glad to hear that you got out to see Food Inc. I've still got to see it; some family thing came up the other night so I couldn't go.

Re: Monsanto, yes, they've become quite a thorn in the side of farmers globally. In Mexico, they train their young to be able to spot genetically modified corn so that the plants can be removed asap. Our genetically-modified imports have been mixing with their generations-in-the-making heirloom corn and they're not so much worried about getting slapped with a lawsuit for having our garbage seeds cross-pollinate as they are having their crops infiltrated with our inferior corn and ruined for posterity. (If you've never watched "The World According to Monsanto," it's worth a watch. Many versions of it are online on both You Tube and Google video.)

People were very worried for a while about Monsanto's development of what folks called "terminator seeds." I don't know if they've stopped R & D on the seeds or not, but basically what they were meant to do was, well, self-destruct so that nobody could save the seeds and harvest them.

@Art, From what I understand, the problem with e-coli, virus strains like swine and avian flu, and factory farming is that when you've got hundreds of animals piled up on top of each other in a factory--standing in their own waste, in the waste of stillborn animals, and all of their other nasty stuff that's supposedly laying in the sludge of factory floors--and in such close-quarters and stench that the quality of air flow is atrocious, strains of all kinds of illness become much more virulent because they have the ability to spread so fast throughout the factories. With a small farm where animals are free to forage, you might still have sick animals infecting others, but the number of carriers for the illness would be much smaller, and presumably, because the animals wouldn't be constantly pumped with antibiotics and other drugs (just to stave off death!)--and their immune systems wouldn't be so incredibly weak due to factory conditions--the strains would not spread so fast or have the same kind of ability, as is true in the case of factory farming, to gain in strength as it spread through hundreds of additional animals.

I posted this article once before, but it's worth re-posting:

Boss Hog.

It's a very-well researched article about Smithfield Foods (there has been a more recent article about Smithfield... I'll have to track it down later if anyone is interested), and explains in much better detail than I can provide the answer to your question about e-coli as well as a bunch of other facts you'd probably rather not know!

@ Anon,

I choose B .

Monday, 06 July, 2009

Art A Layman said...

Angry:

Far as I know all of what you said is true but the E. coli culprit is primarily just one strain which does not affect the animals but can be bad for humans: E. coli O157:H7.

E. coli is a normal bacterium in the gastrointestinal tract of animals and humans, and most types are not harmful (See "E. coli and Cattle" fact sheet, attached). However, disease-causing strains such as E. coli O157:H7 produce toxins that cause bloody diarrhea or even kidney failure in humans. Mature cattle are unaffected by E. coli O157:H7. Only a small number of cattle (estimated at 1 to 2 percent at any one time) shed E. coli O157:H7 in their feces, a rate that is not fully explained.

When beef carcasses are accidentally contaminated by feces at slaughter, the pathogens can enter the human food supply. E. coli O157:H7 can be killed by cooking or irradiation, but the bacterium continues to pose a food-safety risk.

Cattle are fed starch-containing grains to increase growth rate and produce tender meat. Because the bovine gastrointestinal tract digests starch poorly, Russell explains, some undigested grain reaches the colon, where it is fermented. When the grain ferments -- and acetic, propionic and butyric acids accumulate in the animal's colon -- a large fraction of E. coli produced are the acid-resistant type.

"Grain does not specifically promote the growth of E. coli O157:H7, but it increases the chance that at least some E. coli could pass through the gastric stomach of humans," Russell says. "The carbohydrates of hay are not so easily fermented, and hay does not promote either the growth or acid resistance of E. coli. When we switched cattle from grain-based diets to hay for only five days, acid-resistant E. coli could no longer be detected."

In studies performed at Cornell, beef cattle fed grain-based rations typical of commercial feedlots had 1 million acid-resistant E. coli, per gram of feces, and dairy cattle fed only 60 percent grain also had high numbers of acid-resistant bacteria. In each case, the high counts could be explained by grain fermentation in the intestines.

By comparison, cattle fed hay or grass had only acid-sensitive E. coli, and these bacteria were destroyed by an "acid shock" that mimicked the human stomach, the microbiologists report in Science.

My point was that the strain is the problem not just any E. coli.

At that cooking meat thoroughly and following good hygiene practices eliminates most of the risk. Though a serious concern if we look at reported cases versus all who eat pink meat and/or fast food meat John's reaction seems slightly paranoid.

Monday, 06 July, 2009

Anonymous said...

Art Layman and Notsovast,

As I've said, Mr. Lawrence's message about preventive care is not so difficult to understand. Accusing him of paranoia is an easy excuse for not hearing the message. John is only saying, as an example, we don't have to walk around with over-exposure to E-coli bacteria for a lifetime by feeding cows corn instead of hay. The rest of the world doesn't follow this stupid practice, but we in the US are the exception. As science shows, an excess of most things clearly healthwise contradictory comes with very negative risk results. This has been proven with planting corn for ethanol and feeding corn to cows. On the other hand, Monsanto has their own inspectors to enforce by fear of lawsuits their regimen of protecting really questionably unhealthful products. This occurs routinely under heavy-lobbyist influences while John Lawrence gets personally critisized for merely revealing how US health is being endangered by feeding cows corn instead of hay. In addition to the obvious exaggerations of Mr. Lawrence's intentions, he is not calling for an 'authoritarian' response to the shams and abridgement of better-informed choices for healthful living. How cleverly we can manipulate a simple, honest viewpoint. John, is acting out of paronoia? Gibberish! Please look to yourselves, gentlemen. You get upset without any counterarguments when someone speaks common sence and cites scientific evidence about unhealthful livestyle practices. You, innocently perhaps, are blind to realization you are participating in typical Republican
fear mongering. This you do by suggesting Mr. Lawrence is calling for some high authority to enforce his pet good health practices? Get realistic, gentlemen! The Disney fantasy world can't possibly match this silliness. It's the old habits of Democrats at work again in great form, and party men in particular, of undermining each other's best intentions. Republicans just love it.

Monday, 06 July, 2009


Art A Layman said...

Anonymous:

The obscurity of your name does not allow one to know how long you've been reading John's tripe, ooops, common sense. Sorry John.

Speaking of commmon sense, I love the current definition of it. In today's world Common Sense is defined as, if you disagree with me you don't have any.

One could herald the thought that we Dems think for ourselves. Are you suggesting that we all fall in line behind the party line thoughts of the day? If I'm going to do that I might as well be a Republican.

Before you go jumping on the latest healthful news of the day you might want to review history. We have been fed so much bullshit at one time or another just to have it reversed a few years hence. Coffee was bad, now it's good. Overweight is bad, thin is good. Now we find that somewhat overweight is better and offers a better chance for longer life. Vitamin C and E, in large quantities will improve your chances of avoiding heart attacks and cancer. Well, upon review, no it won't. Saturated fats are bad. Well maybe not so much.

Notsofast is right. What John proposed is that we all be monitored - daily? hourly? - to make sure we're eating right, exercising right, doing all the "right" things. That my friend is not freedom.

At that, got any idea the problems we'll create if we all start to live to be 150? Best you follow you're healthful life and life forever and be thankful for we waywards who died sooner rather than later. And Jesus, supposedly, will love us all anyway.

Oh! And I missed the part in the warranty that said if we all do nothing but healthful things we're guaranteed a long life and a quick painless death. Have to pull that damn thing out again.

Monday, 06 July, 2009

Blurtman said...

If you give up smoking, drinking, eating fatty foods and sweets, you will not live longer. It will just seem that way.

Monday, 06 July, 2009

Anonymous said ...

blurtman : If you give up smoking, drinking, eating fatty foods and sweets, you will not live longer. It will just seem that way.

Unfortunately, my own family history conclusively proves that statement false.

Monday, 06 July, 2009

John Lawrence said ...

Art said:

My point was that the strain is the problem not just any E. coli.

At that cooking meat thoroughly and following good hygiene practices eliminates most of the risk. Though a serious concern if we look at reported cases versus all who eat pink meat and/or fast food meat John's reaction seems slightly paranoid.

Art, you just don't get it, my friend. Tell that to the woman who lost her 2 year old son in 12 days after he ate a fast food hamburger. The problem is (and you should have figured this out from reading your own posting) that cows evolved to eat hay not corn! It's the government subsidization of corn that's the primary cause of e coli in the food supply. Free range grass grazing or hay fed beef cows do not introduce e coli into the food supply.The feed lot factory farms find it more convenient and less costly to feed cows corn rather than hay and then they stand around in their own manure which gets into the slaughterhouse and hence into the food supply. The continuing incidences of e coli breakouts testify to the fact that this is a continuing problem. And you're going to solve it by getting Jack in the Box to cook their meat more thoroughly?!?!

You'd be paranoid too if you lost a 2 year old son from eating a Jack in the Box hamburger.

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009


John Lawrence said...

Art and notsofast:

Many people are already wirelessly hooked up to their doctor's office so he can monitor their blood pressure and/or other vital signs on a daily basis. This in fact might save these patients' lives without their having to come into the doctor's office on a daily basis. Many companies are encouraging their employees' to excercise and have better diets in order to cut down health care costs. Some even install gyms at the place of work. Is this authoritarian or simply good sense? You know, you can make these kind of practices out to be whatever you want them to be. What's good sense and voluntary participation to some is seen to be government intervention into our private lives by others. FYI, my suggestions are meant to be on a voluntary rather than coercive basis. Art and notsofast, please eat all the fat, sugar and salt you want, smoke all the cigarettes you want and please be as sedentary as you want. My ideal health care system would still pick up the bill for all your degenerative diseases, but it would require you to pay a little more for health insurance as compared to someone who excercised and ate healthy foods.

And thank you, Anonymous, for putting Art's and notsofast's paranoia in proper perspective.

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009


Art A Layman said...

John:

Good buddy, no I'm afraid that you just don't get it. Life is not fair. Why do things happen to some and not others? Who the hell knows? The loss of any, child especially, is heinous and who can fault the feelings of any parent who has experienced it. I'm against the death penalty but were my daughter ever raped, if left to me, the perpetrator would be pleading for death.

It's the government subsidization of corn that's the primary cause of e coli in the food supply. Free range grass grazing or hay fed beef cows do not introduce e coli into the food supply.The feed lot factory farms find it more convenient and less costly to feed cows corn rather than hay and then they stand around in their own manure which gets into the slaughterhouse and hence into the food supply. The continuing incidences of e coli breakouts testify to the fact that this is a continuing problem. And you're going to solve it by getting Jack in the Box to cook their meat more thoroughly?!?!

The subsidization of corn no doubt is a contributor but my understanding is that corn fed beef also produces less fat per pound than hay fed. That can reduce profits when the fat has to be trimmed off. Another contributing factor?

Now the rest of your comment, if not paranoia, is bullshit. Standing around in their own manure is certainly inhumane. I'm all in favor of treating animals, whatever their eventual plight, humanely. But if that's the cause of E. coli entering the food chain why do we not find E. coli infections coming from eating steak or ribs or rump roasts or even beef tongue (yuck!)?

The problem is in ground beef, more specifically hamburger. Why is that? Because it is made from the garbage residue from the cattle including intestine meat. Do you think that when a cow is slaughtered the E. coli or other bacteria die as well? In the process the intestines get ground up along with other garbage and the E. coli lives on. That's how it gets in the food chain!

The article I posted does say that the E. coli O157:H7 strain does come from the digestive, fermentation, process of the cow from eating corn rather than hay. It also goes on to say that feeding the cow hay for four or five days before slaughter eliminates that particular strain. Even hay fed cattle have E. coli in their intestines and thus, chances are, in the hamburger we eat, but our stomach acids kill all other strains so no infection ever sets in.

I have eaten fast food cheeseburgers since they've been around and never had an E. coli infection. At better restaurants and at home I prefer my cheeseburgers medium rare and have most of my life with no consequences other than getting fatter. In Raleigh, a number of years ago, a law was passed that all ground beef had to be cooked to x degrees in the center, yielding, at best, a medium well patty. If cooking thoroughly was not a solution we would have a plethora of E. coli infections here and everywhere.

Another simple solution would be irradiation in slaughter houses or restaurants but likely that's more expensive than thorough cooking.

People, men, women and children die in car accidents but we don't outlaw cars. Folks get electrocuted but we don't outlaw electricity. People die from choking to death on home garden grown vegetables but we don't outlaw food.

Get a grip John! Enlighten us if you will but give us facts not emotional rants. You saw a movie and thus you feel a need to spread fear and horror to the populace. You didn't learn that in the fine schools you attended. Sounds more like lessons from Sunday school.

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009


Art A Layman said...

John:

An addendum.

You'd be paranoid too if you lost a 2 year old son from eating a Jack in nthe Box hamburger.

I wouldn't be paranoid but I'd be damned angry.

On the other hand I wouldn't be wild about a mother who would feed her 2 y/o fast food in the first place.

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009


Art A Layman said...

John:

FYI, my suggestions are meant to be on a voluntary rather than coercive basis. Art and notsofast, please eat all the fat, sugar and salt you want, smoke all the cigarettes you want and please be as sedentary as you want. My ideal health care system would still pick up the bill for all your degenerative diseases, but it would require you to pay a little more for health insurance as compared to someone who excercised and ate healthy foods.

You presentation smacked more of coercive than voluntary. Have no problem with voluntary but if I volunteer I don't want it used to punish me.

The trade off to your valued hard earned funds is in doing all those dastardly things, notsofast and I will die sooner, perhaps yielding you a refund?

I'm on Medicare. I can live the Epicurean life to the hilt and it won't cost me a dime more than all you health food, exercise addicts.

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009

Anonymous said...

Art :I'm on Medicare. I can live the Epicurean life to the hilt and it won't cost me a dime more than all you health food, exercise addicts.

Your medicare provided lipitor is 100% free?

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009

Anonymous said...

Art Layman,

You apparently enjoy distorting other people's simple statements like, for example, about the obvious benefits of healthful living habits starting young, recognizing also it is never too late. Can one still possibly be struck by a serious illness or breakdown? Of course. Are the chances reduced? Also, of course. Can more healthful lifestyles in long term reduce health care costs? Also, of course. This is all that John Lawrence is saying. You sound like you are in not in an optimum state of physical health yourself, Mr. Layman? If true, have you thought about how you might have also contributed to your disability compared to taking refuge in the forces of bad luck, the wrong time, family genetics, or the unlucky smoker? Your amusing but exaggerated, self-convincing analysis of John Lawrence's remarks seems married to the latter cop-out excuses. Fine for you. But is this wise counsel for all the younger generations? I really don't believe John Lawrence is promoting health warranties or big brother controls or dictums of healthful lifestyles as your 'Artfully' imply. He is simply highlighting a greater awareness in our society of incentivizing and promoting (as do other advanced nations) the obvious quality of life benefits possible from focusing on delicious nutricious foods, being alert to dangerous food processing methods, routinely exercising and avoiding over-reliance on pills and drugs as automatic answers to all our physical, emotional discomforts and pains. You self-rightously appear to suggest this is all nonsense or disguised authoritorian preaching! But your comments are equally indirectly, if not directly, cocky and ironically inflexible. They amount to what I would call Mr. Art Layman's concept of healthful living nihilism. Doctors, of course, profit from people who are in stupendous denial of simple ways to improve chances for good health and longevity on this delicate environmental paradise called earth. By the way, it's a paradise also in a stage of escalating climatic diseases in major part caused by human lifestyles. I hope you are not in denial or pooh-poohing of this reality also?

Mr. Lawrence's preventive care ideas we can disagree with as to how they are formulated. But they are an extremely important part of Obama's real health care reforms which I pray will come.

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009

SMV said...

Art,

Just a couple of comments on food.

1. “The subsidization of corn no doubt is a contributor but my understanding is that corn fed beef also produces less fat per pound than hay fed. That can reduce profits when the fat has to be trimmed off. Another contributing factor?”

I believe that feeding cows corn increases the growth rate. It also increases marbling and fat % in general.

Grass and hay fed beef is leaner. Personally I do not like the taste of grass fed beef as well as grain fed beef, but that is my taste buds.

2. “Standing around in their own manure is certainly inhumane. I'm all in favor of treating animals, whatever their eventual plight, humanely. But if that's the cause of E. coli entering the food chain why do we not find E. coli infections coming from eating steak or ribs or rump roasts or even beef tongue (yuck!)?”

Manure on the outside of the cow makes contact with the meat as the hide is cleaned & removed. Cutting the meat contaminates the outside edges of the meat. High heat on the outside edge of a steak kills the E. coli. The inside of the steak remains uncontaminated.

Grinding meat mixes the E.coli into the center of the burger requiring the entire burger be heated to “X” degrees for “Y” period of time to kill the E. coli.

3. The other issue is using the infected Manure as fertilizer. If you eat vegetables raw that have been fertilized with infected manure and are not sufficiently cleaned you can get sick. (Salad anyone?)

4. Requiring irradiation in slaughter houses may be an acceptable solution, but it does give large processors an advantage over small processors. To me a better solution would be to test the meat as it leaves the processing plant. If it has high contamination them shut them down until the source of the contamination is addressed. This would allow different operations to use different methods to meet the health requirements. If cows raised on grass do not have the contamination issue then they could use lower cost methods for avoiding contamination.

I also support eliminating subsides for corn and soybeans.

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009

Art A Layman said...

Anonymous:

Gracious! I didn't realize he was that JOHN!

But is it my soul he wants to save? Or my waistline?

John doesn't say things. John preaches to us. He gives us the light, ours is but to follow it.

Optimum state of health? Besides the fact that that is relative, I don't know that I have ever known anyone who was in an "optimum state of health". Many thought so only to die of a heart attack a day later. Chances are that whatever the opposite of "optimum state of health" is, that is where you'll find me. So what? I'm alive and still kicking. Not quite as high as I used to but still kicking.

If true, have you thought about how you might have also contributed to your disability compared to taking refuge in the forces of bad luck, the wrong time, family genetics, or the unlucky smoker?

Now most here who know me will tell you that I take personal responsibility for everything that has happened to me in my life. It's nobody else's fault but my own. I need no lame excuses and I make no apologies. I will live until I die. That's it! That's all there is! In the meantime, I have loved and enjoyed my life. Heart attacks, aneurysms, broken bones, flus, acid reflux are minor blips in the grand scheme of things. I have much less a desire in living forever than enjoying what living I get to do. If the options were immortality versus mortality perhaps I'd have a different view. Alas.

If I practice x, as opposed to y, are there guarantees? If I practice y am I guaranteed poor health, a meandering painful death? No! Hence, I'll take my chances. What the hell is life without risks? Humans don't come with cocoons.

But is this wise counsel for all the younger generations?

Fine! Let him find that venue where "young" people aggregate to ponder the wisdom of their elders (good luck finding that one). Ain't a lot of "young" people here. Granted John and I are at an age where many appear as "young" people but in the vernacular most of the folks here ain't "young" people.

I really don't believe John Lawrence is promoting health warranties or big brother controls or dictums of healthful lifestyles as your 'Artfully' imply.

Now you have no idea just how comforting your beliefs are to me. As we speak I'm running them to the bank to see if I can deposit them. On the other hand, "you say either and I say neither". Whose views, beliefs, are the better informed? Even more; do I care what you believe? Does anyone, beyond John, of course, care? Authors always appreciate validation.

He is simply highlighting a greater awareness in our society of incentivizing and promoting (as do other advanced nations) the obvious quality of life benefits possible from focusing on delicious nutricious foods, being alert to dangerous food processing methods, routinely exercising and avoiding over-reliance on pills and drugs as automatic answers to all our physical, emotional discomforts and pains.

Whew! What a sentence! And this is new news? Doctors and every manner of health professional has been telling us this for most of my life, and that's a lot of years. I need John to preach to me more of conventional wisdom? Puhleese!

Continued

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009

Art A Layman said...

Anonymous:

Continuing the enlightenment...

You self-rightously appear to suggest this is all nonsense or disguised authoritorian preaching! But your comments are equally indirectly, if not directly, cocky and ironically inflexible. They amount to what I would call Mr. Art Layman's concept of healthful living nihilism. Doctors, of course, profit from people who are in stupendous denial of simple ways to improve chances for good health and longevity on this delicate environmental paradise called earth.

Wow! Are you a poet in another life? One could posit that your writing seems similar to another regular poster here. He, who shall not be named, but, no doubt should be obeyed. I self-righteously assert most of what I write here. I am a self-righteous person. However, one could make a strong argument that my self-righteousness doesn't hold a candle to John's or perhaps yours.

Actually I have not disputed John's principle concepts, rather his emphasis in subjecting us all to them and once doing so charging us for the privilege. I have also disputed his "facts" which in political parlance would be labelled spin, at best, and half-truths, at worst.

Preachers make their living by selling salvation or doom. Salvation or Hell and Damnation, take your choice. From laymen I expect a higher standard. If you want to pontificate get your facts correct and don't shortchange me. I want the whole truth! I can handle it!

One more similarity between you and the unnamed one, you both, at times, fail to read or comprehend that to which you take great exception

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009

Art A Layman said...

Anonymous:

It was good though. Took me awhile to figure it out

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009

Art A Layman said...

SMV:

I believe that feeding cows corn increases the growth rate. It also increases marbling and fat % in general.

I stand corrected. Might be I misread what I was reading. Farming is near the bottom of my knowledge base. However improving the growth rate would be an economic reason for corn feeding, which was my main point. It's not all done because the government subsidizes corn.

Manure on the outside of the cow makes contact with the meat as the hide is cleaned & removed. Cutting the meat contaminates the outside edges of the meat. High heat on the outside edge of a steak kills the E. coli. The inside of the steak remains uncontaminated.

Grinding meat mixes the E.coli into the center of the burger requiring the entire burger be heated to “X” degrees for “Y” period of time to kill the E. coli.

Thanks for the "DUH!" moment. What was the point of my assertion?

3. The other issue is using the infected Manure as fertilizer. If you eat vegetables raw that have been fertilized with infected manure and are not sufficiently cleaned you can get sick. (Salad anyone?)

Valid point. Might not tighter restrictions on manure for fetilizer be called for?

4. Requiring irradiation in slaughter houses may be an acceptable solution, but it does give large processors an advantage over small processors. To me a better solution would be to test the meat as it leaves the processing plant. If it has high contamination them shut them down until the source of the contamination is addressed. This would allow different operations to use different methods to meet the health requirements. If cows raised on grass do not have the contamination issue then they could use lower cost methods for avoiding contamination.

Is not, supposedly, the testing taking place now? Could it be that some processors ignore the test results? Surely not in a "free market" laissez-faire economy, we know that all the players follow the regs to a T.

Shut them down? And this offers no advantage to large versus small processors?

How many processors limit the cattle they buy based on feedlots? If they don't, in for a dime, in for a dollar.

Is anyone to be shocked that you would favor eliminating subsidies

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009

Art A Layman said...

SMV:

Would you care to explain or did all the lectures on healthy living make you decide to take pot shots?

Taking pot shots is new from me? Damn! All this time I've been failing.

Think a little bit and maybe you'll begin to understand, even agree

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009

SMV said...

Art,
“Is not, supposedly, the testing taking place now? Could it be that some processors ignore the test results? Surely not in a "free market" laissez-faire economy, we know that all the players follow the regs to a T.”

“Shut them down? And this offers no advantage to large versus small processors?”

One of the complaints in the literature I have read is that the regulations specify equipment and facilities rather than specifying the outcome (i.e. levels of E. coli). If you don’t set limits you cannot shut them down when the limits are exceeded.

The requirements favor the large producers verses the small processors. One requirement often noted is a separate bathroom used only by the inspector. Structuring the requirements this way limits competition and drives up profits.

Tuesday, 07 July, 2009

John Lawrence said...

Art said:

I'm on Medicare. I can live the Epicurean life to the hilt and it won't cost me a dime more than all you health food, exercise addicts.

Yes, but it will drive up the cost of Medicare. But if you don't care about systemic problems, ...

Wednesday, 08 July, 2009

John Lawrence said...

In addition to irradiation, hamburger, or processed meat that passes for hamburger, is being washed with chlorine at some meat packing plants to get rid of e coli. Before long food will bear no resemblance to what nature provided but will be an assemblage of chemicals with the proper components of salt, fat and sugar along with the appropriate "mouth feel" to satisfy consumers. It doesn't take a PhD to figure out that such artificial products loaded with preservatives and bovine growth hormone and vegetables sprayed with pesticides might not be conducive to good health in the long run. But if you're like Art and take the attitude that in the long run we're all dead so what the heck live for the moment and enjoy life while you can, you won't give a dip shit about healthy living. Bring on the cigars and brandy! Hell, bring on the dancing girls too!

Buying food locally from farmers with good farming practices might be an alternative well worth the extra money. But, alas, poor people will still find it cheaper to eat at fast food restaurants which is where most of the homeless eat

Wednesday, 08 July, 2009

Art A Layman said...

John:

Yes, but it will drive up the cost of Medicare. But if you don't care about systemic problems ...

Not if I'm the only one who doesn't follow your advice. I'll just be a drop in the bucket.

And remember I'll die sooner and Medicare costs will go back down.

Wednesday, 08 July, 2009

Art A Layman said...

John:

Bring on the cigars and brandy! Hell, bring on the dancing girls too!

Whoopee!!!! If you gotta go down, why not in flames?

My kinda guy!!!!

Wednesday, 08 July, 2009

Homeless in New York

From the New York Times:

Many New Yorkers view summer as a time for vacations, camp and lazy days at the beach. But city officials have been preparing for quite a different summer ritual: the swelling of the population of homeless families.

They call it the summer surge, and say that this year could be the worst yet.

Because the homeless population this spring was up more than 20 percent over last spring, possibly because of higher unemployment, officials are girding for an all-time high in the number of families in shelters at once, expecting close to 10,000. Already, the number has reached 9,420.

Other cities are noticing a similar trend. In Toledo, Ohio, one overcrowded shelter has been turning away dozens of people each night. In Charlotte, N.C., a shelter that is typically open only in winter has stayed open for the summer to meet demand, which is 20 percent higher than last summer. Across town, a Salvation Army shelter is so full, it has set up mats on the floors.

The reasons are varied but simple. Landlords who are reluctant to evict during winter are less hesitant when it is warmer. Parents like the Maldonados, who have endured poor housing conditions to spare their children agitation and humiliation at school, finally pack up and leave. And relatives who have taken in families in cramped apartments lose patience when children are suddenly underfoot all day long.

“When school’s open, families tend to stay where they are,” said Deronda Metz, the director of social services for the Salvation Army in Charlotte. “And when school’s out, they’re told it’s time to go.”

In New York, the number of homeless families applying for shelter in the summer has been 28 percent higher than the rest of the year the last three years. Their first stop is the intake center, a 24-hour, sprawling 66,000-square-foot brick building in the Bronx. They must walk through metal detectors, must submit to questioning from social workers and, after hours of waiting for their names to be called, are bused to a temporary hotel room or apartment.

Workers have begun to make room for the hundreds of extra families that are expected at the center this summer. On the second floor, all of the cubicles in one room were dismantled, replaced by rows of plastic chairs to make a waiting room for up to 114 people. Rows of boxy light gray metal lockers — each large enough to hold several suitcases — were installed. Employees at the intake center are being limited to one week of vacation during July and August.

The Movie - "Food Inc." - Is an Eye Opener!

I just saw the movie Food Inc. and is it an eye opener. The number of incidences of e coli are directly related to the factory production of farm animals for slaughter in feed lots or chicken houses. First they feed the cows corn instead of hay which they evolved to eat. Corn produces bacteria in their gut including e coli whereas, if they were fed grass or hay this would not happen. Animals who eat hay produce manure which can be spread on fields as fertilizer, but animals fed corn including cows and hogs produce a toxic sludge. A hog waste pond recently threatened to pollute a major river. Corn is subsidized by the government  so the unhealthy production of meat and low prices for fast food are actually subsidized by the government!

My Grandfather was a farmer, and he grew the hay in his own fields which he fed to his cattle and then spread the manure back on the fields with a manure spreader. They all did this in the 1940s and 50s.

Cows in feed lots have to stand around all day in their own waste products and this translates into more e coli in the slaughterhouse. No wonder there are so many recalls of beef products! Also birds pick up the e coli and transmit it to adjacent crops like spinach.

If you saw this movie you would never eat another piece of beef or chicken from the super market and especially from a fast food place.

Industrialized meat production by just a small number of corporate giants like Smithfield and Tyson is literally killing us because it's laced with growth hormones and the FDA is staffed by former lobbyists from the industries they're supposed to regulate. Poor people can pay less for a fast food meal than if they bought vegetables at the super market, and 1 out of 3 people born since 2000 will have early onset Type 2 diabetes. If you are a minority, it will be 1 out of 2. High fructose corn syrup and industrialized meat production are major contributors to obesity especially from fast foods.

The other interesting thing is that Monsanto has added a patented gene to soybeans that lets the field be sprayed with pesticide without affecting the soybean production. Since it is a patented gene, the farmer can't save seeds for next year's crop because they legally belong to Monsanto. Monsanto sends out investigators to make sure no farmer saves seeds or else they are prosecuted. Even farmers who don't buy Monsanto's genetically modified soybean seeds can be prosecuted by Monsanto if some of the genetically modified seeds happen to cross pollinate in a non-Monsanto farmer's field.

A Modest Proposal for Cost Containment of the Health Care System and Encouraging Human Health and Happiness

Here's a novel idea. Why not tie rates for health insurance (whether public or private) to an individual's willingness to stay healthy? In other words incentivize healthy lifestyles by giving rate cuts on health insurance. Right now some employers are incentivizing employees to exercize. This could be increased by incentivizing healthy lifestyles. With all kinds of devices being computerized and wirelessly networked, I can imagine a teadmill, for instance, wirelessly connected to a doctor's office or a database which clocked the hours spent by a specific individual. Also scales and blood pressure measurements at home can wirelessly transmit crucial health statistics to a central database or doctor's office. Classes in nutrition could count as well as a willingness to consume healthy foods and vitamins. Food purchases could be tracked. Technology is there. This might sound a little Big Brotherish, but the gains in human health, happiness and productivity not to mention cost containment of the health care system would justify encouragement of healthy lifestyles in my opinion.

There are many ways a person's willingness to lead a healthy lifestyle regarding diet and excercise could be tracked, measured and evaluated and that data could be used to determine the rate a person should pay for health insurance. Those not willing to lead a healthy lifestyle should pay more because they will be a greater burden on the overall health care system. Obese people especially are more in danger of heart and kidney problems from Type 2 diabetes, heart attacks etc.

I think this emphasis on healthy lifestyles and incentivizing it by lowering individual rates for health insurance would do a lot for cost containment of the overall health care system and encourage individual responsibility for taking care of one's self and family.

Tylenol Can Destroy Your Liver

This is a continuation of an ongoing stream of articles on our health care system and the causes of out of control costs part of which are due to an over reliance on prescription and non-prescription drugs and part of which are the product of the consumption of highly advertised, great tasting but nutritionally deprived foods. The following comment was left by Frank Thomas on Robert Reich's blog.

Frank Thomas said:

In this regard, America seems to be a casual, quick slicking pill of all kinds and a welcoming over-prescribed medicines obsessed society. This compulsive cultural behavior in combination with nutritional bad habits, in excess of course, contributes to reducing or neutralizing the body´s natural immunity system´s development during our 30s, 40s and 50s ... just when a strengthened immunity system is most needed when it naturaly starts to decline in our 65s, 70s
and 80s.

I left the following comments here and here:

One of the aspects of increased health care costs is the veritable barrage of TV and magazine advertising for prescription drugs. This not only raises the cost of those drugs, but creates a culture where every problem seemingly can be solved by taking a pill. America is a culture of prescription and non-prescription drug addicts. Every malady or discomfort, we are told, can be cured by taking a pill.

The dirty little secret is that for every pill taken there are side effects. It has just come to light that the painkiller acetamenophen found in Tylenol and other medicines can cause liver damage even deaths in otherwise healthy individuals because of its destructive effects on the liver. So does it not stand to reason that, even in moderate doses, this drug is not doing any good for the liver? The cumulative effects over time can cause the type of problems in old age that Frank suggests.

With Mother Nature you don't get something for nothing. The cumulative effects of ingesting drugs and food laced with preservatives and other toxic substances leads to failure of various organs if not catastophically when young, then gradually as we age. The liver's function is to get rid of toxic substances. Obviously, as far as the liver is concerned, acetaminophen is a toxic substance. So while Tylenol relieves pain, it overloads the liver which has enough to do to get rid of toxic substances without the added burden of getting rid of acetaminophen. This is what Frank is talking about as far as "compromising the immune system." Compromising the various organs whose task is to eliminate toxic substances is the price paid by pain relief as well as the price to be paid for various other drugs and pharmaceuticals which serve no other purpose than pain relief or lifestyle enhancement. I include Viagra, Levitra and Cialis in this category. Short term enhancement is paid for by eventual breakdown of organs which have to deal with the elimination of toxic substances. This leads to an increased burden and cost on the health care system for people in the last stages of life.

The subsidization of corn products by the government leads directly to the subsidization of fast foods in terms of corn fed beef and high fructose corn syrup which are directly responsible for obesity. The proper combination of sugar, fat and salt in order to get people hooked on processed food products is something that is calculated in food giant chemical labs and even put in place in baby food products. Hooking people on fat, salt and sugar is something that food processors and in particular fast food giants pursue with a vengeance. This in combination with advertising encourages people to not consider the nutritional value of what they're consuming but only the taste value. To jack up the taste content of food products a whole host of unnatural substances are added. Read the contents on any label. This consumption of highly advertised, great tasting foods is largely responsible for much of the added burden to our health care system due to the results it engenders in terms of obesity and health problems related to obesity.

These additional health problems from consuming great tasting but nutritionally impoverished foods, we are told, can be alleviated by consuming prescription and over the counter drugs. So the health care industry and the food industry (particularly fast foods) are essentially in cahoots in producing a country of over medicated and nutritionally deprived people and overly emburdening the health care system which drives up costs.

The educational system is a total farce as it has produced a people who are financially and nutritionally illiterate among other forms of illiteracy. They are taught American history which is a fantasy, and they are not taught anything which might be critical of the large corporations and their hold on the power structure of Washington. We are just pawns of the large corporations whose goal is to turn the middle class into a nation of debtors, docile and complacent consumers of fast food and prescription drug garbage and health care system dependents.

Mark Sanford Redux

Referring to Maria as his "soul mate" doesn't auger well for South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford if he ever intends to patch up his relationship with wife Jenny. Maintaining that he is still in love with his mistress doesn't auger well either. How many wives would put up with that? Oh yes, I want to keep my job as governor and patch things up with my wife, but I'm still in love with my South American soul mate.

And then Sanford admits that he "crossed the line" with a handful of other women during his marriage, but he didn't cross the " ultimate line." What's that claptrap supposed to mean? If he didn't cross the "ultimate line," why even mention it? Does he mean he made out with some other women, felt them up, French kissed? Maybe had oral sex like Clinton did, but remember in southern terms oral sex is not crossing the "ultimate line." At least Clinton didn't think it was.

From Huffington Post:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, already struggling to salvage his family and his political career after admitting a scandalous affair, added explosive details Tuesday, including more visits with the mistress he calls his "soul mate" and additional women in his past. The once-promising presidential prospect said he is committed to reconciling with his wife, but professed to The Associated Press his continued love for the Argentine woman at the center of the firestorm that gutted his political future. In emotional interviews with the AP over two days, he said he would die "knowing that I had met my soul mate." Sanford also said that he "crossed the lines" with a handful of other women during 20 years of marriage, but not as far as he did with his mistress. "There were a handful of instances wherein I crossed the lines I shouldn't have crossed as a married man, but never crossed the ultimate line," he said. Sanford insisted his relationship with Maria Belen Chapur, whom he met at an open air dance spot in Uruguay eight years ago, was more than just sex. "This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story," Sanford said. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day." Even with the latest revelations, Sanford maintains he is fit to govern and has no plans to resign.

Sanford has no plans to resign because he thinks God wants him to stay on the job. How self-serving! People use God to justify their actions as if God was merely their hand maiden. Can we just say that Sanford's attitude exposes how vacuous, bankrupt and self-serving southern religiousity really is? He exposes the bullshit that passes for religion that most of these so-called evangelicals really embrace. Talk about twisting words to make God responsible for everything instead of making Mark Sanford responsible for his actions. He is giving God and the tax payers of South Carolina a chance to let Mark Sanford improve himself by staying in office! While he apologized to the "Tom Davises of the world" whatever that means, his friend Tom Davis seemed to say that Sanford's remaining in office was dependent on his reconciliation with his wife Jenny. Good luck on that while admitting he's still in love with his South American soul mate! Oh, and by the way, Sanford also apologized to the Cubby Culbertsons of the world. Did I hear him apologize to the Jenny Sanfords of the world? I don't think so. How pathetic that he wants to be "of service" to the people of South Carolina by denying extended unemployment benefits to poor people. Yeah, God wants you to be of service by helping the wealthy and leaving the poor to starve. I think you'd be of more service if you took all your personal wealth and gave it to the poor as Jesus told the rich man in the Bible and then maybe we'd believe you about how you were following Him.

From God is My Doorman:

One thing Mark Sanford isn't doing is resigning. Why? Because God Himself wants Mark Sanford to stay on as Governor of South Carolina. Just ask Mark Sanford: "Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign - as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword. A long list of close friends have suggested otherwise - that for God to really work in my life I shouldn't be getting off so lightly." And if anyone knows about getting off, it's Mark Sanford. But more importantly, the Almighty insists that Mark Sanford stay in office. South Carolina is his punishment. Like when Job got boils. And the citizens get to help God help Mark Sanford be a better man. Which I think we can all agree is what public service is all about. "While it would be personally easier to exit stage left, their point has been that my larger sin was the sin of pride." That and years and years of adultery. But mostly pride. Here's what I always thought I kind of missed out on as a Catholic, instead of whatever horseshit Mark Sanford practices: Self-diagnosis. When it came to sin, we didn't get to call our own balls and strikes like that. "If I walked in with a real spirit of humility then this last legislative term could well be our most productive one - and that outside this term, I would ultimately be a better person and of more service in whatever doors God opened next in life if I stuck around to learn lessons rather than running and hiding down at the farm." Again, what else can we do for you, Gov. Sanford? I'm glad the taxpayers have this chance to let you improve yourself, but is that enough? Next time you're boning someone in South America, can we hold your dick? Okay, now clearly Mark Sanford is just a twitching loon who should be locked up before he hurts someone. What's cool is that he isn't even out of office yet, and he's already talking about God opening doors.

Has America Changed Its Role of Supporting Military Coups in South America?

Published on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

An End to Backyard Imperialism?

by Grace Livingstone

Early on Sunday morning, troops stormed the presidential palace of Honduras and kidnapped the president. Immediately eyes turned to the United States, which for more than a century has backed friendly dictators and cooked-up coups in Central America. The Honduran coup provides a vital test for Barack Obama, to prove that the US is no longer the "yankee imperialist" pulling the strings of despots in Latin America, an image that has resonated in the region since the 19th-century.

Since independence, the military has been the most powerful force in Honduras and if the coup goes unchallenged, it will show that it still has a veto on democratically elected presidents. Historically, that military has been supported unfailingly by the US. As US under-secretary of state Robert Olds wrote in 1927: "We do control the destinies of Central America and we do so for the simple reason that the national interest absolutely dictates such a course … governments which we recognise and support stay in power, while those we do not recognise and support fail."

US marines were sent to Central America over 30 times, and to Honduras seven times, between 1900 and 1934 to maintain order and quell any threat to the ruling oligarchies. With the introduction of Roosevelt's "Good Neighbour policy" in the 1930s, military intervention became less common; instead the US backed or installed "friendly dictators". In Honduras, the US smiled upon the brutal Tiburcio Carías Andino who ruled absolutely between 1931 and 1948, and a further series of military despots from 1951 to 1981.

Although democracy then returned to Honduras, the Reagan government poured in military aid, turning the fragile democracy into a militarised state. Using it as a base to pursue the war against the Nicaraguan revolutionary government, the US installed garrisons, supply dumps and air bases, as well as mercenary (Contra) training camps along the borders.

The US ambassador to Honduras at that time was John Negroponte, an ardent defender of the Honduran military, which was responsible for the "disappearance" of at least 184 people between 1980-92. He was one of a number of figures involved in the Iran-Contra affair who re-emerged in the George Bush administration. These old cold war warriors eyed with suspicion the new "radical populists" in Latin America, a term they used for the leftwing presidents of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua. They were disturbed by the leftist tendencies of Honduras's Zelaya and his friendship with the Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. It is not surprising that Chávez has called for an investigation into whether the CIA played a role in this weekend's coup.

Although it looks unlikely, given the history, these calls cannot be dismissed out of hand. The US military has a longstanding relationship with its counterparts in Honduras and the US maintains an airbase in Soto Cano today. Elements in the Pentagon have been concerned about the growing leftist trend in Latin America: a US Army War College publication in 2006, entitled US Military Priorities for Latin America, included in its list of security concerns "Implications of the rising threat of populism in the region" and "Implications of the return of the Latin American left". The government development arm, USAID, spends about $50m a year in Honduras on "promoting democracy", funding pro-US non-governmental groups and political parties.

But it is notable that Hillary Clinton and other state department officials have clearly condemned the coup. This is in stark contrast to the Bush administration's public support for the coup against Chávez in Venezuela in 2002. President Obama has said he is "deeply concerned". Obama needs to act urgently, with his Latin American neighbours and the Organization of American States (OAS), to ensure that the elected president is reinstated, and prove his country is no longer a friend of despots in its own backyard.

A Short History of US Overthrow of Democratically Elected Regimes or Why the Rest of the World Hates Us

According to a variety of sources, the United States government has forcibly overthrown, and attempted to overthrow, foreign governments perceived as hostile, and replaced them with new ones, actions that have become known as regime change. It has been noted that governments targeted by the U.S. have included democratically-elected governments, thus the target "regimes" are not necessarily authoritarian governments or juntas, but in some cases are replaced by such dictatorships. In other cases dictatorships have been replaced by democracies.

Regime change has been attempted through direct involvement of U.S. operatives, the funding and training of insurgency groups within these countries, anti-regime propaganda campaigns, coup d'états, and other, often illegal, activities usually conducted as operations by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The U.S. has also accomplished regime change by direct U.S. military action. It has been argued that non-transparent United States government agencies who work in secret and sometimes mislead or do not fully implement the decisions of elected civilian leaders have been an important component of many such operations.

Shortly after the second world war, the Eisenhauer administration undertook a policy of overthrowing democratically elected governments in Latin America and elsewhere in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine which legitimized interference in other countries in the Western hemisphere and because of hysteria over communism.

Iran 1953

The 1953 Iranian coup d’état was the Western-led covert operation that deposed the democratically-elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq. The coup was organized by the United States' CIA and the United Kingdom's MI6, who aided and abetted anti-Mosaddeq royalists and mutinous Iranian army officers in overthrowing the Prime Minister. CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. organized Operation Ajax to aid retired General Fazlollah Zahedi. In the CIA history called TPAJAX, the TP preceding AJAX meant that it was a covert operation taking place in Iran.

After deposing Iran's popularly elected leader who was taken to jail, CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt carried out the plan devised by CIA agent Donald Wilber to install Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri to establish a pro-US and pro-UK government, by bribing Iranian government officials, reporters, and businessmen.

This Anglo–American coup d’état was to ensure Western control of Iran's petroleum resources and to prevent the Soviet Union from competing for Iranian oil. Moreover, the Iranian motivations for deposing Prime Minister Mosaddeq included reactionary clerical dissatisfaction with a secular government, fomented with CIA propaganda.

Thus the much hated Shah of Iran was installed in power by the US. His secret police SAVAK was known for its brutality

The Shah appreciated the coup, Kermit Roosevelt wrote in his account of the affair. "'I owe my throne to God, my people, my army and to you!' By 'you' he [the shah] meant me and the two countries—Great Britain and the United States—I was representing. We were all heroes."

Guatemala 1954

The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation organized by the CIA to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala. Arbenz's government put forth a number of new policies, such as seizing and expropriating unused, unfarmed land that private corporations set aside long ago and giving the land to peasants.  CIA Director Allen Dulles' concern that Guatemala would become a beachhead for communism in the Western hemisphere reverberated within the CIA and the Eisenhower administration, in the context of the anti-Communist fears of the McCarthyist era. Arbenz instigated sweeping land reform acts that antagonized the U.S.-based multinational company United Fruit Company, which had large stakes in the old order of Guatemala and lobbied various levels of the US government to take action against Arbenz. Both Dulles and his brother were shareholders of United Fruit Company.

The operation, which lasted from late 1953 to 1954, planned to arm and train an ad-hoc "Liberation Army" of about 400 fighters under the command of a then-exiled Guatemalan army officer, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, and to use them in conjunction with a complex and largely experimental diplomatic, economic, and propaganda campaign. The operation effectively ended the experimental period of representative democracy in Guatemala known as the "Ten Years of Spring", which ended with Arbenz's official resignation.

The operation was preceded by a plan, never fully implemented, as early as 1951, to supply anti-Arbenz forces with weapons, supplies, and funding, Operation PBFORTUNE. Afterwards there was an operation, Operation PBHISTORY, whose objective was to gather and analyze documents from the Arbenz government that would incriminate Arbenz as a Communist puppet.

Democratic Republic of the Congo 1960

Patrice Émery Lumumba, an African anti-colonial leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after he helped to win its independence from Belgium in June 1960, was deposed in a US CIA-sponsored coup during the Congo Crisis. He was subsequently imprisoned and assassinated under controversial circumstances.

Brazil 1964

The 1964 Brazilian coup d'état was a coup d'état (though self-denominated Revolution) against President João Goulart by the Brazilian military on the night of 31 March 1964. Democratically elected as vice-president to Jânio Quadros, João Goulart (a moderate nationalist also known as "Jango") acceded to the presidency upon Quadros' resignation under difficult circumstances.

At the time, the Brazilian military forced Jango into a compromise with the Congress, where his powers would be reduced through the approval of a constitutional amendment changing Brazil to a Parliamentary Democracy with Jango as a weakened head of state in order to halt his plan Plano Trienal.

In 1963, however, Jango successfully re-established the presidential system through a referendum. His reforms, contemporaneously interpreted as socialist in a world increasingly polarized by the Cold War, went against the interests of the military and right-wing sectors of society.

The coup d'etat is generally referred as a Revolution by its sympathizers. Brazil went into a military dictatorship lasting until the election of Tancredo Neves in 1985. The Brazilian military coup is framed as part of the Cold War and a response to the perceived threat of communism, but its actual motivations were mostly internal, ranging from the increasing inflation under Goulart to the shift in the capitalist accumulation pattern, with the rise of monopolist capitalism. It stands alongside the 1973 Chilean coup d'état and the 1976 Argentine coup as a military intervention in Latin American democracy during the Cold War.

Republic of Ghana 1966

On February 24, 1966, Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah of the Ghana was overthrown by a claimed CIA-backed coup.

Nkrumah wanted Ghana to have modern armed forces, so he acquired aircraft and ships, and introduced conscription. He also gave military support to those fighting the Smith administration in Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia. In February 1966, while Nkrumah was on a state visit to Vietnam, his government was overthrown in a military coup, which some claim was backed by the CIA. Today, Nkrumah is one of the most respected leaders in African history. In 2000, he was voted Africa's man of the millennium by listeners to the BBC World Service.

Iraq 1968

The leader of the new Baathist government, Salam Arif, died in 1966 and his brother, Abdul Rahman Arif, not a Ba'athist, assumed the presidency. Said K. Abuirsh alleges that in 1967 the government of Iraq was very close to giving concessions for the development of huge new oil fields in the country to France and the USSR. PBS reported that Robert Anderson, former secretary of the treasury under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, secretly met with the Ba'ath Party and came to a negotiated agreement according to which both the oil field concessions and sulphur mined in the northern part of the country would go to United States companies if the Ba'ath again took over power. In 1968, with a claimed backing of the CIA, Rahman Arif was overthrown by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr of the Baath Party, bringing Saddam Hussein to the threshold of power. Roger Morris in the Asia Times writes that the CIA deputy for the Middle East Archibald Roosevelt (grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and cousin of Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.) stated, referring to Iraqi Ba'ath Party officers on his payroll in the 1963 and 1968 coups, "They're our boys, bought and paid for, but you always gotta remember that these people can't be trusted." General Ahmed Bakr was installed as president. Saddam Hussein was appointed the number two man.

Chile 1973

Salvador Isabelino Allende Gossens  served as the President of Chile from November 4, 1970 until the U.S. backed September 11, 1973 coup d'etat that ended his democratically elected Popular Unity government. He was a physician and the first democratically elected Marxist socialist to become president of a state in the Americas.

In office, Allende pursued a policy he called "La vía chilena al socialismo" ("The Chilean Way to Socialism"). This included nationalization of certain large-scale industries (notably copper), of the health care system, continuation of his predecessor Eduardo Frei Montalva's policies regarding the educational system, a program of free milk for children, and land redistribution. The previous government of Eduardo Frei had already partly nationalised copper by acquiring a 51 percent share in foreign owned mines. Allende expropriated the remaining percentage without compensating the U.S. companies that owned the mines.

Chilean presidents were allowed a maximum of 6 years, which may explain Allende's haste to restructure the economy. Not only did he have a significant restructuring program organised, it had to be a success if a successor to Allende was going to be elected.

At the beginning there was broad support in Congress to expand the government's already large part of the economy, as the Popular Unity and Christian Democrats together had a clear majority. But the government's efforts to pursue these policies led to strong opposition by landowners, some middle-class sectors, the rightist National Party, financiers, and the Roman Catholic Church (which in 1973 was displeased with the direction of the educational policy). Eventually the Christian Democrats united with the National Party in Congress.

The land-redistribution that Allende highlighted as one of the central policies of his government had already begun under his predecessor Eduardo Frei Montalva, who had expropriated between one-fifth and one-quarter of all properties liable to takeover. The Allende government's intention was to seize all holdings of more than eighty basic irrigated hectares. Allende also intended to improve the socio-economic welfare of Chile's poorest citizens; a key element was to provide employment, either in the new nationalised enterprises or on public works projects.

The Chilean coup d'état of 1973 is a landmark in the history of Chile and the Soviet-American Cold War. On 11 September 1973, the government of President Salvador Allende was overthrown by the military in a coup d’état.

The coup occurred two months after a first failed attempt, the Tanquetazo — Tank putsch — and a month after the Chamber of Deputies (with an Opposition majority) condemned President Allende’s alleged breaches of the Constitution. President Allende died during the coup; the cause of his death remains disputed.

General Augusto Pinochet assumed power after deposing President Salvador Allende, establishing a military government that ruled until 1990. This right-wing military deposition of an elected Socialist president by a U.S.-sponsored caudillo licenced the U.S.S.R. to retract from Russo-American détente in pursuit of foreign policy ambitions in the Third World.

Alan Greenspan personally instructed Pinochet in how to run his economy based on free market principles of privatization, deregulation and laissez faire capitalism. These policies enriched the upper class while making the lives of Chile's peasants more miserable.

Argentina 1976

The 1976 Argentine coup was a coup d'état that overthrew Isabel Perón on 24 March 1976, in Argentina. In her place, a military junta was installed, which was headed by General Jorge Rafael Videla, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera and Brigadier Orlando Ramón Agosti. The junta took the official name of "National Reorganization Process," and remained in power until 1983.

Although political repression (the so-called "Dirty War") began before the coup, as soon as Operativo Independencia, it was heavily extended after the coup and resulted in the "disappearances" of approximately 30,000 persons.

The United States Department of State learned of the preparations of the coup two months before.

Two days after the coup, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America, William D. Rogers, stated "This junta is testing the basic proposition that Argentina is not governable...I think that's a distinctly odds-on choice." and "I think also we've got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long. I think they're going to have to come down very hard not only on the terrorists but on the dissidents of trade unions and their parties." US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger stated that "Whatever chance they have, they will need a little encouragement" and "because I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States."

In June 1976, when human rights violations by the junta were criticized in the US, Kissinger reiterated support to the junta, directly addressing himself to Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti during a meeting in Santiago de Chile .

Nicaragua 1981-1990

CIA directed the Contra revolution, planted harbor mines and sunk civilian ships to overthrow the revolutionary Sandinista government of Nicaragua. After the Boland Amendment was enacted, it became illegal under U.S. law to fund the Contras; National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, Deputy National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter, National Security Council staffer Col. Oliver North and others continued an illegal operation to fund the Contras, leading to the Iran-Contra scandal.

The U.S argued that:
The United States initially provided substantial economic assistance to the Sandinista-dominated regime. We were largely instrumental in the OAS action delegitimizing the Somoza regime and laying the groundwork for installation for the new junta. Later, when the Sandinista role in the Salvadoran conflict became clear, we sought through a combination of private diplomatic contacts and suspension of assistance to convince Nicaragua to halt its subversion. Later still, economic measures and further diplomatic efforts were employed to try to effect changes in Sandinista behavior.

Nicaragua's neighbors have asked for assistance against Nicaraguan aggression, and the United States has responded. Those countries have repeatedly and publicly made clear that they consider themselves to be the victims of aggression from Nicaragua, and that they desire United States assistance in meeting both subversive attacks and the conventional threat posed by the relatively immense Nicaraguan Armed Forces.

Guatemala 1993

In 1993 the CIA helped in overthrowing Jorge Serrano Elías. Jorge then attempted a self-coup, suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court, and imposed censorship. He was replaced by Ramiro de León Carpio.

Venezuela 2002

In 2002, Washington is claimed to have approved and supported a coup against the democratically-elected Venezuelan government, acting through senior officials of the U.S. government, including Special Envoy to Latin America Otto Reich and convicted Iran-contra figure and George W. Bush "democracy 'czar'" Elliott Abrams, who have long histories in the U.S. backed "Dirty Wars" of the 1980s in Central America, and links to U.S.-supported death squads working in Central America at that time. Top coup plotters, including Pedro Carmona, the man installed during the coup as the new president, began visits to the White House months before the coup and continued until weeks before the putsch. The plotters were received at the White House by the man President George W. Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Special Envoy Otto Reich. It has been claimed that Reich was the U.S. mastermind of the coup.

Venezuela claims that a confidential memorandum from the US embassy to the CIA revealed and circulated by the Venezuelan government on November 26, 2007 provides details on the activity of a CIA unit engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the forth-coming national referendum and to coordinate the civil and military overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Venezuela. According to the Venezuelan government, the memo, entitled "Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation Pincer," was sent by Michael Middleton Steere addressed to the Director of CIA, Michael Hayden, and outlines covert Operation Pincer (OP) (Operación Tenaza).

According to these claims, Operation Pincer entails a two-pronged strategy of impeding the upcoming national referendum of December 2, 2007 on important changes to the Venezuelan constitution urged by the government of President Hugo Chavez, rejecting the outcome, and at the same time calling for a 'no' vote. In the run up to the referendum, OP includes running phony polls, attacking electoral officials and running propaganda through the private media accusing the government of fraud and calling for a 'no' vote. Contradictions, the report emphasizes, are of no matter.

Interestingly enough, now that the US no longer has the excuse of the Cold War for its policy of intervening in foreign governments to promote its self-interests, the same tendencies toward land redistribution and nationalization of natural resources such as oil still exist in many other countries. The impetus towards socialization of resources counters the US promotion through the IMF and World Bank towards privatization. Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, is a case in point.

As the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Chávez promotes a political doctrine of participatory democracy, socialism and Latin American and Caribbean cooperation. He is also a critic of neoliberalism, globalization, and United States foreign policy.

A career military officer, Chávez founded the left-wing Fifth Republic Movement after orchestrating a failed 1992 coup d'état against former President Carlos Andrés Pérez. Chávez was elected President in 1998 with a campaign centering on promises of aiding Venezuela's poor majority, and was reelected in 2000 and in 2006. Domestically, Chávez has maintained nationwide Bolivarian Missions, whose goals are to combat disease, illiteracy, malnutrition, poverty, and other social ills. Abroad, Chávez has acted against the Washington Consensus by supporting alternative models of economic development, and has advocated cooperation among the world's poor nations, especially those in Latin America.

Chávez's policies have evoked controversy in Venezuela and abroad, receiving anything from vehement criticism to enthusiastic support. The government of the United States claims that Chávez is a threat to democracy in Latin America. Many other governments sympathize with his ideology or welcome his bilateral trade and reciprocal aid agreements. In 2005 and 2006 he was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people.

And to bring this up to the present:

Honduras 2009

The crisis in Honduras, where members of the country’s military abruptly awakened President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday and forced him out of the country in his bedclothes, is pitting Mr. Obama against the ghosts of past American foreign policy in Latin America.

The United States has a history of backing rival political factions and instigating coups in the region, and administration officials have found themselves on the defensive in recent days, dismissing repeated allegations by President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela that the C.I.A. may have had a hand in the president’s removal.

And from Jeremy Scahill:

While the US has issued heavily-qualified statements critical of the coup—in the aftermath of the events in Honduras—the US could have flexed its tremendous economic muscle before the coup and told the military coup plotters to stand down. The US ties to the Honduran military and political establishment run far too deep for all of this to have gone down without at least tacit support or the turning of a blind eye by some US political or military official(s).

Here are some facts to consider: the US is the top trading partner for Honduras. The coup plotters/supporters in the Honduran Congress are supporters of the “free trade agreements” Washington has imposed on the region. The coup leaders view their actions, in part, as a rejection of Hugo Chavez’s influence in Honduras and with Zelaya and an embrace of the United States and Washington’s “vision” for the region. Obama and the US military could likely have halted this coup with a simple series of phone calls.

Conclusion

The promotion of policies which mitigate against unfettered capitalism and represent the interests of the poor is gaining ascendency among a number of countries and has been accelerated by the collapse of the US model which caused the economic meltdown of 2008-2009. The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries are coming together to represent the interests of the world's developing nations. Their alternative to the US model seems to be gathering steam as the US apparently is in decline. And the impulse to use a nation's resources to benefit the people of that nation rather than an economic elite resurfaces and resurges, this time with hardly a whimper of protest from the US which is so overextended and underfunded that it can only watch as as it is overtaken by much fitter nations, nations that have the resources the US lusts after and which intend to keep the profits at home and use them to benefit all its citizens and not just a wealthy elite. The fight between privatization and socialization of resources and services continues both nationally and internationally.