Like many people, I have savored the goodness of Silk Soy Milk and felt happy that I was using a healthy option that used organic ingredients.  Well, all that has changed- Dean Foods has bought Silk and scrapped its organic policies.  Yep, they've thrown consumers under the bus.

For news coverage, see http://www.alternet.org/environment/141134/why_silk_soy_milk%27s_parent_company_is_throwing_american_farmers_and_consumers_under_the_bus/ (Alternet)

Please write a letter to Dean Foods, telling them that this is an unnacceptable policy and that they must not short-change consumers.  Promise to boycott Silk products until they change their policy.


WhiteWave Foods Consumer Affairs
     12002 Airport Way
     Broomfield, CO 80021
     1-888-820-9283

Dean Foods Consumer Response
P.O. Box 763
Horsham, PA 19044-0763

---------------Sample Letter----------------------------------------

To whom it may concern:

I was upset to hear that as part of its purchase of Silk Dean Foods has chosen to forego its support of domestic organic farms.  Consumers have the right to quality healthy food options, and I feel that this decision short-changes me as a consumer.

Please revisit your policy on organic food options.  Rest assured that until you do, I will not buy Silk products because they no longer meet my standards.

Thank you, and I would appreciate a response.

Sincerely,
Full Name
Address
City/Town, State
00000

Yes, I know.  Spring is a time of rebirth, a time when things come into bloom, so it is natural that a lot of religions have spring holidays.  I would like to point the common ground between two of these religions, and what it could mean for two religions with serious disagreements:

Judaism and Christianity are two of the Big Three of religions (the third is Islam.)  The Jewish holiday Passover and the Christianity holiday Easter fall around the same time this year: Passover, a ten-day holiday, coincides with Holy Week.  This year, there is also a rare correlation between the holidays: according to estimations by religious scholars, one of the days of Passover this year coincides with the day of the Last Supper (which is reenacted in various Christian sects' Easter ceremonies.)  According to the New Testament, the last meal of Christ took place during Passover, and he and his disciples took part in a seder.

Now, why am I bothering to mention this?  I'm not Christian or Jewish- I'm an atheist with Christian and Jewish relatives. 

Well, Judaism and Christianity are like two siblings- sometimes they are friendly, but a lot of the time they squabble.  Christians and Jews worship the same god, but they disagree about whether the Messiah has come and will come again or whether we're still waiting.  Only a few Jewish sects acknowledge Christ as the Messiah or even agree that he existed; some Christians have called Jews "Christ-killers," persecuted them, and/or killed them at various points in history.  The Bible also says that Jews have done a little killing themselves in revenge for gentiles' wrongdong (and so Jews have Purim).  However, there are a lot of similarities between the two religions, and there is no need for Jews and Christians to hate each other, discriminate against each other or yell at each other for 'getting it wrong,' so to speak.

So, as Jews sit for hours reading a haggudah before they can eat dinner, some Christian worshippers get up at the crack of dawn to participate in Easter services and members of the Russian Orthodoxy stand for hours until dawn at Easter Mass, they all have plenty of time to reflect.  If you celebrate either of these holidays, or even if you don't, please reflect on what we all have in common.  These days, what with foreign relations crises, wars, and miniature crusades, it can be a little hard to remember to put things in perspective.  However, I believe, as Locke did, that all humans are born good and that there is goodness in all of us.  Even those of us who are taught to hate are also taught to love- whether to love their religion, their god, their country, their people or their cause.  If we think about the common good, we cannot help but act on that common good.  Both Jews and Christians believe that all humans are decended from Adam and Eve, and that all creatures are God's children.  If we are all descended from Adam and Eve, then we are all related, and the Bible condemns fratricide and tells people to "love thy neighbor" and "[love thy brother]".  If all creatures are God's children, then what are we doing killing them?  What human (other than Hitler) wants to kill children, and what believer dares to incur the wrath of God by murdering one of God's own?

Now, these are just my musings,and I'm sure that anyone on care2 who wants to make a difference has the intelligence to want to make a difference and therefore is intelligent.  Please, come up with your own opinions and thoughts as you reflect.  Both scientists and religious scholars (who clash frequently) agree that reflection is important.  If we all reflect, maybe someone will pause before shooting ten classmates, lower a rifle aimed at an Iraqi, choose not to insult another person, choose not to test nuclear weapons... the possibilities are endless, the impact eternal.

A few people had come in with signs and picturies of dead babies, yelling at her and telling her she was going to Hell, but at last the courtroom was silent.

"Will the defendant please rise?"

She stood up.

"Martha Smith, you are charged with the gruesome manslaughter of fetus TXJ475MG89T through miscarriage. How do you plead?"

"Not guilty, your honor." The crowd murmured, and a woman yelled, "She's guilty, Your Honor- kill her!"  The judge tapped his gavel, and the room was silent.

After merely two hours, it was over.

"Martha Smith, the jury finds you guilty of manslaughter.  I hereby sentence you to life imprisonment."

----------------------------------------------------------------------- 

It's one of those futuristic, distopian situations that someone might suggest in a novel.  As crazy as it might seem, though, in North Dakota it could be a reality.

North Dakota has passed a law that grants full rights to unborn fetuses.  A fetus is now, in the eyes of ND law, a full-fledged citizen, and killing it is tantamount to murder.  Read a summary of the law here:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/127892/

Freaky, huh?  A woman who has an abortion could be tried for murder- she might be tried for murder if she just has a miscarriage.  Here's my request: please help me tell the North Dakota gov't to stop thinking about the rights of potential babies and start taking women into account, too!

Gov. John Hoevel: governor@nd.gov, or 701.328.2200.

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem:ndag@nd.gov, or 701 328-2210
TTY: 800 366-6888.

Conrad, Kent - (D - ND)
530 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510 (202) 224-2043 Web Form: conrad.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm 

Dorgan, Byron L. - (D - ND)
322 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510 (202) 224-2551 E-mail: senator@dorgan.senate.gov

Sample talking points:

-I am concerned about the recent measure passed by the ND House that grants the rights of a fully formed human to a fertilized human egg.

-A woman who has an abortion or miscarries can be tried for murder.

-Roe v. Wade protects women and allows them the right to abortion.  This bill is a direct challenge to that ruling, and pretends to take into account the right of an unborn fetus, which has no capacity to think or feel, while ignoring the rights and needs of fully formed humans, women.

-The unintended implications of this bill are far more vast than just relating to the issue of life vs. abortion.  At issue is the right of a woman to have control over her body.  If women lose control over that, our society backpedals all the way to the Dark Ages.

-Women are your actual constituents, not embryos. They are the ones who can vote, and they are the ones who have needs that you need to take into account.

For the sake of information: Hoevel is a conservative Republican, Stenehjem is a Republican, and the two senators are Democrats.  I do not know where any of them stand on the life/choice debate, but party lines usually are telling.  It's worth a try to write them, though, so please tell them consider their actual constituents' needs, not their possibly-in-the-near-future constituents' needs!

Thank you.

This subject has two issues: girls with ADD/ADHD and misconceptions about ADD/ADHD.  I am not an expert on Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.  What I do know is that disproportionate amount of boys to girls get diagnosed, and that treatment sometimes hurts more than helps.  I have a male friend- let's call him J- who was diagnosed early on with ADHD, and he clearly has the disorder.  He's been on many different medications for ADHD, some of which made him sleepy, so of which had a high risk of dependency and were hard to get off of.  However, despite the adverse side effects, he's been able to concentrate, is writing a novel and was able to get through grade school without driving his teachers completely crazy.

I have another friend, this time a girl, whom I'll call A.  A also has clear signs of ADHD, but she wasn't diagnosed until she was fourteen, by which time she had suffered in classes and changed schools frequently.  Although she had the symptoms as an adolescent, she's told me, the doctors didn't even think of ADHD until as a teenager she saw a specialist in young adult disorders who pinpointed her problem and prescribed medication.  These days, I'm glad to say, she too is doing very well.

My two friends' experiences highlight the two main problems with common diagnosis of ADD and ADHD: 1) boys are usually the ones who get diagnosed right off the bat if they show any symptomatic behavior and 2) girls do not get diagnosed nearly as often, when they should diagnosed as soon as possible.  It's gotten to the point where boys who stare out windows or don't pay as much attention in class are labeled with attention problems as early as kindergarten.  Some of these kids really do have the disorder and benefit from an early diagnosis, but others are just being boys, who  normally are more energetic and less attentive.  The medication used for treating the disorder is potent stuff with dangerous side effects, and parents are giving these meds to young children without exploring a) the veracity of the diagnosis or b) alternative treatment.

I am advocating monitoring possible symptomatic behavior in girls as well as boys.  Girls do have the disorder, but some doctors haven't yet woken up to the fact that girls have it, too.  Our society and the medical profession have gotten used to the idea of spaced-out boy= ADD/ADHD, but it's time to include girls in the equation.  A diagnosis early on can (though doesn't always) lead to effective treatment and prepares a young adult to entire society and succeed in a fast-paced world that requires its citizens to pay attention in so many ways.

Now, ADD/ADHD is not the only disorder with a high diagnosis rate among teenagers.  Mood swings?  You may be bipolar.  Sad or having trouble sleeping?  Oops, you may be depressed.  My father's family happens to have textbook cases of each of the main psychological/behavorial disorders.  Not one of my aunts or uncles is free of high-duty medication, and a good portion of my cousins are on meds as well.  Those family members who have been diagnosed have the disorders, no doubt about it, but not every family has an open-and-close case.  A diagnosis of ADD may actually mean the child has learning or developmental issues and therefore cannot pay attention, or the child might engage more if taught in a more engaging manner.  Visual learners will have trouble with a teacher who teaches out of the textbook, for example.

What I am advocating for in this blog is less speed to diagnose and medicate a child.  Having been a young teenager on meds, I know the risks involved with taking high-potency remedies with possible side effects like slower heart rate, tremors, fatigue, dizziness, etc.  Adults have no problem with most of those side effects- they may just have to take a day off from work while adjusting, but those side effects really cut into school time.  What I propose is this: let's say you go with the diagnosis.  That's fine, but don't automatically medicate the child- try something like behavioral therapy, alternative one-on-one tutelage or alternative medicine.  Acupuncture takes care of vertigo conditions, insomnia, back pain, fibromyalgia, allergies, migraines and stress- it takes care of more than these, but I can testify on behalf of that list from first-hand experience.  If it can get rid of my migraines when everything from trigger points to Topamax can't, I'm sure it can help a child to concentrate on an English assignment.  Hey, it's worth a try.

Yes, I know, it's a futile battle. This is only my second blog post on care2, but I felt like sharing my thoughts today with this lovely community. I have often resented Cigar Aficionado, having seen issues of the magazine lounging around doctors' offices or standing erect in newsstands, and I have often felt like composing a biting letter venting all my rage. I was finally driven to do something of that sort when I saw an NYT article about an Aficionado article presumptuously titled "Pres. Obama: Here is What You Should Do about Cuba". Seriously? A conservative magazine with a mainly conservative magazine telling a Democratic president how to handle a diplomatic situation? ???

Well, here is what I wrote:

Dear Aficionado,

I might have decided to write to you before, but a NY Times article about your front-page article telling Obama what to do about Cuba motivated me to write to you. You say that cigars extend across political boundaries. They also kill, too. My grandfather was a cigar smoker for most of his life- that's why he died shortly before I was born.

This is not a hate letter- I'm not going to call you the Anti-Christ or say that you should just go close up shop and go to hell. You may do what you please, but don't go preaching to Obama. You cannot deny that you have a largely Republican readership and a Republican hint to your articles, so don't go telling the first black president of the United States, a liberal after eight years of Bush and Bushisms, what he should do about Cuba.

It's going to take more than an article for you to outgrow your set ways and extend a hand to "liberals." If you want to jump on the bandwagon of change- I doubt it, but if you do- then you should start by being more inclusive. Rename your magazine and increase your readership to include cigarette as well as cigar smokers- and even include pot smokers if you're feeling brave. Also, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but cigar smokers are a dying breed- like people who speak Yiddish.

I'm sure you've heard from my side of the aisle and my side of the tobacco debate, and you probably won't listen to me. However, the key to surviving this new era of change is listening- you're never too old to change.

That's mild compared to my usual vents. As you can read above, my grandfather died ultimately of lung cancer after smoking cigars for pretty much his entire adult life. It's the reason why I and many of my relatives are against smoking, although we would be anyway. I always got angry even as a child when I saw adds for tobacco products or listened to people arguing in favor of the tobacco industry. I have many causes about which I am passionate, but banning tobacco and smoking is one of the causes that affects me personally.

As a high schooler, I watched many kids around my age, some close friends, step across the road so that they could smoke cigarettes off school grounds. How could they do that when they had been told about the health consequences? So to me, a magazine like Cigar Aficionado represents an unconscionable method of promoting something that causes death. Plus, the #1 preventable death in the US is second-hand smoking, not smoking itself but exposure to it. How can people expose their loved ones to cigar or cigarette smoke when they know that it may kill those they love?

Well, that's my "rant," for what it's worth. It's really too bad- we wouldn't have one of the most powerful lobbying industries if selling tobacco didn't making a lot of money for tobacco companies, and we wouldn't have tobacco at all if a couple of colonists looking to get rich hadn't discovered tobacco plants when they discovered America.

I often post comments and rarely blog, but I feel that this issue is of vital importance.  As average, everyday citizens, we only get exposed to what the media tells us or what is passed on by word of mouth.  In this election, the role of the media is vitally important, and the media is letting us down.

Therefore, I've taken up the cause of informing people about a little item that found its way into the media then somehow got lost in the ether. 

McCain has ties to gambling- he is a compulsive gambler; his top fundraisers are the gambling industry big shots; and officials of his campaign were raking in the money when he was prosecuting Abramson.  His hands are tied to the Indian reservations, whose casinos he claims to be attempting to regulate. 

The NY Times first covered the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/us/politics/28gambling-web.htm?_r=1&scp=4&sq=McCain%20Ties%20to%20Gambling%20Industry&st=cse&oref=slogin

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/us/politics/28gambling-web.html?scp=1&sq=McCain%20Ties%20to%20Gambling%20Industry&st=cse

For those of you who live in the US: quite frankly, I'm not keen on the next president gambling on the nation's fate when so much is at stake.

This election is coming up really soon, and I have a request: please, vote your conscience.  Vote however for whomever you want, but I hope that you inform yourself and go to the voting booth knowing the truth about both candidates.  Because all of you are on care2, I am pretty sure that you are already well-informed; if you are, please pass on any true information about the election to your friends. 

As citizens, we have an obligation to vote if at all possible and to choose wisely who will govern us; as citizens, we have a right to be properly informed when we make that choice, and if the media won't do it even though that's their job, then we'll just have do it ourselves.

Thank you.