I was a little confused after reading “The Vegetarian Myth” review in Permaculture Activist as well as the first chapter on the author’s website. I couldn’t figure out exactly what myths were being “demolished,” as the reviewer puts it.

The few “myths” I was able to pick out from the rants seemed like straw man arguments. Sure, simply eating a plant-based diet will not necessary translate to treading more easily on the earth. But the same goes for eating an Atkins meat diet.

Saying all vegetarians/vegans support industrialized grain production is a dubious assertion. If grains are desired at all, they can be done on a sustainable scale i.e. Fukuoka. I’m bewildered that a reviewer in a permaculture magazine would not be aware of this.

According to the author and reviewer, a vegetarian diet will kill you. This sure doesn’t jive with my own experiences, having not been sick with even a cold since 2006 when I stopped eating meat and started thinking about my health. If I’m just some exception or will get sick later, then why have numerous cultures in Asia (sects of Hindis, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists) thrived for thousands of years on plant-based diets? Why do many vegetarian Seventh-day Adventists live longer, more healthy lives than the rest of the US population?

Some vegetarians and vegans eat unbalanced, processed meals sourced mainly from thousands of miles away. But again you can do this with an Atkins meat diet too. In the age of industrial food production and processing, any diet can be unsustainable.

Rather than polemically arguing, I’d rather have people decide for themselves. Examining what will work for yourself and your ecosystem is the best in my book, while of course not ignoring the life and inter-connectedness of all things. Telling everyone what this will specifically be is not only arrogant but absurd and contrary to seeking local solutions with permaculture.

Our society is on the cusp of disorder, chaos, mass suffering. At least according to many doomers (“we’re screwed”) and peak oil websites. Also many people I have talked to who are afraid of changing the status-quo industrialized mass society use similar imagery to describe the likely ensuing social breakdown.

A quick look at the headlines the other morning reminded me why I rarely read front page news. Two kidnappings in the US on the front page. A convicted rapist kidnapped a 11 year old girl and kept her as a sex slave for 18 years, having 2 children with her. All the while he ran a printing business, lived it up in the ‘burbs, wrote a blog, started a “church,” even fending off his parole officer multiple times. Another “half-naked” man kidnapped a bus full of school kids. He was only caught because he crashed the bus and was held under citizen’s arrest for 10 minutes while the cops came. The story described how a bystander watched as the bus swerved down the road with terrified kids screaming, jumping out the back to escape.

I tried picturing this in my mind and thought, “what the hell is going on?” This doesn’t sound like a functional society. I think we broke down long ago, maybe always been. How else could you justify ethnically cleansing an entire continent? Destiny?

Kids and women all around the world are being maimed, raped, and held in captivity with the threat of violence everyday–but that’s in the rest of the world. Do you think the surviving family of 14 year old Abeer al-Janabi, who was gang raped by 3 foreign occupying soldiers in Iraq after they killed her parents then executed her, fears “society breaking down?”

But I think the fear of losing order is real for many people. The order I believe being described here however is the power structure whereby many, particularly white American men, derive privilege easier than others. If another order is established or decentralized, it is true many privileges will risk being lost.

But this is not necessarily negative. The loss of faith and practicality in industrialized mass society providing for our needs opens many possibilities. I am not saying that a just, sustainable, holistic society will be ushered in by itself. Rather, more space will be open for working in this positive direction as people look for alternatives in order to thrive in the next century.

I recently wrote some researchers have warned about the possibility of CJD/Alzheimer’s being spread by farm-raised fish that are fed prion contaminated beef. A study published 2 days ago confirmed this possibility.

I know many people who have parents or grandparents that are going through this horrible condition. I’ve witnessed first hand Christina’s grandfather with Alzheimer’s slowly become like a confused child in a 78 year old body dependent on others for even the most basic needs. Christina pointed out that it is also especially hard for loved ones to cope emotionally due to the constant care and grief over the loss of a family member even though their physically body is still “alive.”

According to western medicine there is no known cure and rates are increasing at a shocking  9000% over the past two decades. So I see preventative medicine in the form of a balanced diet that lacks possible animal-based sources of prions and is instead full of anti-inflammatory phytonutrients playing a huge role here. It sure is cheaper than hospital visits and 24/7 care. And in this case important not only for our personal health but that of our family and future possible care takers.

With an explosive 9000% increase in CJD/Alzheimer’s in the past two decades, some scientists are beginning to point to our food as a possible major risk factor. Beef is well known in health circles for being a source of prions that cause the disease and diary has recently been linked to as a potential source. Fish is often claimed to be a healthy alternative to red meat, but there are many risks like toxin accumulation (mercury, arsenic), parasites, and now CJD/Alzheimer’s as well. I’d be extra cautious to know where my food came from if not eating a local, vegan diet.

From naturalnews.com:

There is probably no illness that has more terrifying symptoms, or a more ghastly outcome, than variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) — best known as mad cow disease. Abnormal proteins called prions found in brain tissue of cows suffering from bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) can cause vCJD in humans who eat meat from the animals. These mad cow disease-causing prions can literally result in people losing their minds because the infectious particles eat away at the brain, leaving tiny sponge-like holes. There is no treatment available and death always follows.

With government regulations notoriously lax when it comes to testing for BSE in the food supply, many people have given up eating beef in hopes of protecting themselves from exposure to mad cow disease. But an article just published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease suggests there may be another ticking time bomb source of vCJD — farmed fish.

In a paper entitled Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Aquaculture, University of Kentucky neurologist Robert P. Friedland and colleagues point out that fish consumption is widely recommended because omega-3 fatty acids are known to reduce the risks of cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s diseases. However, the scientists have doubts that the health benefits of farmed fish outweigh a potentially deadly danger. “We are concerned that consumption of farmed fish may provide a means of transmission of infectious prions from cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy to humans, causing variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease,” they stated.

Dr. Friedland and his team point out that farmed fish are fed byproducts rendered from cows — a totally unnatural source of food for fish. The risk of transmission of mad cow disease to humans who eat farmed fish would seem to be slim because there are often barriers between species that help prevent infections. But, according to the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease article, there are several reasons to be concerned about fish spreading mad cow to humans.

First, fish could be carriers of the disease from eating infected meat products, even though the fish themselves are not obviously infected or sick. In addition, it is possible that eating prion-infected cow parts could result in fish experiencing pathological changes that permit the prion infection to be transmitted between the two species. Based on these worrisome possibilities, the scientists are calling for government regulators to ban feeding cow meat or bone meal to fish until this common practice can be shown to be safe.

“We have not proven that it’s possible for fish to transmit the disease to humans. Still, we believe that out of reasonable caution for public health, the practice of feeding rendered cows to fish should be prohibited. Fish do very well in the seas without eating cows,” Friedland said in an interview with the Kentucky Post newspaper.

“The fact that no cases of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease have been linked to eating farmed fish does not assure that feeding rendered cow parts to fish is safe. The incubation period of these diseases may last for decades, which makes the association between feeding practices and infection difficult. Enhanced safeguards need to be put in place to protect the public,” Friedland stated.

For more information:

http://www.j-alz.com/issues/17/vol1…

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/bse/

http://www.kypost.com/news/local/st…

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/vcjd…

It has been known for some time that the Social Security fund was inadequate to cover the retirement of the baby boomer generation. However, the recent unemployment spike–now at 5.1 million without work–has moved the insolvency of the Social Security fund to next year.

For some time the Social Security fund actually ran a surplus and the US government borrowed this surplus to fund other programs (like military and bailouts). Now that this will be gone, they will have to resort to printing more dollars and selling more US treasuries to not only cover the programs that were funded by the surplus in Social Security, but also to pay for Social Security itself.

So why does this matter? As the recent bailouts–now reaching $13 trillion–show the government can continue just borrowing money and paying it back later, right?
As pointed out by Eric deCarbonnel, covering debt by selling US treasuries will continue to become more difficult as other governments are themselves in the red (many like Saudi Arabia for the first time in history) and are thus offloading US offsets rather than buying them. So this leaves printing more dollars, which leads to the very good possibility of hyperinflation. For a very good explanation of debt in the US I highly recommend documentary IOUSA.

There are many prominent people (Dmitry Orlov, George Soros, Jim Rogers, Peter Schiff, Gerald Celente, Mark Faber) who are predicting a “deindustrialization” of the US economy very soon. The author Richard Heinberg I believe has the most nuanced understanding of the situation:

We will see a few months of fairly gradual economic deterioration (slowed by the mighty efforts of the Bailout Brigade), followed by a truly ugly global economic meltdown. The result will be a general level of economic activity much lower than the world is accustomed to. Efforts to right the ship will include protectionist legislation (that will provoke international confrontations), the convening of world leaders to create a new global currency and financial system (which probably won’t succeed, at least not the first time around), and various populist uprisings that will lead to political instability around the globe. Energy demand will remain low, but energy production will fall dramatically due to lack of investment. Carbon emissions will therefore fall too, so the world’s attention will be diverted from tackling the greenhouse gas issue, even though climate impacts from previous carbon emissions will continue to worsen.

But here’s the crux of the matter: unlike the situation the world faced in the 1970s, there is no prospect for another cheap-energy bounce this time. It’s too late to muddle. We have run out the clock on proactive adaptation. From now on, collective survival will hinge on the strategies we adopt for emergency response. Some strategies will make matters worse, while others will lay the groundwork for better times to come… So what we desperately need to be talking about are ways to manage crisis that will minimize human suffering while preserving the environment and laying the groundwork for a sustainable way of life for future generations.

There was a plan to build a landfill a few miles from where I live near the Withlacoochee River, which contains the headwaters of four major rivers and is the source of drinking water for most of central Florida. If it wasn’t for intense pressure by not just individuals but grassroots organizations, myself and many others would likely have been drinking contaminated leachate:

The state Department of Environmental Protection Thursday ruled Angelo’s Aggregate Materials failed to prove the project site was geologically stable and that its design would prevent leaks that could contaminate drinking water supplies… thanks to continued community opposition, formal objections by local governments in Pasco and Hillsborough and effective lobbying by some landowners, the state officials wised up. [TBO]

Yey for people power!

Chances are you know someone with Alzheimer’s. Nearly half of all people over 85 are diagnosed with the terribly debilitating condition. And not only are more people getting Alzheimer’s each year, but at a younger age now. Over 500,000 people in the US have an early onset form of Alzheimer’s, some as young as 40. Deaths from Alzheimer’s have increased over 9000% from 1979 (no I did not misplace a zero). It is truly reaching epidemic proportions.

With so much at stake, the cause behind Alzheimer’s is hotly contested. Most doctors, professional associations, and government agencies unsurprisingly put forth a simplistic genetic explanation. It’s an easy pill to swallow within the current framework of multi-million dollar grants and the transnational medical industry. Yet this leaves out the many people who have no family history of dementia or the explosive rising rates.

Alzheimer’s is easily misdiagnosed as Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (CJD). The two share many symptoms and can only definitely be diagnosed with a brain biopsy. Studies have shown that many patients are misdiagnosed; the debate is just over how many. A growing number of researchers believe it is actually quite high.

CJD are caused by prions, which are one of those things that the current scientific framework has a hard time explaining, at least easily anyways. They are similar to viruses, but more resistant and subtle, since they do not provoke a defensive response from the body. It’s estimated that only 5-10% of CJD cases are genetic, the rest of the cases are communicable. CJD in animals is called Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or Mad Cow Disease, chronic wasting disease in elk and deer, and scrapie in sheep. It is easily transmitted through different species and has been proven in a number of cases, particularly in Britian but also a few uncontested cases in the US. Again, the only debate is to the degree.

A growing number of researchers believe a high number of people get CJD from consuming animal-based food. This is compounded by the recent development of a new test that discovered prions, and thus Mad Cow Disease, in a number of dairy products available in popular chain grocery stores. It was previously unknown that prions could be transmitted through dairy. But recent research has shown it’s possible.

Additionally, evidence has been revealed that vaccinations can lead to Alzheimer’s:

The adjuvants used in vaccines (putting the mercury issue aside) are intentionally highly inflammatory so as to provoke a more active immune response to the weakened pathogen. The fact that American children are the most vaccinated in the world at such an early age, when their brains are setting up shop, runs the high risk that vaccinations will “train” nerves to become more hyper-active to future inflammatory stress of any kind. [NN]

This has been confirmed by a long term study that found a 1000% increase in Alzheimer’s risk just from five or more flu shots. This has been downplayed severly by the medical-industrial complex. Dissenters have been severely punished, having medical licenses revoked and imprisoning parents who seek alternatives to vaccinations. Yea, real freedom lovers.

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” –George Orwell

A recent study found that much of the meat in chain grocery stores contains a “superbug” strain of Clostridium difficile bacteria. This strain of C. diff was also just discovered to be behind a surge in severe digestive problems and other seemingly disconnected illnesses like strep throat and flu-like symptoms, which can develop weeks later after infection. C. diff is normally benign, but mutated to become resistant to antibiotics and more toxic. It thrives in a body that lacks benefical bacteria. There are an increasing number of superbugs like MRSA and E. coli, due to the over-usage of antibiotics–in common household products, prescriptions, and even animal feed (used due to the unnatural, industrialized feed lots).

While over 40 percent seems like a lot, the government has said there is no need to worry because of the “lack of information” about transmission of C. diff infections. Can you imagine if the government used that same logic when it came to things like terrorism? Instead they employ prevention only when it’s in their benefit, spending enormous amounts of resources arresting dissidents for “plotting attacks,” often with no evidence but hearsay (Sami Al-Arian, Liberty City 7, Brandon Mayfield, Eric McDavid and on and on).

I don’t see why it’s such a stretch to apply prevention to health. Guess it would be too bad for the meat industry and factory farms. Another reason not to count on the nanny state to decide what’s good for you, if more evidence was needed.