Real Fears & Bogus Ones: Telling the Difference

It  is a matter of observation that our society is awash in fear and the selling of fear. Look on the news programs any given night and you will see it staring back at you and blabbering nonstop – from the latest ISIS beheading outrage, to the latest terrorist bomb attack overseas, to the latest food contamination scare, or some manner of horrific crime committed on a college campus.

 It’s all there and designed to be fright-inducing because, well,  this is what the corporo media networks are all mostly about: stoking the fire of collective fear. According to sociologist Margee Kerr from her upcoming book, Scream – Adventures in the Upside of Fear: 

“The media  loves to tap into the fear response because it doesn’t engage with the rational mind.”

Which is true. Interestingly, from a meta-perspective, this should place watching TV News at the top of the most insidious sources of long term, free-floating fear. Both Douglas Rushkoff (‘Life, Inc’.) and Benjamin Barber (‘Consumed’) have also warned how the news tends to be delivered in bits or  sound bites with little or no analysis, explanation or clarification –all of which reinforces fear.

If I had to put the number one long term, rational fear out there it would be  the influence of the corporate media (including the print media) on vulnerable brains, i.e. those lacking a good critical thinking antidote. And yes, it’s that big a deal! Americans lacking this antidote have in the past 12 years: 1) been drumbeaten into accepting the Iraq invasion, 2) been drumbeaten into believing Saddam was in league with al Qaeda, 3) been drumbeaten into retreating from acceptance of climate change caused by humans and 4) been manipulated into retreating from earlier convictions that the Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy.

Indeed, in 2007, a resident ass ensconced at The New York Times actually wrote in the Book Review section (after bellyaching about the latest book):

"These people should be ridiculed, even shunned! It's time we marginalized Kennedy conspiracy theorists the way we've marginalized smokers."

Well, pardon me, but this certified nincompoop shows just how dangerous holding an influential media position can be when the person is a know-nothing moron. An uneducated, lazy moron who probably has never even seen one of Oswald’s CIA files!  But this points up why I regard the American mainstream media as a loose cannon that needs to be feared if one is not fully armed with critical thinking. 

Other long term fears in what I regard as order of priority include:

-         Climate change disasters, local and global (e.g. loss of coastal areas due to sea level rise)

-         The re-appearance of diphtheria, measles, whooping cough and other preventable diseases by anti-vaxxers.

-         The failure to muster funds to find a cure (or at least workable treatment) for Alzheimer’s disease – which number of cases is expected to hit 14 million by 2050 and over one trillion dollars lost in productivity, life quality, time taken off by caretakers – not to mention medical costs.

-         The failure to seriously address the threat of moderate-sized asteroids such as the Chelyabinsk object that struck Russia two years ago. One single asteroid of that size, aimed at New York City, could take it out along with 8 million people. (The odds of one hitting are 35 times more than for a large asteroid).

Now, what about more immediate fears that all rational people ought to have? I list some of these as follows:

-         Eating too much saturated fat – i.e. in burgers, pizzas, and destroying one’s cardiovascular system in the process.

-         Not getting adequate sleep before getting in one’s automobile.

-         Texting while driving, or even walking.

-         Overusing social media (e.g. Twitter) to the exclusion of reading actual books or conversing live with actual people   - thereby risking permanent brain rot. (See also the book, ‘The Dumbest Generation’)

-         Not sufficiently protecting your identity or your credit, thereby enabling its theft – especially identity theft.

This would not be complete without listing the bogus fears that occupy too many today, but which are less grave in relation to the ones above.

-         Serial killers, pedophiles (the risk that you or your child will be a victim is ten times less than the chance a medium –sized asteroid will strike, or 1 in 333,000

-         Mercury in fish, e.g. tuna – all overblown by the fear mongers, I eat solid white albacore tuna at least 12-13 days a month (the rest of the time salmon).  Mothers- to- be should take more precautions, but not eliminating tuna completely! It is high in Omega 3s!

-         Air travel – yes, you probably have heard this before, that you are fifty time more likely to be killed in an auto accident than an airline crash

-         Gluten – again the risk is overblown, and avoiding any and all foods that contain it is over-reaction.

-         Vaccine side effects. This risk is now greatly reduced since vaccines are currently produced without the mercury-based thimerosal (especially for children under 6, see the fda.gov site)

-         School shooting, mass  murders – again, the odds are about the same as a small asteroid collision. Yes, it is frightful to learn of the latest on the nightly news, but the job of the news is to evoke fear – so if you want it to abate, cease watching!

-         Zombie attacks or a zombie apocalypse? My virologist friend Beth assures me it will only happen if humans try to revive corpses using cell grafting techniques from live humans – especially by implanting stem cells into cryogenically preserved corpse brains.  Just kidding!

Anti-GMO Labelers Wage Massive Disinformation Campaign in Colorado

How much money does it take – most from outside interests – to take down an effort to label GMO-based foods? Better perhaps, how much disinformation does it take to alter voters’ minds to force them to subvert their own nutrition –food choices?  It turns out the answers may be much more than we believed for the first ($9.7m vs. $330,000 for proponents), and much less for the second. The latter since now the Denver Post has tossed its hat into the GMO labeling ring and given a rousing endorsement to vote down Proposition 105 in its Sunday editorial.

But then we already knew the Denver Post – while allowing a few liberal memes – did staunchly also wage a brief for unlimited fracking over a year ago – arguing it was critical for the state’s economy. Can we call ‘bollocks’ on that too? I believe so, especially after surreal gloating and smug satisfaction fairly oozed from the paper’s pages after Jared Polis removed from the Nov. ballot  the initiatives to give local control of fracking to Colorado communities.

The image attached was taken from a flyer delivered in the mail. The flyer included canards that have been repeated in assorted ads on TV and also by the Denver Post in its editorial.  Some of the more prominent include:

1) Farmers and food producers would be required to separate, repackage and re-label ingredients from throughout the country – just for our state.

2) Proposition 105 would cost Colorado taxpayers millions by requiring a new state bureaucracy to enforce its Colorado-only regulations for tens of thousands of products.

3) Proposition is so full of exemptions it would not tell consumers which foods are produced with GMOs.

Responses:

The first is overblown fear mongering. Most of Colorado’s foods are locally grown as people have become more aware of the advantages. Many places (e.g. Whole Foods) already have GMO labeling which conforms with the law. Any residual issues are not as huge a problem as portrayed as Vermont has already found out, as well as Switzerland – not exactly a backwater nation! (See my posts on it from last month). The Swiss have the sense to use a threshold for labeling GMO which is that samples tested contain less than 0.9 percent GMO products. We can do the same!

The Second complaint  is more hype and the regulatory body needed can be modeled again after Vermont – after mandating their own GMO labeling law, or after Switzerland. “Enforcement” is another bugbear as consumers will basically do the “enforcing” with their food purchase choices.  No special “police” or “code violation” body will be needed.

As for (3),  yes, there are exemptions, because over-ambitious labeling demands would not have gotten the signatures needed and likely invited even more lawsuits than the ones planned. As progressives always harp on in elections: “You cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good!” 

Given the progressives' clarion call, of course meat and dairy aren’t forced to be labeled since the animals are only raised on GMO foods, they are not themselves genetically re-configured animals (e.g. cows actually being engineered from rat, skunk or vampire bat DNA).  Restaurants also don’t need GMO labeling because many (e.g. Chipotle) are already doing it and finding a competitive edge because of it. As for Alcoholic beverages, these also need no special GMO labels. For one thing, most everyone conscious knows it is a drug and also the ill effects, including on the liver and brain. Whether in fact GMOs play any role in alcoholic beverages is therefore akin to worrying about whether the cancer sticks you’re smoking have bisphenol –A filters.

Other objections to Proposition 105 are even more ludicrous, such as Colorado commissioner of agriculture Don Ament arguing (Denver Post, Sept. 28) that genetic engineering has been going on for thousands of years – actually referring to hybridization, e.g. of cattle. In this way, many have been led to believe voting for the Proposition is ridiculous and redundant because – hey!  - those things have been with us like forever.

But there’s a huge difference. In hybridization, similar species can be cross-bred because they share similar genetic traits. (Such as two types of cow being mammals and ungulates).  Hybrids can occur naturally or they can be created by grafting and cross-pollination.

By contrast, genetic engineering involves splicing of two distinct species (e.g. cows and alligators, or tomatoes and mice) that would never occur naturally in a million years – or ten million. Since the GMOs are not natural – they don’t represent natural creatures that would have evolved, or plants, and we simply don’t know what the health consequences might be.

We do know there were some earlier studies, such as  Arpad Pusztai’s in Britain. This study processed the results over several years and found that the rats which consumed GMO potatoes showed evidence of organ (liver, stomach) damage and poor brain development. Pusztai's study went down as the very first independent study (i.e. one not sponsored by a biotech corporation) to examine the effects of bio-engineered food on mammals. Alas, after he tried to publish the results he lost his job  - see:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/24/03/bleifuss2403.html

More recently, families have been made aware of glyphosate in these foods and how it reduces their nutritive value and also raises the specter of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease  and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. This will be particularly pronounced if the new Enlist DUO Weedicide is approved for use with GMO crops, as Dr. Oz Mehmet already exposed – as well as others, see e.g.

 http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/09/more-powerful-toxins-associated-with.html

For Colorado's premium newspaper, The Denver Post gets many things wrong as well in its Anti-105 editorial. Thus, the issue of “cost” is again carped about despite the fact David Byrne – former European commissioner for health and consumer protection - declared that GMO labeling “did not result in increased costs despite the horrifying predictions of some interests.”

The Post also complained that some would ban GMOs which “ironically have resulted in a large decrease in the use of insecticides etc.”

But as Mehmet Oz  observed:

-        There are 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides used per year, used on GMO crops - because those crops are designed to survive the poisons.

 70 - 170 million pounds of additional highly toxic pesticides will be used if the FDA approves Enlist.

Oz then flatly skewered the notion that “less” toxins are being used, and in fact the very design of GMO crops encourages the use of MORE toxins because they are designed to survive them.  As Oz’ guest, journalist Mark Bittman  also noted:

“Yields are not up and pesticide use is not down. So when you talk about feeding a hungry world, GMOs have not moved us in that direction."

Do you really want the residues of 2,4 –D, the chemical used in Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, splotched all over your food if Enlist is approved by the multinational-compromised EPA?

The bottom line here is one of buyer choice: Do you deserve to know if that tomato you’re purchasing is the product of the natural tomato being spliced with mouse genes, or not?  (The aim being to increase its shelf life).  Sixty four European nations already have a ban or moratorium and strict regulation of GMO foods including labeling.

Switzerland, probably a European nation more advanced than many:

“ funded thirty projects to investigate the risks and benefits of GMOs. These projects concluded that there were no clear health or environmental dangers associated with planting GMOs. However, they also concluded that there was little economic incentive for farmers to adopt GMOs in Switzerland.” (Wikipedia)

Our Swiss friend Rolf told us that the main concern of farmers in Switzerland is the accidental dispersion of GMOs (from areas dedicated to their cultivation)  to outside farms and crops – thereby contaminating them. The worries he cites are well worth noting, but he also averred no Swiss citizen wished to be kept in the dark over what he’s eating.

As he asked me while we were staying in Appenzell,

“If it’s good enough for we Swiss, why isn’t it good enough for Americans to have your food labeled?”

Indeed!

 See also:

http://www.salon.com/chromeo/article/the_real_dangers_of_gmos_dow_chemical_doesnt_want_you_to_know_about_partner/

 

New Facial Recognition Technology To Enhance Lifespan Is Nothing But Bad News

As recently reported in the news, Jay Olshansky, a “bio-demographer” at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has come up with the idea of a facial recognition technology that can actually estimate your age. Oh, also  when you are likely to croak, based on the aging lines and contours disclosed by the computer..

According to Olshansky (Denver Post, ‘Computer Age Facial Analysis’, July 4, p. 20A):

 

“We know in the field of aging that some people tend to senesce or grow older, more rapidly than others, and some age more slowly. We also know that the children of people who senesce more slowly tend to live longer than other people.”

The technology involves using a computer to scan a photograph of a face for signs of aging. The software also factors in the subject’s race, gender, education level and smoking history (every year you’ve smoked since 20 knocks 3.6 months off your life). The analysis then processes each section of cheek, eye, brow, mouth and jowl- all the time looking for shading variations that signal lines, dark spots, drooping and other age-related changes that would indicate how the person fares compared to others of similar age and background.

All well and good, until we learn about the other ‘shoe’ to drop: the interest from insurance companies who “see the potential in it for determining premiums.”

 Oh, just nifty and swell! If a poor slob is 60 but is saddled with a droopy mug – double chin, flabby jowls and all – he now gets the reward of knowing his premiums will double because the insurance honchos have pegged that he won’t live past 70.  But according to good old Jay (ibid.):

“The technology might prod them to change their habits before it’s too late.”

Really?  Somehow I doubt that a computer facial task master will achieve that. The poor slobs affected will still gobble down their bratwursts each day – chased by helpings of mashed potatoes- with Nachos and beer on the side. They will persist in doing it because it’s human nature. For the same reason that another set of guys will continue their “low T” therapy despite the fact they’re even at greater risk of getting prostate cancer and ending up (after treatment) with a U-shaped penis, breasts bigger than Mariah Carey’s and having to wear mammoth ‘Depends’ whenever they go out to the 7-11.

 

But the biggest howler about this facial recognition technology isn’t the insurance aspects, but rather the possible applications for increasing life extension. Here the deal is that if one can target the aging signs one can act to counteract them and ….live a lot longer.

Evidently, the longevity knotheads are all het up about prolonging people’s lives – but not really considering the consequences.  The article babbles for example:

“Not only will living to 100 become more common one day, longevity experts say, but the quality of life in the final decades might also be drastically improved, reducing the burdens imposed by an aging population.”

To which I respond: “Poppycock!”

First, until the Alzheimer’s bogeyman is solved, NO one can expect a better quality of life as they age – and right now – it’s nowhere near solution. Sure, they now have a blood test that's 87% effective in diagnosing it, but even if you found out you have it there's little to be done. Maybe take a certain med a few years earlier. Big deal!

Second, anyone who seriously thinks corporate America is suddenly going to start hiring geezers because they shaved a few lines off their mugs merits the “densan of the year” award. Companies right now will barely even look at the resume of any guy over 50 – even if he uses some T-cream or Androgel each day!  In other words, like it or not, the increase of people tending to 100 will put even more strains on existing social insurance and disability programs.  But instead of Social Security having to pay out over a 20-25 year time horizon, it'll be over 35-40 years!

And, btw, short of replacing all  oldster joints with bionic ones, and muscles with specially prepared artificial variants – don’t even think oldsters(as a group) will be able to run Marathons or engage in Triathlons and  ‘Iron Man’ competitions. Those will still be the preserve of the few, the exceptions.

The other question these longevity geniuses don’t even consider, is why anyone would WANT to live to 100 given the numerous 'hells'  soon to unfold as climate change enters its ultimate phase. This is given the solid assumption that the oil drillers/frackers  aren’t about to halt – thereby unearthing all those gigatonnes that Bill McKibben says we need to keep in the ground.

 By 2025-2030 we will likely see electricity blackouts over extended periods, water shutdowns or breakdowns – and heat waves hitting the upper 100s and lasting for months at a time. So imagine you are approaching your centenary year – but with no electric, no water, no fridge to keep any food cool, and baking in your apartment-  which is now at 110F. Think of the tens of thousands of super storm  'Sandy' victims but now living that aftermath daily.

 

You REALLY want to stretch out your years for THAT?

Then think of all the new diseases that’ll be running rampant at the time – given how much hotter it is: Dengue fever, new more virulent strains of West Nile, likely cholera, amoebic dysentery, not to mention new species of parasitic worms infesting brains, e.g.

 Want to live to 100 with a brain like that? On top of Alzheimer's?

By 2030 also, it is clear the last  of the most powerful antibiotics will have ceased to function. You will now be prey to every minor paper cut, prick, cat scratch or rat bite – that’ll now easily leave you with massive infection and possible gangrene.  

 As sewer lines and water mains-  as well as other infrastructure -  erode  because we didn’t provide the money to maintain them (preferring to piss it away on useless 'wars') look also for bubonic plague to return as the rat population explodes.

The takeaway here? Leave the longevity research to realms of fantasy thinking and put that money on more useful projects: say like the first manned trip to Mars.

As both Stephen Hawking and Isaac Asimov have said, we need to get off this rock, colonize other worlds, if we want the human species to survive.

Species survival, then, is worth the cost and effort –enabling individuals to live to or past 100 is not!