Please read this!

Below is the text of an email I received from Keith Post ND; I am on his mailing list. I find it really disturbing, and unfortunately, not being American or living there, I cannot do anything specific about it.

I have emailed it to all the Americans in my address book, and am posting it here in the hopes that some others may find it, and sign the petition. I am also going to try and find the appropriate tribes in which to post it.

Anyone who reads this, please feel free to pass it on.

You may not care about organic food, or standards (and if not, why the hell not?!), but this has bigger ramifications.
Today, Big Business is attempting to mess around with an issue that is dear to me ; tomorrow, it could be something that is close to your heart. The less power "they" have, the better.

Read the piece below, and please go to the website and sign the petition.
Thank you
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) needs your immediate help to
stop
Congress and the Bush administration from seriously degrading organic
standards. After 35 years of hard work, the U.S. organic community has
built
up a multi-billion dollar alternative to industrial agriculture, based
upon
strict organic standards and organic community control over
modification to
these standards.

Now, large corporations such as Kraft & Dean Foods--aided and abetted
by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), are moving to lower organic
standards
by allowing a Bush appointee to create a list of synthetic ingredients
that
would be allowed organic production. Even worse these proposed
regulatory
changes will reduce future public discussion and input and take away
the
National Organic Standards Board's (NOSB) traditional lead jurisdiction
in
setting standards. What this means, in blunt terms. is that USDA
bureaucrats
and industry lobbyists, not consumers, will now have more control over
what
can go into organic foods and products.

This week, acting in haste and near-total secrecy, the U.S. Senate will
vote
on a "rider" to the 2006 Agriculture Appropriations Bill that will
reduce
control over organic standards from the National Standards Board and
put
this control in the hands of federal bureaucrats in the USDA (remember
the
USDA proposal in 1997-98 that said that genetic engineering, toxic
sludge,
and food irradiation would be OK on organic farms, or USDA suggestions
in
2004 that heretofore banned pesticides, hormones, tainted feeds, and
animal
drugs would be OK?).

For the past week in Washington, OCA has been urging members of the
Senate
not to reopen and subvert the federal statute that governs U.S. Organic
standards (the Organic Food Production Act - OFPA), but rather to let
the
organic community and the National Organic Standards resolve our
differences
over issues like synthetics and animal feed internally, and then
proceed to
a open public comment period. Unfortunately most Senators seem to be
listening to industry lobbyists more closely than to us. We need to
raise
our voices.

In the past, grassroots mobilization and mass pressure by organic
consumers
have been able to stop the USDA and Congress from degrading organic
standards. This time Washington insiders tell us that the "fix is is
already
in." So we must take decisive action now. We need you to call your U.S.
Senators today. We need you to sign the following petition and send it
to
everyone you know. We also desperately need funds to head off this
attack in
the weeks and months to come. Thank you for your support. Together we
will
take back citizen control over organic standards and preserve organic
integrity.

Take action here:
www.demaction.org/dia/organ...mpaign.jsp

Take action now at
www.democracyinaction.org/oca/c...gn.jsp


Keith Post, ND
Natural Health Services
(503) 244-5708
keithp@pcez.com
www.pcez.com/~keithp
"Argue for your limitations and they're yours."
---from "Illusions," by Richard Bach

Effects of Burning Man

Recently, a friend posted a query about whether or not to give money to panhandlers. It reminded me of an experience I had last year. My Beloved and I had just returned to SF from BurningMan, my first time going there. On our way to the Burn, we had stayed at a little cheap-but-safe-and-friendly hotel, and were to stay there again for another few days, before flying home to Ireland.

When we pulled into the underground parking lot of this little place, I noticed a guy hanging around in the corner. He looked shifty. We were taking it in turns to unload the car, and bring stuff up to our room, while one of us stayed at the car trying (unsuccessfully) to bang the playa dust out of EVERYTHING :->

After a while, the guy came over, and asked for money. His story was that it was for busfare. He was very shakey, and obviously very vulnerable. He acted like a puppy that had been kicked a lot, and is expecting more of the same, almost cowering if we got too close to him. He was about mid 30s I would say, slight in build.

We gave him some food and drink, snacks that we had left over, but he was hardly able for it. He said his name was Peter, and insisted he had gotten in with a bad lot, but if he could only get out of town, and back to, I think it was Santa Rosa /Santa Clara? that he would be fine.

I was so torn. I am not a huge fan of giving to panhandlers, although I dont have a hard and fast rule. However, I felt there was no point in giving this guy 5 or 10 bucks. That would buy him a burger, but he would be still in the same place. To really help him, I felt he needed the full busfare, so he could get the hell outa Dodge, so to speak.

I asked him how much the busfare was, and he said about 30 dollars.
Now, having traveled all the way from Ireland, to attend Burning Man, money wasn't exactly falling out of my pockets.
HOWEVER, I had just come from this fantastic festival where it was all "peace and love, man". And it really had been like that. Both of us felt the same; there was so much love flowing from our hearts, and we felt so expanded as souls-with-a-body, and here we were being asked by the Universe, to put our money where our mouths were.

Several things crossed my mind as I pondered what to do for the best.
We were standing in the parking lot of a hotel run by people unknown to us, who, when we were leaving to go to the Burn, had agreed to store the back seat of our rental van, so we would have more space for all our stuff. We were strangers, they were running a business, and they just said yes, and went to the trouble of finding a place to store it for us, for no charge.

We had had a magnificent time out in the dessert, soaking up for free, (more or less!) all the fantastic pieces of art, and amazing music created by amazing people, benefiting from random acts of kindness and generosity, and now although certainly lighter in pocket, we were undoubtedly also much lighter in spirit.

Funnily enough, the Monday morning after the Temple burn, when we, and most others, were packing up to leave, we discovered our car battery was flat. The trouble we had in getting anyone to help us was very depressing. Several people just drove on, saying “Sorry, gotta go”.

Our neighbours, who were also packing up to go, unpacked an entire van, to try to find jumpleads, to no avail. I could see they were not exactly thrilled to do this, but they did it graciously. A couple of girls allowed us use their car battery to give us a charge, although they were terrified it would flatten their battery, which was old and tired! Eventually, we got it going again.

As I stood there in the SF hotel parking lot, I remembered all this. I recalled how disgusted I had been with the many people who, now that the official feel-good-fest was over, were too busy, too selfish, too scared, too late, too tired, too something, to help a fellow traveler. I recalled how cynical I started to feel. I muttered to myself about it being all well and good having a spirit of peace and love, of community, during a limited time, a time when not to help out would be seen as “bad”.

Now, the festival is over, and it’s ok to go back to “I’m busy, and anyway, I’m sure someone else will help them”. Quite a number of people told me to go to the authorities, and that they would surely help me!! Very Burning Man. Not.

Now, the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak.
After airfare, and the huge cost of buying all our camping gear out there, car rental etc, our finances were fairly depleted. But we had been blessed with so much, and this guy seemed to have so little.

I would have given anything to be able to bring Peter up to our room, and let him have a shower, and give him a clean tee shirt to wear, but there was no way we could sneak him past Reception, and he very clearly was a street character, not a visiting friend.

So, in the end, we did the only thing we could really do. We gave him the 30 dollars, and made him promise to leave town that very night. Who knows what he did? He may have gotten the bus, and made it back home to some sort of support system. He may not have been allowed on the bus because of the smell from him. He may have gone off down the street, heading straight to the liquor store, or to his drug dealer, He may have done so thanking us in his mind for our generosity, or laughing at us for being suckers.

I think of him from time to time, and I really like to think that he made it on that bus, and back to a better life. In any case, I certainly felt that we took what was appropriate action for us, in those circumstances. I don’t think I could ever go back to Burning Man otherwise!! Given that I plan on doing so, I suppose that makes it an act of enlightened self-interest :->

What does it all mean?

SHAZAM, BATMAN!
People actually do read this stuff! My boyfriend and my girlfriend both took the time to read my mutterings.

Hmm, what does it all mean?

Does it mean they were bored, and had nothing better to be doing?
Or does it mean I am more important in people's lives than I thought? Or just that the people I am close to all have a great sense of humour? Course, that's almost a prerequisite! In any event, I am thrilled, and delighted to have gotten a response. Thank you both, dear sweetie darlings!

Well, in any case, my little experiment has been great fun.

There's more to all this tribe stuff, though. (muttering to herself, crazy-old-lady style) I just know it. I feel it in my bones. I will ponder some more, before I start to declare my thoughts on the matter.

How do you all manage it?!

I am mystified as to how so many of my tribe friends manage to have so much good stuff on their profiles! I can barely find the time to check my emails, read a fraction of the great stuff on my tribes, and send the odd message. It seems I am far less productive than the other citizens of Planet Tribe.

I am only writing this to see what will happen when I hit submit!

tis a sad life I am living, writing this stuff for my own amusement, and to save face, so there is SOMETHING in here :-)