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Monsanto in the Hot Seat

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By JEC

On Friday May 31st, NBC News posted a report from Reuters that South Korea has suspended wheat imports after the discovery of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Wheat growing in a fallowed field of an Oregon farmer.  Problem is, Monsanto only field-tested the strain until May, 2004 when the Canadian Wheat Board, then the world’s largest grain seller, informed Monsanto it’s 10 largest red spring wheat buyers, including Japan, the U.K. and Malaysia, wouldn’t buy modified (genetically altered) varieties of wheat.  

Out of market concerns Monsanto pulled their GM Roundup Ready Wheat from the USDA’s approval process.  So how did this discontinued strain of Monsanto wheat end up on a farm in Oregon nine years after the company stopped working with this strain?  Has this modified strain found its way into the commercial wheat crop? 

On such concerns, Japan too has suspended imports of western-white wheat from the U.S., and canceled an order while the USDA is sending investigators to undisclosed locations throughout the western United States.  The story is just beginning and the weeks ahead could prove challenging for the U.S. agriculture business and Monsanto.   [Read more…]

Ending Bikelash: Bicycling Surges Nationwide As Urbanites Support Bike Lanes and Bike-Sharing Programs

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Studies show that bike lanes make streets safer for everyone and are better for business.

By Jay Walljasper / AlterNet 

Former New York mayor Ed Koch envisioned bicycles as vehicles for the future. In 1980, he created experimental bike lanes on 6th and 7th avenues in Manhattan where riders were protected from speeding traffic by asphalt barriers. It was unlike anything most Americans had ever seen, and some people roared their disapproval. Within weeks, the bike lanes were gone.

Twenty-seven years later, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and his transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan saw the growing ranks of bicyclists on the streets as a key component of 21st-century transportation, and began building protected bike lanes in Manhattan and Brooklyn. They had studied the success of similar projects in Copenhagen and the Netherlands, noting how to make projects more efficient and aesthetically pleasing.

These “green lanes” and pedestrian plazas were an immediate hit, but they ignited a noisy reaction from a small group of well-connected people unhappy about projects in their neighborhoods, including Bloomberg’s former transportation commissioner Iris Weinshall (who happens to be married to Senator Chuck Schumer). Lawsuits were filed while New York Post and Daily News columnists thundered about the inconvenience to motorists and supposed dangers to pedestrians. New York magazine declared the situation a “Bikelash” on its cover.   [Read more…]

Downtown Doublecross Foiled– Mayor Filner Calls Out Hoteliers Attempt to Sabotage Tourism Deal -UPDATED

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‘The City of San Diego will not be held hostage”

By Doug Porter

Once again we’re seeing headlines proclaiming Mayor Filner to be responsible for causing the San Diego Tourism Authority to close down. 

We’re hearing about how people’s jobs will be affected by a “squabble”.

We’re being told via the Daily Fishwrap editorial about a “crippling blow to a major pillar of the San Diego economy.”

Hogwash.

Mayor Filner has demanded that the tourism agency live up to its end of a bargain struck back in April that, among other things, directed 5 percent of Tourism Marketing District (TMD) revenue to the upcoming celebration of Balboa Park’s centennial. That deal came after several months of very public and ugly struggle.

UPDATE: TMD agreed to fund Balboa Park celebration; Mayor agreed to release funds. I’m not sure whether Balboa Park got the funding they expected. TMD officials claimed revenue shortfall. (I predict a One Exclamation Point! press release from Filner shortly)   [Read more…]

Enterprise Zone Reform, Ban on Plastic Bags Getting a Chance in Sacramento

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By Doug Porter

The political will to reform California’s state enterprise zone (EZ) program has finally reached critical mass in the wake of the disclosures via a Public Records Act request documenting tens of thousands of dollars in tax credits going to Sacramento-area strip club owners.

A televised report by KCRA news, complete with footage shot inside an area strip club, has provided reform supporters with a boost. The State of California is losing out on $750 million in revenues annually due to EZ program….

Get ready for another PR assault on sanity, brought to Californians by a group calling itself the American Progressive Bag Alliance (APBA).

It seems as though the APBA and their allies haven’t been able to spread enough money around Sacramento to stop a Senate vote this week on Senate Bill 405, which would phase out plastic shopping bags. Two other bills with much the same purpose died in committee.

INSIDE: The Race to Replace Everybody’s Favorite Congressional Wacko   [Read more…]

The Six Month Mark: Three Ways Mayor Filner is Making a Difference in San Diego

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By Doug Porter

Three stories about San Diego Mayor Bob Filner lead off this morning’s review of the news. I’m not surprised that the first six months of Bob Filner’s tenure as the top elected official in America’s Finest City have been tumultuous.

After all, San Diegans elected a progressive Democrat after years of rule by mostly moderate Republicans. The local GOP leadership opted to back a more radical flavor of conservative in Carl DeMaio and, as a result, lost.

That’s been a bitter pill for them to swallow, and you could hardly characterize them as gracious losers. And, in a way, you can hardly blame them. Losing the election has cost their supporters the kind of insider access needed to assure that their financial interests take priority over public concerns.   [Read more…]

San Diego Monsanto Protest Draws Big Crowd to Balboa Park

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By Doug Porter

I wasn’t too surprised by the lack of coverage of San Diego’s demonstration against Monsanto this past Saturday. If you read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, you’ll realize that successful protest movements rarely get proper credit or acclaim for their influence.

Our local daily fishwrap, aka UT-San Diego, couldn’t be bothered to send an actual reporter to Balboa Park on Saturday. They relied instead on an Associated Press account in Sunday’s paper that mentioned Los Angeles and perhaps there were some other protests…yada, yada, yada… The Los Angeles Times coverage at least mentioned that there was a protest in San Diego.

Come inside for more San Diego coverage and photos from around the world   [Read more…]

Gravity’s Rainbow: From the Mariana Islands to Brooklyn Heights/Golden Hill/South Park

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By Jay Powell

“An unarmed Minuteman-3 intercontinental ballistic missile was test-launched (on April 7, 2006) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The missile’s single, unarmed re-entry vehicle traveled approximately 8,200 km (5,100 miles), striking a pre-determined water target near Guam in the Northern Mariana Islands. The launch was part of a developmental test to demonstrate the weapon’s effectiveness at an extended range. The Minuteman-3 missile originated from the 564th Missile Squadron at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana.” (from various news releases including “The Mercenary Missileer’s Missile News”).

It is a little under 5,000 miles to the Marianas (just above the equator between Longitudes 145-165 E to Brooklyn Heights, San Diego (Lat 32.724, Long – 117.129 W). But more about that later. Now, about this “Do I live in Golden Hill or South Park?” controversy. As the old Americana saying goes: “you can call me Jay or you can call me Ray, just don’t call me late for dinner. “ For a variety of political and geographic and geologic reasons, place names evolve. Sometimes it is very much a matter of branding for real estate purposes.

This name of place issue kind of parallels the name of the community of City Heights which was taken in 1981 by the Community Development Corporation founders led by Jim Bliesner from the name of the largest subdivision in what had been the “Golden Rule” city of East San Diego. Later there were some residents of the City Heights neighborhood of Cherokee Point who thought they ought to be a part of North Park because they had a 92104 zip code. But it was still in the officially adopted community plan area of City Heights. Regardless of what the real estate salesperson or the post office, or the subdivision map or the City says, the people who live in their neighborhood get to call it whatever they want.   [Read more…]

Take 20 Minutes (or less) to Reduce Junk Mail by 90%

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By John P. Anderson

Want to reduce the amount of trash and recycling you have each week?  Reducing the amount of junk mail you receive is a good place to start.  Below I’ve compiled a convenient list of the websites and companies you should contact to most effectively reduce the junk mail you received.

Here are a few figures from a post by NYU Law School that highlight the environmental impact of junk mail:

Those Uninvited Guests at Your Barbecue

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With most samples of several common store-bought meats testing positive for antibiotic-resistant “superbugs,” factory farming practices must change.

By  / OtherWords

Planning a Memorial Day barbecue? When you buy meat for that festive meal, watch out for some uninvited guests. An alarming amount of American meat harbors not just pathogens, but “superbugs” — antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

For now, you’d better cook your meat well enough to kill the germs (165F is the magic temperature), but there might be hope for safer alternatives in the future. Consumer advocates and lawmakers are trying to push changes that make these superbugs a thing of the past. That’s never been so important because industrialized agriculture delivers efficiency, productivity, and profit at the expense of food safety.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Grand Jury Report Casts a Light on the Sorry State of San Diego’s Bikeways

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Be Safe on Bike to Work Day, Friday, May 17th

By Doug Porter

The San Diego County Grand Jury report on the state of our city’s bikeways does its best to be positive.  After all, decades of car-centric public planning and policies are slowly giving way to an increasing awareness of the benefits and possibilities of traveling on two wheels in a city with near-perfect weather conditions.

‘Everybody’ agrees, or at least pays lips service to, the need for safe and increased access for bicyclists on the roads around San Diego. The Grand Jury even called its report: San Diego – A Bicycle Friendly City.

The reality of riding isn’t so nice for today’s bicyclists, however. Years of deferred maintenance of roadways in San Diego have made many of the gestures towards riders empty ones. Despite the prevailing narrative that this infrastructural neglect is somehow due to incompetent or inefficient government burdened with an overpaid class of civil servants, the truth of matter is that public attitudes towards government in general are at the heart of the matter.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – A Real Scandal! Activists Around the World to Protest Monsanto May 25th

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Balboa Park March & Rally, Mission Bay Overpass Light Brigade Events Expected to Draw Thousands

By Doug Porter 

While the oldstream media is obsessing on the current crop of Washington’s politi-dramas, an international protest movement is gathering steam. Activists in on six continents, in 36 countries, and in 47 U.S. states — totaling events in over 250 cities — are coordinating demonstrations to occur simultaneously at 11am Pacific time on Saturday May 25th under the general theme “March Against Monsanto”.

The St Louis-based biotech behemoth Monsanto has come under increasing attack from environmentalists, agriculturalists and average consumers in response to the company’s conduct in the realm of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically-engineered foods.

Efforts aimed at forcing the company to engage in transparent business practices, like providing consumer information about products incorporating GMOs, have exposed a corporate culture willing to use raw power and virtually unlimited amounts of cash to protect their interests.

San Diego protest info here and here.  More details later on in story

  [Read more…]

The Starting Line – The Meanies at the IRS and Other Republicanesque Themes du Jour

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By Doug Porter 

It’s the new Benghazi.

It’s ‘Plan B’, in case Congressman Darrell Issa’s crew can’t make the case for impeachment. They’re even willing to tie Presidents Obama and Nixon together.

I’m talking about the emerging ‘scandal’ that the Internal Revenue Service made life difficult for Tea Party type groups seeking to obtain tax exempt status. The story gets top billing in today’s UT-San Diego, slightly overshadowing coverage of Senator John McCain’s call for a special panel to investigate last year’s attack on the US diplomatic compound/CIA station in Libya.

Documents obtained by various media outlets over the past few days, including the Washington Post, the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal, tell a story about the behind the scene processes at the IRS in how it defined “social welfare groups” following the US Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizen’s United ruling.   [Read more…]

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