from the VT Migrant Farmworker Solidarity Project:

Chiapas, Mexico-January 19- “He went to Vermont with dreams and hopes to help his family and came back in a box,” said Elida, José Obeth Santiz Cruz’s sister. Through tears Elida watched the box with her brother inside being secured to the back of a pick up truck in Villahermosa airport in Mexico where the body arrived on Monday morning January 11th. This marked the last leg of a long journey to return the Vermont migrant farmworker home to his indigenous Tojolabal community in San Isidro, Chiapas.

The Vermont Migrant Farmworker Solidarity Project (VTMFSP) accompanied the body all the way to José Obeth’s home town of San Isidro. Gustavo Teran, a member of the delegation commented, “I was moved to find that amid the sorrow and grief family members and friends received us with open arms and found time to share their stories of hardships, poverty, and survival in their struggling indigenous Tojolabal agricultural community.” Over the next five days the Vermonters joined in the grieving and also interviewed family members, relatives and friends.

Obeth’s mother, Zoyla recalled how she learned of her son’s death. On Tuesday December 22cnd, after returning from her nearby corn field, a neighbor told her she had heard that José Obeth had been hurt in Vermont.  

At first, Zoyla didn’t believe it but when she arrived home her family broke the news and her heart. “He is the fourth son I’ve lost,” she explained wiping tears from her face. “Two from diarrea and one died at birth. He went so far and suffered so much getting there only to come home in a box.”

Santiz Cruz’s mother, father, and sisters explained that José Obeth was forced to migrate, as so many others are in his community, because his family couldn’t sustain themselves without outside income to supplement their Tojolabal agricultural community.

“It took José 20 days to cross the desert, he barely ate. He arrived to Vermont much thinner than he’d left San Isidro and in a lot of debt. It took him 6 months to find work once in Vermont,” shared Zoyla. Three weeks earlier, on December 22cnd in Fairfield, VT on Howrigan Dairy Farm José Obeth’s co-worker, also from San Isidro, discovered José Obeth already dead. His body was propped upright on the floor by his arm, which was entangled in the chain driven gutter cleaner.

In another interview the parents of VT migrant farmworker Rosenberg Alfaro Lopez shared, “We haven’t heard from our son in 20 days, we heard he was detained after going grocery shopping in VT. Can you help us find our son?” A fifteen year old girl shared that she had only seen her mother once for a short time over the past 7 years. She sent a message to her mom through the camera, “I love you. I miss you. Take care of yourself.”

Another former VT migrant farmworker who had invested his VT savings to help his small family cattle farm, shared, “Here we don’t make any money but at least we are free. In Vermont we are not free.”

The VTMFSP will share a short video documenting their findings in the coming weeks. Furthermore, delegates pledge to promote the new organization’s mission by promoting dignity, justice and human rights for migrant farmworkers in Vermont and building bridges of mutual understanding and solidarity between communities in Vermont and Mexico.

On Wed. Jan. 13, amidst drizzle, mud, solemn music and tears, Jose Obeth Santiz Cruz was laid to rest in his home town of San Isidro, Chiapas. Just two days after burying her fourth son, Zoyla shared her anxiety about the moment when her last and only remaining son might ask for her blessings to cross the border for his own journey to help contribute his part to the family.

Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.

Cow peas are an important staple in Western Africa, providing protein to millions of people. Unlike maize, cow peas are indigenous to the region and have adapted to local growing conditions, making them an ideal source of food.

Making sure that the crops make it from the field to farmers’ bowls (or bols), however, is a real challenge in Niger and other countries (see Innovation of the Week: Reducing Food Waste). Cow peas only grow a few months a year and storing large amounts of the crop can be difficult because of pests. But that’s changing, thanks to a storage bag developed by Purdue University. The bags, called Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage, or PICS, are hermetically sealed, preventing oxygen and pests from contaminating the cowpeas. According to Purdue President Martin C. Jischke, “The method is simple, safe, inexpensive and very effective, which means that getting the right information to these people will reap tremendous benefits.”

With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the PICS project hopes to reach 28,000 villages in not only Niger, but Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Chad, and Togo by 2011. And while many farmers are at first skeptical the large storage bags will protect cow peas throughout the year, seeing is believing- in each village bags are filled with cowpeas and then 4 to 6 months later PICS has an Open-the-Bag event, allowing the farmers to see that the cowpeas are undamaged and ready-to-eat. In addition to protecting the cowpea from pests, the PICS bags also save farmers money on expensive pesticides.

Stay tuned for more on PICS bags when we head to Western Africa in a few months.

UPDATE: In a release on Thursday, Mr. Bindon’s son, Stephen Bindon, wrote, “Trijicon has proudly served the US military for more than two decades, and our decision to offer to voluntarily remove these references is both prudent and appropriate."  

These reference numbers 2COR4:6 and JN8:12 are biblical passages from the New Testament and unbelievably are intentionally stamped inside the tritium illuminated rifle sights supplied to the US military by defense contractor Trijicon.

Both bible passages deal with light in reference to the illuminated rifle sights.  The UK is deciding what to do about the sights but New Zealand military will remove the stamped inscriptions.  

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there"; and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian." The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.

 2COR4:6 "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Second Corinthians 4:6    JN8:12 "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."  Book of John 8:12  

The Trijicon company says "Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom." They received a $660million long-term contract to supply sights to the Marine Corps.    

It is reported that Muslim groups reacted angrily Wednesday after it emerged that the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan were using rifle sights inscribed with coded Biblical references. The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) called on US Defense Secretary Robert Gates to immediately withdraw from combat use equipment found to have inscriptions of Biblical references.    

Senate Democrats Have Lost Their Filibuster-Proof Majority With Brown’s Upset Win Over Coakley in Massachusetts Special Election, But if Republicans Think Health-Care Reform is Dead, They’d Better Think Again: Without It, Unemployment Will Remain Stubbornly High — and Could Even Get Worse

Republican senatorial candidate Scott Brown gets a pat on his shoulder from his daughter, Ayla, after winning last November’s Republican primary. Brown, a state senator who was an unknown outside Massachusetts before the race, had an even greater reason to celebrate Tuesday night, when he scored a stunning upset victory over Democratic state Attorney General Martha Coakley in the special election to serve the remaining two years of the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s term. Brown’s victory robs Senate Democrats of their filibuster-proof 60-vote majority. But if Republicans think they’ve stopped health-care reform in its tracks, they’re sorely mistaken. Without it, companies will not hire back laid-off workers — and the recession will last a lot longer. (Photo: John Thornton/Dover-Sherborn Press)

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EST Thursday, January 21, 2010)

Volume V, Number 6

Copyright 2010, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

Somebody want to explain this to me? Here’s the headline from the Times Argus yesterday:

Douglas budget makes cuts, proposes no new taxes

Here’s from the Rutland Herald:

Reductions, no new taxes for $150M state budget hole

Blazing message for all to see. Douglas is holding the line on taxes. Even the casual passersby got the message from the stacks in the stores. Too bad it’s complete crap.

What’s the truth? For that, you have to turn to the editorial page of the Herald/Argus (for a very solid piece, BTW):

It is also noteworthy that as (Governor Douglas) holds the line on new taxes on the wealthy, he has asked middle-income taxpayers to pay higher property taxes. He would achieve this by raising the percentage of income that could be tapped for school property taxes for households earning between $60,000 and $90,000.

Bizarre. Do these folks talk to each other?

So which editor writes the headlines? I don’t know, but don’t let reporter Louis Porter off the hook. From the second paragraph of the piece:

What was not included in his tough proposed budget, drafted to fill a more than $150 million hole in next year’s spending, were any increases in broad-based taxes

Interesting qualification, “broad-based.” Thing is, it doesn’t mean anything. There’s no hard and fast definition, but I have no doubt that the term has been dutifully parroted from the Douglas administration, which in this case is BSing so brazenly (we won’t raise taxes except when we will) that we’ve passed firmly into up is down and black is white territory. Here’s Charlie Crist of Florida engaged in the same “broad-based” parsing. The St. Petersburg Times writer, rather than parroting their Governor’s line, properly called it “distortion.” At any rate, I think “middle class Vermonters” is a pretty broad category.

So Louis Porter and the headline writer served as PR mouthpieces for the administration yesterday. It almost doesn’t matter what the rest of the piece said after those headlines and the semi-qualified restatement in the article’s opening thesis (which is not to say that the rest of the piece covers it in any meaningful way… it all reads like Douglas spin). And its not like it was a trend, here; Terri Hallenbeck’s analysis was perfectly professional. The AP wire report also made no such claim, as half of its six sentences explain the Douglas tax increase, with nary a sign of any no new taxes claim, “broad-based” or otherwise.

If the administration was trying to pass a naked untruth to a reporter as the truth, that in itself should be the news.

The Times Argus and Rutland Herald should be ashamed. “Outrageous” doesn’t begin to cover it. This goes beyond simply misplaced “advocacy journalism,” as the papers promoted an outright untruth in the service of the adminsitration’s public image.

Per the Times Argus:

Extraordinarily high levels of radioactive water was discovered in a trench at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant this week, lawmakers revealed Wednesday.

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, told reporters that surface water discovered in a trench at the site of the Vernon nuclear reactor has tested positive for tritium, with levels ranging from 1-2 million picocuries per liter.

That’s about 100 times the amount of the radioactive isotope discovered late last year in groundwater surrounding Vermont Yankee.

What’s recognized as a “safe” level of Tritium?

20,000.

Where is all this excess radiation coming from?

We.  Don’t.  Know.

Don’t you feel better?

(much more detailed update from Maggie after the fold)

Update by Maggie

From the Brattleboro Reformer

100 gallons of tritium-laced water found at Vermont Yankee

According to Bob Audette at the Brattleboro Reformer,

Entergy told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this afternoon that it had found about 100 gallons of free-standing water in a room in the radioactive waste building at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon.

When it was tested, said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC, the concentration of tritium was about 2 million picocuries per liter.

According to Audette,

While Yankee was pumping the water out of the rad-waste building, about 60 more gallons washed into the room. The rad-waste building is between two wells that have tested positive for tritium.

“It is too early to determine if the rad-waste building might be the source of the groundwater contamination,” said Sheehan. “The company will have to investigate that further.”

Ironically most of the Vermont Press has not been given the complete story.  One journalist informed me that Department of Health State Radiological Health Chief Bill Irwin and members of the DPS have known about the increased leakage and additional site contamination for several days, all the while attempting to tell the press that what leakage that is out there is meaningless and of no threat to public health and safety.

You may also see a longer story here in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/aponlin…

Of course the New York Times would jump on this story because New Yorkers are dealing with their own leaking Entergy nuke saga at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant less than 40 miles outside New York City.

As part of the NRC’s investigation into the contaminated wells and now the water in the rad-waste building, it is sending a health physicist to the plant next week to review the company’s latest plans and actions to deal with the tritium, said Sheehan.

Have at it. Here’s a jump start from some clever voices across the internet:

Steve Benen:

Look, Martha Coakley was an awful candidate who ran an awful campaign. This, coupled with public frustration over the economy and the pace of change in Washington became a toxic combination.

But to hear Bayh tell it, the electorate will reward Democrats if the party gives up on the agenda that got them elected — and gave them the largest majorities in a generation — and simply becomes Republican-lite. That seems like very bad advice.

Jerome Armstrong:

I guess Democrats really didn’t realize that they would be held accountable if they got the reigns of complete power and were not transparent. Crap like buying off Ben Nelson’s vote by bribing him with our money is insulting. The internet is just a tool of transparency, and no one, least of all the online progressives, has been fooled by the last year. The Republicans have come into our hometown and kicked our butt tonight. The Democrats have less than 10 months to start governing as a people-powered party, or they will lose both the House and the Senate.

Peter Daou:

Progressive bloggers have been jumping up and down, yelling at their Democratic leaders that the path of compromise and pragmatism only goes so far. The limit is when you start compromising away your core values.

I sincerely hope that’s the lesson learned today.

Greenwald:

Last night, Evan Bayh blamed the Democrats’ problems on “the furthest left elements,” which he claims dominates the Democratic Party — seriously.  And in one of the dumbest and most dishonest Op-Eds ever written, Lanny Davis echoes that claim in The Wall St. Journal:  “Blame the Left for Massachusetts” (Davis attributes the unpopularity of health care reform to the “liberal” public option and mandate; he apparently doesn’t know that the health care bill has no public option [someone should tell him], that the public option was one of the most popular provisions in the various proposals, and the “mandate” is there to please the insurance industry, not “the Left,” which, in the absence of a public option, hates the mandate; Davis’ claim that “candidate Obama’s health-care proposal did not include a public option” is nothing short of an outright lie).

In what universe must someone be living to believe that the Democratic Party is controlled by “the Left,” let alone “the furthest left elements” of the Party?  As Ezra Klein says, the Left “ha[s] gotten exactly nothing they wanted in recent months.”

Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.

Mokolodi Wildlife Reserve used to be known more for raising livestock than protecting wildlife. But after years of ranching degraded the land, the owner decided to devote the area to protecting elephants, giraffes, impala, kudu, crocodiles, hippos, ostrich, warthogs, and various other animals and birds. But the reserve hasn’t stopped raising food.

In addition to teaching students and the community about conserving and protecting wildlife and the environment, they’re also educating students about permaculture. By growing indigenous vegetables, recycling water for irrigation, and using organic fertilizers—including elephant dung—the Reserve’s Education Center is demonstrating how to grow nutritious food with very little water or chemical inputs. (See Malawi’s Real “Miracle” and Emphasizing Malawi’s Indigenous Vegetables as Crops.)

I met with Tuelo Lekgowe and his wife, Moho Sehtomo, who are managing the permaculture garden at Mokolodi. Tuelo explained that the organically grown spinach, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, green peppers, garlic, basil, parsley, coriander and other crops raised at the garden are used to feed the school groups who come regularly to learn about not only animals, but also sustainable agriculture. Tuelo and Moho use the garden as a classroom, teaching students about composting, intercropping, water harvesting, and organic agriculture practices. The garden also supplies food for the Education Center and Mokolodi’s restaurant, feeding the hundreds of students and tourists who visit the non-profit reserve each week.

The Mokolodi Reserve is another example of how agriculture and wildlife conservation can go hand-in hand.

There’s a lot to say about the Governor’s budget ideas. Between his recent budget address and his previous State of the State, here’s the quick wrap:

• Same old, same old.
• No tax hikes ever – except for the tax hikes I’m going to foist on the middle class by going after income sensitivity on property tax and dumping our burdens onto local towns. But don’t say that I’m dumping any taxes onto local towns, cause then I’ll tell you that I’m not.
• And middle class tax hikes aren’t tax hikes, because its really getting rid of an “entitlement.” Yep, that’s what he called in the State of the State. Here’s a Republican telling middle class voters that their paychecks are an entitlement. Weird, yes. But don’t expect any objections from the Republican faithful. He’s their guy.
• No more spending, unless its, say, another $15 million for businesses without any transparency or accountability. Hey, they’re entitled.
• Business needs more money. Sick people and anyone needing social services should just suck it up.

All of this should be discussed in detail. And we will (I hope). But I want to, for the moment, highlight one line from the most recent address:

To protect the most vulnerable now and in the future, we must make sustainable reductions to break free from the dangerous cycle of managing deficits year on end.

Bullshit. This is Republican malarkey, feebly camouflaged in lefty feelgood rhetoric. And the press refuses to call him on it. As a result, it’s gradually becoming the accepted wisdom. It doesn’t even take any great thinking to call this idea out. Simply one question: Why?

Make no mistake, this is the same line of attack the national GOP uses against Social Security. Projections decades out show it’s gonna have problems, so therefore we have to gut it. That’s illogical, anti-intellectual crap. We have a legislature. They work with the executive on a budget. They meet every year. They have a budget every year. If the numbers don’t add up, they make them add up. That’s how it works.

Think ahead? Sure. Of course. But just because we may have to make a cut next year is no reason to make it this year. No budget can be guaranteed to be extended, as is, in perpetuity. That’s precisely why a new budget is made every year. This dimwitted business of ohhh, next year looks bad – so we better throw poor, unemployed, and sick people overboard right now would be just plain dumb, if not for the fact that the press and many Democrats let him get away with it. How dumb can it be if it works?

And what does it work for? It works as an excuse to dismantle the programs that protect the most vulnerable. It works to destroy the state’s responsibility to protect those basic human rights that the right refuses to recognize as basic human rights.

The legislature should work to make the best possible government this year. When there are problems next year they can work with all those problems next year – not just the anticipated problems, but the unanticipated ones. As well as any unanticipated good news.

Because that’s how our system is supposed to work, regardless of whether or not it serves the right’s ideological goals.

(with a quick addendum below)

Subtitle: My Head Hurts

(My emphasis of course)

“The transformation is based on the fact that even though we do fairly well on test scores, we still lose a lot of kids,” [Vermont state school board vice-chair] Stokes said. “We spent a year, we even went to prisons to talk to inmates and ask them what could have been done to help you? Where did the education system fail you? One of the things they said was, ‘We were lost in the shuffle. We never felt that we as individuals counted and how we learn and what could have been put in place to make us enthusiastic about learning, that just wasn’t there.‘”

(A vote for school consolidation, Barre/Montpelier Times Argus, 1/20/10)

So what did Ms. Stokes do with her new-found information? Why … she and her buddies voted to reduce the number of school districts and increase the size of schools!

All this while receiving guidance from a report that begins with this quote: “The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn’t need to be reformed, it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and can naturally discover their true passions.”

I just love it when people in government tell me I’m stupid enough not to see through their smoke.

Meanwhile on the Times Argus page devoted to publicizing the latest from bullshit artist and Vermont education commissioner Vilaseca (such page formerly known as the opeds) …

We have school buildings, with their operational budget, staffing and transportation costs, that house fewer students altogether than would be in a single classroom at our larger schools.

Oh yeah, Vil the Bullshitter also likes to support his vacuous crap with a report that begins with “The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn’t need to be reformed, it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and can naturally discover their true passions.”

Anybody paying attention? Oh, and can anybody tell me exactly what the import of the ratio regarding school board members to students is?