In Search of Cheap Food

What's the connection between a Minnetonka based company, Papua New Guinea and world food prices? Palm oil is the connection, it's the most widely used vegetable oil in the world. It's in a lot of foods that we don't even realize, cereal, breakfast bars, snacks and more. And 30% of it comes from the islands of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Cargill, one of Minnesota's largest companies is one of the largest producers of Palm oil in the world. They have plantations on the island of Papua New Guinea where they hire 15,000 workers for their plants seasonally. They extract the oil and then ship it to the US where it is processed and then put into foods on grocery sheaves in all but 3 countries. Palms produce more oil per acre than any other plant like Canola or soy by up to 50%. The large plantations feature rows of tall 4 to 6 year old palms and workers who walk up and down the rows with long poles to snip off the fruits and send them tumbling to the ground where the oil from their kernels is extracted. For hundreds of years New Guineans lived like they had for 1,000 of years as subsistence farmers. The island residence speak over 800 distinct languages and has the world's 3rd largest rain forest. In the 1960's the US government and World Bank decided to introduce a cash crop to the island to improve their standard of living. Now with more worldwide food shortages and an increase in food prices Cargill and other local farmers are expanding their plantations into the treasured rain forest. The company and the farmers argue they do this to improve their lifestyles and send their children to school but as the prices increase so will the amount of deforested rain forest that can never be recovered. It is a recurring problem that sometimes feels so far away for us, that is until your next visit to the grocery store or bowl of General Mill's cereal.

The Abundance of Katherines blog #1

Colin Singleton is a child prodigy with some relationship problems. He has dated 19 girls all of them named Katherine. After being dumped by #19 his best friend Hassan decides it's time for some vacation time on the road. They end up in Gunshot Tennessee, a one factory town that makes tampon strings. Colin knows every priminister of Canada, 90 digits of Pi, and the 43 anagrams of the word dingleberries. But he is taking on a new mission to prove his Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which could predict the lenght and predictability of an relationship anywhere. Colin will make the world safe for every dumpee everywhere. I'm on page 191 and Colin has just perfected his theorem, which is really long and involves a lot of math symbols I don't even know.Colin may be smart and a 'prodigy' but he is convinced that he is not yet in fact a genius. Prodigies as Colin says have a lot of potential but usually they don't have any more likely chance of winning the Noble Prize than any other regular smart person. Colin wants to make something of himself - be remembered forever. But to achieve greatness he must come to terms with his own 19 timed broken heart and what he really wants to do with is extra ordinary life.

Maus a Survivor's Tale Part 1 My Father Bleeds History

Maus is a very quick and fascinating read especially because the whole book is one long comic! It is the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe and his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to term with his father, his father's terrifying story and History itself. The Nazis are cats the Polish are pigs and the Jews are mice giving the previous thought well known events a whole new perspective. The great drawings flashing between present day New York to 1940's Poland. This amazing tale of fear, suspicion, betrayal and impossible escapes had me on the edge on my seat expecting the end for Vladek and his family at any moment. I have read other survivor stories but this is by far the most raw and profound. I am getting part 2 soon, and will have to be careful to put it down enough to do my homework. This book makes me very appreciative of all the food I eat and the warmth of my house. Vladek and his wife Anja ate bread once a day while they were hiding in a barn. Vladek told Anja to chew pieces of wood to make her less hungry. In a Polish POW camp Vladek hundled in tents and thin blankets to keep from getting frost bite. He made a chess board out of bread crums and woodchips to help pass the time. a Pultzer prize winner that Newsweek said "Maus compels us to bear witness in a different way: the very artificiality of its surface makes it possible to imagine the reality beneath"

Letters to Anna

Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist who worked for one of Russia's last independent papers. In 2006 she was killed by a hired killer, who the killer is and who paid him to do it is still unknown. The Putin regime is fighting a dirty war in Chechya, there are many rebels there that want it to be a separate country. There has been genocide and many acts of brutality. Most journalists would avoid traveling there and reporting about it. She reported on Chechnyan residents who's lives were ruined by the conflict. But she had to let people know about the tragedies of so many people diapering with out a trace. She criticized the Russian handling of Chechya rebels terrorist actions. One occurred in 2002 when rebels took over a theater in Moscow and held 900 hostages. Politkovskaya, a hero in Chechya was asked to serve as a mediator by the rebels. The mediation failed, and in the end the authorities pumped in a toxic gas that killed 125 hostages and the terrorists. Two years later, terrorist took over an elementary school on the first day of school and took a 1,000 hostages. The Kremlin sent the military to storm the school and 333 hostages died. Politkovskaya had appeared on Radio Liberty two days before her murder and criticized the Chechyan government leader. She has also criticized Putin, Russia's previous president. She was secretly followed for two days and then fatality shot after going into her apartment. The editor of her newspaper shut down the paper, saying "no newspaper was worth such sacrifices", he was later overruled by his staff because they had to carry out the mission of the paper. The are no answers to who gave the order to have her killed. But many believe the Russian government had something to do with it. A film with English narration has been produced in titled "Letter to Anna". Her story has been talked about with admiration around the world.

'Such a Rough Diamond of a Man'

A new children's book by Candace Fleming tells the seemingly well-known story of Abraham and Mary Lincoln. This little book contains a virtually untold story of the romantic side of Abe and the beautiful love story of the couple. Mary Todd was a southern belle, who lived on a wealthy plantation in Kentucky. Mary loved to read books like Abraham who once said "My best friend is a man who'll give me a book I ain't read yet." Mary did have slaves on her plantation but her mother made their house a stop on the underground rail road. Both Abraham and Mary lost their loving mothers when they were young. However, Abraham loved the widow his father married and Mary hated her stepmother. There was also their love for politics, their ambition. Mary was sure her husband would do great things even though her family strongly disapproved. She once said to a friend who asked her what she saw in him,"such a rough diamond of a man, the important thing is the diamond itself, clear and flawless under its film." They married and Mary was a hardy house wife, she and the children went with Abraham to the white house. She later said she awoke everyday with"a sense of misery." Then came the civil war, her son's death from pleurisy and her husbands assassination. She came full circle and wondered in Europe until returning home to be put on trial for insanity. She returned to the house where she was married in Springfield. She wouldn't sleep on her husbands side of the bed and died there wearing her wedding band inscribed with the words "Love is eternal."

Deported in Coma, Saved Back in U.S.

Antonio Torres, a legal immigrant was badly hurt in a car crash last June. Uninsured and suffering life threatening injuries, the hospital in Arizona quietly deported him across the boarder, despite outraged protests from his parents. Not ready to give up Mr. and Mrs. Torres contacted a hospital in California that was willing to take him and sent a donated ambulance to bring Antonio back to the U.S. While his condition was severely worsened by the long transport, after several months in the California hospital Antonio has made a profound recovery. He is now able to walk and talk with his cane swinging in the air to emphasize his points. He wants to work in the Alfalfa fields again and live close to home. Mr. Torres recalls the horrible hospital experience when the social worker told him and his wife that just after two days of study the doctors had concluded that his son had sever brain damage and that he would either never wake up or be confided to a nursing home; never being able to speak or walk again. The social worker told them it was best to pull the plug on their son, when they said no she was angry. A hispanic leader in Phoenix, Mr. Espinoza who has been working with another immigrant paitent battling another hospital in the Phoenix area. He came with Mr. and Mrs. Torres to talk wiht the hospital's social worker. The social worker told them it was best to pull the plug on their son, when they said no she was angry. Mr. Espinoza recalls the meeting when he offered to raise money to keep Antonio a room and a ventilator Mr. Espinoza said the social worker repiled; "Gee, that would be like taking money and throwing it down a black hole because this kid is going to die! I've got Mom and Dad crying, and she says that other patients would be better suited for that kind of investment." Now with the whole family back together in Arizona Mr. Torres said,"Imagine if I had said, 'O.K. disconnect him." However stories like Antonio's are happening all over the southern states. Uninsured Immigrants find themselves at the mercy of these hospitals. Mr. Green, president of the city-owned hospital in California where Antonio was treated said, "our mission here is to provide health care access to our community and anyone who comes to our E.R. is considered part of our community. This was a kid who came to this country legally, worked here legally and had an accident. For God's sake, don't we take care of our folk? To me, this case shows one of the disastrously broken pieces of our health care system."