Former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and others likely to be charged for roles in Flint Water Crisis

Two years ago, I observed that "The wheels of justice are grinding slowly in this case, but I expect they will indeed grind exceedingly fine" regarding the Flint Water Crisis. When Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud, and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym L. Worthy dismissed the criminal cases without prejudice, which means they could be refiled and the revised cases would be stronger, I added "If anything, they're grinding even slower than I expected, but also much finer." When prosecutors explained their action to residents of Flint in a town hall, I worried that "they can only grind so slowly because of the statute of limitations, which imposes a deadline nine months from now." That deadline passed almost a year ago, but either I was mistaken about the time limit or the statute of limitations didn't apply to all possible charges, because WNEM TV5 in Flint reported yesterday AP: Charges against Gov. Snyder, others likely.

Former Gov. Rick Snyder and other former state officials are likely to be charged in the Flint water probe, according to the Associated Press.

WNEM was vague about the likely defendants beyond former Governor Rick Snyder and former Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon, but WXYZ's Former Governor Snyder to face criminal charges in connection to Flint water crisis was not, naming names and showing faces.

Former Governor Rick Snyder and several other state officials will be facing criminal charges in connection with the Flint water crisis.

In addition to Snyder and Lyon, the reported defendants include Eden Wells, former chief medical executive at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Darnell Earley, former Emergency Manager for the City of Flint and Detroit Public Schools, and Gerald Ambrose, also a former Emergency Manager for the City of Flint. All of them were previously charged in the previous round of prosecutions brought by former Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, about whose motives I expressed cynicism.

Schuette is a Republican, but he doesn't owe Snyder much in the way of favors. He's going to thread (sic — "tread" fits the metaphor better, but it's a common mixing of metaphors) a narrow path. On the one hand, he's going to use this to make enough of a show that he'll help himself look "independent" for a general election. He might even harm Snyder as long as it also hurts the current Lieutenant Governor, Brian Calley, helping himself in the primary. On the other hand, he doesn't want to hurt Snyder so badly that it makes him look disloyal to the GOP. He especially does not want to force Snyder from office. The last thing he wants is Calley as an incumbent Governor to run against in a primary. That will be quite a balancing act!

I think Schuette did exactly what I described in this case, which was to look tough and independent while not going directly after Snyder. It worked for him, as he became the Republican nominee, not Calley.

While the residents of Flint were worried that the likely defendants would never be brought to justice when the previous charges were dismissed, it looks like they have not escaped being "ground exceedingly fine," not yet.

The person who caught my attention most was Jarrod Agen, Snyder's former Chief of Staff, Vice President Mike Pence's former communications director, acting chief of staff, and deputy chief of staff, and current Vice President of Communications for Lockheed Martin. This scandal follows him to go beyond the state lines of Michigan to the highest levels of government and industry. When I write about the revolving door between industry and government, it's not just about Monsanto and regulation of the food supply.* It happens all throughout government, including defense and aerospace, as Agen's example demonstrates.

Follow over the jump for reactions to this news from activists and local politicians.

The revolving door between Monsanto and government for Food Day 2018

A Happy Food Day to my readers!  To celebrate the day, I am returning to what I wrote in last year's Joel Salatin from 'Food, Inc.' for Food Day: "Today, I'm continuing what I did last year in For Food Day, a guide to entries with answers to 'Food, Inc.' by discussing the worksheet for 'Food, Inc.'"

This year, I'm revisiting the questions I asked and the answers I gave in Monsanto wins gene patent case.

26. What has Monsanto done to promote use of their soybeans and stop seed saving?  List at least three examples.
...
Part of the answer to 26 is sue people who violate Monsanto's patents.

That wasn't enough of an answer.  A more complete one is that Monsanto has patented their seeds and enforced the patent by having a hotline to report violator of their patent, sending investigators out to determine responsibility, having a blacklist of growers who can't buy their seeds for not complying, and suing growers and seed cleaners.

27. List at least five government officials who were connected to Monsanto and other food producers.  What effect does the narrator think this has had on regulation of food production?
...
One of the people who traveled through the revolving door between Monsanto and the government is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the decision allowing Monsanto to patent GMOs.

Justice Thomas is just one government official.  The image at the top that I used to start this entry lists more.  Here is another that adds to the list.


In addition to Justice Thomas, the others I recall being mentioned are Margaret Miller, Mickey Kantor, Linda Fisher, Michael Taylor, and Donald Rumsfeld.  Of all of them, the one that struck me as most emblematic of the revolving door between government and industry was Michael Taylor.


The man has made gone through the revolving door four times, going all the way around twice!

By the way, the revolving door continues to turn, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported yesterday Trump taps ex-Monsanto executive to lead wildlife agency.

President Donald Trump says he is nominating a former executive at agribusiness giant Monsanto to head the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Aurelia Skipwith of Indiana is currently deputy assistant Interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks.

A biologist and lawyer, Skipwith spent more than six years at Monsanto and has worked at the Agriculture Department and U.S. Agency for International Development.

At least Skipwith isn't going to be overseeing regulation of our food.  With that, Happy Food Day!

For Food Day, a guide to entries with answers to 'Food, Inc.'

A Happy Food Day to my readers!  To celebrate the occasion, which is also my wedding anniversary, I revisit my motivation for writing Cracked on the Food Pyramid--"I'm showing Food, Inc. to my students this week."  I continued by writing "I'll have more to say about the movie on Monday," which elicited the following comment from Infidel753.

I'll be looking forward to that. It figures the official recommendations about food would reflect lobbying and food-industry profits more than actual nutrition.

My response was brief.

Thanks for your anticipation. It means I'll be sure to have something interesting to say. And, yes, it figures.

Before I try to fulfill that promise, I'm listing what I've already covered about the movie to produce a guide to entries with answers, much as I've done for "The End of Suburbia" and "An Inconvenient Truth."  That may not be an interesting thing to do for Infidel753, but it will certainly be helpful to my students.

• On Thanksgiving eve, I present "Food, Inc.": Worksheet and answers to question 30.
• Monsanto wins gene patent case: Answers to questions 26 and 27.
• Comments to CNN and Russia Today cover the March Against Monsanto: More answers to question 27.
• CoDominion news from Reuters and Al Jazeera: Questions 21 and 22 about Smithfield, the world's largest producer and processor of pork, which has been sold to a Chinese firm, but no answers.
• Corn questions from 'Food, Inc.' worksheet: Answers to questions 7-11, 13, 16, and 23.  This is one of two blog entries I copy and pass out to my students.
• "We eat a lot of oil": Answer to question 28, along with answers to questions 14-16 from "The End of Suburbia."  This is the other blog entry I pass out to my students.
• John Oliver and 'Food, Inc.' explain chicken farming: Answers to questions 4-6 and 12.  This is one I should give to my students!

It looks like I have more answers available to my students on my blog than I thought!  Even so, there is still room for one more answer today.


2. For which agricultural products is McDonalds the largest or one of the largest customers?  List at least five.

The slide above listed four.  CBC has a more complete list in How McDonald's has shaped the food biz.

With 36,000 restaurants in 119 countries serving 69 million customers a day, it's an accepted fact that McDonald's holds enormous sway over consumers' eating habits, food production and prices.

McDonald's is now the biggest purchaser in the world of beef, pork, potatoes, lettuce and tomatoes, and the second-biggest buyer of chicken, after KFC.

When it decided to add apple slices to Happy Meals a few years ago, the company quickly became the biggest buyer of the shiny red fruit in the United States.

Analysts expect the chain to soon become a power in kale as well, if its tests with the leafy vegetable – reportedly under way in Canada – are successful.

Indeed, every tweak to its menu has a butterfly effect, sending ripples that reverberate all the way to the dinner table, from the price of your meal to how it gets to your plate.

When my students ask about how McDonalds became a major purchaser of apples, I usually cite their apple pies.  Now I'll be sure to add apple slices in Happy Meals to the explanation.  Welcome to blogging as professional development!

Jimmy Kimmel on GMOs: Student Sustainability Video Festival 58

It's entertainment Sunday, so I have an entertainment-themed video for today: Jimmy Kimmel asking What's a GMO?

Critics of genetically modified organisms or GMOs claim that they pose health risks to the public. Jimmy is always interested in people who have strong opinions, so we sent a crew to one of our local farmers markets to ask people why they avoid GMOs and, more specifically, what the letters GMO stand for.

Normally, I'm critical of GMOs, but that's because of Monsanto's business practices, not the science.  As for the people Kimmel interviewed, I'm not sure I want them on my side of the argument.

Stay tuned for more installments.

The Archdruid picked a good year to be down on science

One of Greer's overarching themes for the past year has been that technological and scientific progress has become a secular religion and that the failure of actual technological progress to live up to expectations is causing people to lose faith.  He called that faith Technological Superstitions and told people they should give A Pink Slip for the Progress Fairy.*  In particular, he thinks that science as currently practiced is a doomed cultural project, a thesis he stated explicitly in The Suicide of Science and elaborated upon in Dark Age America: The Sharp Edge of the Shell.  He had pointed things to say about the future of science in both.  In "The Suicide of Science," he made the following forecast:

What Oswald Spengler called the Second Religiosity, the resurgence of religion in the declining years of a culture, could have taken many forms in the historical trajectory of industrial society; at this point I think it's all too likely to contain a very large dollop of hostility toward science and complex technology.

He expanded on the form that rejection would take in "Dark Age America: The Sharp Edge of the Shell."

Modern science is extremely vulnerable to such a turn of events. There was a time when the benefits of scientific research and technological development routinely reached the poor as well as the privileged, but that time has long since passed; these days, the benefits of research and development move up the social ladder, while the costs and negative consequences move down. Nearly all the jobs eliminated by automation, globalization, and the computer revolution, for example, used to hire from the bottom end of the job market. In the same way, changes in US health care in recent decades have benefited the privileged while subjecting most others to substandard care at prices so high that medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US today.

It’s all very well for the promoters of progress to gabble on about science as the key to humanity’s destiny; the poor know that the destiny thus marketed isn’t for them.  To the poor, progress means fewer jobs with lower pay and worse conditions, more surveillance and impersonal violence carried out by governments that show less and less interest in paying even lip service to the concept of civil rights, a rising tide of illnesses caused by environmental degradation and industrial effluents, and glimpses from afar of an endless stream of lavishly advertised tech-derived trinkets, perks and privileges that they will never have. Between the poor and any appreciation for modern science stands a wall made of failed schools, defunded libraries, denied opportunities, and the systematic use of science and technology to benefit other people at their expense. Such a wall, it probably bears noting, makes a good surface against which to sharpen oyster shells.

"A wall made of failed schools, defunded libraries, denied opportunities, and the systematic use of science and technology to benefit other people at their expense"--those look like things I've been worried about since the very beginning of this blog.  At least Greer and I agree on a common set of perils to civilization.

That written, it turns out that the year coming to a close was a good year for Greer to pick the topic of loss of faith in science.  While it had its scientific triumphs, it also had its very public failures, such as the two I described in A bad week for private space.  USA Today, as seen in the Guam Pacific Daily News went so far as to declare Science took a step back in 2014.

In 2012, scientists finally cornered the elusive Higgs particle, essential to explaining the most fundamental forces of nature. In 2013, we learned the Voyager spacecraft had reached the space between stars. As for 2014 - well, some years are best forgotten.

The year now winding down has seen its share of trailblazing scientific developments. But it has also had more than its fair share of disappointments and goofs, led by the retraction of two ballyhooed stem-cell papers from the top journal Nature and backtracking on a spectacular astrophysics finding announced at a press conference in March.

Even the technologically boosterish Wired acknowledged the public embarassments in The Best and Worst in a Tumultuous Year for Science.

It’s been a roller-coaster year for science. It started with what looked like a remarkable breakthrough in stem cell science, which was soon followed by a stunning announcement by cosmologists: the first detection of gravitational waves, direct evidence for a popular theory of how the universe began. But as the year draws to a close, the first of these discoveries has been thoroughly discredited, and the second appears to be on the ropes.

That’s not to say it was all bad. In October, scientists landed a spacecraft on a comet for the first time ever. And the year saw other interesting breakthroughs in everything from synthetic biology to anthropology. Here are our picks for the best and worst of science in 2014. If nothing else, they remind us that while science often moves in fits and starts, and sometimes stumbles, it keeps pushing forward.

I'll get to science's successes in a later entry.  For now, follow over the jump for more examples of the past year's goofs, failures, and downright frauds in science.

Nourish: Global food shortage by 2050

For today's entry on this month's theme, I return to this blog's original purpose of examining possible causes of civilizational collapse and what can be done to prevent or delay them.  I begin with Texas A&M reporting on April 18, 2014 (updated April 23, 2014) that Food shortages could be most critical world issue by mid-century.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The world is less than 40 years away from a food shortage that will have serious implications for people and governments, according to a top scientist at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“For the first time in human history, food production will be limited on a global scale by the availability of land, water and energy,” said Dr. Fred Davies, senior science adviser for the agency’s bureau of food security. “Food issues could become as politically destabilizing by 2050 as energy issues are today.”
...
He said the world population will increase 30 percent to 9 billion people by mid-century. That would call for a 70 percent increase in food to meet demand.

“But resource limitations will constrain global food systems,” Davies added. “The increases currently projected for crop production from biotechnology, genetics, agronomics and horticulture will not be sufficient to meet food demand.”

That's the problem.  The next week on April 21, 2014, Texas A&M followed up with a possible solution in President Obama supports biotechnology in letter to Dr. Norman Borlaug’s granddaughter.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Barack Obama, in a recent letter to Julie Borlaug, granddaughter of the late Dr. Norman Borlaug, “father of the Green Revolution,” showed his strong support for continuing Borlaug’s legacy of using of scientific innovation, especially biotechnology, in the fight against global hunger.

Julie Borlaug is external relations director of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M University. The institute is named after her grandfather, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Congressional Gold Medal recipient, who was also a distinguished professor of international agriculture at Texas A&M. Borlaug passed away in 2009 at the age of 95.

The President’s letter cited Borlaug’s advances in agriculture as a “model of the American spirit of innovation and ingenuity” and stated that his “support of investment in education and continued research in the biotechnology field are inspirational.”

“I am pleased to join in celebrating the life of your grandfather, Dr. Norman Borlaug,” Obama wrote. “With unwavering commitment to feeding the hungry, leaders like your grandfather profoundly changed the way we develop food products that are accessible to the world’s increasing population.”

In case Borlaug's name looks familiar, I wrote about him in Norman Borlag statue in U.S. Capitol.  I should correct the spelling, but the link would remain misspelled.  As I tell my students, his work was responsible for feeding billions of people.  We're going to need another Borlaug to avoid global famine this century.

Just a reminder about biotechnology, despite all the nasty things I write and repeat about Monsanto, I have no problem with biotechnology properly handled.  I just dislike the way that Monsanto uses the legal system to enforce their business model.  Unfortunately, the coming crisis in food will likely strike Monsanto as a great business opportunity.  Sigh.

Stories I tell my students from the third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News

My teaching has informed my blogging throughout the past three years and vice versa, but according to the top twenty entries of the past year compared to the year before, the interaction between the two seems to be having more of an influence.  First, Student worksheets for the second and third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News listed assignments I have written for films I show my classes.  Now, a series of entries from the past year contain stories I tell to my students as well as items I have later incorporated into my lectures.

First among these is the eleventh most read entry of the third year of the blog, Science confirms my opinion of life in the country posted on August 3, 2013, with 338 page views.  This is another entry that gained its readers through my promoting it at Kunstler's blog.

I have a reply of sorts to last week’s passage about the “the millions of unemployed Ford F-110 owners drinking themselves into an incipient political fury,” who are presumably living in the country. I lived in rural and exurban ares for eleven years and I have more harrowing tales of criminality and depravity from life in the country than all the years I lived in the city (this includes the inner suburbs of Detroit as well as Los Angeles). I had enough of the country and moved back into the city three years ago. I feel much safer.

Last week, science confirmed my impressions by showing that people are less likely to die of violence of all kinds in urban than in rural areas. I have a video summarizing that research as well as my first hand tales of life in the country at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.

As I wrote in the original entry, which was itself a quote from my LiveJournal:

When I tell my students from Detroit about all that, they're appalled. All of it as as bad as anything that happens there, and some of it is worse.

Four years after first writing that, my students are still amazed, and I still feel safer four miles away from Detroit than I did in rural Lenawee County and exurban Washtenaw County.  As for the point of the story, it's not that the city is better than you think while the country is worse, although that comes across to my students, it's that even the worst neighbors can be useful at times--and I had some terrible neighbors out in the country.

Follow over the jump for more top entries of stories I tell my students.

Agricultural biotechnology from Texas A&M

In addition to all the medical uses of DNA technology I included in Tongue drives for wheelchairs and other health research news, there were two stories about agricultural biotechnology from Texas A&M University that also made their way into Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Comet ISON at perihelion).  Follow over the jump for two examples of how A&M lives up to its name of the Aggies while being a 21st Century technological institute.

A Thanksgiving meal from space and other food news

Happy Thanksgiving!  To celebrate the day, I'm posting the food news I've saved up, just as I did last year by posting all the food news I've collected since Food Day.  I begin with Space.com reporting on Thanksgiving in Space: Astronauts Share Their Cosmic Menu | Video.

On the ISS, NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins send down their best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving and their crewmates show off the station's galley where they will be preparing and enjoying a Thanksgiving meal.

Follow over the jump for more food news.

Colorado and Washington voting on hemp and GMOs

PBS NewHour reports on initiatives I've missed so far in States' voters weigh GMO labeling, marijuana tax measure.

Gwen Ifill gets an update on two states putting critical initiatives on the ballot Tuesday. Enrique Cerna of KCTS in Seattle offers insight on a Washington measure that would require the labeling of GMO foods. Megan Verlee of Colorado Public Radio talks about two tax initiatives there, one concerning recreational marijuana.

I've covered Colorado's legalization of marijuana in Meanwhile, at the bottom of the ballot, so I won't write about it more here today.  However, I do have more to say about GMOs, or rather, Rutgers University does.

Most Americans Pay Little Attention to Genetically Modified Foods, Survey Says
Lots of money, not much public awareness, in GM food debate
Friday, November 1, 2013

A national survey shows that most Americans pay little attention to the debate over genetically modified foods, despite extensive media coverage of the issue.

The survey, released by researchers at Rutgers University, found that more than half (53 percent) say they know very little or nothing at all about genetically modified (GM) foods, and one in four (25 percent) say they have never heard of them. Even with the media attention resulting from recent ballot initiatives in California (Proposition 37) and Washington State (Initiative 522) and legislative actions in at least 20 other states that would require labeling of GM foods, the Rutgers study found that only about a quarter (26 percent) of Americans realize that current regulations do not require GM products to be labeled.

“Americans do care about what’s in their food, and they do read labels,” said William Hallman, professor of human ecology in Rutgers’ School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, and lead author of the study. “Eighty-two percent of the respondents told us they sometimes or frequently or always read food labels. But determining what labeling information they value is not a straightforward task. Whether consumers say they want GM food labels depends on how you ask the question, so we asked about it in several ways.”

Looks like the advocates of GMO labeling have a lot of work to do.  In the meantime, the results of the initiative in Washington should be interesting no matter how the vote turns out.

I also covered marriage equality in Meanwhile, at the bottom of the ballot.  There's a related issue on the ballot here in Royal Oak, Proposal A, the approval of the city's Human Rights Ordinance.  I have stories about the campaigns for and against that measure, but I'll save them until after I vote (yes, of course).  See you then!

"Food, Inc." book worksheet for Food Day

Happy Food Day!  I already started observing today with Health news for the week of Food Day, but I'm far from done with the event.  Today, I'm going to continue a project that began with Food Fight! Thoughts on liberalism and conservatism inspired by the Preface to Food, Inc. and resumed with On Thanksgiving eve, I present "Food, Inc."  Follow over the jump for the extra credit worksheet my students can complete in addition to the one for the film.  This one accompanies the first part of Chapter 4 of the Food, Inc. book, "Food, Science, and the Challenge of World Hunger--Who Will Control the Future?" by Peter Pringle, the author of the other book titled Food, Inc., Food, Inc., From Mendel to Monsanto.

CNN and Russia Today cover the March Against Monsanto

It looks like I'm not done with the March against Monsanto.  For starters, commenter Nebris retweeted Wizard Gynoid's tweet about CNN's lack of coverage of the event on Saturday.

I guess it should not be surprising that @CNN has no mention of the March Against Monsanto events currently going on all over the world.

Today, CNN finally got around to posting a video of the event on its YouTube channel.

Millions protest genetically modified food

Jake Tapper reports on the controversy that surrounds GMOs and one of the companies that makes them.

Better late than never and with complete statistics--two million protesters in 436 cities in 46 countries.  That partially makes up for not reporting about the event on Saturday, when it was breaking news.  As it is, it's enough for me to add a link to the video on the PowerPoint slide for environmental science that describes the reaction to GMOs as mixed, with mass acceptance on one hand and protests on the other.  This video will make the point far better than the photo of Greenpeace street theater against Frankenfood I have now, which I show below.


Nebris also reposted Wizard Gynoid's tweet to his Facebook timeline, where I responded "Nah, you'll have to watch Russia Today."  Sure enough, RT America, which I used as my primary source for Monsanto wins gene patent case, has been on Monsanto's case for years and hyped Saturday's protest the day before.  They posted a video report about the protest in Los Angeles an hour ahead of CNN.

Southern Californians keep up fight against GMO

A thousand people took over the streets of Los Angeles Saturday to March against Monsanto. The subject of genetically engineered food is especially important in California, where much of the world's fruits and vegetables are grown.

Finally, there is the other side, which the CNN report gave time to and which Bryan Walsh at Time Magazine takes in Modifying the Endless Debate Over Genetically Modified Crops

I’ll admit—I’ve never quite understood the obsession surrounding genetically modified (GM) crops. To environmentalist opponents, GM foods are simply evil, an understudied, possibly harmful tool used by big agribusiness to control global seed markets and crush local farmers. They argue that GM foods have never delivered on their supposed promise, that money spent on GM crops would be better funneled to organic farming and that consumers should be protected with warning labels on any products that contain genetically modified ingredients. To supporters, GM crops are a key part of the effort to sustainably provide food to meet a global population that is growing by the billions. But more than that, supporters see the knee-jerk GM opposition of many environmentalists as fundamentally anti-science, no different than the deniers on the other side of the political spectrum who question the basics of man-made climate change.

For both sides, GM foods seem to act as a symbol: you’re pro-agribusiness or anti-science. But science is exactly what we need more of when it comes to GM foods, which is why I was happy to see the venerable journal Nature devote a special series of articles to the GM food controversy. You can download most of them for free here, and they’re well worth reading. The upshot: while GM crops haven’t yet realized their initial promise and have been dominated by agribusiness, there is reason to continue to use and develop them to help meet the enormous challenge of sustainably feeding a growing planet.

That doesn’t mean GM crops are perfect, or a one sizes fits all solution to global agriculture woes. Nature points out that most of the benefit of GM technology so far has indeed gone to big agribusiness, much of it in the form of herbicide-resistant crops like Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans or cotton.

My take is that the scientific case against GMOs exists, but it's fairly weak.  On the other hand, the social and economic case against their being used by agribusiness to monopolize food is much stronger.

Stay tuned, as this is a story I've been following for years, even if the first time I mentioned Monsanto on this blog was in Food Day News from Overnight News Digest on Daily Kos, where I mention the research that produced the tumor-ridden mice shown in the CNN video.

ETA:  There is another part to CNN's coverage that I missed the first time.

Despite FDA approval, many distrustful of GMOs

New York Times investigative reporter Michael Moore says there are, as yet, no studies linking GMO to health problems.

As I wrote, CNN is making sure to get the other side, even when they have on a reporter who is critical of the food system.

March against Monsanto

Yesterday was a global "March against Monsanto," which was planned well in advance of Monsanto winning their gene patent case.  Al Jazeera English on YouTube has the global overview, pun fully intended, in Seeds of doubt prompt global anti-Monsanto protests.

Tens of thousands of people across the globe spent the day marching against biotechnology firm Monsanto.Protesters in more than 250 cities joined the co-ordinated marches. They say genetically-modified seeds sold by Monsanto have dire implications for the health of humans and animals alike. But Monsanto says its products are safe and help farmers produce more food. Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman reports.

For local coverage of the protests in Michigan, WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids had Protests against Monsanto all over USA.

Marches and rallies against seed giant Monsanto were held across the U.S. and in dozens of other countries Saturday.

" March Against Monsanto " protesters say they want to call attention to the dangers posed by genetically modified food and the food giants that produce it. Marches are planned for more than 250 cities around the globe, according to organizers.

Hundreds of protesters showed up to voice their concerns at rallies in Grand Rapids at Ah-Nab-Awen Park
and in Kalamazoo.

My former house guest John Henry chimed in advance of the protest on Wednesday with Frankenfood: The REAL TRUTH About GMOs, Monsanto, and You.

With so much hype and paranoia about GMOs, Monsanto, etc., how do we sort the facts from the fantasies? JH is here to help out with an overview of the issues and a link to more quality resources.

To read the references for the video, they're at LowGenius.net.

Monsanto wins gene patent case

Russia Today has two video clips on the unanimous decision in favor of Monsanto enforcing its patent on RoundUp-Ready soybeans.

First, Monsanto wins landmark case in Supreme Court gives the overview.

On Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the bio-tech giant Monsanto. In the case, Indiana farmer Vernon Bowman was being accused of seed infringement after he allegedly planted soybean seed without the company's permission. RT's Liz Wahl brings us more on the landmark case and how the 75 year-old man violated Monsanto's patent.

I had no idea about the inflation in seed prices until I watched this video.

Next, RT America offers one of its trademark opinion and analysis pieces with inflammatory titles in Monsanto taking over America's agriculture: New victory in Supreme Court.

A battle between Monsanto and an Indiana farmer ended on Monday after the Supreme Court found Vernon Bowman guilty of patent infringement. The 75-year-old farmer is expected to pay approximately $85,000 in damages. Many see this as a major blow against smaller farmers across the country and fear this ruling can threaten the livelihood of thousands of farmers. Patent attorney Mark Walters, who represented the defendant, joins us to discuss the details of the case and what this means for America's agriculture future.

This case is important because it shows that Monsanto will continue to be as dominant in the nation's food supply as Microsoft was in PC operating systems, as characterized in the movie "Food, Inc."  That makes this case relevant to my class, especially the following questions from the worksheet I included in On Thanksgiving eve, I present "Food, Inc."

26. What has Monsanto done to promote use of their soybeans and stop seed saving?  List at least three examples.


27. List at least five government officials who were connected to Monsanto and other food producers.  What effect does the narrator think this has had on regulation of food production?

Part of the answer to 26 is sue people who violate Monsanto's patents.  One of the people who traveled through the revolving door between Monsanto and the government is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the decision allowing Monsanto to patent GMOs.  It looks like the rest of the court went along with his precedent.

This won't be the only Supreme Court case involving biotechnology.  Discovery News on YouTube discusses another in Gene Patents: 5 Things You Should Know.

The debate over whether we can patent genes has come to a head with the US Supreme Court weighing in on two human genes linked to cancer. Laci has all the details on what you need to know about this colossal decision and the impact it could have on medicine.

Based on the Monsanto decision, I expect the court to rule in favor of patenting human genes, too.  Either way, it's more evidence that we live in science fiction times.

On Thanksgiving eve, I present "Food, Inc."

I left the following program note over at Kunstler's blog Monday.

As for what the rest of the week brings, that's already programmed in. Just after Midnight tonight, I mark yet another week of showing my class "The End of Suburbia" featuring our host with a post in which I leave answers for my students as links and Easter Eggs while discussing "Dispatches from the FEMA camps" by Metro Detroit's own Jeff Wattrick, who writes for Wonkette. Wednesday and Thursday, I have food posts planned for Thanksgiving. On Black Friday, I have Buy Nothing Day and Boycott Walmart combined. The week ends with Small Business Saturday, which promotes the kinds of local retail outlets needed for a resilient, post-peak-oil future.

I already took care of the first promised entry with Sustainability through the looking glass with Jeff Wattrick of Wonkette. It's time to continue in the same spirit with another post featuring a worksheet my students fill out for a movie. In keeping with the food theme, it's for Food, Inc., the book of which I blogged about in Food Fight! Thoughts on liberalism and conservatism inspired by the Preface to Food, Inc.*

As I wrote in Showing my students "End of Suburbia" again tonight:

Over the fold is the worksheet I've been using for the past three years. See how many of my questions about the movie you can answer.

Food Day News from Overnight News Digest on Daily Kos

Before the day expires here in North America, I want to wish all my readers a (belated in the Eastern Time Zone) Happy Food Day! As I wrote last year, there are worse days my wife and I can share our anniversary with. Speaking of which, Narb suggested last year that I should take her out to dinner. Thank you, Narb; I already have.

To celebrate the day more, join me over the jump for food news from campuses in the campaign trail (including some from commercial sources) that I've included in the past three months' Overnight News Digest: Science Saturdays. As you will see, I have quite a lot stored up, just waiting for an excuse to post it.