Running Dry

“Running Dry” is a public education project to raise awareness of the global water crisis. The other day I heard Jim Thebaut speak particularly about the pressing issue of limited water supply in the American Southwest and the effect it has on its native peoples. Thebaut states that through the combination of our predecessors’ exploitation, population surges and our continuing disregard for the environment, we’ve systematically destroyed the natural ecology of the American Southwest.
The water crisis may not be apparent to the average American, because we are so used to waking up every morning to take long showers, use unlimited tap water, wash our cars, and water our lawns among other activities. For this we must credit water utility companies that haven’t let us down by privatizing water. For this reason, it’s difficult for most Americans to wrap their head around the idea that there is a full blown water crisis in the United States. We are steadily losing water supply and quality of water due to pesticides and pollution.
Jim Thebaut, the director and producer of this documentary feels that the root of the problem goes back to many years ago when the West was taken from the natives and we built dams and infrastructure that overwhelmed the environment. Unfortunately our “manifest destined” predecessors didn’t consider living in the environment and the native people that still reside there have to live with the consequences of their irresponsible behavior. The Colorado River is depleted due to climate changes and overuse and it is not being replenished. Other factors include the lack of ground water and water pulse in the United States. This is a cold reality but with planning and cooperation it can be reversed. Thebaut is trying to spread the word to increase public interest and action.
In his documentary he highlights a decision made 100 years ago in Winter v. United States. The 1908 Supreme Court decision states that all reservations including Indian reservations are entitled to clean water provided by the government. Thus far, states have negotiated how to provide water and infrastructure but unfortunately there have only been paper decisions. Although the decision marks its centennial, there is still the issue of financing the building of infrastructure to provide reservations with clean water and it’s not a priority for local government.
The Navajo have to walk for hours in order to get decent water, since the nearby water supply has been contaminated by runoff from mines. As a people that have been self-sufficient for hundreds of years they now find themselves dependent because they are unable to harvest corn- a staple in their diet. “Running Dry” is a documentary that calls for action to stop the evolving world water crisis. Is informs the public on how they can act to press for stronger legislation regarding the American Southwest water issues. For more information visit http://www.runningdry.org/

Post 9/11 America: A Numb Truth

In Post 9-11 America, one would imagine security surrounding nuclear material to be at an all time high. One would also imagine the public’s concerns to be at the same level, but that just is not the case. Only seven years have passed since terrorism has hit American soil, and in my opinion the general public is at ease, in the sense that we are not so worried of another comparable occurrence in the future.
As destructive as the events of 9/11/01 were, they could not compare to the bombings as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We have experienced terrorism and are not that shaken anymore, so for the public to be seriously concerned about a potential nuclear bombing is not very likely. After all it seems as if centuries have passed since World War II, and it did not even occur in America. We’ve only read about these events, and maybe imagined them as scenes from an action movie. Catastrophes always seem to have a fiction-like air to them as time passes. As concerned as we should be about the threat of nuclear bombs, it just isn’t the reality.
Why is it that as a whole we fail to truly care about the threat of nuclear bombs? It very well could be our psychological way of coping with it. We would rather not think about it and subconsciously hope it doesn’t happen. An opposing psychological view may be that we think it would never happen to us, because as American humans we sometimes like to think we are indestructible. Either way, instead of action we choose only to hope that the Atomic Energy Commission is doing its job and keeping nuclear material out of the wrong hands.
Personally I feel that if the horrible violent acts of the past have not opened our eyes to the possible threats, only a direct attack would. Societies have endured the effects of atomic bombs and have rebuilt. The destruction of an event like this would be unimaginable, and it is a shame that as a whole we neglect to act in a way so that an atomic bombing would be far less likely to happen. Whether its denial, arrogance or indifference, it is unfortunate that the threat is not as real to us as it should be.

The Dangers of Vaccines: A Brief Overview of Kevin Trudeau's Research

I highly recommend reading health books by Kevin Trudeau such as “Natural Cures They Don’t Want You to Know About” and “More Natural Cures Revealed”. There is so much useful information within the text, as well as interesting viewpoints and suppressed information regarding health issues. An aspect of his books that is particularly noteworthy is his research on the dangers of vaccines.
According to Trudeau, although vaccines are theoretically meant to prevent disease, the sad truth of the matter is that these drugs do the exact opposite. Through nature, the human body is an amazing machine built to protect and heal itself. You may be surprised to hear that many common ailments can be reversed using 100% natural remedies. You may then ask yourself, “But if there are natural cures, why don’t we hear about them?” The simple fact is that natural remedies are not profitable to drug companies. Most of these natural substances cannot be patented, and they are inexpensive to begin with. But don’t drug companies want to find cures? Well, think of this way. If you were a car mechanic, would you want someone to invent an indestructible car that never needs maintenance, and on top of that is more affordable than all other cars? Of course not, because you would be put out of business. As far as you’re concerned, you want people’s cars to need repair as often as possible. That is what is profitable to you, the mechanic.
The following are interesting quotes and statistics gathered by Kevin Trudeau in his book “Natural Cures they Don’t Want You to Know About”:
• In 1871-72, England, with 98% of the population aged between 2 and 50 vaccinated against smallpox, it experienced its worse ever smallpox outbreak with 45,000 deaths. During the same period in Germany, with a vaccination ratio of 96%, there were over 125,000 deaths for smallpox.
• (The Hawden Documents.)
• In Germany, compulsory mass vaccination against diphtheria commenced in 1940 and by 1945 diphtheria cases were up from 40,000 to 250,000
• (Don’t Get Stuck!, Hannah Allen.)
• In the USA in 1960, two virologists discovered that both polio vaccines were contaminated with the SV 40 virus which causes cancer in animals as well as changes in human cell tissue cultures. Millions of children had been injected with these vaccines.
• (Medical Journal of Australia, March 17, 1973, p.555.)
• In 1967, Ghana was declared measles-free by the World-Health Organization after 96% of its population was vaccinated. In 1972, Ghana experienced one of its worse measles outbreaks with its highest ever mortality rate.
• (Dr. H. Albonico, MMR Vaccine Campaign in Switzerland, March 1990.)
• In the UK between 1970 and 1990, over 200,000 cases of whooping cough occurred in fully vaccinated children.
• (Community Disease Surveillance Centre, UK.)
• In the 1970s a tuberculosis vaccine trial in India involving 260,000 people revealed that more cases of TB occurred in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated.
• (The Lancet, January 12, 1980, p.73)
• In 1977, Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the first polio vaccine, testified along with other scientists that mass inoculation against polio was the cause of most polio cases through the USA since 1961.
• (Science, April 4, 1977, “Abstracts”.)
• In 1978, a survey of 30 states in the U.S. revealed that more than half of the children who contracted measles had been adequately vaccinated.
• (The People’s Doctor, Dr. R. Mendelsohn)
• In 1979, Sweden abandoned the whooping cough vaccine due to its ineffectiveness. Out of 4,140 cases in 1978, it was found that 84% had been vaccinated 3 times!
• (British Medical Journal 283: 696-97,1981)
• The February 1981 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 90% of obstetricians and 66% of pediatricians refused to take the rubella vaccine.
• In the USA, the cost of a single DPT shot has risen from 11 cents in 1982 to $11.40 in 1987. The manufacturers of the vaccine were putting aside $8.00 per shot to cover legal costs and damages they were paying out to parents of brain-damaged children who died after vaccination.
• (The Vine, no.7, January 1994, Nambur, Qid)
• In Oman between 1988 and 1989, a polio outbreak occurred amongst thousands of fully vaccinated children. The region with the highest attack rate had the highest vaccine coverage. The region with the lowest attack rate had the lowest vaccine coverage.
• (The Lancet, September 21, 1991.)
• In 1990, a UK survey involving 598 doctors revealed that over 50% of them refused to have the hepatitis B vaccine despite belonging to the high risk group urged to be vaccinated.
• (British Medical Journal, January 27,1990)
• In 1990, the Journal of American Medical Association had an article on measles which stated “Although more than 95% of school-aged children in the US are vaccinated against measles, large measles outbreaks continue to occur among previously vaccinated children.”
• On November 2,2000, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AASP) announced that its members voted at their 57th annual meeting in St. Louis to pass a resolution calling for an end to mandatory childhood vaccines. The resolution passed without a single “no” vote.
• (Report by Michael Devitt.)

Particle Beam Therapy: An Alternative Cancer Treatment

I recently heard about an alternative treatment for some types of cancer called particle beam therapy. The information that I found interested me, because until then I didn’t know there was a mainstream alternative to chemotherapy and invasive surgical removal of a tumor. Another reason it was of particular interest to me is because cancer is very prevalent in my family and I actually have a non-malignant tumor myself. The following is information I’ve gathered about particle beam therapy from various sources.
Particle beam therapy utilizes subatomic particles such as protons and heavy ions. These subatomic particles are beamed at malignant tumors to destroy them while doing relatively little damage to the surrounding tissue. A particle beam is an accelerated stream of charged subatomic particles.
Subatomic particles are accelerated using systems such as large linear accelerators, and synchrotrons. These systems increase the energy of subatomic particles in order to give them enough power to penetrate a tumor and damage its DNA. Using particle accelerators, the subatomic particles almost reach the speed of light.
Particle Beam Therapy works by aiming energetic ionizing particles onto the target tumors. These particles damage the DNA of cells and thus ultimately cause their death. Because of their high rate of division, and their reduced ability to repair damaged DNA, cancerous cells are particularly vulnerable to this attack on their DNA.
Particle beam therapy differs from conventional radiation therapy to kill tumors because it does relatively little or no damage to the surrounding healthy tissue. Radiation therapy uses x-rays and gamma rays which are harmful to humans.
Protons deposit most of their radiation energy in what is known as the Bragg peak, which occurs at the point of greatest penetration of the protons in tissue. The exact depth to which protons penetrate, and at which the Bragg peak occurs, is dependent on the energy of the proton beam. This energy can be very precisely controlled to place the Bragg peak within a tumor or other tissues that are targeted to receive the radiation dose. Because the protons are absorbed at this point, normal tissues beyond the target receive very little or no radiation.
There are many benefits associated with particle beam therapy. They include reduced exposure of radiation to vital organs, high level of accuracy when the particle beam is transmitted, and it can penetrate deep into the body to reach deep lying tumors.
It is currently being used to treat ocular cancer, prostate cancer, and cancers of the head and neck which were previously difficult to treat with radiation. An estimated 44,000 patients have been successfully treated using particle beam therapy.
Currently, heavy ion therapy is only available for clinical use in Japan and Germany. Proton Therapy is currently being performed in six different locations in the United States. Plans for the United States’ first combined particle therapy center (proton and heavy ion) are in development. The state-of-the-art treatment center will be situated on the 230 acre California campus of Touro University.

The Collision of Torture and Democracy

After reading "Torture and Democracy" by Darius Rejali I've been better informed about a history of disguised torture techniques used throughout the past 200 years. The book takes an in depth look at torture and analyzes behaviors, trends and traditions that have brought torture to where we see it today. It is in essence an encyclopedia of torture.Rejali explains that torture is an ancient craft passed down from teacher to apprentice. His book has been described as a field manual on torture, being the first of its kind. The key conclusion of this book is that when human rights abuses are internationally monitored it doesn’t stop torture, however, it forces torturers to better conceal their methods. This means that they use techniques that don't show as much evidence of physical abuse.
A key theme throughout his book is that it isn't hard for governments to stop torture, and adhering to human rights. International monitoring of torture forces governments to come up with 'cleaner' forms of torture so that they appear compliant to legal norms but they are in essence being hypocrites. Another beneficial aspect of clean techniques is that it makes victims' testimony less credible due to the lack of physical evidence.
A common misconception is that torture has not been prevalent in democratic states, but the reality is that 'clean' forms of torture have developed in democracies. Unfortunately they have become common over time. For example, electro-torture has consistently doubled every decade since 1960. Although water boarding derived from the Spanish Inquisition, it symbolizes the preference of less bloody forms of torture since the Catholic priests deviated from blood shedding methods. Another example of blood free torture, took place during the Atlantic Slave Trade when marks on slaves reduced their resale value.
Rejali expresses that torture is much like a craft in which craftsmen share their techniques. Torture techniques are mainly passed down through tradition being underground practices, not being mainstream knowledge. Two main traditions described in the book are the French and Anglo-Saxon. The French tradition mainly consists of electricity and water as commonly seen in movies. The Anglo-Saxon tradition focuses more on stress techniques including sleep deprivation, forced sitting or standing, exhaustion, and banned military-like punishments. Torture has been institutionalized and is wide scale, and seen in many countries. He stresses that ordinary people pass traditions on such as fraternity hazing, schools, and the military. Therefore, it is a fight against all dark places in society, not only the government in particular.

The Search

"She desperately flipped through the pages to try and find the meaning. It had to be in between the lines somewhere, but it was as ambiguous as ever."

Five Years Too Long

As the fifth year anniversary of the United States' occupation of Iraq passes, we reflect on a war that was supposed to be short, supposed to cost fifty million dollars, and supposed to have minimal bloodshed. Instead we reflect on a dragged out war that has cost us between 1 and 3 trillion dollars, and far too many human lives for questionable intentions. The United States' failing economy is most often associatd with subprime mortgages, but the war has contributed greatly to this failure in the same way that the Soviet War in Afghanistan led to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Today, Thursday March 20, at 2:00 pm there will be the Students for a Democratic Society anti-war rally outside Hunter college 68th & Lexington. My friends and I will attend and hear the opinions of students from all around New York City and hopefully learn more ways to stand up against the war and make a difference. Hopefully there will be a big turn-out but as I have seen in the past, this does not neccesarily guarantee media attention. Either way, we hope for at least one person to be informed about issues concerning the war, and absorb a lot of information that is not accessible through mainstream media.