2. Scientists now say sunlight can prevent cancer
3. Endangered species buswraps/connecting city dwellers with nature, Sept 14
4. 10-week Green Gardener Training Program begins Sept 7
5. Only when we tarry do we touch the holy. Two from Rainer Maria Rilke
6. Now showing: goldenrods
7. Feedback: no birds in Berkeley garden
8. Scientific American selections
9. Kohlrabi - choice vegetable
10. Submit population/ immigration questions for the presidential candidates debate
11. Pretty people still get the best deals in the market, from labor to love
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (1900-1945)
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1. 18-minute talk focused on re-engineered genes in our food supply. It may prove an eye-opener for many
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWXrRftyOMY&feature=email
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2. Scientists now admit sunlight can prevent skin cancer
( By Tara Green – NaturalNews) Since the 1980s, physicians and cancer groups have regularly warned the public against the potential health dangers of direct sunlight on skin. As a result, many people have stayed out of the sunlight completely, covered their limbs even in warm weather or slathered themselves with UV protection products, all in the interest of lowering their risk of melanomas.
However, more recent findings indicate that this kind of nearly vampiric avoidance of the sun may not benefit your cancer odds after all.
A 2009 study by a group of Leeds University researchers found that higher levels of Vitamin D were linked to improved skin cancer survival odds. Other studies have found that Vitamin D has a connection to a strong immune response in the body. In fact, Vitamin D may hasten the death of tumor cells.
Unfortunately, most people have low levels of Vitamin D, leaving them at higher risk for a host of diseases including breast cancer, prostate cancer, bowel cancer, cervical cancer, rickets and osteoporosis.
“It’s common for the general public to have low levels of vitamin D in many countries,” said Professor Julia Newton Bishop of the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine and author of the Leeds study. “Melanoma patients tend to avoid the sun as sunburn is known to increase the risk of melanoma. We use sunshine to make vitamin D in the skin, so melanoma patients’ levels of vitamin D may be especially low.”
Bishop also noted that people can get more Vitamin D through dietary sources such as fatty fish. She points out that balance is key, as extremely high levels of Vitamin D can have a negative effect on health.
The mainstream media continues to run stories every summer warning people against the sun even two years after the Leeds study. While hours of sunbathing may be risky behavior for your long-term health, receiving a moderate amount of sunlight while out gardening or walking is actually as good for you as eating a low-fat diet and engaging in regular exercise. In fact, laying off the sunscreen may help you not only absorb sunshine into your skin to help fight tumors, but also helps you avoid the chemicals in most commercial sun blocking products. Some studies have indicated that these chemicals can actually generate harmful free radicals in the body.
http://wakeup-world.com/2011/06/17/scientists-reverse-stance-on-sun-and-cancer/
(JS: I posted a similar story before, but repetition and reinforcement is needed to change people's minds.
I have previously posted my epiphany regarding vitamin D. It was a chance, but vivid, discovery on my part. That's the best kind for changing one's mind.)
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3. Todd Gilens:
Hi friends. I'll be presenting the buswraps project on a panel with Brent Plater (Wild Equity Institute) and Jessie Raeder (Tuolumne River Trust) at Counterpulse, 1310 Mission St, September 14th at 7:30 pm.
We'll be talking tactics around connecting city-dwellers to natural systems: http://counterpulse.org/category/events/upcoming/
Photo © todd gilens 2011
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4. Regional Water Authority offers the River-Friendly Landscaping, Green Gardener Training Program at a new location. Please act now, limited seats available.
The Green Gardener Training Program is a ten-week series providing high quality training to professionals on how to “garden green.” Attendees will learn landscape principles that can assist in reducing urban runoff, conserving water, and reducing solid waste.
Landscape maintenance staff and landscape contractors are our primary audience but the program is open to any landscape professional interested in green gardening practices.
Class starts on September 7, 2011 at 6:30 pm at American River College, Room 312 Engineering Building, 4700 College Oak Drive, Sacramento, CA 95841. Copies of the registration form may be located at www.BeWaterSmart.info
If you have any questions you may contact Monica Garcia at 916-967-7625 or mgarcia@rwah2o.org.
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5.
And yet, though we strain
against the deadening grip
of daily necessity,
I sense there is this mystery:
All life is being lived.
Who is living it then?
Is it the things themselves,
or something waiting inside them,
like an unplayed melody in a flute?
Is it the winds blowing over the waters?
Is it the branches that signal to each other?
Is it flowers
interweaving their fragrances
or streets, as they wind through time?
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~
(Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)
Sonnets to Orpheus, Part One, XXII
We set the pace.
But this press of time --
take it as a little thing
next to what endures.
All this hurrying
soon will be over.
Only when we tarry
do we touch the holy.
Young ones, don't waste your courage
racing so fast,
flying so high.
See how all things are at rest --
darkness and morning light,
blossom and book.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~
(In Praise of Mortality, translated and edited by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)
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6.
From East Bay Regional Parks Botanical Garden September 2011 newsletter
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=01091d83e4aa193c78a888704&id=86723276d5&e=dc1584429c
Goldenrods
Here it is September, and goldenrods are blooming in our natural areas. Now the hills are dry, and the matrix of weedy grasses that it grows in are long since dead, so it is not a tidy picture such as we might see in wildflower fields in February or March. But seeing is an art that must be cultivated. To begin with, isn't it amazing that a plant can not only stay alive through the long dry summer, but can actually send up a flower spike and produce seed for the next generation--something a plant physiologist will tell you requires a tremendous amount of energy? For humans, seeing it is primarily an aesthetic experience, but if you're a bee or other insect dependent on pollen or nectar, there is not a lot to choose from at this time of year. This is where the Asteraceae (Compositae), or sunflower family, excels. You may also find the coast aster and pearly everlasting growing nearby--both late-flowering composites, or "comps."
How many species of life can you find on this goldenrod (not a California native)?
Click on the photo to confirm your count
(from www.discoverlife.org)
Start with focusing on the plant itself--artists and photographers know this--and be rewarded by the myriad felicities of its design. The shape, texture, and venation of the leaf are distinctive, and a practiced eye can identify a goldenrod by the leaf alone. The golden-yellow flowers are arranged in a spike. The grassland on the east side of Mt. Davidson (in San Francisco) has two kinds of goldenrods in bloom now. The California goldenrod (Solidago californica) is the showier but less common of the two, and it occurs in colonies, arising from a traveling root.
Goldenrods have gotten a bad rap; people think they cause hay fever or other allergic reactions. Allergenic plants are those that are wind-pollinated, such as grasses, ragweed, pines, and oaks. Their pollen grains are individual, not gathered into a clump or ball, in order to maximize the chances of landing on the female organs of another flower of its kind. Wind-pollinated plants do not invest energy in showy petals. Petals are designed to attract the attention of insect pollinators, and when an insect finds the flower, pollen hitches a ride on its hairy legs or body, and a whole bunch of pollen grains want to go along on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They are sticky in order to adhere to each other, and the balls are too big to travel up to the sinuses of humans; for that, the fine individual grains of wind-borne pollen is needed. So discard what you may have been told about goldenrod and, like an insect, just savor its beauty, interest, and utility. --Jake Sigg
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7. Feedback
On Sep 2, 2011, at 6:30 AM, Gray Brechin wrote:
Jake, I've only had time to look very cursorily at the last few Nature Newses. Did anyone respond about my query? The birds have entirely disappeared from my garden now, and I wonder if others have experienced that. There are cats around, but there have always been cats and that did not deter birds. I've never seen anything like this.
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8. Scientific American
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MAGAZINE: The Human Cost of Energy
Fossil fuels exact the biggest toll in terms of lives lost
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=47&ms=MzY5OTQxNDYS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTEwOTYwNTk3S0&mt=1&rt=0
WEB EXCLUSIVES: The Health Care Burden of Fossil Fuels
A special online-only addition to September 2011's Graphic Science
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=48&ms=MzY5OTQxNDYS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTEwOTYwNTk3S0&mt=1&rt=0
EXTINCTION COUNTDOWN: Thylacine Hunted into Extinction for No Reason, Study Reveals
The thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian tiger, has long been a poster child for human-caused extinction
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=64&ms=MzY5OTQxNDYS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTEwOTYwNTk3S0&mt=1&rt=0
CREATOLOGY: Storify: tar sands protests
The reason for this post is out of solidarity for the protestors against the Keystone XL pipeline
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=62&ms=MzY5OTQxNDYS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTEwOTYwNTk3S0&mt=1&rt=0
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9. Kohlrabi
Long time readers of this newsletter know that I went goofy over kohlrabi several years ago. The market where I bought it didn't carry it for a long time and I was forced to scrounge many sources, including farmers markets. Not the same. I usually favor organically-grown produce; however, in the case of kohlrabi I found it is not as flavorful and good textured as the conventionally grown. And not all conventionally grown kohlrabi is as good. Now I know why when I was enthusing about it I would get curious looks from people. They had probably never sampled the good stuff.
I hate to give a plug to detestable supermarkets, all of which are ecological disaster areas. But the best kohlrabi is sold at Mollie Stones, and they have it now, at least for the time being. It is juicy, crisp, and of excellent flavor, and I continue to champion it. JS
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10. Californians for Population Stabilization
Alert! Submit questions on immigration and population for the presidential candidates' debate!
NBC and Politico will co-host a Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, September 7th at 8pm ET/5pm PT, aired on MSNBC and streamed live on Politico.com. CNBC and Telemundo will also broadcast the debate. You can submit questions for the debate via Twitter at http://www.politico.com/2012-election/reagan-republican-debate/
Go to the website and compose a question of your own or select one of our suggestions below to type in as a submission:
1. There are 14 million unemployed Americans. Shouldn’t we hire them instead of bringing in foreign workers?
2. Obama has sued states for trying to stop illegal immigration. Will you take the same approach?
3. Do you endorse mandatory E-Verify legislation so that jobs in the US will go to legal American workers
4. Will you cut the 1.5 million green cards and other work permits to foreign workers each year?
5. Do you favor reducing both legal and illegal immigration so that we can stabilize the US population?
6. We have millions of illegal aliens in this country. Do you promise you will not sign amnesty legislation?
7. Will you do anything to reduce the number of foreign workers allowed in each year, currently 1.5 million?
8. Ten years after 9-1-1, our borders are still not secure. Will you secure our borders?
9. The Obama administration recently issued an administrative amnesty. Will you enforce our immigration laws?
10. 14 million unemployed--will you reduce the importation of foreign workers, both permanent and temporary
11. In California, unemployment is 12 percent. Will you support mandatory E-Verify for US employers
12. Each yr, the fed govt brings in 1.5 million new foreign workers. Will you cut that number?
13. Many businesses use H-1B visas to hire foreign workers at lower wages. Will you end this abuse
14. Due to immigration, the Census says US population will hit 440 million in 2050. Isn’t this unsustainable?
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11. The economics of good looks
The line of beauty
Pretty people still get the best deals in the market, from labour to love
Aug 27th 2011 | from The Economist print edition
Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People are More Successful. By Daniel Hamermesh.
The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law. By Deborah Rhode.
Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital. By Catherine Hakim.
FRANCE looked back this week at the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the walls of the Louvre. It was one of the most startling art heists in history, but the emotions it still arouses go beyond that. Stealing Leonardo da Vinci’s painting was like stealing beauty itself. And beauty has lost none of its power to bewitch, bother and get its own way, as three new books on the economic advantages of good looks confirm.
Physically attractive women and men earn more than average-looking ones, and very plain people earn less. In the labour market as a whole (though not, for example, in astrophysics), looks have a bigger impact on earnings than education, though intelligence—mercifully enough— is valued more highly still.
Beauty is naturally rewarded in jobs where physical attractiveness would seem to matter, such as prostitution, entertainment, customer service and so on. But it also yields rewards in unexpected fields. Homely NFL quarterbacks earn less than their comelier counterparts, despite identical yards passed and years in the league. Not everything comes easier: good-looking women seeking high-flying jobs in particularly male fields may be stymied by the “bimbo effect” until they prove their competence and commitment. But the importance of beauty in the labour market is far more pervasive than one might think.
The same is true in other markets. Women have traditionally traded looks for economic support in marriage. A Chinese study confirms that the husbands of unappealing women earn about 10% less than those of their dishier counterparts. Attractive people also have an easier time getting a loan than plain folks, even as they are less likely to pay it back. They receive milder prison sentences and higher damages in simulated legal proceedings. In America more people say they have felt discriminated against for their appearance than because of their age, race or ethnicity. Pretty people, it seems, have all the luck. These books attempt to explain why that is, and what, if anything, should be done about it.
Daniel Hamermesh, an economist at the University of Texas, has long written about “pulchronomics”. In “Beauty Pays” he reckons that, over a lifetime and assuming today’s mean wages, a handsome worker in America might on average make $230,000 more than a very plain one. There is evidence that attractive workers bring in more business, so it often makes sense for firms to hire them. Whether rewarding them accordingly—and paying their less attractive peers more stingily—is good for society is another matter.
In examining the case for legal protection for the ugly, Mr Hamermesh relies to a degree on the work of Deborah Rhode, a law professor at Stanford University and author of “The Beauty Bias”. Ms Rhode clearly struggles to see why any woman would willingly embrace fashion (particularly high heels). She is outraged that virtually all females consider their looks as key to their self-image. She cites a survey in which over half of young women said they would prefer to be hit by a truck than be fat. Her indignation is mostly moral. Billions of dollars are now spent on cosmetic surgery—up to 90% of it by women—at a time when almost a fifth of Americans lack basic health care. The more women focus on improving their looks, Ms Rhode argues, the less they think about others.
Discriminating against people on the grounds of personal appearance should be banned, she says**. It limits a person’s right to equal opportunity, reinforces the subordination of groups where unappealing characteristics, including obesity, are concentrated (ie, the poor, some ethnic minorities), and restricts self-expression. Yet because ugliness is harder to define than race or sex, some argue that anti-discrimination laws are impossible to maintain. And anyway, say employers, appearance is often relevant to the job at hand.
Ms Rhode sees the hurdles, but argues that they can be dealt with. In places where “lookism” is already prohibited (eg, Washington, DC), such statutes have not provoked a flood of frivolous cases, she says. Occasionally beauty is essential to a business (ie, modelling, but not air-hostessing). But concerns about an employee’s effectiveness often reflect the biases of employers, not customers. Laws influence attitudes over time, she says, by denying those with prejudices the opportunity to indulge them.
“Honey Money”, Catherine Hakim’s provocative book, is a different kettle of fish. Where Mr Hamermesh and Ms Rhode see discrimination, she sees an opportunity for women to enhance their power “in the bedroom and the boardroom”. She argues that “erotic capital” is an underrated class of personal asset, to set beside economic capital (what you have), human capital (what you know) and social capital (who you know). Ms Hakim attempts to quantify a complex mix of physical and social assets, consisting of beauty, sex appeal, self-presentation, social skills, liveliness and sexual competence. Like other sorts of capital, the erotic kind is important for success; but unlike others it is largely independent of birth and class. It is especially valuable for poor people, young people, the newly arrived and the otherwise unqualified. In heterosexual settings it belongs primarily to women.
Ms Hakim suggests that women have more erotic capital than men to start with, mainly because they have had to work at it for centuries. But women have the erotic upper hand for another reason: the male “sexual deficit”. Despite the fact that both sexes are more sexually active than ever before, from the age of about 30 women’s libido tends to fall off while men’s does not. Because women have less interest in sex than men, it is, to put it crudely, a seller’s market. In the power dynamic of couples, controlling access to sex is more important than earning more money, says Ms Hakim. It is the woman’s main bargaining chip, as most still earn less than their partners. Feminists who want women to throw away their femininity are overlooking a powerful asset, Ms Hakim argues.
This is controversial stuff. Even those who reject the notion that women are just not that into sex can support Ms Hakim’s call for the full legalisation of prostitution and surrogate pregnancies for profit, thus giving women the freedom to earn a return on whichever personal asset they choose.
All three authors are in or fast approaching their 60s. They are contemporaries of the generation of feminists who waged war against the beauty culture, leaving unshaved legs and allegedly burned bras in their wake. But life has moved on. Sexualised images are everywhere, and the world that has emerged is one in which no one can afford to pretend beauty does not matter. Men too, having lost their monopoly of well-paid jobs, are investing in their erotic capital to enhance their appeal to mates and employers. They are marching off to gyms and discovering face cream in record numbers. Perhaps this explains Mona Lisa’s bemused smile. She knew what was coming.
(** JS: PLEASE don't let anyone on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors see this or we'll have yet another silly counter-productive ordinance on the books. Oy.)
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