The Narrow Way
Fraught with peril, ripe with adventureFair Trade concept hijacked by corporate interests
I’ve always wondered what was worse: evil or evil masquerading as truth.
What’s good about pure evil is that there’s no guessing what it is. Evil that pretends or contains elements of truth? Well that’s another story, and a frightening one nonetheless.
And when it comes to fair trade, you’d think that such initiatives would be win-win for all involved – consumers, producers and everyone in between. But you’d be wrong. Turns out that the public appetite for ethical consumerism hasn’t gone unnoticed by corporations salivating over the opportunity to cash in on emerging market trends.
Can social justice be achieved by mindful North American consumers that choose to buy fair trade products? Author Gavin Fridell says no, and that such individual actions can’t change inequalities that exist in the market. Only collective actions can make a meaningful difference, and even then, the support or ethical imposition of the state would be more effective.
“Ethics should be imposed on us as consumers,” said Fridell, a political professor at Trent University. “In my ideal world, consumers wouldn’t even have to worry.”
Fridell has explored the topic in the book Fair Trade Coffee: The Prospects and Pitfalls of Market-Driven Social Justice. He challenges the notion of consumer sovereignty, which says that corporations just respond to what consumers want. However, Fridell doesn’t buy it. He says that consumer sovereignty is based on the assumption that consumers have adequate information, but consumers make decisions under the barrage of corporate advertising.
“They do it because it works. It’s highly effective.”
According to Michael C. Dawson’s book The Consumer Trap, $1 trillion is spent on advertising in the United States of America each year.
“That challenges the notion of consumer sovereignty. Consumers need to have real information of where there products come from,” says Fridell.
Even then, consumers are isolated from the impacts of their decisions when the consumer is king.
“Producers subservient to the demands of the consumers,” he says.
Their livelihoods should not depend on the whims of the consumer, but shared responsibility for decisions through purchasing policies “which don’t let individuals off the hook.” Fridell says we need to move beyond the individualism of our actions and narrow the definition of a fair trade consumer to a broader definition: a fair trade citizen.
Fair trade organizations realize that their efforts are only stepping stones to a new economic order. Currently, only 3 per cent of the world’s coffee bean farmers participate in fair trade and their are significant limits to fair trade markets. The picture has been further clouded by those with economic power, including the World Bank, whose version of a just system is “sipping fair trade coffees but continuing to push for free trade.”
Sadly, Fridell thinks the fair trade movement is a victim of its own success, as corporations use the model to market their own “fair trade” or “fairer trade” products, terms that are applied vaguely and account for only a small percentage of a companies actual sales. For example, only 6 per cent of coffee beans bought by Starbucks are fair trade purchased, while 53 per cent are certified by its own certification program.
Fridell says that Starbucks was forced aboard by social justice groups and isn’t interested in informing consumers about fair trade, but rather using it as a marketing strategy. The same kind of “sheep in wolves clothing” tactics are also employed by corporations that feign concern for the environment. Dubbed “blue wash” or “green wash,” some companies promote themselves through what appear to be admiral initiatives, but fail to place demands on actual behaviour or the monitoring and controlling of this behaviour.
“Is Starbucks better than Tim Hortons or McDonalds? Yes,” says Fridell.
And Tim Hortons? The company is excluded the province’s two universities, Trent and McMaster, that have fair trade purchasing polices . Although Fridell is wary of the inability of individual consumers to change the system, he sees it as a starting point to more collective efforts that have a greater impact.
“Buying fair trade should be a beginning, but not an end. If we avoid dealing with the big questions, fair trade will remain for only a few.”
© July, 2009. Elmira_Independent. All rights reserved.
A scarred existence
Is life a prison sentence, or is it a gift from God?
So many of the things we do in life are crippling and diabilitating. We trudge to work and back, barely conscious, longing for meaning and purpose and significance, our souls crying for relief.
We are worn down by the weight of the world, by injustice, indifference, oppression… the unseen forces that manipulate the controls and mechanisms of the system in whose gears we find ourselves stuck in.
Christian or not, we are faced with the unnerving reality of running like hamsters in a flawed system, our survival based on mundane, routine tasks with all too infrequent glimpses of glory and the world outside the cage.
Our questions are many. Our triumphs overshadowed by our defeats. Our failures hang over our heads like the carcasses of animals led to slaughter.
What is our destiny? What is our inheritance?
Is this life meant to prepare us for the next by engaging in battles we cannot win, by living lives we can never fully understand?
Are we puppets?
Is our puppet master a kindly soul, who delights not in our eventual demise nor the slow, agonizing process that leads to the twlight of our lives?
Is it only in death that we can find peace?
Where is the peace here and now, in the midst of crushing defeat, of the numbing senselessness of our day to day existence?
But in you I hope, Oh Lord.
In you I put my trust, as one who trusts engineers that have designed bridges over great chasms.
You sustain. You breathe life into lifeless situations.
And you give us glimpses of the eternal, of the unmatchable beauty of the world you know, a world without suffering, pain and injustice.
A world which will melt away the scars of the lives we live now.
Canadian-made weapons and a world-wide problem
O, Canada. We stand on guard for thee: as the sixth-largest weapons supplier in the world.
It seems painfully ironic that as November 11 approaches Canada has been pegged as one the world’s top exporters of military goods. So while we are set to remember those who have fought and died for our freedom, it is unfortunate that today we have a hand in supplying tanks, rocket launchers and munitions abroad, some of which fall into the hands of unsavoury characters.
According to a recent report, Canadian arms exports have tripled in what has been called a seven-year surge of $3.6 billion, with our next door neighbour being the biggest buyer.
Of course, Canada is not alone in the business of exporting military goods. The United States led all countries in the sale of conventional arms sales agreements and deliveries last year, according to the Arms Control Association.
What is disturbing, is that Canadian-made goods could be falling into the hands of those who could use the goods for ill gain. Last month, the New York Times reported that 10 Canadian-made engines have wound up in prototypes of China’s Z-10, an attack helicopter designed to carry guided antitank missiles.
According a spokesperson with Pratt & Whitney Canada, the company was given government approval seven years ago to supply engines for use in “a Chinese helicopter that was supposed to have civilian and military variants.
American Rick Fischer, the vice-president of the International Assessment and Strategy Center, suspects the engine is being used in the Z-10 as well as another military chopper.
“Both will be used by the People’s Liberation Army for missions of internal repression and external aggression, particularly against Taiwan,” said Fischer.
CBC news has been tracking Canada’s contributions to “Arming the World.” An in-depth report revealed that more than 500 companies across the country are making defense and security products, their tentacles well entrenched within the Canadian economy.
Tim Page, president of the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries, told the CBC that the industry represents 70,000 technology-based jobs in over 177 federal ridings across the country.
A necessary evil? That seems to have become apparent.
But no matter how hard we try we can’t keep Canadian-made weapons from falling into the wrong hands. Ken Epp of Project Ploughshares, an arms control watchdog group, said that there are a number of examples “on regular basis every year” that Canadian exports have ended up in countries such as Columbia, China, Saudi Arabia and others where persistent human rights violations exist.
Small arms continue to be a global problem, not to mention epidemic-sized cause of death worldwide
The Control Arms campaign is calling for an international, legally-binding Arms Trade Treaty to ease the suffering caused by irresponsible weapons transfers. One of the organizations behind the initiative is the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), which tracks guns deaths on its website.
At last check, guns have killed 308,00 people since the beginning of the year. Amnesty International and OXFAM are also behind the Control Arms campaign, which states that “from 1998 to 2001, the USA, the UK, and France earned more income from arms sales to developing countries than they gave in aid.”
Canada is a smaller player in the global arms trade, but complicit nonetheless.
An article by Richard Sanders in regards to Canada’s increased military exports in 1998 takes our country to task on the issue.
“Despite Canada’s reputation as a nation which values peacekeeping, we continue to sell military hardware to governments, which are notorious for violating human rights. Among the governments purchasing Canadian military hardware are some of the world’s most corrupt and violent regimes. The military and police forces in many of the countries armed by Canada are well known to routinely engage in torture and extrajudicial executions.”
Our country knows the pain and suffering caused by having her sons cut down in their prime on battlefields abroad. We understand the ongoing need to provide peaceful occupation, even at the risk of death, in places where conflicts exist, often a world-away from our everyday lives. And though military goods continue to play in a role in our economy, the very existence of such business can carry deadly consequences.
That is, after all, the endgame of weapons use. Lest we forget.
© November, 2008. Elmira_Independent. All rights reserved.
Human guinea pig? No thanks
I’ve never liked rats.
You knew those hearty rodents common to farmers and the unfortunate restauranteer forced to deal with such vermin. However, you can’t help but fell a tad sorry for the rats that endure chemical injections and exposure to toxic substances in wide variety of experiments, all in the name of science.
Actually, more often than not in the name of safe consumer goods. Not that I’ve become a becoming a bleeding heart for our rat populations. This is about questioning the effectiveness of such experimentation, especially when a green light is given to a consumer product despite inconclusive evidence in regards to human safety.
Take cell phones, for instance. There are about 12 million cell phone users in Canada and the good news is that brain cancer hasn’t been linked to their use. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the verdict is still out on any possible connection between cancer and cellphone use.
Earlier this year, headlines such as “Mobile phone use ‘linked to tumour’” appeared in anticipation of new research to be published by the International Journal of Cancer. That report was released last week concluding there was no substantial risk of acoustic neuroma (a nervous system tumour) in the first 10 years after starting mobile phone use.
“Whether there are longer-term risks remains unknown, reflecting the fact that this is a relatively recent technology,” stated Professor Anthony Swerdlow, a senior investigator at The Institute of Cancer Research.
That’s the problem. We continue to roll the dice on technology and human health.
Oh sure, we’ve stumbled upon brand new products to put in diet soft drinks, including Aspartame, an artificial sweetener commonly sold under such trademarks as Equal or NutraSweet. And Health Canada and USA’s Food and Drug Administration continue to say it’s safe for consumption despite the fact that it’s caused tumors in rats, even in moderate amounts.
“Aspartame-fed rats developed two tumors by 60 weeks of age and five tumors by 70 weeks,” writes Dr. Russell L. Blaylock in Excitotoxins.
Safe for human consumption? Well those who supply the scientific reports to those that set the rules in food industry say so.
Conflicting scientific opinion certainly is unsettling and raises red flags. Devra Davis, who runs the Center for Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, says that we differ from rats by “just” 300 genes.
“We use animal research to develop drugs, but when it comes to evidence that something causes cancer in an animal, something that might be used in our schools and homes, we say: “Well wait. We better get proof of human harm.”
It’s that cautionary advice that Davis, who wrote The Secret History of the War on Cancer, gave in an interview with Salon magazine. She also weighs in on the Aspartame issue, talking about the politics behind the calorie-reduced sweetener that made its debut to the unsuspecting public in 1981. It’s unsettling stuff involving corporate interests that left an unsuspecting public in the crosshairs.
Of course, Aspartame and cell phones are only a couple examples. A more extensive list on products that contain possible cancer carcinogens includes everything from food additives to chemicals used in household cleaning products.
So why do lawmakers give the green light to unproven products that may come with potential health risks? Well, for those conspiracy theorist among us, it’s all about the pursuit of profit, that the lure of the Almighty Buck has companies rubbing their hands in glee.
Safety? Well, as long as a product in question gets governmental clearance, manufacturers have clean conscious. But governments often move to fast.
A quick read through of the history of leaded gasoline gives the shocking details of trigger-happy lawmakers and corporate collusion. In a report (March 2000) on the history of lead by The Nation, the corruption and failure to heed safety and health warnings tells a sordid tale. Among the revelations in the report are that “the severe health hazards of leaded gasoline were known to its makers and clearly identified by the US public health community more than seventy-five years ago, but were steadfastly denied by the makers, because they couldn’t be immediately quantified.”
Today we wouldn’t think of using lead paint and no longer have the option of filling up with leaded gasoline at the pumps. We’ve also backpedalled on the use of DDT, which was taken off the market after three decades of widespread usage to “control insect pests on crop and forest lands, around homes and gardens, and for industrial and commercial purposes.”
In the EPA’s 1972 press release that effectively banned DDT in the United States, the decision was made to due to “unacceptable risks to the environment and potential harm to human health.” However, exceptions to the rule included a few “minor” crop uses and “export” of material.
The evidence continues to mount that public safety is too often jeopardized in the name of progress. Even those who don’t want to buy into all the environmental hoopla in the news these days, have to at least admit that you can’t trust governments or corporations to keep you safe. The verdict is still out much of what has been added to our foods, some of the drugs we take and some of the consumer products we use.
Now mind you, I don’t plan on living forever, at least not on this planet that we continue to plunder and pollute. But while I’m still here, I’d rather not be a human guinea pig.
© 2007. Elmira_Independent. All rights reserved.
Move spurs de-junking binge
We migrate.
It’s part of what we as humans do and have done throughout our history. Our pioneering past meant moving in search of the basics of survival; the need for food, shelter and safety.
Today we’re still on the move, but not for the same reasons as our ancestors. We primarily move for personal reasons. A new job, upgrading to a bigger and better home, as the result of a promotion, getting married or divorced, or perhaps retiring.
People change their location of residence somewhere between 5-10 years on average – depending on where you get your statistics from. Stats also suggest that one out of every five people will move in any given year. That’s 20 per cent of the population relocating every 12 months. Americans move an average of 11 times during the course of their lives, and I imagine us Canadians are in the same range.
At least I’m well on my way. By the end of the month, I’ll have relocated for the fourth time in the past 10 years – an average of every 2.5 years if you’re doing the math.
Not that I wanted to move again. But things happen.
Experts say it will take about six months to become familiarized with our new surroundings and 2-3 years to feel “settled.”
Nonetheless, there’s no turning back now. It’s time to box up our belongings and move on.
Fortunately, not all of those belongings are coming with us. There’s been a vigorous purging process taking place at the Kuepfer household in recent weeks as items that have outlived their uselessness have been weeded out.
Some of those things survived last year’s relocation project. This time the bar has been raised.
Packing makes you realize one thing: you sure collect a lot of junk that you don’t really need – and never really use for that matter.
I have had sick fantasies in the past about having all my possessions lost in a fire. (Yes, I know, I’m a deeply flawed individual.) But wouldn’t it be freeing in a way? Wouldn’t it be great to start over, from scratch? To come up with a different game plan? To go back to the drawing board and decide to ruthlessly collect and hoard those things in your life that are only absolutely essential?
After all, you can’t take IT with you, whether that IT applies to your money or possessions.
Not that I’m complaining about the wealth I enjoy, some of which has translated into material things. And I’m not talking about material things that have been gained through an above-average salary. But even the most middle-class of us can fill our homes with dollar-store junk we don’t necessarily need, or want.
We’re just easily convinced consumers and sellers bank on the fact that we have artificial needs.
Once we decide to pick up and move we will ultimately come face-to-face with our abundance of material goods. You know, the kind of stuff that moths and rust can destroy.
Moving affords us the perfect opportunity to take stock of our lives – at least the material part of our earthly existence. Maybe it does bear spiritual overtones.
At any rate, it has been good to come face-to-face with our material assets over the course of the past few months. But that hasn’t come without a great deal of inconvenience and hassle, which I guess goes hand-and-hand with forward progress.
And since we’re moving, I guess that’s appropriate. I just hope we don’t have to go through this again anytime soon.
© 2007. Elmira_Independent. All rights reserved.
Maybe everybody isn’t doing it
Some people scoff at the idea of providing clean needles to drug users.
And while it does seem a bit stupid, would you want a drug user to be jamming a dirty needle into his forearm? Why not offer the addicted a bit of solace in their situation. At the very least, it may prevent them from contracting AIDs. But is this perpetuating drug use as well as promoting it?
Ask 10 people and you may get 10 different answers, although I’m sure most people would be primarily concerned that they don’t want the drug user to get the HIV virus. So what about Ontario’s plan to offer free immunizations to Grade 8 girls before they get sexually active?
Once again we’re faced with a similar question and if we concur with the idea that this is good, doesn’t this line of thinking promote drug use and promiscuity?
Well, yes and no.
Prevention is the best medicine. It’s no secret that the health care system would save millions if people took better care of their health. Promotion of preventative health has become more popular in recent years.
However, publicizing something that may be for the greater good of society also brings with it some unwanted promotion. When kids don’t know there are cookies in the cupboard, they may settle for fruit for dessert.
That, of course, is simplifying the issue. However, it’s not meant to trivialize it. Perhaps there is a place for informing pre-teens about sexual diseases, just as there is a place to warn them about the dangers of lung cancer and drug use.
The problem with offering pre-teen girls a vaccine prior to the years of sexual activity is that it makes a broad assumption that teenage girls are sexually active. It also makes the assumption that this is something that should be offer “en masse,” meaning the numbers of those out there who will be sexually active justifies it.
Denying young girls from receiving immunization against something that could lead to cervical cancer is not the point. But if prevention is the best medicine to stop cervical cancer that could come through sexual activity, than maybe there is a case for an alternative approach.
Why not go the ever-unpopular abstinence route? That route is not wrought with peril like the other one, where single teenage moms serve as an obvious warning.
Of course, if you go by the normal behaviour portrayed by teenagers in movies and television, then everybody is doing it and those who aren’t are missing out. But perhaps they aren’t missing out on anything at all (that is to say that missing out on sexual diseases, unwanted pregnancy and the unfortunate names that go along with sexually active woman (and I’m not sure why guys get off scott free).)
What if everybody isn’t doing?
Well if that’s the case, it certainly doesn’t make good TV viewing by today’s standards. Losing ones virginity has become the ultimate quest for teenagers, who aren’t real boys or girls until they’ve achieved that particular “badge of honour.”
Those who believe that that three-letter word we hate to say is limited to the confines of marriage may have a point. Why wouldn’t we wait? Better yet, why wouldn’t we (heaven forbid) think for ourselves and quite possibly arrive at our own conclusion on what is right, acceptable and decent.
If Hollywood has taught us one thing, it’s that you can’t trust it on moral issues. Those who want to rid our roads of drunk drivers don’t tow the line. They spell it out loud and clear: if you drink, don’t drive.
How about, if you’re not married, don’t have sex.
Radical. You bet. Prehistoric. Probably. But the best prevention against sexually transmitted disease and teenage pregnancy? You bet.
© 2007. Elmira_Independent. All rights reserved.
Awareness of world’s water woes must continue
I’m still staggering from the profound impact of Flow, a documentary about the horrendous state of our world’s water situation.
The disturbing piece of film was featured at an event put on by Gr. 8 students of Wellesley Public School, who are concerned about learning about global issues and think you should be too.
Flow is uncomfortable viewing from start to finish, as the story of the tenuous state of our global water supply unfolds. It does leave room for optimism, displayed by citizens through grassroots initiatives or protest, despite the overwhelming odds of privatization of water systems and our inability to satisfy the thirst of the world’s poor. You can’t ever turn on the tap again without being reminded of the incredible deficiencies that exist in watering the global population.
Sadly, us North Americans on the cutting edge of modern infrastructure can’t boast about our own water supply. We may be spared the drought and access issues of other countries, but our health is put in jeopardy by such things as modern day agriculture’s reliance on herbicides and a chemical called Atrazine, which is banned in some countries, but not Canada or the US. And tragedies such as what happened in Walkerton nine years ago, may turn us off tap water. But bottled water escapes the stringent regulations placed on municipal sources and often contains more contaminants.
Water has also become a highly sought after commodity, the new oil some say, especially as it pertains to a thirsty market of non-tap water drinkers. The world’s largest beverage makers have enjoyed the profits by going that route, and while we can’t fault corporations for wanting to make profit, we most certainly should call their bluff, especially when health standards or care for the environment, through overzealous extraction, is breached. And we shouldn’t be blind to the aspirations of those in suits, who head multi-national companies backed by the Wold Bank or International Monetary Fund, that are often portrayed as the bad guys.
Blogger Rundangerously points out that Flow doesn’t name names and point fingers erroneously.
“The big difference between what I’d call propaganda… and this documentary is very simple – the facts! It’s difficult to remain unmoved by the efforts of big corporations to take over the water resources of third world countries.”
In an interview with CNN, Maude Barlow, author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, explains that water privatization is wrong. The poor can’t buy clean water.
“Private corporations have decided that this is more important than oil. They’re going to make more money and become more powerful owning and distributing water than they can from anything else.”
It goes without saying that we can’t remain oblivious to our human need of safe water. Today, one sixth of the worlds population does not have access to clean drinking water, and more than 2 million people die from water-borne diseases each year.
That’s why films such as Flow are so important. It reminds us that something so fundamental to life demands our attention.
“If our own leaders were serious about solving problems, we would not allow corporations to discharge pollutants into our water sources,” Irena Salina, Flow’s director, told CNN. “And if they were serious about solving water problems — instead of spending billions on developing technologies that clean up pollution — we would be using resources to prevent water pollution in the first place.”
Saline goes on to say that awareness is vital to plant the seeds for action to take place, along with change.
And change is only an option until it’s too late.
© 2009. Elmira_Independent. All rights reserved.
The wonder of weakness
It seems that mainstream Christianity is always looking for feel good stories. Miraculous stories about how you overcame such and such a sin, or how God delivered you from an impossible situation or circumstance.
These kind of powerful testimonies. And if you don’t have one, then you don’t exist.
That may be the exaggerated interpretation for some of us who don’t have it all together and haven’t hit rock bottom and needed God’s help in an extraordinary way, but are just trying to do the best we can.
But doing the best we can doesn’t often make the highlight reel. We may not get “face time” for our faithfulness, or our “average” everyday struggles in faith and following God.
And no, I’m not bitter.
Who wouldn’t want to have a great bang-for-the-buck testimony, a Hollywood worthy experience, complete with drug addiction, serious deprivation and one foot in the grave… until the Love of Christ broke through? I’ve always been envious of those whose testimonies are all about God moving in a mighty way to instantly free someone from a crack addition, cigarette smoking or porn habit.
Some how God doesn’t work that way with me.
And to be honest, it bugs me. I want to be made whole and I want it now. I want to be set free from my besetting sins, and I want it now… without all the need for struggling and winning and falling and losing and on and on.
Why do we get it so wrong?
Testimonies are meant to build your faith, to give you strength and hope for your circumstances. But sometimes they have the opposite effect. They make you depressed and bummed out about how you are struggling with something that someone else was miraculously and effortlessly, delivered from.
But maybe that’s the problem. My expectation is that God will do it. That He will somehow, even magically, zap me with His magic wand and I’ll be “all better.” No more sin habits. No more sweating it out through human effort. Just God.
And I think this kind of thinking is fatal. It excludes the need for commitment, for picking up ones cross, for dieing to ones self and being faithful when things aren’t supposedly happening.
Can God miraculously touch my life right now, or at any given moment, with supernatural power and divine intervention? I’d say yes. But that’s not how he always, or even usually, works. In fact, the expectation of a life free from what we might call our weakness can’t be further from reality.
Which brings me to something I read on the Internet Monk’s website about this matter. As Christians, we may have the power of Christ in us, but Michael Spencer reminds us we are not above human. And because of this, we will still struggle and wage war with our flesh and its rotten desires.
It means your depression isn’t fixed. It means you are still overweight. It means you still want to look at porn. It means you are still frightened of dying, reluctant to tell the truth and purposely evasive when it comes to responsibility. It means you can lie, cheat, steal, even do terrible things, when you are ‘in the flesh,” which, in one sense, you always are. If you are a Christian, it means you are frequently, maybe constantly miserable, and it means you are involved in a fight for Christ to have more influence in your life than your broken, screwed up, messed up humanity. In fact, the greatest miracle is that with all the miserable messes in your life, you still want to have Jesus as King, because it’s a lot of trouble, folks. It isn’t a picnic.
This is the reality we as Christians live in. This ongoing battle between doing what comes naturally, such as lust after women, or choosing that higher and much more narrow path that Christ has set before us. But we can rejoice that in our weakness we are strong, as the second half of 2 Corinthians 12:10 tells us. The Internet Monk concludes that:
Weaknesses are with me for the whole journey. Paul was particularly thinking of persecutions, but how much more does this passage apply to human frailty, brokenness and hurt? How essential is it for us to be broken, if Christ is going to be our strength? When I am weak I am strong. Not, “When I am cured,” or “When I am successful,” or “When I am a good Christian,” but when I am weak. Weakness- the human experience of weakness- is God’s blueprint for exalting and magnifying his Son. When broken people, miserably failing people, continue to belong to, believe in and worship Jesus, God is happy.
So we absolutely miss the point if we somehow think we’ve failed if we don’t measure up to some golden standard set before us by the brightest and best Christ-followers among us. We should be mindful of the perfection that Christ has called us to (Matthew 5:48), and should make honest attempts to live a sin-free, holy life. But let’s not fool ourselves in thinking that we can arrive at some extra-spiritual plane, where the pull of the flesh has no power.
It’s not that sin’s power can’t be weakened in our lives, or that its lustre can’t lose its shine. But we must remain realistic and clear-minded about the nature of the battle and the reality of our weaknesses. And all the while, we have the assurance that Christ is our strength, and that he is with us.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. — Romans 8:38-39 NKJV
Boiled steak anyone?
It’s just not safe to eat anymore.
Scientist, nutritionists, politicians, school officials and my wife all elude to the fact that certain types of foods just aren’t good for us. Heck, even artery-clogging fast-food outlets have changed their ways to keep in line with the Health and Nutrition Police Fighting Obesity And Bad Eating Habits Everywhere, ever since trans-fats were blacklisted.
You see, it’s not just the types of food you eat or what’s inside them that’s bad, it’s also a matter of how they are cooked.
Microwaves have become a popular meal-making device in today’s kitchen. But the jury is out on whether they are safe or not. The World Health Organizations explains that microwaves are often safe when used according to manufacturer’s instructions, but it does warn about the dangers of “microwave leakage.”
If you have an e-mail account and friends who like to forward everything, then you may have received the latest scare-letter from John Hopkins Hospital. The subject line says CANCER UPDATE FROM JOHN HOPKINS HOSPITAL, US – PLEASE READ.
It begins with a three-step action plan:
- No plastic containers in micro.
- No water bottles in freezer.
- No plastic wrap in microwave.
According to the e-mail, cancer causing toxins are released from plastics when they are heated or frozen. That makes sense. Those reforms I can live with.
However, kicking my favourite late-night snack habit might be harder, but I guess I should because it may be slowly killing me.
Last year an FDA study indicated that a chemical coating used in microwave popcorn bags is seeping into popcorn. That wasn’t good news for south of the border where Americans gobble up 17 billion quarts of the stuff each year.
The report states that a chemical has already contaminated the butter before it’s even nuked. Despite this fact, the FDA has determined that the popcorn is still safe. However, a separate study suggests that an acid extracted from the chemical causes cancer in animals – and is likely to cause cancer in humans
But wait it gets even worse.
Cases of Popcorn Worker’s Lung have been popping up (no pun intended) in employees at popcorn factories in the US. Workers at one ill-fated factory in Missouri (some of whom have successfully sued), suffered severe and irreversible lung damage from working with a chemical used in the butter flavouring, called diacetyl.
At least four of those workers required lung transplants.
The state of Missouri now sends a Occupational Lung Disease Bulletin to health care providers on a regular basis. In one of last year’s bulletin it advised that:
workers in plants making food ranging from pastries and frozen food to nacho chips and candy may be exposed to the chemicals in food flavorings, and therefore may be at risk for bronchiolitis obliterans.
I’m not exactly sure what brocholiolitis obliterans are but it can’t be good.
Last but not least in this litany of food-related folly, and moving away from the kitchen and it’s microwave death machine and into the back yard, we have yet another potential killer: the barbecue.
You might want to think twice about hosting a backyard bash this summer.
According to a new study at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, grilling meat creates toxins called advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Those AGEs are said to speed up the onset of heart disease and arthritis.
Boiled steak, anyone?
© 2007. Elmira_Independent. All rights reserved.
Even World Vision has gone green
Those in the newspaper business get emails from a variety of sources, many of which are quickly deleted, some of which demand further attention, and others that take a while to figure out.
A recent email from the World Vision was one of the latter.
World Vision is an organization perhaps best-known for its child-sponsorship program and those commercials soliciting $30 a month to feed, clothe, educate and provide healthcare to a third-world child. They are also involved in other relief, development and advocacy work, all done in the name of Christ and grounded in Judeo-Christian values.
What perhaps we didn’t know about the organization is that it also advocates the “green” lifestyle.
The World Vision email outlined five trouble-free steps you and I can do to protect the planet by going green. They’re the kind of suggestions we get hammered over the head with from environmental groups and initiatives all the time.
Stuff like reduce your water usage, compost and shut off lights when not in use.
Besides using the World Vision article to promote green lifestyles, the organization also draws attention to its eco-friendly gift catalogue. The bit of shameless promotion, however, it isn’t the kind of Wish Book gift guide you’d think. It’s a tool to purchase gifts that teach techniques to help preserve the environment for people who live in poverty.
For example, you can buy a wood-conserving stove for a family or solar panels for a school or clinic in a developing country, which puts a unique twist on helping the world’s poor while being mindful of the environment.
The irony is that our North American “Christian” culture has gotten fat by exploiting natural resources and causing irreparable harm to the environment, not only at home but abroad.
That makes it terribly hypocritical to now force those living in impoverished lands, to abide by the same green-living consciousness that has swept through mainstream of society.
Those on the brink of starvation due to drought, poverty, civil war and the like have more important things to worry about then reducing their carbon footprint and practicing the holy trinity of the three R’s.
And this is not a shot at World Vision’s attempts to put solar panels on the roof of a school in Zambia, or whatever countries stand to benefit from the organization’s efforts. Maybe it’s only now that a broader scope of well-meaning people in our society, including Christians and Christian organizations, are finally waking up to realize that our consumer-driven lifestyle and wealth has often come at the expense of the environment and off the backs of the poor.
We’ve often confused prosperity with exploitation, or justified questionable business models as necessary in a culture built on greed and a lust for profit.
Thankfully, however, there is a renewed emphasis to embrace a more holistic worldview, in which actions can’t be detached from consequences.
This is especially encouraging to see among Christians individuals and groups, such as World Vision, which are embracing a “holistic gospel” that doesn’t compartmentalize life into a series of causes weighted at our own discretion.
It’s high time we recognize that sometimes the way entire populations of consumers, businesses, industries, landowners and taxpayers operate is out of whack, when issues such as social injustice, poverty, harmful environmental practices, unfair trade and issues of equality persist as a result.
And if we’re honest with ourselves, the truth is that being mindful of others and the consequences of our actions is terribly bothersome. That doesn’t, however, excuse us from walking a narrow path along which the world doesn’t revolve around ourselves. A world in which love may conquer all, but actions provide the cold, hard facts.
© 2009. Elmira_Independent. All rights reserved.
