Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Is the media gay-obsessed?


Letter to the Toronto Star, May 2, 2013 

Only someone on politically correct steroids would object to someone else favouring the traditional family (Realtor under fire for anti-gay brochure, May 2). Shame on the Star for claiming such expression as "anti-gay."

One may differ from the many reports that prove the superiority of the traditional family. To declare them hateful or anti-anybody is an attempt to suppress opinions with which one may disagree. Unfortunately, the media, less than unbiased in this matter, refuse to defend free speech, preferring to indulge in name-calling.


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Letter to The Globe and Mail, August 8, 2013

The Globe editorial about the press conference aboard the pope's aircraft claimed that Francis's statement "made history" when he said, "A gay person who is seeking God, who is of goodwill, well, who am I to judge?" It  made history only to those who haven't been listening. The pope said nothing new.

The basis of this common media error is the idee fixe that promotion of the traditional family is anti-gay. 

Recent pro-family protests in Paris were described as anti-gay. The legislation that provoked the protest was deemed an attack on the traditional family in a nation that values the family more than we do. Thus, the protest. 

A report in the Toronto papers told of a tenant in public housing. He posted a pro-family sign in his window, just pro, not attacking anyone. Someone complained. He was threatened with eviction. No one in the media defended his freedom of expression.


Wednesday, August 14, 2013

That Hated Monsanto Company


From Children of the Days by Eduardo Galeano: 

Suicide Seeds

For about three hundred and sixty million years, plants have been producing fertile seeds that generate new plants and new seeds, and never have they ever charged anyone for the favor.

But in 1998 a patent gave its blessing to the company Delta and Pine to produce and sell sterile seeds, which meant new seeds had to be purchased for every planting. In the  middle of August 2006, Monsanto, blessed be thy name, bought out Delta and Pine and its patent.

Thus Monsanto consolidated its universal power: sterile seeds, known as "suicide seeds" or "terminator seeds," form part of a very lucrative line that also obliges farmers to buy herbicides, pesticides and other poisons from the genetically modified pharmacy.

At Easter in the year 2010, a few months after the earthquake, Haiti received a grand gift from Monsanto: sixty thousand bags of seed produced by the chemical industry. Farmers gathered to receive the offering, and proceeded to burn every sack in an immense bonfire.

For more on the Monsanto Company, read Monsanto's Harvest of Fear, Vanity Fair, May 2008.