Genetically tampered food & Salem

If you were one of the huge throng at the Salem Progressive Film Series event "The World According to Monsanto," then you know what powerful emotions that tainted, untrustworthy food evoke, and you know how sophisticated the pro-gene tampering forces are, with their plans to basically wipe out all competing models of agriculture (especially organic -- hence, gene tampering to cause crops like corn and cotton to express BT, which will soon create a huge host of pests with full resistance to BT, one of the key tools for organics today).

Well, hold onto those emotions, because there are a couple of places you can channel that energy into useful work:

1) rBGH Free Salem
[rGBH = recombinant bovine growth hormone; "posilac(R)" in the movie.]

Meet with other folks like yourself who are concerned about the outrageous violation of a corporation like Monsanto not only tampering with the basic code for cows in order to more fully industrialize dairying in America (and eliminate as many dairy farmers as possible) but also lying, cheating, and lobbying (or is that redundant) to prevent consumers from having the ability to know when their food contains milk from cows doped-up with this insidious product.

Rick North of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility will be among those attending.
MORE INFO: Lori Beamer, loribeamer@comcast.net

WHEN: Wednesday, January 29, 20209, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
WHERE: 2nd floor, Crystal Garden Bldg, 210 Liberty St. SE (above Tea Party Bookstore, corner of Liberty and Ferry -- and thanks to Tea Party for the great book table tonight!)

2) Friends of Straub Environmental Learning Center host a discussion by four experts (including Rick North and Lisa Weasel, one of the speakers at the movie tonight).

Genetic Engineering [sic*] in Agriculture: Four Perspectives on Benefits and Hazards

WHEN: Thursday, February 5, 2009, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
WHERE: Salem Public Library (Anderson Room?) 585 Liberty St. SE
MORE INFO: Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility weblink

(* The "sic" is warranted because calling genetic tampering "engineering" implies a degree of control, predictability, and knowledge of consequences that is totally absent from the genetic tampering that corporations like Monsanto do. For these companies, the world is their laboratory -- literally, and damn the costs to everyone else.)

UPDATE: Nice post on Monsanto's subversion of the academic research agenda.

UPDATE II: A nice post on the inconvenient fact (for Monsanto) that gene-tampered foods won't help us deal with the climate crisis.