My World of “Ought to Be”
by Timothy Wilken, MD










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Friday, March 05, 2004
 

Osamu Yoshino's Experience

Lisa HamiltonLisa M. Hamilton writes: Osamu Yoshino of Chiba prefecture survived a “cold turkey” switch to no-chemical, no-input farming thanks to supporters who were willing to pull his weeds. There was only one problem: nobody would buy the food. Now he's turning his eye on neighboring organic farmers to see what they can teach each other about success and spirit. ... The fields appear to have been laid out by a survey crew. The raised rows are perfectly parallel, each packed tightly under plastic like ground beef at the supermarket. Young potato plants that are as unnaturally uniform as the trees lining sidewalks in Tokyo poke through most of the covers. Looking at the rows not yet planted, I wonder if they are perhaps growing the plastic itself; I imagine the farmers at harvest time walking slowly down the rows, pulling the new crop off the field and folding it into perfect square bundles. Osamu Yoshino must drive all those farmers crazy. His field jogs out diagonally into a neighbor’s bare ground, then swings around in a half-circle rimmed with deep green grass almost defiantly curly. The rows are varied—three onions, three grass, two daikon. There’s a blue tarp here, a red basket there. Sticks and weeds are bundled carefully with twine and leaned against the trees, which in turn hang their longest branches back over the dirt. In fact, sitting in the corner of 30 acres of chemical farms, this field feels more similar to the neighboring forest—like a child raised by wolves. And yet Yoshino is the only human among all the fields; the rest appear to be managed by remote control. (03/05/04)


  b-CommUnity:

Utopia or Oblivion

Robley E. George writes: It has been suggested, one way or another by literally billions, that humanity desperately needs a new, future-oriented political economy capable of rapidly reducing or resolving an increasing number of serious, interrelated societal problems plaguing the planet -- caused in large measure, many assert, by presently existing political economies. It has further been emphatically suggested, again by billions, that every society on the planet needs and must soon realize a significantly deepened and more meaningful democracy -- an inclusive democracy manifesting in the socioeconomic realm. Politicosocioeconomic system design, practiced one way or another for thousands of years, can be made public, explicit, transparent and, perhaps most importantly, democratic. ... This article outlines the essential features and properties of Socioeconomic Democracy, which is a model socioeconomic subsystem in which there is some form of Universal Guaranteed Personal Income as well as some form of Maximum Allowable Personal Wealth, with both the lower bound on personal material poverty and the upper bound on personal material wealth set and adjusted democratically by all society. It begins by individually examining each of these two bounds, ie, Universal Guaranteed Income and Maximum Allowalble Wealth. Following is a rapid review of both qualitative and quantitative democracy. Here, we note the elemental public choice theory result that allows society to democratically decide the amount of these two bounds (median value of participants' preference distribution). The many possible theoretical variations of Socioeconomic Democracy are next indicated. Anthropological, philosophical, psychological, religious and human rights justifications for some form of Socioeconomic Democracy are then sketched. ... The article then considers economic incentive and self-interest in, and practical political approximations to, such a democratic system. System feasibility and implementation are next examined. Finally, some of the myriad simultaneously beneficial ramifications of the theoretical system are outlined. (03/05/04)


  b-future:

Learning to Love Stress

BBC Health -- Modern life is stressful. Workers, bosses, and even children are apparently suffering. But could stress be something that's actually good for us? Over the past five years, more than a million people have moved from working for a living to claiming benefits, a "large majority" of them suffering from "stress-related illnesses". The Health and Safety Executive estimates that work-related stress, anxiety and depression costs about 13 million working days a year. The TUC says trade unions are currently handling around 6,400 stress-related potential claims against employers. Life, relationships, money - all have been blamed for the stress epidemic. ... Stress specialist Angela Patmore has also noted that today's "stress epidemic" cannot possibly be explained by life becoming harder - because it hasn't. Contrasting today's claims of widespread work stress with what people had to endure in the past, she asks: "How can a few phones going off be more stressful than seeing the plague carts go past?" Ms Patmore is concerned about our tendency to view stress as an illness. Stress management theory is based on the idea that stress is a disease which should be managed or potentially cured. But Patmore says the "stress response" - where our heart rate and blood pressure go up, our muscles tense, and our pupils dilate - in fact helps us to cope with and overcome adversity. "The stress response is actually a survival mechanism of some importance," she says. "Triggered when we face challenges to our wellbeing, this 'fight or flight' response is designed to galvanise us into action. For a short time it enhances our mental and physical skills, and it is associated with brainwaves, focused attention and creativity." Rather than getting stressed out about stress responses, says Ms Patmore, we should embrace them as "helping us through hard times". (03/05/04)


  b-theInternet:

Better Than Truth Serum

Dr Larry Farwell, BBCBBC Technology -- A controversial technique for identifying a criminal mind using involuntary brainwaves that could reveal guilt or innocence is about to take centre stage in a last-chance court appeal against a death-row conviction in the US. The technique, called "brain fingerprinting", has already been tested by the FBI and has now become part of the key evidence to overturn the murder conviction of Jimmy Ray Slaughter who is facing execution in Oklahoma. Brain Fingerprinting, developed by Dr Larry Farwell, chief scientist and founder of Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, is a method of reading the brain's involuntary electrical activity in response to a subject being shown certain images relating to a crime. Unlike the polygraph or lie detector to which it is often compared, the accuracy of this technology lies in its ability to pick up the electrical signal, known as a p300 wave, before the suspect has time to affect the output. "It is highly scientific, brain fingerprinting doesn't have anything to do with the emotions, whether a person is sweating or not; it simply detects scientifically if that information is stored in the brain," says Dr Farwell. "It doesn't depend upon the subjective interpretation of the person conducting the test. The computer monitors the information and comes up with information present or information absent." ... During the test, the suspect wears a headband equipped with sensors to measure activity in response to recognition of an image relating to the crime - for example, a murder weapon or possibly a code word in the case of a spy. "In research with the FBI, we presented words and phrases that only an FBI agent would know and we could tell by the brain responses who was an FBI agent and who was not; we could do that with 100% accuracy," says Dr Farwell. Brain Fingerprinting has profound implications for the criminal justice system. (03/05/04)


  b-theInternet:

Reducing Risk of Strokes

Brain DiagramBBC Health -- A drug which cuts the risk of heart attacks can also reduce a person's chance of having a stroke, scientists have found. Researchers from Radcliffe Infirmary, writing in the Lancet, found statins can reduce the chance of high-risk patients having a stroke by a third. Statins are currently given to patients at high risk of heart attacks. But the scientists say those at risk of stroke should now also be given the cholesterol-lowering drug. Statins lower levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol. ... Professor Rory Collins, who led the research, said: "This study shows that statin therapy rapidly reduces the incidence not only of heart attacks but also of ischaemic strokes, with no adverse effect on haemorrhagic strokes, even among individuals who do not have high cholesterol concentrations. "The study also provides definitive evidence that statin therapy is beneficial for people with a history of stroke or other cerebrovascular disease. "National and international treatment guidelines should now be revised so that stroke risk reductions are taken into account when the initiation of statin therapy is being considered." Professor Anthony Rudd, an expert in stroke medicine at St Thomas's Hospital, London, said: "These findings reinforce earlier research from the Heart Protection Study which was published two years ago. On the basis of that study, we are redrafting the national guidelines on the care of people who have had an ischaemic stroke." (03/05/04)


  b-theInternet:

Prince Charles Warns of Dying Seas

Fish on sale   APBBC Environment -- The fishing industry must change if many of the familiar fish round the UK coast are to stand any realistic chance of survival, Prince Charles has said. He told a charity promoting sustainable fishing that overfishing threatens once-abundant species with extinction. People should not stop eating fish, but should only eat species which were not in decline, the prince added. Nine former UK environment secretaries and the present incumbent all say world fish stocks are collapsing already. The prince was speaking at a gala event to raise money for the work of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which says it is the only global charity working exclusively to save global fish populations. It seeks to do this by awarding its label to fisheries it judges sustainable: seven have been certified so far, and more than 40 others are at some stage of the certification process. Prince Charles said that with cod stocks in the North Sea now at one tenth of the 1970 level, the "lessons are obvious". But he insisted that asking people to stop eating fish altogether was not the answer. "Nor would a so-called boycott achieve anything worthwhile," the prince said. "There are undoubtedly some species of fish that are so threatened, and some fisheries that are so damaging, that we should try and avoid them completely, but neither of those things applies to any of the sort of wild fish widely available to consumers in this country." ... The prince wants consumers, supermarkets, fish processors and the fleets themselves to opt for sustainable fisheries, both to conserve the stocks and to save jobs. Last month he said: "In addition to good science and good regulation, we need a system that harnesses the power of the consumer and provides economic incentives to well-managed fisheries.  (03/05/04) 


  b-theInternet:


6:09:41 AM    


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