The Goddess Weeps

TEDTalks turned 2 this week and released a top 10 list.

I think the numbers speak for themselves. This entry is my attempt to scream loudly into the void called the internet....yet again. 150 years of literally scraping together rights for females (kind of)worldwide has led to so very few women that have ideas worth sharing.

But at least the top idea worth sharing is from one remarkable woman that I posted right here a few months ago. I have recollected her talk for months now - alone and with friends.

Is gender analysis a worthy pursuit 'in this day and age'?

Until the ultimate basic necessity of life,caregiving, is recognized as an idea worth talking about then I, personally, think so. On the planet at this very moment most women are too busy caregiving to even watch TEDTalks let alone contribute to them.

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TEDTalks speakers: Gender breakdown for all speakers (source)



TEDTalks speakers: Gender breakdown for speakers in the Entertainment Theme



TEDTalks speakers: Gender breakdown for speakers in the Technology Theme



TEDTalks speakers: Gender breakdown for speakers in the Design Theme


Heads of state or government: Gender breakdown for 192 UN countries and 2 independent states (source)


Worldwide population (2008 Estimate): Gender breakdown (source)

"The American Dream: You have to be asleep to believe it." George Carlin

Learning about food and food issues will should eventually lead you to question allopathic approaches for treating illness.

A little humour goes a long way towards lightening the heavy cloud of deception you might start to suspect and wonder about.

Many of the above links are for additional informative/humourous information and videos that I have compiled over the last few years. I hope you enjoy them.

Frankenfood meets nanotechnology this year in a big way

This terrifying knell came straight out of my google alert for frankenfood this morning (emphasis made by moi) - it should make you run towards the closest organic food market near you (or grow your own!):

"A breed of Frankenfood is being introduced into human diet and cosmetics with potentially disastrous consequences, experts said last night.

Academics, consumer groups and Government officials are warning that the arrival of nanotechnology threatens dangerous changes to the body and the environment.

The particles it uses are so small - 80,000 times thinner than a human hair - that they can pass through membranes protecting the brain or babies in the womb.

Nano health supplements, such as antioxidants, are already on the market while the first of hundreds of new foods are expected to arrive in the next 12 months." (published 10:26am on 2nd January 2008)

Frankenfood? The hypothesis, the experiment and the ongoing results.

We've all seen or heard about Super Size Me. And the french fries that seem to last for millenia.

But what about the stuff on offer at roadside diners across our land?

This, um, dinner roll - I use the term very loosely for there is nothing appetizing about this....read on..... - was served to me as part of my otherwise gluten-dairy-legume-dairy free meal at a roadside restaurant in Eastern Quebec. Note the french labelling (it is before the english).

The thing about this picture is that I did not take it in the restaurant.

I took the item (along with, ahem, fresh butter packets) in order to conduct my experiment (my own version of collecting souveniers while on the road....I am a statistics professor by profession).

The picture was taken tonight in my kitchen. If you think this looks appetizing then would you still eat if I told you that it was nice and soft?

Would you eat it if I told you there was no expiry date on the package (just a production lot number)?

Would you demand to know how old it is or would you go with the squishy and unblemished appearance alone? The butter still looks yellow from the outside so you might even be tempted to slop it on the squishy bread.

I almost don't want to state when I was served this frankenfood but for the sake of proper data recording I must.

I was in Eastern Quebec on December 27th, 2007. Last year folks. This roll is *at least* 2.5 weeks old and it looks and feels exactly the same as it did the day it was put on our table.

I wonder if I phoned the company could they tell me the production date. I guess the data collection phase is not over yet. When I find out the date I'll update a picture.

And finally...to end this on a positive note...it looks like Canada might be on the market for healthy vending machines? There seems to be a movement. I like to call it the 21st century Alice's Restaurant movement. It's kinda catchy and happens to be great background music for cooking (18 minutes should be enough time to cook something healthy from scratch).

Here is something quite interesting to chew on

I just read the latest (er, 4th, ?) book from the Uglies Trilogy, by Scott Westerfeld. This is a great science fiction series for youth, btw. Apparently there is a movie to be made by Fox in the works too. Fox might butcher it tho.

However, it is this 2008 news clip (thx to wisewebwoman), which disturbs me with the parallels between the child discussed in the clip, Brooke, in 2008, and the 'surg' heads from Westerfield's futuristic post-Rustie world (with Rustie being the term for today's humans). Surg heads are humans that constantly change their body figure/form with surgical modifications for style/popularity gaining reasons (popularity ranks are very important in this future world...I find it an ironic mirror to today's world....).

A 12 year old child in Texas has become the youngest surg head that I've ever heard of. And her 'popularity rank' certainly has increased, hasn't it? Sounds to me like popularity is the only motivation for her entry into perpetual surg head mode.

And also, not once in the clip do they talk about her diet (past or current). The female interviewer looks like a bit of a surg head herself and probably lives on protein bars and boost. That's a bit harsh eh? But to not ask about food consumption when someone is obese is pretty messed up in itself. What were the child's parents FEEDING her for 12 years for goodness sake? And why are there no abuse charges applied when children are obese?

Silly questions when we all know that there is money to be made when people are obese.

Surgery is just one income stream opportunity (and that is a renewable stream, Brooke has hopped onto one surgeon's deluxe christmas card list eh?). Think of long term medications required by most aging obese people and the cash flow they generate - worldwide. And then there is the advertising base for the products that obese people need.

Wholesome/Unprocessed fresh food choices have never exactly been regarded as 'cash cow' endeavours due to the labour and time to table issues. That is, of course, until humans discovered how to best make money off of the darned cow.

So why not disregard something obvious....and hope that the masses don't notice these anomolies.....and continue pumping trans fat, gluten, dairy and sugar into the populace by the poundful....or tonful......????????

This capitalist based strategy seems to have worked for hundreds of years so far.....at least the gluten and sugar part.....trans fat was the latest killer food added 30 years ago and of course dairy really made excellent headway with the onset of pasteurization and refrigeration technologies not to mention gaining it's own box in Canada's food guide (and the mighty US pyramid).

And then there is the whole matter of our food also being the product of surg head modifications (ie GMO). But I'll leave that for another rant.