Sugar: It’s Killing US!

Direct from the sugar people. Truth

Thai Government Heavily Subsidizes Its Sugar! https://t.co/5E7vExG7F5

— Judy Clayton Sanchez (@sugarcard2) June 18, 2015

https://experiencelife.com/article/sugar-breakdown/

When it comes to evaluating sugar’s negative health impacts, the threat of extra pudge is just the beginning. Even great health threats—including inflammation-based diseases—may lurk at the bottom of the sugar bowl.

New research is revealing disturbing links not just between sugar and obesity, but also between sugar and inflammation. Inflammation, of course, has been implicated as a major factor in a number of vitality zapping diseases, from cancer and diabetes to atherosclerosis and digestive disorders.

The Refined-Carb Connection

On the spectrum of dietary dangers, processed sugars are on a par with unhealthy fats. “High-fructose corn syrup is the primary cause of obesity in our culture,” says Elson Haas, MD, author of Staying Healthy with Nutrition (Celestial Arts, 2006, New Edition). “Our bodies simply aren’t built to process all that sugar.”

Still, to date, sugar doesn’t have nearly as bad a reputation as it probably deserves. One of the reasons it slips under the radar is that connecting the dots between sugar and disease requires widening the nutritional net to include all refined carbohydrates (like processed flours, cereals and sugars of all sorts). This may seem like a fine point, but it’s an important distinction.

Most dietary sugars are simple carbohydrates, meaning that they’re made up of one or two sugar molecules stuck together, making them easy to pull apart and digest. Complex carbohydrates, like those found in whole grains, legumes and many vegetables, are long chains of sugar molecules that must be broken apart during digestion, therefore offering a longer-lasting surge of energy. The presence of naturally occurring fiber, protein and fat in many whole foods further slows the sugar-release process.

The more processed and refined the carbohydrate, as a rule, the faster it breaks down in the digestive system, and the bigger the sugar rush it delivers. That’s why refined flours, sugars and sugar syrups pose such a problem for our systems.

The body is exquisitely designed to handle small amounts of sugar. But refined carbs deliver a larger rush than our bodies were designed to accommodate, or even cope with. In ancient times, hunter-gatherers coveted the occasional piece of fruit or slab of honeycomb as a rare treat and source of rapid-fire energy for, well – hunting and gathering.

Today, sugar lurks behind most cellophane wrappers, and the energy it provides is more likely to get socked away on our hips than burned while stalking dinner. Being active goes a long way toward vanquishing excess sugar in the bloodstream, but it doesn’t negate the need to watch your intake. To make matters worse, unlike the fruit sugar (fructose) our ancestors savored, today’s sugary treats are made with refined sugars (usually some derivative of table sugar or high-fructose corn syrup), which can overwhelm the body’s ability to balance blood sugar.

“Refined sugar is a genetically unfamiliar ingredient,” says Jack Challem, a nutrition researcher and author of The Inflammation Syndrome (John Wiley & Sons, 2003). “A lot of health problems today are the result of ancient genes bumping up against modern foods.”

#BigCandy tries, fails to sneak farm bill rider onto African trade bill http://t.co/9rf0EC9MgY

— American Sugar Alliance (@SugarAlliance) April 23, 2015

Take it a little further with this report from Haaaaavard.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/family_health_guide/what-you-eat-can-fuel-or-cool-inflammation-a-key-driver-of-heart-disease-diabetes-and-other-chronic-conditions

What is inflammation?

Inflammation’s aim is to defend the body against bacteria, viruses, and other foreign invaders, to remove debris, and to help repair damaged tissue. Inside arteries, inflammation helps kick off atherosclerosis and keeps the process smoldering. It even influences the formation of artery-blocking clots, the ultimate cause of heart attacks and many strokes.

What is an inflammatory cytokine. Back to the mothership.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2785020/

Cytokines are small secreted proteins released by cells have a specific effect on the interactions and communications between cells. Cytokine is a general name; other names include lymphokine (cytokines made by lymphocytes), monokine (cytokines made by monocytes), chemokine (cytokines with chemotactic activities), and interleukin (cytokines made by one leukocyte and acting on other leukocytes). Cytokines may act on the cells that secrete them (autocrine action), on nearby cells (paracrine action), or in some instances on distant cells (endocrine action). There are both pro-inflammatory cytokines and anti-inflammatory cytokines. There is significant evidence showing that certain cytokines/chemokines are involved in not only the initiation but also the persistence of pathologic pain by directly activating nociceptive sensory neurons. Certain inflammatory cytokines are also involved in nerve-injury/inflammation-induced central sensitization, and are related to the development of contralateral hyperalgesia/allodynia. The discussion presented in this chapter describes several key pro-inflammatory cytokines/chemokines and anti-inflammatory cytokines, their relation with pathological pain in animals and human patients, and possible underlying mechanisms.

What is the connection between cytokines and the immune system.

http://www.uptodate.com/contents/role-of-cytokines-in-the-immune-system

Cytokines are important mediators of immune responses that allow integration of the behavior of cells in time and geographical location as immune responses are generated.

Cytokine-directed treatments are being developed by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry as therapeutic agents for a number of autoimmune diseases.

Here is our friend Dr Jill Smith from Penn State who explained this all to us. It was her presentations that helped me to understand inflammatory cytokines.

http://www.ldnscience.org/ldn-researchers/61-researchers/researcher-profiles/123-dr-jill-p-smith

Dr. Jill Smith is a Professor of Medicine in the Gastroenterology Division of the Department of Medicine, Hershey Medical Center, Penn State University. Dr. Smith has a long track record of conducting pre-clinical scientific research as well as translational clinical trials in patients.

Over the course of her twenty two years at Penn State University she has mentored thirty eight post-doctoral Fellows and students, thereby ensuring continuing excellence in medicine for future generations.

Dr. Smith’s research focus is on disorders of the gastrointestinal tract and pancreas. In her role as a Professor in the College of Medicine’s Internal Medicine Department she treats patients with Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.

Simultaneously, in her role as Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology she teaches and conducts basic science research in the graduate school. For over two decades, Dr. Smith has conducted industry-sponsored trials and investigator-initiated research involving inflammatory bowel disease. One of her areas of expertise is in translational medicine.

Another area of expertise for Dr. Smith involves her research on pancreatic cancer. Dr. Smith’s team discovered that growth of pancreatic cancer is controlled by a small protein called gastrin. They further discovered a novel receptor on human pancreas cancer through which gastrin exerts its effects. Dr. Smith’s discovery led to her being the recipient of the Basic Science Research Award, a prestigious award given by the European Pancreas Society for outstanding discoveries in science. Ongoing research using this novel receptor or targeting therapy and early detection of pancreatic cancer is underway. Dr. Smith is also is a co-discoverer of the role of another protein called OGF (Opioid Growth Factor) that inhibits growth of pancreatic cancer. This discovery has been confirmed in both Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials treating patients with advanced pancreatic cancer with OGF.

Dr. Smith was the first ever researcher to carry out a clinical trial of low dose naltrexone. The results of the successful trial in patients suffering from Crohn’s disease has spearheaded ongoing clinical trials by other researchers at several institutions worldwide.

Knowing Dr Smith she will find the cure for pancreatic cancer.

LDN CONFERANCES

http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/conf2007.htm

This one was Vanderbilt University

Sincere thanks also to Cyndi Lenz and Adam Lenz who videotaped and photographed the entire conference, providing the multimedia files accessed through this webpage.

This is audio you should listen to -Dr Grossman

http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/_conf2007/T_Grossman.mp3

Listen to his talk about sugar and cancer at about 13:27

“Cancer cells can only eat sugar” The first thing that Dr Grossman does in his practice is put people on a low sugar diet.

Dr Mercola on sugar feeding cancer

http://www.mercola.com/article/sugar/sugar_cancer.htm

The 1931 Nobel laureate in medicine, German Otto Warburg, Ph.D., first discovered that cancer cells have a fundamentally different energy metabolism compared to healthy cells. The crux of his Nobel thesis was that malignant tumors frequently exhibit an increase in anaerobic glycolysis — a process whereby glucose is used as a fuel by cancer cells with lactic acid as an anaerobic byproduct — compared to normal tissues.1 The large amount of lactic acid produced by this fermentation of glucose from cancer cells is then transported to the liver. This conversion of glucose to lactate generates a lower, more acidic pH in cancerous tissues as well as overall physical fatigue from lactic acid buildup.2,3 Thus, larger tumors tend to exhibit a more acidic pH.4

This inefficient pathway for energy metabolism yields only 2 moles of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) energy per mole of glucose, compared to 38 moles of ATP in the complete aerobic oxidation of glucose. By extracting only about 5 percent (2 vs. 38 moles of ATP) of the available energy in the food supply and the body’s calorie stores, the cancer is “wasting” energy, and the patient becomes tired and undernourished. This vicious cycle increases body wasting.5 It is one reason why 40 percent of cancer patients die from malnutrition, or cachexia.6

Hence, cancer therapies should encompass regulating blood-glucose levels via diet, supplements, non-oral solutions for cachectic patients who lose their appetite, medication, exercise, gradual weight loss and stress reduction. Professional guidance and patient self-discipline are crucial at this point in the cancer process. The quest is not to eliminate sugars or carbohydrates from the diet but rather to control blood glucose within a narrow range to help starve the cancer and bolster immune function.

From the University of California Television

Irony

The Florida Legislature Gags Health Care Workers. How not to save a life.

Jun18

The Florida Legislature Gags Health Care Workers. How not to save a life.

Just file this under “Kick me in the head.”

As well as others, like people who don’t want their houses to float away in Miami, or their drinking water to be all salty, or just us folks here in Stuart/Jensen Beach that don’t want to have to worry about pollution, trains with bombs, and getting flesh eating bacteria when we go to the beach only to be eaten by horny sharks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdq_F0lT_LI

When does this endless intrusion end?

Honestly. I’d rather be some sharks dinner than have to figure out how to deal with this garbage.

The people who couldn’t even pass half the credentialing that’s needed to work in the health care field passed a terrible law again to punish all of us that are trying to do our jobs.

https://cyndi-lenz.com/2015/05/31/do-our-legislators-need-to-be-credentialed/

This whole mess started when a woman took her child to the pediatrician in Ocala. Pediatricians go to meetings with other pediatricians. and in those meeting they come up with a list of things to “educate” their clients. Just like us nurses do. Especially now that everything is computerized we can’t upload our admission unless all the questions are answered. Many of our safety questions are mandated. That’s just for regular medical people. I’m not even talking about psych.

Let me repeat that one more time. WE CAN’T UPLOAD OUR PAPERWORK UNLESS THE ALL THE QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED.

At any rate, the pediatrician is doing his job and this girl totally goes off on him and she gets in touch with her state rep who lives in Sanford. The Florida NRA gets a hold of all this and they just run with it. I’d have to go back and look it up but I think the pediatrician refused to see the patient not because of the gun. Because she went off. Doctor’s have the right to tell patients they don’t want to come back. It happens all the time.

Guess what. One of those questions is “Do you have a gun?” or “Do you have any weapons?” or “Do you have any fire arms? ” We ask this question, honestly ,with the same tone in our voices as did you poop today? It’s just one more question in a zillion questions when you are doing an assessment of a patient. It’s just one little bit of education. We talk about all kinds of things: scatter rugs, seat belts, steps. Anything that is about the safety of patient is OUR business. Because that’s our job. Our first priority is to make sure our patients are safe and if they are not we have a legal/moral/ethical responsibility to make sure we fixed the situation so the patient is safe.

I’ve have never in all my years as a nurse had anyone who was upset about this question. I’ve had some great discussions about safety especially when children are involved.

I’m not antigun. We had Dad’s army guns in the house and we had guns in Maine at our camp. I was a sharpshooter at summer camp in New Hampshire and I carried a rifle on my back in the field of the kibbutz I lived on in Israel. I was taught to be responsible.

There are some cases that I do need to know if someone has gun. Because if I don’t ask and the person hurts them self or someone else its malpractice. It beyond malpractice. It’s immoral. It’s beyond reason. Just the thought that I could after all my hard work be responsible for the death of someone because my legislators are idiots just slays me.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/07/29/3464945/court-upholds-florida-law-that-punishes-doctors-for-talking-about-guns/

“Several years ago, the American Medical Association advised doctors to ask their patients about firearms and “educate patients to the dangers of firearms to children” in the name of public health. But doctors in Florida may be suppressed from giving this medical advice, now that a federal appeals court upheld a Florida law that became known as the “physician gag rule” because it punishes doctors for talking about guns.”

Except it not just about physicians. It’s about all health care workers. We are all gagged and we are all open to disciplinary action.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/doctors-cant-ask-about-guns/375566/

“The American Academy of Pediatrics likens counseling on gun safety to counseling on lead paint avoidance or seat belt use. Pediatricians, the group’s recent policy statement reads, are “urged to counsel parents about the dangers of allowing children and adolescents to have access to guns inside and outside the home.” Doctors are encouraged to promote trigger locks, lock boxes, and gun safes. Some distribute cable locks. The American College of Physicians is similarly proactive, calling gun violence a public health issue “requiring immediate attention.” The group, of which most practicing internal-medicine doctors are members, declared in its recent position statement: “Physicians must become more active in counseling patients about firearm safety.” The college implores doctors to open that conversation by asking patients (with and without children in their homes) about gun ownership.”

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String+&URL=0700-0799/0790/Sections/0790.338.html

790.338 Medical privacy concerning firearms; prohibitions; penalties; exceptions.—

(1) A health care practitioner licensed under chapter 456 or a health care facility licensed under chapter 395 may not intentionally enter any disclosed information concerning firearm ownership into the patient’s medical record if the practitioner knows that such information is not relevant to the patient’s medical care or safety, or the safety of others.

(2) A health care practitioner licensed under chapter 456 or a health care facility licensed under chapter 395 shall respect a patient’s right to privacy and should refrain from making a written inquiry or asking questions concerning the ownership of a firearm or ammunition by the patient or by a family member of the patient, or the presence of a firearm in a private home or other domicile of the patient or a family member of the patient. Notwithstanding this provision, a health care practitioner or health care facility that in good faith believes that this information is relevant to the patient’s medical care or safety, or the safety of others, may make such a verbal or written inquiry.

(3) Any emergency medical technician or paramedic acting under the supervision of an emergency medical services medical director under chapter 401 may make an inquiry concerning the possession or presence of a firearm if he or she, in good faith, believes that information regarding the possession of a firearm by the patient or the presence of a firearm in the home or domicile of a patient or a patient’s family member is necessary to treat a patient during the course and scope of a medical emergency or that the presence or possession of a firearm would pose an imminent danger or threat to the patient or others.

(Because EMT’s have nothing better to do while they are saving the life of your family member.)

(4) A patient may decline to answer or provide any information regarding ownership of a firearm by the patient or a family member of the patient, or the presence of a firearm in the domicile of the patient or a family member of the patient. A patient’s decision not to answer a question relating to the presence or ownership of a firearm does not alter existing law regarding a physician’s authorization to choose his or her patients.

(5) A health care practitioner licensed under chapter 456 or a health care facility licensed under chapter 395 may not discriminate against a patient based solely upon the patient’s exercise of the constitutional right to own and possess firearms or ammunition.

(Who does this anyway? How do you people come up with this garbage? We’re health care workers. It’s our job NOT to judge anyone. Just because your judgmental doesn’t mean we are. A case of pure projection.)

(6) A health care practitioner licensed under chapter 456 or a health care facility licensed under chapter 395 shall respect a patient’s legal right to own or possess a firearm and should refrain from unnecessarily harassing a patient about firearm ownership during an examination.

(7) An insurer issuing any type of insurance policy pursuant to chapter 627 may not deny coverage, increase any premium, or otherwise discriminate against any insured or applicant for insurance on the basis of or upon reliance upon the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition or the lawful use or storage of a firearm or ammunition. Nothing herein shall prevent an insurer from considering the fair market value of firearms or ammunition in the setting of premiums for scheduled personal property coverage.

Another care of guilty until proven innocent.

(8) Violations of the provisions of subsections (1)-(4) constitute grounds for disciplinary action under ss. 456.072(2) and 395.1055.

History.—s. 1, ch. 2011-112.

If violated we get to go in front of disciplinary board.

How would you suggest we not ask this question since it required? I’m pretty sure we all similar computer programs which ask basically the same question.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/upshot/do-you-own-a-gun-in-florida-doctors-cant-ask-you-that.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

Almost 20,000 people committed suicide in the United States with firearms in 2011. More than 11,000 were killed by firearms that year, and more than 200 were killed in accidents with guns. In 2009, almost 7,400 children were hospitalized because of injuries related to guns.

Doctors who ask about guns aren’t doing so because they’re nosy. They’re doing so because the vast majority of those deaths and injuries are preventable.

It’s entirely possible to keep a gun in your home safely. But studies show that the majority of people who keep guns in their homes do so in an unlocked space. Few have any kind of trigger locks. More than 10 percent report keeping their guns loaded or near ammunition, in an unlocked area.

That’s often how children get hurt. Few people argue that young children should have access to guns or ammunition. But that’s what’s happening in far too many homes in the United States. Research shows that guns kept in the home are more likely to be involved in accidents, crimes, or suicides than in self-defense.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/07/docs_vs_glocks_upheld_florida_pediatricians_forbidden_from_asking_patients.html

ut this kind of stuff does happen in Florida—far more often than you’d think. In 2013 alone, at least 17 children in the state were killed by guns, and myriad more were wounded. These tragedies are part of a spiraling, nationwide epidemic of gun violence toward children, which includes a horrifyingly high number of absolutely preventable accidental shootings.

The gag law, nicknamed the Docs vs. Glocks law by its detractors, was passed by an overwhelmingly Republican Legislature brimming over with money from NRA lobbyists. It would seem to be an obvious First Amendment violation: For asking a patient a question that could save his child’s life, a doctor in Florida could lose her medical license or be fined $10,000. The state has no rational—let alone compelling—interest in censoring doctors from asking this basic question, much less preventing doctors from making evidence-based recommendations about public health and safety. And the law is so broad and vague that even an indirect inquiry could potentially qualify as illegal “harassment of a patient regarding firearm ownership.”

I can’t wait for next year! I bet we won’t be able to ask people if they pooped.

Sugar U: Effects of burning sugar cane on your lungs

Jun16

In preparation for next Saterday’s Epic

https://cyndi-lenz.com/2015/06/05/big-sugar-summit-update-awesome-speakers-check-it-out/

One of the topics will be

Is Big Sugar Burning Your Lungs?

Here is a dramatic scene from the now defunct tv show “cane” that was cancelled due to the writer’s strike even thought all the scrips were written.

Here is an actual burn

Is this harmful to us? I decided to check in with the mother ship.The NIH.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1459926

The Impact of Sugar Cane–Burning Emissions on the Respiratory System of Children and the Elderly

José E.D. Cançado,¹ Paulo H.N. Saldiva,¹ Luiz A.A. Pereira,^1,² Luciene B.L.S. Lara,² Paulo Artaxo,⁴ Luiz A. Martinelli,³ Marcos A. Arbex,^1,⁵ Antonella Zanobetti,⁶ and Alfesio L.F. Braga^1,^2,⁷

Abstract

We analyzed the influence of emissions from burning sugar cane on the respiratory system during almost 1 year in the city of Piracicaba in southeast Brazil. From April 1997 through March 1998, samples of inhalable particles were collected, separated into fine and coarse particulate mode, and analyzed for black carbon and tracer elements. At the same time, we examined daily records of children (< 13 years of age) and elderly people (> 64 years of age) admitted to the hospital because of respiratory diseases. Generalized linear models were adopted with natural cubic splines to control for season and linear terms to control for weather. Analyses were carried out for the entire period, as well as for burning and nonburning periods. Additional models were built using three factors obtained from factor analysis instead of particles or tracer elements. Increases of 10.2 μg/m³ in particles ≥ 2.5 μm/m³ aerodynamic diameter (PM_2.5) and 42.9 μg/m³ in PM₁₀ were associated with increases of 21.4% [95% confidence interval (CI), 4.3–38.5] and 31.03% (95% CI, 1.25–60.21) in child and elderly respiratory hospital admissions, respectively. When we compared periods, the effects during the burning period were much higher than the effects during nonburning period. Elements generated from sugar cane burning (factor 1) were those most associated with both child and elderly respiratory admissions. Our results show the adverse impact of sugar cane burning emissions on the health of the population, reinforcing the need for public efforts to reduce and eventually eliminate this source of air pollution.

Keywords: air pollution, biomass burning, children, elderly people, health effects, Poisson regression, respiratory diseases, time series

http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20121101/ARTICLES/121109957

Simon said there are two kinds of rhinitis, the medical term for excess mucus, congestion and sneezing. Cane smoke causes irritant or environmental rhinitis, where particles clog or irritate nasal passages.

“The smoke from sugar cane is an irritant,” Simon said. “It’s a lot like being in a smoky bar, where you end up coughing and sneezing.”

This is what the Sierra Club has to say about burning sugar cane.

http://www.sierraclub.org/florida/calusa/sugar-cane-burning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBELC_vxqhI

Sugar U: Fanjuls some history and a little trouble in Paradise.

Jun14

Sugar U: Fanjuls. Some history and a little trouble in Paradise.

The Fanjul Bro’s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanjul_brothers

The Fanjul brothers — Cuban born Alfonso “Alfy” Fanjul, José “Pepe” Fanjul, Alexander Fanjul, and Andres Fanjul — are owners of Fanjul Corp., a vast sugar and real estate conglomerate in the United States and the Dominican Republic. It comprises the subsidiaries Domino Sugar, Florida Crystals, C&H Sugar, Redpath Sugar, Tate & Lyle European Sugar, La Romana International Airport, and resorts surrounding La Romana, Dominican Republic.

The Fanjul brothers’ were born in Cuba and are descendants of the Spaniard Andres Gomez-Mena who immigrated to Cuba in the 19th century and built up an empire of sugar mills and property by the time he died in 1910. In 1936, his descendant Lillian Gomez-Mena married Alfonso Fanjul, Sr, the heir of the New York-based sugar companies the Czarnikow Rionda Company and the Cuban Trading Company. The couple’s holdings were then combined to create a large business of cane sugar mills, refineries, distilleries, and significant amounts of real estate. Due to Fidel Castro‘s 1959 Marxist Cuban Revolution, the family moved to Florida along with other wealthy, dispossessed Cuban families. In 1960, Alfonso Sr., the father of the current CEO of Fanjul Corp. Alfonso Jr., bought 4,000 acres (16 km²) of property near Lake Okeechobee along with some sugar mills from Louisiana and started over on the US. Alfonso Sr. and his son Alfy Fanjul got the firm off its feet and Pepe, Alexander and Andres joined in the late 1960s and 1970s.^[1] Pepe Fanjul Jr. joined the sugar firm in 2002. As of 2008, the company owned 155,000 acres (630 km²) in Palm Beach County.

Here are some great articles and blogs on the Fanjul’s.

Make sure you read http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com for great commentary!

Here’s a little classic salsa to set the mood!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpSpgQ9LFMg

http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2013/06/big-sugars-money-ball-by-gimleteye.html

But managing water is a state responsibility; Big Sugar’s interest in counties goes deep into the bread and butter of local politics: land use zoning. While Big Sugar wages water use and water quality battles on many levels of judicial review, fighting tooth and nail to dictate every last term of its water pollution control measures, it wages war on the land use zoning front by ensuring complicit county commissioners are well funded. If not sugar cane, then rock mines and inland ports and shopping centers and subdivisions strategically placed to thwart the aims of environmentalists to protect the Everglades and our rivers and streams and estuaries.

http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2010/05/fanjul-family-big-sugar-influence-under.html

Jose “Pepe” Fanjul, one of four brothers who control a sugar empire that includes Domino and Florida Crystals. Fanjul and his family have held at least two fundraisers for Rubio at Florida properties this year, while donors associated with Florida Crystals have given Rubio at least $81,100 since 2009.

(also some money from the Koch Brothers. Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by conservative activist brothers Charles and David Koch: $37,200. (Koch has donated $17,000 to Sen. Paul since 2010.)

Now, contrary to what almost anyone could have imagined, the 76-year-old Fanjul has begun to reassess old grievances and tentatively eye Cuba as a place for him and other U.S. businessmen to expand their enterprises. Quietly, without fanfare, Fanjul has started visiting the island of his birth and having conversations with top Cuban officials.

“If there is some way the family flag could be taken back to Cuba, then I am happy to do that,” Fanjul said in a rare interview, publicly discussing his recent visits to the island for the first time.

Here’s an early story on the Fanjul sugar interests well worth reading: “The power and wealth of the Fanjul family is enormous, so much so that they can quietly control their public image. But behind that image lies a family with a reputation for ruthlessness whose riches were made on the backs of migrant laborers and at the expense of America’s public resources and tax dollars. Without the artificial federal price supports of sugar, their industrial advantage and wealth would collapse.

http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/08/dear-alfie-and-pepe-fanjul-no-nyet-non.html

The Fanjuls of Coral Gables and Palm Beach are among the richest farmers in America. The family interests own Florida Crystals/ Flo Sun in lands formerly of the Everglades.

I wouldn’t care except that the Fanjul’s sugar growing interest in the Everglades Agricultural Area is a home-grown Florida polluter whose influence in the political sphere has contributed to the destruction of millions of acres of publicly owned property and irreplaceable natural resources. What adds to my ire is that in the execution of its business strategy, Fanjul lobbyists and attorneys take maximal positions in defense of the last dime of profit– even when lands like the 50,000 acre Talisman Farm have been committed to public ownership– causing years and years of delay.

West Palm Beach-based sugar company expands European business http://t.co/Jw3oJrGyPU

— Florida Crystals (@FLCrystalsCorp) October 25, 2013

Here are some other articles worthy of reading.

From 2003

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/29/opinion/america-s-sugar-daddies.html

Sugar growers in this country, long protected from global competition, have had a great run at the expense of just about everyone else — refineries, candy manufacturers, other food companies, individual consumers and farmers in the developing world. But now the nation’s sugar program, which guarantees a domestic price for raw sugar that can be as much as three times the world price, needs to be terminated. It has become far too costly to America’s global economic and strategic interests.

The less defensible a federal policy is on its merits, the greater the likelihood that it generates (or originates from) a great deal of cash in Washington, in the form of campaign contributions. Sugar is a sweet case in point. The Fanjul brothers, Florida’s Cuban-American reigning sugar barons who preside over Palm Beach’s yacht-owning society, were alone responsible for generating nearly $1 million in soft-money donations during the 2000 election cycle. Alfonso Fanjul, the chief executive of the family-controlled Flo-Sun company, served as Bill Clinton’s Florida co-chairman in 1992 — and even merited a mention in the impeachment-scandal Starr report, when Monica Lewinsky testified that the president received a call from him during one of their trysts. Meanwhile, brother Pepe is equally energetic in backing Republicans, so all bases are covered.

The Fanjuls harvest 180,000 acres in South Florida that send polluted water into the Everglades. (A crucial part of their business over the years has been to lobby not just against liberalization of the sugar trade, but against plans to have the sugar industry pay its fair share of the ambitious $8 billion Everglades restoration project.) The Fanjuls had been Cuba’s leading sugar family for decades before Fidel Castro’s takeover. Crossing the Straits of Florida, they bought land in the vicinity of Lake Okeechobee, which feeds the Everglades, and imported platoons of poorly paid Caribbean migrant workers. Their business was aided by the embargo on Cuban sugar. The crop is protected from other competition by an intricate system of import quotas that dates back to 1981.

The government does not pay sugar producers income supports as it does many other kinds of farmers. Instead, it guarantees growers like the Fanjuls an inflated price by restricting supply. Only about 15 percent of American sugar is imported under the quota rules, and while the world price is about 7 cents a pound, American businesses that need sugar to make their products must pay close to 21 cents. Preserving this spread between domestic and world sugar prices costs consumers an estimated $2 billion a year, and nets the Fanjuls — who have been called the first family of corporate welfare — tens of millions annually. The sugar exporters who are able to sell to the United States also benefit from those astronomical prices. The Dominican Republic is the largest quota holder, and one of the big plantation owners there is — surprise — the Fanjul family.

The sugar situation hurts American businesses and consumers, but its worst impact is on the poor countries that try to compete in the global agricultural markets. Their farmers might never be able to compete with corn or wheat farmers in the United States, even if the playing field were leveled. But they can grow cotton and sugar at lower prices than we can, no matter how advanced our technology. Our poorer trading partners bitterly resent the way this country feels entitled to suspend market-driven rules whenever it appears they will place American producers at a disadvantage.

In fairness, the United States is not alone in distorting the sugar trade, and the European Union’s massively subsidized exports of beet sugar make it the biggest culprit. The American sugar lobby uses that fact as a shield, arguing that the crop not be included in any regional trade deals until distortions are addressed by all countries at the World Trade Organization. But quotas are set between trading partners, not on a global level. Right now the United States is negotiating the creation of a hemispheric free trade area that would benefit many United States industries, including other agricultural sectors. It is ridiculous for the sugar lobby to argue — as it does vociferously — that sugar should not be included in the agreement even though it is one of the few products that some Latin American republics can hope to ship to the American market.

So far the Bush administration has rightly rejected the sugar lobby’s push to keep the commodity off the table. The danger, however, is that American trade negotiators might still prove far too deferential to sugar industries when hammering out the trade deals’ specifics. For instance, any move to phase in elimination of sugar quotas over a period longer than a decade (as was done in the North American Free Trade Agreement) would undermine any promise a trade deal might hold for poor farmers in Latin America. The strength of the protectionist sugar lobby in Washington — which unites Southeastern cane growers and Midwestern beet farmers — was apparent in the success of Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana last year in bashing Nafta’s modest sugar provision during her re-election bid.

If the sugar trade were liberalized, world prices would start creeping up and domestic prices would fall, which would benefit both the developing world and the American economy. The industry itself cites ”alarming” studies that if the United States imported an additional two million metric tons — roughly the amount Central America exports — domestic prices would be cut in half. But that is no argument for opposing trade liberalization. That is an argument for the handful of individuals who control the sugar business in this country to start thinking about a new line of work, and be grateful for the long run they had.

Harvesting Poverty: Editorials in this series remain online at nytimes.com/harvestingpoverty.

The Fanjuls are looking back to the future with Cuba

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sugar-tycoon-alfonso-fanjul-now-open-to-investing-in-cuba-under-right-circumstances/2014/02/02/4192b016-8708-11e3-a5bd-844629433ba3_story.html

This, I’m sure, will make Marco Rubio’s head spin.

http://news.yahoo.com/here-s-where-marco-rubio-gets-his-campaign-money-204131516.html;_ylt=A0LEV79NuX5VmnIAgronnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTE0MjRrZ2t1BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDRkZYVUkxMl8xBHNlYwNzYw–

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, made the following statement on reports of Cuban-American sugar tycoon Alfonso Fanjul considering investing in Cuba:

“At a time when the democracy activists on the island are facing even harsher reprisals from the brutal Cuban regime, it’s pathetic that a Cuban-American tycoon feels inspired to trample on the backs of those activists in order to give the communist thugs more money with which to repress. The only little old thing that is standing in Alfy’s way of realizing these sleazy business deals with the devil is US law. He doesn’t talk about the arbitrary arrests of pro-freedom leaders in Cuba or the continual beatings endured by the peaceful Damas de Blanco. Oh no, for Alfy, the only hindrance to turning a profit off the suffering of the Cuban people is pesky US laws and he is working with groups to undo those laws. It is sickening to read that he brings up the separation of the Cuban family when he is doing all he can to exacerbate that problem. Shame on him..”

A little trouble in Paradise!

Despite the Fanjul family’s influence over U.S. policy and access to government officials at the highest levels of power, Alfy Fanjul has never become a U.S. citizen. He remains a permanent U.S. resident who maintains Spanish citizenship. Alfonso Fanjul served as co-chairman of Bill Clinton’s Florida campaign in 1992 and is a major contributor and fundraiser for the Democratic Party. His brother Pepe, who is a U.S. citizen, contributes to the Republicans.

How to grow your own sugar cane. DIY

SFWMD: Dirty toilets affront to citizens.

Jun14

SFWMD: Dirty toilets affront to citizens. Big giants spiders a bonus!

http://www.courierpress.com/business/dirty-toilets-an-indicator-of-larger-issues

“Dirty toilets,” I repeat. “They signal customers and employees that management does not care about them as people. Most people take toilets seriously. A dirty toilet is an affront to people who care about themselves, their families, and their fellow citizens. Management can always blame the users of the toilets for persistent filth and disarray, but ultimately it’s management’s responsibility.”

The Bathroom at STA 5/6 gross inside and filled with spiders.

Here are instructions. Please share with your staff.

http://www.wikihow.com/Clean-a-Toilet

Today I want to talk about toilets. I’m a nurse. It goes with the territory. I know I’m totally perseverating but that toilet at STA5/6 was really disgusting. Does the toilet at the facility reflect on the people who run that facility? Does that then reflect on its bosses? If that’s the case then SFWMD does a really crappy job. I hardly doubt that anyone from the Board of Governors have been to this place.

https://cyndi-lenz.com/2015/06/09/our-sta-56-and-their-good-neighbor-us-sugar-corp/

http://my.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/pg_grp_sfwmd_landresources/pg_sfwmd_landresources_recopps_se_sta5

SFWMD invite you to recreate.

“Located on approximately 17,000 acres in eastern Hendry County, Stormwater Treatment Area 5/6 (STA-5/6) has become one of the premier bird-watching areas in Florida through a long-standing partnership with the Hendry-Glades Audubon Society. More than 200 bird species have been spotted at STA-5/6 on the seasonal, guided bird-watching tours offered by the local Audubon chapter. The site is also popular as a waterfowl hunting area managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

Access to STA-5/6 was expanded in 2013 with a public use area with shell-rocked parking, an informational kiosk, restrooms and a trail that includes a covered shade shelter and a boardwalk. Hiking, bicycling and bird-watching are among the activities visitors can enjoy from the public use area. In addition, a portion of the Florida National Scenic Trail runs along the L-3 levee on the west side of the STA.”

I’m quite used to out houses. When I was kid our camp at Sebago Lake in Maine was the first camp in the area to have a toilet. Yet, we all loved the Balin’s outhouse across the road.

My dad took us camping in the woods of New Hampshire.

When my son was in 9th Grade we went on a camping trip to Oleno State Park near Gainesville.

http://www.stateparks.com/oleno.html

We camped in primitive camping

Primitive Camping

Three youth camping areas, each with a covered pavilion, campfire circle, cold showers and restroom facilities. This is primitive camping with NO ELECTRIC. Youth Camping Area reservation can be made up to 11 months in advance by calling the park office at 386-454-1853. Sweetwater Lake Camping Area – primitive camping with fire circle and privy. You must hike approximately 6.5 miles to camping area and pack in all supplies needed including water. Horse Barn Camping Area – primitive camping with fire circle, centrally located bathhouse and 20 stall horse barn are available. Please call the park office at 386-454-1853 for more information.

This place was no problem even for West Boca Ninth Graders.

I’ve been to the outhouse at Splitrocks, WY

http://www.outdoorlife.com/photos/gallery/diy/home/2010/07/best-and-worst-outhouses/?image=0

The best and worse outhouses.

Here I’m even providing directions

I hope this helps! How can we even think your taking care of our water with a restroom like the one at STA5/6.

BIG SUGAR ENTERTAINMENT or not: Fanjul’s try to control movies, TV, what’s next?

Jun12

BIG SUGAR ENTERTAINMENT or not: Fanjul’s try to control movies, TV, what’s next? Maybe a reality show. That would be fun. (The making part. Not the thousands of swarming lawyers trying to stop you)

Kudo’s to all these documentary filmmakers. One especially Amy Serrano. And big Kudos to my friend Michael Posner, founder of the Delray Beach Film Festival. Read on and you’ll see why.

I did a little recon to see what else is out there on the subject of Big Sugar and I found:

CBC Big Sugar 1 of 2 Documentary on the Political History of the Sugar Industry

Part 2 of 2

This film was made by a Canadian

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0820840/

Very interesting eye-opener. Very well made film that makes the viewer understand that the name Big Sugar is as fitting for describing the business as Big Tobacco is to tobacco. Very similar businesses indeed. It was quite shocking to learn that the industry today probably is worse than tobacco industry, as I am aware of there are no slaves in the present tobacco industry… And shocking to learn that the industry is so heavily subsidized in the USA. It’s funny that what may eventually make people use less sugar is not the corruption, lies and misuse of power that the industry represents, but instead the effect it has on their own health. Who cares about other people, specially the poor?

The Price of Sugar narrated by Paul Newman.

The Price of Sugar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Price of Sugar is a 2007 documentary by Bill Haney about exploitation of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic involved with production of sugar, and the efforts of Spanish priest Father Christopher Hartley to ameliorate their situation. It is narrated by actor Paul Newman. The documentary shows the poor working conditions in the sugar cane plantations, and political control exerted by the Vicini family to stifle efforts to change the situation….. the movie has resulted in several lawsuits from the Vicini family.

http://www.vicinigroup.com/

Story in TIME magazine and CNN explaining the Fanjul Casa de Campo sugar business:

FOR TRAVEL— CASA DE CAMPO, LA ROMANA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, AERIAL

Sweet deal why are these men smiling? The reason is in your sugar bowl

By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele

Occupying a breathtaking spot on the southeast coast of the Dominican Republic, Casa de Campo is one of the Caribbean’s most storied resorts. It bills itself as “a hedonist’s and sportsman’s dream,” and that’s truth in advertising. The place has 14 swimming pools, a world-class shooting ground, PGA-quality golf courses and $1,000-a-night villas.

A thousand miles to the northwest, in the Florida Everglades, the vista is much different. Chemical runoff from the corporate cultivation of sugar cane imperils vegetation and wildlife. Polluted water spills out of the glades into Florida Bay, forming a slimy, greenish brown stain where fishing once thrived.

Both sites are the by-product of corporate welfare.

In this case the beneficiaries are the Fanjul family of Palm Beach, Fla. The name means nothing to most Americans, but the Fanjuls might be considered the First Family of Corporate Welfare. They own Flo-Sun Inc., one of the nation’s largest producers of raw sugar. As such, they benefit from federal policies that compel American consumers to pay artificially high prices for sugar.

Since the Fanjuls control about one-third of Florida’s sugar-cane production, that means they collect at least $60 million a year in subsidies, according to an analysis of General Accounting Office calculations. It’s the sweetest of deals, and it’s made the family, the proprietors of Casa de Campo, one of America’s richest.

The subsidy has had one other consequence: it has helped create an environmental catastrophe in the Everglades. Depending on whom you talk to, it will cost anywhere from $3 billion to $8 billion to repair the Everglades by building new dikes, rerouting canals and digging new lakes.

Growers are committed to pay up to $240 million over 20 years for the cleanup. Which means the industry that created much of the problem will have to pay only a fraction of the cost to correct it. Government will pay the rest. As for the Fanjuls, a spokesman says they are committed to pay about $4.5 million a year.

How did this disaster happen? With your tax dollars. How will it be fixed? With your tax dollars.

It is not news that sugar is richly subsidized, or that the Fanjuls have profited so handsomely. Even as recently as 1995, when Congress passed legislation to phase out price supports for a cornucopia of agricultural products, raw sugar was spared. Through a combination of loan guarantees and tariffs on imported sugar, domestic farmers like the Fanjuls are shielded from real-world prices. So in the U.S., raw sugar sells for about $22 a pound, more than double the price most of the world pays. The cost to Americans: at least $1.4 billion in the form of higher prices for candy, soda and other sweet things of life. A GAO study, moreover, has estimated that nearly half the subsidy goes to large sugar producers like the Fanjuls.

A spokesman for Flo-Sun, Jorge Dominicis, said the company disagrees with the GAO’s estimate on the profits the Fanjuls and other growers derive from the program.

“That is supposed to imply somehow that our companies receive $60 million in guaranteed profits,” he said, “and that is flat-out not true. Our companies don’t make anywhere near that kind of profit.”

Dominicis, like other proponents of the sugar program, contends that it doesn’t cost taxpayers a penny and is not unlike government protection of other American industries. “If our [sugar policy] is corporate welfare, which I don’t believe it is, then all trade policy is corporate welfare,” he says.

Flo-Sun is run by four Fanjul brothers, Alfonso (“Alfie”), Jose (“Pepe”), Andres and Alexander. Their family dominated Cuba’s sugar industry for decades, and they came to this country with their parents in 1959, after Fidel Castro seized power. The Fanjuls arrived just as a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project to control the flow of water in the Florida Everglades made large-scale development possible. The total acreage planted in sugar cane there soared–from 50,000 acres in 1960 to more than 420,000 today.

Within that swampy paradise lies yet another subsidy. Each year, according to a 1997 estimate, the Army Corps of Engineers spends $63 million to control water flow in central and south Florida. This enables growers to obtain water when they need it or restrain the flow during heavy rains. Of the $63 million, the Corps estimates $52 million is spent on agriculture, mainly sugar-cane farmers, in the Everglades.

Even with the additional production from the Glades, propped up by price supports, the U.S. can’t produce all the sugar it needs. The Federal Government rations access to the lucrative U.S. market by assigning quotas to 40 sugar-producing nations, most of them developing countries. And, remarkably, the Fanjuls have found riches here too. Every year, the country that receives the largest sugar quota is the Dominican Republic. With a per-capita income of $1,600 a year and an unemployment rate hovering around 20%, that Caribbean nation needs all the economic help it can get. And who is the largest private exporter of Dominican sugar? The Fanjuls, thanks in part to their long-standing relationship with the Dominican Republic’s politicians. Through a subsidiary, Central Romana Ltd., the brothers grow sugar cane and operate the world’s largest sugar mill there. The profit margin is substantial, partly because cane cutters on the island earn about $100 a month, making production costs much lower than in Florida. From their Dominican plantation the Fanjuls export roughly 100,000 tons of raw, duty-free sugar each year to the U.S.

Whether they sell sugar from their holdings in the Everglades or from their mill in the Caribbean, the Fanjuls are guaranteed a U.S. price that is more than double anywhere else in the world. As might be expected, having it both ways has propelled the Fanjuls into the ranks of the richest Americans. Their wealth is counted in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

And although they appear frequently in the society pages, the Fanjuls won’t be caught dead in the financial section. As Emilia Fanjul, the wife of Pepe, once confided to a society reporter, “We like to be private about the business.”

Depending on the season, the Fanjuls can be found shooting game in Scotland, skiing in Switzerland or relaxing at their spectacular Casa de Campo. These 7,000 acres overlooking the sea have long been a favorite playground of the wealthy. But Palm Beach is still their real home, and Florida is still the heart of their financial empire. They now farm an estimated 180,000 acres of cane-producing land in the Everglades–43% of the total–making them one of the two-largest sugar growers in the state.

For decades, this region has been home to one of the worst jobs in America–hacking cane with a machete. Until the work was mechanized in the 1990s, the growers had to bring in thousands of cane cutters from the Caribbean every season. Yet in preserving the subsidy that has made millionaires of the Fanjuls, Congress has cited the fact that it saves American jobs.

Migrant-labor organizations and legal-aid groups in Florida have long waged an ongoing battle with the Fanjuls and other growers over the abysmal conditions. Greg Schell, an attorney with the Migrant Farmworkers Justice Project in Belle Glade, Fla., contends that of all the growers, the Fanjuls have treated their workers the worst. “They are in a class by themselves,” he said. A lawsuit seeking back wages and benefits is expected to go to trial next spring.

Every few years, critics of the sugar program attempt to roll back the subsidy that has enriched the Fanjuls and kept sugar prices high. And every time they fail, largely because of the power of the sugar lobby, which includes not just large growers like the Fanjuls but thousands of small sugar-beet farmers in other parts of the nation.

Though by no means the largest special interest in Washington, the sugar lobby is one of the most well-heeled. And among growers, the Fanjuls are big givers. Family members and corporate executives have contributed nearly $1 million so far in this decade, dividing the money fairly evenly between political parties.

This knack for covering all political bases carries all the way to the top of the Fanjul empire. Alfonso Fanjul served as co-chairman of Bill Clinton’s Florida campaign in 1992. His brother Pepe was national vice chairman of finance for Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996 and was host to a $1,000-a-head fund raiser for Dole at his Palm Beach mansion. After Clinton’s 1992 victory, Alfie was a member of the select group invited by the Clinton camp to attend the President-elect’s “economic summit” in Little Rock, Ark.

That’s access. Source: CNN.com

The Sugar Babies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sugar_Babies

The film officially premiered at the Montreal International Haitian Film Festival, but preview screenings in Paris and Miami led to heated controversy.^[1]^[2]

The Miami screening of the film, which included many members of the hispanic media of South Florida and from the Dominican Republic, was the subject of a cease and desist order one hour before the time of screening, as well as a bribery scandal when several radio producers came forward to state that Dominican diplomats had offered them bribes to disrupt the screening and give the film a bad review.^[3]^[4] The Paris screening of the film was also the subject of a sabotage attempt.^[5]

The film made “Official Selection” at Unifem‘s Through Women’s Eyes Film Festival, the New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival, and the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival. The film also made “Official Selection” at both the Miami International Film Festival and the Women’s International Film Festival but was ostensibly withdrawn from both South Florida festivals due to pressure from the sugar industry.

The Sugar Babies won the Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Delray Beach Film Festival, continues to be screened in film festivals and educational venues, and is on tour with Amnesty International in France.

“The Sugar Babies won the Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Delray Beach Film Festival: Love you Michael Posner!

(Michael Posner is President founder and programme director.) (PS My film got it’s first award at the Delray Beach Film Festival)

http://www.sptimes.com/2008/03/09/news_pf/State/Filmmaker__festival_a.shtml

Filmmaker, festival at odds

The creator accuses Florida’s powerful sugar industry of blackballing Sugar Babies.

Associated Press
Published March 9, 2008

MIAMI – From their perch atop Florida’s sugar industry, the Fanjul family wields political and cultural power from the sunny sands of Palm Beach to the corridors of Washington.

Now filmmaker Amy Serrano believes the family has used that power to block the showing of her documentary critical of the family’s umbrella company, Flo-Sun Inc., at the Miami International Film Festival. And she says her project about the Fanjuls is not the only one to run into trouble in recent months. She points to the fight the CBS-TV series Cane faced before it was aired.

“I feel like my film has been blackballed,” said Serrano of her documentary, The Sugar Babies. It’s about the mistreatment of Haitian sugar workers in the Dominican Republic, where the Fanjul family and other companies harvest cane.

Gaston Cantens, a spokesman for the Fanjuls’ West Palm Beach Florida Crystals Corp., called any accusation that the Fanjuls exerted undue pressure ridiculous.

Serrano’s film was rejected from the festival, which ends today, days before the final lineup was announced. The rejection came despite initial support from the festival’s organizers and acclaim at more than a dozen other festivals worldwide.

Serrano said she has no proof the Fanjuls were behind the decision but maintains explanations for her film’s rejection and the subsequent response from another Miami festival were suspicious.

Films about other sugar families are running into direct opposition from their subjects.

The Dominican Republic’s Vicini sugar family recently hired a Washington, D.C., law firm to sue the makers of another documentary, The Price of Sugar, for defamation.

Cantens said the sugar industry is tired of one-sided portrayals of “big sugar.”

“For years we kind of took it on the chin,” he said of stories alleging worker mistreatment and environmental pollution. “We’re tired of taking it on the chin, and we’re fighting back.”

The Fanjuls’ political influence is no small thing. It was the Cuban-American patriarch Alfie Fanjul’s telephone call that interrupted President Bill Clinton during an indiscreet moment with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. The family and its network have already given more than $300,000 so far in the 2008 election cycle to political committees and candidates from both major parties.

Serrano, a Cuban-American and Miami native, said festival officials initially gushed over her film in November. Back then, she told organizers she had already exhibited it elsewhere, including for students at Florida International University in Miami. It was a private showing but made local headlines when media showed up with the Dominican consul, who denounced the portrayal of his country.

Film festival officials originally said the FIU showing was fine, according to e-mail exchanges with Serrano. But, on Jan. 25, Serrano got another letter telling her the showing was a problem because of the media coverage, which disqualified it.

Festival director Patrick de Bokay denied the Fanjuls pressured him, saying “you have to make hard decisions, and you cannot take all the films.”

Bokay said he offered to hold a special screening for The Sugar Babies at a later date.

That would mean much less publicity – and less controversy, Serrano said.

Days after the film festival’s rejection, the Women’s International Film Festival in Miami, which opens March 26, also began to backpedal on its invitation to show the film, Serrano said. Eventually the organizers offered a small theater with a forum to bring in different views.

Serrano, who has lined up a number of other festivals, plans to decline.

The Fanjuls dropped their lawsuit against Cane, a Cuban-flavored mix of Dynasty and Dallas set among South Florida’s sugar fields, only after producers changed details.

I wrote about this yesterday.

https://cyndi-lenz.com/2015/06/11/throwback-thurs-cane-the-tv-show/

That’s all that I can find right now.

Do we need another documentary that will not get shown because of political pressure from the Fanjuls?

I think we need something that will amass a bigger audience. Like a reality show. I don’t actually watch reality shows but I bet you guys that do would have some great ideas.

You have to watch this so funny

Throwback Thurs: Cane the TV Show.

Jun11

Throwback Thurs: Cane the TV Show.

Remember Cane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_%28TV_series%29

Starring Jimmy Smits, this epic drama chronicles the external rivalries and internal power struggles of a large Cuban-American family running an immensely successful rum and sugar business in South Florida. When the family patriarch, Pancho Duque, is offered a lucrative but questionable deal by his bitter adversaries, the Samuels, he’s faced with a difficult choice: Should he cash out of the sugar business and focus solely on rum, which would please his biological son, Frank Duque? Or should he protect the family legacy that he built from the ground up by refusing to sell? This would involve siding with his son-in-law, Alex Vega, who despises the Samuels and foresees multi-billion dollar profits from future ethanol contracts.

It opened to more than 11 million viewers.

Due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, Cane completed its first season on December 18, 2007. On February 8, 2008 The Los Angeles Times reported that the effects of the writers strike “could spell sudden death for such programs as NBC’s Bionic Woman and CBS’ Cane, industry executives predicted.”^[10] It was also reported by USA Today that Cane would be “gone for good. On February 14, 2008, CBS released a statement declaring that Cane is still on “hiatus to accommodate the mid-season launches of Big Brother, Jericho and Dexter.” In an April 2008 interview, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler called the drama’s chances for renewal “a real long shot.”On May 14, 2008, CBS officially cancelled the series.

so then we read this

Broadcasting history

The series premiered on CBS on September 25, 2007 as announced on July 18, 2007 by the network The pilot episode was leaked to BitTorrent websites in the same month to the chagrin of studio executives. Cane was unaffected by the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike as all the episodes had been written before the strike started.

writer’s strike I don’t think so.

http://havanajournal.com/cuban_americans/entry/fanjul-family-bring-out-lawyers-to-review-cane-cbs-tv-series-scripts-3356

If you’ve lived around here for a while and those details remind you of the Fanjul family of Palm Beach, you’re not alone. The Fanjuls think Cane might remind viewers of them, and they’re not really happy about it.

Joseph Klock Jr., Miami-based general counsel for the Fanjul’s West Palm Beach holding company, Flo-Sun Inc., said Friday lawyers for the Fanjuls are in communication with CBS and the scripts are being reviewed.

“We want to make sure it is absolutely clear it has nothing to do with the Fanjuls or their companies,” said Klock, of Epstein Becker & Green. “None of this conduct is the kind of conduct the Fanjuls engage in.”

Cane, which some industry observers describe as a “Cuban Sopranos,” is filled with the usual TV mayhem you’d expect from a glitzy prime-time soap: sex, violence and murder. There’s also an internal power struggle between two brothers in the powerful, fictional Duque family. The chief protagonist in the series is Alex Vega, an adopted son of the Duques played by Jimmy Smits, a well-regarded actor of Puerto Rican descent most recently featured on The West Wing.

Barbara Miedema, spokeswoman for the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida in Belle Glade, which includes the Fanjuls in its membership, said she doesn’t see much realistic about Cane. “From what I have seen, it looks like pure fiction.”

Cantens, the Fanjul spokesman, said when the family first learned about Cane a few months ago, they thought it was going to be a documentary. They learned differently a few weeks ago, he said.

“Someone sent me an e-mail. Then it went to the legal end of the building,” Cantens said.

“People are going to say, ‘Oh, my God, it must be about the Fanjuls,’” he said. “That is their concern: if there are going to be similarities.”

So the show was already written so its cancellation had nothing to do with the writer’s strike. Having a show like this in South Florida brings in a lot of money for our local business and work for our actors and other film professionals.

Bring it back! There’s so much more to write.

ACOE and the Herbert Hoover Dike: We should be up in arms together!

Jun10

To the people of Clewiston, Florida

ACOE and the Herbert Hoover Dike: We should be up in arms together!

Let’s take a moment to remember when the discharges came back in 2013 and we all went to Phipp’s Park. 7000 of us together in true Solidarity. The day most of us met each other.

That day we all heard this speech from the Indian RiverKeeper Marty Baum.

For many of us this was a call to action. For the people of Clewiston it was a call to flood them and make them float away. Of course, that’s not what Marty said. He didn’t say flood the houses. He said flood the fields and he was referring big sugars ability to keep their water at the exact height needed.

I posted that video of Marty on my old video blog on UVU which was part of WPBT2. I’m not sure what happened to UVU but I posted a lot of content there.

I posted Mark Perry, the video of the march to the locks, and others that got a decent amount of views. Marty’s video got 2400 views which is huge.

After the Sugarland Rally, when the people of Clewiston were accusing us of wanting to flood them I realized that probably every person in Clewiston probably saw that video. There was no explaining to them what the intention was. Their minds were set.

We heard that we HAD to have to discharges to protect the people that live south of the lake. Most of us understand that. That was 2 years ago and many millions of dollars.

Are the people south of lake any safer today than they were then?

This is from 2013

http://www.hurricaneanalytics.com/2013/02/three_levee_fact

. The levee is expected to fail. I know that sounds bad, and it is. FEMA is apparently planning to update flood assessments this summer and redraw flood maps for Palm Beach and Martin counties. These flood maps are expected to be drawn as if the levee around Lake Okeechobee didn’t exist. In other words, they are not counting on the levees to protect against flooding.

2. The Herbert Hoover Dike is in the highest failure category of the Army Corps risk scale. Current efforts are being directed at reducing the risk category, but as it stands (and even after millions of dollars worth of improvements) the levee protecting the area still carries the highest risk classification (DSAC 1) of any dam in the United States.

3. There is no emergency spillway, nor is one planned to be built. There is no good, controlled way to drain off excess water from the lake should a large amount of rain fall in a short amount of time. Lake Okeechobee fills six times faster than it can be drained, and a foot of rainfall would result in 3 to 4 feet of water rise in the lake. Current levees will start to fail when the lake rises above 18.5 feet above mean sea level (it’s at roughly 14 feet currently), and significant levee problems are almost certain to occur when the lake reaches 20 feet over MSL.

This is from 2015.

http://www.constructionequipmentguide.com/Improvements-Continue-for-Herbert-Hoover-Dike/21625/

“In what appears to be a never-ending task, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews in Florida continue working on the outdated Herbert Hoover Dike surrounding Lake Okeechobee — the state’s largest freshwater lake. Since 2007, teams have performed various tasks to reduce the risk of dike failure due to flooding from high water levels.”

Because of the construction methods used in the 1930s, the dike is susceptible to erosion of the earthen embankment,” said John Campbell, public affairs specialist of the Jacksonville District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). “Over the past six years, we have installed a 21.4 mile concrete barrier known as a cutoff wall into the southeast quadrant of the dike. The cutoff wall is designed to reduce seepage and prevent erosion.”

The cutoff wall extends from roughly 6 ft. (1.8 m) from the top of the dike through the foundation to several feet beyond the limestone bedrock, averaging between 60 to 80 ft. (18.3 to 24.4 m) below the crest of the dike. It’s considered crucial to the rehabilitation effort, although is by no means a solution to a complex problem. Despite a multi-million dollar effort by USACE, the dike remains on a national shortlist of unsafe class 1 dams, with a category defined as either “almost certain to fail under normal operations” or at “extreme risk of failure with high fatalities and economic losses.” Campbell said progress has been made, but there is a long way to go.

“The $200 million invested so far made it possible to install the cutoff wall in the southeast quadrant of the dike between Port Mayaca and Belle Glade,” said Campbell.

TWO HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS and the people are no safer than they were two years ago.

Anyone say Big Dig?

People of Clewiston you should be up in arms!

We should be up in arms because as long as this is the case our discharges will never stop.

We should be up in arms together.

I feel like Danny Kaye in this clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIFJHYIlNi4

Here are some photo’s I took from the car as Julie and I whizzed by last weekend.

There was one spot that looked like a giant sand bag. Not a lot of confidence going into hurricane season.

The reason I bring this up is because our campaign to build a reservoir ended with discharges and toxic green algae sightings and it felt like what went around came around and we were back to square one with the ACOE. The people south of the lake are still in grave danger.

Don’t you think that having a reservoir south of the lake would take some pressure off those dikes and help to keep those people safer?

It felt like ring around the rosey.

It felt like deja vu all over again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSwL6ZQc2Ks

So just a note to the folks out in Clewiston. If you want to be upset with someone be upset with the ACOE and be upset with your bosses at big us sugar corp who are against anything that will keep you safe.

Our STA 5/6 and their good neighbor US Sugar Corp

Jun9

@SFWMD

@joenegronfl

Our STA 5/6 and their good neighbor US Sugar Corp

This past weekend my friend Jules and I went to visit STA 5/6. I wanted to see the STA’s. The Board of Governors were all over these places and how fabulous they were. I needed to see for myself. They could not have been talking about this place. Do you think they have even been here?

What is an STA?

Here’s a good link

http://www.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/xrepository/sfwmd_repository_pdf/bts_sta.pdf

This is what they had on their website for STA 5

http://my.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/pg_grp_sfwmd_landresources/pg_sfwmd_landresources_recopps_se_sta5

Photo on TOP

So this is what I thought I was going to be seeing

Stormwater Treatment Area 5/6 (STA-5/6)

Stormwater Treatment Areas (STAs) are constructed wetlands designed to aid in Everglades restoration. STAs remove phosphorus from runoff water by channeling it through shallow marshes filled with aquatic plants such as cattail, southern naiad and algae. These plants take up or absorb phosphorus from water traveling through, reducing to very low levels the amount of the nutrients reaching the Everglades or Lake Okeechobee.

STAs provide another bonus – prime home and visiting territory to wildlife including wading birds, ducks and American alligators. A variety of nature-based recreational activities are allowed at several of these wetland locations.

Located on approximately 17,000 acres in eastern Hendry County, Stormwater Treatment Area 5/6 (STA-5/6) has become one of the premier bird-watching areas in Florida through a long-standing partnership with the Hendry-Glades Audubon Society. More than 200 bird species have been spotted at STA-5/6 on the seasonal, guided bird-watching tours offered by the local Audubon chapter. The site is also popular as a waterfowl hunting area managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

Access to STA-5/6 was expanded in 2013 with a public use area with shell-rocked parking, an informational kiosk,

restrooms

Gross inside and filled with spiders.

and a trail that includes a covered shade shelter and a boardwalk. Hiking, bicycling and bird-watching are among the activities visitors can enjoy from the public use area. In addition, a portion of the Florida National Scenic Trail runs along the L-3 levee on the west side of the STA.

The Trip to STA 5/6

The road to STA 5/6

Signage for STA

sugar fields in Clewiston. Notice the brown stuff near the water. herbacides?

These are canal on the side of the road filled with vegetation.

and then we got lost

and then we were found.

So when you pull onto Deerfence Canal Road the STA is straight ahead and to the right to US Sugar Corp.

Gate for US Sugar Corp

This is the water coming from the west running along side US Sugar Corp

This is the water going towards the STA. Note Brown decayed vegetation on right looks like its bee sprayed with herbacides.

This is the water on the other side of the street going toward the STA

Then we got here. I have no idea what this is or what’s it for.

but then after the water looked like this.

Again no judgement I have no idea what I’m looking at

We drove up the the STA’s

Building at STA 5/6

STA 5

sta 6

sta 5

STA-5 is accessible from the north or south.

From the north: Travel about one mile east of Clewiston on U.S. 27 to C.R. 835, (Evercane Road), or find this intersection about 13.5 miles west of South Bay.Once on C.R. 835 travel south and west about 26 miles to Deerfence Canal Road.
From the south: Use I-75, travel about 25 miles west of U.S. 27 on I-75 turn north at Snake Road exit. Follow this road northward 25 miles to C.R. 835 and turn east three miles to Deerfence Canal Road.Once at Deerfence Canal Road go east one mile to STA-5, cross the bridge and proceed to the east end of the public parking area.

MAPS

http://my.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/xrepository/sfwmd_repository_pdf/sta5-pub-access-102213_with_levees_closed.pdf

Here’s some bird watching information

http://my.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/xrepository/sfwmd_repository_pdf/sta5_birdwatch_information.pdf

Check the eco-tour it looks like fun!

Again. I’m not a hydrologist or geologist but it seems very dry down there. The canals were low. What good fortune for US Sugar Corp to have all this water just next door! Isn’t it? Who needs a reservoir when you have all the water you need right next door. I could definitely see why no one wants to mess with this.

I’d definitely bring my own potty! and don’t forget to stop by the US Sugar Corp guardhouse that sits next to the STA and say hi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT8ym1gOfCY

Sugar U: The US Sugar Corp

Jun7

@sugarcard2

In a few week we’ll be going to the Sugar Summit that is being put together by our great friends, the Florida SIerra Club. I thought it was a good time to bone up on who’z who and what’s what.

Please feel free to chime in. Even at sugarcard2 – we want to hear from you!

Yesterday, my friend Jules and I went out to Clewiston. The headquarters for US Sugar Corporation resides there.

They call themselves ” America’s Sweetest Town.” Maybe sweet in sugar but not sweet people. The last time I went out there was to shoot “The Sugarland Rally”

The Sugarland Rally was a really sincere effort to bring people together to discuss our water issues together. Lead by our friend Justin Riney. This was their message.

An open letter to Florida residents from The Sugarland Rally Committee:

Dear Florida,

Please read these important details regarding a bicoastal rally we have planned for September 1st on Lake Okeechobee. There are multiple organizations involved in planning this event, and we need your help immediately to get the word out.

The Sugarland Rally will unite the east and west coasts of Florida in a peaceful, historic demonstration to speak out against the pollution of our estuaries from Lake Okeechobee discharges. We support both immediate and long-term solutions, but ecosystems and communities along the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee Estuaries are in crisis. We cannot afford to wait for ecological and economic collapse. We urge all stakeholders–especially local, state and federal governments–to act immediately.

We chose Clewiston as a central location to unify east and west at Lake Okeechobee, the source that is polluting our estuaries, and because we believe Florida’s sugar industry can be part of the solution. Please don’t misinterpret our intentions–we are NOT holding a rally at Clewiston to protest or point fingers at “Big Sugar.” It’s quite the opposite, actually. We invite Florida’s powerful sugar industry to join us in crafting an immediate solution to the ecological and economic crisis caused by discharges from Lake Okeechobee. Here’s a golden opportunity to earn the respect, loyalty, and trust of Floridians for generations to come–to squash the stereotypes–by standing with the people in support of a solution. Without the healthy longevity of Florida’s land and water, we’re all out of business. Our children and grandchildren are out of business. We invite Florida’s sugar industry to stand with us in support of preserving the wonderful land and water that keeps us all in business. We must think longer term, we must think sustainably, and the time to act is now.

Our message is a peaceful one to emphasize a powerful sense of unity needed among ALL Floridians, and to urge local, state, and federal governments to act immediately to stop the pollution of our estuaries from Lake Okeechobee discharges. We are all entitled to healthy land and water, and it is our responsibility as citizens, working with our government, to preserve these treasured assets and ensure their longevity for generations to come. Let’s all unite as Floridians in support of both immediate and long-term solutions. The Sugarland Rally will be a peaceful demonstration that we can all be proud of.

Join The Sugarland Rally conversation on the event page at http://www.bit.ly/sugarlandrally, and please share this post with as many concerned Floridians as possible. This is a call to action, and we need your help.

Respectfully,

The Sugarland Rally Committee

This was a rally to have a discussion to pull us all together. US= east coast, west coast, and the people of Clewiston. For us it was to make sure we respect the people that live in the south of the lake and make sure they are safe. Human being stuff. Community stuff.

Here is the video I shot. As you can see at the beginning we were quit stoked to be there.

After the rally we went on the invitation of the Mayor to the Roland Martin Marina for some food. When we got there they refused to serve us. Every person in the room stared us down and honestly if they had guns they would have shot us down.

We went next door where I met up with friends Bob and Lisa Riney (parents of justin) and ate lunch and my friends did end up getting a few drinks because Mayor Roland showed up.

Mind you, I’m the video girl, who’s only job was to document the event. And I was starving, hot, tired. So so much for Southern Hospitality. So much for olive branches.

Afterwards in the Clewiston New’s more hate came from the people who were quite verbal, quite nasty and totally unwilling to listen to any kind of reason.

To this day, I still believe in the mission of the Sugarland rally and our extended Olive Branch.

I can’t tell you why. I’m not a psychic. I can only tell you what happened.

In spit of that, I still worry about the people who live there and how much work is being done on the dike and always hope they will be safe.

When we went out yesterday I even wore my Marshall Tucker Band T shirt. I mean who would shoot a video girl with a Marshall Tucker Band Shirt? (Really didn’t stay there long enough to find out)

This stop BTW just a pit stop on our way to STA 5/6.

On the corner of “Happy and Healthy”

US Sugar

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Sugar_Corporation

They also run the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Central_Florida_Express,_Inc.

South Central Florida Express, Incorporated (reporting mark SCXF) (originally known as the South Central Florida Railroad (reporting mark SCFE) and run by the Brandywine Valley Railroad until September 17, 1994) is a short line railroad in southern Florida run by US Sugar Corporation. It serves customers at 26 locations.

U.S. Sugar, the only sugar company in the continental U.S. to transport sugarcane by rail, owns private trackage to take the cane to the SCFE. From there, the SCFE runs around both sides of Lake Okeechobee. The west side connects to CSX‘s Auburndale Subdivision at Sebring, and the east side crosses CSX at Marcy and interchanges with the Florida East Coast Railway at Fort Pierce, with haulage rights to CSX and Norfolk Southern at Jacksonville, Florida.

US Sugar Corp campaign to help cancer

Here are some people you may know that work there.

Robert Coker

http://www.ussugar.com/press_room/bios/coker_bio.html

Robert Coker is Senior Vice President, Public Affairs, of United States Sugar Corporation. He is responsible for managing the company’s federal, state and local government affairs department and the company’s corporate and charitable giving programs encompassing numerous community and employee-relations activities. As a member of senior management, Coker also actively participates in corporate matters involving real estate, environmental regulation, budgeting and allocation of capital.

He is a former Chairman of the Board of Regents for Leadership Florida. He serves on the board of directors for the Florida Sugar Cane League, the Board of Trustees of BIZ-PAC of Palm Beach County and is a member of the Board of Governors for the Florida Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Board of Trustees and serves on the Executive Committee of Florida Taxwatch.

Malcolm “Bubba” Wade

Sugar execs, w/ Gaston Cantens of Florida Crystals and Robert Coker of US Sugar, just huddled in back room of #IndianRiverLagoon hearing.

— Jonathan Mattise (@JonathanMattise) September 24, 2013

http://www.ussugar.com/press_room/bios/wade_bio.html

Malcolm S. Wade, Jr. is Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Business Development of United States Sugar Corporation. He has been employed by the Company for more than 27 years and has been a member of the senior management team for over 20 years. Wade, a certified public accountant, joined the company as Director of Internal Audit in 1982 and subsequently was named director, vice president and senior vice president of the Administrative Service Group and is currently senior vice president of sugar operations.

For more than 20 years, Wade has been involved in developing and overseeing the Company’s environmental responsibilities. Through his appointments by two governors and the South Florida Water Management District to working groups on South Florida environmental issues, Wade has helped shape public policy regarding Everglades Restoration.

In March 2005, Governor Bush appointed Wade to a four-year term on the South Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board, a position he resigned in 2008 due to the State’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Sugar. Previously, Wade was a member of the team representing South Florida farmers that spent more than a year negotiating with the Interior and Justice Departments, the State of Florida and the South Florida Water Management District to resolve the legal disputes over Everglades Restoration. He represented farmers on the technical mediation committee that crafted the Technical Mediated Plan for Everglades Restoration, which was adopted by the Florida Legislature in the spring of 1994.

He was appointed by Gov. Lawton Chiles to the Governor’s Commission for a Sustainable South Florida, which worked for four years to establish a consensus plan for Everglades Restoration. The work of the commission became the framework for the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) approved by Congress and is currently being implemented throughout south Florida.

Wade’s work on restoration issues continued with his appointment by Gov. Jeb Bush to the Governor’s Commission for the Everglades. He is a past member and co-chair of the South Florida Water Management District Water Resource Advisory Commission (WRAC) as well as a past member and chairman of the Lake Okeechobee Advisory Committee of the WRAC. He is also a past member of the District’s Lower East Coast Water Supply Planning Committee and the Budget Review commission. In addition, Wade served on the South Florida Agricultural Council Water Commission, the Caloosahatchee Water Management Advisory Committee and is a director of the Everglades Agricultural Area Environmental Protection District.

Wade is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Internal Auditor. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Institute of Internal Auditors.

JUDY C. SANCHEZ

www.ussugar.com/press_room/bios/sanchez_bio.html

Judy C. Sanchez is the Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs for United States Sugar Corporation. She joined U.S. Sugar in 1994, transferring from its South Bay Growers vegetable division where she worked as a Marketing Specialist.

Mrs. Sanchez attended the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications and graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a degree in communications. A fourth generation farmer, she has spent most of her life in and around the sugar cane industry, both in Florida and Louisiana. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Western Palm Beach County Farm Bureau, Childcare of Southwest Florida, and the Agricultural Institute of Florida.

She lives in Belle Glade, Florida, with her husband and two sons.

Judy follows me on twitter so I hope she reads this. We night not like what Judy does or says but for her boss’s she does a great job! Check out the tweets!

Reject the wackos’ solution to Lake O water issues http://t.co/dTVWKCZjuH

— Judy Clayton Sanchez (@sugarcard2) February 23, 2015

I think this tweet says it all.

Brazil is the 800# gorilla in the sugar business. https://t.co/eOfpjYWAUy

— Judy Clayton Sanchez (@sugarcard2) April 7, 2015

Here are some fun videos for our friends out in Clewiston.

Don’t be a bad arnie!

Sure glad my visit to Clewiston yesterday didn’t end like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDXFrziaf6Y

or this

cyndi lenz

psych nurse, documentary filmmaker, photographer, crazed river warrior of the Indian River Lagoon.

Monthly Archives: June 2015

Sugar: It’s Killing US!

The Refined-Carb Connection

The Florida Legislature Gags Health Care Workers. How not to save a life.

Sugar U: Effects of burning sugar cane on your lungs

The Impact of Sugar Cane–Burning Emissions on the Respiratory System of Children and the Elderly

Abstract

Sugar U: Fanjuls some history and a little trouble in Paradise.

SFWMD: Dirty toilets affront to citizens.

BIG SUGAR ENTERTAINMENT or not: Fanjul’s try to control movies, TV, what’s next?

CBC Big Sugar 1 of 2 Documentary on the Political History of the Sugar Industry

Filmmaker, festival at odds

The creator accuses Florida’s powerful sugar industry of blackballing Sugar Babies.

Throwback Thurs: Cane the TV Show.

Broadcasting history

ACOE and the Herbert Hoover Dike: We should be up in arms together!

Our STA 5/6 and their good neighbor US Sugar Corp

@SFWMD

@joenegronfl

Stormwater Treatment Area 5/6 (STA-5/6)

Sugar U: The US Sugar Corp

@sugarcard2