Eric Von Schmidt was a Fulbright Scholar who made his living as a graphic artist, illustrator and painter. He was also a musician who was a central figure at the 1960’s folk revival, Cambridge Massachusetts, where his musical knowledge and abilities influenced other musicians like Tom Rush and Bob Dylan.
“Joshua Gone Barbados” was one of a number of songs he wrote after he and his family vacationed on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent in 1962.
I actually prefer the Tom Rush version
The song is about the island’s unsuccessful sugar cane strike of 1962. This happened a few weeks ahead of Eric’s arrival. History shows that his lyrics contained mostly accurate observations but also included false rumors that spread all over the island at the time of the strike. One rumor was that strikers were killed and the other was that Ebenezer Joshua had deserted the cause.
Joshua was born in Kingstown, Saint Vincent, British Windward Islands. He was an official of a trade union when he tried unsuccessfully to be elected to the Trinidad legislature.Returning to Saint Vincent, Joshua entered politics, and was elected to the island’s assembly in 1951. In 1952 he and his wife Ivy Joshua founded the People’s Political Party as the political arm of the Federated Industrial Allied Workers Union, a trade union organization aimed at representing agricultural and shipyard workers.
The platform included improving wages and working conditions and severing colonial ties with Great Britain. By the 1950’s Joshua had become St. Vincent’s most well known advocate for the working class and by the 1960’s he ended up as the island’s Chief Minister.
Someone wrote “St. Vincent in 1962 like many Caribbean islands had been swept up in the wave of nationalism inspired by the Cuban revolution.” Really? Darlin you go out in the hot sun with a machete and cut sugarcane for 12 hours a day. Pretty sure people just got tired of being treated like dogs. Try it for a day and get back to me.
At the same time the Caribbean’s economic engine of sugar production began to falter as prices fell. (The plot thickens!)
Stay with me!
In 1962 Joshua discontinued government subsidies for the sugar growers, leading the Mt Bentinck Sugar Cane Factory to close after years of financial mismanagement.
Also, In 1962 two islands , Jamaica and Trinidad, withdrew from the federation. In May 1962 the remaining island members were to hold a meeting in Barbados to discuss the federation’s future. Joshua made the choice between staying at home to help with the strike or to travel to Barbados and continue to work toward the end of colonial rule. He chose to address the long-term challenge in Barbados.
According to Wikipedia a misunderstanding of this sequence of events and Vincentian history by American musician Eric von Schmidt became the basis for the song “Joshua Gone Barbados“
Joshua is recognized as the person most responsible for the rights and benefits accorded the working class and poor in modern St. Vincent: Increased wages, holidays with pay, protection from eviction, and protection against child labor.
IDK Other people have reported other things that you are more than welcome to google.
Who knows?
The point, besides sharing some great music, is that Big Sugar as we call them still get what they want. They swarm the halls of Tallahassee every year making sure they get everything they need from politicians from both sides of isle. Screw the workers. Screw the environment.
Now it’s 2021 and I just found this article from Mother Jones.
“we came to realize the story wasn’t just about Lulu. It was about the 68,000-some Haitian cañeros still in the fields, and their living and working conditions, especially under the island’s biggest plantation holder: Central Romana. Owned in part by brothers Alfonso and Pepe Fanjul, Cuban exiles who are now billionaire Florida sugar barons, Central Romana sugarcane is cut by Haitians, crushed and poured as raw sugar into the holds of vessels, and shipped to the Fanjuls’ ASR Domino refinery in Baltimore harbor.”
This never ends.
Locally, we have our whole story of the Glades. I’m not talking about our farmers. (don’t start pickin on me! We love our veggies but sugar is not a vegetable!) I’m talking about the big corporations.
Pioneer Park is a huge park where children go to play
Right now what goes on is sugar burning. When does it go on? When the wind is blowing from the east. That way only the people that live out in the glades are affected. It would never happen with the wind coming out of the west. I went out there years ago and spoke with a mom whose young son had chronic bronchitis and she couldn’t afford to go to the doctor.
I think Eric Von Schmidt saw the inhumanity of the entire situation. We can thank him for shining a light. Yes, Joshua got a bad rap but after all it was the 60s. Politicians were the enemy (hmmm has anything changed?)
Maybe the events didn’t happen at that one particular time but they did happen, still do happen and politicians are at the center of the whole situation.
At at the end of the day Eric was the one who shined a bright light on the actual issue of cane workers that continues to this day.
It will continue until we have the political will to change things.
Joshua Gone Barbados
Cane standing in the fields
Getting old and red
Lot of misery in Georgetown
Three men lying dead
Joshua, head of the government
He said strike for better pay
Cane cutters are striking
Joshua gone away
Joshua gone Barbados
Staying in a big hotel
People on St. Vincent
They got many sad tales to tell
Sugar mill owner told the strikers
I don’t need you to cut my cane
Bring in another bunch of fellows
Strike be all in vain
Get a bunch of tough fellows
Bring ’em from Sion Hill
Bring ’em in a bus to Georgetown
Know somebody get killed
Sonny Child, the overseer
I swear he’s an ignorant man
Walking through the cane field
Pistol in his hand
But Joshua gone Barbados
Just like he don’t know
People on the island
They got no place to go
Police giving protection
New fellows cutting the cane
Strikers can’t do nothing
Strike be all in vain
And Sonny Child, he curse the strikers
Wave his pistol ’round
They’re beating Sonny with a cutlass
Beat him to the ground
There’s a lot of misery in Georgetown
You can hear the women bawl
Joshua gone Barbados
He don’t care at all
Cane standing in the fields
Getting old and red
Sonny Child in the hospital
Pistol on his bed
I wish I could go to England
Trinidad or Curacao
People on the island
They got no place to go
Joshua gone Barbados
Staying in a big hotel
People on St. Vincent
Got many sad tales to tell
Songwriters: Eric Von Schmidt
Is this really any different from what goes on today?
Make sure to read this and watch the documentary H2 Worker Documentary. Legal Slavery.
Before they had harvesting machines every year people 10,000 Caribbean men were selectivity chosen by American sugar corporations to harvest sugar cane for six months in Florida under temporary “H2” visas.
They came from Jamaica in the middle of the night and put in barracks in Belle Glade.
“If we didn’t have the Jamaicans it wouldn’t get harvested because the local people wouldn’t do it.” One of the sugar field managers said. They were essential jailed. Brought from the barrack to the bus to the field to bus to the barrack and not being allowed to leave.
They got paid one dollar and few cents pr hour.
This was released in 1990.
Even before the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (Who used to hang out in Indiantown) sent workers from their Islands in the Bahamas.
“H-2 Worker is a controversial expose of the travesty of justice that takes place around the shores of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee—a situation which, until the film’s release, has been one of America’s best-kept secrets. There, for six months a year, over 10,000 men from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands perform the brutal task of cutting sugar cane by hand-a job so dangerous and low-paying that Americans refuse to do it.
H-2 Worker is the first documentary to tell the story of these men—named for their special temporary guestwork “H-2” visas. They live and work in conditions reminiscent of the days of slavery on sugar plantations: housed in overcrowded barracks, poorly fed, denied adequate treatment for their frequent on-the-job injuries, paid less than minimum wage, and deported if they do not do exactly as they are told.
The sugar plantations who employ the H-2 workers sustain this exploitation—and their own profits—with the help of the U.S. government, which authorizes the importation of Third World workers while it blocks the importation of cheaper Third World sugar through a system of quotas and price supports, citing “national security” as the reason for its costly subsidizing of a domestic sugar industry. The scandal of the H-2 program has existed for over 45 years. It began in 1942, when the U.S. Sugar Cane Corporation was indicted for conspiracy to enslave black American workers. In 1943 the first West Indian cane cutters were brought in. This scandal has largely been kept out of the public eye, and the sugar companies and their government supporters have escaped accountability. On the contrary, a new immigration law has paved the way for a rapid expansion of the H-2 program.
Directed by: Stephanie Black
Produced by: Stephanie Black
Released: 1990
Running Time: 70 min
Grand Jury Prize Best Documentary – Sundance Film Festival (1990)
Best Cinematography, Sundance Film Festival (1990)
Quotes
“‘H-2 Worker’ is that rare hybrid that succeeds as both film and advocacy. The documentary’s look and form is smooth and sophisticated … [and] it solidly frames issues about the economy, employment and the treatment of workers who seem just steps away from slavery.” —The New York Times
With admirable fluency, Black combines straightforward information and analysis with more evocative glimpses of the workers’ lives …. Black and her collaborators have an unsentimental conviction that these workers are fully human, that they experience not just anger and suffering but also love and pleasure – and even hope.”—The Nation”
Today when you go to Belle Glade you drive past the same buildings that were in this film.
The cane harvesters were brought in to perform the autumn harvest of sugar cane under the H-2A Visa program. The Jamaicans replaced earlier generations of Bahamian seasonal workers who in turn replaced migrant labor recruited from the Cotton Belt (region) in the first half of the 20th century. A documentary short that accompanies the DVD version of the film states that human labor was abandoned for mechanical harvesters in 1992.
I think it’s important for “us” ( and you know who I’m referring to) to watch this so we never get soft against the people who created these human rights abuses for corporate profit. Not only do they treat people like slaves they collect corporate welfare.
( Are we calling them corporate entitlements yet?)
It’s also important for those of you that think all these people are coming and taking your jobs away. The reason they have, yes I said have this program is to to the work no one else would do. Interesting enough when I worked in Boca in the hospital we got nurses from England and from the Philippines and there were plenty of nurses around to do the job. It’s been here since the 40’s. So even at your work you may have H2 workers or even the hospital you go to when your ill.
H-2A Temporary Agricultural WorkersThe H-2A program allows U.S. employers or U.S. agents who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs. A U.S. employer,a U.S. agent as described in the regulations,or an association of U.S. agricultural producers named as a joint employer must file Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker, on a prospective worker’s behalf.
Who May Qualify for H-2A Classification?
To qualify for H-2A nonimmigrant classification, the petitioner must:
Offer a job that is of a temporary or seasonal nature.
Demonstrate that there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work.
Show that the employment of H-2A workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.
Generally, submit with the H-2A petition, a single valid temporary labor certification from the U.S. Department of Labor. (A limited exception to this requirement exists in certain “emergent circumstances.” See e.g., 8 CFR 214.2(h)(5)(x) for specific details.)
H-2A Program Process
Step 1: Petitioner submits temporary labor certification application to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). Prior to requesting H-2A classification from USCIS, the petitioner must apply for and receive a temporary labor certification for H-2A workers with DOL. For further information regarding the temporary labor certification requirements and process, see the Foreign Labor Certification, Department of Labor page.
Step 2: Petitioner submits Form I-129 to USCIS. After receiving a temporary labor certification for H-2A employment from DOL, the employer should file Form I-129 with USCIS. With limited exceptions, the original temporary labor certification must be submitted as initial evidence with Form I-129. (See the instructions to Form I-129 for additional filing requirements.)
Step 3: Prospective workers outside the United States apply for visa and/or admission. After USCIS approves Form I-129, prospective H-2A workers who are outside the United States must:
Apply for an H-2A visa with the U.S. Department of State (DOS) at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate abroad, then seek admission to the United States with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at a U.S. port of entry; or
Directly seek admission to the United States in H-2A classification with CBP at a U.S. port of entry, if a worker does not require a visa.
“H-2 Worker is the first documentary to tell the story of these men – named for their special temporary guestwork “H-2” visas. They live and work in conditions reminiscent of the days of slavery on sugar plantations: housed in overcrowded barracks, poorly fed, denied adequate treatment for their frequent on-the-job injuries, paid less than minimum wage, and deported if they do not do exactly as they are told.
The sugar plantations who employ the H-2 workers sustain this exploitation – and their own profits – with the help of the U.S. government, which authorizes the importation of Third World workers while it blocks the importation of cheaper Third World sugar through a system of quotas and price supports, citing “national security” as the reason for its costly subsidizing of a domestic sugar industry.
The scandal of the H-2 program has existed for over 45 years. It began in 1942, when the U.S. Sugar Cane Corporation was indicted for conspiracy to enslave black American workers. In 1943 the first West Indian cane cutters were brought in. This scandal has largely been kept out of the public eye, and the sugar companies and their government supporters have escaped accountability. On the contrary, a new immigration law has paved the way for a rapid expansion of the H-2 program to other agricultural industries.
H-2 Worker was shot clandestinely in the cane fields and workers’ barracks around Belle Glade, Florida. It contains footage shot in places where no media has been successful in filming before, and where the filmmakers were denied permission to enter by the sugar corporations and the local police.
H-2 Worker focuses on the lives of the workers themselves – travelling with them to the fields, where they endure long hours of monotonous labor; to their isolated barracks; to the town where they shop for American goods to bring home to their families. Following them through one six-month season, it tell their stories: Like migrant workers worldwide, these men are driven by soaring unemployment in their home countries and promises of high wages abroad. Dreaming of American opportunities to build better lives for their families, they arrive in the U.S. with high hopes – only to confront the harsh realities of the Florida cane fields.
Providing an in-depth analysis, H-2 Worker includes voices from all sides of the issue: representatives of the sugar companies and the U.S. Department of Labor, as well as U.S.l congressmen and Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley. An historical analysis combine archival footage with the testimony of 80-year-old Samuel Manston, who escaped the cane fields at the time of the peonage indictments in 1942.
But the voices of the workers themselves are foremost: They are heard through extensive interviews, and through their recordings of actual letters to and from their families in Jamaica. These voices tell an eloquent story which rings with painful truth, and will not easily be forgotten. H-2 Worker is both a compelling expose of institutionalized injustice, and a moving record of human endurance.
H-2 Worker, a 70-minute, 16 mm, color documentary made over the course of 3 1/2 years, combines the talents of director/producer Stephanie Black, award-winning editor John Mullen and cinematographer Maryse Alberti. It is a film with powerful impact and resonance, certain to be both compelling and controversial.
“‘H-2 Worker’ is that rare hybrid that succeeds as both film and advocacy. The documentary’s look and form is smooth and sophisticated … [and] it solidly frames issues about the economy, employment, and the treatment of workers who seem just steps away from slavery.” -The New York Times
“‘H-2 Worker’ is a revealing look at these men and the treatment they receive on our shores … [Stephanie Black] manages to capture the scope as well as the intensity of the problem. -New York Newsday
“With admirable fluency, Black combines straightforward information and analysis with more evocative glimpses of the workers’ lives …. Black and her collaborators have an unsentimental conviction that these workers are fully human, that they experience not just anger and suffering but also love and pleasure – and even hope.” -The Nation”
According to the update 1992, a class action suit found five sugar cane companies guilty of cheating more than 10,000 cane cutters of their contractually guaranteed minimum wage during the two seasons documented in the film.
51,000.000 in back pay was awarded.
Then the decision was revered by the Florida Appellate court finding that the H-2 contract was “ambiguous.”
Sugar cane is being harvested mechanically however the number of H-2 workers has substantially increased.
North Carolina: 10,000 workers
Colorado 2,000 workers
Maryland 9,622 (crab houses, fire work, hotel work)
Most of the workers come from Mexico.
In March 2008, over 100 guest workers from India, walked off their H-2B jobs at Signal, an oil rig construction company in Louisiana, protesting the company’s unacceptable living and working conditions.
These are not illegals. These are people that come here legally.
In the country where the people are coming from there are labor brokers that sell assess to the people from all these countries. In India that access was sold for 20,000 dollars.
People come here and they are not paid what they are told plus they had to pay the recruiters.
Over 2,100 H-2 shepherds from Peru, Chile, Mexico and Nepal work for American Ranchers. They are expected to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a minim monthly wage of less that 1,000.
“That visa is also not valid for nurses and is grounds to get one deported from the US. We see it being advertised in the Philippines but it makes one subject to immigration fraud. It is for untrained workers for a very specific length of time, and nurses do not meet those requirements from the start. We see this being used for the LPN, and there are no legal visas for them to enter the US and work here.
Please forward a copy of any of the garbage that you see offering this, and that is exactly what it is, to the US Embassy there in Manila. You would be sold as a slave to the highest bidder
They would also have you giving false information to the US Embassy officials and this is grounds for deportation for up to ten years after a stay in immigration detention before you are deported. You would be placed in a nursing home to work and they are undergoing frequent raids exactly for this.
Save yourself from having nightmares about being picked up by ICE.”
Businesses continue to lobby for an expanded guest worker program with reduced wages and less government oversight. The violations are rampart.
No one talks about this. They talk about fences. The very people who push the hatred of the illegal people that come here use the H-2 workers as slave labor.
We’re being duped. Our attention is being diverted.
Pay attention.
We still have slaves in America. We call them H-2 workers.
“Atrazine is a herbicide of the triazine class. Atrazine is used to prevent pre- and postemergence broadleaf weeds in crops such as maize (corn) and sugarcane and on turf, such as golf courses and residential lawns. It is one of the most widely used herbicides in US] and Australian agriculture.]It was banned in the European Union in 2004, when the EU found groundwater levels exceeding the limits set by regulators, and Syngenta could neither show that this could be prevented nor that these levels were safe.
As of 2001, Atrazine was the most commonly detected pesticide contaminating drinking water in the United States.Studies suggest it is an endocrine disruptor, an agent that can alter the natural hormonal system. In 2006 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had stated that under the Food Quality Protection Act “the risks associated with the pesticide residues pose a reasonable certainty of no harm”, and in 2007, the EPA said that Atrazine does not adversely affect amphibian sexual development and that no additional testing was warranted. EPA´s 2009 review concluded that “the agency’s scientific bases for its regulation of atrazine are robust and ensure prevention of exposure levels that could lead to reproductive effects in humans.” EPA started a registration review in 2013.
The EPA’s review has been criticized, and the safety of atrazine remains controversial.”
“Atrazine is a common agricultural herbicide with endocrine disruptor activity. There is evidence that it interferes with reproduction and development, and may cause cancer. Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved its continued use in October 2003, that same month the European Union (EU) announced a ban of atrazine because of ubiquitous and unpreventable water contamination. The authors reviewed regulatory procedures and government documents, and report efforts by the manufacturer of atrazine, Syngenta, to influence the U.S. atrazine assessment, by submitting flawed scientific data as evidence of no harm, and by meeting repeatedly and privately with EPA to negotiate the government’s regulatory approach. Many of the details of these negotiations continue to be withheld from the public, despite EPA regulations and federal open-government laws that require such decisions to be made in the open.”
Atrazine Continues to Contaminate Surface Water and Drinking Water in the United States
Banned in the European Union and clearly linked to harm to wildlife and potentially to humans, the pesticide atrazine provides little benefit to offset its risks. In 2009, NRDC analyzed results of surface water and drinking water monitoring data for atrazine and found pervasive contamination of watersheds and drinking water systems across the Midwest and Southern United States. This May 2010 report summarizes scientific information that has emerged since the publication of our initial report and includes more recent monitoring data.
Approximately 75 percent of stream water and about 40 percent of all groundwater samples from agricultural areas tested in an extensive U.S. Geological Survey study contained atrazine. NRDC found that the U.S. EPA’s inadequate monitoring systems and weak regulations have compounded the problem, allowing levels of atrazine in watersheds and drinking water to peak at extremely high concentrations.
The most recent data confirms that atrazine continues to contaminate watersheds and drinking water. Atrazine was found in 80 percent of drinking water samples taken in 153 public water systems. All twenty watersheds sampled in 2007 and 2008 had detectable levels of atrazine, and sixteen had average concentrations above the level that has been shown to harm plants and wildlife.
Given the pesticide’s limited usefulness and the ease with which safer agricultural methods can be substituted to achieve similar results, NRDC recommends phasing out the use of atrazine, more effective atrazine monitoring, the adoption of farming techniques that can help minimize the use of atrazine and prevent it from running into waterways.”
“Atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides in the U.S., and is found in 94% of U.S drinking water tested by the USDA — more often than any other pesticide. An estimated 7 million people were exposed to atrazine in their drinking water between 1998 and 2003.
The highest levels of contamination are in the Midwest where it is widely used on corn fields. USGS monitoring shows drinking water concentrations typically spike during the spring and early summer as rains flush the freshly applied herbicide into streams — and into local water supplies.
Data from the EPA’s Atrazine Monitoring Program show that atrazine levels in drinking water can spike above the legal limit of 3 parts per billion in some U.S. water supplies. Although the EPA bases its limit on an annual average (not seasonal peaks), the monitoring results reveal alarming levels of human exposure.”
To determine the distribution and concentration of atrazine at south Florida sites, multiple water samples were collected from several canals/ditches at each of two agricultural sites every two weeks from February through June, 2002 . Adult toads were collected from two sugarcane agricultural areas Canal Point (CP), and Belle Glade (BG) as well as from a University of Miami pond/canal (reference site with little to no atrazine use or agricultural input) during April-June 2002. Adult Bufo marinus were collected from these three sites: Canal Point (N=55), Belle Glade (N=50), and University of Miami (N=24). Body weight, length, and coloration were recorded, blood was collected, and gonads were removed and weighed. This species is sexually dimorphic, with females having a mottled appearance and males having a solid coloration. Sex was identified as follows: the presence of ovarian tissue and absence of testicular tissue = female; presence of testes and absence of developing eggs, oviduct, and ovarian tissue = normal male; and presence of testes with developing eggs or oviduct or ovarian tissue = intersex . Macroscopic identification of additional testicular anomalies included: segmented testes, abnormal shaped testis, twisted or curled testes, and multiple testes. Gonads from each individual that had testicular tissue were both macroscopically and histologically examined. Blood plasma was analyzed for phospho-lipoprotein (an indirect measure of vitellogenin) and estradiol and testosterone concentrations were analyzed using RIA procedures.
Children at a water park in Belle Glade directly across from a huge sugar cane field.
Playground at Pioneer Park in Belle Glade directly across from a huge sugar cane field.
Atrazine levels were highest at Canal Point during March, but were highest at Belle Glade in February.B. marinus tadpoles were potentially exposed to atrazine concentrations as high as 20ppb during development at Canal Point and 26ppb at Belle Glade during 2002. Toads collected from the nonagricultural /reference, University of Miami, site exhibited the characteristic gender-specific pattern which correlated to subsequent gonadal morphology and histology. However, all toads collected from both agricultural sites, Belle Glade and Canal Point, exhibited the distinctive female pattern, although subsequent gonadal morphology and histology demonstrated male, intersexed, and female toads. The frequency of males exhibiting “testis abnormalities” was not significantly different among sites. The frequency of intersexed animals was significantly different among sites: 39 percent and 29 percent of the individuals at the agricultural sites, Canal Point and Belle Glade. No individuals from the non-agricultural/reference site were intersexed. The types of abnormal female tissue found in association with testicular tissue varied between CP and BG. Plasma sex steroids did not differ between intersexed and normal males. However, plamsa phospholipoprotein (an indirect indicator of vitellogenin was increased in intersexed males to levels which were similar to those for vitellogenic females.
Sugar cane in Belle Glade across from Pioneer Park
The purpose of this preliminary study was to determine if animals found in sugarcane exhibit reproductive abnormalities similar to those seen in African Clawed Frogs exposed to atrazine in the laboratory. The incidence of testicular anomalies, other than intersex were similar across sites. However, the incidence of intersex was increased for both agricultural sites as compared to the non-agricultural/reference site. Nonetheless, Bufo marinus adults were active and breeding at all sites. Data suggests that agricultural exposure, including exposure to atrazine, may explain the differences in the percent of intersexed individuals and length of oocytes between Canal Point and Belle Glade sites. However, we can not conclude that atrazine is responsible for these abnormalities, since other agricultural chemcials are likely present at both sites. In addition, water quality analyses were not conducted for the non-agricultural/reference site (University of Miami) and exposure to atrazine at this site is unknown. The University of Miami site is expected to have low levels of atrazine, but is probably not atrazine free. Further research should be conducted to determine whether atrazine is capable of causing the effects we have documented in B. marinus under controlled laboratory conditions as well as expanded field studies of these and other sites. Nonetheless, these results indicate an increased incidence of intersex in toads exposed to agricultural contaminants. The implications of these data to future and ongoing restoration is unknown, however, a redistribution of water resources in the greater everglades ecosystem could result in additional exposures for amphibian populations in this sensitive ecosystem.
In 1997, the consulting firm EcoRisk, Inc. paid Hayes to join a panel of experts conducting studies for Novartis (later Syngenta) on the herbicideatrazine.[1][3] When Hayes’ research found unexpected toxicities for atrazine, he reported them to the panel, however the panel and company were resistant to his findings. He wanted to repeat his work to validate it but Novartis refused funding for further research; he resigned from the panel and obtained other funding to repeat the experiments.[1][3]
In 2007, Hayes was a co-author on a paper that detailed atrazine inducing mammary and prostate cancer in laboratory rodents and highlighted atrazine as a potential cause of reproductive cancers in humans.[7] At a presentation to the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in 2007, Hayes presented results of his studies that showed chemical castration in frogs; individuals of both sexes had developed bisexual reproductive organs.
In one of the 2005 e-mails obtained by class-action lawsuit plaintiffs, the company’s communications consultants had written about plans to track Hayes’ speaking engagements and prepare audiences with Syngenta’s counterpoints to Hayes’s message on atrazine. Syngenta subsequently stated that many of the documents unsealed in the lawsuits refer to “ideas that were never implemented.”,
Sometimes I think I live in this other world where we see things and then there is this other place where things get reported and the only thing I can say is “huh?”
From the Florida Water Daily
SWFWMD Approves Plan to Reserve Minimum Flows from the Peace River – http://t.co/dHZAzapKJJ
What if instead of draining away about 2 billion gallons of water a day, there were better ways to put that water to use?
“nearly 200 billion gallons of Lake Okeechobee water was drained to the east and west coasts to ease the strain on the erosion-prone dike that protects South Florida from flooding.”
“*SEVEN MONTHS OF DRINKING WATER: The amount of Lake Okeechobee water drained east and west and out to sea was enough to supply about seven months of drinking water for the nearly seven million people in Palm Beach County, Broward County, Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys. Water plants in southeast Florida churn out about 840 million gallons of drinking water a day.
*NEARLY 40 PERCENT OF EVERGLADES’ WATER NEEDS: Everglades advocates have called for moving almost 500 billion gallons of Lake Okeechobee water south each year to help replenish Florida’s struggling River of Grass. The volume of lake water drained east and west for flood control between January and June equated to almost 40 percent of that Everglades restoration goal.”
What can I say. I have posted hundreds of hours of video of people pleading to save our water.
This is recent letter to the Miami Herald from Maggy Hurchella.
When you kill the environment to get more water, you end up with less water and you end up with very dirty water.
This is the same James Moran who lectured a crowded meeting room in May.
The crowd was there to ask the SFWMD Board to buy land and send the water south.
Moran said that was impossible and unnecessary, “And I don’t know why you claim it will save the Dade County water supply. They get their water from wells.”
He finally seems to have figured out that Miami-Dade’s wells are in aquifers that are recharged by water flowing south from Lake Okeechobee.
Too late.
Maggy Reno Hurchalla, Miami”
These are people in charge of our water. We know what’s happening. They don’t.
You can help conserve water by following year-round irrigation rules for your area. Find when you can water at http://t.co/N3Rp6btFl1.
On the website on SFWMD they have loads of information about water conservation and have been on the news multiple time even having the nerve to tell us to conserve ( I don’t have an issue conserving but I do have an issue with them not conserving. Not just not conserving. Just totally wasting millions and millions of gallons of water send out to tide and destroying our estuary.
Then this happened and i knew the world was just turned upside down.
“But Rodney Barreto thinks Scott has been a tree-hugging warrior for Mother Gaia. The Miami developer, who also chairs the Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida, announced via email this week that at the BlueGreen gala this fall, he’ll honor Scott for his conservation work.
“Governor Scott has been instrumental in helping develop a strong connection between fish and wildlife conservation and traditional outdoors activities like hunting and especially fishing,” Barreto says in a release.
Local environmentalists are aghast at the news. “It’s laughable,” Alan Farago, president of Friends of the Everglades, tells New Times. “In terms of the environment, I think he’s the worst governor in modern Florida history.”
Aghast doesn’t even cover it.”
Fishing. Yes I dare you Rick Scott to come swimming in the Indian River Lagoon.
“Today, a report by AP’s Gary Fineout, “Florida Gov. Scott against at odds with Florida Republicans” sheds light on the award, in the context of a deeply strained relationship between court-penalized Republicans, shuddering at the prospect of having to draw fair districts, and an isolated governor.
What to do with a governor hunkered down in his coastal multi-million dollar estate from which he doesn’t emerge, except to his private jet clutching talking points? Give him an environmental award! Cheer up his mysterious spirits, unknowable except to special interests and cronies.”
“On Tuesday morning, I began reaching out to other sponsors of the event. But Tuesday afternoon, the foundation had removed all the sponsors’ names from its website.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
Even the sponsors know its BS. But it will interesting to see who sponsors this event. Let’s stay tuned for that one.
Here is the new guy he picked for the SFWMD board.
Accursio, 52, whose family owns and farms 2,000 acres in South Miami-Dade County, has been among farmers bitterly complaining about Everglades restoration efforts flooding fields and causing crop losses in the region.
“The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) is a non-profit, nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks the effects of money and lobbying on elections and public policy. It maintains a public online database of its information.
Its website, OpenSecrets.org, allows users to track federal campaign contributions and lobbying by lobbying firms, individual lobbyists, industry, federal agency, and bills. Other resources include the personal financial disclosures of all members of the U.S. Congress, the president, and top members of the administration.”
“Just as water flows downhill, money in politics flows to where the power is. And the Center for Responsive Politics is there to help you follow the contours and learn about these connections. This section of the Action Center contains a wealth of information about the unhealthy influence money can have on our elections and government politics.
The Basics. From frequently asked questions to our money-in-politics glossary, from the 10 Things Every Voter Should Know about money in politics to our Follow the Money Handbook, and iPhone App, this section of the Action Center contains a wealth of information about the unhealthy influence money can have on our elections and government politics. Begin your learning here.
Sheila Krumholz has been the CRP’s executive director since December 2006, having previously served for eight years as the CRP’s research director. She first joined the organization in 1989 and served as the assistant editor of the first edition of the printed volume Open Secrets.”
On Scandal this past year even Olivia Pope made sure her candidate had “Big Sugar” money. I can’t find the clip but I think it was when she was prepping the very awesome Susan Ross character.
Shelia told us this: “Votes still trump money and that’s bad news for Donald Trump and good news for Democracy.”
“The Heritage Foundation is an American conservativethink tank based in Washington, D.C. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies drew significantly from Heritage’s policy study Mandate for Leadership. Heritage has since continued to have a significant influence in U.S. public policy making, and is considered to be one of the most influential conservative research organizations in the United States.
When people get upset because our US Congressman Patrick Murphy voted for the “Farm Act” I get upset. The issue with this act is that there are sugar subsidies and food stamps in the same bill. I understand why people are upset but I could not take what little food people have out of their mouths. It’s a conundrum and for that reason they must be separated.
I want to save food stamps for another day because it is a complicated subject. There are people who need them and there are people who take advantage and we need to have a better system like input from health care workers that are actually in people’s homes. I can hardly tell someone to eat good whole foods, fruits and vegetables when they get 50 bucks a month, is 90 years old and all they can afford is stuff in a can that is full of sodium and stuff in a box that is processed and filled with sugar. I hope we can engage in that conversation one day. I do begrudge people that do not have compassion for people that out of no fault of their own cannot afford food. We have to retain our compassion. We just have to find a better way to do this. Nothing is black and white. Certainly not the lives of our elderly population.
“Critics say U.S. sugar policy artificially inflates sugar prices to benefit an exclusive group of processors — even though it leads to higher food prices. But this year, prices fell anyway. Now, the government could be poised to use taxpayer dollars to buy up the excess sugar.
Sugar costs are a complicated combination of import restrictions, production quotas and a kind of guaranteed price.
“The U.S. sugar system is essentially a Soviet-style control on production,” says Chris Edwards, an economist at the Cato Institute.
The effect of these policies, he says, is that U.S. sugar prices normally remain artificially high — sometimes twice the world price. (Last year, the price of sugar around the world averaged 26.5 cents per pound, compared with 43.4 cents in the U.S.) That hurts food companies and leads to higher prices at the grocery store.
“The core goal of policymakers has been to push up U.S. sugar prices to the benefit of U.S. sugar growers,” Edwards says.
A big part of this policy is a sweet loan program for the processors that refine sugar. To pay growers like Gravois right away, processors can take out government loans. The sugar itself is the collateral.
This leads to an interesting choice: If sugar prices go up, processors sell it on the open market and make a profit. If prices fall, they can just hand over their sugar to the government and keep the loan money.
Representing Big Candy is Bob Simpson from Jelly Belly, who also chairs the National Confectioners Association. “We’d just like them to compete on a fair, open market without the intrusion of the federal government,” he says.
He says Jelly Belly opened a plant in Thailand, partly to get cheaper sugar for markets overseas.
Defending Big Sugar is Jack Roney of the American Sugar Alliance.
“There’s really no reason for contention about U.S. sugar policy. It’s the most successful of any U.S. commodity policy,” says Roney, who adds that in most years this program costs taxpayers nothing — unlike other farm supports.
He blames falling prices on Mexican imports which, under the North American Free Trade Agreement, are not controlled by tariffs.”
“The Agriculture Department lost $280 million on the sugar program in fiscal year 2013, with more losses expected next year. A surge of imports from Mexico has driven down U.S. sugar prices — to the point where it’s profitable for processors to take advantage of a U.S. law that lets them forfeit the sugar they posted as collateral for government loans and keep the cash. Stuck with mountains of excess sweetener, the government has two choices: hoard it until prices go up or sell it at a huge loss to the few ethanol makers willing to take it.
280 million dollars is a lot of money and would buy my gramma’s a lot of fruits and vegetables. I don’t think even the Heritage Foundation would argue with that. After all, they have gramma’s too.
So let’s have this conversation and let’s tell Congress what they need to do. Obviously they can’t figure it out themselves.
Here is Daren’s video. Please watch and lets start talking about this!
I’m looking forward to the final video with all the slides but this will get you really excited about seeing the entire finished product.
This piece is so important because not only can I share with you guys but I can share with my patients. Most medical people do not pay attention to this information and do not know anything about Metabolic Dysfunction. My own ARNP told me my fatty liver was genetic ( which I don’t doubt its part of it being that I’m Jewish and my ancestors ate things like chicken schmaltz, chopped liver, bagels and cream cheese. The list goes on.
One of things that I learned is that its impossible to loose weight when you have fatty liver disease. The whole thing makes me very sad when I’ve spent a life time taking good care of my liver and now its screwed up.
Sugar is a huge part of this and also a huge part of the inflammatory process.
I can tell people this stuff (Including my own cardiologist who looked at me like I have 14 heads) (and my cousins who blow me off.) I can tell them that a peanut and jelly and white is not a heart healthy diet. I can tell them they can give me a smoothie with whole milk if they don’t have almond milk because whole milk has less sugar in it that low fat milk. I can tell them anything that is low fat is high in sugar which is worse for us that the fat and in fact we need fat for our brains.
The Best Foods for Your Brain (And Why We Might Owe Fat an Apology)
(I’m talking good fat so don’t get too excited.)
“The Top 3 Dietary Fats for Better Brain Health
1. Polyunsaturated Fat
Polyunsaturated fats contain the essential fatty acids (EFAs) omega-3 and omega-6. Our brains need these fats to function properly (studies also show that eating high quantities of omega-3 fatty acids are linked to reduced rates of major depression, but our bodies are unable to produce them. This means it’s important that we include these fat sources in our diets.
2. DHA
An omega-3 fatty acid, DHA has been shown to help brain functions like memory, speaking ability, and motor skills. Increasing dietary levels of omega-3s has been shown to help improve conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder, and ADHD.
3. Saturated Fat
Saturated fat is actually one of the main components of brain cells, and is therefore necessary for healthy brain function. In one study, it was found that people who ate more saturated fat reduced their risk for developing dementia by 36 percent. Saturated fat also provides benefits for the liver and immune system and helps maintain proper hormone balance.”
Because if you have dementia does it really matter if your cholesterol is high?
And if you have fatty liver disease what are these statins doing to you? For a long time every doctor is ordering statins for people and what is the connection between this dementia. No offense to them but they don’t have to take care of our elderly parents with dementia.
As nurses, teaching nutrition is our greatest gift because we need a doctors order to tell patients to take Omegas but we certainly don’t need one to tell them to eat foods rich in omegas. We can tell people “Eat a healthy diet that’s low in saturated fat, trans fat, refined carbohydrates and salt, and rich in fruits, vegetables, fish, and whole grains.”
or
“Eat good whole foods. Don’t eat anything from a can or a box. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables.”
Why? Because there is sugar in everything. It’s added to make thing taste better.
Sorry for the rant. Back to Wolfram. Here are some noteworthy quotes.
“75% percent of our healthcare costs are related to preventable conditions.”
“You are what you metabolize not what you eat.”
“74% of food at the supermarket has added sugar in it.”
“Sugar is hidden in our food supply. 47% in sugary beverages.”
“Total fat consumption has little impact on obesity.”
“if you look back at the last decades at the low food marketing scam which has been selling us low quality carbohydrates with processed food and added sugar in it.”
“The human organism can survive without carbohydrates but not without protein and fats.”
All of us in healthcare need to embrace this and learn more and make it part of our lives the daily conversations with our patients so I hope we can engage Wolfram in more of these conversations.
Like for instance. What do you do for a fatty liver besides cutting out all the bad foods?
Thank you Wolfram for coming to our conference and we hope to hear lots more from you!
Big Sugar Summit: Julia Hathaway, Is Big Sugar Burning Your Lungs?
burnt sugar field pahokee
Here is our amazing friend Julia Hathaway at the Big Sugar Summit! I learned so much from her speech and now I know all the things that can be done with sugar cane if it is green harvested. Brazil and Australia do it!
We can green harvest too. Imagine something good coming out this whole mess!
“Application of pesticides on Brazilian sugarcane fields is negligible and use of fungicides practically nonexistent. Major diseases that threaten sugarcane are fought through biological control, introducing natural enemies to fight pests and advanced genetic enhancement programs.
Brazilian sugarcane growers also apply relatively few industrialized fertilizers, using on average 75 kilograms per hectare. That’s 50% less than the amount typically applied to corn in the United States and 30% less than what’s used for beet sugar in Europe.
Brazilian sugarcane needs fewer chemicals due to the innovative use of organic fertilizers created during sugarcane processing. For instance, sugarcane mills recover residues called filter cake (which is rich in phosphorus) and vinasse (loaded with potassium, organic matter and other nutrients), which they use in place of traditional fertilizers.”
Is Big Sugar Burning Your Lungs?
You can help by going here and filling out this questionnaire.
“Hundreds of environmentalists gathered Saturday in West Palm Beach, determined to clean up Palm Beach County’s sugar cane industry.
CBS12 attended Sierra Club’s Sugar Cane Summit, talking with activists about what they call our country’s love of fructose and the dangers the crop potentially poses to you and your family.
Wolfram Alverson, a California nutritionist attended the event, telling CBS12 America is too dependent on sugar, saying with each passing year more and more cases of childhood diabetes are diagnosed.
“In fact we’re seeing type 2 diabetes in the womb now so it’s being transferred from mothers to their children, even before they’re born,” said Wolfram Alverson.
Another troublesome aspect of the industry is how the crop is harvested and what gets left behind.
Julia Hathaway with Sierra Club says it’s common practice for some sugarcane to be burned, sending toxic fumes into the air and possibly into our water supply.
Leftover crops she says could be recycled and used for good.
“That can be used to make products including bio-plastic and parts you can use as mulch,” said Julia Hathaway.
For now, Hathaway says she and her fellow activists have their work cut out for them, raising awareness so lawmakers and companies can make changes, for a better Palm Beach County. “It’s a big problem and it’s a big hill to climb but we’re worth it and we should stand up for ourselves.”
“In 1990, a small group of law professors and lawyers created the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center, Inc. to establish a nonprofit law firm dedicated to meeting the needs of the public interest in environmental issues facing Florida. In 1995 the organization hired Richard Grosso, the former Legal Director of 1000 Friends of Florida, as its Executive Director, to establish a legal representation program at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The name of the organization was officially changed in October of 1996 to the Environmental and Land Use Law Center, Inc.
The firm began to expand, adding three additional attorneys to the team, including Senior Staff Attorney Lisa Interlandi in 2001 and now Executive Director and General Counsel Jason Totoiu in 2006. In 2006, the firm changed its name to the Everglades Law Center to reflect its unique role in providing legal, strategic and policy advice to the dozens of organizations and individuals working to restore the Everglades.
Today, the Everglades Law Center celebrates over 20 years of providing legal counsel to nearly forty national, state, and local environmental and conservation organizations. We tackle issues from the Kissimmee River Basin to Florida Bay. We also assist clients on issues affecting other imperiled landscapes and watersheds throughout Florida. Our lawyers are strategically located across the greater Everglades ecosystem.”
cyndi lenz 