IT IS NOT THE PATH WHICH IS THE DIFFICULTY; RATHER, IT IS THE DIFFICULTY WHICH IS THE PATH. Sören Kierkegaard

IT IS NOT THE PATH WHICH IS THE DIFFICULTY; RATHER, IT IS THE DIFFICULTY WHICH IS THE PATH. Sören Kierkegaard

Jul 17, 2020 | WORLD

Many thanks Gabriella for the comment with the quote by Blaga Dimitrova:
“I’m not afraid they’ll stamp me flat. Grass stamped flat soon becomes a path”.

I didn’t know her but she immediately hit me a lot.
The idea of succumbing to become a path.
A new path in particular.

Yes, because in fact the already traveled roads seem to lead to worsening and impoverishment, I don’t know about you but I feel a little lost. Despite the proverb that our grandparents told us a bit as a negative warning:
Those who leave the old road for the new know what they leave behind and do not know what they find.

However, they had made progress on the road, and had the wisdom of their experience.

Instead we are regressing, we allow ourselves to be trampled without resistance just like grass, but we do not know how to form a path that leads us to better conditions, to an evolution in the human sense, to a well-being not enslaved by now global economic imperatives.

The Cheshire Cat concept also applies:
One day Alice came to a crossroads on the road and saw the Cheshire Cat on the tree.

“What path should I take?” churches.
The answer was a question:
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” Alice replied.
“So,” said the Cheshire Cat, “it doesn’t matter.”

We don’t know where we want to go. Or rather: more than not knowing it, we don’t want it all the way. Am I wrong?

Aren’t we, in your opinion, almost on the point of no return, unable to accept that things will have to change, and will have to change a lot, and that the concept we had of the future has dissolved like a soap bubble?

Have you ever lost yourself? Wasn’t it an occasion where you walked a lot more?

The goal has not disappeared, it is more difficult to reach.

And perhaps we must first find ourselves in the shoes we have available, very tight, too uncomfortable and of short duration.

C3H8NO5P

C3H8NO5P

Jul 12, 2020 | ENVIRONMENT, ENVIRONMENT, WORLD, SCIENCE, SCIENCE, WORLD

Glyphosate is a molecule of the family of amino acids, discovered by Monsanto in the early 1970s.
It consists of an amino acid, glycine and a phosphoric acid molecule joined together by a nitrogen bridge.

And it’s the active ingredient in Roundup:
when sprayed on the leaves of the plants, it penetrates through their green parts, is absorbed and then diffused – technically it is said to be translocated – through the tissues and transported from the sap to the roots and organs of propagation and reproduction of the plant (rhizomes, stolons , bulbs, bulbils). Once penetrated, glyphosate inhibits the production of an enzyme called EPSP synthetase, which in turn prevents the plant from producing the aromatic amino acids essential for its growth and development.

Monsanto started selling Roundup in 1974.

At the beginning of the 70s the population had 3 billion 682 million people, destined to reach 4 billion by 1975.

In 1992 the patent expires and Monsanto is ready with more effective new products.
A progressive evolution of the Roundup therefore begins, which becomes an increasingly concentrated product.

With the arrival of the new millennium, the need to limit disposal costs is added to the need for concentration, and both lead to the new Transorb technology based on a mixture of surfactants that reduces the interval between application and sowing in just 6 hours. .

But the escalation continues: Roundup 450plus, Roundup 360power, and then Platinum in 2013.

March 4, 2013 is the date at the bottom of the letter that Marion Copley, a biology graduate with a master’s degree in animal husbandry and veterinary science, serving the EPA’s toxicology department for 30 years, writes to her colleague Jess Rowland nicknamed “Monsanto’s mole” “:

Jess,
Since I left the Agency with cancer, I have studied the tumor process extensively and I have some mechanism comments which may be very valuable to CARC based on my decades of pathology experience. I’ll pick one chemical to demonstrate my points.

Glyphosate was originally designed as a chelating agent and 1 strongly believe that is the identical process involved in its tumor formation, which is highly supported by the literature.

-Chelators inhibit apoptosis, the process by which our bodies kill tumor cells.

-Chelators are endocrine disruptors, involved in tumorigenesis.

-Glyphosate induces lymphocyte proliferation.

-Glyphosate induces free radical formation.

-Chelators inhibit free radical scavenging enzymes requiring Zn, Mn or Cu for activity (i.e. SODs.

-Chelators bind zinc, necessary for immune system functio.

-Glyphosate is genotoxic, a key cancer mechanis.

-Chelators inhibit DNA repair enzymes requiring metal cofactor.

-Chelators bind Ca, Zn, Mg, etc to make foods deficient for these essential nutrient.

-Chelators bind calcium necessary for calcineurin-mediated immune respons.

-Chelators often damage the kidneys or pancreas, as glyphosate does, a mechanism to tumor formation -Kidney/pancreas damage can lead to clinical chemistry changes to favor tumor growth.

-Glyphosate kills bacteria in the gut and the gastrointestinal system is 80% of the immune system.

-Chelators suppress the immune system making the body susceptible to tumor.

Previously, CARC concluded that glyphosate was a “possible human carcinogen”. The kidney pathology in the animal studies would lead to tumors with other mechanisms listed above. Any one of these mechanisms alone listed can cause tumors, but glyphosate causes all of them simultaneously. It is essentially certain that glyphosate causes cancer. With all of the evidence listed above, the CARC category should be changed to “probable human carcinogen”. Blood cells arc most exposed to chelators, if any study shows proliferation of lymphocytes, then that is confirmatory that glyphosate is a carcinogen.

Jess, you and I have argued many times on CARC. You often argued about topics outside of your knowledge, which is unethical. Your trivial MS degree from 1971 Nebraska is far outdated, thus CARC science is 10 years behind the literature in mechanisms. For once in your life, listen to me and don’t play your political conniving games with the science to favor the registrants. For once do the right thing and don’t make decisions based on how it affects your bonus. You and Anna Lowit intimidated staff on CARC and changed MI ARC and IIASPOC final reports to favor industry. Chelators clearly disrupt calcium signaling, a key signaling pathway in all cellos and mediates tumor progression. Greg Ackerman is supposed to be our expert on mechanisms, but he never mentioned any of these concepts at CARC and when I tried to discuss it with him he put me off. Is Greg playing your political games as well, incompetent or does he have some conflict of interest of some kind? Your Nebraska colleague took industry funding, he clearly has a conflict of interest. Just promise me not to ever let Anna on the CARC committee, her decisions don’t make rational sense. If anyone in OPP is taking bribes, it is her.

I have cancer and I don’t want these serious issues in MED to go unaddressed before I go to my grave. I have done my duty.
Marion Copley March 4, 2013

This page was created in her memory.

The public debate on carcinogenic risks related to glyphosate begins only two years after her death.

In 2016, in fact, the gardener Dewayne Johnson, following a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, filed a lawsuit against Monsanto for using Roundup.

Meanwhile Bayer acquires Monsanto.

In October 2018, the popular jury sentenced Bayer and $ 250 million in damages for punitive damages + 39 for damages.
The sentence is then reduced to 78 million in total.

In 2020 Bayer entered into a record deal of over $ 10 billion in plea bargaining for tens of thousands of lawsuits filed for glyphosate-related diseases.

However, the Roundup may continue to be sold.

Today the population has practically doubled since 1975.

Certainly these multinationals speculate and even if ethically questionable progress is unstoppable.

The agri-food market, however, must meet an ever-increasing demand that goes hand in hand and a general impoverishment: many people struggle a quadrant far from the accounts and therefore makes the way of the need to spend as little as possible. Market demand often involves low-cost food, obviously to the detriment of quality and health itself.

So the problem grows and evolves, just like Roundup …

The seeds of life are not what they once were
Mother Nature and God don’t own them anymore

So it ends The Monsanto Years
by Neil Young

BEWITCHED?

BEWITCHED?

Jul 9, 2020 | BOOKS, ITALY

1947: a meaningful year for me, my mother’s birth year. She, who was used to buy 10 lire of old newspapers just to have something to read. She, who made me grow up in a house with a large library full of books of all kinds.

She, who simply loved to read.

Never any imposition, never any particular advice. It was all natural, I still remember the titles that struck me most as a child, then I still could not know the story, yet they were already in my mind, ready to be rediscovered at the right time.

And one day, just like her, I simply started reading too.

1947 is also the year of the first literary prize Strega which took its name from the liqueur produced in the Guido Alberti family company who was a patron of it and who subsequently, after his marriage to the astrologer Lucia Alberti, began his acting career and was directed by directors such as Federico Fellini Francesco Rosi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Eduardo De Filippo and Roman Polanski. A biography that in itself would seem like a novel.

In the long list of winners of the editions that have followed each other from year to year, respectable names appear and a few days ago I read a statistic published by Gabriella which showed an overwhelming male majority .

I sincerely have to recover several things from the past, but Monica opened a window on the present, also giving me a key to the book that won the 2020 edition: The hummingbird by Sandro veronesi published by La nave di Teseo.

I gladly approached it, without knowing the author, without knowing the previous success Chaos Calmo and without knowing the various dynamics that led to this second victory.

“You are a hummingbird because like the hummingbird you put all your energy into staying still.”

The quote on the back cover immediately offers the first food for thought: suddenly static is considered as an effort, and not as the absence of movement.

The movement of the book is constituted by the temporal jumps with which the author leads the narration according to a very symbolic thread, alternating exchanges of letters and digressions with stories of daily life poised between the apparent normality and a crescendo of paradoxical situations.

I found particularly curious how the rather unlikely events of the main character made me think of Forrest Gump, a sort of coincidence, since I had just written a post about it.

But following the idea of the hummingbird, and trying to fly backwards to review everything from a different perspective, I developed the idea of metaphors to reconfirm the only true certainty we have: life has surprises in store and often revolutionizes plans and certainties.

But for the truth we are not still, we resist, something very different.

I think I’m not the only one to have found a sort of cross with painful personal experiences, of course then everyone continues on their tracks, but the scars remain in common.

This book also gave me a reference to childhood in reading the descriptions of summer places: Toscana’s sea near Bolgheri, Marina di Bibbona, Punta Ala, having also spent my holidays exactly on that same coast, and I found myself facing the thought of how we used to take things for granted until this particular summer, and how we never thought they could vanish.

So “bewitched”? Strega means witch laughing

No, but happy as every time a reading inspires reflections.

FORREST GUMP FROM QUARTERED MAN TO FILM TO BE BANDED. JENNY OR JEAN?

FORREST GUMP FROM QUARTERED MAN TO FILM TO BE BANDED. JENNY OR JEAN?

Jul 6, 2020 | MOVIES, WORLD

I should mention the chocolates, but maybe even if I stay on the coffee we can still say “you never know what you’re gonna get” …

July 6 marks the anniversary of the debut in theaters of this movie which after 26 years and 24 awards including the prestigious oscars for best film, director and leading actor, apparently continues to collect discordant criticisms and opinions.

In fact, it has recently been included in the Variety list  among the movies to avoid because racist.

And to think that previously Forrest Gump had also been accused of being loaded with propaganda at a more or less subliminal level precisely for the various excursions of 30 years of American history that it contains.

“The quartered man”, in fact. Literally it derives from a media campaign put in place in 1973 to impress public opinion with gruesome news reports against Salvador Allende’s nationalization policy in Chile.

Obviously, no quartering is attributed to Forrest Gump, but the principle of wanting to give a piloted image remains.

One would say “and so?” … in fact, the story of the power of American presidents for example, or a certain rewriting of the war in Vietnam, are not particularly subliminal, aspects which, moreover, constitute the common denominator of many other films.

However, there is also a sort of sub-text on the character played by Robin Wright: Jenny, who has many similarities with the unfortunate actress Jean Seberg, among whom the attendance of the Black Panthers stands out above all.

A movie out of competition at the Venice Film Festival 2019 was presented precisely on the life of Jean Seberg.

The film, with Kristen Stewart was released in streaming and in Italy is entitled more precisely: “Seberg – In the viewfinder.”

This viewfinder would be that of the FBI within the COINTELPRO program, an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program.

The Ku Klux Klan was also included in this same program in 1964, which is why Forrest Gump was included in the famous list of movies not recommended.

So the circle closes?

Propaganda or racism, to viewers the arduous sentence.

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