Vote yes on Prop. 37—the Right to Know Initiative

Yes on 37
Back in early 2011, local food activist Pamm Larry was just getting started on her campaign to place a proposition on the November 2012 California ballot calling for mandatory labeling of all food products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs—see “The GreenHouse” of April 21, 2011). Fast forward to the present: Larry (pictured) succeeded, through much hard work, brain power, organization and the help of many, to achieve just that. Proposition 37—The Right to Know Initiative—will be on the ballot come November.

“We now have an incredible opportunity in the nation’s most populous state to set the precedent that simple labels should alert us if our food has been genetically altered in a laboratory,” writes Larry in a recent press release. “Proposition 37 simply requires genetically engineered foods—which are plants or animals whose DNA has been altered by genes from other plants, animals, viruses or bacteria—to be accurately labeled here in California, just like they are in nearly 50 other nations, including most of Europe, China, India and Russia. … Giant agrichemical corporations like Monsanto will spend millions to keep Californians in the dark.”

The Yes-on-37 folks are aiming to raise a million dollars to help get their message out to voters. Go to www.carighttoknow.org to donate and to learn more.

Stirling City weekend
Charlotte Ann Hilgeman of the cute little foothills community of Stirling City sent me a letter (yes, an actual letter delivered by the United States Postal Service—how refreshing!) telling me about the upcoming “Stirling City Town Wide Yard Sales” on Saturday, Aug. 4, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

“This annual event raises money for the Stirling City Community Gardens Art-History Project [and] Stirling City Historical Society’s Museum-Library Complex,” writes Hilgeman. Many of the yard sales will continue on Sunday. Wares by local artisans and craftspeople, as well as home-baked edibles and beverages, will also be available.

“Come up to the cool mountains, support these worthy causes, visit Merlo Park—20-plus acres, ponds, walkways, feed the fish, see the waterfall,” she says. “Visit the unique and historic Stirling City Cemetery at the end of Mica Street, and many more historic sites.”

Call 873-1598 (the Stirling City Historical Society) or 873-0858 for more information.

“Climate disruption’s assault on all we believed—endless progress, a stable future, our capacity to control the natural world with science and technology—will corrode the pillars that hold up the psyche of modern humanity. It will be physiologically destabilizing in a way exceeded in human history perhaps only by the shift to agriculture and the rise of industrial society. Already we find psychiatrists and psychologists issuing guidelines on how to respond to emotional and psychological distress associated with awareness of climate change, although the leading therapeutic recommendation to ‘be optimistic about the future’ suggests that the mental health professionals have yet to grasp the seriousness of the threat posed by global warming. We can expect that, for a time, the loss of faith in the future and in our inability to control our lives will result in a proliferation of mental disturbance characterized by depression, withdrawal and fearfulness.”

—Australian author Clive Hamilton, from his 2010 book, Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change

“As we plunge into cyberspace and strive to replicate the ‘real’ world in the ‘virtual,’ we lose sight of one fundamental fact: nature is totally missing in the digital realm. We humans are the only participants there. The end result? Solipsism, autism, anxiety. When you cut out arterial blood to an organ, the organ dies. When you cut the flow of nature into people’s lives, their spirit dies. It’s as simple as that.” –Adbusters, issue No. 103.