So you’re a…

Polygamous-sect hearing in Texas descends into farce

SAN ANGELO, Texas – A court hearing to decide the fate of the 416 children swept up in a raid on a West Texas polygamous sect descended into farce Thursday, with hundreds of lawyers in two packed buildings shouting objections and the judge struggling to maintain order…

…At issue was an attempt by the state of Texas to strip the parents of custody and place the children in foster homes because of evidence they were being physically and sexually abused or in imminent danger of abuse by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon splinter group suspected of forcing underage girls into marriage with older men…

…The judge must weigh the allegations of abuse and also decide whether it is in the children’s best interest to be placed into mainstream society after they have been told all their lives that the outside world is hostile and immoral.

It’s an AP article, hence the “quality”. Still, that that last paragraph I quoted is in the article has me wondering what its readers may come away asking that they may not have before. Alan posts on this over at Poly in the Media.

Okay, more important stuff time.

Colony Collapse Disorder is not new, but I haven’t posted on it yet (here or at the old journal). The very very short version: bees are dying off, very very quickly! Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium has a news update page here, although it’s not been updated in a few months.

Also, salmon and other sea critters dying off isn’t too new either, but here’s a decent LA Times article analyzing the situation in context of the last decade.. From the same paper, salmon fishing banned this year. Looks like this isn’t the year to try making lox myself.

Meanwhile, it’s time for the 14th Annual Soy Symposium. I’m not a big fan of Soyfoods; they’re an excellent example of a company that preys on people. (Joy Out of Soy is a good article analyzing the promotion and critiques of soy, although it’s a bit dated [May 2000].)

On soy, corn, wheat and cotton growth in the US, from the New York Times: Food Prices Rise, Farmers Respond.

Oh, by the way? WHEAT IS DYING OFF.

Meanwhile, out here in Oregon, the last two weeks have seen 80ºF weather (complete with bees!) and snow.

Okay, more more important stuff.

Sludge fertilizer program spurs concerns

BALTIMORE – Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients.

Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department…

…In a 1978 memo, the EPA said sludge “contains nutrients and organic matter which have considerable benefit for land and crops” despite the presence of “low levels of toxic substances.”

But in the late 1990s the government began underwriting studies such as those in Baltimore and East St. Louis using poor neighborhoods as laboratories to make a case that sludge may also directly benefit human health.

Meanwhile, there has been a paucity of research into the possible harmful effects of heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, other chemicals and disease-causing microorganisms often found in sludge.

Yet again, economically fuxored PoC used as guinea pigs, blatantly lied to in the process. Dear HUDD, why not save yourselves the Enormous Burden of distributing lawns and food coupons and test that sludge on some lawns out in Beverly Hills? (Oh right, the lawns won’t see kids playing or food being grown, thus defeating the purpose of the testing…but oh, the possibility of those things happening and putting economically privileged white folks at risk!)

(Pointed to the article by Black Amazon, of course, in another post about the recent madness directed at her and BrownFemiPower by Seal Press, WAM, and a great many white feminists. Also linked is An Open Letter to the White Feminist Community.)

I’ll be hiding under my bed, thankyouverymuch. (Okay, actually, I’ll be finishing up some work on the Stumptown Comics Fest and storyboarding an animation, because I still do believe that art will save the world. But if my bed were higher off the ground, I’d be doing art from under there, I guarantee it.)