From Xico

Capitalism Beyond the Crisis - The New York Review of Books

Capitalism Beyond the Crisis - The New York Review of Books.  Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize-winning economist writes with great clarity in this (fairly) brief article about the defects in our current capitalist economic model.  It should be required reading.  He rises above the common dichotomy in the US of capitalism-individualism vs socialism with insights into the fact that what we call capitalism Adam Smith would have probably been horrified at and into the fact that capitalism in fact depends on a fair number of non-capitalist interventions in order to survive.

Some groups of human beings seem to need to believe they've found the best structures for living and then insist on living within them, accepting only the friendliest of criticisms.  They turn religions into such structures. They also turn non-religious structures into these rigid frameworks.  In the US particularly, they give a religious strength to the idea that capitalism and democracy, chained together, as we vaguely understand them, mark the height of human development. We also cling to the notion that somehow "rugged individualism" is the height of virtue.

We are all the more deceived because we have absorbed the belief that we are rational and that these economic and political ideas we hold are the results of a rational process.  Social science approaches collude in this.  Thus, we read voraciously endless studies that "prove" by their statistics that this or the other thing is true.  Even more dangerously, we cling to the belief that social sciences not only accurately reflect the present, but also can predict the future; that by stripping out what can't be "measured objectively;" by removing distracting variables, etc, we arrive at some kind of complete knowledge.

We have to get past the idea that capitalism is the universal true religion and that the only alternative is that demon, socialism.

Anyway, read Amartya Sen's article and THINK.

Flu in Mexico -- IF it did start in La Gloria, it could easily have spread to Mexico City

In a previous post, it was mentioned that finally Fidel Herrera Beltrán might be calling in some truly independent investigators to look into The Situation at Granja Carroll and La Gloria to see if it might be at all possible to track the flu there still.  Numerous questions mean that it is impossible to rule it out including the rather unusual outbreak which affected a quarter of the population in March and earlier of this year. Apparently half the working population of La Gloria works in Mexico City during the week, returning home on weekends.  (Many others have migrated to the states -- where in the States? When?)  Given that people can be contagious with the flu for days before they exhibit symptoms (if indeed they do exhibit notable symptoms), it seems quite possible that these workers may have brought the flu to the Mexico City.  Is this being investigated?

Sand and dust and wind on the way to La Gloria

The air here in Ursulo Galván is dusty, though days have started to cool a bit: clouds are starting to drift into the sky softening the sun's brilliance. It seems horribly dry.  Dust seeps into the house, covers plants along roads and paths. Nothing seems to be growing, only holding on until it rains.

We may find it dry here, but it is lush compared to the high valleys sloping south and west down from Perote.  It is always green where we live, even when it is droughty.  I feel as if I'm bursting out of a tunnel when we come out onto those high, dusty plains.  I'm reminded of some of Juan Rulfo's short stories set on the plains of Jalisco.  This quote is from Nos han dado la tierra  [my translation]

One has believed at times, in the midst of this trail without edges, that there would be nothing ahead; that one wouldn't be able to find anything on the other side, at the end of this plain cracked with crevices and dry streams....

The roof of a house peaks over a dry ridge in first town we came to after driving up into the
dry country.  Below, a bright pink kindergarden building with a perhaps wishful scene painted all around it.

In this land, people had planted fields of crops.

The seedlings are pushing through sand.  There was no evidence of irrigation.  I think the row of agave and shrub crawling over the little hill may be an effort to prevent erosion from the endlessly blowing wind.  You can see more rows like this in the distance.
We asked a couple of goatherds what the plants were.  On one side, a crop of a sort of potato was growing, on the other, "milpa," they said.  Milpa is the Nahuatl word for fields planted with maize, squash and beans, a very productive traditional system of farming.  On these windy highlands, the milpas were planted only with maize.
Two boys on a burro passed us.  The boy in front pressed his eyes shut against the sand.

(Jim's photo)
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More wind and dust.

(Jim's photo)
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A field ploughed in sand.

(Jim's photo)

We stopped on the way to La Gloria at a town called Los Altos, higher up on the slope of I think one of Cofre de Perote's foothills. The blowing dust blurs the background

(Jim's photo)

Flu in Mexico: The Tip of the Iceberg

An excellent and very important piece of investigative journalism by Laura Carlsen here at Americas MexicoBlog 

Among the points:

• FINALLY Fidel Herrera Beltrán, governor of the State of Veracruz, says he will order an independent investigation of the possible connection of the flu outbreak in La Gloria and Granjas Carroll.  Carlsen got this information from, of all places, Al Jazeera English, not a Mexican or US news source.
• Carlsen describes international failure, not just Mexican, to deal with early signs of a significant problem.
• She addresses in detail the terrible potential of factory farms to spread disease, especially by means of uncovered lagoons and contaminaation of local  water sources.
• She describes how the priorities were geared to protect the corporation of Las Granjas Carroll, owned jointly by Smithfield Foods and Agroindustrias Unidas de Mexico, before the well-being of the people of La Gloria, or indeed of Mexico and the world.
• She describes the inadequacies of Mexico's public health system and reveals that Mexico, in response to  the economic aspects of the crisis is planning to CUT funding to IMSS, the major provider of healthcare in the country.
• She shows how research continues to be geared to showing that Granjas Carroll is "innocent," not to answering the question, how did this epidemic start?
• She talks about the swine-human connection and how critical it is.
• She reveals that the vaccine production racket is already in gear, and that the first company at the starting gate is one that is under investigation in a number of countries.
• She discusses (what I and many others know) how difficult it is to get any real information on the subject in Mexico, particularly as it relates to agroinustrial practices.
• She addresses the failure of oversight on all international levels.
• She raises critical issues relating to NAFTA and "the centrality of foreign investment in Mexico [which] creates a climate where transnational corporations with large investments can exercise coercive power over government agencies on all levels."
• She condemns the Obama administration for its dreadful narrow focus on  police/military/hardware assistance to Mexico in place of the actions which really might mitigate the control of organized crime AND the public health threats.  
• She describes the damage that a profit-driven system of medicine and vaccine production essentially ignores public health interests.

You need to read the article.

I would like to add that as in the case of global warming, in which the problem is undeniably real, but attention to which blinds us to other very serious environmental problem, the agroindustry-disease connection is very real, but it shouldn't blind us to other very serious problems presented by these companies, from dangerous overuse of antibiotics to loss of jobs to pollution of soil, air and water, to hideous mistreatment of animals to loss of income for local areas.

Don't put biofuels right into your vehicle, but....

Convert them to electricity first (and then get an electric car).  See here.

Flu in Mexico: Mexico's Handling ... muy impresionante

In the Washington Post you can read about Mexico's response to diagnosis of the flu: a story filled with high drama. It was wonderful and swift. Mexico is a country with an abundance of very smart, very talented people.

Origin of Flu anywhere: Stolen from Agenda Veracruz

Agenda Veracruz is a blog of political opinion mostly addressing issues here in our state, often in the context of national politicsandissues.  It is in Spanish. 

And here is how swine (flu) originated....

Imported vs. Local Food: More than a Local Problem

Via mark bittman's blog Bitten, check out Food and Water Watch: Global Grocer.    Local is good, but I don't think the Food and Water Watch approach in encouraging it is so hot: the problems with importing all our food are great; germs aren't one of them.  For them, we could use more inspectors and lessons in hygiene. In fact, the germ problem is probably no greater on imported food than on local food. The real problems with food imported from Mexico center around the fact that the food Mexico exports grows on large factory farms that pollute with pesticides and herbicides, monocrop and degrade the soil, employ far fewer people than local, small farms, don't give much of the money they make back to local people, negatively affect the genetic diversity of crops, interfere with wildlife and bird migrations,  contribute to desertification and deforestation and in other ways disrupt local environments, damage water supplies....you want more?*

This is an international problem.  All you local-organic folk in the states, don't just turn inward!

*Same problems in the US.

Flu in Mexico: Contradictions

From La Jornada, May 8, 2009 My translation
The Federal Commission for Protection against Public Health Risks (Cofepris--Spanish acronym) only verified that there were no sick pigs in Granjas Carroll and the community. The public health visit was limited to La Gloria months after the outbreak. The report contains data which contradict that reported by the National Water Commission.
 by Ángeles Cruz Martínez
At the end of April, two months after the flu outbreak that affected 25 percent of the inhabitants of La Gloria in Perote, Veracruz, and six days after a public health emergency was declared in the country because of the epidemic of A/H1N1 flu, the Federal Commission for Protection against Public Health Risks (Cofepris) completed a public health verification which was limited to confirming that there were no sick pigs either in Granja Carroll or in La Gloria.
Miguel Ángel Toscano, head of the Commission, participated yesterday in a press conference at the Health Department (Ssa--Spanish acronym) in which he described the state of the epidemic in the country. He also recounted the activities which supervisors of Cofepris undertook both in the town and in the pig plant, but without making any reference to the complaints which the inhabitants of La Gloria have made over the years about public health risks because of environmental contamination.
This past March 1, one of the 1,200 case of A/H1N1 confirmed at this point was recorded in La Gloria. In La Gloria, one of the unusual outbreaks of influenza between February and March of this year also occurred, in which 25% of the inhabitants were affected.
Discontented citizens at that time expressed their fear that the viral infections were related to the contamination generated at Granja Carroll; however, nobody paid attention to them. The epidemiological outbreak ended, and it wasn't until this past April 23 when Ssa confirmed that one of the tests taken in La Gloria on April 23 and sent to Canada for testing came back positive for the new virus.
The discontent of the Veracruzanos [La Gloria is in the state of Veracruz] sharpened when they found out that A/H1N1 had a genetic component of swine origin Yesterday in his presentation, Toscano highlighted the basic public health measures and public health promotion which the government of Veracruz had undertaken, such as the distribution of [colloidal silver, 5 kilograms of hyperclorito of calcium], chlorination of fifty water tanks, and 100 kilograms of lime and the [encalamiento-- lime treatment)?] of foci of infection.** Then Toscano proceeded to recount the visit to Granja Carrol, located eight kilometers from La Gloria. According to Toscano, the company manages garbage well. It is taken away by specialized contracting businesses. The management of [pig] corpses is by means of composting mixed with straw and dirt in installations with concrete walls and a mesh roof to avoid bird, rodent and insect infestations. In addition, he said the mortality rate at the granja is maintained below the average of the sector. From October 2008 to March 2009 it varied between 2.1 and 2.9 percent, where as the average in pig farms is between 3.1 and 3. percent. He also referred to the operational conditions of the granja which, he said, included measures maintaining a high level of biosecurity such as a mesh fence surrounding the whole installation, programs of weed and pest control, disinfection and sanitization of materials which enter the farm and keeping food containers closed, among other measures.
According to Toscano -- and in contradiction to that which the National Water Commission reported in respect to the existence of underground filtration of fecal wastes--, the oxidation lagoons in which the solid wastes are captured are constructed in three layers of compaction withclay and a special sealant which prevents filtering into the subsoil. * Granjas Carroll is a company that is jointly owned by Smithfield Foods of the US and Agroindustrias Unidaswith 16 pig factories in the states of Veracruz and Puebla, all, I think, in the areas of the Valley of Perote and the Valley of Guadalupe Victoria. It's worth taking a tour through their website.* Granja Carroll or granja Carroll refers to the factory nearest to La Gloria. ** I am not scientifically-minded enough to translate these terms correctly to English since I'm not sure what they'd be in English.

Three quarters of a HURRAY for the Obama Administration: No Additonal Fence

From the Houston Chronicle here.

No a whole hurray because they're going to finish the 670 miles committed to with bells and whistles intact.