Paper for Sociology class but so very relevant for EVERYONE about HUNGER and our world

Myths of Hunger and Free Trade

(note for those who haven't recently studied Sociology "States" are countries, don't ask me why I just write like they tell me to)

Our world produces enough food to provide everyone the ability to consume 2500 to 3000 calories a day, consumption like that would have everyone overweight. 

A myth of hunger is that we do not produce enough food to feed everyone. Another myth of hunger is overpopulation of the world and specific States or areas within States is a cause of hunger. There are very heavily populated States that eat very well such as Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong. The last myth about hunger is that Free Trade can end hunger. Farmers who stop growing crops to feed their families and start growing cash crops to support the State’s exports find that the surplus of crops sent to market lower the prices and they do not earn enough to purchase the food needed for survival. Food that they grew themselves in years past.

Farmers who use the small-scale organic methods of growing crops to support themselves and those near them work to sustain the land. They grow more crops and animal varieties in a smaller space but produce more edible food than large cash crop farms. Small-scale farms care about the soil fertility and work hard to rotate the crops to not use up, or deplete the nutrients, but instead to build them up for the next year. Small farmers also save seeds and through a process of selecting only the best seeds from the best crops have cultivated over centuries the plants we have today.

Sadly our neoliberal economic policies are putting the small farmers out of business by encouraging farmers to “go big or get out” the big cash crop farms produce enough to drive the market price down for everyone making it impossible to sell a crop for more than it cost to produce it. The core zone countries have very large Agribusiness companies that create GMO (genetically modified seeds) that must be purchased to go with their chemicals, they also sell the fertilizers and process the foodstuff. The companies set the prices to purchase the seeds and the amount paid for the end result plus all the middle processes. The large companies that buy meat also force the large farmer who wants to produce meat to raise the animals in “factory” like arrangement where there are many animals forced into small spaces or cages. This makes diseases run quickly through the animals and forces the farmers to buy and use antibiotics to keep the animals healthy to reach adulthood.

The core zone corporations are winning because of the “stockholder” mentality where the bottom line or almighty dollar is more important than the land, animal or people involved in creating it. While the peripheral and semi-peripheral zone farmers are losing their livelihood, land and some are even taking their lives out of desperation and despair.

A call for help to finish my degree at SVSU

I honestly would not of thought to do this myself. I had cried my tears, said goodbye to my dreams of graduating from SVSU and was ready to move on. I posted this on facebook to my friends and there was an overwhelming response from my Professors and peers not to give up but to let them help me in my endeavors.

I am writing this post today to say thank you to them and to make it as easy as I can for anyone who wants to help monetarily to do so.


Below you will find a Donate button that will allow you to give whatever you would like toward the 800+ dollars that it will take for me to enroll is one of my last three classes this semester. I need to take the English class Language in Society which is only offered in the Fall and then will take my last two classes in the winter semester if I can't get into them this Fall. Those are a final business class and a final Political Science or Sociology class.


I am not a charity through the government, this will not be tax deductible, this page has been created because of and for the love of my friends, colleagues and Professors at SVSU who do not want me to let go yet.



Thank you.

As of Saturday, August 11, 2012 we have collected $200.00 toward the $800+ that is needed.


Update Thursday August 16, 2012 we have collected $350.00 toward my last three classes Thank you to those who have donated and shared this post, words are all I have to express my gratitude and they fall dreadfully short in the task.

I took Justin to his freshman orientation yesterday (8-15-2012)at SVSU and spent the day running back and forth between RPW and Academic Advising. It looks like the plan is going to be for me to push back my graduation one semester and graduate after Winter semester, enroll in Instruction Writing with fabulous Dr. Herzog (thank you Dr. Herzog and Dr. Dallas) take my other two classes and be done. This will also give me more time to save and keep collecting whatever donations toward the cost of tuition for the last three classes. Together they cost over $1600 dollars. Armed with all the knowledge of how things work from finding it out the hard way the last few months I will be able to take advantage of the payment plan for winter semester because I know now that I have to sign up for it as soon as I register for the semester during the fall semester.

I will be able to graduate and who knows maybe between now and then I'll be able to find a job. :-) Thank you Dr. Jorgensen for not letting me give up on my dreams and to all my SVSU family for your love and support.

I am still asking for any donations of any amount you feel comfortable with to help out since I will not be eligible for financial aid but I will now also have time to sign up for scholarships. I'll keep you posted as to what is going on.

The Occupy Movement

My first introductions to the "Occupy Movement" came from posts on friends' Facebook feeds. Some of those posts were very negative and some were positive. Knowing my friends as I do, I decided that I needed to find out more about the "Occupy Movement" for myself so that I could make my own informed decision on how I feel about the entirety of it.

Here are a list of websites that I visited to learn more information about both sides of the debate. If there are other sites that you think give great information about either side please comment and give us the link because making your own informed decision about political debates is what this country is based on and why I am writing today.

OccupyWallSt.org http://occupywallst.org/about/

An Editorial from the Forum, a student run publication titled "What is the Occupy Movement?" http://www.piedmontforum.com/2011/11/03/editorial-occupy-movement/

A CNN video called "Jesse Jackson supports the Occupy Movement" there is discussion about what it is and why he supports it. http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/11/05/nr-holmes-jackson-occupy-movement-seg.cnn#/video/bestoftv/2011/11/05/nr-holmes-jackson-occupy-movement-seg.cnn

"The Disturbing Agenda of Occupy Wall Street" from reason.com http://reason.com/archives/2011/11/04/the-disturbing-agenda-of-occupy-wall-str

This is an obscure bikers' blog but the author really did the background work and with all the good information, charts and tables that are brought into the piece I had to include "Baby Boomers vs. the Occupy movement, a must read" from the bigbendbikersforfreedom website http://www.bigbendbikersforfreedom.com/2011/11/baby-boomers-vs-occupy-movement-must.html

Okay, I could go on forever listing sites that have opinions one side or the other about the movement but I'll move on and let you share your favorites in the comments.

I am still not sure how I feel about the movement, there are some good thoughts and some that I'd not really support. Like most politics the decision is never easy. I love the fact that we live in a country where we are free to express our opinions. I do not have to fear because I have shared this information.

Do I notice a disparagingly large difference between what the top people make and the bottom ones in our country? Yes, of course I do, but I am sure that I do not want the government to step in and control everything.

Government control and their warped idea of what "we the people" want and need is what has gotten us in this mess.

I'm not an anarchist and I want our government, I pray for our leaders and that they will make decisions that will help our country.

So, my decision on the Occupy Movement is that I am pleased that they have started the country discussing important issues and I pray that we will continue to discuss and resolve the issues in the best way possible for everyone in the country.

Summer Moves

First I must appologize this morning right up front for my long absence from writing anything this summer.

For those who didn't know we moved since my last post, and moved again and then one last time. It was a busy, crazy insane summer that led us full circle right back home to Michigan, literally a few miles from where we had lived for 20 years. I think it was one of those things where we make our plans and then God laughs and says "Yeah, right, they'll learn." Yes, I picture God as sarcastic as I am but we'll leave that for another day.

Part of the reason that I haven't written till now has been stress, and being overwhelmed by the moving and settling in, the new "old" job and my new "old" school. I was trying to do it all and quite frankly wasn't getting anything done very well and wasn't getting any sleep at all.

I wised up took some time off work and just worked one day a week for the last month decided that if no one else in the house cared about the dang boxes I would try not to let it bother me so much and caught up on my homework, reading and my sleep. Now I finally think I'm ready to get back into a schedule of chatting with you on a regular basis.

I know my original plan for this blog was to chat here with you about current issues in the news and it still is. I will be getting back to that but I didn't want everyone to think that I had just gotten lazy or stopped caring.

So, welcome back! I'm glad you are here and I hope you'll stop by again, I'm going to try to schedule my writing here on Monday and Friday mornings. Have a great day.

Please leave me a note let me know you dropped in and what you did this summer. Did you move? Have a life changing event? Or wished something, anything would have happened?

Dancing With The Stars

I love watching Dancing With the Stars and was very excited this season. What am I saying I love it every season. But this post is more about my amazement the other day with their Facebook post and the response that it received. It definitely got me thinking and involved with the discussion.
           BRB gotta grab another cup of coffee.
           Okay, now where were we...
If you haven't been to the DWS Facebook page yet check it out Dancing With the Stars link to FB

They posted "What if YOU had the opportunity to cast the next season of Dancing With The Stars? Who would you choose? Now's your chance. Let us know who you'd pick!"

What a cool idea! There were 6775 comments as of this morning and their very smart social media person linked it up with the DWS website and created a page for viewers to choose the next season of DWS! There have been 432 comments left on the website. They have really created a stir and got the viewers talking.

Now does it matter if they choose someone that was the viewers' favorite? I'm figuring if they have an official poll and listing and then a viewers vote then they were serious about choosing viewers favorites, but there is so much more that goes into a star being on DWS.

I love the way that they try to have a well rounded celebrity group. Some older, younger, sports, talk, movies they get a good mix. The catch for the viewers' favorites is that

1. The star must be willing to be on the show
2. The star's schedule has to be open during that time 
3. The star must be able to come to a salary contract agreement with DWS 

I found a link that discusses how the pay from DWS is not that great for television. I personally would love to learn to dance and get paid to do it but I doubt that we'll ever see George Clooney or Brad Pitt up there dancing for us because they can make so much more for much less effort.

All that said, let's go back around. Wow Kudos go out to DWS great marketing idea and with as many people as there are talking your ratings shouldn't drop for next season.

Who do you want to see on DWS? and did you tell them?

My question where will they go with this? Only time will tell...

If you took the time to read and enjoy a cup of coffee with me please leave me a comment and let me know. Have a great weekend! 

Genetically Modified Food

I am starting the last week of my Writing for the Biotechnology Industry class from North Eastern University out of Boston, MA. Before this class I knew nothing about scientific writing and in my previous five years of college courses in writing had never even used the APA style for references. I in my complete love for writing was extremely excited to learn Scientific writing and thus be able to better market my writing capabilities in the future.

I had no idea that this writing class would open my eyes to a world of science that I honestly did not know even existed. I know I live in a cave. Well, no not really but I do keep my nose to the grind stone and with school, a family of four kids, and either working or searching for work I don't usually watch a lot of television or read the newspapers. I know bad habits for a writer. I must admit this blog is forcing me to find out what is going on in the world around me.

I recently wrote a scientific review article for my Writing for the Biotechnology Industry class and learned so much interesting information that was both scary and exciting. I'm not really sure how I feel yet about finding out that whether I like it or not, I eat genetically modified food probably every day. When I sort it out I'm sure I'll share.

Our professor gave us a list of topics we could choose from for our scientific review articles our really big paper that we had been building up to writing over the last several weeks. I chose to take on "transgenic food and allergies in children". I am a mom with four children and two of them have food allergies so it made sense to me.

You may have heard me mention the title on my Facebook or Twitter as I was working on it or checked it out because of my Writing Updates Blog. The title is

More needs to be Done to Protect Children from Allergenic Transgenic Food

it can be found on my Online Writing Portfolio if you would like to read more. But I'm talking about it today because it could lead people who only read the title to the wrong conclusions. 

Yes, more needs to be done BUT there has never been a diagnosed case of an allergic reaction to a transgenic or Genetically Modified food. The biggest issue that I found was that we do not force the companies that produce genetically modified food to label it at this time. This is a suggestion that was made in several of the scientific articles that I reviewed and one that I carried through into my paper. 

It is the protection from the possibility of potential allergens that labeling will provide. I'm sure producers are afraid that such labeling will keep the population from purchasing their products and instead turning to local growers and farmers markets for their purchases. Which we should be doing anyway but that is another day's rantings. 

So get interested like I have recently in finding out just what it is that you are eating and what is going on in the biotechnology industry there is a lot of really great things out there like the rice that can grow fortified because of biotechnology with all sorts of good for you things in it so that people in developing countries can be healthier. They are using biotechnology to produce foods that used to be allergenic but will someday no longer elicit those reactions. And they have identified what causes hay fever and are working on that issue. 

So read learn and decide for yourself then let me know or just tell me now, what do you think about all this genetically modified food and biotechnology stuff? 

New Cigarette Warnings

all images were taken from the FDA site 

I just read in the on my local news website about "FDA Reveals Graphic Warnings For Cigarettes".
Of course my next step was to go to the source, check out the FDA site.

I guess they think that if you make bigger warnings on highly addictive, medically proven cancer sticks that people will want to quit.

YEAH and I have a chunk of ocean front property in Kansas I'd like to discuss selling to the FDA too.

all images were taken from the FDA site 

REALLY, bigger warnings are not going to matter, quitting campaigns and free quitting help from the Government aren't saving lives either.

What needs to be done and what has to be done to save lives and end all this nonsense is to
MAKE CIGARETTES ILLEGAL. 


We all know that the only reason they haven't been made illegal is because the tobacco industry is well involved in the government and the government makes big bucks from the cigarette taxes collected from these poor addicted individuals who are killing themselves and those they love.

I smoked when I was young and rebellious. I quit several times but continued smoking on and off up until I had my fourth child and I'll be the first to admit, I was an idiot. Remember it is highly addictive and I grew up in a smoking environment, it was natural for me to want to try it. Honestly I still enjoy smelling the smoke of cigars and pipes when it wafts by me. So call me hypocritical, I don't care.

Smoking cigarettes is bad and kills. The FDA doesn't need to force bigger more graphic warnings they need to outlaw a dangerous drug. If your addicted to cigarettes you don't care how big the warning is just that your next fix is inside that box.

all images were taken from the FDA site 

My (highly addictive caffeine filled) coffee cup is empty, so I guess my Coffee Bean Babblings are finished for this morning. I'll climb down off my soap box and say that these are purely my opinions as always and if I hurt anyone's feelings I'm sorry that is not what I mean to do.

If your a smoker and need help quitting please visit smokefree.gov. 

So, if you agree, leave me a comment. If you disagree, leave me a comment too. 

Let me know, what do you think, are the new warnings going to help?