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Strawberries still top the Dirty Dozen list

Here are the fruits and veggies with the most and least pesticides.

MARY JO DILONARDO

March 9, 2017, 12:20 p.m.

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If your budget allows, buy organic strawberries to avoid the pesticides that testing found on traditionally grown versions. (Photo: minicase/Shutterstock)

For the second consecutive year, strawberries have topped the list of produce with the most pesticides. The popular red berries are No. 1 on the 2017 Environmental Working Group's (EWG) Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce. The top 12 spots, known as the Dirty Dozen, are the conventionally grown fruits and vegetables found to have the highest pesticide residue.

This year, spinach jumped to the second spot on the list. Pears and potatoes were new to the Dirty Dozen this year, displacing cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.

EWG's research is based on an analysis of more than 36,000 samples taken by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration. Among the findings:

• Nearly all samples of strawberries, spinach, peaches, nectarines, cherries and apples tested positive for residue from at least one pesticide.
• The most contaminated sample of strawberries had 20 different pesticides.
• Spinach samples had twice as much pesticide residue, on average, than any other crop by weight.

"From the surge in sales of organic food year after year, it's clear that consumers would rather eat fruits and vegetables grown without synthetic pesticides," Sonya Lunder, an EWG senior analyst, said in a statement. "But sometimes an all-organic diet is not an option, so they can use the Shopper's Guide to choose a mix of conventional and organic produce."

The 2017 Dirty Dozen

Here are the 12 fruits and vegetables that made the list. EWG recommends that shoppers buy organic versions of these foods whenever possible in order to minimize the amount of pesticides they consume.

1. Strawberries
2. Spinach
3. Nectarines
4. Apples
5. Peaches
6. Pears
7. Cherries
8. Grapes
9. Celery
10. Tomatoes
11. Sweet bell peppers
12. Potatoes

The Clean Fifteen

At the other end of the list are the fruits and vegetables least likely to contain pesticide residue. "Relatively few pesticides" were detected on these foods, according to the report. If you can't afford an all-organic produce diet, the EWG recommends buying organic versions of the Dirty Dozen produce and conventional forms of the Clean Fifteen.

1. Sweet corn
2. Avocados
3. Pineapples
4. Cabbage
5. Onions
6. Frozen sweet peas
7. Papayas
8. Asparagus
9. Mangos
10. Eggplant
11. Honeydew melon
12. Kiwi
13. Cantaloupe
14. Cauliflower
15. Grapefruit

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Mary Jo DiLonardo writes about everything from health to parenting — and anything that helps explain why her dog does what he does.

For people who forgot to do their homework.

FOR PEOPLE WHO FORGOT TO DO THEIR HOME WORK...A REMINDER.

ATTENTION PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP.

 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

PDF Version

English

Source: United Nations Department of Public Information, NY

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Preamble

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, therefore,
The General Assembly,
Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Article 1

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11

1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14

1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15

1. Everyone has the right to a nationality.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16

1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17

1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21

1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
2. Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country.
3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25

1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26

1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27

1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29

1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Mary Robinson, past president of Ireland, has a powerful message for political and corporate leaders.

http://www.ted.com/talks/mary_robinson_why_climate_change_is_a_threat_to_human_rights

http://www.ted.com/talks/mary_robinson_why_climate_change_is_a_threat_to_human_rights

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A question for: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, president D. Trump and president Putin. Why did you not attend the Paris conference on climate change?

 Innocent people in Africa are suffering and dying from negative climate change because too many North Americans are driving internal combustion engines.
How do you feel about that? Do you still want to sell and profit from fossil fuels?

Hello Gentle People:

 I was standing in my underwear this morning and drinking a glass of Orange juice when I noticed a pair of eyes attempting to look through my apartment kitchen window. A small scruffy Raccoon was outside. I opened the window and in a soft low voice said hello to the little guy. He was sitting wet and cold on the chimney support between the stainless steel pipe and the house wall. Since my apartment is on the second floor I thought he was in trouble.
"Need help?" I said. "How about a peace of bread?"
 He growled and with a paw armed with sharp claws knocked the bread out of my hand.
 "Ungrateful little fur ball!"
 I took my kitchen broom and tried to push him onto the shed roof a few feet below. He fought the broom and kept trying to look into my window. That was  surprising! In order to look into my window he had to stretch and hang over Twenty feet of nothing. It was straight down to the snowy ground below.
"Why do you want to come in here?! I said loudly, a bit nervous at this Alien invasion.

He was staring and sniffing and then he precariously attempted to walk on the Two inch small ledge below my window. He slipped off the ledge and held on for dear life by his paws.
"OK, OK...you can come in!" I pushed open the screen and waved him in but I was too late. The little guy lost his grip and hang glided to the ground.
Plop...he was lucky and missed the old broken motor cycle my neighbor parked below my window. I was relieved to see the snow saved him from a hard landing and even happier to see him run around the corner of the house.
Good, he's gone, I thought to myself.
And then I saw him climb up an evergreen tree and jump back on my shed roof. From there he climbed even higher up to the house roof. This is no ordinary Coon, I thought incredulously! He is a stubborn Ninja Coon!

 Now that I think about it, I believe he was looking in the window to see where my Cats were located. Without a Cat in the house his plan was to sneak into the apartment through their small Cat door and eat from their automatic food dish. Apparently I was no threat to him and he thought I was going to let him in through the window. He braved a Twenty food drop to the ground and missed. Plop! Since my house is always under some kind or repair, I am positive Mr. Raccoon is again hiding and waiting patiently for his next chance!
 
 Wait a minute! As I write these words I hear one of my Cats growling towards the Cat door. I need a Broom handle! Bye for now!



   



 

• Greenpeace response to President Trump Keystone/NoDAPL announcement

  Blogpost by Mike Hudema - January 24, 2017 at 12:24Add comment
  In response to President Trump signing executive orders to restart the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, Greenpeace USA Executive Director Annie Leonard and Greenpeace Canada Climate and Energy campaigner Mike Hudema had the following to say:

  Greenpeace USA Executive Director Annie Leonard

  “A powerful alliance of Indigenous communities, ranchers, farmers, and climate activists stopped the Keystone and the Dakota Access pipelines the first time around, and the same alliances will come together to stop them again if Trump tries to raise them from the dead. Instead of pushing bogus claims about the potential of pipelines to create jobs, Trump should focus his efforts on the clean energy sector where America’s future lives. Trump’s energy plan is more of the same — full of giveaways to his fossil fuel cronies at a time when renewable energy is surging ahead.

  “We all saw the incredible strength and courage of the water protectors at Standing Rock, and the people around the world who stood with them in solidarity. We’ll stand with them again if Trump tries to bring the Dakota Access Pipeline, or any other fossil fuel infrastructure project, back to life.

  “Renewable energy is not only the future, but the only just economy for today. Keystone, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and fossil fuel infrastructure projects like them will only make billionaires richer and make the rest of us suffer. We will resist this with all of our power and we will continue to build the future the world wants to see.”

  Greenpeace Canada Climate and Energy campaigner Mike Hudema

  “People on both sides of the border will be there to stand with Indigenous nations, and all those that believe in Indigenous reconciliation and a climate safe future to ensure these pipelines don’t make it in the ground.

  The question for Canadians is: will the Prime Minister continue to align himself with a climate denying Trump administration, or will he stand with the people and with science and start living up to his own commitments to the climate and Indigenous rights?

  The Prime Minister can’t keep saying he will lead on climate while building three new tar sands pipelines. Alternative facts may work in the U.S. administration but they shouldn’t be tolerated here.”

  Contact: Travis Nichols, Greenpeace US, 206.802.8498

  Contact: Mike Hudema, Greenpeace Canada 780.504.5601

WILL SCOTT PRUITT ABDICATE HIS RESPONSIBILITY?

Automakers have officially submitted a letter asking the new head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, to abdicate his responsibility for protecting the environment by loosening the fuel efficiency standards they agreed upon with the Obama administration in 2011. Pruitt, who calls himself a “leading advocate against the EPA” and has spent much of his life fighting against the agency, has received over $270,000 in lifetime campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. Incidentally, Pruitt also denies that burning oil and gas causes global warming. Surely there’s no connection between that opinion and the campaign contributions he’s received.

The automakers claim that the 54.5mpg CAFE standard would be too costly to implement by 2025, and that consumer demand isn’t there for more efficient vehicles, even as EV sales continue to experience massive growth.

In totally unrelated news, as of three months ago, Tesla had well over half a billion dollars worth of customer deposits, most of which are for a car that nobody has even driven yet, but is significantly more efficient than the new rule requires. That car was unveiled a year ago as the biggest product launch of all time, with an unprecedented tens of thousands of customers camping out overnight or lining up early at stores worldwide to put a deposit of real, actual money down on a car they hadn’t even seen yet. Tesla’s 2014 CAFE performance was 278.9 mpg, over five times higher and eleven years earlier than the 54.5mpg 2025 target the automakers, who have much more experience than Tesla, claim they cannot possibly meet.

The group which submitted the letter, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM), represents twelve companies and 77% of car and light truck sales in the United States. There’s no real surprise that they’ve submitted this letter, as we reported before that virtually all automakers except for Tesla and a few French automakers were lobbying the prospective administration for a loosening of any restrictions which might require them to be even the tiniest bit socially responsible.

In addition to causing global warming, oil and the pollutants emitted by burning it are responsible for heart disease, lung disease and brain dysfunction, among many other things. Presumably, most of the people associated with the AAM and EPA, including Pruitt himself, have lungs, and perhaps even brains and hearts (though evidence seems to be lacking for the latter two), and actually live in the environment they seem determined to do everything they can to destroy.

Lobbying efforts by polluters, like this one, are a reason why government officials often “look the other way” while they pollute the world in which all of us, environmentalists and otherwise, live. And because of governments looking the other way, dirty energy benefits from an estimated $5.3 trillion global subsidy, in terms of the damage pollution does to all of us and to the world economy.

Guides

Hello Gentle Friends!

 I understand religious people. They have found culturally comfortable ways to explain the existence of energy within the absolute Universe. I, on the other hand have turned to philosophy for some edification. Therefore, right or wrong, here are some of my philosophical concepts.

 1) Life is thought and death is thoughtless.

 2) Using the premise that the Universe consists of Eternal energy,  I premise that all that ever was still is constantly changing within the eternal energy of the universe and the only constant within eternity is constant change. So much so we human life forms invented a concept we call Time in order to measure the speed of external energy in relation to our own internal energy.

3) How do we know we are alive within eternal energy? Dependant on the develdopment and accuracy of our senses there are degrees of awareness created from the ability of our  brain to accumulate and save constant repetitive facts which surround us. Each fact stored as a synapse connection creates memory and we use memory to recognize energy constants outside of ourselves.
Our memories act as building blocks for better awareness and for better understanding of all energy forms.