I would love to work retail again just work in one of their stores-
Here is a post off the Patagonia Blog- So true my friends so true-
http://www.thecleanestline.com/2007/08/organically-uns.html
Unsustainably Organic
I made a big mistake. It involves garlic.
Buying organic is good, right? I tend to think so, especially when my guilt-free organic garlic is now only $0.25 more expensive than its non-certified shelf-mates over at the local eco-chic shop n' strut. I'm a sucker for getting my values at a bargain, so I took a glance at the price, picked up a couple of fresh heads, and was on my way. But my stinking rose has a dark side, one I didn't take the time to notice 'til I got home . . .
Behold the unwitting, guileless garlic. So innocent. So fragrant. So well-travelled.
So I'm home now, and that's when I notice something peculiar about my garlic. Like Chairman Mao, the Ming Dynasty, microwave- and oven-safe table settings, and most things plastic or electronic, I see here that my organic garlic comes from China. There it is on the label (yes, my garlic is packaged - Strike Two!). Because I'm getting ready to sauté my garlic into a sauce made from fresh, locally grown tomatoes, it throws my mistake into bold relief.
What's the big deal? To start, garlic's pretty easy to grow, even in our country's driest state. And how far is China from where I live here in Nevada? Let's ask Google maps: Hmm . . . First try, entering "Distance between Reno, NV and Nanchang, China" brings up: "ChristianRock.Net - The best Christian rock on the planet" I need to get more specific.
My garlic, it turns out, traveled along with all of its smelly friends in a no doubt incredibly confined space, approximately 6529 miles. That's 10508 kilometers. That's straight-line distance. Why Nanchang? I hear it's nice there this time of year.
But really, folks. Over 6,000 miles!? My garlic is better-traveled than most Americans. Considering this, it's quite a bargain.
So anybody want to guess the price paid for that garlic? For reference, let's plan a little trip to Nanchang. Why? Well, I hear it's nice there this time of year. And to pick our own darn garlic, dag nabbit. "Pick your own strawberry" patches are just the best first step to sipping summertime from a daiquiri glass, so why not pick our own vampire repellent? I'm ready to try a garlic daquiri, so I check YourFavoriteAnonymousOnlineTravelAgent for a one-way ticket (my garlic, after all, ain't going home). Again, any price guesses?
First, the flight: Air China's got me covered for $885. At $7.38 per mile, that's not a bad deal. Certainly cheaper than driving . . . an M1 tank. The garlic? Under $2, friends. $1.98 for two heads, to be exact. Am I alone in my problems with this math? Besides that, where'd my garlic come up with that kind of airfare?
So here's a friendly suggestion: It's summertime. There's a farmer's market somewhere and you probably don't live too far from it. Go buy your vegetables from someone who grew them. Shake the hand that pulled your sweet, beautiful food up from the earth.
And if you're looking for something to read, check these lovely new releases out:
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver
The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods, by Gary Paul Nabhan
Got some other reading selections along a similar vein? Feel free to throw 'em out there in the comments section.
Happy eating. Happy reading
______________________________
Not to mention how much I love their clothing!
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Oh my goodness- This guy is right on!
From the Boston Globe:The folly of 1 percent policy
By Eugene Declercq and Judy Norsigian August 6, 2007
THE PHRASE that comes to mind when you hear Dick Cheney is probably not "reshaping American childbirth." Yet Vice President Cheney's "One Percent Doctrine" -- the title of Ron Suskind's 2006 book on post 9/11 national security policy -- perfectly captures an approach to decision-making in American medicine that misallocates resources and undermines primary care. By focusing maximum resources on preventing an extremely rare but potentially disastrous outcome over necessary preventive care, this model has shaped healthcare decision-making in areas ranging from hysterectomies to coronary bypasses. One shift -- the rapidly rising caesarean rate -- exemplifies this problem.
Suskind reports that in debates over national security policy following 9/11, Cheney repeatedly invoked the principle that if there's even a 1 percent chance of a terrorist attack, we must prepare as if it were a certainty. This extreme position invariably gave Cheney the moral high ground in debates, where he could appear more willing to protect American interests than others with a broader focus. Of course, in winning the immediate argument, Cheney also ignored myriad longer-term complications involving problems not solved while the "emergency" is addressed.In healthcare, caesarean sections represent the most recent example of this doctrine, as births are increasingly treated as potential emergencies requiring expensive, high-tech interventions. The caesarean rate in the United States has increased from 20 percent in 1996 to a record high of more than 30 percent in 2005, trailing only Italy (37 percent) and South Korea (35 percent) among industrialized countries. Obstetricians are more skilled at performing caesareans than ever before and caesareans are safer than ever. But they are not without negative consequences. When they are performed as elective surgery on mothers with little or no medical risk, these harms outweigh the benefits.Yet caesareans are advocated as necessary to avert potential disasters that might occur.
At a 2006 meeting sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, one doctor captured the 1 percent (or in this case 1/30th of 1 percent) doctrine when he described rare conditions and noted the benefits of a 100 percent caesarean rate (you read that right) in avoiding these outcomes in 3 in 10,000 cases.Likewise, a 2006 position statement from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states that "Labor and delivery is a physiologic process that most women experience without complications," but then goes on to emphasize the 1 percent doctrine: ". . . serious intrapartum complications may arise with little or no warning, even in low risk pregnancies." The statement and the doctor's claim are true, of course -- anything can occur -- but does that mean that society benefits when every birth is handled as a disaster (or worse yet a lawsuit) waiting to happen?No one wishes a health problem on any mother or child, but the "1 percent" advocates of higher caesarean section rates assert they care more about infant outcomes than those who oppose them. However, the consequences of universal caesarean sections on a largely healthy population are profound in both the short run (longer recovery, greater postpartum pain, higher maternal rehospitalization rates for surgical complications, higher costs) and long run (higher rates of subsequent stillbirths, greater risk of future uterine rupture, longer stays requiring more hospital space).
The 1 percent doctrine cares little about such consequences since its focus is on winning the current argument.Creating a crisis atmosphere is essential to the 1 percent doctrine and its ability to override all obstacles -- be they constitutional restrictions on national security measures or concerns about the United States ranking last among industrialized countries on infant mortality. Such an atmosphere encourages more centralized decision-making and stifles debate. The fact that most of these crises never occur and that countless resources are expended to prevent something that was unlikely to happen anyway is lost in the relief of the immediate positive outcome (a healthy baby or no terrorist attack). In the long run, however, we've wasted time and money, created new problems, and ignored systematically documented, if less emotional, evidence.
A version of the 1 percent doctrine has been invoked for decades in steering the US healthcare system away from an emphasis on preventive care for the whole population to an obsession with treating rare events. As a debating strategy, the 1 percent doctrine is extremely persuasive. As a policy guideline, it makes no sense in either politics or healthcare.
Eugene Declercq is a professor of maternal and child health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Judy Norsigian is executive director of Our Bodies Ourselves.
By Eugene Declercq and Judy Norsigian August 6, 2007
THE PHRASE that comes to mind when you hear Dick Cheney is probably not "reshaping American childbirth." Yet Vice President Cheney's "One Percent Doctrine" -- the title of Ron Suskind's 2006 book on post 9/11 national security policy -- perfectly captures an approach to decision-making in American medicine that misallocates resources and undermines primary care. By focusing maximum resources on preventing an extremely rare but potentially disastrous outcome over necessary preventive care, this model has shaped healthcare decision-making in areas ranging from hysterectomies to coronary bypasses. One shift -- the rapidly rising caesarean rate -- exemplifies this problem.
Suskind reports that in debates over national security policy following 9/11, Cheney repeatedly invoked the principle that if there's even a 1 percent chance of a terrorist attack, we must prepare as if it were a certainty. This extreme position invariably gave Cheney the moral high ground in debates, where he could appear more willing to protect American interests than others with a broader focus. Of course, in winning the immediate argument, Cheney also ignored myriad longer-term complications involving problems not solved while the "emergency" is addressed.In healthcare, caesarean sections represent the most recent example of this doctrine, as births are increasingly treated as potential emergencies requiring expensive, high-tech interventions. The caesarean rate in the United States has increased from 20 percent in 1996 to a record high of more than 30 percent in 2005, trailing only Italy (37 percent) and South Korea (35 percent) among industrialized countries. Obstetricians are more skilled at performing caesareans than ever before and caesareans are safer than ever. But they are not without negative consequences. When they are performed as elective surgery on mothers with little or no medical risk, these harms outweigh the benefits.Yet caesareans are advocated as necessary to avert potential disasters that might occur.
At a 2006 meeting sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, one doctor captured the 1 percent (or in this case 1/30th of 1 percent) doctrine when he described rare conditions and noted the benefits of a 100 percent caesarean rate (you read that right) in avoiding these outcomes in 3 in 10,000 cases.Likewise, a 2006 position statement from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states that "Labor and delivery is a physiologic process that most women experience without complications," but then goes on to emphasize the 1 percent doctrine: ". . . serious intrapartum complications may arise with little or no warning, even in low risk pregnancies." The statement and the doctor's claim are true, of course -- anything can occur -- but does that mean that society benefits when every birth is handled as a disaster (or worse yet a lawsuit) waiting to happen?No one wishes a health problem on any mother or child, but the "1 percent" advocates of higher caesarean section rates assert they care more about infant outcomes than those who oppose them. However, the consequences of universal caesarean sections on a largely healthy population are profound in both the short run (longer recovery, greater postpartum pain, higher maternal rehospitalization rates for surgical complications, higher costs) and long run (higher rates of subsequent stillbirths, greater risk of future uterine rupture, longer stays requiring more hospital space).
The 1 percent doctrine cares little about such consequences since its focus is on winning the current argument.Creating a crisis atmosphere is essential to the 1 percent doctrine and its ability to override all obstacles -- be they constitutional restrictions on national security measures or concerns about the United States ranking last among industrialized countries on infant mortality. Such an atmosphere encourages more centralized decision-making and stifles debate. The fact that most of these crises never occur and that countless resources are expended to prevent something that was unlikely to happen anyway is lost in the relief of the immediate positive outcome (a healthy baby or no terrorist attack). In the long run, however, we've wasted time and money, created new problems, and ignored systematically documented, if less emotional, evidence.
A version of the 1 percent doctrine has been invoked for decades in steering the US healthcare system away from an emphasis on preventive care for the whole population to an obsession with treating rare events. As a debating strategy, the 1 percent doctrine is extremely persuasive. As a policy guideline, it makes no sense in either politics or healthcare.
Eugene Declercq is a professor of maternal and child health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Judy Norsigian is executive director of Our Bodies Ourselves.
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