Posts with the tag Aspartame

My new article on front page today of Seoul Times, Korea, re: Obama's Galvanizing 30 Million American Idealists and Reformers, plus Reminiscence of Paul Newman at United Nations

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:01:47 EDT

My latest article, "Obama's Presidency Will Galvanize 30 Million American Idealists and Reformers, and a Personal Memory of Paul Newman" is on front page,today's Seoul Times in Korea! http://www.theseoultimes.com/ST/index.html

and at OpEdNews, where your comments are most welcome!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-s-Presidency-Could-G-by-Stephen-Fox-080928-180.html

If all else fails, because of broken links, etc., just google <30 million American Idealists> and you will go right to it!

Stephen Fox, Founder New Millennium Fine Art Santa Fe, New Mexico

Obama Presidency Will Galvanize 30 Million American Idealists and Reformers, and A Personal Memory of Paul Newman

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:05:35 EDT

Obama Presidency Will Galvanize 30 Million American Idealists and Reformers, and A Personal Memory of Paul Newman---new article by Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News

http://www.nowpublic.com/health/obama-presidency-will-galvanize-30-million-american-idealists-and-reformers-and-personal-memory-paul-newman

Obama Would Benefit by Describing His Potential Cabinet Choices, and Specifically What He Wants Them to Achieve, starting, let's say, with Howard Dean, Bill Richardson, and Jerry Brown!

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:26:57 EDT

I have been writing some halacious (and I believe quite excellent) articles on the ABSOLUTE NECESSITY FOR AND LONG RANGE BENEFITS FOR AMERICA'S HEALTH, FOR DR. HOWARD DEAN III, M.D., to be considered an "early" member of Obama's Cabinet, if that wouldn't be too big a step down for one of his genius level intelligence, I say as Secretary of Health, or better yet, FDA Commissioner, to take federal regulatory power out of the hands and make it begin again to actually protect consumers.....

FDA Commissioner should be a Cabinet Level position, anyway...it oversees a full 25% of the entire US Economy , the segment based on Food or Drugs).

The 6 decades-long subservience to corporate demand and corporate profits, the influence of corporate lobbyists to destroy true consumer protection legislation at all levels, the international implications, especially Economic, of a total regulatory failure in the United States Food and Drug Administration: all of this needs to come to a rapid, almost immediate end, with a very strong consumer protection-oriented FDA Commissioner who is not going to open the Revolving Door at the FDA to corporations regulated by the FDA, and not going to constantly capitulated to the whims an profits of Big Pharma and Big Junk Food, dba Grocery Manufacturers of America, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Wrigley's Gum, Ajinomoto of Japan (the world's largest manufacturer of both Aspartame and of Monosodium Glutamate, and everybody's fist choice for monster corporation: Monsanto, etc.

I see no better choice than nor anyone else I would trust more to do that job than Howard Dean!

[Here is one of my first articles on this subject:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Medical-Corner-of-the-by-Stephen-Fox-080824-149.html]

(I also want to see New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as Secretary of State and California Attorney General and former Governor Jerry Brown, as Attorney General)

I frequently hear that such discussions, if they came from Obama, would be deemed "presumptuous" and "arrogant", some say by the press and others say from the Neocon Right Wingers.

However, if he were to speak to that issue in the context of what he would like to achieve as President in the various key realms, Environment, Education, International, Defense, etc., and at the same time, mention some names of who the USA MIGHT see in charge of which Cabinet level positions:

With some more obligatory brainstorming, THIS SEEMS LIKE A DYNAMITE CAMPAIGN TACTIC AND WAY TO SECURE FENCESITTERS AND UNDECIDED, especially in Battleground states....

Too bad if the Neocons label it "arrogant" or "presumptuous." I could care less what they think. This is not some mere campaign ploy, but a plan that would illuminate ALL Americans as to what his administration might achieve. In such a comparison with McCain, I am sure Obama would come out clearly on top.

Prediction: McCain will use the Bush 2004 Debate Tactic of Deriding Obama's Ostensible "Lack of Experience." Cheney used that as well in the VP Debates. You know McCain will hammer that, but describing Cabinet picks during the debates will blow McCain and his leaky boat right out of the tub! The Republicans will, in their fuzzy demented way, will remember how well this worked in 2004!

I see clearly that if Obama would try this on a trial basis, here and there, before the first debate, ultimately he would be doing it for the right reasons, so that the American public might better comprehend his highest goals domestically and internationally, and it would open the door to perceptions of his candidacy, raising it above the National Enquirer propensities of the Republican Team in this election.

Obama should immediately ask Dwight Eisenhower's Granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower, to appear at campaign major events in the Battleground states, for in the Senate Races, and in the Presidential Race. I am sure she would accept.

I have heard from at least 50 people in Florida that they are praying and begging for former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, to come to Florida, to dispell the vicious rumors the R's have spread throughout the elderly mostly Jewish community, that Obama is some kind of secret Muslim Terrorist.

I am serious about such reports coming from South Florida, and I thus encourage Obama and Biden to invite Ed Koch to spend a month in Florida on their behalf, and to ask Susan Eisenhower to appear in older Rust Belt and Bible Belt rallies, where older fence sitters and undecideds will hear her grandfather, the last Real Republican, with great benefit for the Electoral Vote Tally.

Respectfully offered,

Stephen Fox
Founder, New Millennium Fine Art
a Santa Fe Gallery since 1980
stephen@santafefineart.com

New Mexico's next U.S. Senator Tom Udall's statement in Memory of September 11; Some Historical Observations, and Concluding Advice to Obama on a Shift He Absolutely Must Make in Order to Win!

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:11:00 EDT

[PHILADELPHIA - Republican presidential candidate John McCaincut short his first public appearance without running-mate Sarah Palin after chanting supporters of Democratic rival Barack Obama interrupted his speech.

After lunching with a roundtable of women at Philadelphia's Down Home Diner, McCain shook hands with supporters and strode up to a podium to deliver a
statement. But as he spoke, chants of "Obama, Obama, Obama" filled the room.

Reporters craned forward trying to hear the Arizona senator. Unfortunately for McCain -- and possibly overlooked by aides who planned the event -- a section of the diner opened up to a market where a crowd had gathered behind a cordon.

A large contingent of Obama supporters showed up, mixed with some who had bumper stickers reading "Democrats for McCain".

"It's time to leave the talk behind and start shaking up Washington and fixing our economy, taking care of the problems facing our families. We're
going to give a tax cut to every family with a child," he said.

His words were barely audible.

McCain's supporters shouted "John McCain", "John McCain," "John McCain". The duelling chants nearly drowned out the presidential hopeful's voice.

"Pennsylvania is a battleground state as we can tell," McCain said.

Meanwhile Palin, the Alaska governor, was on a flight back to her state.]

U.S. Representative Tom Udall, D-N.M., released the following statement today in solemn remembrance of the tragedies of September 11, 2001:

"September 11 is a day that invokes immense sadness in all of us. Today, we remember the pain that we felt seven years ago.

But Americans learned something about ourselves on September 11, 2001, and what we learned should make us all proud.

We learned that, in America, when we find ourselves face-to-face with tragedy, we know a simple truth: we are our brothers' keepers; we are our sisters' keepers.

We know that an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.

That if one American dies needlessly, we are all diminished by that loss. As we mark this somber day, let us take comfort in that lesson: whatever our enemies do to us, Americans will stick together. And we will not be defeated."

_______________________________

My own recollection/observation was after 9/11 when the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar al Saud, donated a check for many millions of dollars to the 9/11 victims fund, as I recall $10 million, and accompanying the check was a letter in which he made many points, and among them was the question of the United States' need to figure out what it might have done to cause this ghastly disaster and act of Terrorism.

That was too much for Rudy Giuliani, who immediately returned the check to Bandar, objecting very vociferously to Bandar's his commentary.

When I read about this in the New York Times, I immediately recognized this as Giuliani's error, but we all throughout life recognize this uniquely human trait of not being able to accept responsibility (or even a hint of a discussion of responsibility) by someone who is in some kind of serious trouble. It is just too much for them to deal with.....

The Saudi passport of Saeed Alghamdi, said to be discovered in the wreckage of Flight 93.

Steel beams from the WTC were already being removed and recycled on September 20, 2001. [Source: Associated Press]

A chunk of hot metal being removed from the North Tower rubble about eight weeks after 9/11. [Source: Frank Silecchia]

From left to right: Dick Cheney, Prince Bandar, Condoleezza Rice, and George W. Bush, on the Truman Balcony of the White House on September 13, 2001. [Source: White House]

Bandar certainly should have had some keen insights into these matters; from Wikipedia, in italics:

[Prince Bandar has formed close relationships with several American presidents, notably George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, who gave him the affectionate and controversial nickname "Bandar Bush". His friendship with Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne Cheney, extends to the years before Cheney took office as the United States Vice President. Prince Bandar invited the Cheney family to his daughter's wedding in the 1990s, but they did not attend.

The close relationship with the Bush family is also described in Craig Unger's book House of Bush, House of Saud and is highlighted in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11....

Prince Bandar has endured controversy over allegations in the book Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward that President George W. Bush informed him of the decision to invade Iraq ahead of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Also, the book alleged a deal had been worked out to reduce oil prices just ahead of the November 2004 election. Bandar publicly endorsed President Bush.

On June 26, 2005, Prince Bandar reportedly submitted his resignation as ambassador to the United States for "personal reasons".[4][5] Bandar's return to Saudi Arabia was announced weeks prior to the death of King Fahd upon which Bandar's father, Sultan bin Abdul Aziz became the nation's Crown Prince. It has been rumoured that Bandar's return was timed in order to secure a position in the new government.[6] In October 2005 he became the kingdom's national security chief.]

Wat happened? According to another source; "Saudi princesses are no less benevolent than their husbands, brothers and cousins. Ambassador-Prince Bandar's own wife Princess Haifa, daughter of the late King Feisal, received a letter from an unknown woman telling of problems with medical bills. The Princess-Ambassadress dashed her off a check in six figures -- and the money by some strange route ended up among the resources of the perpetrators of the September 11 atrocities. The revelation so upset Her Royal Highness that various sympathetic Washington ladies rushed their condolences and sympathy to her -- including Mrs. George H.W. Bush and Mrs. Colin Powell. "

I am not a 9/11 conspiracy kind of guy/paranoid, not at all. I concluded long ago that even talking about such was a waste of time, my time at least....

However, having said that, since September 11, 2001, I do believe we have a lot of evidence of how our hostility about Islam now has alienated most of the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, about 60 nations; it is obvious that the Chinese have run rings around us in terms of investment and economic policy throughout most of the world, particularly in Africa; it is screamingly obvious that American excursions into Iraq along with most of the US wars since 1945 have been in essence imperialistic in nature, and as such have earned us increasing hostility; one British tourist visiting Santa Fe compared the British in Ireland to the Americans in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

"If you kill their mothers and children and cousins and brothers over several years, pretty soon the entire nation becomes terrorists."

I do believe that the core of this Modern History was all essentially delineated by Marx, Engels, and especially by Hegel, in his discussions of Dialectical Materialism.

All those ISM's and the thesis/antithesis/synthesis processes make perfect sense to me in explaining the History of Economic Systems; it is clear to me that when Big Pharma and Big Junk Food corporations and their hired guns/lobbyists effectively take over the regulatory processes of a nation, like they have done with the FDA, that we are doomed in health, in history, in medical and consumer credibility, and in Economic well-being.

I have written a lot of articles on related subjects, particularly Consumer Protection, Aspartame, and Donald Rumsfeld's having forced through the FDA the approval for Aspartame/Methanol/Formaldehyde, so he could make $12-20 million personal profit, the health of hundreds of millions of people be damned....

I won't regale you with this on this solemn occasion, but allow me to recall a lecture in Santa Fe a few years ago by former President of Poland and Nobel Laureate Lech Walesa to the effect that the USA has lost its moral stature in toto as well as most of its political power, squandered its economic power in order to preserve and just barely maintain its military power, which was no replacement for moral, political, or economic power. That was quite brilliant, truly.

Similarly, DNC Chairman and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean III, M.D., was recently in Santa Fe to fire up the troops, and one thing in particular stuck with me, when he said no nation could bring peace in any conflict unless it had the moral authority to sit at the negotiating table.

We don't have that power and that moral authority throughout most of the world right now, thanks to the past 8 years of Bush/Cheney/Neocon/Blackwater/Halliburton/Kellogg Brown, and Root mode of economics and government economic policies.

I really don't believe that in general Economics nor specifically that Macro Economic insights from government economic advisors, for example, hardly qualifies as rocket science.

It is more akin to the old irrigation system of colonial New Mexico, in which the farmer who controlled the flow of the irrigation ditch, or ACEQUIA MADRE ("MOTHER DITCH" in Spanish) determined which field the water would flow into. He was called the Majordomo, and in that society, was much more important than any Mayor, or "ALCALDE" in Spanish.

That is what has happened during the past 8 years. The White House and other government masters of the flow of monies have purposefully turned the irrigation ditch waters into such things as Military, Defense Contractors, Weapons, Hardware, Security, etc.

What was in that other field, the one that got neglected and deprived of water?

Just about everything else: Education, Inner Cities, Highway maintenance and construction, Infrastructure, huge realms of Scientific and Medical Research like Stem Cell Research, etc. You name it: our American Economy is in terrible shape, and with the way our international respect has deteriorated, squarely because of Bush and Cheney, it might get a lot worse....the signs are everywhere; they are well known and they are easily recognized: endemic mortage failures, high gas prices, a deflated stock market, high unemployment, failed schools especially in the Inner City, store closings, et. alia.

Much of this election hinges on our ability to change all of that, to put America back on a sane and internationally effective tack, and that is at a minimum, just to ensure our survival as a nation.

That is why I want to see Dr. Dean be the Obama Cabinet Secretary for Health or as FDA Commissioner, and that is why I want to see NM Governor Bill Richardson as the next Secretary of State. I think also that Jerry Brown of California would make a great consumer protection-oriented United States Attorney General, one who would also reconstruct all of our civil liberties.

Such speculations are of course something else entirely, but I am certain that Obama should discuss such things seriously and frequently, ignoring the advice of some who say that that would be ridiculed by the right wing as "presumptuous" or as "arrogant," so that the American people can gain some glimmer of an insight into what he really would like to achieve as President, in terms of names, both possible and real and well known names.

Will Obama win?

To get to that victory, I work day and night as a member of 328 Obama groups, coordinating correspondence, and urging people to not just "preach to the choir," as that is how Democrats usually lose elections, but to get out there and go door to door to tell folks how much is really at stake in this election, plus my special focus: Letters to the Editor, Opinion/Editorials, and so on, all over the United States, wherever they could be published.

Surprising how few people comprehend this in only a few states, and in not many of the so-called BATTLEGROUND STATES, for Obama and for US Senate candidates, as described in my blog about a week ago in the letter from Senator Charles Schumer.

I am going to take a break from all of this furious emailing, so you won't hear from me for a while.

I will conclude with a few paragraphs written today, not by me, but an astute observer and friend of mine,who wishes to remain anonymous, about 50 years old, a realtor, former actress, and thinker:

Recently, I was on a flight to Texas and sat next to a very personable and fairly astute guy. We began talking politics and went back and forth about the issues. He was really impressed by my research and said so.

Then he leaned over to me and whispered conspiratorially, "I concede all the points but Obama is a Muslim, you know."

And when I calmly explained that that particular lie fed on our basest fears, he held up Reverend Wright as proof. This scene has been repeated numerous times with different characters but the underlying emotional message is clear and powerful. Their winning on a gut level. They are afraid and the facts don't matter.

Obama is perceived as "the other."

The Republicans have clearly defined him emotionally and he must wrest these irrational pictures away from them and supplant them with powerful and soothing reassurance.

Obama may loose this election if he does not connect on a visceral level soon. He must capture the emotional narrative and stop trying to be only reasonable. People do not reason their way into the voting booth. They move from the gut.

He has much "low-hanging fruit" to choose from. Sarah Palin is a right-wing fundamentalist wack-job. She is an extremist and Americans of all stripes are uncomfortable with extremism. John McCain has abandoned every "maverick" position he's ever held.

It's all on video, from her prayers to the oil pipeline god to the massively naked ambition which has led him to do a 180 on every major political stance of his past. Use Their Own Words To Out This Outrageous Hypocricy. Draw passionate simple pictures once again and reframe this narrative, from the gut. It's the only way. "

______________________________________

Obama has to win!

Stephen Fox, Anti-Aspartame Legislation Activist and Writer, will be guest on world's largest radio program, COAST TO COAST, tonight, 1 a.m. Pacific Time

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:57:05 EDT

As a friend and colleague of Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder, Mission Possible International, I am happy to inform you that I will be a guest on this major program tonite, Wednesday morning in fact, on the largest listenership program in the world, Coast to Coast, hosted by the regular host, George Noory, with Betty Martini as the Prime Guest.

The first two hours of this massive 3 hour program are devoted to Attorney James Turner of Washington D.C., the renowned consumer protection lawyer, who, among many other great deeds, succeeded in getting the carcinogenic cyclamates removed from sale in the Nixon years.

The other major guest will be physician H.J. Roberts of West Palm Beach Florida, author of Aspartame Disease: An FDA Approved Epidemic, a 1038 page book from the point of view of an internist who has been working with Diabetics and the ghastly avoidable effects of the artificial sweetener aspartame for the past 27 years. Dr. Roberts was elected by his medical peers as the best physician in the United States, back in the early 80's; you may know of his wife, Carol, a Florida Democratic Party Official, who was one of the Election Board supervisors in Broward County, Florida, in the "hanging chad" controversies.

This should be a very stimulating evening. My main hope tonight is that ALL Obama supporters can get off of aspartame, if there are any who are, since it is metabolized as Methanol and Formaldehyde, and that Obama supporters will use their influence to carry through after the election to get a real consumer protecitonist appointed as FDA Commissioner.

My own personal nomination and hope would be for Dr. Howard Dean, M.D., to take such a position, or as US Secretary of Health, to whom the FDA Commissioner reports.

I wrote important legislation to ban aspartame for both the Hawaii and New Mexico Senate, which was overwhelmed by corporate lobbyists (eviscerated, might be the best word....) which led to a Hawaii Senate Concurrent Resolution 191, which genteely but firmly asked the FDA to rescind the approval for aspartame, and gave about 40 reasons to do so. It can be read at the Hawaii Legislature website, as SCR 191.

Here is the Resolution (please take the time to read it):

http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2008/Bills/HCR191_.htm

If there are any questions or newly enthused activists who want to help with similar resolutions in their state, please let me know by email.

For Coast to Coast Subscribers, the show will be archived at their site, www.coasttocoastam.com, for about 90 days, and at that site, you can find which stations in your area carry it.

Best wishes, and I hope this all makes perfect sense to you and to President Obama, when it comes time to consider the health of hundreds of millioins of America. As James Turner will describe tonight, he essentially forced Nixon with the compiled evidence, to give a Presidential Order to get Cyclamates off the market.

This is the exact opposite from what Reagan and Rumsfeld did in 1981 to get aspartame approved, never mind that it had been turned down by the FDA as neurotoxic for the prior 15 years, from 1966 bto 1981. Google and read this: RUMSFELD'S BIOWEAPON LEGACY, to get to the grim truth about the most sordid chapter in the FDA's checkered history.

Respectfully,

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News

stephen@santafefineart.com

COCA-COLA FORGES BRAVE, NEW WORLD, and other Corporate-Serving Mendacious BS

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:05:13 EDT

Dear Obama Supporters: Please help me figure this out. I am baffled...

Why is it that journalists like this Ed Graney from the Las Vegas Review-Journal [his article follows below], and so many others like him all over the United States, collectively continue the despicable mythology of speaking so cheerily about drinking diet sodas, like it was some kind of fun
thing that they frivolously insist on sharing or foisting on their ill informed readers?

Can they really be this stupid to be so oblivious the firestorm of medical evidence accruing against Coca Cola and the Diet Sodas, because of the aspartame metabolizing into methanol and formaldehyde in every single person who consumes them, or sugarless gums like Eclipse and Orbit (try to find a Wrigley's product that doesn't have aspartame!), and the product Equal, which breaks down the aspartame before it hits your stomach, making it 5 times more neurotoxic in coffee, tea, etc.

Maybe they know all of this and are getting paid bribes by the companies involved to produce mindless little puff pieces saluting and celebrating the entire Diet Coke Culture?

I work with a group of people including physicians like H.J. Roberts, Author of Aspartame Disease: An FDA Approved Epidemic, and Russell Blaylock, Author of Excitotoxins: the Taste that Kills. These are googleable; please read about them.

Our biggest firebrand and greatest inspiration is Dr. Betty Martini, D. Hum., Founder of Mission Possible International, dedicated to getting aspartame off the market all over the world. Betty keeps an entire movement of thousands of activists together, for no pay whatsoever....She was open to Obama's candidacy up to the point someone pointed out to her that about 20 years ago either Barack or his wife or both worked many years ago for the Law Firm of Ridley and Austin, who represented Monsanto, the corporation that held the patent for Aspartame after buying it from G.D. Searle, .....

I won't regale you with 5 years of articles but will ask you to take the time to read just these two:

RUMSFELD'S BIOWEAPON LEGACY AT:
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=8&contentid=2608&page=2

(Interestingly, this article has been pulled down (or knocked down by hackers?) several of the key websites on which it once appeared....

and what I wrote for the Hawaii Senate about Aspartame in the form of a genteel resolution asking the FDA to rescind its approval for the umpteen reasons included in the Resolution: this constitutes a fairly detailed and very accurate historical analysis of Aspartame, how it came on the market, and a smidgeon of the coporate lobbying and nefarious skullduggery resulting in it still being on the market, despite millions of sufferers' personal stories:

Hawaii Senate Concurrent Resolution 191, 2008 [sponsored by the Honorable Suzanne Chun Oakland, Hawaii State Senator, cosigned as sponsors by 44% of the Hawaii Senate, yet still shot down surreptitiously in the Health Committee, when Senator David Ige of Pearl City, declined to even schedule a hearing for this Resolution! The retails associations and their lobbyists were hard at work on this one, afraid that it could come up for a debate and a vote on the Senate floor.]:

http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2008/Bills/SCR191_.htm

Personally, I think it is a hypocritical and ghastly joke that Coca Cola is such a big sponsor of the Olympics. They are only doing it to increase their sales in China and a few other nations, and to legitimize their infernal and deadly products in the minds of the naive, the stupid, and the very young.

I have repeatedly written articles, blogs, editorials, and comments that Obama must recognize how serious all of this is, and at the very least appoint a real consumer protectionist to be the FDA commissioner, instead of the corporate serving slug we now have.

Nixon ordered that cyclamates be taken off the market and their FDA approval rescinded.

A few years later, in 1981, Reagan (as a favor to his buddy Rumsfeld who had been passed over for Vice President, remember?) ordered the outgoing FDA to do nothing further, until the new FDA Commissioner, Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, could take his first action, to approve Aspartame, despite the FDA having turned it down for the prior 15 years.....This "earned" Donald Rumsfeld, then CEO of G.D. Searle, the patent holder, at least $15 million.

This is a vile and despicable story, one of the dirtiest and most sordid chapters in the already massively checkered history of the FDA, which I am continuing to ask Obama to put an end to when he is elected President of the United States, by Presidential Order.

Dr. Howard Dean III, M.D., will be in Santa Fe in a few days, and I hope to ask him about this further. Will keep you posted in this blog at mybarackobama.com

Truly,
Stephen Fox
Contributing Editor, Santa Fe Sun News

stephen@santafefineart.com

_________________________________________________________________________________

OLYMPIC POSTCARD: COCA-COLA FORGES BRAVE, NEW WORLD

ED GRANEY
REVIEW-JOURNAL

I've always been a Pepsi guy. Diet Cherry. Good stuff.

But you should see what Coca-Cola has planned for the future. Any day now, a Coke Zero is going to drop right out of your iPhone.

(http://www.lvrj.com/news/27084214.html)

(http://www.reviewjournal.com/webextras/)

The company has been a sponsor of the Olympics for 80 years, and its large exhibit center here in Beijing stands near the swimming and track and field venues.

One main display is for the WE8 campaign, which is eight aluminum bottles designed by Chinese art students.

They had eight themes from which to work: active optimism, individual perseverance, uplifting moments, peace on Earth, global harmony, human collaboration, healthy world and happiness.

Once the artwork was completed, some of the world's leading musicians were asked to interpret the works through music.

The company is also testing a machine that drops your drink of choice down a chute and ice forms once you shake it a few times. I'm guessing the next machine they unveil will drink it for you.

Another exhibit is a touch-screen machine where you choose your drink from any of the WE8 bottles, and then download the design and its specific song to your cell phone. We live in an amazing world.

Health care, right here in New England

Milli Knudsen, ObamaMama#39657289115 — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 02:18:27 EDT

In February, I lost an old friend from Maine named Phil Abbott. He had worked for 10 years at the NH Historical Library in Concord, NH. He resigned and moved back to maine to pursue a job in Auburn, to live nearer his mom who is aging and needed transportation and support, since she is a widow. During the time he was unemployed in 2006, he contracted cancer of the mouth and thyroid, a strange occurence since he neither drank, smoked, "chewed," or did drugs. The only thing he really indulged in was diet soda, containing aspartame.

The following year, last summer, the cancer came back with a vengeance, creating a lump on the side of his neck that required constant care of his family. I was at the hospital when the doctor told him he might try contacting doctors on the internet who might be willing to operate on his throat and neck for reconstructive work. It seemed at the time to be a form of "Take two pills and call me in the morning."

Phil passed away in February, and I don't think I've been able to get it straight in my head since then. He was 49 years old, extremely intelligent, witty, a gentle history buff, who really didn't stand a chance against cancer without quality health care. The staff in Auburn at the hospital and hospice were superb. It was the lack of aggressive cancer-fighting care he received. Because he was paying cash, his choices were limited, unlike many who do have the support of the American Cancer Society and other agencies.

I shudder to think about people in tenements, the homeless, the underemployed and the unemployed who just don't have the choices shared by others. What should be done about ti?