PAY IT FORWARD

It is Christmas Time on Balboa Island and I am the recipient of one of the most fabulous gifts I have ever received.  From My Terrific, Fantastic, Wonderful Landlord.  

A Month's Free Rent!  When I opened the card yesterday I started crying!  

Life hasn't been easy since the 'Great Recession' - we had a lot of changes - went from owners to renters.  In some ways that is better - other ways not so great!   

I called my landlord and he told me, "We had a really good year this past year and we are spreading the joy around."  Amazing!

I told this story to one of the vendors on Marine.  She said that one year she went to pick out her Christmas Tree and were going to spend a little more than their budget.  When she went to the checkout the man said, "Your tree has been paid for."  Later she found out that every year a family comes to the tree lot and picks out random trees and pays for  them.  If you choose one of those trees - you get it for free!

Do you have a story like this?   E-mail me at CCarrComm@gmail.com and I will add it to this story.  
I too would like to spread a little Christmas Joy in the form of great stories and good feelings!

2014 is going to be a very Great Year!!  

Last month a new report by Friends of the Earth revealed that pesticides implicated in the global bee die-off may be lurking in our own backyards.

More than half of the “bee-friendly” home garden plants tested, sold at stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s, contained bee-killing pesticides called neonicotinoids (neonics) -- with no warning to consumers.

Our coalition and nearly 200,000 people have asked Home Depot and Lowe’s to stop selling “pre-poisoned” plants and off-the-shelf bee-killing pesticides. So far neither company has responded.

So now we’re upping the “buzz” to protect bees!

Join us today in a social media “swarm” on Facebook and Twitter to send Home Depot and Lowe’s an urgent demand:  "Stop selling bee-killing pesticides and pre-poisoned ‘bee-friendly’ plants!”

Step 1: Copy and add this message as a comment on Home Depot's Facebook page and as a post on Lowe’s Facebook page:

Home Depot/Lowe’s: Stop selling bee-killing pesticides and pre-poisoned bee-friendly plants!www.BeeAction.org

Step 2: Click on any of these tweets to tweet them at Home Depot and Lowe’s Twitter accounts:

.@homedepot @lowes: 2/3 of our food crops need bees! Stop selling bee-killing pesticides! #BeeAction @foe_us www.beeaction.org

Buzz kill: @HomeDepot @Lowes: stop selling bee-killing pesticides  #BeeAction @foe_us: www.beeaction.org

Don't have a Facebook or Twitter account? Give Home Depot and Lowe’s a call! 
Home Depot: 1-800-466-3337
Lowe’s: 1-800-445-6937

Step 3: Click this image to share it on your own Facebook page and get your friends involved.

Bees are essential to our food system and are dying at alarming rates. Neonic pesticides are a key part of the problem.  But we have the power to fix the problem, starting with our own backyards.

Here’s the thing. We know Home Depot and Lowe’s can do it! Europe has banned bee-harming pesticides and top retailers in the UK are refusing to sell them. Friends of the Earth is challenging top garden retailers to make the same commitment here in the US.

The bees have enough troubles -- our backyard gardens should be havens for bees -- not death traps.

Bee part of the solution! Join us today on Home Depot and Lowe’s Facebook pages to tell these home and garden giants to step up and protect bees.

For the bees and our future,Lisa Archer,Food and Technology program Director
Friends of the Earth

GMOs by Monsanto - Bringing you the illness, hidden DNA, and the Collapse of the Bee Colonies among other things.

Please see my article in the September's Coastal Breeze @www.balboa-island.com  for the first in a series of articles on Genetically Modified Organisms.  Education is the key to winning this battle!

The battle to label GMOs in Washington State is heating up with Monsanto donated $4.6 million last week to try and kill our efforts. They were joined by fellow biotech seed and chemical giant DuPont with a donation of $3.2 million. On top of this, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) has dumped in $2.2 million to try to hide the donations of the same junk food companies that helped defeat Prop 37 last year in California.

That brings Monsanto's total to $4.8 and DuPont to $3.4 million! And means that the opposition has more than $11 million on hand to fight your Right to Know. What are they trying to hide?

Already, the Yes on 522 campaign to labeling genetically engineered foods is looking like a rematch of last year. Not only are the same companies dumping in millions of dollars once again to keep us in the dark, but they've hired the same PR firm that created the deceptive and misleading ads in California. Earlier this week Monsanto, DuPont and the GMA’s negative ads went on the air to deceive Washington voters.

If you were outraged when we narrowly lost last year in California, then we need your help to make sure that we can get our pro-GMO labeling message out to Washington voters! Right now, we are in the heat of the battle to label GMOs in the U.S. and we need your help.

Donate right now so we can stop Monsanto’s propaganda machine cold in Washington State and help us win the fight for GMO labeling! It’s time that Americans have the right to know what Monsanto is feeding us! Every dollar counts!

http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/1024?t=7&akid=973.591163.hPjGXJ

While Monsanto, DuPont, Coke, Pepsi, Kraft and Kellogg's may have the money, we have the people on our side. Recent polling shows that more than 66 percent of likely voters are in favor of transparency in our food andstrongly support GMO labeling.

The other good news is that yesterday a group in Washington state sued the Grocery Manufacturers Association, claiming that the trade association is “laundering money" from their members, like Pepsi, Coke, Kraft, Kellogg's and General Mills to “illegally” hide their identities. Unlike last year, these same giant food manufacturers are refusing to donate in their own names because the growing GMO labeling movement has exposed their hypocrisy and the fact that they already label GMOs in 64 other countries.

The people in Washington are fighting back. Let's let them know that we have their back!

Farmers are growing in Washington are growing more concerned since last week a story broke nationally about a WA farmer’s crop being contamination by Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GMO alfalfa. They are rightfully concerned about the real impacts that the pending approvals of GMO apples, GMO wheat and GMO salmon could have on their livelihoods.

All we’re asking for is a simple label. It’s incredible that America’s leading chemical and junk food companies are fighting to hide the ingredients in our food, but with your help we can expose their lies and win the fight to label GMOs.

Each time they try, we need to be there to stop them - to trump corporate influence with people power, to expose their lies and propaganda for what it is, and show politicians that we will hold them accountable.

Please donate what you can today.

Thanks for participating in food democracy,

Adooptees - Finding Your Genetic Roots Through DNA

The following announcement was written by Search Quest America: Searching for birth relatives can be difficult in some states and impossible in others using standard adoption search methods but Genetic Genealogy Plus breaks down the barriers set up by closed records.Search Quest America (SQA), a leader in reuniting families, is excited to announce Genetic Genealogy Plus, a new service for adoptees. This new service uses DNA and traditional genealogy research to find the family of adoptees with sealed records. Genetic Genealogy Plus is offered by SQA through an affiliation with two leading DNA testing companies, Family Tree DNA and 23andMe.

via blog.eogn.com

Is America's Food Policy Completely For Sale

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT ISSUE AND THE AMERICAN PUBLIC IS BEING BOUGHT BY BIG FOOD.  Think about it - if there was nothing wrong with GMOs then why is there a problem with putting that label on our food.  It is just another CHOICE in a FREE COUNTRY.  

The article below is by Max Goldberg - read it - it is very important!!  And also read the Mark Bittman Article in the New York Times.  You can Google it from anywhere!!

Have a wonderful day and think about your children and grandchildren!!  Don't let Big Food buy your vote!!

There are a few things that we know for sure when it comes to food policy in our country.

First, according to the Food & Water Watch, $572 million was spent on lobbying by the biotech and chemical industries from 1999-2010.

Two, when considering approving genetically-modified crops (GMOs) in the 1990s, scientists at the FDA were very, very concerned about the problems that GMOs would cause to human health – allergies, GI issues, etc. – and wanted longer-term research completed before granting approval.

These worries were quickly dismissed by Michael Taylor, the person at the FDA who recklessly approved GMOs 16 years ago and also happened to be a former lawyer for Monsanto.

(By the way, guess who President Obama recently appointed as the Food Safety Czar at the FDA and has made it his priority to crack down on small organic farmers selling raw milk? Yes, you got it – Michael Taylor.)

What is glaringly different about the two examples above and Proposition 37, the GMO-labeling initiative in California, is that Big Ag and the chemical companies can no longer influence policy behind closed doors. They must “buy” their policy in the public domain.

In today’s New York Times, I strongly suggest that you read Mark Bittman’s excellent column “Buying the Vote on GMOs” where he talks about this very issue in more depth.

To me, Proposition 37 isn’t just a vote on GMO-labeling.

It is the first step in taking back control of our food system from politicians and bureaucrats who have completely “sold out” the American consumer.

PADDLEBOARD LANES

THIS IS A REPRINT OF AN EDITORIAL I SENT TO THE DAILY PILOT

At the risk of sounding like I am repeating myself, this issue sounds a lot like the fire-rings issue. The wealthy folks who own property along the bay don't want anyone close to them — or cluttering up the waterway with little tiny floating devices. If they could, they would make this a yachts-only basin. Even a large-yacht-only basin.

Newport Harbor belongs to the people of California to enjoy, not just the people who can afford to buy land along the harbor. Once again, this is about people having fun at a low cost — renting a paddleboard and exploring our harbor that so far they may only have had a chance to glimpse from the Balboa Island Ferry. And yes, those who own land along the waterway will have to put up with the downsides, as well as the upsides. There is no perfect world.

I  have not heard of any collisions between paddle boarders and boats. Or between boats and the large number of smaller boats, like dinghys, that the big boat guys need to ferry stuff to their large yachts.

This is a much more likely scenario. We have had explosions of new users before — kayaks, jet skis, sail boarders, etc. I have heard the lines they are using that this needs to happen "before a serious accident" several times.

Fads come and go, and eventually so will this one. The remaining true enthusiasts will then be stuck with these expensive, invasive, unnecessary lanes. We do not need to spend money on lanes that could be outdated in a year or less. Nor a special cordoned off area for beginners.

This would impact someone along the waterway and would benefit those teaching paddle boarding. Next there would be a use tax to use the "beginners" area, and if you didn't use the cordoned off area for a beginner there would be a fine.

And who would determine at what point one stops being a beginner and is then able to use the whole waterway? Who would police the use of this area or these lanes? Police persons on paddleboards? Now there is a vision. We are definitely opening a huge can of worms.

There is plenty of work on the City Council's plate already. The council needs to concentrate on representing all the residents and businesses in Newport Beach. Those who own $1-billion boats, and those who are trying (in this time of recession) to make a few bucks with a new paddleboard business.

There are far more "little people" in Newport Beach, paying taxes in small amounts, but those small amounts add up.

Thank goodness Mayor Nancy Gardner is a paddle boarder; too bad there isn't someone on the council that needs the fire rings.

ELECTIONS AND MERCURY RETROGRADE

Not everyone is an Astrology fan.  I am.  I tell everyone that Astrology is like a map - it is all mathematical and has been around for centuries.  Astrology really doesn't have much to do with the stars themselves, but rather, think of it as a Thomas Guide - a map.  The stars are a map which you can follow or you can wander around ending up in dead ends or places that you weren't intending to go.

There is a phenomenon called Mercury Retrograde.  We are now exiting one that started in July.  During those times there are delays and communication foul ups.  Equipment breaks.  Traffic delays are much more common. Not a great time to travel.  Or make new plans.  A time to revise, revisit, review.

Several years ago Mike and I were John Wayne Airport ready to get on a plane to Vancouver.  The flight was canceled and we would have a several hour delay before a new one could be found.  I told my husband, who said, "Why aren't you upset - you certainly are taking this in stride."  (Not my normal reaction).  I replied, "It is Mercury retrograde and I knew that it was possible.  I was prepared for the worst and hoping for the best."

In the same vein, my son flew here to California during this past Mercury Retrograde.  I warned him to be ready for delays.  I said, "Plan ahead and be prepared - if the delays don't happen - great.  However, if they do don't be surprised."  There were several, several delays during his trip - one of which almost caused him to miss the plane.  Luckily Mercury Retrograde is more about delay than cancellation.

The last Election that was negatively affected by Mercury Retrograde was 2000.  The Bush -Gore Election.  In my research I discovered that there was another election which was affected by Mercury Retrograde - The Compromise Election of Rutherford B Hayes in 1876.  In that election a Commission of House and Senate Representatives and Supreme Court Judges - 5 Republicans, 5 Democrats and 1 Independent was appointed to determine the results of the disputed electoral votes  -   sound familiar?  That Commission didn't make a decision until March 4, 1877 - two days before what was then Inauguration Day.  Like I said delays, rather than out and out endings.

This November's election - once again is on the day that Mercury goes retrograde.  In the Bush/Gore election Mercury was coming out of retrograde - in this election it will be going in to retrograde.  Once again things could get a little dicey - and as pointed out in this article http://thenewtimesholler.com/ARCHIVE/projected.html, it depends also on the person's chart - Romney and Obama both are affected, but in different ways.

Like I told me son - expect the worst - and if it doesn't happen - at least you are prepared.  And Astrology is a fun, helpful science- it has helped me deal with a lot of people and situations in my life.  I used to get frantic calls from my house cleaners asking me if it was Mercury Retrograde (I wouldn't pre program them) and when I said yes, they always said, "Thank God - just tell me when it ends."

If you are interested in the Mathematical Basis of Astrology: http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/projects/kh-urops.pdf