Food Not Bombs members are calling for a rally in support tomorrow as the first appeals hearing will be held at 9AM.  The hearing itself is also public and Food Not Bombs welcomes anyone who wants to show support.   In recent months, Middetown Food Not Bombs has experienced the most direct interruption by health department officials, including a cease and desist order, citations, confiscated food and cookware, and one arrest.  See previous Hartfordimc.org posts for further details.

Tomorrow’s rally will run from 8-9AM with the hearing to follow.  Food Not Bombs will provide free food and encourages people to bring signs showing support.

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This site provides a great interactive graphic where you can chart the infant mortality rates of many countries throughout the world.   These data are corroborated by the CIA Factbook’s latest statistics.   At 6.26 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, the US ranks far from the best and is trumped by some countries that might be surprising.  Of course much of western and northern Europe supersede the US, with the Scandinavian countries among the best in the world.  Asian countries such as Japan and Hong Kong are in the top five, while South Korea is a full two points better than the US.  Even poorer European countries like Slovenia and Greece have better infant mortality rates than the US.  And what about Che’s Cuba fifty years after the revolution?  Despite more than forty years of embargo, Cuba’s infant mortality rate is 5.82.    Topping this list are Singapore and Bermuda.  Other countries that outperform the US most Americans would have difficulty locating on a map.

The CIA Factbook also documents literacy rates internationally.  The US claims 99% literacy (ability to read and write for both males and females) for its total population.  By contrast, Cuba has a 99.8% literacy rate.  The difference may seem negligible, especially compared to countries where literacy is half of this, but think of it this way: in the US 1% of the population is illiterate.  In Cuba, only .2% of the population is illiterate.   With just over 300 million people in this country, that means over 3 million people cannot read or write.  Of Cuba’s 11.5 million people, approximately 230,000 cannot read or write.

The US also ranks 50th in life expectancy behind many of the aforementioned European and Asian countries.

Image credit: Many Eyes – http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/trends-in-infant-mortality-by-countr

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Caitlin Corner-Dolloff wants you to think outside the bottle, the water bottle, specifically those plastic ones.  Corner-Dolloff has brought the global fight against corporate water privatization to Connecticut.  She is the Field Organizer for Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a 30+ year old non-profit dedicated to fighting corporate abuse.

CAI’s latest campaign is to get more people to stop buying bottled water, which fuels the draining of aquifers in such places as India, where water resources are more scarce and in high demand.  The bottled water market facilitates the privatization of water worldwide by such multinational corporations as Pepsi, Coke, and Nestle (based here in CT, by the way).

But the ills of bottled water don’t stop there.   Bottled water is often unregulated, which means unlike tap water, contamination does not have to be reported to the general public.  Plastic bottles require oil to manufacture.  In fact, if you were to put the amount of oil needed to produce one bottle into that bottle, it would be fill a quarter of the volume.  Plus, only about 20% of plastic water bottles are recycled, with the other 80% finding themselves in landfills and incinerators (billions of bottles each year).  Add to that the cost and resources for transporting the bottles.

In addition to the environmental impact, making water a commodity has altered people’s perceptions of water.  One in five people drink bottled water exclusively because they are convinced it’s the only way to get clean water.  This Environmental Working Group study (“10 Major Brands, 38 Pollutants”) suggests otherwise (Be sure to click on the Test Results section for startling specifics).  It found such contaminants as fertilizer residue, pain medication, disinfection byproducts, and even carcinogens.

Despite bottles laden with images of mountaintops and springs, 40% of bottled water comes straight from taps.   And, it’s sold back to consumers at a rate of anywhere from 100 to almost 2000 times the cost.  CAI won a fight against Aquafina which caused it to disclose its source (the tap), but there is no regulation that requires companies to do so.

Corner-Dolloff has already drummed up some political support in central Connecticut.  State Representative Beth Bye will bring the issue to the General Assembly and West Hartford mayor Scott Slifka has signed the Think Outside the Bottle Pledge.

But her sights are set higher: Governor Rell.  Corner-Dolloff sees the economic hardships of the state as an opportunity.  The state of Connecticut and many of its municipalities could save a lot of money by eliminating water coolers and bottled water at events.  She also finds it ironic that government officials who are charged with overseeing public water supplies often fail to use those very same systems.  Instead of spending money importing water at an exorbitant cost, Corner-Dolloff says, why not allocate some of that money to maintain and upgrade public water systems to ensure that water is as clean and accessible as it can be?

ThinkOutsideTheBottle.org has a ready-made letter to Governor Rell for concerned citizens to sign, found here: http://tinyurl.com/rellwaterletter.   The letter will be delivered to the governor on Wednesday February 11 at 11AM in the Legislative Office Building, room 2A.   Corner-Dolloff can be reached via email at: thinkoutsidethebottlect@gmail.com or by phone at (860) 231-9839.

(image credit: Trinitas Imaging – http://flickr.com/photos/uditk/1590855800/)

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The rally takes place on Tuesday January 13 starting at 5:30pm at Union Station, 1 Union Plaza, Hartford CT.   For more details and directions, including parking, click here.

Sack writes:

In Mr. Bush’s first year in office, he proposed to open or expand 1,200 clinics over five years (mission accomplished) and to double the number of patients served (the increase has ended up closer to 60 percent). With the health centers now serving more than 16 million patients at 7,354 sites, the expansion has been the largest since the program’s origins in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty, federal officials said.

Besides being appalled by Sack’s use of “mission accomplished,” readers should notice that the article talks very little about Bush, despite its glowing title.  There’s not much to say.  The funding is largely made possible by Democrats in Congress, who also see the need to expand such funding well beyond what Bush has approved.  The article spends most of its time discussing the effectiveness of the centers which benefit from the funding.

Most importantly, the Times fails to mention the destructive policies and actions of the Bush administration which appropriate define his legacy: two unprovoked invasions and occupations, torture, the wholesale slaughter of the Constitution, and more appropriate to this article, the assaults on health care including Medicare Part D, the deterioration of veteran care and benefits, the ballooning cost of prescription drugs, and the specific increase of uninsured Americans since Bush took office, now nearing 50 million.  The expansion of funding to these clinics could be called a self-fulfilling policy – create more underserved people, fund more clinics for the underserved.  If you believe the Times, everyone wins.

The Bush administration has helped open a gaping wound in the chest of America’s health.  It should not be lauded for applying a band-aid.

SUMMIT: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21ST, 2008, 8:30 AM TO 4:00 PM
LOCATION: UCONN SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK, 1798 ASYLUM AVE. WEST HARTFORD, CT

The Latino Policy Institute is delighted to welcome Elena Rios, M.D., MSPH, a nationally recognized expert on health disparities and a champion of improving the health of Latinos, as our keynote speaker for the Latino Health Summit.

“At some point in our lives, we all face health care problems,’’ Rios said in September during a speech to delegates at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis. “But the deck is stacked against some of us.’’

Dr. Rios comes to Connecticut fresh from appearances at both the Republican and Democratic conventions last summer.

Registration for this free conference is filling up fast.
PLEASE CALL 860.527.0856, EXT. 270, EMAIL LPI@HISPANICHEALTH.COMThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , OR REGISTER ON-LINE BY CLICKING HERE.
PLEASE SEND REGISTRATION BY NOVEMBER 14TH.