I grew up in a little town called Orange, Massachusetts- one of the lost towns of Route 2. It's basically an old mill town with little remaining industry. It's a place where you can find a group of smoking teenagers and a church on every corner. Oddly enough, it used to be the parachuting capital of the world.
Besides music, I have always been drawn to the many facets within the humanities at large. Languages, linguistics, politics, cultures, social justice, the arts, psychology, and the human experience in general. I'm particularly interested in promoting that which helps bring human beings together, enhances quality of life, and helps us understand each other better.
I do my part to be an evangelist for a culture of wellness amidst what I feel is the current culture of disease. I believe in looking at the whole person to address the source and cause of a problem rather than treat symptomatically, unless that is truly all that can be done. I like to work out (well, I don't LIKE to, but I like to eat so...). I'm very interested in health, preventative medicine, and holistic therapies. I like learning about how foods, herbs, exercise, and some other complimentary practices affect the body and promote health. Furthermore, I rebel against companies who contribute to a culture of disease and make massive profits by means of promoting and maintaining the ill-health of others. On the other hand, I admire those in the health, bio-tech, medical or pharmaceutical industry who honestly serve to improve health and people's lives. There is a significant difference in philosophy and ethics.
On a lighter note, I love cooking and am always trying out some new recipe. I take a lot of pride in creating a dinner of several courses for family and friends- which is a far cry from the days when my friends called me the "microwave queen"!
When I can, I love to travel, and learn languages (badly). I have been all over Asia, Australia, and Europe since living outside of the US. Orchestra touring has without a doubt piqued my interest to travel even more.
Some political sites and other stuff....
Food is very political these days and protecting our food supply from harmful substances is something I'm passionate about. When I was a student I spent two years independently studying cloning and plant growth factors with a view to genetically modifying crops and adapting them to the world's less ideal soils. (Managed to clone 75 african violets in my livingroom as a teenager and in the process of working with plant growth hormones I came close to ordering up a bucket of Agent Orange!) I have since developed a particular distaste for the Monsanto company, the very company that gave the world Agent Orange. Please take a look at the following articles which may really surprise you.
"Globalized industrialized food is not cheap: it is too costly for the Earth, for the farmers, for our health. The Earth can no longer carry the burden of groundwater mining, pesticide pollution, disappearance of species and destabilization of the climate. Farmers can no longer carry the burden of debt, which is inevitable in industrial farming with its high costs of production. It is incapable of producing safe, culturally appropriate, tasty, quality food. And it is incapable of producing enough food for all because it is wasteful of land, water and energy. Industrial agriculture uses ten times more energy than it produces. It is thus ten times less efficient."
-Dr. Vandana Shiva, scientist, world-renowned author, and grassroots leader in India. Member of the Policy Advisory Board of the Organic Consumers Association.
Chemical manufacturer turned agricultural giant: Monsanto. Everything that is dangerous to your health and the planet under one roof. Controlling seeds, patenting life forms, controlling food. A dependency more powerful than bombs. The people who gave us Agent Orange, controlling your food supply.
One of Monsanto's best selling herbacides around the world is "Roundup". Linked to NHL, it may also cause reproductive damage, as well as damage to the kidney and liver. And you've probably been eating a lot of it.
Preliminary findings suggest a link between the very eerie Morgellons Disease and Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium extensively manipulated and used in making GM crops; has genetic engineering created a new epidemic?
Today, Donald Rumsfeld is known throughout the world as the zealous U.S. Secretary of Defense who waged a global "war on terror" in search of "terrorists" and "weapons of mass destruction." Most people, however, are not aware that Rumsfeld himself unleashed a chemical weapon of mass destruction upon the world in 1981- and it's still out there destroying people all over the world. That "WMD" is aspartame and it has been scientifically and anecdotally linked to millions of chronic illnesses and deaths.
Many articles pertaining to informations about and the dangers of Aspartame (Nutra Sweet). Metabolites of aspartame are formeldehyde, methanol, and diketopiperazine and formic acid, and all are toxic to the human body and especially toxic to the brain.
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Please DO NOT shop at Walmart
Wal-Mart has single-handedly lowered the bar for working families in the global economy. The Wal-Mart storm has blown away family owned businesses, with sweatshop workers in China and Bangladesh producing the Wal-Mart apparel. Wal-Mart's full time employees are paid so little that the average Wal-Mart store costs American tax-payers over $400,000 in emergency health care, rent assistance, nutrition programs and educational services for employees and their families. There are extensive public records and cases filed against Wal-Mart with disturbing allegations. There is sex discrimination in pay, promotion, and compensation, wage abuse, exclusion of contraceptive coverage in insurance plans, violations of child labor laws and the Americans with Disabilities Act, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Cases have also been filed regarding firing pro-union workers, eliminating jobs once workers joined unions, and discouraging workers from unionizing.
