The inimitable art of American Bucklee Bell often expresses his concern about important global issues-such as genetic modification (GM) of plants. The showman in the centre of his above painting welcomes one and all to Monsanto's Garden Freak Museum .
Here in Australia where we are force fed sport, sport and more sport , fireworks, celebrities and triviality in much of the media , GM gets little coverage . Recently, however , the Weekend Australian ran a report about China refusing to accept American GM hay which has caused consternation . The American not for profit , independent journalism for positive change website, NationofChange , has long been running reports about the GM battle in America and in other parts of the world .
It ran the Chinese rejection of US hay before it got a mention here in Australia. Another item of deep interest to Australia covered by the Nationof Change was that the Alliance of Food Sovereignty Africa (AFSA) has written to the Gates Foundation expressing concern about a " super banana " developed in the US with foundation money and Queensland University of Technology researchers , soon to be tested on humans . If considered okay, it would be further tested in places like Uganda . Surely there is a major news story here in Queensland and elsewhere in Australia ?
( Incidently,Gates and party recently flew into Townsville in two jets and went out to a luxury yacht, which from a distance looked like the flagship of the US Seventh Fleet , and went diving on a wreck. Wonder if they got stuck into the local bananas and Bowen mangoes ?)
NationofChange also reported that Oprah was under attack over running a GM product in her magazine . This comes at a time when the excellent, very chewy ABC consumer show The Checkout reported that Oprah loves running items about so called wonder ingredients from jungles or distant lands with claimed health benefits which by and large don't stand up to medical and scientific examination or claims of people flogging them .
( Incidently,Gates and party recently flew into Townsville in two jets and went out to a luxury yacht, which from a distance looked like the flagship of the US Seventh Fleet , and went diving on a wreck. Wonder if they got stuck into the local bananas and Bowen mangoes ?)
NationofChange also reported that Oprah was under attack over running a GM product in her magazine . This comes at a time when the excellent, very chewy ABC consumer show The Checkout reported that Oprah loves running items about so called wonder ingredients from jungles or distant lands with claimed health benefits which by and large don't stand up to medical and scientific examination or claims of people flogging them .
NEXT : Politics , Cheney and water boarding , the use of drones in warfare...just for starters.
