Yesterday, President Obama signed into law a continuing resolution aimed at keeping the federal government going amidst budget talks. However, embedded within the nearly 800 page resolution — HR933 — is Section 735, a provision that has become popularly known as the “Monsanto Protection Act”. Here is the text of Section 735 in full:
SEC. 735. In the event that a determination of non-regulated status made pursuant to section 411 of the Plant Protection Act is or has been invalidated or vacated, the Secretary of Agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon request by a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, immediately grant temporary permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part, subject to necessary and appropriate conditions consistent with section 411(a) or 412(c) of the Plant Protection Act, which interim conditions shall authorize the movement, introduction, continued cultivation, commercialization and other specifically enumerated activities and requirements, including measures designed to mitigate or minimize potential adverse environmental effects, if any, relevant to the Secretary’s evaluation of the petition for non-regulated status, while ensuring that growers or other users are able to move, plant, cultivate, introduce into commerce and carry out other authorized activities in a timely manner: Provided, That all such conditions shall be applicable only for the interim period necessary for the Secretary to complete any required analyses or consultations related to the petition for non-regulated status: Provided further, That nothing in this section shall be construed as limiting the Secretary’s authority under section 411, 412 and 414 of the Plant Protection Act.
Yet, I find this talking point disingenuous. If I’m reading Section 735 correctly, what’s actually being said is this: if a seed (genetically-engineered or otherwise) is petitioned to the Secretary of Agriculture’s office as needing to be regulated, that the unregulated (but legal) sale of the seed shall be allowed to continue until such time as the Secretary of Agriculture has time to investigate whether or not the petition is warranted.
It doesn’t hand over power to Monsanto, or any other company in the business of producing genetically-engineered food. It simply gives food-growers and developers the ability to do business until the matter can be resolved. Or, in other words, it simply establishes that a food is regulated when the Secretary of Agriculture’s office can rule that a food should be regulated, not when there is a proposal submitted that a food should be regulated.
So, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
Look, I get it. This whole controversy isn’t based on farmers’ rights, or on economics. It’s based on mass hysteria that arises when people hear “genetically modified food” and get an immediate mental image of this:
It’s Frankenfood?
There are too many critics of GMOs that believe, or at least perpetuate the common fear, that genetically modified foods are some sort of disease-ridden mutant byproduct of science gone horribly wrong. They picture ears of corn that glow in the dark, beef that can cause kids to prematurely undergo puberty, and tomatoes that grow to the size of houses.
These ideas couldn’t be farther from the truth.
The field of genetically-engineered food has two primary focuses: 1) to increase the efficiency and yield of crops with a particular emphasis on modifying foods to survive climates unfriendly to conventional agricultural practices, and 2) to increase the nutritional content of commonly-eaten foods to promote human survival and health without having to significantly modify diet, particularly in areas of the world where food is already hard to come by, let alone sufficient food to meet nutritional demands.
So, for example, genetically modified rice strains developed in part through the University of Arizona are significantly more resistant to drought than unmodified rice plants, producing healthy crops even with little watering.
The middle genetically-modified rice plant is being grown under drought conditions, compared to an unmodified rice plant on the right.
Sure, we’ve all seen the commercials: $1 a day could feed X number of starving children. But, think of the potency if we could export agricultural technology to these regions of the world, so that we’re not just feeding folks who need food, but arming folks with the tools to be able to grow the food to feed themselves.
Yet, I was shocked to read on Wikipedia in research for this blog post, that some critics of GMOs actually argue — unethically, in my opinion — that using genetically-engineered crops to help solve the world famine problem is counter-productive because this only encourages a global and unsustainable population boom. Implicitly, hungry people in the Third World should be allowed to die to keep the global population of humans low.
People who think the world can afford to ignore technology that increases agricultural yield are people who’ve never had to struggle with country-wide hunger. These are people who are used to a grocery store on every corner, and a McDonald’s drive-through a short car-ride away. Those of us fortunate enough to live in the United States and Canada, as well as parts of Europe, forget how good we have it when it comes to food; we take for granted a food abundance that others couldn’t even imagine as being normal.
I remember when I was a kid, my uncle — a well-educated, modestly affluent architect living in Taipei, Taiwan — came to visit us in Canada. I remember that we took him grocery shopping one afternoon. This supermarket — a Sun Valley grocery store (a Canadian chain that I just found out is now closed — was one of the highlights of my uncle’s trip. He walked into the front door and was overwhelmed by the piles of fresh produce, just sitting out for the choosing. He couldn’t believe the amount of it, the diversity of it, the freshness and the size, and how most of it was just waiting to be purchased or even — god forbid — thrown away. My uncle had great access to food in Taipei, and even he couldn’t believe how plentiful crops are in the West. A trip to Sun Valley market was one of his long-standing traditions every time he came to visit afterwards.
Yet, when’s the last time the produce aisle at your local Stop & Shop brought a tear of joy to your eye?
The second criticism against genetically-modified foods is that it’s unsafe. This criticism I find to be particularly spurious. The scientific community has pretty much reached a consensus on this subject: genetically-engineered foods are just as safe as non-engineered foods for human consumption; which is to say, there’s no scientific evidence supporting the notion that GMOs cause cancer or some other such nonsense.
And indeed, if one takes a minute to think about this, one sees how the conclusion makes sense. All we need to do is consider what a GMO actually is, and how it’s made, to realize that the risk to humans is low. In short, a scientist finds a gene from within a plant’s existing genome or within a related plant (or, occasionally but rarely, animal) species and introduces a modification into the target plant’s genome to either modify the existing gene or to get it to express the new gene. The scientist does this by injecting the plant with the new genetic material, and growing offspring that contain the specific, designed mutation.
An engineered plant is not dangerous. It contains no active virus or other particle remnants of the gene delivery system. It is, in essence, a rice plant that has been designed to express a special gene to alter the plant’s behaviour so that it behaves in a desirable fashion.
And I’m pretty sure there’s no interest in generating an ear of corn with evil eyes and a toothy grin.
I should know; I spend my days working with genetically-engineered organisms, and I’m no more afraid of them as I am of a regular old house mouse.
Using genetic-engineering to produce a mutant strain of plant is no different than if conventional cross-fertilization techniques were used to generate a mutant strain — a technique that has given us, among other foods, the pomelo, the grapefruit, and virtually every kind of apple you’ve ever eaten. Incidentally, this is also how every strain of dog ever was anyone’s pet came to be. Yet, people are afraid of genetic engineering when in the guise of science, and are not even remotely alarmed when it comes in the guise of agriculture.
Eating a genetically-engineered rice plant is no more dangerous than eating a head of broccoli; both are mutant forms of their native plants that have been engineered (in one case, directly, and in the other case through generations of specialized breeding) to favour certain traits over others. Neither of these plants will give you — nor should they ever be suspected of giving you — cancer. I mean, really, there’s about as much danger of this as there is of eating a stalk of celery and being afraid you’re going to turn into one.
All that being said, there’s obviously going to be some lasting concerns over the integration of genetically-engineered foods into our society. Do I think that genetically-engineered foods should be labelled? Absolutely, but along with a label describing the extent of the engineering. I think that informed consumers breeds responsible consumers.
And, certainly, I don’t think there should be any measure to eliminate federal power to regulate GMOs, or any foods. Not only should the federal government be able to regulate foods in the event of a demonstrated health and safety risk, but regulation is also essential to mitigate other real dangers of GMOs. For example, crops engineered to produce antibiotics that reduce disease risks that can wipe out an entire season’s crops can also have profound impacts on the local biodiversity, and runs the risk of producing antibiotic-resistant strains of disease. Our society already suffers from an over-dependence on antibiotic usage; its infiltration into the agricultural industry is worrisome. Finally, robust crops run the danger of becoming invasive to their local environment; this is also a risk that can be minimized through regulation.
But, I’ve had quite enough of the hype and fear-mongering over genetically-modified foods, particularly when the drum that is widely sounded is so scientifically unfounded. And I really can’t stand the argument that misguided fears over genetically-engineered foods trumps worldwide hunger, and people who are dying from it.
Forget Lunar New Year. We should be advocating for Immigrants Day as a U.S. federal holiday.
The Asian American blogosphere has been a-twitter over a recent White House petition asking that Lunar New Year be made a U.S. federal holiday; the petition recently surpassed the 25,000 signature threshold which will require an official White House response. Several bloggers such as Grace Hwang Lynch have written their cautious support of this idea (although Grace also acknowledges that it’s unlikely that Lunar New Year will become a federal holiday any time soon). I have offered my own counter-argument, a view that appears to be shared by Jeff Yang of Wall Street Journal‘s SpeakEasy blog.
This afternoon, I was thinking more about this petition. And it occurred to me: perhaps instead of advocating for a Lunar New Year federal holiday, we should instead have a discussion about establishing “Immigrants Day” as a U.S. federal holiday?
Okay, bear with me for a second on this one. In this country, there are eleven U.S. federal holidays, highlighting and commemorating landmark moments in American history. We “celebrate” (with a fair and arguably justified share of controversy) the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus. We honour veterans and military service who served in the many defining wars that America has engaged in through both Veterans Day and Memorial Day. We celebrate the contributions of the labour movement with Labour Day. We remember the triumphs and sacrifices of this nation’s civil rights leaders and how the civil rights movement changed America when we observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Yet, not a single day exists to celebrate America’s immigrants and its long, detailed history of immigration legislation and immigration reform.
America is a nation founded by immigrants, including many of the very Founding Fathers who first established this country. The very fabric of America is intertwined with immigration and the immigrants who have shaped and changed what it means to be American in America. In fact, I would argue that first-generation immigrants offer among the most inspiring stories of the American narrative: first-generation Americans are Americans who have chosen the American dream, who have left home and family to pursue the American dream, who have sacrificed to become a part of the American Dream. They are not Americans by accident of birth; first-generation immigrants are Americans by decision.
Many Asian Americans see the current petition asking for Lunar New Year to be made a federal holiday as long-overdue acknowledgement of the contributions of the Asian American community. But, only a subset of Asian Americans actually observe Lunar New Year; by contrast, I would argue that an Immigrant Day would include the entire Asian American community, as well as the narratives of many other communities including many Latino Americans, African Americans, and White Americans. Nearly 13% of all American are first-generation foreign-born immigrants, and of those roughly 1/3 are Asian Americans of all genders, ethnicities, languages, religions, and creeds; still more Americans are only one or two generations away from a foreign-born immigrant who first set down their family’s roots in this country. Immigrants can be found in every sphere of American life, society, culture, and industry; indeed, waves of immigrants have helped to make America the most diverse, economically successful, technologically-advanced and vibrant country in the world today.
Not only would an Immigrants Day celebrate the contributions of immigrants to the American experience, but it would also be an opportunity to remind ourselves of how immigration legislation has evolved over the generations. It would be a chance to remember this nation’s history of racist immigration law, including the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act as well as other race-based immigration laws that restricted immigration into the U.S.; but, it would also be an opportunity to commemorate and celebrate the events that led to the historic 1965 passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which abolished the national origins formula and became a pioneering piece of open-armed immigration legislation that is still a model to other governments, worldwide.
Tonight, President Barack Obama redoubled his call for passage of comprehensive immigration reform. Perhaps, now is the perfect time for Asian Americans to band together with African Americans, Latino Americans, and immigration reform activists to start a discussion advocating for a federal day of celebration and remembrance to commemorate the contributions of America’s immigrant population. I propose that Immigrants Day could be observed on October 3, the day that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act into law.
And, that is definitely a White House petition I would sign.
Update: I created the White House petition. Please share this link: http://wh.gov/dIvd and urge others to sign it. It needs 100,000 signatures to garner an official response.
Next weekend, many Asian Americans will be celebrating the Lunar New Year, which this year marks the end of the Year of the Dragon and ushers in the Year of the Snake.
Under the Obama administration, the White House website has become a hub of online social activism where users can create and share petitions on a variety of topics. Petitions that receive a certain threshold of signatures receive official responses from the White House, often to humorous ends.
However, this function has also been used to address relevant social and political issues in this country, including the recent spates of school shootings and gun violence. Relevant to the Asian American community, a petition was recently created by user B.C. requesting that Lunar New Year be made into a federally-recognized holiday. Argues the petition:
Our nation is composed of a wide array of nationalities and cultural background. It is imperative that we as a diverse nation to recognize and acknowledge that diversity. The Asian population represents a large percentage in U.S.’s population and is growing ever more. Students in public schools voluntarily take off from school to spend the Lunar New Year holiday at home with families. Yet, they are marked absent for their in-attendance. Please make this important holiday widely recognized and make it an official day off for students too. The holidays in our calendar year already consists of holidays from different cultures and definitely has room for Lunar New Year too.
Now, it’s true that many Asian Americans celebrate the Lunar New Year. And, it’s certainly frustrating that Lunar New Year, which is the major holiday in the Lunar calendar observed by those East Asian cultures, is unrecognized in the United States. With the growing Asian American population in this country, this holiday is likely to become more relevant in America.
However, this petition is, I think, conceptually flawed. First of all, school holidays are set by local school districts or state-level Boards of Education, not by the federal government: this is why the start dates of spring, winter and summer holidays vary from school to school. Secondly, while Asian American populations are large in some areas of the country, there are virtually no Asian Americans in other parts of the country; yet a federally-recognized holiday would by definition apply to all school districts, and indeed to all federal functions, including such things as the postal service. Should a holiday that is observed by less than 10% of the population dictate access to government services to the rest of the 90%?
One could argue that Easter, Passover, and even Ramadan are often recognized by school districts, and that the first two reflect a strong Judeo-Christian bias in the holidays school districts observe. And they would be true. Certainly, there is room for argument that school districts with high East Asian populations should reflect that constituency by observing Lunar New Year and not penalizing their students for taking those days off. But that is an issue to take to a local school board, not the desk of the president.
Finally, as has been mentioned above, not all Asian Americans observe Lunar New Year. South Asians, for example, have no connection with this holiday.
All that being said, I do think it important that the White House continue to affirm its recognition of America’s cultural diversity by acknowledging important holidays like Lunar New Year. I think it should support grassroots efforts to change local school boards and school districts to eliminate absentee penalties for students who take Lunar New Year off, and to encourage the culturally sensitive teaching of Lunar New Year and other Asian/Asian American cultural practices in the classroom alongside their teaching of the cultural history of Ramadan, Passover, and Easter.
Nonetheless, if you would like to sign the White House petition to make Lunar New Year a federal holiday, here’s the link to it.
“The truth is I think Martin Luther King would agree with me if he were alive today that if African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country’s founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history.” — Larry Ward, gun rights advocate
He’s not wrong, actually. Slavery might not have gone so well if slavers had kidnapped Africans and stolen them from their homes and families, shipped them across the ocean in chains and deplorable conditions, and then promptly handed them a rifle the minute they were taken off the boats. Further, firearms were a means whereby slaves revolted against slavery. Slaves who gained access to arms often participated in frequent (but rarely taught) uprisings throughout the South. But, unfortunately, these uprisings were isolated incidents that rarely resulted in anything more than painful retribution against unfreed slaves and/or kin, indicating that access to firearms and resulting violence was not alone sufficient to end the -institution- of slavery.
Let’s also examine for instance the notion that Martin Luther King, Jr. in particular would support arming slaves to revolt or protest against slavery. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy was non-violent protest — the notion of returning violence with non-violence as a form of civil protest.
Famously, King was hit in the head with a rock during one of the marches he participated in, and still did not call for violence.
King once said of the non-violence movement: “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars… Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
In the end, however, the whole suggestion is absurd because we are talking about a time when slaves were bought and sold as property; when slaves were considered sub-human and incapable of complex thought by nature; when it was illegal to teach a slave to read. The hypothetical wherein slaves might have been granted the right to bear arms since this country’s founding — and in so doing “stop slavery” — is so far removed from the historical context of slavery and how it came about that it becomes patently absurdist.
The movie poster for Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln”.
Last night, I went to the movie theatre to see Lincoln. It was fantastic. It was epic. It was brilliant in virtually every regard.
And over the course of the film, I watched three separate groups of people in the already sparse audience get up and walk out of the movie.
I’m not going to spoil the movie (although a lot of the film’s events are in your average American history book, and the whole movie is based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book “Team of Rivals”). But I can tell you that the movie is beautifully written and paced, and the cinematography was incredible and appropriate. The portrait that the film paints of Lincoln is at once intimately human and reverently historical. The plot is intricately political and demands the audience to rise to the challenge of following the intrigue rather than dumbing down the parties involved. “Lincoln” is a story about Abraham Lincoln; but it is also a story about the Thirteenth Amendment and about a divided Congress and about a vision of America that seems timely for the political circumstances of today.
It goes without saying that the acting is dead-on. Tommy Lee Jones performs capably (as he often does).
Batman Forever notwithstanding.
Sally Fields hits the right notes with her depiction of the unstable, grief-stricken Mary Todd Lincoln. Joseph Gordon-Levitt cements his rising star status as a young Hollywood actor who can actually act in his portrayal as Lincoln’s eldest son Bobby. Jared Harris steals every scene he’s in with his subdued and nuanced performance as Ulysses S. Grant.
And, it goes without saying that Daniel Day-Lewis is a freaking force of nature. He doesn’t just portray Lincoln; he simply is Lincoln. He will win an Oscar for this performance.
There are no words for how incredible Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Abraham Lincoln is.
I fundamentally believe that everyone — and I do mean everyone — should see this movie.
And, I reiterate, three separate groups of people walked out of my showing of Lincoln last night.
The problem, I think, is that Lincoln doesn’t speak down to its audience. It expects its viewer to be smart and engaged in the movie’s subject material. It expects its audience to be entertained by the political twists of its story.
And, I think maybe it’s expecting too much.
Lincoln opened the same weekend as Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2, an insipid tween fantasy about ridiculously good-looking glittering immortal vampires that fall in love with 17 year old girls. Lincoln shared theatre space with Skyfall, which is a great Bond movie — which is to say, it’s a fun romp alongside a bad-ass British guy whose singular interests involve guns (lots of guns), martinis (lots of martinis) and vagina (lots and lots and lots of vagina).
Now, don’t get me twisted. I love me some low-brow eye candy movies. I was there on opening night when Expendables 2 came out.
But, I wonder if Lincoln just can’t compete when the movie-going audience now expects epic CG action scenes strung together by the thinnest excuse of a plot. I wonder if Daniel Day-Lewis is wasted on a movie-going audience that squeals over actors whose chief talent is the ability to read lines on-camera while sparkling.
Yes, Robert Pattinson, I am talking about you.
Lincoln likely won’t do well in box offices this year. I doubt it will do much more than recoup its $65 million production costs. It will cater primarily to parents escorting their tweens to the mall to go see the glittering vampire movie.
And this will not be a failing of Lincoln. Lincoln is brilliant.
It will be because moviegoers are apparently bored by any movie that doesn’t treat them like idiots temporarily attracted by shiny things. It will be because moviegoers can’t get engaged by a historical bio-pic about one of the country’s most influential presidents.
In short, it will be because moviegoers lose interest in movies unless it’s got vampires in it.
Which means there could be an entire generation learning about the Lincoln presidency through THIS movie.
