I received this in an email from my Uncle, a Californian Republican who received it from someone he knows.. This just goes to show the power of the Internet and the willingness of people to trust what someone they know has sent them. It is so disheartening that this kind of fear is spread from both political parties. This is the blog the email sent me to.

Of course with anything you can bend someone’s words when you want to. But, there are those of us who go back to find the source of such material.

Like I said both parties do this fear mongering tactic. They will never take credit for it as they use political pundents to do the dirty work.

Check the facts!

The recent baby formula disaster in China is easily deplorable. Many questions surmount to how could they let the formula be tainted. The more insightful question is why are so many women not breast feeding their infants? The Washington Post gives some insight and parallel to the United States in the Late 1940′s and 50′s when breast feeding started to give way to formula. The sheer volume of formula feeders is due to science and greed. Formula companies used public relations to generate the publicity needed to get more women to switch to formula.

Here are 3 examples of how Formula companies still use PR to their advantage:

Formula Samples Hinder Breastfeeding Efforts

Formula Freebies Cut Breast-Feeding Tim

Marketing Infant Formula Through Hospitals: the Impact of Commercial Hospital Discharge Packs on Breastfeeding

here are some benefits to breast feeding (breastfeeding.com):

…breast milk has 400 nutrients that cannot be duplicated in the lab

…slows down the growth of harmful bacteria in the intestines

…inhibits the growth of bacteria in the lungs, mouth and nose

…reduces respiratory infections for the infant’s first four months of life

…research suggests reduction in risk of sudden infant death syndrome

In the United States breast feeding is on the rise though it is still shunned in public. In some cases baby formula is necessary and its availability and scientific birth justified. However, science needs to be increasingly careful to not undermine nature, which it has continuously done( think corn and our food supply). Perhaps if China and the U.S believed in the power of mothers and biology the infant tainted formula would not be so grand.

I have lived in Easthampton, Ma around 5 years. It’s an old industrial town that has been left to flounder on its own for a while.

Once upon a time there were a lot of buttons made here. There have been some improvements the last few years and some old factories have been reborn as condo’s and art spaces. Every once in a while a new business will sprout up along the narrow strip of downtown.

Easthampton is still a working class town made up of an aging Polish-American population. Lately, there has been an influx of affluent young couples buying houses, which are less costly than neighboring Northampton.

Sadly with a swelling of citizens comes interested businesses. Stop and Shop supermarket chain has high hopes to build a store in Easthampton. All that is left for Stop and Shop to build is an ok by the planning board, which is holding a meeting on September 23. If built, the tax money generated will be good for the town, which has had trouble funding the school system of late.

Unfortunetly it will be in with Stop and Shop and out with the Tasty Top, a tradition in town. Also closing will be the Easthampton Driving range located behind the soft serve ice cream shop.

This isn’t the first time these businesses have been rumored to close. Signs on the Tasty Top still say they will be back next season, but this time feels different.

The tasty top is a shack, the building is nothing special. However eating their ice cream while admiring the view is. The view from the Tasty Top is beautiful; Mt. Tom, Easthampton’s Atlas framed against the sky.

There are already 4 grocery stores in a 5 mile radius of my apartment. It is already too much. A 5th store is unnecessary, but a probable conclusion. Another factor in this situation is the Big E’s grocery store just a half mile from the proposed Stop and Shop. It is the only Big E’s in existence. Another local business perhaps with it’s own eminent fate awaiting.

I had a sundae the day before the Tasty Top closed. Vanilla ice cream drowning in butterscotch with a dollop of whipped cream. Halfway through the gooey delight, it made me sick to my stomach just as it always does. And just like always I finished it smiling as my plastic spoon stood upright, unflinching in the coating of butterscotch at the bottom of the Styrofoam bowl like a flag pole in cement.  I wiped my sticky face and gave one last look at the mountain without an obstructed view.