These are not timely fotos, but they are just about the only ones we´ve taken with people in them since I arrived here in August 2008. They were taken in May when Heitor and I took a weekend trip to a neary artsy community. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the trip, and we only remembered to take these photos as we were in the process of leaving the little place where we stayed, which is typical. But, since I just ran across them and some of you have been bugging me for photos, I will include them.
I just finished listening to the audiobook of "The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth," by Barbara Seaman. The author and the book are probably well known to most women, or at least I hope they are, but I´d never heard of either and I only listened to the book because the title sounded like something important. That´s embarrassing to admit, even more so because Seaman died last year before I even knew of her.
Obviously the book is most important for women, but anyone concerned with the irresponsibility of drug companies, the double standard applied to the approval process for drugs used by women as opposed to those used by men, the issue of artificial horomone use in cattle and the runoff of these hormones in animal waste into the environment (and some already-documented, horrendous environmental side effects) should also read this book. Not to mention anyone who still thinks they need to defer to their doctor in matters of their own health care.
As regards the history of the drug companies and their irresponsible falsification and misrepresentation of research data or, in short, their commitment to their profits and their shareholders rather than to their integrity, I am reminded of one of my bosses at General Mills describing a particular Democratic candidate for Congress as anti-business. I think it was at one of the semi-regular pitches made by the General Mills PAC in its effort to recruit new members (although the PAC always made a great point of insisting that they contributed to candidates from both parties, this particular guy was definitely a Republican). I remember thinking what a stupid statement it was, as if any serious politician in the US is anti-business, and wondering what exactly that meant to him. Now I have an idea what it might have meant; he probably didn´t like those meddlesome government regulations that interfered with the bottom line.
Tchar for now.
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