Local news gives you a strong feeling about a town and its people. When you read that a small town like Bolinas, California feeds its homeless neighbors out of its own pockets, rather than through an agency, you figure their must be some very nice folks living there. But when you read about another town - South Whitehall Township, PA - complaining about the ugliness of a shed while one of their neighbor’s lives is at stake, you wonder what is wrong with the people living there.

This afternoon, a friend of mine sent me an ABC feature on a South Whitehall Township woman, Elizabeth Feudale-Bowes, who has been ordered to take down the shelter her husband built to protect her from chemical assault. Feudale-Bowes suffers from Environmental Illness.

Both the title of the article and many of the comments left after it show the problems a woman like Feudale-Bowes faces the moment anyone hears she has this type of disorder. ABC’s subheading puts single quotes around the words environmental illness, suggesting that this kind of ailment is dubious, so-called, not-to-be-believed. They show ignorance of the matter in doing this - a lack of research into the reality of this severe affliction. Comments like this one follow suit:

Just another hypochondriac that expects the rest of us to confirm their fears.

Chilling.

Feudale-Bowes’ neighbors have complained that the environmental safety shelter doesn’t conform to zoning laws, is unsightly and will bring down their property values, and when Judge Carol McGinley ruled that it had to be taken down, she allowed the people of South Whitehall Township to continue living in the grip of amazingly selfish values. What do you think about a town where a pretty yard is more important than the health, potentially the life, of a severely ill woman? What do you think about that town?

I’m sure there must be many good people in South Whitehall Township, PA. but the ones who have brought this disaster down on a woman whose sufferings include migraines, joint pain, bladder inflammation, seizures and temporary paralysis should take a good long look at themselves, the health they are lucky enough to enjoy, and their personal moral codes that have revealed them talking about yard decor while their neighbor is in debilitating agony.

Where are the good people in South Whitehall Township who will hold a fund raiser, volunteer labor hours, go to the city zoning commission, in defense of their ailing neighbor? Who will offer to bring Elizabeth Feudale-Bowes’ safety shelter up to code? Who will visit her, console her and her family, lend a hand in helping her cope with a life of such challenging pain? Who will confront this family’s neighbors and reveal to them that a light has been shone on their selfishness and that this is giving the town a very poor name in the public eye.

Every major world religion embraces the values of charity, care of the poor, help for the sick and love of neighbor. What religion, what system of ethics is being practiced in the neighborhoods and courtrooms of South Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania? Who can look this woman’s suffering in the eye and put single quotes around her pain, quickly moving on to talk about zoning laws and property values? Those meddlesome, self-centered neighbors should be hanging their heads in shame right now and asking the Feudale-Bowes family to forgive them for this totally needless infliction of misery brought on by a distorted sense of values. I sincerely hope that the national news coverage of this story will make those neighbors take a long look at themselves and what has been revealed about the size of their hearts.

And, I sincerely hope that the good people living near this family will react with the outrage and active response this situation calls for. I pray that caring people will give the Feudale-Bowes family whatever assistance they need in order to provide Elizabeth with the safety shelter her illness decrees as a necessity for her.

As I write this, it’s not hard for me to get into Feudale-Bowes’ shoes. Everyone in my family caught a flu two months ago. Nothing to make a big deal out of and my husband, my parents, my siblings and their kids have all recovered. But, because of my own Environmental Illness, I am still sick with it. I’ve been in continuous pain for weeks…the pain Feudale-Bowes described as feeling like, “fire with ground glass in it.” My damaged autoimmune system is taking its own sweet time to recover from a sickness that everyone else shook off after a week or so.

Does the fact that I don’t look too bad mean this isn’t happening to me? Does the fact that I’m writing this article mean that I’m really okay? Or does it simply mean that I’ve learned to live with a level of discomfort and pain that would have most people rushing off to an ER if they experienced it? Like most people with autoimmune diseases, multiple chemical sensitivities or environmental illnesses, I’m a master at coping and I do what I can.

Elizabeth Feudale-Bowes was just doing what she could when suddenly her own neighbors turned on her and brought the law down on her. On top of all of her own sufferings, she has been forced to deal with this stress and humiliation. My cheeks burn with shame for the people who brought this on her. And I cringe to think of the so-called doctors, the judges, the citizens who have forced her to hear, probably for the millionth time in her life, that her sickness is probably all in her head. One of the most damaging things about these kinds of incurable, chronic illnesses is being called a crazy or a fibber, while the pain continues on in mind and body.

Does anyone, these days, anyone at all actually NOT know at least one person with an environmentally-related illness? Has anyone not know someone who died of cancer due to pesticide exposure? Been born with autism because of chemical pollution? Gotten sick at Macy’s from the perfume? Had migraines from commuting through smog? Been bedridden from ‘unknown’ causes? Visited doctor after doctor, looking for a root, a diagnosis, a solution, a cure to a host of environmentally-related illnesses for which modern medicine has no real answer? It’s hard for me to believe that anyone in America these days doesn’t know someone who is suffering from Fibromyalgia, Endometriosis, MCS, Chronic Fatigue and so on…

And if that sufferer is your mother, your brother, your child, your neighbor…what do your ethics call you to do?

As I see it, the people of South Whitehall township owe Mrs. Feudale-Bowes a sincere apology and the offer of their hands, their money and their time to make this situation right.

This afternoon, my husband and I were in Marin County. Standing along the beautiful bay shore there, I found myself suddenly in the grip of an incredibly strong feeling - a blend of sadness, anger, urgency - looking at the land and thinking of how the CDFA and the forces behind it had been threatening to soak this place with poisons under the guise of a ludicrous pursuit of an insect.

I looked at the bright water, the air-giving trees and the friendly, clear sky, and I guess I had one of those moments of wondering how to make sense of life in a world where some of my fellow men can actually suggest that it’s reasonable to destroy health and life in order to say there are a few less moths on the globe. It’s an insane suggestion, clearly - a trade no reasonable mind would see as beneficial - and that’s why it scares me so much to think of the proposal that was made to pollute Marin County and its neighboring counties up and down Coastal California with vile, carcinogenic garbage, dropped from spray planes, on defenseless lands.

They dropped the garbage on people, animals, plants, water and soil on the Central Coast last fall. It wasn’t just a proposal. It’s a done deal there, and the victims are still living with the consequences, not knowing what this means in regards to their future. And the victims aren’t just the thousands of families of human beings who pleaded for sanity and mercy and ended up utterly unprotected by the very agencies all of them have been funding with their tax dollars, all of their lives, to act as their protectors. The victims include what we often rather vaguely refer to as the balance of nature. This sweeping term encompasses the blue whale, the sequoia, the coyote, the otter, the wildflowers, lichens on the rocks and the microscopic organisms that make up the bulk of our land, sea and sky, invisible though they are.

Ours is a very special planet, with life here turning on the dime of our distance to the sun, the makeup of our atmosphere, the minerals in our soil and a climate that stays just within so many degrees of hot and cold to make this a blue and green globe instead of a scarred orb of dead dust. All of these things are in someone else’s control…that’s right, we humans are out of control when it comes to whether life is.

But you wouldn’t know it when you hear those officials talking about dusting a little pesticide here, spritzing a little poison there, eradicating this species, monitoring that one, making up their minds about how to control it all. When, of course, they can’t. It’s a charade, a scam, a pathetic joke of self-appointed self-importance, stepping into giant shoes that don’t fit mankind.

As I once heard an entomologist explain, if humans became extinct, the earth would probably eventually recover from all of the abuses it has experienced, but if ants became extinct, the entire chain of life would be destroyed.

In that scheme of things, it isn’t the Secretary of Agriculture who is the big important deal…it’s a bug the size of his eyelash.

Standing on that beach in Marin today, my anger turned into the familiar, desperate wish that Secretary Kawamura and his ilk could just see the world this way, just for a moment, and be so shocked by their own lowliness in the order of important components of the planet that they would humbly put away their God-forsaken chemicals, go sit under a tree somewhere and calm down.

It’s pretty tough, listening to the politicians of the day talking about the ‘need’ for offshore drilling, the ‘need’ for nuclear power plants and the concept that we should really do something about climate change, perhaps by the year 2050, while Norway is rushing to figure out what crops they’ll have to grow in order to sustain life as the oceans creep over their shorelines and thermometers rise. It’s pretty tough to look around and see that the priorities of the people ‘in charge’ of America have literally nothing to do with sustaining life on the planet. They’ve got other more important things to use their special skills for, I suppose, like bailing out CEOs and making TV commercials.

I tune in and out of the huge, official noise, maybe still hoping that one day, I’ll hear any of the people in my government talk about anything I can relate to. And, at the same time, knowing that even if I can relate to them in some way, some day, nearly all of the life forms I care most about will never be able to. What does an oak tree think about voting fraud? What does a Great Horned Owl think about Wall Street?

As humans, we have been able to talk back to the group we call our government, even if it comes down to no more than screaming our heads off when they suggest that they spray us and our families with carcinogenic pesticides. Even if we can’t stop them, we have a common language, if not common values. But explain that to this tiny crab I took a photo of on the beach in Marin. Look at him in his tiny world, a whole life on Earth lived amongst a cluster of lovely rocks, keeping cool and happy in the seaweed. Explain to him that someone will dump chemicals into his water and his lungs because it’s profitable to do so.

Earth is his planet, too, and like all of us, he gets just one shot here. Secretary Kawamura’s life isn’t any more real to him than life is to this little crab. The difference is that, so far as I know, the crab hasn’t gotten mixed up to the point where he believes he’s the Creator of life, in charge of that elusive balance of nature. The way things are going these days, I think I’d rather have the crab in charge than anyone my taxes are funding.

Some days I try to see the irony of it all. Some days I genuinely find humor in being alive, so mixed up and wondering what it’s all about. Days like today, I just have to remember that I can’t control it all either and that, in my heart of hearts, I know that Someone is watching over it all and has a plan I just can’t see. There’s comfort in that.

Professor Glen Chase continues to champion the rights of Californians and the ethics of honesty, transparency and decency in his 3rd CDFA Fraud Report, released today.

Read The Full Report Here

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Press Release: October 7, 2008, Santa Cruz, California

CDFA MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FRAUD REVEALED BY PROFESSOR

PROFESSOR RELEASES THIRD REPORT DETAILING THE FRAUD AND DECEPTION OF THE CDFA LBAM ERADICATION PROGRAM.

FRAUD AND DECEPTION: THE CDFA LBAM ERADICATION PROGRAM
A Detailed Description of Management Strategy Fraud
Prepared For The People by Professor Glen Chase

Glen Chase, a Professor of Systems Management, has released a third report detailing the methodical fraud that the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Management perpetrated to attempt to create a bogus emergency eradication program for the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). This third report demonstrates the fraud and deception within the program strategy that CDFA Management used and is continuing to use to qualify for $100’s of millions of dollars of emergency taxpayer funds, which were intended for real emergencies.

CDFA’s main method of fraud is “Fear and Solution.” CDFA Management creates a false fear and then comes to the rescue with a solution. The false fear is the nearly harmless moth that CDFA characterizes as the moth of mass destruction. CDFA falsifies that eradication is necessary and possible, and extorts taxpayer emergency funds for the solution. It is very much like paying the CDFA to keep the sky from falling.

The second method of CDFA fraud finds the CDFA supplying other agencies with false information so that the work of other agencies results in conclusions that support the CDFA lies. Other agencies are generally innocent, but under pressure for immediate results with limited budgets and not suspecting CDFA deception, other agencies accept the information and data that CDFA supplies them.

The third method of CDFA fraud is to load the decision making processes with people who have something to gain by the fake eradication program going forward and exclude independent and honest analysis by scientists and others who are not dependent on or under the wing of CDFA.

The fourth method is repetition of message: “Safe,” “Safe,” “Safe,” “Safe,” “Safe,”
“Just a Pheromone,” “Just a Pheromone,” “Just a Pheromone,” “Just a Pheromone.”
It is interesting to learn that there is not a single drop of natural moth pheromone in the entire bogus eradication program, and not a single scientific document that concludes that any method used by CDFA in their program is safe.

The fifth method of fraud and deception is damage control. When the CDFA is caught lying, or the false information they deliver is found to be incorrect, A.G. Kawmanura, the secretary of the CDFA, makes the statement that they will need to communicate better, implying that the lies and deception were just a misunderstanding.

Currently, the theme of fraud that the CDFA is using is a classic example of the false fear that CDFA creates. After public hearings and courts convened and found that NO DAMAGE had occurred from this moth, CDFA has rebounded with the slogan: “Once the damage is seen, its too late.” CDFA uses this slogan to make us believe that LBAM is like a locust attack on our State or the wall of a dam breaking and that we should have fixed the crack ahead of the devastation. This is all scary stuff. But there is ZERO truth and ZERO relationship of LBAM to the fear scenario that the CDFA has created in their new slogan. It is without precedent in the known history of this earth that LBAM suddenly devastates crops, forests or backyard gardens, as the CDFA management would want us to believe.

Professor Chase is furthering the call for a truly independent State investigation of CDFA and the LBAM eradication program. An independent investigation into the CDFA LBAM eradication program will quickly demonstrate the erroneous messages delivered and the unnecessary LBAM eradication program perpetrated by CDFA. “An investigation will isolate the real scientists within the CDFA from the Management because the scientists at the CDFA will unlikely commit perjury to support the fraud and deception that has been delivered by CDFA Management to California’s agriculture community, elected officials, the press and the general population.”

Professor Chase’s first report revealed the falsehoods CDFA delivered after June 19 when courts and public pressure stopped the CDFA from aerial spraying synthetic pheromone based pesticides directly on cities. Professor Chase’s second report revealed the fraud and misinformation delivered by CDFA from fall 2007 until June 19, 2008.

Glen Chase is a Professor of Systems Management specializing in Environmental Economics and Statistics. Glen served as an Associate Professor teaching graduate level courses in Systems Management at USC for eight years. He has taught at multiple universities in the Central Coast area, including The Naval Post Graduate School, The Monterey Institute of International Studies and Cal State University, Monterey Bay. Glen is also a Management Consultant. Currently, Professor Chase develops management systems to assist organizations that cater to the improvement of life for children with disabilities.

Background Note: the area of Systems Management within Chase’s field involves management, communication and integration of complex and often highly specialized sciences. Systems Management was not generally recognized 100 years ago, when a single scientist could be a master of all areas related to his/her work. Today, it is essential.

On Tuesday, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed Jared Huffman’s AB 2765 Bill which deals with governmental and agency power to conduct ‘emergency’ aerial spraying of pesticides. From the Monterey Herald Article:

The law requires the state to hold public hearings before spraying and to disclose ingredients of the spray to the public, he said. It requires an evaluation of the human and environmental health effects of proposed aerial spray and applies to any proposed aerial spraying in urban areas

Here is the fullest text of the bill I could locate.

What Does It Mean?
Meaning no disrespect to Huffman or the constituents who worked to get this bill signed, I am not really sure of how much closer this bill takes us to the understanding of pesticides we need to attain - namely, that poisoning human beings with chemicals is not acceptable, under any circumstances. The bill also does nothing to hold the CDFA accountable for the poisoning of thousands of Central Coast families in the fall of 2007 during the so-called LBAM emergency.

The moth has continued to do zero damage, as predicted by leading Californian scientists, but the people of Santa Cruz of Monterey haven’t seen a penny for the damages they’ve suffered and haven’t even seen CDFA reprimanded, penalized or brought to any kind of justice for their actions.

As I understand it, Bill AB 2765 means that government agencies must first disclose that they will be spraying pesticides on human beings, disclose what those pesticides are, and allow the public to comment on this. I believe we already saw this happen with the LBAM disaster. The Bill also requires an evaluation of human health and environmental effects. But by whom? OEHHA who thumbed their noses at the sickened children, women and men of the Central Coast last year, proclaiming that they couldn’t figure out whether the inhalation and ingestion of carcinogens and PM10 would cause human illness? The EPA who has made stunning headlines this year as they attempted to pay families in Florida to spray insecticide in their infants’ environment while documenting the effects on the infants’ health? Fish & Game who changed their story every five minutes last year about the hundreds of dead sea birds washing up on Monterey beaches…first stating that they were covered with yellow foam and then stating that they weren’t? Who, exactly, is going to be responsible for testing the ’safety’ of releasing deadly toxins into the environment of humans and wildlife, water supply and land?

And, most of all, why do we even need to test whether it’s okay or not to breathe, drink and eat pesticides at this point? DDT was really all we needed to study, wasn’t it? Or, Agent Orange? Or Roundup? Or any of the other thousand chemical compounds Big Ag are pumping into our world and bodies. We know pesticides are not oxygen, they aren’t food and they aren’t H20. Any substances beyond these three life-giving sources are NOT healthy for people, and there should be no excuse for suggesting otherwise in the 21st century.

So, while I applaud Huffman and supporters of this Bill for trying to reckon with the pesticide problem, I’m afraid I don’t see this Bill as a document which defines the real issue we are facing of corporate-government compacts making profits off the poisoning of our people, our animals and our Earth. That’s the Bill we need to see written and signed. That’s what we need to continue working toward.