Category: Food
“Put The Ten Commandments in Corporate Boardrooms…”
@jasonalaimo4787
14 hours ago
“We have capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich.” MLK
More Science!
Bright future for medicines and farming after fluorine discovery
July 30, 2024 Ellen Phiddian
US researchers have figured out an environmentally friendly way to mix fluorine into carbon molecules using enzymes and light.
The discovery illuminates a path for safer and more ecologically sound materials, particularly pharmaceuticals and agricultural chemicals.
“This work could pave the way for new, greener technologies in chemical production,” says senior researcher Professor Huimin Zhao, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The discovery is published in Science.
Fluorine atoms can be very powerful additions to bioactive materials. They can make medicines easier to absorb, more stable in biological systems, and better at interacting with other proteins. About 20% of pharmaceuticals on the market contain fluorine.
But these organic (carbon-containing) molecules all typically need a bond between a fluorine atom and a carbon atom to work.
This bond is rare in nature, and difficult to make in a lab. At the moment, most fluorine-containing substances are made using super-toxic hydrogen fluoride, which can be fatal with just a small splash to the skin.
This has spurred chemists to hunt for other ways to fluorinate molecules.
In this research, the scientists used a protein that responds to light, called a photoenzyme.
Using this enzyme, they were able to add fluorine to a class of molecules called olefins. These carbon-containing molecules are widely used as a feedstock in the chemical industry, because they’re easy to turn into a range of other molecules.
The reaction is also “stereoselective”: it can differentiate between molecules that are chemically identical, but optically different. This is a difficult property to achieve in a lab, but crucial to the pharmaceutical and agricultural market because biological organisms can react differently to optically different molecules.
“Our research opens up fascinating possibilities for the future of pharmaceutical and agrochemical development,” says Dr Maolin Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“By integrating fluorine into organic molecules through a photoenzymatic process, we are not only enhancing the beneficial properties of these compounds but also doing so in a manner that’s more environmentally responsible.
“It’s thrilling to think about the potential applications of our work in creating more effective and sustainable products for everyday use.”
https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/chemistry/fluorine-addition-pharmaceuticals/
Nebraska’s $1.85 Billion Math Problem
JULY 24, 2024, 1:49 PM
Same as in every state that tries this.
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Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen is calling legislators back into session this week, assigning them the impossible task of finding $1.85 billion to redirect toward local property tax cuts. Policymakers can run the numbers as many times as they want, but the problem remains that the state will either face deep budget cuts or must raise taxes elsewhere to fund Pillen’s latest plan — or both.
Last year, Nebraska used the cover of temporary budget surpluses to pass sweeping income tax cuts that primarily benefitted wealthy people and out-of-state corporations. These cuts will cost more than $900 million each year once fully phased in. That leaves legislators bent on cutting local property taxes with three options: abandon the income tax cuts, embrace massive spending cuts, or expand regressive fees and sales taxes on everything from vet services to car repairs to home maintenance.
Nebraska families with the lowest incomes — those making about $50,000 a year or less — would bear the brunt of a sales tax expansion. They already pay five times more in sales taxes as a share of income than families with the top 1 percent of incomes, and relying more heavily on the sales tax would only make things worse.
A sweeping property tax cut would also jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for the state’s K-12 education system, which has been weakened by a new private school voucher program that siphons money away from public schools. Property taxes are the primary revenue stream for public education in Nebraska and nationally, accounting for more than one in three dollars spent by schools. They pay for classroom books, vocational and technical programs, mental health counseling, and teachers’ salaries, among many other things.
Research suggests that property tax cuts result in disproportionately less funding for districts that serve large numbers of students of color and low-income students. In Nebraska, districts serving the most students of color receive roughly $3,500 less in funding per student than districts serving the fewest students of color. The governor’s proposal could worsen this divide.
Collectively, these changes are a recipe for weaker schools, greater inequality, and higher taxes for working people. Creating a fairer tax system — one that generates enough revenue to fund public education and many services Nebraska families rely on — requires a balanced approach, not a wholesale shift to the state’s most regressive tax.
If policymakers really want to help Nebraskans stay in their homes, they should explore “circuit breaker” policies, which guarantee that people’s property tax bills don’t exceed their ability to pay. And longer term, the state should grapple with how to adequately fund K-12 education, lessening local school districts’ reliance on property taxes to keep the lights on and increasing the amount of funding going to schools overall. But a special session is not the right mechanism for such a massive undertaking, which must balance the needs of students and all Nebraskans.
https://www.cbpp.org/blog/nebraskas-185-billion-math-problem
-yours Ukrainian.
This is linked in a Substack I read. In and on its own merit, I’m bringing it here for people to take a look. I think it’ll be worthwhile. I wish that people in Yemen and refugees from Gaza and people in all troubled places had this opportunity, but there it is; we have this. Anyway, take a look, subscribe if you like, or pass it along, and send a good thought into the universe on behalf of parents and children and stopping war.
Becoming a mother amid war in Ukraine by Anastasiia Lapatina
Two days after the birth of my daughter, Russia launched one of its largest air attacks on Kyiv. It was terrifying, but also entirely expected, and that’s the worst part. Read on Substack
How Brazilian Women Challenged Slavery and Patriarchy Through Food
Hope I’m not pushing the feminism too hard. But seriously! Feminism, food, successful resistance, with food, what’s not to love? Enjoy the article.
BEATRIZ MIRANDA AND ÍRIA BORGES
LAST UPDATED JULY 24, 2024, 9:18 AM
n the quaint district of Milho Verde, it’s impossible to go without hearing about Geralda Francisca dos Santos and her biscoito de polvilho (a cassava flour and cheese puff). At 81, Dona Geralda is one of the region’s traditional cooks of quitanda, pastries typical of Brazil’s food culture, especially in the state of Minas Gerais.
Ahead of festivities like the Three Kings’ Day and the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, her daughters and granddaughters — even those living in other districts — join her in the kitchen, surrounding the termite mound, clay, and tile shard oven that Dona Geralda built. They aim to help the matriarch meet the extraordinary demand, but these gatherings always mean something else.
“When my mother and I cook around her oven, she tells me stories of Milho Verde and our family that I didn’t know about,” Silvana Aparecida Santos, 38, who learned the quitanda alchemy from a very young age by watching and listening to her mother, tells Refinery29 Somos. “When we cook quitanda together, we shorten distances between us.”
“Quitanda goes beyond the kitchen. Before the dish became a local culinary symbol, it helped fuel a resistance movement.”
BEATRIZ MIRANDA
For many women like Aparecida Santos and Dona Geralda, quitanda goes beyond the kitchen. Before the dish became a local culinary symbol, it helped fuel a resistance movement. The tradition of cooking these pastries has crossed generations of women workers (predominantly in Minas Gerais), with the food continuing to represent the means to a better living. Quitanda is the technology through which artisanal cooks build their self-esteem, identity, community belonging, financial autonomy, and female networks of mutual support.
According to scholar Juliana Bonomo, quitanda originated in the 18th century when lords sent women enslaved workers to the nearest urban centers to generate complementary income. The word “quitanda” derives from the Kimbundu language, alluding to the tray where one sells food. But back in those days, it referred, as Bonomo explains, “to everything from haberdashery items to snacks.”
PHOTO: NEREU JR.
To this day, despite industrialization, most quintandeiras use no artificial ingredients. These snacks blended local ingredients (such as coconut, corn, peanuts, and cassava) with Portuguese recipes (cakes, biscuits, and pastries) and African techniques, rites, and beliefs. “Quitanda is a multicultural food,” Bonomo adds. “Pastry would often be prepared in silence. One couldn’t hit the pan with the spoon because it would bring bad luck.”
But it’s this move from the private to the public sphere that transformed this slave lord-run business into something revolutionary.
“As these women left their lords’ houses to work on the streets, they started learning and sharing ideas about freedom with other quitandeiras and their own customers — many of them also enslaved workers,” the researcher says, pointing to Luiza Mahin, a quitandeira from Bahia State who played a pivotal role in the Revolta dos Malês (1835), the biggest uprising of enslaved workers in Brazil. Once authorities perceived them as a threat to the slavery system, the first quitandeiras faced persecution.
“As these women left their lords’ houses to work on the streets, they started learning and sharing ideas about freedom with other quitandeiras and their own customers — many of them also enslaved workers.”
JULIANA BONOMO
However, quitandas ultimately emancipated many women. “By finding a way to sell quitanda, they were able to buy manumission for themselves and their relatives,” Bonomo says. The food ensured dignity for women in the 18th and 19th centuries, something that resonates in the lives of quitandeiras even today.
“The selling of quitanda helped me raise my 10 children,” says Dona Geralda, who grew up in the Ausente quilombo, a community that descends from enslaved workers who fought the system. Even though Aparecida Santos runs a bar in Milho Verde, she cites quitanda as a major source of income.
PHOTO: MARCELO RAMOS.
In the historical village of Congonhas (home to Minas Gerais’s biggest quitanda festival), Raquel Ramalho tenderly recalls her first memories with the pastries. “When I close my eyes, I can visualize my grandmother making biscoito de polvilho for us in the wood-burning stove before we went to school,” she says.
While quitanda has always been intrinsic to her identity, Ramalho’s life changed 15 years ago when she established herself as a professional quitandeira. “I used to be a housewife and felt excluded from social life. As I started working with quitanda, I started traveling to promote my work in other places, meeting new people, and conquering my own space,” she says. “It raised my self-esteem and gave me autonomy.” The 47-year-old now has a dedicated YouTube channel to share her quitanda knowledge with the world.“
“By finding a way to sell quitanda, they were able to buy manumission for themselves and their relatives.”
JULIANA BONOMO
Quitanda is also a protagonist in the life of 60-year-old Angela Resende, who wakes up every day at 4 a.m. to cook. In the last 20 years, she has spent many of her mornings preparing quitanda in the Minas Gerais city of Paracatu, where she serves customers a homemade breakfast in her yard. In spite of the hard work, Resende asserts she wouldn’t choose any other profession.
“People used to think that we were quitandeiras because we had no option because we didn’t go to university,” she says. “There used to be this prejudice.”
For Bonomo, this misunderstanding of quitandeiras stems from the patriarchal work division that prevails in society. “Professions that have historically been connected to domestic work (like cooking) are still seen as not real work,” she says, pointing out how empowering the role is. “[With her income], the quitandeira is responsible for buying her son’s school uniform, for example, or helping pay the family’s food expenses.”
PHOTO: MARCELO RAMOS.
Being a quitandeira can also be a lifeline. “When my grandfather became physically disabled, my grandmother became the breadwinner,” says Mariana Gontijo, 40, a culinary school professor born in Moema. “By selling quitanda and washing and ironing clothes, she provided for a family of seven people.”
After years of working as a lawyer, Gontijo returned to her roots. “My first source of research was my mother’s cookbook, where I reconnected to recipes that have accompanied me through my whole life,” Gontijo says. An advocate of local traditional cooking, she now runs O Tacho, a food consultancy company, and Roça Grande, a restaurant in the capital of Minas Gerais that celebrates the food of her land.
For Gontijo, quitanda is a tradition that has long represented a means of survival and emancipation for many women. Or simply put, “quitanda is an act of resistance.”
“Quitanda is an act of resistance.”
MARIANA GONTIJO
It also requires a profound knowledge of nature and themselves. “By using corn flour, banana tree leaves, and even their own arms to measure the temperature of the wood-burning stove, they ensure the food preparation is on point,” she says. “These are purely empirical and poetic techniques that shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Gontijo continues: “Before we look to international cuisine, we need to understand, respect, and value what we have here — like the quitanda culture. If you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know where to go.”
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/black-women-resistence-brazil-quitanda
Poliovirus Detected In Gaza Water Sources [VIDEO]
Bloomberg News reports:
Humanitarian groups are considering a mass vaccination campaign for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after traces of variant poliovirus type 2 were found in water sources in the war-torn territory. The disease was detected in six locations in Gaza, the World Health Organization said.
Geneva-based WHO said it was working with partners – including UNICEF and United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) – to conduct a risk assessment. Polio vaccination rates in Gaza before the war were “optimal,” according to the organization.
Israel on Sunday confirmed the resurgence of the virus, which can be spread by contaminated water and direct person-to-person contact, and said it would offer booster shots to its soldiers operating in and around the Gaza Strip.
Read the full article.
https://x.com/AJEnglish/status/1814280276681322595
What Food was Served at Wild West Saloons?
AP News: Top UN court says Israel’s presence in occupied Palestinian territories is illegal and must end
When I first posted this it was from my phone in bed. I am sorry I did not check but no link or story posted. Thankfully wonderful Ali jumped to the rescue and added the link. Thank you Ali. Hugs. Scottie
AP News: Top UN court says Israel’s presence in occupied Palestinian territories is illegal and must end
I want to thank Ali for kindly and nicely pointing out the link never published to this story. Thank you Ali you are grand! Hugs. Scottie
ShareTHE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top United Nations court said Friday that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and called on it to end, and for settlement construction to stop immediately, issuing an unprecedented, sweeping condemnation of Israel’s rule over the lands it captured 57 years ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly denounced the nonbinding opinion issued by the 15-judge panel of the International Court of Justice, saying the territories are part of the Jewish people’s historic homeland. But the resounding breadth of the decision could impact international opinion and fuel moves for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.
The judges pointed to a wide list of policies, including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, use of the area’s natural resources, the annexation and imposition of permanent control over lands and discriminatory policies against Palestinians, all of which it said violated international law.
The court said Israel had no right to sovereignty in the territories, was violating international laws against acquiring territory by force and was impeding Palestinians’ right to self-determination. It said other nations were obliged not to “render aid or assistance in maintaining” Israel’s presence in the territories. It said Israel must end settlement construction immediately and that existing settlements must be removed, according to a summary of the more than 80-page opinion read out by court President Nawaf Salam.
Israel’s “abuse of its status as the occupying power” renders its “presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful,” the court said, saying its presence must be ended as “rapidly as possible.”
The court’s opinion, sought by the U.N. General Assembly after a Palestinian request, came against the backdrop of Israel’s devastating military assault on Gaza, which was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7. In a separate case, the International Court of Justice is considering a South African claim that Israel’s campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide, a claim that Israel vehemently denies.
The court said the General Assembly and Security Council — where staunch Israeli ally the United States holds a veto — should consider “the precise modalities” to end Israel’s presence in the territories.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will promptly transmit the advisory opinion to the 193-member world body and “it is for the General Assembly to decide how to proceed in the matter,” U.N. deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said.
The secretary-general reiterates his call for Israel and the Palestinians to engage “on the long-delayed political path towards ending the occupation and resolving the conflict in line with international law, relevant U.N. resolutions and bilateral agreements,” the spokesperson said.
Guterres also stressed that a two-state solution is “the only viable path” to seeing Israel and “a fully independent, democratic, contiguous, viable and sovereign Palestinian state” living side by side in peace and security, Haq said.
Israel, which normally considers the United Nations and international tribunals as unfair and biased, didn’t send a legal team to the hearings. Instead, it submitted written comments, saying that the questions put to the court are prejudiced and fail to address Israeli security concerns. Israeli officials have said the court’s intervention could undermine the peace process, which has been stagnant for more than a decade.
“The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land — not in our eternal capital Jerusalem and not in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office, using the biblical terms for the West Bank. “No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth and likewise the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be contested.”
Speaking outside the court, Riad Malki, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called the opinion “a watershed moment for Palestine, for justice and for international law.”
He said other nations must now “uphold the clear obligations” outlined by the court. “No actions of any kind … to support Israel’s illegal occupation.”
Hamas welcomed the court’s decision and said in a statement that “serious steps on the ground” need to be taken in response.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for an independent state.
Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory, the future of which should be decided in negotiations, while it has moved populations there in settlements to solidify its hold. It has annexed east Jerusalem in a move that isn’t internationally recognized, while it withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but maintained a blockade of the territory after Hamas took power in 2007. The international community generally considers all three areas to be occupied territory.
The court’s decision strikes at the heart of the ambiguity of Israel’s administration of the territories. Israel hasn’t annexed the West Bank — though settler groups have pressed it to do so — but it calls it part of its homeland and has effectively treated it as an extension of the nation. Along with the settlements, it has appropriated large swaths of the territory as “state lands.” At the same time, Netanyahu’s government has repeatedly rejected the creation of any Palestinian state. Abbas’ Palestinian Authority has been restricted to control over divided enclaves scattered around the West Bank.
The Palestinians presented arguments at hearings in February, along with 49 other nations and three international organizations. In the hearings, Malki accused Israel of apartheid and urged the United Nations’ top court to declare that Israel’s occupation of lands sought by the Palestinians is illegal and must end immediately and unconditionally for any hope for a two-state future to survive.
Erwin van Veen, a senior research fellow at the Clingendael think tank in The Hague, said before the decision that a ruling that Israel’s policies breach international law would “isolate Israel further internationally, at least from a legal point of view.”
He said such a ruling would remove “any kind of legal, political, philosophical underpinning of the Israeli expansion project.” It could also increase the number of countries that recognize a Palestinian state, in particular in the Western world, following the recent example of Spain, Norway and Ireland, he said.
It’s not the first time the ICJ has been asked to give its legal opinion on Israeli policies. Two decades ago, the court ruled that Israel’s West Bank separation barrier was “contrary to international law.” Israel boycotted those proceedings, saying they were politically motivated.
Israel says the barrier is a security measure. Palestinians say the structure amounts to a massive land grab, because it frequently dips into the West Bank.
The court said that Israel’s construction of settlements in the West Bank violated international laws prohibiting countries from moving their population into territories they occupy.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, according to the anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now. The West Bank settler population has grown by more than 15% in the past five years to more than 500,000 Israelis, according to a pro-settler group. Their residents are Israeli citizens governed by domestic law and served by government ministries, services, banks and other businesses — effectively integrating them into Israel.
Israel also has annexed east Jerusalem and considers the entire city to be its capital. An additional 200,000 Israelis live in settlements built in east Jerusalem that Israel considers to be neighborhoods of its capital. Palestinian residents of the city face systematic discrimination, making it difficult for them to build new homes or expand existing ones.
The international community considers all settlements to be illegal or obstacles to peace since they are built on lands sought by the Palestinians for their state.
Netanyahu’s hard-line government is dominated by settlers and their political supporters. Netanyahu has given his Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a former settler leader, unprecedented authority over settlement policy. Smotrich has used this position to cement Israel’s control over the West Bank by pushing forward plans to build more settlement homes and to legalize outposts.
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