Something I just found out via an article in the New Times, that has me both disgusted and dismayed – Commissioner Cara Jennings apparently received a death threat via the comments section on an article in the Palm Beach Post.
When did this culture of negativity and death threats become acceptable and why has it become so common? Regardless of what you think of Jennings or her tenure as commissioner, let’s take it down a notch people. Advocating murder is not the step that immediately follows not liking someone’s opinion.
Saw this little blurb on Mother Jones and felt the need to share, especially for my vegetarian or just veggie burger loving friends. Apparently the process to make just about any non-organic soy-based food product, from veggie burgers to infant formula, is to take the soybeans and soak them in hexane – a gasoline derivative, pollutant and neurotoxin. Their reason for doing so is to leach out as much fat as possible from the product.
The exception is organic burgers (and not the ones labeled ‘made with organic ingredients’). Also important is that hexane is not measured in products or regulated by the FDA. As always, be careful what you eat, you never know where that dirty thing has been!
For a list of non-hexane (yummy) and hexane-laced (eww gross) products check out the table below and then go to the Cornucopia web site for more info.
West Palm Beach
Great news from last night, the West Palm Beach city commission voted unanimously to support a repeal of the ban on gay adoption as reported by The Post. Though the move is largely symbolic, it lends even more weight to state rep. Mary Brandenburg’s bill that has been introduced in the Florida legislature.
As I had mentioned before, Florida is the only state in the nation that legally bars gays and lesbians from adopting. According to the article, West Palm joins Lake Worth and Wilton Manors in taking this step.
Lake Worth
There was a press release yesterday (pdf) on the Lake Worth city website that announced the mayor’s cleanup day for Wednesday, April 7. At first I thought, how cool, are they cleaning up the beach? The Intracoastal parks? Nope, it’s a code-compliance march through the city. Don’t get me wrong, code-compliance is important, especially with the potential of tropical storms and hurricanes, but really? To me this seems more like a snitchfest at best and simple pandering to certain sectors of the populace at worst.
Speaking of the mayor, René Varela had his first coffee klatch this past Monday at Le Bonne Bouche where he announced that Lake Worth residents will experience another tax hike this year. To me this isn’t news, in light of the abysmal house values in the city and the imploding tax base it’s kind of expected. I was encouraged to read about his support for bringing in green business, in particular a solar panel manufacturer. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 5 at 8 a.m. at Benny’s on the Beach. It would be nice if he could mix it up and have a meeting when normal working people could attend.
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