BITS AND BOBS

'08 is winding down, and there is, or was, a wave of good feeling in the air (as I write we are reading about the massacre in Mumbai). The GOP is out, and many people think the Messiah is arriving on 20 January '09. Actually I think the US Secret Service arrives in full force that day with 4 years of overtime trying to protect Obama from the KKK and whoever else does not agree with having an Arab for a President. At least in my case, they don't have to worry too much, my attacks are only verbal. But then again, as Homeland Security was spending so much time on this site earlier this year, maybe there is some agency that protects US politicians from the likes of me. Not being able to find Osama bin Laden, they are taking up other duties in an effort to look busy and justify taking $50billion a year from the pockets of the taxpayers.
The big question is what will happen to hemp in the Obama years (or Biden years, if the KKK gets a lone gunman on a grassy knoll)? Will he legalise it? Or will he just grow his own under UV lights in the White House, which will come under DEA scrutiny for the large energy bill?
And talking of energy bills, I might note that people are talking about energy bills. Since the politicians dragged their feet on developing energy, we all had to pay up to $150 a barrel for oil. The price dropped, due in no small part to the fact that we did not have $150 to pay for crude anymore. And now there seems little money left to develop energy to get us out of this mess, even if energy sourcing is as simple as stepping on the floor. For those of us moving at more than a foot dragging pace, our feet generate electricity, as the Rotterdam dance space Club Watt has found out. So the beat of the music leads to the beat of the feet and the owners beat the high electric bills that come with high powered strobe lights. An article in the New York Times by Elisabeth Rosenthal this weekend points out that this is not just a one-off, but part of an enterprise called the Sustainable Dance Club. The energy produced by an average person dancing is about 20 watts. The Observer picked up on this article, which their science editor Robin McKie wrote about on Sunday. His notes go further, as he explores the possibilities of other forms of naturally existing or human induced motion being harvested to make power.
Getting back to the NYT, two other articles were of interest in regards to energy, one of hydrogen pumps on Santa Monica Boulevard (for girls who just wanna have fun...) which will be used to fuel hydrogen cars. Shell Oil is behind this, but other oil companies are behind the times and may not cooperate. The other article was a bit less high tech, it talked about rental bikes in European cities. I live in London - I want them here. That way I could combine mass transport for the long, or uphill treks, and bikes for short/downhill treks. If they were smart, they could even put on little energy devices on to catch the motion of the wheels and harvest that. A day's riding could bring in both a profit on the rentals and a device with stored energy.
Switching back to the Observer, I was stunned to find a lengthy article on bottled water by Martin Hickman. This had become a recent issue with me, as my fellow author on the Hemp for Victory book, Sam Heslop, had just sent around an e-mail warning about dioxin poisoning from plastic water bottles. Some of these are stored two years or more before they reach the shelves, and they can leak a lot, so much so that movie stars are claiming that they are getting cancer, especially breast cancer, from all the trendy bottled water they drank. Hickman knocks tap water as it contains chlorine, but with so many of these article in trendy lefty mags like the Observer, it does not do the full research. Fact is, a home water filter is not that expensive, and can filter these out. Hickman also fails to note that on occasion the bottled water is a scam, for instance, one enterprising New Yorker made millions out of filling trendy bottles full of tap water and selling it as a top brand before his scam got switched off. There is no word from this journalists as to what we are supposed to do with the millions of empty bottles, maybe we can just dump them in someone else's backyard, along with the millions of copies of the Observer that get used to sell us these ideas every weekend. Still waiting for them to use hemp paper...
Maybe, though, we well see the Independent using some - as they have been in talks with Zac Goldsmith, former publisher of the Ecologist, to be bought out. Goldsmith spoke last month at Friends House, and as usual, when hemp is brought up, there is a trendy crowd that tries to hide its ignorance by pouring scorn on the subject; he was not affected, and enthused about hemp to my friend Sagar Shah. It is good to see honest people like Goldsmith in the environmental movement, sadly, we are beset with trendy hippy trippy types who are either dopers or useful idiots for big business or both. David Shayler was the epitome of this, it was so bad that when he started talking about hemp I asked him to stop. Where is he now? In Amsterdam, where a few foolish people believe he is the Messiah. Some of them are apparently giving him money, and those journalists who have no for lengthy research, see him as a source of a quick article. I saw him once this year, at a 9/11 Truth Event, where he was so unwelcome that an organiser smashed a glass bottle at his bare feet to send him a message to stay away.
So here's to '09. '08 has been one bad year overall for many people. Out with the suicide terrorists and false Messiahs, and in with hemp, Zac Goldsmith, rental bikes and non-petrol based energy production.

ROYAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

HOSTS NONSENSE

Image left is Sir Gordon Conway, who compered and spoke at the RGS at Kensington Gore on Wednesday, 22 October. The subject of the evening was rainforest management, but what was needed was better conference management. For £15 we got lousy PA standards and a translator whose monotonouse Adams family voice was like nails being scratched on the blackboard.

But these were minor hitches compared to the real problem - the whole thing was an exercise in avoiding the elephant in the living room. When the audience was finally allowed to ask some questions, one man pointed to the issue of laying blame on the indigenous farmers who committed slash and burn, but did not mention once the plantation owners. The man who started to talk about this was abruptly asked to stop by Sir Gordon. Now, it might have ended right there, but a friend of mine, Sagar Shah, asked about hemp, and then I pulled the rug out further by pointing out that Sir Gordon was in bed with the Rockefellers, who made their fortune in a most evil way by running plantations in Brazil - Gerard Colby wrote a lengthy tome on this in the '90; the same author is famous for his 1974/1984 book on the Du Ponts, from which I quoted extensively in Hemp for Victory.

The audience was mostly a posh crowd, and no surprise to hear the usual idiots ramble on about how much they know hemp cannot be a solution but who know nothing about hemp. A bit of left wing feel good and do-nothing waste of time. Next month I am hoping to ambush the evasive George Monbiot, who will be speaking with Zac Goldsmith at Friends House. Yes, Monbiot who writes for the sandal wearing, 4x4 driving Guardian readers and wears environmentally destructive cotton. Goldsmith, hopefully, will see through him and cease to share a platform with him.

VEGAN GOODIES

Yesterday the Vegan Fest in London was packed as usual. The talk got under way at 1pm, introduced by Sagar. After some historical remarks about hemp, we then got to the core of the issue, nutrition. Samples of many products were at this point handed out, including the very packs seen to the left - these also came in chocolate and plain. Nutiva had kindly sent these all the way from California, and a Canadian company, Vega, also sent in supplies. No one went hungry, but there were a few unhappy souls who did not quite take kindly to us spilling the beans on soya, which was a feature in the Ecologist. As is often the case, there are people who ask inane questions about the facts, but refuse to read or listen. The Ecologist had also given us a supply of their magazines, which the diehard soya lovers refused to read! Most, however, were happy to have such a good magazine in their hands. A small point made by one of the audience members was that the Good Oil packs had salmon recipes on them, yes, that was just the way Good Oil is, and the owner, Henry Braham, who lives a short walk away from the fest, did not bother to show up - he was off in his 4x4! Not quite the way to go for anyone in the hemp business. We have been trying for years to convince him not to use defoliants on the leaves when he harvests, but he is not one for answering emails or returning calls. Oh well. I can recommend here Hemp Foods for You instead, run by Paul Dean in Glastonbury. He presses his seeds 24 hours before delivery and uses a cold stone. And needless to say, 4x4s are not his means of transport.

But getting back to the controversy, it looks like it upset not just the soya fans at a vegan fest, but the bigwigs in the soya industry are upset too, and are pulling strings behind the scenes to keep other journalists off the story. This is where the Ecologist really shines, it does not have ads for 4x4s and it does not give in to such pressure. Sadly, the press is mostly just a whore for the rich 4x4 driving types, and the little that filters through is but a fraction of the crucial information we need to be getting. The soya issue is one of the most important stories that can be printed, yet it may get lost due to journalistic cowardice. We may see a press blackout on this issue, so it is good to be able to shine some light on this while we can.

Thanks to all the hemp companies that made this happen, those mentioned already and also Sativa Bags, Minawear, Rocky Mountain Grain Products, The Hemp Shop, C-Iced Tea, and Innocent Oils.

IMAGES OF A FEW OF THE PEOPLE WE EXPECT AT

THE VEGAN FEST AT KENSINGTON TOWN HALL ON

SUNDAY 7 SEPTEMBER,

WHERE KENYON GIBSON AND SAGAR SHAH

WILL BE TALKING ABOUT

HEMP, SOYA AND THE ENVIRONMENT.

BOTH ISSUES ARE COVERED IN THE

SEPTEMBER ISSUE OF THE ECOLOGIST.

DRESS CODE IS HEMP OR GO NAKED!

THERE WILL BE A PRIZE GIVEAWAY AS

THE TALK GETS UNDERWAY (1PM)

CAUGHT UNAWARE AT AWARE '08

This weekend I trugged over to the Barbican Centre in East London to help man the hemp booth as Aware, a new festival which managed to attract a few of the converted. Naked cyclists, hot women for climate change, and some even hotter women selling incognito mosquito repellant, which they claim makes you invisible. Can't wait to try it on Monday when I pull a heist at the local bank. I can dispense with any attire, since I'll be invisible...

Overall the event was a disappointment, though there were highlights, such as the panelist from Moixa. Sharing the panel with him was Matilda Lee of the Ecologist, and I did get to question her as to why she completely ignored hemp in her monologue on textiles. She replied that hemp was a great idea and we all ought to take a look at it. But when pointed to the hemp booth, she made tracks the other way, and we did not see her for the rest of the conference. Maybe she had on that mosquito repellant. Her comrades from the magazine were more visible, and I visited their stand several time, taking Helen James of Innocent Oils along, who presented them with her latest skin care samples.

Also quite visible was a booth displaying solar power steam turbines, these are heated by giant mirrors which focus the light on a tower where water is heated to steam. This can also serve as a desalination plant. The claim is that these towers can supply all the world's electricity needs, and I hope they are right. Presently there are few up and running, the oldest being the one in Nevada, operating for 15 years. The one in Seville has been noted on this blog before. We need to get these and other forms of energy going as the lack of alternative energy means that the oil companies keep raisnig the price of a barrel, even though it still only costs $5 to excavate that barrel. Eric Pollit of Global Hemp just emailed me to say that the tripling of the price of a barrel has caused people to be much more on edge in the US, but they do not focus their anger on the people behind the energy crisis, they turn on each other, or blame corn for the rise in food prices. Part of the rise in corn prices has to do with the weak dollar he points out, as that means more countries buy foodstuffs from the US. Corn based ethanol does not take the food part of the plant, as I have pointed out so many times to the zealots in the left who are not bashing any form of biofuels, much to the delight of the oil companies who want a divided left that will argue and accomplish nothing. 40 years of talk about wind farms, solar energy, tidal turbines, electric cars, ethanol, biodiesel, etc. - and what have we to show for it? The development is rather invisible, and not due to the use of insect repellant.

Also invisible at Aware was any mention of hemp in all the vegan cook books, the gurus of that industry continue to promote soy based foods, even though this helps destroy the Amazon, an inconvenient fact they do not like to be reminded of. Even Nigel Winter of the Vegan Society does not seem to be too aware of hemp, but hopefully he will and they just might publish some of the information in their magazine.

While hemp was hardly to be seen, cotton was ubiquitous, Lee and others are happy to promote it, but not so happy to hear that a cotton T shirt uses 2,800 litres more water than a 50% hemp T shirt. My source for that, incidentally, is Jeremy Smith of the Ecologist. Lee could not argue with that!

So this show, if it is to go on, will need real promotion next year, I feel sorry for those who rented booths and ended up talking mainly to other exhibitors. They will also need some keynote speakers, not just frivolous cotton wearing trendies. Next week I will be speaking at another East London event, I'll be on at 2pm at the Fashion Made Fair, where I will hold forth on the cultivation of hemp. I hope that I will see more people and that some of them will actually be wearing hemp!

VANDANA SHIVA VISITS THE UK

Hampstead Town Hall was our destination Monday evening, as we had a very special guest, author and activist Vandana Shiva, India's leading environmentalist. Sagar Shah brought our attention to this event, and it was well worth the price of admission. The Gaia Foundation and the Soil Association were largely behind it, and they certainly picked a top notch speaker. I might note that there was also a very good spread of food, not only organic delicacies, but real food, which means it tasted good. Baby beets with soured cream, falafel wraps, Welsh Brie, and, to my surprise, a tofu canape which rose above the usual bland tofu disasters using trendiness as an excuse for blandness. However, no hemp was on the table, but there was plenty of hemp hearts and oil at home to feast on later.

The real meat of the event was, however, hearing Vandana. She hails from Dehra Dun, a city in the north, where she runs a farm. Sagar Shah had visited last year and poked around making notes for future hemp coops in India. At present, there is very little hemp grown there, though hemp was once grown extensively, especially in the north.

Instead of hemp, there are millions of acres of cotton, which Vandana notes is a major threat to people's lives. In one area in Orissa state, there is a farmer committing suicide every eight hours. The suicide rate stands in the tens of thousands (related posts on this blog can go into more detail). Not only does the cotton use tons of pesticides, but is depleting India's water. This is starting to be noticed by the more observant journalists, such as Louisa Pearson of Scotland on Sunday (previous post has link to her article), but so many trendy do-gooders in the green movement just ignore this inconvenient fact as they shop for 'organic' cotton, which actually uses more of India's precious resource, water. Vandana posits that we may be in big trouble in the near future over the diminishing water resources.

Not only is there too much cotton, but there is in her opinion too much of another plant, jatropha. Ealier this month we blogged about how D1 Oils is in a bitter controversy about jatropha, and we left it open as to whether this crop was bad or not. Vandana did not leave anything open to doubt, she cut down the jatropha as a reaper swings a scythe. Jatropha was rammed down the throats of Indian farmers who were forced by government officials to grow this plant for its oily seed to be used for biodiesel. Up to 11m ha of it were planted all over India, at times replacing rice fields and grazing land, especially in the desert state of Rajasthan, where only 11% of the land is arable (as opposed to the national average of 56%). Another aspect of jatropha cultivation is the fact that it is poisonous to man and beast; ironically, the jatropha fans put up hoarding exhorting farmers to grow lots of it: "No one can eat me, wouldn't you like to grow me everywhere?"

Apparently, no one wants to grow anymore of this unfriendly plant, even the farmers who were supposed to receive a subsidy of 18 rupees per plant; which they never did get in full, and are now regretting pulling out other plants to make way for this little crop of horrors.

One wonders why they did not plant hemp? There were lots of wanna-be environmentalists beating the drum for the poisonous little fiend, but none would mention hemp; the truth is that a few years ago jatropha was trendy and there was money behind it. So those of us talking sense were drowned out, and India lost out.

Other ways in which India loses out in include the influence of companies pushing GM crops, including Bt cotton. Vandana explained that this was pushed through use of statistics showing that after GM crops were introduced, exports increased. This statistic was due to the fact that farmers were too poor to buy local produce after using GM seeds, and so their crops were sold off to foreign lands more than in the past. Again, they could have made money on hemp, but there are too many parties pushing false environmentalism and globalism, with profits going to foreign companies. By the way, there is still an arrest warrant in place for those responsible for Bhopal, including Warren Anderson, who lives in NY.

While there was much agreement with her message, I had some question at the end when I realised there was much talk against various energy forms; nuclear, coal, petrol, diesel and even bio-ethanol were definitely not in style. Vandana runs her farm with four bullocks. That is great, but realistically, can we run the world on that model? Too often enthusiastic environmentalists get on to an idea and try to push it on everyone, tested or not; that is why we have destructive palm oil plantations and jatropha. There is often a debate as to which energy we ought to use, and I think that putting all one's eggs in one basket is wrong; as Vandana pointed out, diversity is a safer approach. With that in mind, while she might not completely agree, I support some amount of bio-ethanol, especially as this can be made from waste material - which brings me to a point on which I disagree with many so-called 'activists'. It is often stated at these meetings, especially by the more zealous and ignorant in the camp, that we ought to return all wastes to the soil and not use cellulose as a raw material for ethanol. If this lot, including Andrew Boswell, would spend time listening rather than bashing biofuels, they would realise that cellulose is only a carbohydrate, and that taking carbon, hydrogen and oxygen away does not deprive the soil of nutrients, but that these are common elements the soil can get lots of. Many of those handing out leaflets at rallies have not studied any of the science, and are well on the way to creating the next overzealous craze, following in the footsteps of the palm oil and jatropha fanatics.

On the subject of diversity, I came across a recent article in Positive News (whose editor, Jane Taylor, was in attendance) which highlighted a solar tower in Spain. Large mirrors reflect the light up to the top of the tower, where temperatures reach 250 centigrade. This heats water, making steam, and energy is produced with no carbon emissions. For India this would be good news! A second article in the same paper talked about tidal turbines supplying almost all the energy for Samso, an island with 4,000 inhabitants off the coast of Denmark. This too could be of use in India, with all its coastline and major rivers.

Also in attendance was Stanley Johnson, who looks just like MP Boris Johnson; due to the fact that Stanley is Boris' dad, no doubt. Stanley had some very positive news for me, as he related the recent Law Lords' decision to throw out the US request for extradition of Ian Norris on all but one count, which has been passed back down to the lower courts, and one would expect common sense to prevail after the senior jurists set a tone. That fact, however, diverges from the main train of thought, but it is certainly good news that deserves passing on. Returning to the subject of this blog, let me note that both Stanley and his look-a-like dad will be getting copies of Hemp for Victory soon, especially as Stanley has a very interesting environmental site, http://www.stanleyjohnson.com/

Vandana was given a copy of Hemp for Victory so perhaps we will indeed be seeing fields of emerald in India soon. Even if she does not support its use as a crop for bio-ethanol, it has so many other uses that it will surely find a place on her bullock-powered farm.

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Hemp has been featured a lot recently, including a mention in House & Garden, which talks about Jilly Cholmondeley's 100% hemp bedsheets. Jane Taylor of Positive News, who is always following hemp for her own paper, sent me a link to Ode Magazine which has a story on hemp in Canada. So far, so good, but then Steve Wishnia's article in AtlerNet.org on "debunking the hemp conspiracy theory" reads much like any other pro-MIC propaganda these days, he goes so far as to assert that Andrew Mellon and Du Pont had no links, and quotes three historians who say so; maybe if Wishnia took the time to read he would find that the dots do connect. His piece then claims that the people who believe the history of hemp suppression are 'pot head Ron Paul supporters'. OK, GOP dopeheads, not that the GOP lacks for dopeheads, paedophiles, and other assorted nutters, but I have never met anyone in the hemp moevment who is a Ron Paul pot head. Click here to view the piece, and then check out the comments, some of them very good rebuttals.

The much more diligent writer Proinsias O'Mahony did some digging into the world of ethical investments, and found that a lot of them are full of baloney, or shares in oil companies, mining companies, airlines, and McDonalds (Guardian, 21/Feb/08, p. 18 of G2 section). Paul Hawken notes that they have "no standards, no definitions and no regulations other than industry regulations." They also have no hemp! Somebody ought to educate these fund managers on the world's most useful plant.

Here in the UK someone is looking to start a coop in which hemp would feature prominently. Sagar Shah, who runs the hemp and natural fibres website has been travelling to India to have a look at hemp farming. Presently India's main textile is cotton, which is a pest crop. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently (Asia Lite, 8/Aug/07) noted: "Agriculture in many parts of the country is in state of crisis. The facts farmers are compelled to resort to suicides is a matter of deep concern for all." A large percentage of those committing suicide are on cotton farms. Recent trends to do 'organic cotton' have added to India's problems, as organic cotton uses up more water than regular cotton. In a country with nearly 1 billion mouths to feed, this is not good news. So hemp would be an ideal solution, and also an ethical investment.

REVIEW OF 2007

Lots happened this year, hemp was on the increase yet again worldwide. Dave Monson in North Dakota ended up suing the US Gov over his right to grow hemp, a fight which made the front page of the New York Times in July. In South Dakota, the Lakota Indians continued their fight to grow hemp and ended up seceeding from the US, a story the mainstream press does not know what to do with. Good luck to them! White man no damn good...except for me!

Talking of no damn good stupid white men, good old Boy George managed to get corn growers to use their crops for ethanol, the entire plants going to ethanol production, which made the press decide ethanol was no damn good. None of them picked up on the fact that you use the edible part of the plant first then use the waste parts for ethanol. Must have missed science in school.

Others who missed science in school flew around the world in jets telling us not to fly around the world in jets and sold us the global warming scare. Then it was found out that these scaremongers were raking in $50m and treating people like dirt. Those who paid attention in science class posed inconvenient facts, which were ignored by the likes of George Monbiot and the Guardian.

So much nonsense from that paper got some people irked, including a 9-year-old who started jessthekid.blogspot.com Like may people, she is tired of pseudo environmentalists, especially the kind who support cotton. Organic cotton is now turning into a disaster, as it takes up more space and more water then cotton grown with pesticides. Here in the West we take water for granted, and pay lots of money to transport bottled water. You can see them gulping it down at the Guardian offices, where they are helping to destroy the rain forests by refusing to switch to hemp based paper. So for 2008, we are on a mission to put the spotlight on all the newspapers we can - and this includes eco papers as well. Stop using wood paper!

And stop wearing cotton - the writing on the wall reads: "Real Environmentalists Wear Hemp!"

And real environmentalists use hemp bags - a point we made this year with the creation of the hemp bag in answer to all these cotton bags, including the Anya Hindmarch bag. The press was on her, with the Evening Standard taking her to task on the front page in April.

I am still eating the hemp hearts and hemp candy bars that Roger Snow so kindly sent me from Rocky Mountain Grain Products in Canada. I shared them with Cynthia Mckinney when she visited London in September. What a trip that was! There was a bunch of oddballs trying to host her, including the David (the Messianic) Shayler! I make no apology for jumping in and getting her a nice place to stay and some good press, including Big Issue. Its founder, John Bird, was someone who encouraged Mina Hegaard of Minawear when she was just starting that business. They loved McKinney, who wore an orange jump suit outside the US Embassy in protest at Guantanamo Bay, but I doubt she wore it on the plane back (or she would be herself in Guantanama Bay); instead, she had hemp - given to her by Gav Lawson of THTC. While she was here she met with Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth and also Baroness Jenny Tonge - her ladyship (who hates being addressed so formally - but I like to stand on ceremony) has been a great supporter of the hemp movement here in the UK and we gave her the 100% organic hemp bag mentioned above. The bag, by the way, is basic, I call it ugly, and I am proud of it as a mother owl her chicks. It takes the mick out of every single bag out there because it is hemp!

Later in the year I met a remarkable woman, Jane Pasquill of House of Hemp and saw some really great multi-colour apparel. She wants to harvest hemp next year in Cornwall, and may yet kickstart the UK hemp milling industry.

By email and phone I met also Remy Chevalier, who is Gurdjieff's grandson. His sister lives here in London, the renowned artist CM Chevalier, whom I have yet to meet. We may just do so at the opening to ECO in Chiswick, where hemp sheets by Jilly Cholmondeley will be on sale. Expect it to open in January.

But I am jumping ahead and there is so much more to tell about 2007...maybe just best to suggest you check it out here as I blogged constantly this year. A review of which would not be complete without mentioning Sagar Shah, who is just now in India. He went to visit the famous octogenarian falconer Sirdar Mohamed Osman in Dehra Doon, whose books we publish (on hemp paper) at the Eryr Press. Sagar started his own website for hemp - http://www.hempandnaturalfibres.ning.com/ and will be giving me a report back from India.

So now I can jump ahead again...with a wish to make 2008 the best year ever for hemp - let's kick the press into action and get everyone wearing hemp so we can keep our trees and not use up everyone's water!

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Image left is William Rodriguez, the hero of 9/11 who has been speaking out about suppression of key evidence in the collapse of the buildings. With him is Sagar Shah, wearing a Hemporium hemp shirt, and holding the master key, which William used on 9/11 to save the lives of hundreds of people, at great risk to his own.

Hemp for Victory is dedicated to him as his story, like hemp, is something that powers that be (thanks to a dodgy supreme court) are not willing to have aired.

William will be back in London next month to tell his story, and again we await the press to listen to the truth. Some of the loudmouths in the 4th estate are especially derisive of William and anyone trying to get them to look at the facts, but we know damn well where they would have been on 9/11 had they been on the ground floor of the North Tower as William was...they would have hauled their sissy a**es out the door and only looked back to get a story and sell it to their editor. And these days, what with more Hearsts and Murdochs getting control of the press, we can expect very little truth on either 9/11 or hemp.