Tonight on Planet Waves FM
Introducing The Gemstone File
Dear Friend and Listener:
Tonight's is an unusual edition of Planet Waves FM [play episode here], mostly covering something called The Gemstone File. This is a soon-to-be-released collection of documents, dating from about 1930 to 2017, related to scientific fraud. The documents come out of the files of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), product safety testing labs, and corporations who make pesticides, herbicides and GMO foods.
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Investigative reporter Peter von Stackelberg ran the scanning operation, converting three tons of documents, often wrinkled, stained, moth-infested, rodent-gnawed, or partly decomposed, into digital format. Photo by Risa Scott. |
I begin with a short overview, take a song break, and cover the Leo New Moon, which happens Sunday. This is the one-month mark before the Aug. 21, 2017, total solar eclipse.
The third segment is a short introduction to The Gemstone File, wherein I set the context. I read from a document called the Howard Johnson's IBT Labs Transcript.
IBT Labs was at the center of a scandal in the late 1970s that revealed that all chemical safety testing for products used in the U.S. and Canada (and elsewhere) was fraudulent. As in incomplete, improperly done, manipulated, made up, whatever you like -- total BS.
At this meeting, which takes place in a HoJo restaurant in Arlington, Virginia [view chart here], several powerful officials of the EPA, one of their counterparts at Health and Welfare of Canada, and several other officials, consultants and lawyers, are trying to figure out what to do. They are surrounded by various chemical manufacturers whose products are threatened by the collapse of the testing labs. They all knew that they were dealing with a total failure of the regularity system (which happened on their watch), and they had to put a happy face on it.
What you get is a set of instructions for how to create fake science: essentially, how to fudge over a canyon of fraud. If you read the document you must be patient, and recognize its context: it's set in the midst of an incomprehensibly massive scientific scandal. It would be the equivalent of church officials dealing with the revelation that Jesus never lived and they were making the whole thing up.
Remember that this discussion is about the additives, pesticides and herbicides that are in your food, the chemicals in your makeup, soap, cleaning supplies, lawn-care products, and products from paint to caulking to bug repellent.
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Many authors and investigative reporters live inside their document collection. Such was true for the past 50 years for Carol van Strum. Now these documents are all in digital format and about to be made public. Photo by Risa Scott. |
ALL, as in ALL, of the studies were fraudulent or defective, none were redone, and no registrations were pulled. It was just business as usual. The whole regulatory process was revealed to be a scam. After all, what can you say to a tidal wave?
Please help us with a special fundraising initiative. We are about to release this whole collection, consisting of three tons of scanned documents. Everyone and anyone will have access: the press, lawyers, the government -- and you.
Using a dependable company called PR Wire, the fee for publishing a press release for the U.S. and Europe is $3,000. This covers all print, broadcast and trade media, and it covers translation into five languages other than English.
Some of my listeners can afford that whole amount; others might be able to pitch in $1 or $10. Please do what you can. We intend to publish within the next five to 10 days. There is already international press working with us on the piece, though we want to get this out as far and wide as possible.
Your donations are fully tax-deductible; we are an official charity -- and this is the biggest investigative reporting benefit concert in history.
This collection will be used as the basis of our forthcoming class, Investigative Reporting at the Kitchen Table. More on that another time.
Today's is a long program, but it moves quickly. The shorter sections, covering astrology, are at the front of the program; the environmental stuff starts at 45 minutes into the program and is in three segments: one introduction, and then interviews with Peter first, then Carol (see photos above).
Our musical accompaniment is The Beatles, mostly George Harrison.
With love,
"Ah Eric -- just listened to your reading. I was moved to tears by your closing words. Your passion, deep care and love always shine through; and you have the gift of all great teachers, of making one feel that one is being personally addressed, respected and taken care of."
-- Liz Glanville
This is a seminal year for Leo Sun, rising and Moon, with two New Moons in your sign, the second one a potent solar eclipse. All the more reason to take hold of the reins and steer this dynamic energy in the direction that works for you.
Your 2017-18 Leo Birthday Reading by Eric Francis will be exactly the support you need to navigate through these exciting transits. It's now available for pre-order at the lowest price of just $33, so be sure to grab a copy -- whether for yourself or the Leo you love -- before that increases.
"Thanks for reassuring this Leo, who is having a year 'for the books'! You get to the core of things."
-- Barbara Peaslee, on a previous Leo reading
I've been a devoted student of eclipses since beginning astrology. Here's some of my earlier writing, published before the grand cross and total solar eclipse of Aug. 11, 1999. These few paragraphs below will give you a feeling for just how significant eclipses are. This one is one of the most important in American history, which I've covered here.
Eclipses are astrology we can't deny. If there is a conjunction between Saturn and Uranus, it's invisible, and while many people may experience changes, only astrologers and their merry bands of readers and students know what's happening. Yet when the Sun vanishes, you can be sure that normal activity will come to a stop.
Our busy world will pause, and everyone, from herbicide activists nestled in the hills of Oregon to rock stars in Nashville, will stand in the silent shadow of the cosmic order with the astonishment of small children coursing in their hearts.
This doesn't happen often, and you can imagine the awesome power of so many people embraced in a kind of simultaneous, captive meditation as everything around them momentarily ceases to be normal. Call it a reality lapse, only it's one into which the real reality can flow very easily.
In terms of their astrological meaning, eclipses of the Sun follow this image of collective awareness and radical break of continuity. Whether you can see the eclipse does not matter; part of the miracle of astrology is it works anyway. As many of us are discovering personally, eclipses are expanded moments of often uncontrollable, unpredictable change. They also bring the civilization and its communities together, usually through important collective events and the media.
Eclipses are evolutionary gateways, which is another way of saying that when they show up, we do a lot of growing in a short time. Delays are compensated. Old accounts can be wiped clean. While each is unique, eclipses often feel like being shot through a funnel of space-time, and we emerge somewhere different than where we entered. The key to making the best use of them is to move with the energy, not cling to anything or anyone too tightly, and to stay open.
Literally, breathe, communicate, feel, love, observe and receive. Remember your intentions. The sense of panic that sometimes accompanies them yields nicely to awareness and revelation, mental conditions that are more natural than we often realize.
Planet Waves FM (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday evening in Kingston, New York, by Chiron Return, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Host and Producer: Eric Francis Coppolino. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Astrology Editor: Amanda Painter. Astrology Fact Checker: Len Wallick. Copy Editor and Fact Checker: Jessica Keet. Eric's Assistant: Ellen Dockery. Client Services: Amy Elliott. Media Consultant: Andrew Ellis Marshall McLuhan. Music Director: Daniel Sternstein. Bass and Drums: Daniel Grimsland. Additional Research, Writing and Opinions: Amy Jacobs, Cindy Ragusa and Carol van Strum.
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