Ethic Soup

Caffeine Is In Everything: How Much Is In You?

  "Caffeine Collage" -- Copyright by Sharon McEachern.

Today most people have no idea just how much caffeine they consume daily. That's because everything has some caffeine in it. Beverage, food and pharmaceutical products include caffeine as an ingredient -- even candy and chewing gum!  

HIGHER CAFFEINE, MORE SALES, LESS ETHICS

Now, why do you suppose that is happening? People are addicted to caffeine, a legal central nervous system drug. It is the most popular drug in the world. If you are a manufacturer and want more and more people to buy your product, then adding higher and higher amounts of caffeine assures you're going to make sales.

The market is so great for caffeine products that there is much competition among the product niches. It's becoming a race to see who can add the most caffeine, who can give the biggest BUZZ, the most JITTERS -- aggressively and unethically marketed to teenagers.

It should be no surprise that more and more caffeine-abuse victims are arriving at the nation's emergency rooms.

A 2008 report from the University of Massachusetts Medical School noted 4,600 caffeine-related calls to the American Association of Poison Control Centers in 2005, the most recent data available. More than half involved persons under 19, and 2,345 required treatment in a health care facility. That was four years ago and a lot of new caffeine-loaded  products -- particularly energy drinks -- have hit the market since then, suggesting that statistics from the poison center and emergency rooms are many times higher today with caffeine-produced illnesses.

CAFFEINE IS POTENTIALLY LETHAL

Being young and healthy doesn't necessarily protect you from the dangers of caffeine. "There is a little bit of research that shows that up to five-to-ten grams (of caffeine) in somebody who is young and healthy, without any medical problems, could be potentially a lethal dose," said toxicologist Richard Church, one of the study's authors. 

N.Y. Post's Racist Cartoon: Cops 'Assassinate' Chimp Symbol of Obama

The bigots are STILL jumping up and down in joy.

Now it's the New York Post  -- quick to deny, slow to apologize for the racist cartoon (above.) Two weeks ago, it was the Washington Post printing the story "Raccoons Invade White House Grounds." They too denied that it was racist; however, the next day the paper's online edition changed the headline to read  "Masked Intruders" instead of "Raccoons." (Read Ethic Soup's story "Raccoons at White House: America Still Waits for Post-Racism." )

I'm sick-at-heart over the blatant racism and denials. This time I'm going to write a brief media roundup on the comments of other journalists regarding the Post's cartoon. At least this time I don't have to ask "Doesn't anyone else see this besides me?" or "Why won't more of the media speak up about this racism?" Maybe they're willing to talk about it now because it was printed in a Rupert Murdoch newspaper, or racist journalism is accelerating in pace, or perhaps it's just too blatant to be able to ignore.

In the St. Petersburg Times, Eric Deggans writes: "Riddle me this: the New York Post, a famously combative, conservative newspaper owned by Fox News proprietor Rupert Murdoch, runs a cartoon implying that a crazed chimpanzee wrote the recent economic stimulus bill, which was actually championed and developed by our nation's first black president. Is that a racist joke?"

Hatemongers Exploit Racial Fears Since Obama Election

 

"American Shame" Collage by Sharon McEachern - Copyright

 

Hatemongers are delightedly exploiting racial fears in America and seeing their ranks of white supremacists grow.

"Racist extremists have been energized by Obama's election, hoping to exploit an Obama backlash among whites who resent having a black man in the White House," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Neo-Nazi David Duke (yes, formerly Grand Ignoramus of KKK) says Obama will be a "visual aid" for angry white Americans, provoking a backlash among fairly mainstream whites that will "result in a dramatic increase in the ranks" of extremists. A number of other hate group leaders agree with this assessment and are boasting of a surge of new members and overwhelming traffic to their websites. Several groups claim their websites have crashed because of heavy traffic.

RACIAL RAGE BACKLASH

The backlash of racial rage that broke out across the country, in the aftermath of the presidential election, included scores of racially charged events -- beatings, effigy burnings, racist graffiti, threats and intimidation. When combined with the economic meltdown, conditions have been created in which racist extremist and militia groups typically thrive, says the SPLC, "often by scapegoating minorities and by stoking fear and division among those who are harmed by events beyond their control or understanding." 

Next, add to the mix the immigration debate, which white supremacists have long successfully exploited. The result has been that the number of hate groups operating in the United States has risen by almost 50 percent, from 602 to 888, since 2000.

Raccoons at White House: America Still Waits for Post-Racism

  It's a news story that has bigots jumping up and down in glee. Actually, it's not really a news story, or a new story, except in how the news media is using it. Normally it would be a short sidebar article -- or merely a photograph, with the story told in the cutline. Many in the media, recognizing the presence of inherent double-entendre and innuendo, wouldn't print it in any form.

ETHICS IN JOURNALISM

This is really an ethics story about journalists.

The overt facts: a family of raccoons has been found on White House grounds. The National Park Service has been unable to capture and remove the creatures.

The reporting by the news media appears to have started with Michael D. Shear of The Washington Post. In his oh-so-cute and unethical story, Shear says things like:

"The presidential raccoons appear to have upgraded to fancier digs."

Shear also quotes a raccoon-trapper who says the National Park Service is probably using the wrong cages or the wrong bait:

"See, their cages probably don't smell right. They probably don't have the smell of other raccoons on'em."

Foreclosed Home Owners Revolt: Protest at Bank CEOs' Homes

"A new kind of street warfare is breaking out against Wall Street titans - and it's happening on their lawns and outside their lobbies too." That is the lead for the article "Bank on Change," published by the New York Post. 

The Post called the at-risk homeowners, who are making the rounds of suburban mansions and expensive co-ops of Wall Street bankers, "a corps of agitators," describing the protesters as "haranguing" the banker CEOs for their "errors" in the housing crisis. Jeez! Whose side do you suppose the N.Y. Post is taking ? Can you spell 'a-d-v-e-r-t-i-s-e-r-s?' Just a guess.

The lead at the raw story reads: "If these activists are as dedicated as they are desperate, expect this to become a trend."

GRAB YOUR TORCH AND PITCHFORK

These homeowners are creating some controversy by confronting millionaire money brokers on their own turf because they believe such tactics are "the only effective means of  exerting pressure on an otherwise uncaring and oblivious elite," according to the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America (NACA), a Boston-based nonprofit organization

In Connecticut's Gold Coast neighborhoods of the rich and privileged, The Stamford Times lead off by saying "Stamford and Greenwich became the stomping grounds of a grassroots campaign against corporate greed ..." NBC New York's headline was "Grab Your Torch and Pitchfork."

They chanted slogans like "Fix our loans, save our homes." They were 350-400 strong, homeowners wearing bright yellow hats and shark-pictured T-shirts that read "Stop Loan Sharks." They were on what they called a "Predators Tour."

U.S. Army Soldier Suicides Rise to 3-Decade High

     American soldiers are committing suicide at record rates -- a rate that is now at a three-decade high, the highest since the military first began tracking suicides within its ranks. The Army suicide rate surpassed that for civilians for the first time since the Vietnam War.

"This is not business as usual," Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli is quoted saying in The New York Times. The vice chief of staff of the Army, who is leading suicide-prevention efforts , said: "We need to move quickly to do everything we can to reverse the very disturbing number of suicides we have in the U.S. Army." 

Oops! That chance is gone, General. Soldier suicides started spiking back in 2004. Where was the Army's "we need to move quickly" back then? A lot of soldiers have killed themselves between then and now. Ignoring the problem is the same way the Pentagon has recognized post traumatic stress disorder -- not until recently have they even acknowledged PTSD is real. Does the military not recognize that there is a connection?

From 2003 to 2007, nearly 40,000 troops were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Denver Post: "spending for some pain medication, antidepressants, sleeping pills and even an epilepsy medicine used to treat PTSD and brain injuries has grown by 62 percent to 400 percent since the Iraq war began." 

Is it really denial in the Pentagon or merely denial to the public and the families of the sick and dying soldiers? Either way, denial is not a good thing.