This Art was created this morning on Photoshop elements.
I intentionally left off the credentials for Dr. Peter Agre,
AAAS President, DIrector, Malaria Research Institute,
John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
When we all get to the gates of Heaven, we will
not be seen for the letters after our name, but
for the gift we have given back to life as we walked together
serving humanity. This photo was taken
during the Opening Ceremony for
the 176th Meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, February 18-22
2010, San Diego Convention Center.
___
(L-R) Albert Teich, Former Director, Science and Policy Programs;Jennifer Wiseman, director of the AAAS Program of
Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) and
Francis S.Collins, M.D., PhD, Director National Institutes of Health. Photo from June 2010..
http://www.alteich.com/al/
Francis S.Collins, M.D., PhD, Director National Institutes of Health.
http://www.nih.gov/about-nih
http://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director
@ NIHDirector
https://mobile.twitter.com/NIHDirector
I am in the middle of a profound life changing experience
at the AAAS 2010 Annual Meeting.
I am deeply touched.
Last night at the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards
Ceremony, I witnessed some of my peers in the
Press Corp at this meeting receive plaques for outstanding
Journalism. I connected with a few of the winners.
I connected with Lisa Friedman, of Climate Wire,
who was acknowledged for her story
"Bangledesh: Where the Climate Exodus Begins."
I met her husband.
I connected with Jad Abumrad, of WNYC Radiolab
who was awarded for his piece
"A Very Lucky Wind", a story that illustrates
probability theory.
I met another AAAS speaker who talks tomorrow
James Fahn, Global Director and Senior Technical Advisor
for the Earth Journalism Network.
A gracious man, Robert W Conn, PhD, president
of the Kavli Foundation, gave me his card as we
were all standing close to the podium immediately
following the presentations.
I want to share why this experience was so profound
and life changing for me.
I graduated in Journalism and English from
Cal State Northridge 1970. I was deeply involved
in human rights on campus.
I was also a national award winner two years in a row
for writings I did about the plight of the native Americans.
I was close to Dr. DeWayne Johnson, who later became the
faculty president. He was my photo teacher and an editor
for many years for the L.A. Times as well.
One day, students were in protest over the death of
four other students at Kent State. No one knew what to do
among the student leaders. Many meetings had been held
over the weekend. There was no consensus of what to do.
On the monday morning following the meetings, I put on
my sport suit and tie, went down to the area outside the cafeteria
and asked some students to draw some tables together.
I stood up on one table and began to give directions.
I was formerly the Commissioner of Men's Athletics in Junior
College, and so taking leadership and speaking out
was never foreign to me.
The protest rooted. The campus shut down for numbers of days.
The whole nation mourned those innocent lives that had been
lost at Kent State. During one of those days, DeWayne came up
to me. He told me that word just came in. My feature story
had won fifth place in the nation in the Heart Writing Competition.
The next year I won a similar acknowledgement from Heart.
I was the highest ranking award winning journalist at our school
at the time, but the ceremonies were in another part of the country.
I never attended.
During college, arthritis began to interfere with my career plans.
I never fulfilled my destiny in journalism. To make things worse,
there was a part of me that wanted to be a teacher. I felt
at a future time in my life, I would be called back to the classroom.
I wanted to have the proper credentials to teach, but my main
intent was to express myself through writing for the press.
Both these plans failed. Arthritis had started to overtake me.
Through a turn of fate, I was yanked out of the mainstream of
life and landed in the backwoods of Escondido, California
where, because of my dire health need, I because the ghost
writer for a world acclaimed nature doctor, Dr. Bernard Jensen.
Dr. Jensen claimed much of his own success during the years
I wrote for him. He was in his 80's then. Numbers of the men
he admired during his more than 50 years of service to humanity
were Medical Doctors. In previous ages, these men of science
would take patients out to nature. This was called the Health
Sanitarium Tradition. John Harvey Kellogg, M.D., the creator
of what became the original corn flake, and soil masters,
such as Sir Arthur Howard of England, were among the
scientists Jensen admired.
Many, many years have passed since that early days where
I witnessed the most remarkable results of Dr. Jensen's work.
He administered to more than 350,000 patients in his life.
I was one of them. He became like a father to me, and during
the bleak hours when I became completely crippled, he
would carry me from bed to bed.
I was so dedicated to some of the things I learned from him
that I walked away for conventional hip surgeries numbers of times
until I could no longer walk at all. For 18 months between
1974-75, I was locked prone in my body and could not
separate my legs more than 1/4 inch.
Finally through the grace of modern medicine, and
what the good doctor Jensen had taught me about
the value of herbs as anti-inflammatories, I went
through two hip replacements 13 days apart
without the need for any pharmaceutical drugs.
I needed no morphine post surgery. Peach Bark Tea,
was brought to my hospital bed by local Utah natural
healers. The pain reliever was prepared from
a recipe made by a local Native American named
Sundance.
[Of note, Peach Bark Tea, when prepared
one way is a pain reliever. Other ways, simply
by adjusting the recipe, it has many other uses.
This kind of indigenous knowledge is part of
what I call NATURE'S ORIGINAL TECHNOLOGY. ]
The years have passed. I was allowed to walk again.
Hip surgeries cut out the joints no longer working,
but to some extent I remained on the sidelines of life until
the internet age.
Last night, during the Kavli Ceremonies, I got to see
my peers receive awards. I admired the suit that Jad Abumrad
wore. I felt its texture in my head. In the corner of my eye
I was at those
Hearst Journalism Award Ceremonies
that I had never attended so many years before.
The journalists who were acknowledged
were a part of me.
These days, there are more than 1000 people each day who
read what I write, 1,700,000 page views total. My niche
themes of late are the conversation that I feel that must be spoken
between biotech Agriculture and local, organic farming.
The Future of Food and of world health are at stake.
I am part of this dialogue, both as a writer and a gardener
who deeply understands the sacredness of an heirloom beet seed
to plant the deepest of human dreams.
The AAAS has been a life changer for me.
I was drawn to DR Francis Collins, our NIH leader.
Through a quirk of fate, we both ended up at a meeting
soon after his press roundtable where one of the AAAS Committees
was inviting the conversation between science, ethics,
and religion. This as well is my cup of tea.
I met Jennifer Wiseman, who has her roots in the soil
and her spirit in the stars. She will soon become the
new director of this very important AAAS Program of Dialogue
on Science, Ethics, and Religion. She works as well for
NASA. Those awe inspiring photos from space cross her
desk and our bringing up deep spiritual conversation
in our nation.
I also met one of the AAAS award winners, a scientist
who for NASA is exploring the possibility of life
around other stars. In our conversation, what he said
reminded me that we all live in different worlds,
but we have a moral obligation to realize that
we all live in the same universe.
I also meet Albert H. Teich, Director of Science and Policy
Programs for AAAS. He is Jennifer's boss. We talked.
He has been a cornerstone of AAAS for more than 30 years.
I am a great fan of Benjamin Franklin who was not only a scientist,
but one of America's grandest statesmen as well as
journalists. A gradson of Franklin was a former AAAS
president, Mr Teich told me.
On opening night, I was moved by the integrity I felt
from President Peter Agre, M.D.. a humanitarian devoted
to human rights as much as a nobel prize winner. Dr. Agre
has helped countless lives with his outstanding work
in ameliorating Malaria. I also spent time
with past president GIlbert Omenn. We talked biotech
history. He shared with me that from a PR point of
view, he felt the Monsanto Company could have done
better before launching its campaign with Round Up Ready,
an herbicide that raises many ethical questio and
may be implicated in harming many small farmers
around the world. These farmers welcomed with open arms
highly touted Biotech seed practices, but somehow
became dependent on an alien form of agriculture
far from what they had anticipated with they bought
Monsanto seeds.
I admit to my biases in this regard.
I merely ask for an open and fair dialogue
that is truly science based and open to peer review.
If AAAS can go so far as to demonstrate such important
leadership in the realm of making friends among our
religious communities, then let us equally open
the conversation surrounding the potential human rights
issues regarding the Future of Foods, and the
inherent right of every human to decide the foods
they want to eat.
THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN
SCIENCE, ETHICS, and FOOD
ASKS TO BE EXPLORED NOW
SCIENCE, ETHICS, and FOOD
ASKS TO BE EXPLORED NOW
As a visionary, I contend that the conversation
between GMO and Organic lovers
is one of the issues of our age.
History, one 1000 years from now,
will look back at what we as science journalists
say now, this very weekend, and the stand that scientists with integrity
express. No industry can be strong in the eyes
of the public that does not monitor its own strengths
as well as potential weaknesses.
I am deeply honored to be here among the press.
I am deeply honored to be one of your Science Journalists.
Thank you AAAS for opening my eyes to the good
that you bring. Together, we will bridge Science
and Society.
I remain
Leslie Goldman
Your Enchanted Gardener
LESLIE GOLDMAN,
YOUR ENCHANTED GARDENER
from the PRESS ROOM
at the AAAS ANNUAL MEETING
Feb 19, 2010
Books
http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/publications.shtml
published by the DoSER Group
(Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion).
Camera movement created this interesting image.
9:22 AM-10:48 AM
February 20, 2010
OTHER PLANT YOUR DREAM BLOGS IN THIS SERIES
MENDEL IN THE KITCHEN:
DR. NINA FEDOROFF's look at GMO Foods
is a must read.
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1576145
PROVE IT, DR MAAREN CHRISPEELS ADVISES!
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1575969
ROBERT T. FRALEY, phD
Sustainable Solutions for Doubling Crop Productivity by 2030
Monsanto Ag, speaks Sunday 12:30-1:15 Rm 6c
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1576502
LINKS
BIO NOTE JENNIFER WISEMAN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Wiseman
A comet was named after her when she was a student
at MIT.
