My roommate bought these tomatoes from the Lexington CO-OP the other day. I just noticed that the sticker says H2GRO on it which I have previously posted about. Anyways, these tomatoes are grown in a green house that Waste Management converts methane gas from their dump site into electricity to power it. My main problem with this is that the green house is adjacent to where all the radioactive material from the Manhattan Project is being stored as well as where all the toxic chemicals of the North East region are disposed of by Chemical Waste Management. The only reason I really ever found out about it was from when I drove around the site and fell upon it. I felt so sick after being around these dump sites that I can assure anyone that these are not tomatoes that should be consumed. Here is the link to my journal where I take a tour of the Lake Ontario Ordinance Works site in Ransomville NY.

So I know some people at the CO-OP and am definitely going to bring this to their attention. Seriously people, DON'T buy these tomatoes!

Thankfully Artvoice has been keeping up on this continuously developing story. They haven't ever made mention of these tomatoes as far as I know. Here is their latest story.

Meanwhile, In Lewiston: Dangerously High Radiation Levels
    
by Geoff Kelly & Louis Ricciuti
    

Chemical Waste Management proudly reveals dangerously high radiation levels

On the Friday after Christmas, whence all news stories go to die, Chemical Waste Management released the results of a radiation survey of its landfill in the Town of Lewiston.

The survey was performed by the URS Corporation, and CWM spokesperson Lori Caso proudly claimed that no significant hotspots had been detected: More than four million samples were taken and evaluated, and 99.85 percent of the samples had registered less than 16,000 counts per minute, which is the self-determined standard CWM uses to decide whether a spot warrants further investigation or remediation.

Doing the math, that means more than 4,000 samples registered above 16,000 counts per minute.

And in any case, 16,000 counts per minute is quite high-640 times what most health physicists would consider a normal level of radioactivity. It's even high by landfill standards: A few years ago, at the BFI-Allied (previously CECOS) landfill on Pine Avenue in Niagara Falls, the maximum acceptable radiation level was set at 1,000 counts per minute. That standard was later raised by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to accommodate "asphalt fill" materials from a Porter Road repaving project that set off BFI-Allied's radiation detection gate alarms at 1,500 counts per minute.

In 2002, defense contractor SAIC performed a radiation survey of the Lewiston Porter Central School District Campus, not far from CWM. SAIC used a standard of 8,000 counts per minute to determine whether a hotspot warranted further investigation. SAIC found levels ranging between 7,000 to 13,000 counts per minute of radioactive emanation, with an anomalous "rock" found on the property behind the elementary school that registered at 38,222 counts per minute. Health physicist Dr. Rosalie Bertell said of the Lew-Port findings, "Rather than calming the public, this should cause outrage."

To put CWM's 16,000 counts per minute in context, we called Tedd Weyman of Toronto's Uranium Medical Research Center. Weyman said "normal" radiation levels in Toronto are 35 to 45 counts per minute. In Baghdad, which the US military has contaminated with depleted uranium munitions, radiation levels range from 25,000 to 75,000 counts per minute.

"What's being found around the schools at Lewiston Porter is, from a scientific perspective, extreme, shocking, and profound," Weyman said. "These rates are higher than what is allowed at any nuclear facility."

He added, "This is a catastrophically serious situation and a human health crisis. These rates are against the law."

-geoff kelly & louis ricciuti

Suze you are my hero. You used to live in a van and now you are rich and famous and wear designer space outfits. I am on page 207 of your book for the Young Fabulous and Broke and I just love you for helping people in humanistic terms. As you always say Suze, people first, then money, then things.






Thanks (e:mike) for the book. I love it! BTW, I like to say her name in a Spanish accent as demonstrated below.

Who is calling me from this number? I really had no idea what she was saying and this same number called me last night at 3am! That's right 3am! I didn't answer it because I really didn't know who the hell would be calling from such a number at such a time but they left a voicemaiil which really was just them hanging up. So now they call me at 10:12pm and I have no idea what they are saying. I googled the number and I came up with giberish numbers and this website for escort advertising called rare-escorts.com

Then I also got a call earlier from "Verizon Wireless". The number was 1-800-600-5092 and her name was Heather. I totally didn't understand why she was calling me but she wanted me to authorize something which seemed very vague and I just said please send it to me in writing. So she says she can't do that and pleads with me to do it on the phone right there or I wouldn't ever be able to get some feature which happened to be the same cost as my current plan. Again, I repeated to her that it wasn't a good time and I couldn't deal with it right now and asked if I could call back at another time and she gave me the number. I am so suspicious of people in general but this seemed shady. So I ended up googling the number and found this from callercompalints.com.

Caller Complaints
N
Filed by N at 1/5/2009 1:01:04 PM
Caller Type: Unknown
Phone Number Report: this number is unknown and caller never leaves a message..I haven't picked up the calls, as they come duing week days and on my cell phone...ridiculous, what are these calls for?





K
Filed by K at 1/2/2009 2:59:36 PM
Caller Type: Unknown
Phone Number Report: This number shows up as unknown ..They don't leave message ..ANNOYING





Heather
Filed by Heather at 1/2/2009 1:21:26 PM
Caller Type: Unknown
Phone Number Report: The number was 800-600-5092. They did not leave a message, and I do not know who this number belongs to.





phil
Filed by phil at 12/31/2008 8:34:34 AM
Caller Type: Unknown
Phone Number Report: returned call. no one answers. annoying...





Filed at 12/30/2008 9:37:59 AM
Caller Type: Unknown
Phone Number Report: call recieved but caller hung up during my recorded message went out to caller.





Filed at 12/29/2008 2:14:30 PM
Caller Type: Telemarketer
Phone Number Report: calls my number repeatedly without leaving a message.





iz
Filed by iz at 12/27/2008 3:09:48 PM
Caller Type: Unknown
Phone Number Report: called my personell cell. no permision - no information





yot
Filed by yot at 12/22/2008 6:03:45 PM
Caller Type: Unknown
Phone Number Report: called my cellphone and left no message.





AD
Filed by AD at 12/22/2008 2:23:50 PM
Caller Type: Unknown
Phone Number Report: called and left no message. when i returned the call there was no voicemail to find out the caller's name/business.





mbn
Filed by mbn at 12/22/2008 1:15:05 PM
Caller Type: Unknown
Phone Number Report: cALLING AD HANGING UP WITH NO MESSAGE!!

Why do I get the most bizarre calls? This one time this lady would call me ever single day and say "oH i sorry wong number." When I went away for four months and came back home they were still calling the number every day. My phone was out of service for four months!

The NFTA did end up raising the fares on the bus to $1.75 like they said they would. Today I was so exhausted after working that I took the bus anyways even though I usually walk or take bike. I was just going from Summer to Auburn so it felt like such a rip off. I can't believe taking the bus is treated as a luxury in this city.

NFTA Chairman Gregory Stamm said, "Effective January, were only putting in a 25 cent increase." I like how he says "only" 25 cents. How incredibly insensitive is to say that? It does make a big difference, especially when they intend on increasing it another 25 cents in July. I know sacrifices have to be made but why does it have to be poor people that have to suffer the most? I wonder how much money Gregory Stamm makes to say it is only 25 cents?

I think this is what they call being nickeled and dimed except this time we are being quartered.

Why do people clip their nails at the work place? EWWW There are at least two people here that do it. I was complaining to a friend of mine about it and then she just wrote me and said that someone was doing it in her office after I wrote her about it.

Today I got a call from a woman and I nearly started crying for her after she hung up. Her husband died very recently and she lost their health insurance coverage because she couldn't pay the $900 premiums for her and her children. She applied for medicaid/family health plus but was told that the social security check she gets from his death is too much to qualify. So she smokes three packs a day because she is so depressed but can't really afford it and she is all her kids have so she wants to quit.

I hope that she can.

Good Luck (e:jim). Let me know if you need any help.

Why yes, it is. I spent forever looking for a boot that I thought would last a good 10 years. Shouldn't boots last more than a year? Sorel made a really awesome boot that I found online but they were not making it anymore and I couldn't find it in my size. So I had to find a new boot and then I found this one on cabellas.com







My mom ordered the boot for me for a early Xmas gift and I wore them for two weeks and the heal is nearly half gone. Not only that but they seriously have left my left calf all chafed. When I called Cabellas the woman was like "Oh, do you walk really hard on your heal?" So I say "No, I am pretty sure that I walk normally." Then she says "Well, I didn't know that I was walking so hard on my heal until other people pointed out." At this point I am seriously biting my lip as to not tell her off for suggesting that I am walking in such a way as to wear don't a rubber heal in two weeks. Anyways she did end up saying that it wasn't normal and said that I can return them but can only get store credit. Before I decided to raise hell for not giving me the money back I decided to look to see if I can't find anything else they sell and I found these.







I think that I am going to order them tomorrow but they say they are for below 40 degrees Celsius and I don't know if I need something quite so extreme. I don't want my feet to be too warm because I am usually walking pretty quickly when I have them on.

The last boots I had lasted me over ten years but I finally threw them out when I was moving so that it would force me to get new ones. Just about everything I want to buy turns into this big ordeal.

Merry Xmas y'all! Sorry, sometimes I like to pretend I am Paula Dean. Anyways I just wanted to say that now that Xmas is upon us, I am much less of a grinch now. See my last post for details. . I do still think that everything I said previously about xmas is true. Today is still a very sad day for many.

Last night I watched Jim Carey play the Grinch and I really did enjoy it when I intended on hating it. My little cousin Gary was over and he said that he is scary. I really love when movies or books are made that further develop the characters.

My Mom got me my sister and brother a row of three stuffed chipmunks that dance and sing Up On the House Top by the original Chipmunks. I love it and wish that I could take it home but it is staying here in Florida since it is for all three of us.

On Friday morning Mike and I were coming out of my house and these two young men came up to us and were like "are you driving?" I hesitated a bit and said we were. He was like we will give you $40 to get to Kenmore. Then I said we are not going that way and here comes the really scary part about it, he said "which way are you going?" and I said the opposite direction which wasn't true because Mike was on his way to Kenmore after he dropped me off at work. He says to us, "that is fine, we can go that way. Why the hell would he want to go the opposite direction with us? Then I just flatly said "NO". Then they continue on in the direction of the West side not North which is their intended direction. The whole time they are mumbling stuff about getting to a hospital and their computer getting wet from all the snow.

So I tell my roommate what had happened and he said that he was down in the basement when we left doing laundry and he saw them in the alley way from the windows and he was immediately concerned that they were going to bother us but then thought oh no that is crazy. They looked well dress and respectable too but there was this feeling that something wasn't right. I immediately place suspicion on any stranger that is approaching me. When he said "OH that is OK, we will go that way with you." I knew that something really bad would have happened if we had said Yeah get in. Most scary thing is that Mike probably would have let them in the car if I were not there.

You can take a bus for $1.50 to get to Kenmore or a cab for maybe $20 so why wouldn't they just do that? Why did they walk West when they should have gone north? We so were going to be robbed/car jacked/ snatched away and killed or all of the above.

These news stories are alarming. See (e:paul)'s journal for background. People in the burbs can take these stories however they want and I don't concern myself with whether they want to come to the city or not based on their perceptions of them. The Buffalo News reports the facts and we will all interpret them differently based on our own experiences and how our views have been shaped by them. I think that most often I feel safe but it really depends on where I am. Out of the three instances of attacks (2 from (e:paul)'s journal and 1 from (e:gardenmama)'s) I have found myself in those same locations at similar times on foot. Sometimes I have large amounts of cash like $200 and people of lower income levels typically do more with cash than plastic for many different reasons. Many people even pay their rent with cash they turn into money orders.

(e:janelle), I get your concern, and I would assume your statistics correct, but to just assume that these attacks are somehow based on a criminal background of the victim and that you should just assume that bad things only happen to bad people based on statistics is sort of dangerous. I have seen numerous cases of gangs of threatening youth who have little respect for themselves or others do quite horrible things to innocent victims. These crimes can happen anywhere. You are also probably aware that most of these crimes are not reported for a huge number of reasons but mainly out of fear, both fear of reprisal and fear of a failed judicious system. If you know the judicial system is unable to protect you and that by going to the police you can be identified and later can be found it is an extremely hard thing to do. The violence we read about in the police blotter is only a fraction of what is really occurring out there on the streets.

There should be some amount of fear in us that we could one day be victimized for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I do not think it should consume us but it is reasonable to take some precautions. For me, the most appropriate precaution I take is to trust my instincts as they are most often correct.

One other thing is that Buffalo, in my opinion, does have racial tensions. They are a source of violence within themselves. Race riots occurred here not so long ago. There is anger and distrust still and it takes a very long time for it to heal. Because Buffalo is so divided still racially, you can draw attention to yourself by your race alone and become a target because of it. I suppose that can be true anywhere but again because Buffalo is very segregated, I think it makes it even more likely for this type of violence to occur here. People do not know where to place their anger and anger is often responded to in violence. This type of anger results in hate crimes including crimes against a person's sexuality.