Dissident Veteran For Peace: Mmmm, Human-Based Gelatin

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Mmmm, Human-Based Gelatin

Photo of Jelly Babies by Father Jack at
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jelly_babies.jpg

Remember the scene in the dystopian film, Soylent Green, where Det. Robert Thorn (played by Charlton Heston) dramatically reveals the origin of the food source for much of the world's population? He cries, "Soylent Green is people!" . Any way, I couldn't help but remember this when I read last July on ScienceDaily.com that: "Scientists are reporting development of a new approach for producing large quantities of human-derived gelatin that could become a substitute for some of the 300,000 tons of animal-based gelatin produced annually for gelatin-type desserts, marshmallows, candy and innumerable other products."

Last September, The Telegraph reported, in a piece featuring the same Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry article that Science Daily referenced: "Reports last week that researchers could be just six months away from producing the world’s first artificial meat, using thousands of stem cells bred in a laboratory, sent a wave of fascination around the world. Yet there is an even more ghoulish prospect ahead: the idea of eating artificial food made from humans" and "In fact, human-derived gelatin is already in use by the pharmaceutical industry in the manufacture of certain pills and vaccines."

Labels: film & television, science