China: Harvesting Political Prisoners for Organs

I listened to Rabbi Reuven Bulka interviewing The Honourable Scott Reid (Lanark-Carleton MP) who is the chair of Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, a representative of the Fallun Gong (Lucy was her first name, I never caught her last), and The Honourable David Kilgour, former Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, on the matter of the treatment of the Fallun Gong by China. Particularly, the program focused on the harvesting of organs from political prisoners (including many Fallun Gong) in China.

CBC had previously done a piece on this, but this was some time ago. It seems the practice has been going on and may have cost literally thousands of Fallun Gong their lives for organs for Chinese and foreigners looking for organ donors.

In one case that was documented, a man from the Arab world was given eight consecutive kidneys over 4 months due to antibody-based rejections. The Chinese *advertise* and *gaurantee* you'll get a workable organ or they'll keep getting you new ones. As anyone who has worked in civilized, voluntary organ donation will tell you, there is no way you could ever gaurantee someone an organ donor would be available or that you would get eight kidneys in four months. The only way this works is if the people are being selected and killed for their organs.

This is apparently in little dispute - Mr. Kilgour and Mr. Reid both acknowledged that the proof is now well-documented. Over 55 different documented forms of proof exist including official Chinese communications and recorded conversations with officials of the Chinese government (who later tried to say they said something different, but the Canadians had taped the calls) who said that they had Fallun Gong at their prisons and the people interested in organs could 'come and get them'.

On the one hand, we have a major state, China, one of the alleged bastions of civilization (over 3000 years of it), and an autocratic regime trying to obtain some form of international acceptability. (Beijing Olympics anyone?)

On the other hand, we have human beings being ruthlessly harvested for organs. Their only crime is belonging to Fallun Gong. This isn't Al-Queda. This is a peaceful religious movement. But an autocratic state that his lost its faith in its own founding principles (Mao's Revolution) and is soul-searching for new footings in the modern world is apparently terrified of people who organize themselves for purposes not directly aligned to their own temporal gain. This whole concept causes them alarm and thus their declaration of Fallun Gong as a threat. A bunch of peaceful religious people, a threat to the largest and oldest culture in the history of the world. Just try to imagine it... pretty hard to conceive. And yet, that is the pretext for imprisoning them and then later slaughtering them for their organs. And then working to cover this up so that the civilized world does not notice.

Well guess what? There is a report about to hit the Human Rights Committee. It lays a lot of this out. This then gets put before Parliament and voted on. This stuff is documented and pretty much ironclad. Parliament will then decide if they wish to make any sort of statement or take action (they have taken unanimous action before to help individual Fallun Gong members with Canadian ties).

Obviously, our financial mixed interests will influence the final form any action takes. China is a big trading partner. But a China increasingly interested in a place at the table in the modern, civilized countries will have to face up to its dark secrets and do some housecleaning and adjustment. Even shining the light on it makes them uncomfortable. Government sanction, even if it was mostly symbolic, would be another potent jolt to them.

I hope Canada takes a leading role and follows up on the great work of the parliamentary committee members. Anyone with an ounce of humanity should be horrified at using innocent religious practicioners as organ farms at the cost of their lives as this is unequivocally an attrocity. It has been suggested that this even meets the UN's definition of Genocide.

China has to change its ways. They may not like outside attention and interference, but as long as you are going to act like barbarians from 2500 years ago, you can expect to get treated as such. Canada should not stand for the continuance of this Chinese practice, nor should Canadians.

I say the small thing that each and every one of us can do is look at the things we buy. Look at the things we buy that say 'made in China' and see if another alternative is available. There may be other vendours from Europe, Canada, or even other second- and third-world countries that at least don't have the singularly horrifying, Government sanctioned operations to chop up innocent people into parts to fill organ replacement demands. If you can buy something that isn't Chinese, buy it. If you ever talk to your MP, encourage him to push the government to take some strong action on this. Tell your friends.

The one thing that evil cannot stand is the bright light of truth being shone upon it. I am hopeful Canada will be one of the ones holding the light to China's dark secrets.

The cost of doing it yourself (in the kitchen)

Well, I went shopping for 'a few things' and $201 later, I'm home.

Of course, then I decided the bottom drawer in the fridge was a bit of a mess and I'd need to wash it before dropping vegetables in it. Then I realized the shelf above it was a bit in need of one too. Then, after removing that unit, discovered the bottom of the fridge interior (under the drawer) was *really* in need of a cleaning. So, while things melted around the kitchen, I cleaned.

Having shopped at the 24 hour Sobbey's (and might I add, they are not much of a place for jam makers or canners - they don't stock no-sugar-add Pectin), I didn't get home until 0015 HRS and the unloading, storage and cleanup have taken me until now (0130 HRS). It's annoying, but it feels good to have it done.

I have plans to make a batch of peach jam and a batch of raspberry jam this week (batch = 5-8 250 ml jars) once I get the right Pectin and a silicon-tipped spatula with a stainless handle (it turns out silicon-tipped plastic handled spatulas can't handle the high boiling temperatures of jam with all that sugar - at least the handle can't).

But I digress, which is not unusual.

I was planning to address the cost of doing it yourself, particularly as it pertains to pizza.

Now, I remember a day in university where Peter, Paul and I would buy a big rectangular pizza shell (Paul made a few in his bread maker too) and I recall them being pretty cheap. We'd buy a big bag of shredded cheese, a pepperoni to slice up, some tomato paste, and usually on some part of it, Peter and I would sneak green peppers (Paul had a policy of not eating anything green). As I recall. this construction might have cost $15-16 or so and should probably have fed 4-6, but we were pizza demolition men in college, so it fed 3 hungry techie geeks. So, $5 a head, $2.50 a head if you had eaten normal amounts. These are 1995 dollars, so we must account for 14 years of inflation too. According to the Bank of Canada, this would be $19 in 2009, so $6.33 a head, for pizza pigs.

Now, contrast that with my trip to Sobbey's.

2 pizza shells with sauce - 5.49
2 Greem Pepper - $1.28
Pepperoni - $4.49
Bag of Cheese - 7.19
+ Tax Total = 20.85

Assume for a moment this makes two pizzas, which would be enough for 3 pizza pigs or 6 normal humans. That's $20.85/3 = $6.95 per. Compared to the adjusted-for-inflation 1995 dollars, we can see about a 10% increase in costs. Part of that is GST hitting all sorts of things now and part of it is that dairy and wheat costs have grown out of proportion to inflation (I believe... seems that way if you look at the cost of cheeses, pasta, bread and milk).

Overall, home-made pizza (cheese, pepperoni and peppers) costs about what it used to, give or take. That's my first conclusion.

On the other hand, a McCain pizza with meat, vegetables, and cheese was on sale for $4.00, premade. No preparation. Two of them would match our do-it-yourself plain old pizza for $8.00 + tax. vs. $20.85.

You tell me.... is it cheaper to roll your own and prep your own meals? Add in some sort of time cost for your own prep time and that two pizza set would likely cost you $30-40. And the two pre-made ones (and you can get two with different, but good and tasty, contents) are $8.00 + tax.

Here is where we see how the movement towards home food preparation is dragged out into the back alley and beaten senseless. Yes, when you roll your own at home, you can add more herbs, crumble some italian sausage onto it, use organic vegetables and a multi-grain pizza shell (the McCain was multi-grain too). You do get more selectivity of ingredients (at further added cost). But even the baseline pizza is at a minimum 2.5 times more expensive if made at home than the pre-packaged one.

Now, if you made your own pizza shell, it might drop to 2.2 or 2.0 times more expensive. But the economy of scale and process McCain works on is telling, even ignoring any of your own time/labour costs! If you factor them in, the comparison is even worse.

Ultimately, most families can't afford to be all that choosy about what they eat. Many are living hand to mouth. When the difference between slow food, home prepared and pre-prepared mass-production food is on the order of 2 times or more... they would be insane not to opt for that. And this is my second conclusion from looking into this.

I'm not sure the comparison extends the same to all meals, but these are my observations from the pizza front.

Finnish Police help out in Vancouver

Finns nab assailant who punched bus driver

Some Finnish police, in town for the world police games, had a chance to show they can be handy at police work too as they chased down a jerk who decided to punch a bus driver.

Rest in Peace, Harry Patch and Henry Allingham

The last British Veteran (possibly the last veteran) of the Great War (WW 1) is now gone beyond. Before that, one of the remaining few to pass beyond was Henry Allingham, the last founding member of the RAF and another veteran of WW 1.

http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/world/2443/

My Grandfather fought in the war and lived with the after effects for the rest of his life. It was a conflict that even we modern fork, inured to TV genocides and ethnic cleansings, and raised on televised real-world wars like the Persian Gulf War and the War in Afghanistan, would not have been able to endure like spectators. That war had men drowning in the mud, dying from disease, sleeping in trenches up to their midriffs in water with corpses and rats, dying from triangular bayonets, artillery shrapnel, mustard gas, the new horror of the anks, and the dreaded machine gun. The scale of casualties was vast and hard to believe compared to our losses in current wars.

So far, Canada has lost 127 men in Afghanistan. In less time than we've been in Afghanistan, we lost 67,000 killed in WW1. Think about it - that's over 527 times as many casualties! We think we've lost enough people in Afghanistan to justify us coming home... we've lost more Canadians than that in single days of fighting in WW 1.

http://europeanhistory.about.com/cs/worldwar1/a/blww1casualties.htm

WW 1 seems in may ways to have been a pointless war. It changed some political boundaries and killed a lot of people but it lacked the clear moral imperative of defeating Fascism or blocking Communist expansion of later conflicts. The only moral imperative was to not be dictated to by another nation and the whole war reminds me of a family feud at the highest level.

And yet, it claimed so many lives.

Take this brief opportunity to visit that link and contemplate the number of people all of the countries lost. The loss of human potential from the War... from individual battles like the abortive attack on Galipoli, commemorated in "Waltzing Matilda" (song). The horror of mustard gas, which is a gas which, when elements bind with the moisture (water) in your lungs forms hydrochloric acid in the lungs and throat. The horror of attacking through mud that can swallow you with a mis-step.

Think of all of that and consider yourself lucky to be living in the hear and now. We've had it good, by comparison. Whenever we get gloomy about our future and all the ills of the world today, just think about those numbers and the horrible meat-grinders of days gone by.

No, we've got it good. And we've got evey chance to make it better. Part of that is remembering how bad it was and how bad it could get again if we let it. And then striving not to let things go that way ever again.

Hope In Everyday Life

Sometimes, just getting by day to day can be an act of hope. My father has had a bad heart for years and that isn't generally something that improves as you age.

Dad has a problem with chronic ulceration on his lower leg as a consequence of poor circulation from a long-ago sports injury and from the venous removal for a prior heart bypass and as a consequence of a heart powering at maybe 40%. Due to the aforesaid sports injury, he also had a collapsed lung and one of his lungs has never been very good since, so he has maybe 60% of normal lung capacity.

Add all that together, along with the nerve regrowth pain from having a continuous, seeping, frequently infected, open wound of very large size on his leg and you have a life that comes with brutal pain in the leg, chest pain, chest heaviness, headaches, flushing and chilling, light headedness and unsteadiness from variable blood pressure, and challenges from getting fluid build up in the bottom of the lungs (shortness of breath, difficulty sleeping lying down).

Anyone having to deal with all of that on a daily basis could not be blamed for losing hope, temporarily or permanently. And there are very bad days. There's nothing quite like having a relative ask you to go get a gun and shoot him to offer him surcease from the pain (except of course being the sufferer of such pain).

And yet, he keeps going. Part of that might be a natural human survival instinct. Part of this might be that he knows Mom, gradually decaying from the reconstructive surgery from her run-in with a dump truck and from advanced osteoporosis brought on in part by prior run-ins with cancer earlier in life, needs him to help her maintain an independent life. Part of it might be that he clings to the faint hope that I'll straighten out my life and get settled down and be happy and give him and Mom some grandkids.

Whatever is behind it, he keeps going. Some days his spirits are really down (whose would not be?). But he keeps going.

Somedays, just getting through ends up (intentionally or otherwise) being a testament to hope and courage. I think a lot of days are like that for both of my parents, two of the most courageous and enduring people I know. The fact that they manage to worry about me and our many family friends while in the midst of their own challenges, instead of becoming totally introspective about those challenges, is amazing.

I've been very lucky to have two wonderful role models. Their courage in the face of adversity gives me an enduring sense of hope. I have always loved my parents and thought myself fortunate to have had the two fo them as my parents (even in my worst moments). As I age, I see even more clearly how blessed I was by random circumstance of where and when I was born and to whom.

I guess this post is just my way of acknowledging their quality as parents. They inspire me to keep on fighting the good fight and to endure. They show me that, when I think I'm having a bad day, it really isn't anywhere near as bad as others are having. They help grant me a perspective on my own challenges which seem meagre in comparison. All in all, they give me the gift of hope.

Thanks for that, Mom and Dad.

Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. -- Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), the Shawshank Redemption