Another first-class testimonial about the success of the devotees in New Vraja Dham, Hungary, under the guidance of HH Sivarama Swami, in fulfilling Srila Prabhupada's desire for self-sufficient, spiritually sound rural communities.
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House Bill 875 (HR 875), the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, purports to
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Dear Friends, This first of our soon-to-be monthly newsletters, will give you updates about our progress at Vedic Village and graciously ask for your continued prayers and support. As you may know, on February 18, 2009, The Michigan Society for Cow Protection (MISCOWP) obtained two beautiful young Brahman bulls named Dharma and Bhima. Every day, one of our board members drives out to the farm to care for and spend quality time with these amazingly affectionate animals. Dharma and Bhima have created quite a sensation with the local people who are curious about our philosophy and plans for the farm.
Things are going very well this week as we focus on germinating seeds for our first crops while converting nearly 8 acres of a third generation hayfield into productive vegetable and fruit gardens. In 10-15 days, when the seeds have germinated and display their first true two leaves, we will need at least 5 volunteers to help transplant these seedlings to larger containers. At that time the containers will also need to be transported to either a hoophouse in my backyard (5 blocks from the Detroit temple) or taken to the farm, where by then we may have installed a larger 35' X 110' hoophouse.
We also humbly ask for donations to help us with our work. Any amount - $20, $50, $100, $500 or more - will be a tremendous help and is also tax exempt. Please make checks payable to MISCOWP and mail to Tom Milano, 313 Newport Street, Detroit, MI 48215.
In April, we plan to purchase 108 fruit and nut trees (only $30 each) and plant an orchard in the middle of our 15-acre garden. Perhaps you would like to donate funds for one or several trees in behalf of yourself and your family. We also urgently need $900 to pay for 1500 aparagus plants and a host of perennial fruit bearing plants. And in June we plan to start Michigan's first goshalla (dairy) and cow protection program with the purchase of 5 American Brahman cows at $1,500 each.
Thank you once again for your trust, your support and for your interest in our project. If you have any questions, please feel free to email (tommilano108@yahoo.com) or call (313 823-3815) anytime. We thank you in advance for all your help.
With warm regards,
Adiraja dasa (a.k.a. Tom Milano)
President MISCOWP
If you would like to contribute to our year-long "celebration" of Darwin's 200th birthday, please send your articles, editorials, or any other creative and informative pieces to nvclub108@gmail.comThirteenth Argument: Planned Obsolescence
One of the innumerable natural phenomena that we take for granted and thoughtlessly assume to be just another product of evolution is the aging process. This process really begins at the very beginning of every creature’s life. Immediately there is development, or maturing, whether from insect egg to larva to pupa to winged adult; or from seed to seedling to mature plant, producing first flowers and then fruit; or with humans, where we mature from baby to toddler to youth to adulthood, middle-age and old-age.
At each and every stage, there are specific abilities and processes and functions and related cellular structures. It’s not a random or chaotic break-down, but there is a continual coordinated theme at each and every stage. We are each made up of so many individual cells, which are replaced so many times during our lives. And this detail quite distinguishes us as living organisms, as distinct from a machine such as a car, for example.
The molecular structure of a car is not in a constant state of flux, at least, not in the sense that ours is. Of course, there are some ongoing chemical changes, such as heat-stress, oxidation, rust, salt damage and so on. But the original atoms and molecules that form all its structures are not being replaced as the car ages. Just like its tires – as time goes on, they wear down, their outer layers are simply rubbed away by the roads, but fresh layers of rubber do not grow back.
This of course is quite opposite to our situation as living organisms. For example, the outermost layers of skin are constantly wearing off (much of the dust in our own homes is in fact the debris of our own cast-off skin cells), but new cells are being constantly created underneath. This would be incredible enough, that our bodies are replete with self-replicating living cellular ‘machines’ … but the replacement cells are not in fact replicas of the ones that they are replacing. They introduce new features, which provide for definite changes in function, purpose and appearance.
The cells that make up the bones of a baby allow for greater flexibility than the bones of a youth, although they are not as strong, nor do they need to be. Meanwhile, the bones of an old person are brittle and easily damaged. This cannot be compared to the rusting of a car’s metal body, for example, which is indeed much weaker in its ‘aged’ condition. And why not? Because rather than the individual cells having ‘rusted’ as it were, they have been altogether replaced by cells with a different molecular structure. Similarly with the ways our skin wrinkles and our hair silvers as we age. It is not that individual cells are shrinking and drying up or losing color; but that they are being replaced by cells which are following different design instructions, as passed down via the genes. And at the same time, there are accompanying changes occurring within all the different cells and organs of the body, so that there is a coordinated development whereby the body as a whole is still functioning as a single unit, but at a different level of efficiency. In other words, there is still a definite and distinct structure affording a definite and distinct level of functioning and purpose; and this changes so many times during our lives.
As already mentioned, aging does not merely include the declining stages of life, where the hair turns grey and falls out, and the skin, bones, muscles and organs in general weaken. But it includes all the stages, including the earlier growing and strengthening and reproductive stages, from pre-pubescence to pubescence to menopausal. The complexity and variety of biological precision, of structure and purpose, is utterly incomprehensible. And it cannot begin to be accounted for by some impersonal random and purposeless evolutionary process. For example, how and why should there be a process by which the genes and relevant cellular structures change the color of our hair from blonde or dark or whatever to white? How and why are all our cellular processes altered, with the replacement cells themselves being differently structured, so as to effect what we call the aging process?
We can all understand the natural need for aging – if we didn’t age and die, then we’d swiftly overpopulate. Of course, if we didn’t reproduce, then eternal life via continual self-replication of our cells wouldn’t be so much of a problem … although identical self-replication by the cells would also mean that we would never develop past our original form, there would never be any growth or development or change. It is truly amazing how this all fits together: growth, reproduction, aging, death – how it all makes such perfect sense. But when we’re talking about sense and purpose and reasons why things need to happen, we’re then referring to a world given by planning and design, as opposed to life randomly developing via some impersonal ‘evolutionary’ processes. It is very curious how so many scientists, possessed of rational intelligence, looking for reason(s) behind existence, believe that the answer is this random process that itself lacks any reason or purpose of its own.
We must be very clear: there is no intelligence or plan implied by the concept of evolution. There is no purpose or guide behind it. Even if we overlook that it cannot explain any ‘urge for survival,’ still, that urge itself does not explain the existence of inconceivably complex and precise mechanisms for effecting survival. So it’s all very well to recognize reasons for why such a mechanism as aging is necessary and natural … but evolution neither endorses nor offers any such reasons. We cannot begin to explain the aging processes by evolution, how and why they should exist, how the entire genetic informational system within an individual is constantly changing the overall cellular structure of each individual, and in such a coordinated and precise, non-chaotic manner.
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As an adjunct to this line of thought, consider how you might sometimes see woods and forests stretching away into the distance, perhaps when going on a long drive. Do you ever wonder how it is that those distant tree-lines are so even, how the trees are all growing to around the same height? What is maintaining that status quo?
Surely if everything was going on under the dictates of evolution, random mutation and natural selection, with everything vying for some new advantage, we would not expect to see so much conformity; rather, we would see so many individual trees going beyond the limitations of their species and growing taller and broader so as to catch the lion’s share of the sunlight and also to shoulder aside the competition for soil and space. In other words, there should be unrestrained growth and fecundity, filled with mutation upon mutation to facilitate greater survivability. But there isn’t. Rather, everything is held in check, it’s balanced: there’s a pattern – actually, there are so many patterns, one within another within another, all interconnected within a single great cosmic order. It’s not just a wild, uncontrolled and urgent race for survival, randomly bursting out every which way. It’s all regulated.
We understand that the genes are the agents for such regulation. The processes of aging also occur under their direction. The limits within which individual trees are growing are set by the genes. All species are conforming to specific directions as established by their respective genes. So that the million dollar question is then, again, what is regulating the genes, and giving them the directions they pass on?
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If you would like to contribute to our year-long "celebration" of Darwin's 200th birthday, please send your articles, editorials, or any other creative and informative pieces to nvclub108@gmail.com
If you would like to contribute to our year-long "celebration" of Darwin's 200th birthday, please send your articles, editorials, or any other creative and informative pieces to nvclub108@gmail.comLike many parasites, liver flukes require several entirely different host-species to carry them through the various stages of their life-cycles. As adults, they live in the livers of cows, where they mate, and their eggs are then excreted via the host’s fecal matter. Terrestrial snails that eat such matter become infected by the fluke’s larvae, which settle in the snails’ digestive tracts. The snails protect themselves by forming cysts around the little parasites, which are then excreted in turn. Ants looking to snail slime as a source of moisture simultaneously ingest these cysts, which are each filled with hundreds of juvenile flukes. These juveniles are free to wander throughout the ant’s body, but one in particular moves to the sub-esophageal ganglion, and this is where the most extraordinary element of this whole story takes place.
We can already recognize that the development and survival of such parasites requires an incredible degree of synchronicity and precise co-ordination. It is inconceivable that the myriad specific adaptations required for the parasites to not only thrive in the various host species, but to take advantage of unique processes within the hosts themselves (e.g. the snails’ cyst-manufacturing processes), could all have simply ‘evolved,’ unplanned, unguided, and all ‘by chance’ – along with the actual processes by which they are transferred from one host to the next.
Yet putting all such observations to the side for the moment, let us continue our story from the point where one fluke has journeyed to the aforementioned cluster of nerve-cells lying just underneath the ant’s esophagus. Somehow or other this fluke is able to manipulate the nerves there so as to cause the ant to act in a most peculiar manner. What happens is that as evening draws near, such an infested ant leaves the nest and climbs to the top of a blade of grass, where it locks itself into place with its mandibles and patiently awaits being eaten by a grazing cow. Should no cow happen to graze on its particular grass-blade, the ant climbs back down at dawn to rejoin the rest of the colony, and so escapes the heat of the day which would kill both it along with its parasitic controllers. In other words, it has now been programmed to follow a suicide-mission specifically tailored for the benefit of the flukes.
This fascinating scenario raises many questions. How did the first fluke that was swallowed by an ant come to figure out how to pilot such an alien craft, how did it determine its destination (the cow’s liver) as well as the actual means by which it could arrive there (involving activities entirely foreign to the fluke itself, e.g. climbing up grass-blades for the night, locking mandibles in place and awaiting the approaching ‘jaws of death’)? And of course, the favorite old conundrum, suitably reworded for this particular example: which came first (as far as the fluke is concerned, that is): the cow, the snail or the ant? Or isn’t the simple fact that all three are required simultaneously? What series of gradual adaptations could be imagined that could have led up to this spectacularly complex and precise set of arrangements? How can the fluke’s behavior be explained by any undirected random evolutionary process? Rather, it suggests a level of foresight and planning, i.e. intelligence, that in no way can be ascribed to the fluke itself. Perhaps that’s why they call it a fluke.
HG Muralidhara Priya Prabhu, one of our most ecstatic monks here at the Bhaktivedanta Ashram here in NYC, has written an article detailing something that most devotees may not know about-the process of how their silk cloth (saris and dhotis) are made.By Muralidhara-priya Das
Should we be using silk? If we want to practice compassion and non-violence toward all living entities, then we should think twice about what we are putting on our bodies. Originally in Vedic times they used what was called Wild Silk.
Wild silks are produced by caterpillars other than the mulberry silkworm and can be artificially cultivated. The worms are allowed to naturally leave the cocoon. A variety of wild silks have been known and used in China, South Asia, and Europe since early times, but the scale of production was always far smaller than that of cultivated silks. They differ from the domesticated varieties in color and texture, mainly because before the cocoons are gathered in the wild usually the emerging moth has damaged them, so the silk thread that makes up the cocoon has been torn into shorter lengths.
Commercially reared silkworm pupae are killed by dipping them in boiling water before the adult moths emerge, or by piercing them with a needle, allowing the whole cocoon to be unraveled as one continuous thread. This permits a much stronger cloth to be woven from the silk. Wild silks also tend to be more difficult to dye than silk from the cultivated silkworm.
Kusuma Rajaiah, an Indian man, has developed a new technique for producing silk that does not require killing silk worms in the process. Right now, producing a silk saree involves killing of at least 50 thousand silkworms. Rajaiah has won the patent for producing the “Ahimsa” silk. However, the production of the silk is more expensive. For example, a saree that costs 2400 rupees to produce using regular silk, will cost 4000 rupees when made with Ahimsa silk.
Rajaiah says: “My inspiration is Mahatma Gandhi. He gave a message to the Indian silk industry that if silk can be produced without killing silkworms, it would be better. He dreamt but that did not happen in his lifetime. I am the happiest person that at least I could do this little thing.”
Rajaiah says he started giving a serious thought to “Ahimsa” silk when in the 1990s. Janaki Venkatraman, wife of the former President, asked if she could get a silk saree that is made without killing silk worms. In Rajaiah’s new process he follows the old method, which allows the moth to escape from the cocoon by waiting for 7-10 days and then uses the shells to produce yarn.
So if you don’t know if your silk saree or dhoti are produced with “Ahimsa” silk or not, then it probably wasn’t, as over 99% of all silk bought is produced with the method of killing the worm by boiling or stabbing with a needle. Here are a couple of websites were you can purchase “Ahimsa” silk.
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