* I
will try to provide news from Japan on a regular basis - Miscellaneous
- FCC Inspects Astoria Cell Tower After Months Of Tenant Protests
- Residents Need A Voice, Not Just Less Static - Non-Lethal Weapons
: Terms and References - Mind Control - The rise of a new movement
- Drowned albatross colony is a dire omen for the future - Ecuadoreans
sue U.S. oil company over pollution in Amazon - Asia's elephants are
losing the battle for living space (22/10/03) |
I
will try to provide news from Japan on a regular basis
---------------------------------------------------------
Dear Klaus,
The other day, it was mentioned in your newsletter that there
is very
little information coming from Japan. I will try to provide
news from
Japan on a regular basis. I was sending news to Arthur Firstenberg,
but
I have not heard from him since January. Has anyone heard from
him
recently? I am beginning to get concerned and pray that he has
simply
found a really good place to hide.
There is a language barrier which takes real effort for most
people here
to overcome. There is also a sense of despair here, as Japan
has a
history of following destructive delusions to their ghastly
conclusions,
and the citizens are along for the ride, like it or not. One
of the
hallmarks of Japanese culture is a duality of reality, with
'official
reality' and 'the real truth' given equal status in the public
mind. A
couple of ways of conceptualizing this irrational state of affairs
are
1) how things appear is more important than how they really
are, and
2) a lie is acceptable if it can be rationalized as for the
overall good
of the people.
The result is stability, with challenges to the powers that
be thwarted
at the start, and an inability to make changes even when they
are
clearly necessary. It is not all bad, though. There is good
research
underway in Japan, and that will continue because the powers
that be do
not feel threatened by it. (Pressure may come from outside Japan
to stop
research, however.)
There is an active movement against masts in Japan, and a surprising
level of awareness among the citizens of regarding health effects.
The
forces of suppression are also active. The battle goes on silently,
so
for example one week, posters go up at train stations in Tokyo
urging
people to consider others' feelings and not use their cell phones
on the
trains (it's called 'manners'), and they depict someone using
a phone
and little lightning zaps coming out from the antenna and the
people
around clearly annoyed. The next week, these are replaced with
identical
posters, except without the lightning zaps, and the emphasis
on the
sound being the problem. (I wish I had had my camera and the
foresight
to use it!) The rumor somehow gets spread that the big to-do
is all
about the sound. Then everyone is encouraged to use 'etiquette
mode,'
which eliminates the ringing tones or equally annoying trendy
jingles,
while allowing users to continue irradiating everyone silently.
Then
some other posters go up regarding pacemakers, encouraging people
to
turn off their phones on crowded trains. Commuters, possibly
addicted to
their phones, ignore these. On one late night train, Testuya
Kakehi of
the Gauss Network (Omega see also: http://www.gsn.jp/english/index.htm
), one of the NGOs actively addressing the problem of non-ionizing
radiation in Japan, found all of the passengers using cell phones
despite signs prohibiting their use.
I discussed the possibility of addiction with the Gauss Network.
They've
taken a conservative stance on it, saying it is very hard to
prove
addiction. This does get talked about in society, though, enough
to
where one TV program accosted some young ladies at random and
got them
to give up their phones for a few days. These girls reported
no
hardship, so the program concluded there was no addiction. Real
scientific of them, eh?
Regarding observed health effects in Japan, I should draft a
simple
table of various effects noted in the press (never explicitly
stated as
the effects of radiation, that would be going too far), the
timing of
their appearance, the sources of these reports, the official
explanations, and references in EMF research regarding these
same effects.
Off the top of my head, these would include flu-like illness,
depression, suicide, insomnia, chronic fatigue syndrome, allergies,
classroom breakdown, aggressive behavior, autism, memory loss
and other
disorders.
I would have remained blithely (??) unaware of this if not for
a friend
who came down with a five-month flu, whose doctor confided in
her,
because she was a foreigner and he didn't want to cause a panic
among
the Japanese, that this was epidemic, and that he thought it
was due to
some kind of pollution. He wouldn't say what kind of pollution.
My
friend turned to me, the environmentalist with a bachelors degree
in
chemical engineering, quietly battling the government regarding
chemical
pollution. We of course assumed the culprit was a new chemical
pollutant. My friend was sicker than she had ever been in her
life. I
did not have an immediate answer, but started searching the
journals.
Somewhere, someone will let the cat out of the bag.
Well, that someone was Arthur Firstenberg, bless him for getting
an
article published by Earth Island Journal! He'd listed all my
friend's
symptoms and some others which I'd been experiencing on the
trains and
had been perplexed by. The timing of this, and the location!
The
realization really hit hard.
My friend in central Tokyo with new antennas going up all around,
and me
on the trains, with people all around using these new-fangled
toysresearchers in Japan have recently pointed out that
when several
people use their phones simultaneously on these trains, the
radiation
levels may exceed even ICNIRP's standards. More studies are
underway on
cell phone use in enclosed metal environments.
I will write again shortly about a recent trend in Japan in
healing
using 'nigari,' a seawater product used in preparing tofu, which
is
abundant in magnesium.
Yours truly,
Patricia Ormsby
--------
Miscellaneous
----------------
The science channel in Israel is going to broadcast a T.V show
on the
cellular antennas, the theme will not be the health impact ("we
will
bring 20 doctors who will say something and the other 20 will
say the
opposite") but about the fact that it's senseless to put the
antennas so
close to schools, kindergartens, and other sensitive places,
and Israel
is an expert in putting antennas in these sensitive places.
I am in touch with their investigator, helping her to locate
people who
suffer from the antennas, not that it's so hard to find these
people,
but the crew concentrates in central Israel and I report them
about
cases in north Israel.
So one of the cases I wanted to tell about is a doctor, genicologist,
who is sandwitched between 2 cellular installations, his room
window is
in front of the antennas and his room has 120 V/m measured today.
The
people who are in the waiting room, are cooked by "only" 50
V/m. When he
said it to the management, twice, this is the answers he got:
a. If you don't like it don't come to work.
b. It's electromagnetic radiation. It does not do anything.
Another case is installation of 12 antennas with infra structure
ready
for 40, (they do it all the time) it is an arm distance from
the bedroom
of an old person, who lives near this installation for 1.5 years.
He and
his neighbours say they don't feel bad (symptoms), but they
say that
they are afraid to feel anything, because otherwise they will
be labeled
as having a psychological problem.
Hospitals in Israel erected base stations in hospitals, in one
them
close to the children department. It is an experiment for Wi
Fi, so that
the doctors will have wireless computers. The benefit, they
say - is
that they don't have to speak with the patient about his sickness
history - they just press on the computer and have the data.
One doctors
told he had showed a child a movie with the computer, a movie
on asthma.
This way he can really do something meaningful for the patient,
he felt.
He said he is really waiting for making video conferences with
other
doctors in the hospital, and using more the multimedia, all
of this for
the benefit of the patients, of course ! [Good guys. Did they
take some
radiation measurements?]
Transformers, cellular antennas, power lines- or should it be
called "a
radiation celebration"- all of this in one station, the distance
from
houses is 15 meters, 50 meters from kindergarten and school,
in the
center of Israel, on the border between the cities Herzliya
and Ranana.
It's the second picture, don't miss this monster- station.
http://www.green-party.org.il/Herzliya/News.htm
The green party of Herzliya wrote to the environment and infra
structure
ministers, and to the maires of Ranana and Herzelia, they wrote
that
this is a social unjustice, because it had been built without
informing
the citizens, they also protest against the health hazards.
Gillette gives up on 'smart' tags: Gillette has abandoned the
use of
radio-frequency identification RFID smart-chips in its products
after a
trial of the surveillance technology at a Cambridge Tesco attracted
protests by residents concerned about civil liberties. Gillette
announced it was abandoning the use of RFID after the story
was covered
in the firm's home-town newspaper The Bostone Globe. (The Ecologist
October 2003)
Informant: Iris Atzmon
Comment Dr. Miguel Muntané :
If
you don't like it don't come to work otherwise they will be
labeled
as having a psychological problem
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So one of the cases I wanted to tell about is a doctor, genicologist,
who is sandwitched between 2 cellular installations, his room
window is
in front of the antennas and his room has 120 V/m measured today.
* If you don't like it don't come to work, otherwise they will
be
labeled as having a psychological problem.
and
Delay
tactic in mobile telephony. Just keep those scientists busy
with
their research, and leave us in peace to built more masts
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Christoffer Johansen (Danish cancer society) now says that
mobile
telephony is dangerous, but definitely not the masts!
2. The government has decided that they will give money for
research
into 3G mobile telephony.
3. The mobile telephone industry is even happier: Just keep
those
scientists busy with their research, and leave us in peace to
built more
masts.
Dr. George Carlo. (October 1999). "I am especially concerned
about what
appear to be actions by a segment of the industry to conscript
the FCC,
the FDA and The World Health Organization with them in following
a
non-effectual course that will likely result in a regulatory
and
consumer backlash."
-------
FCC
Inspects Astoria Cell Tower After Months Of Tenant Protests
---------------------------------------------------------------------
by Keach Hagey, Chronicle Reporter October 16, 2003
Residents called the FCC to inspect towers on the roof of their
building
at 32-42 33rd Street on Tuesday.
The Federal Communications Commission conducted its first inspection
of
a New York City cell phone antenna atop an Astoria apartment
building on
Tuesday, a major victory for residents who have been protesting
the
tower for months.
The residents claim that T-Mobile, the cell phone company that
has been
renting roof space at 32-42 33rd Street since this past spring,
improperly installed three of the nine antennas, allowing people
in a
nearby building to be exposed to radiation levels in excess
of FCC
guidelines.
You could go right up to the face of the panels and touch them,
said
John Campos, a resident of a nearby building. He has been one
of the
leaders of the group protesting the towers, which meets every
Tuesday
and recently formed a non-profit organization called the Astoria
Neighborhood Coalition.
Omega see also:
http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/122250p-109904c.html
Although the allegedly illegal antennas were removed during
the summer
shortly after the problem was brought to the attention of a
T-Mobile
representative, the residents filed the complaint on the grounds
that
the cell phone company knew all along that it was potentially
putting
residents in harms way.
Campos knows what the cell phone companys original plans were
because
they blew off the building one night into his neighbors yard.
They
detailed the positioning of the panels, showing one third of
them
directly facing the roof of the adjoining building. Both buildings
are
owned by Nathan Katz, who signed the rental deal with T-Mobile.
On the Fourth of July, dozens of residents gathered on the roof
to watch
the fireworks, unaware that they were being exposed to microwave
radiation at close range.
According to FCC regulations, if a cell phone company has plans
to
install any panels that might be directly accessible to the
public, it
must first conduct an environmental assessment survey. The survey
costs
about a quarter of a million dollars, which of course they didnt
do.
They just took down the antenna to destroy the evidence, said
Evie
Hantzopoulos, another coalition leader, who lives across the
street.
In response to the coalitions efforts, T-Mobile sent community
liaison
Jane Builder to inspect the antenna site in July. According
to Campos,
Builder determined that the site was unacceptable and immediately
had
the station shut down and the offending antennas removed from
the roof.
Now he feels that the company is trying to cover up a situation
that was
potentially hazardous.
On October 8th, T-Mobile released a statement that the antennas
were
removed due to aesthetic modifications and that a radio frequency
survey
it commissioned indicated that the antenna operations are in
compliance
with the FCC.
We took it down and put a sheath around it so that when people
look at
it, they are not looking at something that looks like an antenna,
said
T-Mobile spokeswoman Laura Altschul, adding that the company
was
responding to neighbors concerns about having to stare at an
antenna.
To suggest that this antenna was removed for aesthetic purposes
is
disingenuous, Campos said. We have photo documentation which
shows how
they were positioned and the fact that people were able to stand
in
front of them, which according to the FCC, is a potential violation
of
safety, not aesthetics.
But, according to a September 24th report by the Pinnacle Telecom
Group,
an independent engineering team hired by T-Mobile, the site
is safe.
Inspectors came out to the site on September 18th to take readings
of
radio frequency radiation on the roof, inside the building and
at street
level. On the rooftop, they determined that the RF level was
six percent
of the maximum limit allowed by the FCC. In the hallways and
stairwells
of the building, it was two percent. Note that the U.S. Food
and Drug
Administration has stated that continuous human exposure to
RF fields up
to and including 100 percent of the FCC limits is considered
safe, the
report stated.
Pinnacle put the buildings reading into context by adding that
ambient
street-level exposure averages 1.6 percent of the FCC limit
and that the
RF energy levels in kitchens usually ranges between three and
seven
percent of the limit, due to the energy emitted by common household
appliances. The report mentions that a third panel was removed
prior to
the survey, but does not state the reason for its removal.
The coalition is not accepting the results of the survey. This
is
basically a shallow attempt by T-Mobile to cover up the fact
that this
site was potentially out of compliance with the FCC regulations,
Campos
said. The survey they conducted does nothing to address the
long-term,
non-thermal effects of continuous, low level RF radiation and
was not
complete in measuring the existing RF levels, Hantzopoulos said.
In her
presentation to Community Board 1 on September 16th, she complained
of
the worrisome, everything is safe mantra of the telecommunications
companies.
They tell us that studies have shown that everything is fine.
What they
are not saying is that they can prove that these things are
safe. What
they are not saying is that scientists around the world are
finding that
indeed, we should be concerned. She pointed to the example of
Dr. George
Carlo, who was hired by the telecommunications lobby to head
up a $25
million research project to prove cell phone radiation is safe,
but then
quit after six years of research because he found evidence of
DNA damage
and links to brain cancer. Were behind the science on this,
Campos said.
The problem is that all the research done in this country is
funded by
the telecommunications industry. It was all done in the late
80s and
early 90s.
Because of the lack of convincing research proving that long-term
exposure to RF radiation is safe, the coalition argues that
communities
ought to be notified when a tower is going up, and ought to
be able to
find out just how many antennas there are in the neighborhood.
Until
recently, these requests could have been granted by the community
board.
According to Zoning Regulation 22-21 of the city charter,
telecommunications companies must apply to the Board of Standards
and
Appeals for a permit to build in a residential neighborhood.
That permit
application requires a public hearing with legal, consultant
and
architectural fees up to $75,000 per application. However, in
1998,
Deputy Commissioner of Buildings Richard Visconti issued a technical
memo allowing the telecommunications companies to bypass this
long and
costly process. There is nothing in the city charter that allows
a
commissioner of the DOB to nullify a zoning regulation with
a technical
memo. So what Visconti did was illegal, Hantzopoulos said. Campos
further argues that Visconti not only broke city law with his
memo, but
also broke federal law by requiring the towers to be under six
feet tall
to bypass zoning, while FCC regulations require that the towers
be more
that 6 feet off the roof in order to be exempt from FCC scrutiny.
As a
result of these blanket exemptions issued by the FCC, together
with
Viscontis technical memo, no government agency is keeping track
of how
many cell phone base stations there are in the city. Often the
cell
phone companies dont even have a clear idea of how many
of their own
towers they operate. We dont have a general map of it,
Altschul said,
adding that she couldnt even estimate the number of antennas
in the
metropolitan area.
This week, Senator Charles Schumer issued a report criticizing
cell
phone companies for not fixing service in the citys 65 dead
zones, where
cell phones often fail, and calling for an inquiry into whether
service
gaps violate federal law. He cited a J.D. Power study that ranked
New
York City last in customer satisfaction and call quality in
the 27
largest markets. The major providers being investigated are:
Cingular,
Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint PCS.
Altschul said that T-Mobile supported Schumers concern. We need
to fill
those dead zones. Theres a security issue involving homeland
security,
and theres a 911 issue. But Campos and the coalition believe
that using
private infrastructure to support what is, in essence, a public
utility
is unacceptable. They are pushing for legislation which will
set up a
monitoring and land use planning procedure to insure that residents
have
a voice, and say they will sue the city if they need to.
In response to residents concerns, Councilman Peter Vallone
Jr. is
planning to submit four pieces of legislation to the City Council
in the
next two weeks that would call for a council hearing on the
issue,
demand a city Health Department study of the effects of exposure
to
radiation, mandate that the DOB keep track of the towers and
allow the
city to begin regulating their placement. Vallone said the last
piece is
proving the hardest to draft. According to Altschul, the reason
for this
is clear: cell phones would not work if antenna sites were limited
to
non-residential areas.
©Queens Chronicle - Western Edition 2003
Editorial
Residents
Need A Voice, Not Just Less Static
-----------------------------------------------
Queens Chronicle
October 16, 2003
Can you hear me now? How about now? If you live in New York
City and own
a cell phone, no doubt youve had this conversation. In
fact, youve had
it more often than residents of any other major city, according
to a
J.D. Power study last year that ranked the metropolitan area
last among
the 27 largest markets in call quality. This must change, but
the
solution is not as easy as some politicians are claiming.
This week, Senator Charles Schumer used the Power study, along
with some
research by his staff, to criticize the citys wireless service,
which he
called terrible. He demanded an inquiry into whether carriers
inability
to fill in New Yorks 65 dead zones, where service often fails,
constituted a violation of federal law. The solution to this
problem,
Schumer said, is simple: just build more transmitters.
Meanwhile, all over Queens, the people who live, work, study
and pray
beneath the shadow of these transmitters are digging in their
heels in
protest. Parents from St. Helens School in Howard Beach kept
their
children home on the first day of school. A group of Astoria
residents
has formed a non-profit organization to either change the laws
or sue
the city. Like cell phones themselves, resistance to using private
infrastructure to support wireless antennas is not going to
go away.
One could dismiss these groups as alarmist if our federal agencies
didnt have such an infamous track record for greenlighting
new
technology first and settling lawsuits later. The government
says it
doesnt see any health problems, but then it said the same
thing about
lead paint, asbestos and tobacco.
To further complicate the issue, the Federal Communications
Commission
and the Food and Drug Administration the agencies responsible
for making
sure the low frequency microwave radiation that carries our
wireless
conversations doesnt also give us brain cancer or anything
else base
their regulations on research largely funded by the telecommunications
industry.
But even the most impartial research team would run up against
the same
basic problem: The technology is so new, and the possible health
consequences so long-term, that there is simply no way to know
right now
whether we should be worried about living next to an antenna.
Logic would say that, if this is the case, we should at least
try to
keep these things away from our homes and schools. But heres
the kicker:
the service wont work under these restrictions. In fact, as
more and
more people do away with their land lines entirely in favor
of cheaper
and more convenient mobile phones, we are looking at a not-too-distant
future where cell phone antennas are as normal a part of a building
as
telephone lines, and people refer to old-fashioned wired telephones
as
antennaless.
Whether individual New Yorkers consider this future utopian
or
dystopian, they at least have the right to understand the full
infrastructural implications of the communication revolution
that we
are, for better or worse, in the midst of. And that is where
our city,
state and federal governments are failing us.
As it now stands, no one not the FCC, not the city Department
of
Buildings, not even the carriers themselves can say how many
of these
antennas are in the city. Towers go up on apartment buildings
without
tenants or community boards knowledge, the result of clandestine
cooperation between landlords and carriers. Parents are helpless
against
schools looking to make a buck by renting roofs.
In two weeks, Astoria Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. will introduce
legislation addressing these concerns, beginning a conversation
the city
should have had years ago. As we sit down for this talk, lets
remember
that simply demanding better service, without regard to where
and how
the gaps are filled, is irresponsible, and we should encourage
our
elected officials to consider school zones as well as dead zones.
©Queens Chronicle - South Edition 2003
Reader Opinion
--------
Non-Lethal
Weapons: Terms and References
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.zarc.com/english/non-lethal_weapons/nlt-usaf.html
--------
Mind
Control
----------------
# Electromagnetic Weapons
# Microwave Weapons
# Non-Lethal Weapons
# ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) Weapons
# Directed Energy Weapons
# Acoustic Weapons
# Psychotronic Weapons
# RF (Radio Frequency) Weapons
# Soft Kill Weapons
# Less-Than-Lethal Weapons
http://www.angelfire.com/or/mctrl/
-------
The
rise of a new movement
------------------------------
AlterNet
by Tom Hayden
"There is rising a new movement in the world. It is bigger than
the
movement of the 1960s. Yet it is barely seen by the experts
and
analysts. They look only at the behavior of institutions and
politicians, not the underlying forces that eventually burst
into
visibility. The first strand of this new movement is the global
opposition to the war in Iraq and to an American empire."
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17000
--------
Drowned
albatross colony is a dire omen for the future and other stories
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A graveyard of drowned albatrosses offers a grim preview of
how global
warming is likely to affect sea levels.
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-10-22/s_9516.asp
Ecuadoreans sue U.S. oil company over pollution in Amazon
--------------------------------------------------------------
A decade after Texaco pulled out of the Amazon jungle, the U.S.
petroleum giant went on trial in a lawsuit filed on behalf of
30,000
poor Ecuadoreans who say the company's 20 years of drilling
poisoned
their homeland.
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-10-22/s_9665.asp
Asia's elephants are losing the battle for living space
-----------------------------------------------------
Asia can be a very crowded place, especially if you are an elephant.
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-10-22/s_9614.asp
Let Boykin Preach
http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2003/10/74848.php
--------
O.T.
themes:
Daniels Ellsberg: Vietnam War and Iraq War Similar
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1202
Soldiers ripe to resist?
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1203
A government out of control
http://www.sierratimes.com/03/10/20/guestoped_ak.htm
Is Bush seeking a "decent interval?"
http://www.amconmag.com/10_20_03/buchanan.html
Beyond Bush II
http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102003_beyond_bush_2.html
Pols rebel against Patriot Act
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/128952p-115347c.html
Bring them home now, Mr. Bush
http://www.rationalreview.com/mlseymour/102203.shtml
Support our troops
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j102203.html
Boobs and drugs
http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/bsmith/2003/10/22
The people's republic of the United States of America
http://www.libertyforall.net/2003/archive/oct31/republic.html
Four more years
http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcmaken/mcmaken92.html
Big whoppers
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2003/10/22/moore_excerpt/
Warring with God
http://tinyurl.com/rqot
Enemy sightings
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20031020-090016-2685r.htm
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp |
|
|