Et tu Wendy’s?

Black Bean Sliders
Picture by Walkingfox

 

Just as I was beginning a post this morning about a new product that makes my heart sing, bam the door slammed shut on me.

You see in my mail today, was a nifty story about a new Black Bean Burger being introduced at a select number of Wendy’s in Ohio.

But, regretfully when I started reading it, there was also a side story, that pointed to a quite unhappy situation.

It would seem that the about to become newest favorite eatery, Wendy’s, is embroiled in a mess over wages, with ugly insults being hurled, indicating that they may have participated in what amounts to slave labor with their employees.

Now, if the idea of a Black Bean Burger is new to you, please let me share this, my best friend at UCLA was married to the Manager of one of their top Campus eating places and he delighted in letting me know each week when he made them, knowing full well that I hated meat and loved this culinary treat.

I never did learn all of the ingredients of this delicious, decadent burger, but had been a huge fan of Black Beans for many years, so never cared a whole lot about what he put into them.

Moving to Florida basically closed the door on all of my favorite California vegetarian eating places, as I soon learned that they were not high on anyone’s totem pole here.

So, not willing to eat the Morning Star veggie burgers made with soy beans that have been processed with Hexane, a known carcinogen and pretty much a toxin/pesticide, I had given up hope.

That was until a few months ago, when shockingly I found a new Black Bean Burger from a previously unknown Company, at our local Wal-Mart.

Bringing it home was a challenge, as Walkingfox is not huge on doing without meat.

Surprise, he liked them and has become a fan, of sorts.

But being out on a shopping or other trip and hoping to find one was not to be, at least not here.

So, you can imagine my delight this morning seeing/reading this story about Wendy’s.

Joy quickly turned to sorrow, after reading that they are having similar salary and wages problems  with their employees as Waffle House is.

Right now the delectable Black Bean Burgers are only being tested in Ohio, near Wendy’s Corporate offices, but it looks like that may change quickly judging from the public responses to them.

Now if they can only get their employee/wages issues fixed, Wendy’s may yet become a new place to eat on the run.

And, if they don’t, then, as with Waffle House, we will not be dining there any time soon either.

So, dear Wendy’s, please treat your employees right, pay them right and this may after all, be only a rhetorical question, et tu Wendy’s?

 

Places to learn more:

Amid Call for Boycott, Concerns Rise That Eating at Wendy’s Supports Slave Labor

Why Wendy’s Vegan Black Bean Burger Isn’t Masquerading as Meat

Low Wage Workers Fast Food Forward Campaign

Worker wages: Wendy’s vs. Wal-Mart vs. Costco

Wendy’s “The Final Fast Food Hold-out”

Wendy’s salaries

Advertisement

Keytruda, this is personal!

Montego Bay, Jamaica.
The perfect combination for skin cancer.
First melanoma came just 2 years later!

Unless you have had a melanoma, this story may have slipped right by you in the paper.

I on the other hand, did see it this morning, while going through the week’s papers to go out for recycling.

This new Cancer drug made by Merck, was just approved by the FDA and may save countless lives, mine included.

If you have seen my Bio picture, you may have noticed that I am fair skinned with blond hair and blue eyes.

A desirable combination some may say, just not in my case.

After my second melanoma was diagnosed many years ago, I was sent to an LA Cancer Specialist who was part of the Kaiser Foundation which I was covered by in California.

His words still ring in my ears to this day,  ” if you had stayed in Indiana with that skin and coloring,  you might have had a chance, but you came here and baked in the California sun and this is what happens. “

What followed were 8 more melanomas and a total of 22 moles removed.

Melanomas run in families and are genetically linked, which puts my children at great risk now.

Lucky me, I have what is called Dysplastic nevus syndrome, which means that every mole on my body,  and there are many, wants  to become a melanoma when it grows up.

I know when they are bad, I have spent a lifetime looking at mine and those of many others.

For the next 15 years, I was the star patient of the Chief of Dermatology in the Panorama City Kaiser Hospital.

He loved my case, it was such a challenge just to see what would happen next.

He was an excellent Doctor, we became good friends and I adored him.

But back to this new drug I have just learned about today, Keytruda.

If it does what it promises, many melanoma patients whose cancer spreads, may just have a fighting chance.

If melanoma is a new word to you, it is a deadly skin cancer and once it has spread to your lymph nodes, you are a goner.

The lymph system immediately sends all those nice little melanoma cells throughout your body.

BAM, game over.

If you or a loved one has melanomas, which by the way has now become the deadliest form of skin cancer, for the love of God, tell them to ask their doctors about this new drug.

I will include many links below about skin cancers, melanomas especially and how to check your moles, this is critical if you are to  survive.

Also included will be the who, what, why and where of this new drug and what it will cost, as well as other helpful information.

I hesitated to write this today because it is so very personal, but what if one of you could be helped or even saved because of something you learned from this story?

That is why it is here.

I also want to address one more issue related to my melanomas and this will be especially personal and may shock you,  or bother you to read.

I apologize in advance for doing it, but as said in the paragraph before, some one might benefit from this information.

Several weeks ago, I made an appointment with a local doctor to go in for a check on my mole situation.

I know when they are bad, I have spent a lifetime looking at mine and those of many others.

And right now, I have a bad one and it needs to come off.

Anyway, I made an appointment and was set to see this doctor three days ago.

As always because procrastination is my middle name, I waited until the day before my appointment to fill out the new patient forms that had been mailed to me.

As I was wandering around in them, I started thinking, what if all of this is going to cost a small fortune?

I no longer had the wonderful “free coverage” of Kaiser Permanente in LA.

I am now responsible for any and all costs incurred in my health care.

Me!

So, I called the number on an ad that had recently come from AARP, with an invitation to enroll in their Supplemental Plan.

I had avoided this for several reasons in the past.

Here is what you do not know about this retired Treatment Nurse.

I despise, in no particular order, doctors, pills and medicine in general, when it comes to me.

I refuse to take pills for just about anything or everything.

I have not made a Doctor’s appointment since I left LA in 1999.

With my Cancer diagnosis, that is truly stupid.

But we simply did not have the money and I did not want to go hunting for a replacement for the wonderful man who took care of me in California.

I trusted no one!

So, I did nothing!

I hid my head in the sand and pretended that I would be fine.

Anyway, back to the supplemental plan from those nice people at AARP.

It all sounded good, I was ready to jump in and sign up.

I had a new Doctor lined up, an appointment made and a plan chosen to cover what Medicare did not.

Life was good.

So, then I went back to the forms and began to fill them out.

Uh oh!

Got to the page of what they accepted for payment or Insurance.

I had already asked about Medicare and they said that was accepted.

What I did not ask about was a supplemental.

Well you guessed it, there it was on the page of plans they took, they did not accept AARP.

Just to be completely sure, I called their office and asked.

She was adamant.

They did not take AARP as a supplement.

You must remember that for 30 years of my life I had Kaiser, they was never a charge for a single thing.

To say that I had grown complacent, is an understatement.

When I left LA and Kaiser in 1999, I was uncovered for the first time in my adult life.

What happened next was stupid, I admit it.

I called the office back and cancelled my appointment, saying that if they did not take AARP, I would have to cancel, not knowing how much the charges could amount to.

Dermatology care and treatment can be VERY expensive.

My appointment was for the next day, I said and there was no way I could go through that list of supplemental plans they do accept and pick one by then, I had to cancel.

I will not comment on her cold response, but it was not very kind.

Now, I have no Doctor, no appointment and must start all over looking for new ones of each~

I admit I was hot-headed about it, yes.

And procrastinating contributed greatly as well, but one thing sticks in my craw right now.

I have worked all of my life, since I was 9 with a paper route, paying into my SS.

I have never used it before now, so this first attempt being a most negative experience, is not a very good beginning.

Oh well, I will spend next week trying to sort it all out and get back on track.

I sincerely apologize for this ridiculous overindulgence of writing and beg for your forgiveness in having to read it.

BLAH,  BLAH,  BLAH!

Hopefully, I will not need this new drug, Kytruda, and yes this is personal.

 

Places to learn more:

FDA approves Keytruda for advanced melanoma

FDA approves first-of-its-kind melanoma drug

Melanoma

Dysplastic nevus syndrome

Genetic mutation linked to melanoma progression

‘A single mole caused cancer to spread through my body – now I only have months to live’

Merck Wins Approval to Sell the First in a new Type of Cancer Drug 
The costs are here!

FDA OKs Merck drug, 1st in new cancer drug class

UCLA Researcher Provides Insight Into the Impact of Pembrolizumab in Melanoma –

FDA approves new cancer-fighting drug

High melanoma risk found in airline crews exposed to high-altitude radiation

 

Has the King Left the Building?

Public Domain Burger King logo

 

I did not want to write about this, ever.

As of right now, I guess I’m still living in denial.

But there it was in my mail this morning, the ugly news that was crystal clear.

Burger King is leaving its home state of over 50 years here in Florida and moving everything to Canada to avoid taxes?

Say it isn’t so, I beg you BK.

Whenever we are out running errands and get hungry, BK is usually my first choice because they have one of my favorite fast food combos, an awesome Veggie Burger accompanied by scrumptious sweet potato fries.

But, if this deal, this merger, does, or has already happened, there goes any hope I might have of finding a Veggie Burger on the run.

We have a few Burger Fi’s starting up here now and they have a nearly Organic Veggie Burger, that is out of this world, but the nearest one is nearly 45 miles away in Winter Park.

Not really convenient when you want a quick Veggie Burger, is it?

So Burger King will now have to be scratched off of my personal quick food out list.

According to the story this morning, this merger announcement has really ……… off their loyal customers, big time.

Burger King was never on the List because they are a favorite place to eat and are a very popular, well-managed and run, not bad fast food place here in Florida.

BK originally started in 1953 in Jacksonville and is now headquartered in the Miami area.

This whole merger story is beginning to smell really stinky.

If this merger is consummated and does go through, these two Corporations will become the third largest food chain in the world.

Yikes, that’s a lot of power.

In the meantime, BK’s 34-year-old CEO Daniel Shwartz, earning a reported $700,000 plus bonuses, says not to worry, that their potential merging with Canada’s Tim Horton’s Donuts, will keep the two companies separate.

Not so fast, is what most of their long and loyal customers think about this.

This may or may not, have been a Corporate containment reaction to the recent ugly public responses, that seems to have caught them off guard with the overwhelming public criticism of their proposed merger.

Some of the hundreds of public comments that have been made, are downright vicious.

Our own Florida Senator Bill Nelson is outright livid about this whole idea, knowing exactly how much Florida has to lose if it happens and said that if it does happen, he wants every single one of their restaurants removed from every Military Base in the United States.

Ouch!

Don’t mess with people and their burgers, even if it’s only a Veggie Burger.

So, Burger King, what’s it going to be, have you really left the building?

 

Places to learn more:

Burger King – Wikipedia

Looks Like The ‘Burger King’s’ Subjects Are Royally Pissed Off

Burger King Heads North Of The Border

Here’s Why Warren Buffett Is Investing $3 Billion in the Burger King-Tim Hortons Deal

Burger King’s Tim Hortons Offer Is Part Of A Huge Cost-Cutting Plan

Is Burger King moving to Canada?

Burger King’s Tax Inversion and Canada’s Favorable Corporate Tax Rates

How companies shrink their taxes by leaving U.S.

Burger King-Tim Hortons Cross-Border Merger Much More Than Tax Inversion

Burger King Is Run by Children

 

Boycott Coke!

Picture  credit: Wikipedia

 

An enraging letter/petition was in my email this morning and it has now become the subject of today’s posting.

Coke has been on  The List  since this Blog’s inception and today the impetus for writing about it was delivered conveniently in my email.

Personally I have not drank any soft drinks for many years now, right after I learned what they did/do to our bodies.

I discovered that drinking Diet Coke every day was the source of my migraine headaches.

I stopped drinking it and the migraines were instantly gone.

This was more than twenty years ago.

But today, Coke has a huge family of other products and some of them have been here in our house, for a very long time.

Simply Orange used to be a favorite and just a week ago, I brought home some coconut water after seeing it on the Dr. Oz Show and hearing how good it was for us.

After looking at the lengthy list of Coke products today, it was sad to realize that by my purchase of them, I too was/am empowering Coke to continue its evil plan.

Did I know that Coke and Monsanto were/are sleeping together?

No?

Until just recently, few of us were aware, that these two Giants have been secretly plotting against the World’s consumers.

Neither of them want you, me, any of us, to know that they are spending millions to keep GMO’s in our lives and our bodies.

The truly terrifying thing is that some of these Coke products claim to be Organic.

If they are, why would they support and defend, against the wishes of the very consumers who buy their products, a Corporation like Monsanto, whose primary source of income is the manufacture of GMO’s?

Together these two Mega forces have and are, defeating any hope of legalized opposition through their combined forces, against any bill demanding the labeling of GMO’s anywhere in America that could stop them.

It all borders on complete insanity.

Or, is absolutely brilliant marketing, by two of the most powerful Corporations in the world, who are simply sharing a brain.

Below is a link to a Boycott Coke petition, please do read it and if you agree, please do sign it and share it?

We are only the poor innocent dupes who are funding, by our consistent purchasing, the evil that these two Corporations will continue to inflict upon us, until we stop them, by refusing to buy ANYTHING that either of them makes.

In searching for reference points for this story, it was learned that Pepsi may also be included in this conspiracy.

I will leave them for another day, but it is something to consider in the meantime.

Think of a world without toxins, poisons and chemicals in all of our food.

A wonderful world without unidentified Genetically Modified Organisms.

Think of your children and what this means to their future health and well-being.

Boycott Coke!

 

Places to learn more:

The Boycott Campaign is here:

Coke_betrays_democracy_join_the_Coke_Boycott/

Coca-Cola  – Wikipedia

The Coca-Cola Monsanto connection

The Dark Side of Coca-Cola’s Healthy Brands

Food industry front groups exposed in new report: Monsanto, Coke, Pepsi and more

 

Not Working

The Watts Riots in LA in 1965
Picture credit: Wikipedia

I have been watching the News for the past week with a very heavy heart, as each day, as the events unfold in Ferguson, painful, ugly and difficult memories are brought back.

What is happening there,  is in many ways quite similar to what we in LA and the surrounding areas experienced with Rodney King, in the 1990’s.

And both of these are entirely too much like the LA Riots in Watts in the 1960’s.

Then there was the Trayvon Martin murder, here in Orlando and the Trial and the verdict that once again met with violent public reaction and out cries everywhere.

All of these tragic events, these sad places,  have touched my life, none in a good way.

That  week in  August of 1965 during the Watts Riots,  was a time of total violence and great turmoil and no one liked what was happening.

Few were sure, including the law enforcement, as to how to find a solution before the City was left in ashes.

In time, it did stop, but not before the deep scars were in place and bitter memories that would last for many, a lifetime.

Next came Rodney King, only this time it was brought right to my own front yard.

The Trial for those who brutalized King was held in my town of Simi Valley.

It was all such an ugly time for a tiny peaceful place.

It seemed to drag on forever and then the verdict came, that no one was prepared to handle, especially the Police.

I left West LA that day and drove towards home, wondering what may lie ahead.

I could not have been prepared for what came next.

As I tried to get off of the Freeway at my Exit, which was for the time of day that it was, unusually backed up onto the Freeway.

When I finally got to the bottom of the ramp, I saw why.

Every single car there was being stopped and examined by a uniformed patrolman, who asked to see ID proving that the person driving did indeed, live in this particular neighborhood.

This was a disturbing, frightening and very unpleasant experience.

My house was about a mile from the freeway and the troubled exit, but only two blocks from the hysterical scene that was happening at the Court House.

It looked like a war zone, or a movie set.

There were huge crowds of onlookers, countless TV crews, Police cars, SWAT crews, my God it was all just terrifying.

But our small town’s terror was about to be unleashed on all of the City, as the turmoil that day in Simi, quickly spread to all of LA and once again, as in the 60’s with Watts, the violence, looting, shootings and arrests, were soon out of control.

When it thankfully began to calm down many days later, we all wondered how and why this could just keep happening.

Why was it always black and white, white police, black victims?

Now once again, in Ferguson, this Country is experiencing another Racially inspired reaction, to what is now being called a racially motivated murder and the results are, as before, violent, dangerous, out of control crowds, venting their frustrations and setting the stage once again, for probably another ugly Trial.

God help us, why can’t we stop this pattern?

Why don’t we learn?

What will it take for this Country to mend our Racial wounds, to stop the Violence and to stop the Hate?

Why are so many, who should know better, doing all of the wrong things?

Governors, Police Chiefs, Judges, Lawyers,  everyone who should and could be using their years of wisdom and experience to calm things, seem to only be pouring fuel onto the already out of control fires.

For the lack of a better explanation, it seems that too often, these people care more about their political careers and futures, than doing what is right, or best, for what is happening right now.

Perhaps it is time for an uninvolved neutral, or third-party, to get involved in these kinds of tragedies because those who should know better and behave better, really could use some better ideas.

The ones they are using now, are just not working.

 

Places to learn more:

Watts Riot

Rodney King trial verdict announced

Shooting of Trayvon Martin

Governor Nixon orders National Guard to Ferguson

 

New Blog~

If you think that Organic and GMO foods are not a high stakes industry, please do take a look at this picture.

Credit: Compiled by Stephanie Ladwig-Cooper

 

If you might have wondered where I have been, this is where:

http://organicopinion.wordpress.com/

It was the result of a bad shopping excursion that was the very last straw.

Hope you enjoy it!

 

Facebook Fears

Facebook Headquarters, Menlo Park, California.
Picture credit: Wikipedia

 

Next on the  LIST:    FACEBOOK.

About three years ago, against my better judgement and at the powerful urging of those who shall remain anonymous, I signed up for an account at Facebook.

What soon followed,  I would not have wished on my worst enemy.

I had huge misgivings going in and had avoided it for years, never trusting it, or the people running it.

Once I signed up, it was only a matter of time before my fears became a reality.

My negative thinking gave way to actual complete loss of any control.

In the beginning, the situation was to be a merry go round of rejections and inabilities to sign in, then it got worse.

I was shut out because I did not have a cell phone number to give them.

The sign in required a cell phone number and you were told to then text back the code that they gave you, to sign in.

It was a nightmare, as there were no actual Human beings to speak with to try to fix the problem.

Hello, we live in the Ocala Forest in Florida and gave our cell phone back after two years of paying for a service, with little or no reception.

Verizon was extremely slow in coming our way, so we finally gave our phone back to them.

Then after weeks of this terror, it was finally, somehow,  resolved.

So, I was now ready to go exploring on Facebook, I thought.

Gleefully unaware of my contentious acts, I then went to places where there were People, and Organizations,  I wanted to meet and/or get to know  and sent them a “Friend Request.”

It was quite quickly made very clear to me, that I was not allowed to “Friend” anyone I did not personally know.

Excuse me, but I was under the misguided impression that joining this disaster, was to meet new people and make new “Friends”

Not so, according to the FB Police.

My punishment for this high crime was to be shut out for a month for being “bad!”

Then after everything seemed to settle down and get comfortable, and I promised to NEVER EVER “Friend”  anyone that I did not personally know,  FB changed some of their  “policies.”

Now it seemed that our pictures and personal information would be viewable to anyone, anywhere, who wanted to see them.

So, I took down anything that I did not want strangers in some distant land to see of my children and relatives.

Next, a scary story  one day on our news was about a local woman who had her FB pictures stolen from her FB site by a creep in another country and they were now being used on porn sites.

By this time, there were quite a few people and Organizations on my Friends list who never, or rarely ever, came to my FB page, or spoke to me, or posted on it.

They were just people who had, over a two-year period, sent me a request and I had said yes to them, if they seemed harmless.

Not knowing what might lurk in the hearts, or minds of these unknowns, left me with no choice, but to completely purge my “Friends List”  down to only a few actual relatives and personal friends.

It was ugly.

At this moment my FB Friends List stands at 30.

But I feel quite confident about every single person on it and that none of them is going to sell my name, or use my pictures for porn.

As FB  has grown over the past ten years, from an insignificant local Harvard web site,  to a Mega Global Multi Billion Dollar Corporation,  one thing has become quite apparent, the object of their very existence is of course, profit or income.

How they acquire their income and what happens to you,  your information and your privacy, in the pursuit of it, is not,  it is clear, one of their priorities.

So, be forewarned, protect what you have there, or you may become  the next victim of Global Hackers and unknown others.

Facebook Fear could become a reality, if you do not.

 

Places to learn more:

Facebook

Facebook NewsFeed Manipulation Prompts FTC Complaint, Investigation Possible

With friends like these …

Housewife’s anger after picture is stolen from Facebook and posted on porn site

Seven Annoying Attacks That Facebook