I recently turned a family member and a VP at a healthcare technology company on to Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff. Two days later, I found this in my inbox:
Hi Rob,
The “stuff video” made a strong point about toxins in plastic etc. I thought that you would be pleased to know that your support of the Obama team is being felt in the world of food and drug containers. According to our consultants who do testing for the device and pharmaceutics industry, testing requirements for toxins in polymers have been strengthened in a major way. Under the Bush administration, for polymers with a history such as silicone rubber or titanium, we would put the material under the skin of a rabbit for 90 days and look for inflammation and redness. For plastics that had never been used before in the body, there are a comprehensive list of chronic toxicology and carcinogenicity tests conducted with cells or with living subjects. However, there was no required analytical chemistry component in any of these regulations.
However with the Obama administration we are now required to supplement the biology testing with very sensitive chemical analytical methods. There is an FDA mandated process for leaching all potential “extractable” materials out of the plastic (things like unreacted monomer, additives for mold flow) and then studying each of these extractables for toxic effects. The combination of biologic and chemical analytical methods is a much better way to assure that plastics do not carry toxic chemicals into the body.
Just wanted you to know that your very active support of the current administration has had a practical (albeit expensive) effect. We just came out of a meeting discussing our corporate position on this requirement and we are embracing it. It is the right thing to do.
Maybe there is hope,
[name]
Tremendous.
How unfortunate for Steve Jobs to release what will undoubtedly become more important in his oeuvre than the ‘II’ to have its reception muddled by ugly name jokes and pundits expounding judgements sans experience.
I explained to Patti that the iWhatever would likely have two handed, five point “multitouch” as I fluttered my fingers.
She replied, “Oh, the interpretive dance of typing.”
“Exactly”, I said, loving her more.
Of all the commentary regarding the supreme court decision to protect corporate political spending as free speech, I found this letter to the editor in the NYT to be the most poignant.
To the Editor:
By means of two legal fictions, that corporations are people and money is speech, the Roberts court has turned America from a democracy to a plutocracy.
Norman N. Holland
Gainesville, Fla., Jan. 22, 2010
And the runner-up:
To the Editor:
The justices have affirmed a core principle of Republican government: one dollar, one vote.
Stephen Bowles
Santa Barbara, Calif., Jan. 22, 2010
Following the example of the OLPC program, Apple should donate one iTablet (or whatever it is to be named) to qualifying elementary, middle and high schools for each consumer purchased iTablet.
The effect of doing so underscores the iTablet’s disruptive educational innovation, bringing Wikipedia and Web to the fingertips of tiny hands, and creates a moral imperative to overlook the cost premium by consumers vis-a-vis substitutes.
The Tablet isn’t (thankfully) a computer or a phone; the Tablet is the bridge across the digital divide that is as much generational as economic. Apple would be well served to market it as such.
The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Best line:
“One of the hot topics today is Twitter, but when we first went into the field and began interviewing, Twitter didn’t exist,” Ms. Rideout said.
via NYT
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