mouth full of fig

brooklyn, new york
     8/26/10. for JTF

my mouth is full of figs
overfulover
flowing. not just their ripe and
alien bodies
strange seeds flesh like muscletissue
but leaves as well protrude from my mouth
gathered small bundles (twigs too)
full--over  flowing
verdant figgreen

it’s dedicated to you
the drops collected on my back
as if i were the landscape
harvesting the dew
the morning moving down a hill
one body water
it’s the morning i’ve waited to gather
shadow an eyebrow thick

i’m cultivating in new york city
i’m drawing crops from afar
because soon our mouths will live together
and feed on the crop stored my cellar
the slope of my back
          my garden plot mouth full of fig

i'm fluoride-free! - how to remove a highly toxic industrial waste product from your water

brooklyn, new york

“...any person who drinks artificially fluorinated water for a period of one year or more will never again be the same person mentally or physically." Charles Perkins, chemist. 1952

in my last blog post i spoke about some of the environmental poisons in our food, water, and air. inspired by the research i had done, i decided to do something about the fluoride present in my drinking water, courtesy of industrial corporations enabled by the u.s. government. (click here to find out if the drinking water in your area is fluoridated. but don't get too optimistic: as of 2008, 60% of water in the united states contained fluoride, with an aim to increase that number to 75% by this year [source].)

for those of you who don't know, despite the zeitgeist that fluoride is beneficial for your teeth, the material is actually a hazardous waste, a byproduct of the aluminum, nuclear, and phosphate (chemical fertilizer) industries. fluoride is found in rat poison, cockroach poison, Prozac, Sarin Nerve Gas, anesthetics, hypnotics, and other psychiatric drugs. and yet thanks to the brilliant masterminding of Edward Bernays, founder of public relations (a nice name for studied mind-control), who spearheaded water fluoridation, most of us don't question it's presence in our toothpaste, drinking water, and as an unlabeled ingredient in our foods.

fluoride's side-effects include bone degradation, cancer, damage to the hypothalamus & thyroid, kidney & liver disease, increased susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease, and dental fluorosis - get that. but what's perhaps most shocking are the decreased i.q. and mental & emotional sedation associated with fluoride, and the allegations that the chemical was originally used in Nazi germany and communist russia to keep camp inmates docile and under control [sources: 1, 2]. hmm, i wonder why it's in our water?
i've provided a number of articles and videos below which document fluoride's toxicity and the origins of fluoridation, the most overwhelmingly conclusive of which is the professionals' statement calling for an end to water fluoridation, but this post is meant to provide solutions: YOU CAN FILTER YOUR WATER! :) here is a list of filtration and distillation options:

i purchased this filter with the CFA-P sediment filter attachment (this piece can help avoid filter clogs in areas like new york where the water has a lot of sediment).

you'll notice that my filter is a two-stage. there are also three-stage filters and filters for an entire household's water system. just be sure to purchase one that explicitly states it filters fluoride.

some other options are a reverse osmosis filter, as well as a water distiller. distillers don't actually filter water, but vaporize and recondense it, leaving all chemicals and residues behind. what's left is pure H2O. this might sound enticing, but the jury is still out as to whether this is good for your body or not. naturally occuring water contains beneficial minerals for your body. distillation removes these minerals leaving the water with the capacity to suck those minerals out of the body as it passes through the digestive tract, hence i decided not to go with distillation but a filter instead.

lastly, it's important to consider filtration for shower water as well, given the skin's ability to absorb water and other substances topically. i haven't purchased a shower filter yet, but this website offers some options.

i did a good amount of research comparing filter efficacy and price. the links i've listed were the best options i could find. as you can see, the filter i purchased isn't too expensive ($129); i think it's well worth the price to remove the poison that's currently in our drinking water.

please let me know if you decide to filter your water or are already doing so! i'd love to see the comments section full of folks who are taking their health back into their own hands.

INFORM YOURSELF! - FURTHER INFORMATION ON FLUORIDE

a playlist i've created with salient clips on water fluoridation, beginning with The Fluoride Deception, a short documentary based on Christopher Bryson's book by the same name, and including newscasts from mainstream and alternative media - http://www.youtube.com/KIDAKIMBO11#g/c/E853F248F8DC96D0

from the professionals' statement calling for an end to water fluoridation - “...the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) safe drinking water standard for fluoride (i.e. maximum contaminant level goal or MCLG) of 4 parts per million (ppm) is unsafe and should be lowered. despite over 60 years of fluoridation, the report listed many basic research questions that have not been addressed.”
“...fluoride has a statistically significant association with a wide range of adverse effects. these include an increased risk of bone fractures, decreased thyroid function, lowered i.q., arthritic-like conditions, dental fluorosis and, possibly, osteosarcoma.”
“of special note among... animal studies is one in which rats fed water containing 1 ppm fluoride had an increased uptake of aluminum into the brain, with formation of beta-amyloid plaques, which is a classic marker of Alzheimer's disease pathology in humans.”
“[infant] formula made with fluoridated water contains 250 times more fluoride than the average 0.004 ppm concentration found in human breast milk in non-fluoridated areas.”
“...the predominant benefit of fluoride in reducing tooth decay is TOPICAL and not SYSTEMIC. To the extent fluoride works to reduce tooth decay, it works from the outside of the tooth, not from inside the body. it makes no sense to drink it and expose the rest of the body to the long term risks of fluoride ingestion...”
“in 2000, the publication of the UK government sponsored “York Review,” the first systematic scientific review of fluoridation, found that NONE of the studies purporting to demonstrate the effectiveness of fluoridation to reduce tooth decay were of grade A status, i.e. ‘high quality, bias unlikely’.”
“...the industrial grade waste products used to fluoridate over 90% of America's drinking water supplies (fluorosilicate compounds) have never been subjected to toxicological testing nor received FDA approval for human ingestion.”
“...industrial interests, concerned about liabilities from fluoride pollution and health effects on workers, played a significant role in the early promotion of fluoridation.”

from the effect of high-fluoride water on intelligence in children - "the iq of the 60 children in the high-fluoride area was significantly lower... than that of the 58 children in the low-fluoride area. more children in the high-fluoride area... were in the retardation... or borderline... categories of iq than children in the low fluoride area..." 

"repeated doses of infinitesimal amounts of fluoride will in time reduce an individual's power to resist domination, by slowly poisoning and narcotizing a certain area of the brain, thus making him submissive to the will of those who wish to govern him." quoting chemist Charles Perkins - http://www.preferrednetwork.com/FLUORIDE_STUPIDITY.htm

"A series of epidemiological studies in china have associated high fluoride exposures with lower i.q.." quoting Dan Fagin of Scientific American - http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS108377+02-Jan-2008+PRN20080102

"the whole structure of fluoridation is founded on quicksand. It is founded on statistical errors." quoting Dr. Hans Moolenburgh in his book, The Freedom Fight - http://sonic.net/~kryptox/editors/moolen.htm

from fluoride added to children's milk in schools throughout uk city - "in germany, belgium and luxembourg fluoridation of water was rejected because it was classified as compulsive medication against the subject’s will and therefore violated fundamental human rights."

for more information and ways to get involved visit the Fluoride Action Network