TOLKIEN READING DAY - Sunday, March 25th, at Books of Wonder in NYC [Just a few photos from a wonderfully delightful event]

TOLKIEN READING DAY [Sunday, March 25th] My segment was the Galadriel voiceover in the prologue from the film "Fellowship of the Ring".

The world is changed

I feel it in the water

I feel it in the Earth

I smell it in the air

Much that once was is lost. For none now live who remember it.

It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the elves. Immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the dwarf lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of men. Who above all else, desire power.

For within these rings was bound the strength and will to govern each race. But they were all of them deceived.

For another ring was made. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom the dark Lord Sauron forged in secret a master Ring to control all others and into this Ring he poured all his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life.

One Ring to rule them all.

One by one the free lands of Middle Earth fell to the power of the Ring. But there were some who resisted.

A last alliance of Elves and Men marched against the armies of Mordor. And on the slopes of Mount Doom they fought for the freedom of Middle Earth.

Victory was near. But the power of the Ring could not be undone.

It was in this moment, that Isildur, son of the King, took up his father’s sword.

Sauron, the enemy of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth was defeated.

The Ring passed to Isildur. Who had this one chance to destroy evil forever. But the hearts of Men are easily corrupted. And the Ring of Power has a will of its own. It betrayed Isildur to his death.

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend, legend became myth, and for two and a half thousand years the Ring passed out of all knowledge.

Until, when chance came it ensnared a new bearer.

The Ring came to the creature Gollum who took it deep into the tunnels of the Misty Mountains. And there it consumed him.

The Ring brought to Gollum unnatural long life. For five hundred years it poisoned his mind. And in the gloom of Gollum’s cave it waited.

Darkness crept back into the forests of the world. Rumour grew of a shadow in the East, whispers of a nameless fear.

And the Ring of Power perceived. Its time had now come. It abandoned Gollum.

But something happened then that the Ring did not intend, it was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable.

A hobbit. Bilbo Baggins of the Shire.

For the time will soon come when Hobbits will shape the fortunes of all.

GMO-Free Foods – A List for Those Who are GMO Free ... Nourished Kitchen ... http://nourishedkitchen.com/gmo-free-food/

List of Companies that use Monsanto GMO Foods ... http://nofoolshere.blogspot.com/2012/02/heres-list-of-food-companies-monsanto.html

Another reason to buy organic, plain, whole foods, not processed ones! Companies that use Monsanto GMO seeds/foods:

Aunt Jemima (Quaker)
Jemima (Quaker)
Betty Crocker (General Mills)
Bisquick
Duncan Hines
Hungry Jack
Jiffy
Mrs. Butterworths
Pepperidge farms (Campbell’s)
Aurora Foods Kraft/Phillip Morris (post cereals)
Hershey’s Nestle (Carnation)
Holsum (interstate bakeries)
Best foods (Knorr)
Kellogg’s
Nature Valley
Nabisco (Phillip Morris)
Pillsbury
Heinz
Hellman’s
Hunts
KC Masterpiece
Frito-lay/Pepsi
Delicious brand cookies
Famous Amos
Keebler/Flowers Industries
Banquet
Green Giant
Healthy Choice (ConAgra)
Kid Cuisine (stouffers)
Lean Cuisine (stouffers)
Marie Callenders
Ore-ida
Smart ones Power Bar Brand
Chef Boyardee
Hormel
Loma Linda
Morningstar
Lipton (Unilever)
Uncle Ben’s
Rice-a-roni/Pasta-roni
Tombstone Pizza
Totinos
Orville Redenbacher
Pop Secret
Pringles (Procter and Gamble)
Coca Cola
Minute Made
Pepsi
Cadbury/Sweppes
Capri-sun
Cool-aid
Ocean Spray
V-8
Prego Pasta Sauce
Ragu Sauce

Perils of the Global Economy by Ralph Nader

For months now our stocks have gone up and down due to various concerns, but none more recurrent than concerns about the financial crisis in Greece. Morning after morning, New York City based casino capitalists trade with Greece and the latest rumors from Western Europe on their minds.

What will affluent Germany do to bail out the collapsing, debt-ridden country of Greece? Will France go along with those plans? Will the massive injection of liquidity by the European Central Bank help the banks to behave in ways that help Greece, among other countries? Day after trading day, the U.S.

Why? Greece is a country of just over ten million people with a GDP smaller than that of New Jersey. But because it is closest to the fiscal cliff, financial observers fear a domino effect. If Greece defaults badly, it could pull Portugal, Spain, Ireland and then possibly Italy closer to financial disaster.

And what is the chain that binds Greece to these nations and then to larger countries in the EU and across the Atlantic to the U.S.? It is the deep, interdependency brought about by corporate globalization and its massive financial speculators, piling derivatives such as credit default swaps and other intricate pyramids of bets, on additional bets. These are the banks, hedge funds and other financial entities that pool other peoples' money into ever-more abstract and complex betting or gambling instruments of parasitic, big finance.

Not that much has changed since the Wall Street collapse of 2008 other than the renewed "Wall Street" belief that you, the taxpayers, will be forced once again by your government to bail out even larger financial giants who are so interlocked as to be "too big to fail."

Traders making speculative money from speculative money, traded in trillions of dollars, now hold hostage the real economy wherein people make money from providing needed or wanted goods and services. The fate of American workers, their pensions and the real businesses that employ them, rests on the globalized dominoes that a teetering Greece could set in motion. This is the craven logic of a global casino economy, driven by split-second computerized algorithms and camouflaged by the phony theory of "free trade" which is really corporate-managed trade.

The U.S. does not need to be shackled by the global corporatists to what may happen in Greece or Spain or Portugal. We should be less dependent on financial economies abroad and more self-reliant and independent of the global economy's dangerously contagious risks.

That is why the more community-based economic activity there is in our country - credit unions; renewable, efficient energy; community health clinics; community food markets, etc. - the more insulated we will be from global seismic ravages. Those same community economies would have helped shield the Greek people from the wily clutches of Goldman Sachs and other aggressive casino creditors.

Unfortunately, the intellectually impoverished presidential and Congressional campaigns never propose ways to extricate our country from the octuple straitjackets of global speculators. The two-party political tyranny - Republican and Democratic - is too busy kneeling before the check-writers of imperious corporatists to stand up for the people whose votes they strive to secure.

As U.S. citizens struggle, Wall Street and Washington worry about Greece.