MEMORIAL DAY - the meaning of war - preserve American freedom. beliefs and way of life. Over 58,000 DIED in the Viet Nam War and 6,000 died in the Iraq War. Died for us. Yet, many will not vote. Many will not serve - this has become a "volunteer" war. Because many refuse to serve, the same "volunteers" go back for three, four, and five tours of duty. Death and injury mounts. War.
That is why I feel the Republicans candidates for Congress are not suitable. If they were no going to run for Congress they can turn their backs on patriotism. But as young men, especially Whelan who just graduated from school and still lives off parents, they must know the sacrifice of men. They can too easily send others into war to fight in their place. Whelan, Garcia, and Tacherra refused to serve and shirked their duty.
Today we honor those who have stood up for America..
Showing posts with label Chowchilla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chowchilla. Show all posts
Monday, May 28, 2012
Thursday, May 03, 2012
One View - Amazon Studio a Bad Idea
The Morning Read: Why Amazon Studios is a very bad idea for writers
PLUS ELI ROTH'S DOING RIGHT BY HORROR AND TALKING 'STAR WARS' WITH KIDS
Barton Fink is a good example of of what happens to screenwriters in Hollywood, and he got off easy.
Credit: 20th Century Fox
Welcome to The Morning Read.
Let's kick off today's column with a bit of a public service announcement. Have you read about the Amazon Studios announcement? Basically, Amazon decided to get involved in the production of content, and they've created a brand-new program that is part contest, part development fund, and all garbage.
I've gotten several e-mails from people asking me my take on this, several of which were from very excited writers looking at this as a way to finally get around the "no manager or agent" conundrum. And I empathize with any writer out there with a script who can't get people to read it. I get what is attractive about the idea of a brand-new way of getting around the system, but this is not it. Have you read theDevelopment Agreement or the Contest Terms and Procedures? They are fascinating and revealing and completely insane.
I'll put it this way: if you upload your script or your movie to their contest, you are essentially kissing it goodbye forever. Line after line of the legalese on these pages just confounds me. "You agree to be automatically entered into any future contests for which your work is eligible. The specific contest rules for future contests will be posted on this page when they are announced." And considering one of the rules of this contest grants Amazon Studios a free 18-month option on your work the moment you upload it, the idea that they can enter you in a contest later and tell you the rules after they do so seems positively batty. The "development agreement" is a contract you're signing, not an entry form for a contest, and in it, you grant them a free option on your work for a year and a half, and if they do end up producing your work, there's a set fee. Period. That's all it is. A set rate. The same no matter what the project is, and no matter what happens with it. That is, simply put, immoral.
Beyond that, once your script is uploaded to Amazon, anyone can revise it. Try to wrap your head around that. Anyone can revise your screenplay. They can do anything they want to it. And if that revision ends up being what gets made, that person becomes part of that set price I mentioned earlier. It's a mind-boggling proposition, and runs completely counter-intuitive to the idea of giving writers a platform for their work. The thought of some random person having the legal right to revise my screenplays makes me sick to my stomach, and I seriously believe that the people who created the Amazon Studios idea are either very stupid or very evil. It is an idea designed to exploit and strip-mine creativity, and it sounds to me like someone's idea of a social media experiment gone wildly wrong. There's nothing about this that sounds to me like it will result in good filmmaking. The entire notion of a "test movie" is bizarre, especially when you're talking about having people shoot entire feature films as tests. That side of the contest is so much weirder than the screenplay side that I can't even really understand it.
Look, collaboration is one of the key components of filmmaking. I absolutely believe that. But I also believe that you have to be able to pick your own collaborators based on their history, your history, common artistic goals, respect, and much more. "Crowdsourcing" is a big buzzword right now, and under the right conditions, I can see how useful that is. But for filmmaking? This is poison. This is very bad thing. To me, this smacks of the sort of "let's suck someone's blood" mentality that marks the very worst of Los Angeles.
I've spent the last few years entangled in a business arrangement with a producer who I will simply refer to here as "The Gimp." At the very beginning of our relationship, The Gimp talked a good game. He promised easy access to production funds. He spun fanciful stories of lands where tax incentives just fell of the trees, ready to be picked up and spent by any filmmaker who just happened along. He told tales of the cast that was eager and ready to go, and he even went down the road of hiring a director and making premature announcements. All of it was what I wanted to hear. All of it sounded great.
But the truth about The Gimp is that he is all talk. Those production funds always managed to stay a week or two away from escrow. The tax incentives only seemed to be opportune in states without soundstages. Or film crews. And that cast that was promised seemed to vanish into thin air when push came to shove. And not just once. Not just twice. It was a cycle, a pattern, a twisted game of self-affirmation that The Gimp was playing at my expense. And because of the option The Gimp had on the material, there was nothing we could do to reclaim it from him. At that point, it's a waiting game, but at least we'd been paid for the option, which is the way it should work.
In the end, the worst part is the feeling that The Gimp never cared at all about the story we were trying to tell. Instead, what we offered was a film that could be made at a price just low enough that it would justify a padded budget that could be pocketed, an easy way out of potential bankruptcy, and until he actually made it, there were other ways to make money on our work, ways that had nothing to do with actually telling our story. I've got stories stretching back twenty years about people indulging their own ego and greed at the expense of writers who genuinely just want to tell a story.
Amazon Studios throws a ton of numbers at you up front, and it claims to be about giving power to the people, but it smells to me like one more case of the writer being the bottom of the pile. Seriously… I implore you… if you believe your work is of any value whatsoever, don't fall for this. I'm curious to see if other writers or advocates for writers weigh in on this one. For now, John August is the only one I've seen jump in, and he makes the point with elegance as usual.
The worst part of saying all that is I know how defensive some people will get, because they will want to believe that this is the short cut they've been looking for. The truth is that there are no short cuts at all. You've got to work to get your ideas in front of people, no matter who you are, and the business is getting more competitive as it contracts and changes. There is nothing more important than a well-executed good idea, and if you're looking for something to give you hope, then why not look at the example of "Clown"?
Remember that? A few weeks ago, I ran a piece about "Alma," the animated film that Guillermo Del Toro is helping to turn into a feature based on an acclaimed short done as a personal side project by Rodrigo Blaas. In that piece, I also included a YouTube trailer for a fake movie called "Clown." One of the things that was really ballsy about the "Clown" trailer was the way they threw on the title "A Film by Eli Roth," even though they had no connection to him. Well, now it looks like they do. Roth is producing the film, with Jon Watts and Christopher D. Ford, who made the short, directing and writing the film together. I have to say, I loved the "Clown" trailer, and I'm excited to see the film, and I love the way the film got in front of Eli, and then made the jump from joke to reality.
There's another film Eli also just helped set up that sounds great, the new one from Nicolas Lopez, a Chilean filmmaker whose earlier films "Promedio Rojo" and "Santos" both showed huge personality and promise. The notion of Lopez taking his personal observations about the February earthquake in Chile and what happened afterwards and turning that into a horror film is exciting because this isn't something born from somebody watching old movies and just regurgitation someone else's ideas. This is personal, and those are often the best films.
That's why I find that whole Amazon Studios thing so unsettling, and the way the media is just swallowing it without digesting it or analyzing it or looking at how it treats the people it professes to help is disturbing. When you're telling a story, it's not just about putting events in a certain order or creating some clever gag or sequence. It's about voice and perspective and tone, and it seems unlikely you'll get that from something anyone can alter at whim. Explore alternatives, but be smart about it. There are always new ways in, new ways to get attention for a good project. Put your faith in yourself and your idea, not some horseshit Amazon Studios Ponzi scheme that will just use you as oil in their machin
e
Let's kick off today's column with a bit of a public service announcement. Have you read about the Amazon Studios announcement? Basically, Amazon decided to get involved in the production of content, and they've created a brand-new program that is part contest, part development fund, and all garbage.
I've gotten several e-mails from people asking me my take on this, several of which were from very excited writers looking at this as a way to finally get around the "no manager or agent" conundrum. And I empathize with any writer out there with a script who can't get people to read it. I get what is attractive about the idea of a brand-new way of getting around the system, but this is not it. Have you read theDevelopment Agreement or the Contest Terms and Procedures? They are fascinating and revealing and completely insane.
I'll put it this way: if you upload your script or your movie to their contest, you are essentially kissing it goodbye forever. Line after line of the legalese on these pages just confounds me. "You agree to be automatically entered into any future contests for which your work is eligible. The specific contest rules for future contests will be posted on this page when they are announced." And considering one of the rules of this contest grants Amazon Studios a free 18-month option on your work the moment you upload it, the idea that they can enter you in a contest later and tell you the rules after they do so seems positively batty. The "development agreement" is a contract you're signing, not an entry form for a contest, and in it, you grant them a free option on your work for a year and a half, and if they do end up producing your work, there's a set fee. Period. That's all it is. A set rate. The same no matter what the project is, and no matter what happens with it. That is, simply put, immoral.
Beyond that, once your script is uploaded to Amazon, anyone can revise it. Try to wrap your head around that. Anyone can revise your screenplay. They can do anything they want to it. And if that revision ends up being what gets made, that person becomes part of that set price I mentioned earlier. It's a mind-boggling proposition, and runs completely counter-intuitive to the idea of giving writers a platform for their work. The thought of some random person having the legal right to revise my screenplays makes me sick to my stomach, and I seriously believe that the people who created the Amazon Studios idea are either very stupid or very evil. It is an idea designed to exploit and strip-mine creativity, and it sounds to me like someone's idea of a social media experiment gone wildly wrong. There's nothing about this that sounds to me like it will result in good filmmaking. The entire notion of a "test movie" is bizarre, especially when you're talking about having people shoot entire feature films as tests. That side of the contest is so much weirder than the screenplay side that I can't even really understand it.
Look, collaboration is one of the key components of filmmaking. I absolutely believe that. But I also believe that you have to be able to pick your own collaborators based on their history, your history, common artistic goals, respect, and much more. "Crowdsourcing" is a big buzzword right now, and under the right conditions, I can see how useful that is. But for filmmaking? This is poison. This is very bad thing. To me, this smacks of the sort of "let's suck someone's blood" mentality that marks the very worst of Los Angeles.
I've spent the last few years entangled in a business arrangement with a producer who I will simply refer to here as "The Gimp." At the very beginning of our relationship, The Gimp talked a good game. He promised easy access to production funds. He spun fanciful stories of lands where tax incentives just fell of the trees, ready to be picked up and spent by any filmmaker who just happened along. He told tales of the cast that was eager and ready to go, and he even went down the road of hiring a director and making premature announcements. All of it was what I wanted to hear. All of it sounded great.
But the truth about The Gimp is that he is all talk. Those production funds always managed to stay a week or two away from escrow. The tax incentives only seemed to be opportune in states without soundstages. Or film crews. And that cast that was promised seemed to vanish into thin air when push came to shove. And not just once. Not just twice. It was a cycle, a pattern, a twisted game of self-affirmation that The Gimp was playing at my expense. And because of the option The Gimp had on the material, there was nothing we could do to reclaim it from him. At that point, it's a waiting game, but at least we'd been paid for the option, which is the way it should work.
In the end, the worst part is the feeling that The Gimp never cared at all about the story we were trying to tell. Instead, what we offered was a film that could be made at a price just low enough that it would justify a padded budget that could be pocketed, an easy way out of potential bankruptcy, and until he actually made it, there were other ways to make money on our work, ways that had nothing to do with actually telling our story. I've got stories stretching back twenty years about people indulging their own ego and greed at the expense of writers who genuinely just want to tell a story.
Amazon Studios throws a ton of numbers at you up front, and it claims to be about giving power to the people, but it smells to me like one more case of the writer being the bottom of the pile. Seriously… I implore you… if you believe your work is of any value whatsoever, don't fall for this. I'm curious to see if other writers or advocates for writers weigh in on this one. For now, John August is the only one I've seen jump in, and he makes the point with elegance as usual.
The worst part of saying all that is I know how defensive some people will get, because they will want to believe that this is the short cut they've been looking for. The truth is that there are no short cuts at all. You've got to work to get your ideas in front of people, no matter who you are, and the business is getting more competitive as it contracts and changes. There is nothing more important than a well-executed good idea, and if you're looking for something to give you hope, then why not look at the example of "Clown"?
Remember that? A few weeks ago, I ran a piece about "Alma," the animated film that Guillermo Del Toro is helping to turn into a feature based on an acclaimed short done as a personal side project by Rodrigo Blaas. In that piece, I also included a YouTube trailer for a fake movie called "Clown." One of the things that was really ballsy about the "Clown" trailer was the way they threw on the title "A Film by Eli Roth," even though they had no connection to him. Well, now it looks like they do. Roth is producing the film, with Jon Watts and Christopher D. Ford, who made the short, directing and writing the film together. I have to say, I loved the "Clown" trailer, and I'm excited to see the film, and I love the way the film got in front of Eli, and then made the jump from joke to reality.
There's another film Eli also just helped set up that sounds great, the new one from Nicolas Lopez, a Chilean filmmaker whose earlier films "Promedio Rojo" and "Santos" both showed huge personality and promise. The notion of Lopez taking his personal observations about the February earthquake in Chile and what happened afterwards and turning that into a horror film is exciting because this isn't something born from somebody watching old movies and just regurgitation someone else's ideas. This is personal, and those are often the best films.
That's why I find that whole Amazon Studios thing so unsettling, and the way the media is just swallowing it without digesting it or analyzing it or looking at how it treats the people it professes to help is disturbing. When you're telling a story, it's not just about putting events in a certain order or creating some clever gag or sequence. It's about voice and perspective and tone, and it seems unlikely you'll get that from something anyone can alter at whim. Explore alternatives, but be smart about it. There are always new ways in, new ways to get attention for a good project. Put your faith in yourself and your idea, not some horseshit Amazon Studios Ponzi scheme that will just use you as oil in their machin
e
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Congress adjourns for week with no help to citizens
Congress is unable to function and will lead our country into further disaster.The dysfunction and political division has made Congress a place for grandstanding and hot rhetoric, but at the cost of national unemployment and no confidence in the economy. Politicians can't even decide if the federal government should give FEMA money to help citizens who are victims of national disasters. Republicans say they will vote to fund FEMA, if the money comes from current programs that help US children and the poor.
I think most Americans want to help people who suffer from natural disasters. The stagnation in Congress is hurting us all - a different type of national disaster. Republicans had hoped they could force Senate Democrats to accept a partisan budget cut on the threat that disaster victims would otherwise be deprived of assistance for days or even weeks.
We in the valley must assuredly work to get Denham out of the valley as a representative. We will never get a reduction in the deficit via the congressional super-committee with this group in office - that means cuts in Medicare, social security, medicaid, etc.. We must vote the obstructionist Republicans out in 2012, so we can move forward.
Then, after spending billions of dollars fighting whether to fund FEMA or fighting to suspend clean air and water regulations and spend billions on studies to see if clean air improves health, the Congress adjourns for a week-long vacation.
This Congress takes too much time arguing and needs to spend more time in DC in session working and attempting to come to some needed agreements.
Americans are suffering, but congressmen are deaf to the cries.
I think most Americans want to help people who suffer from natural disasters. The stagnation in Congress is hurting us all - a different type of national disaster. Republicans had hoped they could force Senate Democrats to accept a partisan budget cut on the threat that disaster victims would otherwise be deprived of assistance for days or even weeks.
We in the valley must assuredly work to get Denham out of the valley as a representative. We will never get a reduction in the deficit via the congressional super-committee with this group in office - that means cuts in Medicare, social security, medicaid, etc.. We must vote the obstructionist Republicans out in 2012, so we can move forward.
Then, after spending billions of dollars fighting whether to fund FEMA or fighting to suspend clean air and water regulations and spend billions on studies to see if clean air improves health, the Congress adjourns for a week-long vacation.
This Congress takes too much time arguing and needs to spend more time in DC in session working and attempting to come to some needed agreements.
Americans are suffering, but congressmen are deaf to the cries.
Friday, January 07, 2011
CHOWCHILLA HITS BOTTOM AND DEFAULTS ON LOANS
Chowchilla defaults on bond payment for new government building. As Chowchilla heads towards bankruptcy, the city promises to dig into reserves to pay missed payment with penalty fees. Years of neglect by state officials, including then State Senator Denham have led to the pitiful state of financial affairs.
Chowchilla defaults on bond payment for new government building. As Chowchilla heads towards bankruptcy, the city promises to dig into reserves to pay missed payment with penalty fees. Years of neglect by state officials, including then State Senator Denham have led to the pitiful state of financial affairs.
NEW CONGRESS OFF TO BAD START
I don't feel great about this "new" Congress - looks like the same "old boys club " to me. Jeff Denham has been given the job of frat party thrower and fundraiser. Hence, on the day BEFORE he even gets into office, he throws a $2,500 a plate dinner at a luxury hotel in D.C.. I guess the economy is doing very well after all.
Next Boehner starts crying repeatedly. He is like an old depressed drunk. In fact, he has around eleven brothers and sisters. His sister said, “John is a little man and he has a big job ahead of him." With family confidence like that, it is no wonder Boehner started the, "my gavel is bigger than yours" contest. Yes, it sounds like a penile problem to me too. In fact, as Boehner was waving his gavel around with great pride about its size, the gavel began to resemble a "penis analogy" to me. Let the frat party begin.
Next these guys, getting high salaries, decide to read the Constitution aloud on the House floor. Maybe these guys should have been reading the Constitution instead of partying, drinking and womanizing at the lavish party the night before. Yes, we got to pay to hear these inept congressmen read the Constitution aloud. It was sad to hear some of the congressional members stumble over the words. That reading exercise cost us citizens around a million dollars or more...our tax money.
The Republicans said the only idea they had for reducing federal spending was to cut the congressional budget. Later, it was revealed that actually the congressional budget would be too hard to cut, so the reduction will be greatly reduced and the congressional party can continue.
Boehner said first job, as Speaker of the House, is to repeal health care reform legislation. The Congressional Budget Office says that will cost over $230 billion dollars with the investments already made - plus the Senate will not pass the repeal bill, so it is a waste of time and money - but a good show for gullible Republicans. On a news interview show when Boehner was asked what he planned to cut to reduce federal spending as promised during the campaign, Boehner said, in spite of all of his years in the House, he "had no specific ideas."
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
BOTTLED WATER A HEALTH HAZARD - TELL THE
KIDS AND SAVE BIG TIME
TELL KIDS BOTTLED WATER NOT BETTER THAN TAP WATER AND SAVE MONEY
Schools sell bottled water to kids - around $1 a day - and
the costs add up for families. Kids feel because the water is sold that the
bottled water is BETTER - NOT TRUE!!!! School administrators don't care and
continue to allow this message to be given on a daily basis. Tell kids in your
communities the truth about bottled water. Also, the water sold at schools is
often kept at varying temperatures (unrecorded) and for varying lengths of time
(unrecorded). These storage conditions can make the water even worse with higher
bacterial counts. These elevated levels of bacteria can increase oral bacterial
count and increase cavities and gum disease.
Here is an article on
BOTTLED WATER from the web:
How much do you know about the bottled water
you drink? Not nearly enough, according toa new report released today from Environmental Working
Group (EWG)."Bottled water companies try hard to hide information you
might find troubling," says Jane Houlihan, senior vice president of research for
the Washington D.C.-based research and advocacy group.
EWG analyzed the
labels of 173 unique bottled water products and company websites to determine if
companies disclose information on where water comes from, how or if their water
is treated, and whether the results of purity testing are revealed. The
nonprofit also looked at how effective (and advanced) any water treatment
methods are. Researchers followed up by calling dozens of bottled water
companies to find out which ones willingly tell consumers what's in their
bottles.
The Environmental Protection Agency says on its website that
consumers have the right to know where their water comes from and what's in it
so they can "make informed choices that affect the health of themselves and
their families." Tap water is regularly tested and consumers can find their local water info
online. That's not necessarily the case with bottled water, which is
not required to disclose that information to consumers. "Bottled water is a food
product and every one of these companies is complying with federal law,"says Tom
Lauria, of the International Bottled Water Association.
More than half of the
bottled water products surveyed failed EWG's transparency test --18 percent
didn't say where their water comes from, and another 32 percent did not disclose
any information on treatment or purity of water.
Only three brands earned the
highest possible marks for disclosing information and using the most advanced
treatment methods available- Gerber Pure Purified Water,
Nestle PureLife Purified Water, and Penta
Ultra-PurifiedWater.
On the other end of the spectrum, these six
brands got the worst marks in EWG's report because they don't provide consumers
with the three basic facts about water on product labels or their company
website - Whole Foods Italian Still Mineral Water,
Vintage Natural Spring Water,Sahara Premium Drinking
Water, O Water Sport Electrolyte Enhanced Purified Drinking
Water,Market Basket Natural Spring Water,
andCumby's Spring Water.
How does your bottled water brand
stack up? Here's a look at the 10 top-selling* U.S. brands:
1. Pure Life
Purified Water (Nestle),EWG grade = B
2. Arrowhead Mountain Spring
Water(Nestle), EWG grade = C
3. Aquafina Purified Drinking Water(Pepsi),
EWG grade = D
4. Dasani Purified Water (Coca-Cola),EWG grade =
D
5. Deer Park Natural Spring Water(Nestle), EWG grade = D
6. Ice
Mountain Natural Spring Water(Nestle), EWG grade = D
7. Ozarka Natural
Spring Water (Nestle),EWG grade = D
8. Poland Spring Natural Spring
Water(Nestle), EWG grade = D
9. Zephyrhills Natural Spring Water(Nestle),
EWG grade = D
10. Crystal Geyser Natural Alpine Spring Water (CGRoxane), EWG
grade = F
Filtered tap water received the best grade (an A) from EWG because
if you change your filter regularly, EWG says it is purer than bottled water,
plus it saves money (bottled water can cost up to1,900 times more than what
flows from your tap). Drinking tap water also takes less of a toll on the
planet. EWG offers plenty of tips for filtering your tap
water so that you can drink the healthiest water
possible.
What should you do when bottled water is your only
option?"While our top choice is filtered tap water, when you do need to choose
bottled water, we recommend brands that tell you what's in the water and that
use advanced treatment technologies like reverse osmosis and micro-filtration," says
Houlihan. Advanced treatment technologies remove pollutants that other methods
don't. You should look for bottled water products that tell you where the water
is coming from and how pure it is.
Here are the results for all 173bottled water brands
included in the report. You'll find that some less popular brands rank even
lower than our list of top-sellers.
The advice to drink filtered tap water
can seem confusing when there are often reports about the contaminants found in
municipal water supplies. Just last month, for example, EWG announced that cancer causing hexavalent chromium (chromium-6) is in 31cities' tap water. Houlihan says
chromium-6 is as likely to be in your bottled water as it is in your tap water
and we need action from the federal government on this. She points out that a
reverse osmosis filter can remove the worrisome contaminant. You can guarantee
its removal in your home supply, but in many cases you don't know what's in the
bottle you're drinking from.
*Sales rankings from the Beverage
MarketingCorporation.
KIDS AND SAVE BIG TIME
TELL KIDS BOTTLED WATER NOT BETTER THAN TAP WATER AND SAVE MONEY
Schools sell bottled water to kids - around $1 a day - and
the costs add up for families. Kids feel because the water is sold that the
bottled water is BETTER - NOT TRUE!!!! School administrators don't care and
continue to allow this message to be given on a daily basis. Tell kids in your
communities the truth about bottled water. Also, the water sold at schools is
often kept at varying temperatures (unrecorded) and for varying lengths of time
(unrecorded). These storage conditions can make the water even worse with higher
bacterial counts. These elevated levels of bacteria can increase oral bacterial
count and increase cavities and gum disease.
Here is an article on
BOTTLED WATER from the web:
How much do you know about the bottled water
you drink? Not nearly enough, according toa new report released today from Environmental Working
Group (EWG)."Bottled water companies try hard to hide information you
might find troubling," says Jane Houlihan, senior vice president of research for
the Washington D.C.-based research and advocacy group.
EWG analyzed the
labels of 173 unique bottled water products and company websites to determine if
companies disclose information on where water comes from, how or if their water
is treated, and whether the results of purity testing are revealed. The
nonprofit also looked at how effective (and advanced) any water treatment
methods are. Researchers followed up by calling dozens of bottled water
companies to find out which ones willingly tell consumers what's in their
bottles.
The Environmental Protection Agency says on its website that
consumers have the right to know where their water comes from and what's in it
so they can "make informed choices that affect the health of themselves and
their families." Tap water is regularly tested and consumers can find their local water info
online. That's not necessarily the case with bottled water, which is
not required to disclose that information to consumers. "Bottled water is a food
product and every one of these companies is complying with federal law,"says Tom
Lauria, of the International Bottled Water Association.
More than half of the
bottled water products surveyed failed EWG's transparency test --18 percent
didn't say where their water comes from, and another 32 percent did not disclose
any information on treatment or purity of water.
Only three brands earned the
highest possible marks for disclosing information and using the most advanced
treatment methods available- Gerber Pure Purified Water,
Nestle PureLife Purified Water, and Penta
Ultra-PurifiedWater.
On the other end of the spectrum, these six
brands got the worst marks in EWG's report because they don't provide consumers
with the three basic facts about water on product labels or their company
website - Whole Foods Italian Still Mineral Water,
Vintage Natural Spring Water,Sahara Premium Drinking
Water, O Water Sport Electrolyte Enhanced Purified Drinking
Water,Market Basket Natural Spring Water,
andCumby's Spring Water.
How does your bottled water brand
stack up? Here's a look at the 10 top-selling* U.S. brands:
1. Pure Life
Purified Water (Nestle),EWG grade = B
2. Arrowhead Mountain Spring
Water(Nestle), EWG grade = C
3. Aquafina Purified Drinking Water(Pepsi),
EWG grade = D
4. Dasani Purified Water (Coca-Cola),EWG grade =
D
5. Deer Park Natural Spring Water(Nestle), EWG grade = D
6. Ice
Mountain Natural Spring Water(Nestle), EWG grade = D
7. Ozarka Natural
Spring Water (Nestle),EWG grade = D
8. Poland Spring Natural Spring
Water(Nestle), EWG grade = D
9. Zephyrhills Natural Spring Water(Nestle),
EWG grade = D
10. Crystal Geyser Natural Alpine Spring Water (CGRoxane), EWG
grade = F
Filtered tap water received the best grade (an A) from EWG because
if you change your filter regularly, EWG says it is purer than bottled water,
plus it saves money (bottled water can cost up to1,900 times more than what
flows from your tap). Drinking tap water also takes less of a toll on the
planet. EWG offers plenty of tips for filtering your tap
water so that you can drink the healthiest water
possible.
What should you do when bottled water is your only
option?"While our top choice is filtered tap water, when you do need to choose
bottled water, we recommend brands that tell you what's in the water and that
use advanced treatment technologies like reverse osmosis and micro-filtration," says
Houlihan. Advanced treatment technologies remove pollutants that other methods
don't. You should look for bottled water products that tell you where the water
is coming from and how pure it is.
Here are the results for all 173bottled water brands
included in the report. You'll find that some less popular brands rank even
lower than our list of top-sellers.
The advice to drink filtered tap water
can seem confusing when there are often reports about the contaminants found in
municipal water supplies. Just last month, for example, EWG announced that cancer causing hexavalent chromium (chromium-6) is in 31cities' tap water. Houlihan says
chromium-6 is as likely to be in your bottled water as it is in your tap water
and we need action from the federal government on this. She points out that a
reverse osmosis filter can remove the worrisome contaminant. You can guarantee
its removal in your home supply, but in many cases you don't know what's in the
bottle you're drinking from.
*Sales rankings from the Beverage
MarketingCorporation.
Repuublicans Fight To Make America FAIL AND STEAL OUR MONEY
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Chowchilla Broke....NO MONEY
Now people are volunteering to do regular public functions such as taking care of parks and playgrounds. Recently Chowchilla spent millions to upgrade it's government building - and a very beautiful and well-designed building it is. It seems that serial bad choices are at the root of this bankruptcy. Now we must really get down to work and get this city together. Too many years of neglect and abandonment by our state legislators.
Now people are volunteering to do regular public functions such as taking care of parks and playgrounds. Recently Chowchilla spent millions to upgrade it's government building - and a very beautiful and well-designed building it is. It seems that serial bad choices are at the root of this bankruptcy. Now we must really get down to work and get this city together. Too many years of neglect and abandonment by our state legislators.
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