Cell phones have been worrisome for quite some time now because of fears that they cause brain cancer. As a result, Berkeley is attempting to be the first city in the nation to require cell phone packaging carry a warning label. Are cell phones and cancer a real risk?

“Cell phones are a risk, and I believe the public has a right to information that’s credible, readable and understandable about the device they’re using,” said Berkeley City Councilman Max Anderson, who’s co-sponsoring the ordinance and has a background in public health. “I’m not intimidated by the cell phone industry. The legal department might be, but I’m not.”

San Francisco tried without success to pass a similar ordinance back in 2010 warning about the risks between cell phones and cancer. Wary of the failure, Berkeley hired a First Amendment specialty attorney to ensure that the stickers abide by the necessary guidelines. Even still, the telecommunication industry will most certainly be mounting an aggressive legal fight. The cell phone industry has already responded by sending a four page letter to city council outlining how the regulation violates federal regulations.

“Any attempt to place labels on cell phones or their packaging contradicts the clear message of federal regulatory agencies that have carefully considered this issue, which is that devices compliant with the federal standards are safe for consumer use,” wrote Gerald Keegan, senior director of legislative affairs for CTIA – The Wireless Association, an industry group, reported on SFGate.

The ordinance would require that cell phone manufacturers carry a label warning that cell phones emit cancer causing radiation.

Joel Moskowitz, head of UC Berkeley’s Center for Family and Community Health says that cell phones are an emerging public health threat and that the research is quite definitive. Cell phone radiation penetrates the skin and skull, damaging brain tissue. It also reduces sperm counts in men that carry them in their pockets. Though other experts contend that there’s uncertainty surrounding much of the research.

Related on EcoSalon

BPA Creates an Environment That Promotes Breast Cancer Growth

Is That All? Breast Cancer Risk Factors Connected to 102 Chemicals Besides BPA

Is Cell Phone Radiation Causing Breast Cancer

Image: kevin ryder

The post Cell Phones and Cancer: Berkeley Wants Warning Labels appeared first on EcoSalon.

Sometimes, an article needs to be set to song. Go ahead, click, and come back to us in a new window. We trust you. All set? Great. Our February Man We Love had to be introduced against Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For a Hero” because he is all things dreamy and heroic. He is actor Jake Gyllenhaal, and here’s why we adore him.

First, look at him. Dreamy! With an “everyman” look about him, he could be your hunky next-door-neighbor with a penchant for sit ups. He’s the sensitive high school English teacher who first introduces young minds to the idea that Romeo and Juliet wasn’t originally a Leonardo DiCaprio movie. He’s a modern day Clark Gable with a dash of Jimmy Stewart smarts.

Second, Jake can play buff superhero types and iconic sensitive leads. He made creepy Donnie Darko endearing. His Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain was heartbreaking and will be remember for decades. He went blockbuster buff as Dastan in the Prince of Persia and then circled back as sensitive in the barely seen but critically-hailed Brothers. He’s fearless in his portrayals of relatable yet sensitive men and has a range of talent not easily paralleled in his peer group.

And, steady against swoons, Jake lives the conscious life. Recently, he teamed up with Chez Panisse creator and chef Alice Waters to help promote the Edible Schoolyard Program. Via Berkleyside, this is a “Berkeley-based program which teaches students in schools across the country how to grow and cook their own food.” As Gyllenhaal said of the collaboration, “I care deeply about helping children better their health, communities and environment…The Chez Panisse Foundation is not only offering an education that students will benefit from for the rest of their lives, but they’re a leading force in the movement to change the future of this country’s youngest generations.”

Accordingly, Jake has started showing up in schoolyards to promote healthy eating. In October, he appeared at Brooklyn’s P.S. 216 to look over “an organic garden and landscape that is wholly integrated into the school’s curriculum, culture, and food program.”

But our Jakey takes healthy eating a step further. When not concerned about children’s diets, he admits to whipping up a romantic, farmers’ market fresh meal for a special someone. Jake shares, “If I’m making a romantic dinner, I like to go to a farmers’ market first, buy things fresh and come up with my own dish based on whatever I’ve bought. I grow my own vegetables at home because I love fresh food,” he added. ”I don’t follow a special diet but I try and eat well, so I grow my own vegetables.” That sound you just heard was the swoon heard round the world.

Want more men to love? Check out Ryan Gosling, Mr. December, and Jonathan Franzen, Mr. January.

Images: Wikimedia Commons, ramsey everydaypants

The post February Man We Love: Jake Gyllenhaal Cares Deeply appeared first on EcoSalon.

Image: Stern Grove

We Shall Overcome sung in Farsi? Whatever works!

Adding a verse of the civil rights anthem in Persian roused the throng of Iranian concert goers joining some 10,000 fans blanketing San Francisco’s Stern Grove to hear folk legend, Joan Baez, speak to them. Her appearance was the highlight of the 2009 summer series of free performances at the popular outdoor venue.

The folk singer’s legendary soprano voice, showing only the slightest hint of rust at age 68, is now reaching Iranian Americans, like Susan Javaheri (below), who spread out blankets early in the morning to save seats for dozens of her friends. They are moved and encouraged by the singer’s  solidarity with citizens protesting the recent elections in their homeland and murder of Neda Soltan, the beautiful artist shot to death by a sniper during the unrest.

“Joan Baez wrote a song about us, about our plight, and she’s going to sing it,” she told me. “We have a green scroll we are having signed which we are going to wave today during the concert, and take with us to hang at the Eiffel Tower.

The scroll is part of a worldwide project of sewing many squares together to form the world’s longest petition scroll. It reads, “Ahmadinejad is not Iran’s President” and the goals, articulated at the scroll website, include sending the final banner to the United Nations and for foreign powers not to recognize him as president.

As Baez made her dedication to the Iranian cause, audience members held up their banner and moved towards the stage, while others were busy handing out flyers advertising upcoming mega rallies, including one at San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza July 25th.

Meantime, the “barefoot Madonna” reached baby boomers with classics, such as Forever Young (which she dedicated to her 96-year-old mother who was in the crowd), Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice and the old folk tune, Silver Dagger.

“In the dagger song, nobody dies, believe it or not,” joked the singer. “I usually have a rule of only singing songs in which somebody dies.”

A tie-dyed Andy Rod (above) understands the death part of the protest songs. “My brother was a Vietnam vet who died of Agent Orange and my dad fought in the Japanese war,” he told me. “I listened to her music growing up and the stuff she says really touches my heart.”

She touches my heart as well, reminding me of the days when I played guitar and sang her songs with my own brother who was killed in 1974. The first album my dad ever gave me was a Baez anthology, along with an accompanying book of the guitar music of folk legends (Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, Joni Mitchell).

You could say Baez is one of the few surviving guitar heroes of my generation, a tenacious and influential voice that has endured long after the passing of Woody Guthrie and John Lennon. She joins contemporary, Neil Young, who has persisted challenging the establishment, as well, with songs like Looking for a Leader during the disastrous Bush administration. “He’s wandering among us and we have to seek him out,” Young composed. “May it’s a woman or black man after all.”

Maybe it is a woman, one with cropped, white-streaked hair and a multicolored scarf billowing in the breeze. Baez sends the message – not too loud but still quite clear – that she is on our side, whatever side that might be: Against global warming; for the rights of farm workers; opposed to genocide anywhere on the globe.

It appears many of the gray-haired, comfort-shoe recipients of the message at Stern Grove were among the restless youth who flocked to protest meccas San Francisco and Berkeley in the 60s seeking social change and an end to the war.

Perhaps in looking for a leader, we should look no further than Baez. She leads us in genuine, tried-and-true hymns that bring us to tears, reminding us of all the good one citizen with a set of pipes and conviction can do. How many leaders do you know who can do that?

Images: Luanne Bradley

The post Joan Baez: Striking a Folksy Chord with Iran & Other Causes of the Day appeared first on EcoSalon.