to help make Billy's day

[Frank]

[Billy]

telling me that you had an epiphany? Has the spirit of organic gardening touched and softened your free-market soul? In any event it does my heart good to see you post this article, or maybe it's just that I've just returned from having my big heart roto-rootered at Kaiser in San Francisco, to give me another 100,000 miles on my ol' ticky-ticker.

"Though an old man, I am but a young gardener." - Thomas Jefferson

[Frank]

No, but I too don't like the idea of the seed market being taken over like this.

A few years ago I told a guy from Pioneer Seed at the PA farm show after DuPont had taken them over that I was retired from DuPont. He told me that DuPont was ruining the company with their emphasis on safety.

I got my angioplasty with stents over 4 years ago. So far, so good

[Billy]

Ah, brothers under the skin ;O)

[Frank]

Besides those, I've got a plate with 5 screws in my shoulder, wires left over from closing chest and a titanium clot filter in my inferior vena cava - maybe 10 pieces of metal, total. This is not even adding dental stuff. Takes your mind off important stuff like gardening.

[Frank]

Make that a lucky 13, spare parts ;)

[The Cook]

Sounds like you are safe from MRIs.

[Doug Freyburger]

Patented genomes are one thing in perennials, especially ones that don't grow true like apples. The only way to get a Rome apple tree is to use a shoot off of an existing Rome apple tree. As long as some variety of apple remains in patent the initial grower gets to benefit from being the sole source.

Patented genomes are a different thing when their contracts come with unconscienable clauses. Farmers who have not purchased patented seeds are getting sued because their own seed stock got contaminated by patented pollen. That's ridiculous. Juries should refuse to find in favor of the company and judges should disbar lawyers who put such cases forward.

Patents, contract law, rules about unconscienable clauses. It's all kept complex by the lawyers for the big seed companines. But is it really complex? Maybe farmers who purchase patented seed and agreed to purchase patented seed again next year are obligated to live by that agreement. Maybe not. That depends on whether the pricing is abusive and therefore unconscienable. But farmers who didn't should not be held liable. Pollen gets out.

[Frank]

You know, I'm not sure, as I don't think any of these parts are magnetic. I know the clot filter isn't and plate in collarbone is just under the skin and does not attract a magnet. Not sure about the stents or chest wires. I'll have to ask my cardiologist when I see her in a couple of weeks. Never had an MRI but have had enough xrays and CT scans that I oughta glow in the dark.

[The Cook]

I know that they went through a long list of things before my MRI this week. I don't know what they would have done if I had had metal parts in me. Somehow the surgeons just remove stuff and don't replace it. I'm wondering if there are other parts I can live comfortably without and have them removed before they start acting up.

[Frank]

After posting, I did some Googling, and for the most part you can get away with it but maybe not Billy if stents are new. Otherwise things might get torqued out of place. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

[Billy]

Must make it fun going through TSA's metal detectors :O(

[Billy]

IIRC MRI have to do with the magnetic moment of hydrogen atoms as they are excited to higher energy levels and then fall back, they give off unique electromagnetic waves which reflect the difference in their orbital energies. These are the wavelengths that MRIs are looking for.