Pot Luck: The "Good Egg Project" Edition

LOL (4.00 / 2)

Oh, and as always - Pot Luck is an open (pastured?) thread.

Free Range....

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 02:41:36 AM UTC

Exactly... (4.00 / 1)

And we do it that way for the comfort, health and safety of our blog's readers and commenters.

:)

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 02:51:10 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

That's right (4.00 / 2)

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Beak Trimmin'!

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 02:57:18 AM UTC

Quirks and Quarks (4.00 / 1)

Bob McDonald has resumed the Quirks and Quarks podcasts, beginning the radio program's 35th season. The September 12 episode is titled "Oceans of Trouble." It is a keeper. It is about the calamitous conditions our oceans are in.

You can download the entire show from here. You can subscribe to Q&Q through iTunes or your podcast software at the bottom of this page.

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 03:38:58 AM UTC

Who? (4.00 / 1)

I know who Prince Charles is, but who is that Prince Rogers Nelson person?

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 03:47:01 AM UTC

Maybe I'm just like my father... (4.00 / 1)

2 Bold with the references.

Heh, okay I know sometimes I can use some pretty obscure references, but that one isn't!

:)

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 03:55:41 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I used to love his music (4.00 / 2)

he's incredably (sp?) talented. One of the draw backs for me was that every album or so his style changed. Unfortunately, the style changed from something that was somewhat unusual, to something I really liked, to something that was somewhat unusual, to a style that I really didn't enjoy listening to. It's not bad music, just not to my taste. But regardless, I still have an immense ammount of respect for his talent.

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 04:00:18 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I could fill an entire iPod with his songs... (4.00 / 1)

Errrr, I mean "my" songs.  At least when I'm not admiring Poundbury.  Like I said above...

:)

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 04:04:42 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oh, you younguns. (4.00 / 1)

I'm still loving the Dave Brubeck Quartet at Carnegie Hall (1963).

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 04:25:27 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Check this out (4.00 / 2)

I was over at Questia, I'm reading Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. It's in the free books section.

Anyhoo, I decided to check out the other free books and I ran across this. THE
AGRARIAN CRUSADE
A CHRONICLE OF
THE FARMER IN POLITICS
BY SOLON J. BUCK

Published in 1920. I'm reading the foreward and it looks to be a very interesting read. I'll do a review when I finish it if it turns out as good as the preface makes me think it will be.

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 03:47:08 AM UTC

Nice! (4.00 / 1)

Sounds good...

I was deliriously happy to find "The Great Gatsby" on one of those free online book sites the other day.  Bookmarked somewhere, I have to read it again when I get a chance...

Of course, I suppose I should also finally get around to picking up that MultCo library card one of these days.  Gack, why haven't I done that yet?!

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 04:02:14 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

1920 (4.00 / 1)

before the Great Depression, which included not only the dislocations caused by the failure of financial institutions, but also the drastic transformation of ag and the uprooting of farm families caused by mechanization. Most people associate The Grapes of Wrath with the Dust Bowl phenomenon, but characters also speak of being "tractored out." The advent of tractors, and Roosevelt's nearly forced conversion of farms to mechanization, is something we don't know enough about. One of my grandmothers sent two of her daughters, my aunts, west from Minnesota to look for a new place to live in 1932, I think. They waited for my Dad to graduate from high school, and then homesteaded along the Flathead River in Montana in 1933. My Mom's dad was able to keep his Minnesota farm.

Joanne, that's an interesting site. I hadn't heard of it.

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 04:05:58 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Now I need to look up (4.00 / 1)

to what extent, if any, tractors caused the dust bowl.

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 04:06:54 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Cheers for you! (4.00 / 1)

Darwin's prose style is unfortunately more like that other Charles, Dickens, than their contemporary Edgar Allen Poe, so reading it can be a real slog. I argue that Darwin presented so much information in that book that the very structured, organized Germanic style actually helps the reader keep things straight in the long run.

I also argue that there are two books written originally in Occidental languages that we can read to gain a true appreciation of the magnificence of the human mind. One is Origin, the other is Dialog on Two World Systems by Galileo. Many people skip large parts of the latter, even if they are mathematically trained, because geometry was Galileo's mathematical language. Most moderns find geometrical proofs of sophisticated physical concepts to be nearly incomprehensible, but the text sections of the dialogues are brilliant.

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 04:20:00 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Not to Mention... (4.00 / 2)

you write "geometry was Galileo's mathematical language. Most moderns find geometrical proofs of sophisticated physical concepts to be nearly incomprehensible". True, too true. Another nearly incomprehensible book to the modern mind is the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica of Isaac Newton. I tried to read it once but couldn't stick with it. Geometric analysis of the type used by Galileo and Newton is really an almost wholly foreign language to we moderns who are trained in the analytical tools of Leibniz (his version of the calculus) and Rene' Descartes.

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by: DennisP @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 17:10:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Wtf? (4.00 / 2)

Just stumbled across a pretty disturbing "Boost Mobile" commercial.  Pigs sitting at a restaurant eating ham...

Pigs eating ham at a restaurant?!

No clue what they were saying, I keep the tv on mute when I watch games.  99% of sportscasters are torture enough, I just wanna see the game.  Heh.

But I have 14 million thoughts running through my head right now about what this says about our culture, and I wonder who came up with the idea - "Hey, let's build a commercial around cannibalistic talking pigs.  The kids'll love it!"...

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 04:19:12 AM UTC

Since I learned that fish are being fed cows.... (4.00 / 1)

nothing surprises me any more.  

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

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by: wide eyed lib @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 14:09:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

the egg industry's all about welfare of the hens (4.00 / 2)

Welfare of the rooster chicks, not so much.

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by: desmoinesdem @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 05:01:09 AM UTC

Heh... (4.00 / 2)

But not either, really...

I love how they're advertising on Sesame Street now.  Will we see a new character?

'Betty the Battery Cage Layer', perhaps?

:)

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 05:06:05 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Maryland Homegrown School Lunch Week... (4.00 / 1)

Hey count, did you see this?

SILVER SPRING, Md. - Maryland students have a good reason to eat the cafeteria food at school this week. Sources say schools will be serving up locally grown food all week.

At Takoma Park Middle School in Silver Spring, hungry students munched on foods grown close to home Monday. Said seventh grader Kevin Feng, "It doesn't have to travel as far, there's less pollution and overall it tastes better!"

For the second year straight, hundreds of Maryland public schools and area farmers have teamed up to provide locally grown lunches. On Monday, the peaches, salad and corn on the cob all came from Free State farms.

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 05:11:47 AM UTC

Yes but but but... (4.00 / 1)

Great idea, but only one week per year?

Actually, awareness is increasing. There is hope, it's just that we need to convert awareness to will.

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 06:00:36 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oh yeah, agreed... (4.00 / 1)

One week a year is "meh", but yeah.  It's a start!

I do like how they're also working the benefits of eating locally into the curriculum during that week, but I hope it isn't just for that one week?

Portland Public Schools have a whole mishmash of programs, pilot or otherwise, different funding sources, etc... but 'local lunches' are a regular thing here.  

On the down side here, we can't seem to get the friggin' Oregon Farm-to-School Bill passed by the Legislature down in Salem (failed to even come up for a vote again this session), but I understand there's a slight chance it'll come up again in the special OR legislative session scheduled for January 2010.  I'll be watching closely, and pushing all I can...

We gotta do something soon.  No better time than now.  We have a Dem governor and veto-proof Dem majorities in both houses.  A failure to act on such a common sense measure right now would be inexcusable.  How the hell can they explain away not voting for Oregon kids and Oregon farmers?

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 06:51:31 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Typically innovative LVL thinking. (4.00 / 1)

Integrating the benefits of good food (and the how-tos) into the curriculum is a great idea, even if the cafeteria can't put it into practice. Wouldn't that be bizarre? I wonder how long the cognitive dissonance of theory v. practice would be able to persist.

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 12:06:00 PM UTC

I intended to reply to (4.00 / 1)

Jay's comment.

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 12:09:47 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Do schools teach (4.00 / 2)

Home Ec anymore? That'd be the place to incorporate that type of information into the curriculum.

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

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by: Joanne Rigutto @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 15:57:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You're right. (4.00 / 1)

That's the place for it, for sure.

I don't know the answer. From what has been written here recently about people not knowing what to do with food that doesn't come in a can or box, I suppose we can guess.

I'll ask around.

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 17:45:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Jill (4.00 / 1)

I notice you updated the Senate ag chair in the left sidebar. Perhaps you could also make Arlen Specter a Democrat, in the Appropriations ag subcommittee?

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 12:22:55 PM UTC

New lineup (4.00 / 1)

Subcommittee Members

Democratic Members
Senator Herb Kohl (Chairman) (WI)
Senator Tom Harkin (IA)
Senator Byron Dorgan (ND)
Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA)
Senator Richard Durbin (IL)
Senator Tim Johnson (SD)
Senator Ben Nelson (NE)
Senator Jack Reed (RI)
Senator Mark Pryor (AR)
Senator Arlen Specter (PA)
Republican Members
Senator Sam Brownback (Ranking Member) (KS)
Senator Robert Bennett (UT)
Senator Thad Cochran (MS)
Senator Christopher Bond (MO)
Senator Mitch McConnell (KY)
Senator Susan Collins (ME)
 

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 12:27:58 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yet Another WTF (4.00 / 1)

Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT)
Tom Harkin (D-IA)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Max Baucus (D-MT)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
E. Benjamin Nelson (D-NE)
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Robert Casey, Jr. (D-PA)
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Michael Bennet (D-CO)
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)

Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Richard G. Lugar (R-IN)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Mike Johanns (R-NE)
Charles Grassley (R-IA)
John Thune (R-SD)
John Cornyn (R-TX)

So, what happened in the Senate that got Cornyn added to this committee? Now 43% Republican instead of 40%? I swear I don't understand Harry Reid, I really don't.

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 13:02:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Sorry. (4.00 / 1)

The above is the new Senate Ag Committee batting order.

Was Cornyn actually on the committee previously? Has it been 43% Republican all term?

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 13:04:35 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I wish I had the strength (4.00 / 1)

to look up the Dem-Rep split on the other Senate committees. I fear what I would find, though.

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by: count @ Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 13:13:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]