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Pot Luck

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Sun Nov 13, 2011 at 19:00:00 PM PST


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Pot Luck | 71 comments
sent you an email (4.00 / 1)
:)
Will check! (4.00 / 1)
Oh, the old Yahoo account.  Heh.  Thanks for the note, I don't really check that one anymore.  Will look at it soon, and send you my new email.

I'm here in NJ, btw!  Made it.  Just got in about 26 hours ago.  Trip did not go quite as planned, to say the very least.  Heh.  Full story coming soon.  But I ended up unexpectedly seeing Utica, NY's stunning train station for the first time (and Schenectady's downtown, which is a cool one too!), and I appreciated all the solitary thinking time with no electronic distractions and the meeting new people everywhere along the way thing...

;)

I love trains!  Even though they currently suck as a way to travel if you have a schedule to keep.  But that's not Amtrak's fault, really.  Blame every president from Eisenhower through Dubya for throwing rail under the bus (and the car).  The book on Obama isn't finished yet, I hope he can live up to his early promise...

Anyway.  Hi again, everybody!  :-D

[ Parent ]
school nutrition (bad) news (4.00 / 1)
Congress pushes back on healthier school lunches

November 15, 2011
The Associated Press

The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year. These include limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line, putting new restrictions on sodium and boosting the use of whole grains. The legislation would block or delay all of those efforts.

The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now...food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers requested the changes and lobbied Congress.
...

USDA spokeswoman Courtney Rowe said Tuesday that the department will continue its efforts to make lunches healthier.

"While it's unfortunate that some members of Congress continue to put special interests ahead of the health of America's children, USDA remains committed to practical, science-based standards for school meals," she said in a statement.

Why block whole grains?

You know, (4.00 / 2)
I heard that whole tomato paste as a vegetable thing on the news today and at first I thought it was odd. But then I got out a can of Western Family tomato paste, not exactly what I'd call a high end brand, and one that I expected to see preservatives or at least salt in.

You know what I found on the ingredients list?

Tomatoes.

That's it, just tomatoes. No added anything. Just tomatoes. So, I think that calling tomato paste, at least if it's like the Western Family tomato paste I have in my pantry, you could qualify it as a vegetable.

Now, if the tomato paste was used in a pizza sauce, then that wouldn't qualify as a vegetable any more than soup should qualify as a vegetable, even if it was made with vegetables.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
tomato paste (4.00 / 1)
Quantity is the question. How much tomato is on a pizza slice? Not much. Tomato soup could be a vegetable if it contained enough tomato.
[ Parent ]
because there is no whole grain lobby (4.00 / 2)

[ Parent ]
you know between this and the (4.00 / 2)
Super Co why do we even bother with voting? Things being done behind closed doors and Politicians not representing us I can't believe I am even saying this because I am not usually cynical.
[ Parent ]
These days, (4.00 / 1)
cynicism is the only rational response.
[ Parent ]
yes... (4.00 / 2)
its interesting though that my daughter doesn't feel the cynicism..

Speaking of my daughter here she is with Aramark workers and folks from Occupy Philly  She's the blondish woman with the mic
http://www.youtube.com/user/ne...

[ Parent ]
The thing that gets me about OWS (4.00 / 2)
and the affiliated occupy movements is that they don't have any answers other than to stand around and stomp their feet.

I get that they're pissed off. At a lot of different things. But have I seen any concrete solutions proposed to any of the myriad problems they're pissed off about?

Not. A. Single. One.

.....

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
general proposition (4.00 / 2)
Why did you write that comment? I can understand it if you think Portland activists have been inarticulate, for example, but viewing just the one video posted by LeeN shows it is false if stated as a general proposition.

I'm not clear on what is happening in Asia and South America, but there must be at least a thousand of these demonstrations taking place in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Europe. Localism of goals is inevitable, and a unified voice speaking for all the campaigners is not to be expected. Regardless, the movement clearly is having specific effects. I believe that its spirit and energy is directly responsible for Bank of America and two other banking behemoths discarding announced plans to impose fees on debit card users. Also, this week the House of Representatives voted to strip huge bonuses from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives and put the agencies in the Civil Service pay scale. The bill might not be enacted into law, and the bill might have passed without the Occupy movement, but certainly the Occupy movement puts wind in the sails of legislators who want that result.

I'm not sure what your point is because your statement is brief and unexplained, but I infer that you think the lack of proposed solutions is a failing. Do you really think that such a list would be desirable, or even helpful? If I presented a list of 10 items, everyone else would complain that their most important concern wasn't on the list. If I came up with a list of 100 items, nobody would pay attention to it, to say nothing of the fact that the concerns of demonstrators in New York likely are not the same as those in Toronto, London, or Paris.

Besides, is there anybody who doesn't already know that the criminals are still not only walking free but in control? The Justice Department is a failed agency? The SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are failed agencies? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are failed agencies? Obama is spineless?

[ Parent ]
I was equating the Portland occupiers (4.00 / 2)
to the rest of them. For weeks now I've been hearing stories about the Portland movement both on the local news and on local radio. Time and time again I've heard people who were supposedly acting as a type of PIO for the movement (by their own admission on air). When asked what the occupy protesters in Portland were asking for these individuals absolutely could not give one example. The best they could do was say that there were a lot of people with a lot of different beefs. I heard that multiple times in live interviews.

Then I hear protesters saying that they have a constitutional right to freedom of movement while they block traffic and stop everyone else from moving.

Perhaps the protesters in Portland are an anomoly, but I haven't heard anyone say exactly what the other protesters want either, or a way to go about it.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Agree and disagree. (4.00 / 1)
Chapman and Lownsdale Squares really need to be repaired, and I won't say the City took the best route in clearing the parks, but it had to be done, and Portland was not Oakland or NYC or Denver by any means.  And yes, their blocking (occupying) Main Street, literally, was a strategic fail of the highest order.  Not only because of the obvious jokes to be made to put them in a bad light, but also because once you start shutting down public transit (Main carries half a dozen buslines into downtown) you lose the very people you're trying to reach.

And the Black Bloc idiots and the molotov cocktails sure didn't help, either.

That being said, the message, such as it is, is self-evident.  We're tired of the inherent unfairness and injustice in the current system.  I had a toothache on the train a couple days ago, and I panicked.  Pretty much sums it all up right there.  A toothache shouldn't be cause to make one think, in a first world country, that this may be the final straw which will put them in debt hell for decades.

There is no one solution to our myriad problems, and in the real worlsd issues like this can't be summed up in neat soundbytes.  Nor should they be.  Here's the message - stop fucking us over.

[ Parent ]
The best story I've heard... (4.00 / 1)
...from Occupy, even though I'm not a fan of the guy, was when someone asked Michael Moore when he was in Portland (he called it, by far, the largest Occupy he had seen) a month or so ago, "who organized this?"

He was in Terry Schrunk Plaza, in the shadow of the Wells Fargo Building (largest office tower in Oregon, and the largest building between San Francisco and Seattle) in Downtown Portland, pointed to it and said "They did.  They organized this."

Just about sums it up, imo...

[ Parent ]
you might stomp your feet (4.00 / 2)
if you were graduating college with student debt that you have to pay back and no prospect of a job. My daughter is very lucky She will graduate college in May with no debt thanks to a very generous scholarship and my sister.

Here's a list

It is time to TAX THE RICH

It is time to END THE WARS

It is time to restore Glass-Steagal

It is time to repeal Citizens United

It is time to get the money OUT OF POLITICS

It is time to invest in infrastructure and education

It is time to STOP busting labor unions, whether private or public

It is time to defend Medicare and Social Security tooth and nail from phony reforms or baloney cuts

It is time to STOP the spending cuts and start investing in America, and if we have to raise taxes on the rich and corporations in order to force them to invest in America, then so be it.

It is time to make higher education affordable, to offer students debt relief, and to provide funding for education, and stop blaming honest teachers and educators and for the failures of an underfunded system.

It is time to STOP the racist and discriminatory practice of "Stop and Frisk" and other tactics of racial profiling

It is time for civil rights for ALL, and that means equal rights for LGBT Americans to serve our military and marry whom ever they will

It is time for ACCOUNTABILITY for the men who lied us into war and crashed our economy

It is time for immigration reform that does not punish workers, but provides a clear pathway to citizenship for everyone

It is time for investigations that lead to prosecutions on Wall Street in response to the crimes that have been committed in the last decade.

It is time for a serious discussion about the Federal Reserve and it's role in this economic disaster

It is time for universal health care that everyone can afford. It is time to talk about Single Payer Health Care.

It is time for alternative green energy instead of Oil and Coal.

It is time to protect our civil liberties and our constitution.

It is time for a discussion about free trade and how it has undermined the working class while enriching only the wealthiest among us.

It is time to end corporate personhood.

from http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

[ Parent ]
Lee, I'd be stomping my feet big time (4.00 / 2)
if I'd been sweet talked into going to college for a career I might not be able to make a living in. I know several people who got out of college saddled with big debt, back when the economy was booming, and they couldn't get a job in their field either. I think the biggest problem we have in this country with college debt is that in the first place about the only thing you hear (at least back when I was in it) when you're in highschool is that you just HAVE to go to college. I swear to God that there are more college recruiters out there than anything else. This idea that people just must go to college or they're nothing is bullshit. I blame the colleges themselves for that.

I wonder what would happen if college loans were no longer guaranteed by the federal government? If loans were only made available to students who could get their parents or someone else to co-sign, or if the loans were only made available to students who could afford them? If the colleges found that their customers could only afford a certain upper level of cost, perhaps those colleges would lower their prices. College tuition has been going up faster than inflation I think for a long time. I wonder why that is? I have a hard time imagining that the professors' pay has been going up that fast. If it was they'd all be rich.

I see a long list, but not anything that Wall Street can adress very well. Some of those demands need to be addressed at the state level, some at the federal level.

I love the money out of politics one. I wonder if the people who are in favor of that really understand why the money's in politics in the first place. I'm in favor of getting the money out of politics too, and I do know why the money's in politics.

Anyway, now that you've given me a list, and I know that there are areas for the protesters to address, why are they not working on those? I wonder how many of these people have actually been working on any of these issues directly. Some I don't doubt. But if each of those people were to pick a topic they're concerned with and focus all of that passion on that area, they'd get a whole lot more accomplished than marching up and down a street or camping out in a park.

Les Aucoin posted a link to an article on his facebook page. It's a good article and it gives some very good ideas for how these issues could be addressed in a constructive way that would actually gain results.

The New Progressive Movement

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
It's the governments job (4.00 / 2)
to work on those. And since the government gets worse no matter which one of two one votes for, there's protest. If protest doesn't do any good, then we'll eventually get a rebellion.

It's obvious that the very wealthy and big business are the government's constituency right now. That must change.  

[ Parent ]
It's the government's job to do what (4.00 / 2)
WE its constituents to do. If the government isn't doing what we want, then that's because we've fallen down on the job.

The whole reason why people are so pissed off at the government is because they've either completely dropped the ball as far as bird dogging their elected representatives, or they haven't even bothered to vote in the first place.

You know, for all that people raile against big business, and the 'rich', those people who run those busineses, who own those businesses, etc. are ALSO constituents. When you or I turn our back on our government someone else will pick up our position and use that to their advantage.

Just as many of the OWS people don't give a crap about the 'rich' and big business, some of those businesses don't give a crap about you or me or any of the protesters.

Government, I'm convinced after years of surveillance on it both from the outside in, and from the inside out, does nothing or precious little, all on its own. 99.99% of the time it operated at someone's or something's direction. The ONLY way to deal with that in a realistic way, short of armed uprisings, is to work on the inside. That's how the lobbyists do it. The only way to direct the beast is to become a part of it.

Rememmber the saying I use every once in a while - When your enemy gapes his great jaws at you, go in through them for he is softer on the inside.

Now, some people like armed conflict and riots. Personally they ain't my bag. But as long as the bulk of the government's constituents keep slacking on our jobs, the only option we'll have to change how government behaves will be things like OWS.

If we don't take some responsibility and stop goldbricking on our job, government will deal with it. They'll deal with it just the way the people who ARE doing their job (that is staying engeged in profound ways with government) want them dealt with.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Big business owns the government (4.00 / 2)
Who slacked off? Perhaps the Supreme court when it allowed corporate the unlimited financial political voice in elections. Perhaps it was stupid people who keep voting for them, perhaps we keep getting lied to.

Just look at the pizza-as-vegetable nonsense in as school lunch nutrition. Big business makes sure the government will continue to subsidize crappy food for kids. The people have no say. The best way right now to get a say is to take to the streets.

If they still don't act reasonable, I swear there will be a rebellion.

[ Parent ]
The "Pizza as a vegetable nonsense" is a meme being promoted (4.00 / 2)
by the left who is using as a stick to beat up the right with. Earl Blumenaur (D-Oregon) has even jumped on the band wagon and read a rant into the congressional record over it. If anyone in the USA should know better than to read a lie into the congressional record it should be a congressman. But I guess my expectations are a bit higher than he can reach.

As to who slacked off? We slacked off. You and I and  everyone who isn't actively involved with their representatives and senators as well as public agencies on the federal level. And everyone of us who's not actively engaged with our state lawmakers, as well as county and city governments.

The ones who do stay engaged? They're the ones getting the legislation and rules written. And just who is it that's engaged? - Farm Bureau, Chamber of Commerce - both of which represent many many of your fellow citizens who are constituent. It's other business and trade groups, one of which I happen to belong to - the Oregon Association of Nurseries. It's outfits like HSUS, an organization which I despise but which I freely admit represents millions of those legislators' constituents. I would hazard a guess that if you looked at all the environmental groups, labor unions, and business organizations and all of their lobyists, probably 80% of the US population is represented in one way or another through those chanels.

That's why I say that if you and I as individuals don't want something going through, or better yet, want to have our input available to those law and rule makers, we can't just hire the person and then turn our back on them until their contract is up for renewal.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
H.R. 2112 (4.00 / 1)
1. What lie?

2. I'd like to read Blumenauer's rant. Can you provide a link or a citation? He didn't speak during debate on H.R. 2112 (November 17, CR H7746-7782).

3. What do you mean by "beat up the right"? H.R. 2112 passed the Senate 70-30, and in the House, opposition was massively Republican and most of the yeas were Democrats, including Blumenauer. Here's the House roll call.

[ Parent ]
The rant by Blumeneaur (4.00 / 2)
is on video here at Blue Oregon.

The lies I've heard and the bashing I've heard was on Thom Hartmann's show, his guest host on Thursday or Friday. Mark and Dave on their show yesterday were also using this argument that either republicans or USDA were trying to get pizza classified as a vegetable. They did have a guest on who set the record straight, that it was tomato paste, and specifically 1/2 cup of tomato paste on a single slice of pizza, be counted as a vegetable serving. She rightly opined that 1/2 cup of tomato paste on a single serving of pizza would probably render the slice unpalatable. But that hasn't stopped people from claiming that USDA and/or the GOP wants to classify pizza as a vegetable.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Thank you. (4.00 / 1)
Tracking down stuff in blogistan sometimes is like trying to track Bambi by following a trail of bent twigs in a petrified forest.

I agree with the commenter who thinks the video is brilliant, whether or not Blumenauer is technically accurate. I love the comment that adduces the Supreme Court case.

[ Parent ]
1/2 cup of tomato paste on one slice (4.00 / 1)
of pizza is a lie. Barely more than 1/2 cup of a sauce (crushed tomatoes, not paste) is enough for a whole 12" pizza. And just how much less is on a frozen pizza? Lots less. You're expressing simple pushback from the frozen foods industry.
[ Parent ]
I understand that (4.00 / 1)
I don't think anyone could actually stand the taste of 1/2 cup of tomato paste on a single slice of pizza. But the thing is, that it was the tomato paste, not the pizza that was to be counted as a vegetable. For a slice of pizza to count as a vegetable serving, there would have to be 1/2 cup of tomato paste (if there were no other vegetables). I think the standard is 1/2 cup of vegetables counts as a serving for a meal to be reimbursable.

I remember when I was watching Jamie Oliver's first season of Food Revolution and he was talking with the school principal or administrator (I forget which), and they were going over just what constitutes a full serving of vegetables. I remember on one episode he did a noodle dish that was packed with vegetables and it didn't even count as having enough vegetables in each serving to be reimbursable.

Even with tomato paste counting as a vegetable serving, and the slice or square piled high with whole vegies, there still wouldn't be enough vegetables on the piece of pizza for it to count as a serving of vegetables. That's what everyone leaves out of the rhetoric.

That's why I get disgusted with rhetoric that spins pizza as a vegetable. It's completely untrue.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
portions (4.00 / 1)
(if there were no other vegetables)

and

Even with tomato paste counting as a vegetable serving, and the slice or square piled high with whole vegies, there still wouldn't be enough vegetables on the piece of pizza for it to count as a serving of vegetables.

You make a good point. My immediate thought, when I read the first quote, was that since kids like pizza so much, wouldn't loading pizza with veggies be an excellent way to get them to eat veggies? Then I read the second quote, and thought you might be right.

I don't know, though. Although the minimal amount of tomato sauce on a slice of pizza counts as a vegetable right now, by regulatory fiat, proposed regs want 1/2 cup to count as a vegetable, whether the vegetable is tomato, broccoli, carrots, whatever (I'm not positive about this, I'm just thinking about the concept). 1/2 cup of tomato is much different from 1/2 cup of tomato paste, however. 1/2 cup of tomato is equivalent to a smaller amount of tomato paste, although I don't know how much smaller.

I eat a slice of pizza only 2-3 times per year, so I'm not a pizza expert. My fave is a crispy thin crust slice of white pizza with vegetables. It's delicious. The slice probably doesn't contain 1/2 cup of vegetables, but could it? I'm not sure why not. Mix onions, broccoli, sliced or diced tomato or an equivalent amount of tomato sauce or tomato paste, et voila.

I might be wrong about portion size in the regs. 1/2 cup really isn't very much and 1/2 cup of broccoli or onion has nearly zero calories so maybe a portion of those vegetables would be larger. Anyway, I think Joanne's idea is worth considering as a direction or goal - a pizza slice bearing a legitimate serving of vegetables. Our industrial economy should be able to figure out how to do that.

[ Parent ]
mushrooms (4.00 / 1)
I wonder how children regard mushrooms as a vegetable. One of my adult children will have nothing to do with them, I don't know why.
[ Parent ]
There is absolutely no reason why (4.00 / 2)
pizza has to be a bad food. Kind of like potatoes. People say potato and everyone automatically thinks french fries but it doesn't have to be that way.

Pizza can be a great food if, as you say, it's done right. And if, as you like it, the pizza's done with a thin crispy crust, then the slice could be pretty big and a person could pile a lot of vegies on it.

Theoretically, one slice of pizza could make up the grain, dairy and vegetable requirements in a reimbursible meal. You have a whole grain crust, the cheese, and then pile vegies on it.

Of course if it's not presented right, then it'll all go in the dumpster anyway.

One of the things that constantly fascinates me about the whole school lunch situation is what kids will and won't eat. For instance, Ed Bruske (euclidarms) recently posted on his blog Better DC School Food about rutabega soufle, and he's posted in the past about beef tongue. These are in his cooking appreciation classes.

Now can you imagine the welcome that beef tongue or rutabegas (even in a fancy soufle) would receive in the lunch line? But in his classes the kids litterally eat it up. What's the difference? Presentation. I'm not talking plating here folks, it's how the foods are presented to the kids conceptually.

I think that if we want kids in the schools to eat the healthier foods that people would like to provide them (as opposed to filling the dumbpsters with high end fancy garbage), then we need more classes like Ed's food appreciation classes.

We also need to increase the school gardens. I've read numerous articles citing the increased likelihood of kids eating produce if they've first picked it, and that translates into eating the same stuff even if someone else has picked it.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Ed's kids (4.00 / 1)
The other thing about Ed's kids is, they're eating what they cook. I think teaching kids to cook is very important, along with the gardens and presentation. My parents did much for me, but I didn't learn to cook, and Jean and I made that mistake with our kids too. My younger son, age 35 and married, called me recently for tips about making French toast, and his wife has asked for tips about making omelets. The older son, my partner in the CSA share, is single and cooks a lot at age 38, and I learned to cook eventually, but not until I was divorced.

I think schools should bring back home ec classes, but I suppose that's improbable.

I saw Ed's rutabaga post. We got turnips from the CSA this year but not rutabagas, which I like. I'll have to buy some and try his idea.

[ Parent ]
Yup (4.00 / 2)
I have a very good friend who grew up with a mom who cooked an awful lot out of a box. I think my friend was in her 30s when she roasted her first turkey and she was going to throw away the pan drippings and make the gravy from a packet of gravy mix. I was horrified. I told her that even if she really liked the packet gravy, she should at least use the pan drippings as a part of the liquid, or save them to add to soup.

She was also going to have her horses on the property with her at one time and pay money to dump the manure in a land fill, while paying more money for fertilizer to put in her garden.

As Joel Salatin would say - "Folks, that just ain't right..."

And you're right about Ed's rutabaga post. I had no idea. I think I have some rutabaga seed around here somewhere....

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Eh... (4.00 / 1)
You know, for all that people raile against big business, and the 'rich', those people who run those busineses, who own those businesses, etc. are ALSO constituents.

But they're not MORE of a constituent.  Something tells me that, say Phil Knight (not to pick on the guy, but jsut as an example), carries more weight in Salem than you or I do.  Hell, than you or I and 5,000 of our neighbors do.  Therein lies the problem.

[ Parent ]
Yup, those individuals are only as much of a constituent as you and I are (4.00 / 2)
however, a lot of what they're in favor of is also being promoted by trade groups like Farm Bureau, and others who represent a substantial portion of the farmers in the USA.

And then there are other pieces of legislation supported or proposed by other groups such as environmental groups, business groups, etc.

Look at the so called "Christmas Tree Tax" people were hollering about on the local talk radio shows that I listen to. As it was first being spun, people were led to believe that it was something that congress had come up with on its own. Oh, the evil govenrment taxing the poor, down trodden Christmas tree farmer. But when you look more closely at the tax, it's not that at all. Some Christmass tree growers trade association(s) went to USDA and said "We'd like a check off program like beef, pork, diary, and eggs have, to promote fresh Christmas trees over artificial trees."

It was the same way with that damn NAIS program. Congress didn't come up with that. I dare say USDA probably didn't come up with that all on their own. It was a synergy of livetock industry trade groups, who represent a LOT of livestock farmer/ranchers, as well as importers and exporters of meat and animals, as well as the national veterinary association, and state animal health officials.

When I first heard about it, the program was being spun as a way to eliminate small farms and private livestock and poultry ownership. Turns out that, while that would have been one of the side effects of full implementation of the program as originally written, it wasn't the reason why the program was proposed at all. But when you're not engaged in government, either by volunteering, working in a paid position, or just keeping an eye on them, you don't know.

And, when you're not directly engaged you don't know who the trade and other groups are. As I said in my reply to Count's comment above, a lot of legislation is proposed, lobbied for and sometimes written by organizations - environmental, trade, labor, etc. Between those and the individual businesses that loby and campaign, I'll bet that around 80% of the citizens of this country are represented. Even the Koch brothers who supposedly led the tea party and George Sorros who's funded so many progressive movements are representing hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who are those legislators' constituents.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
I bird dog my Congresswomen (4.00 / 2)
AND in the past I've had fund raisers for here in my home. She doesn't even remember my name. She could give a shit about me or keeping me happy.For her its BIG Health Care donors that matter.I vote,I'm active in local Dem politics. I work the polls every single fucking election In fact The last 2 elections I've been the Judge of Elections.

I'll continue doing what I do but the problem is way bigger than voting for the right candidate. The entire system is broken and thats  part of why #OWS is happening.

[ Parent ]
Lee, it's not just voting for the right candidate (4.00 / 2)
that's the problem. People vote for someone and then turn their back on them expecting them to do the 'right' thing. Although, unless you stay engaged I don't know how that official is going to know what your opinon of the right thing is.

Our politicians are not mind readers. They respond to input. That's pretty much the only thing they do respond to. If you, or I, or anyone else turns them loose after the election, and someone else goes and lobbies them, then we shouldn't be surprised that they listen to the lobbiests and not us because we're not talking to them.

As to your activity in local dem politics, exactly how are you active? Are you serving on committees that are relevant to issues you're concerned with? Do you go to meetings for those committees to provide public input on those issues? Do you stay engaged with the politician's staff on those issues?

That's what I'm talking about. Voting and campaigning for someone is just the first and smallest step. It's the least any of us can do, and if all we do is the least, we'll get the least performance on issues that we care about.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
all of the above (4.00 / 2)
1. go to regular meetings including town halls of both my Congresswoman and my Dem Senator. Sorry Joanne but Sen Pat Toomey is a tool of big money and its a waste of my time
2. Feedback to both of the above via email, and phone calls
I know the aides to both of the above and have been in face to face meetings with Congressional Aide

Like I said I'll continue to do what I do but I don't think it matters much anymore


[ Parent ]
Toomey (4.00 / 1)
Yeah, but he's 1/12 of the gang of 12. Sweet.
[ Parent ]
Those are all good (4.00 / 2)
and you're stragegy apparently isn't working, so how do you plan on changing your strategy in order to get the results you want?

You know, when the NAIS wsa being pushed by USDA, NIAA, and other organizations, I too went to my representative. Darlene Hooley, what a joke. Didn't work. So I tried other tactics. A lot of us did. And we got things changed. One of us even went inside the federal government herself.

That's what I'm saying. It's like the suggestions in the article I linked to. You have to go inside sometimes.  

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
I went inside (4.00 / 2)
of the Democratic party. And there were a bunch of us that did after Howard Deans Presidential campaign collapsed.But the party and the whole system are broken. Personally I think we need a real third party but that ain't happening anytime soon.

[ Parent ]
Lee (4.00 / 2)
going inside the party is a good thing if all you want to do is to influence which candidates are nominated for election and it can be a great way to open doors to service on a local, county, state or even federal issues within government.

But if you want to influence policy in a meaningful way at the local, county, state or federal level, that's where you have to go inside. Start small, at your local level. Find out where there are oportunities for citizen involvment and get involved in an aspect of government policy that interests you - transportation, housing, land use, etc.

If all you ever do is get inside your policital party and work for a candidate you'll be sunk. That's what has gotten us in the position we're in regarding policy. That's why, even though they donate to campaigns, business, trade organizations, environmental organizations, etc. all work the whole rest of the time lobbying not just the politicians, but the people who really set the policy - the ones who DON'T get elected. All of the appointees, all of the higher ups in any given agency who are hired. Why do you think there's that much talked about revolving door? That's where the influence is. Not so much with the elected officials.

I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about on the state level here in Oregon. For years, Oregon has not recognized USDA's 1,000 bird poultry slaughter exemption. This year, Friends of Family Farmers got a bill passed by our legislature bringing Oregon into alignment with that exemption. Yay team, they scored one for the little guys, right? Well, hold your horses there old hoss. In Oregon, even though the state now recognizes the 1,000 bird exemption, you still can't slaughter outside? Why? Administrative rules. Which means that you still have to build a facility (jump through all the planning and code hoops, pay lots in permiting and improvement fees). So you might as well just go with the 20,000 bird exemption that Oregon already recognized.

You also have to have a prepackaged meat seller's license. Why? Again, administrative rules. Nothing that was passed by the legislature and something that maybe the legislature can address or maybe it can't. One things for sure, if it's addressed by the legislature, it will probably take longer to fix than if we have people on the inside at ODA who are sympathetic to our cause and then we can work to change those administrative rules internally. If we have enough people on the inside who are sympathetic enough to our cause and they are high enough in the organization, then the rules might change faster if we work with them enough.

That's the kind of inside I'm talking about. We gotta look at the model that everyone else is using and adapt that to our goals.

Just like in business, if you want to do something, look at someone who's successful and do what they're doing. Same with politics and government regulations. You don't see big business just electing people and then turning them loose for the term of their service. No, they went inside.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
thanks I think we see things differently (4.00 / 1)
Joanne,

One of the reasons I come back here is that I see agreement and disagreements but we don't scream (virtually) and we come back here. I think we just experience the world differently.

First a little about me politically and personally. While I am not thrilled about Dems these days, I have only voted one time in my life for a Republican. ( that was years ago) While I think Jon Huntsman would make a good President I would never vote for him because he's Republican and I think the whole fucking Republican party is nuts. AND MEAN. I was raised as Jew but consider myself more of a Buddhist these days. I believe in cause and effect and I also believe that life isn't fair to a lot of people. Conversely...if you believe that life is inherently fair than your lot in life ( like being poor) is entirely up to you. Look at some of some of the assholian comments ( Get a job)by the Wall St Masters of the Universe  thrown at the #OWS folks. While I can't imagine you yelling get a job to the unemployed, I can imagine given your own success that you might have a hard time understanding why they can't make something of themselves. And its this place ( we are in this together vs rugged individualism that I think we are stuck.
Hope this doesn't offend :)

[ Parent ]
No offense taken (4.00 / 1)
and I don't disagree with you. I come from what is probably a fairly different world view than most people.

While I do consider myself a 'rugged individualist' in many ways, I also understand very well that we are all dependant on each other.

The person in business for themselves is dependant on a whole network of other people, be they employees, suppliers, activists, customers/clients, etc. We live in a web. If there were no people interested in working as employees, all the self employed person would be able to produce would be what they could do with their own two hands. On the other hand, for those people who don't want to go into business for themselves (a few years ago IRS estimated that only around 18% of the people in this country were self employed) if it wasn't for the entrepreneurs there would be no jobs and the rest of the people in this country would have to go out and build their own businesses.

I understand where the OWS people are coming from, but I just think that their energy and efforts are being directed at the wrong target(s) and in the wrong way. If everyone of those protesters would go inside the business and government organizations that have, by and large, been at the root of these troubles, we wouldn't be where we are today. But instead they insist on standing on the proverbial door stoop tapping, tapping, tapping, while the PTB say "Never more".

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Agree here. (4.00 / 1)
The 'fighting for the right to camp in public parks' thing (that's not a right, nor should it be) needs to end.  Attention gotten, success.  Now it's time for Step Two.
[ Parent ]
It is time to... (4.00 / 1)
pass a $4 trillion deficit reduction agreement.
[ Parent ]
Got my first batch of wheat in the oven (4.00 / 2)
second batch growing and the third batch draining after it's first soak.

The popcorn is sprouted and it looks like I'll be able to start my first batch of Chicha here pretty soon.

When I get my next check I'm going to buy a 50# bag of barley and start working with it.

I'm just making base pale malts right now. Once I get the hang of that, then I'll start roasting for light crystol and dark malts.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

Yield report (4.00 / 2)
Hard red spring wheat. Pale malt.

Started with 3 lbs. of raw wheat. Yield after malting was 2 lbs. 10.5 oz.  Not bad.

I looked at it when it was all dried and I was thinking to myself, does this look right? It looks a bit dark to be a pale malt. Then I had to remind myself that this is red wheat. It looks dark when it's raw.....

I'm looking forward to having enough wheat and barley malted that I can go ahead and make my first batch of beer.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
end of CSA season (4.00 / 1)
Yesterday came the last delivery from our CSA. I'm feeling sorry for myself, although I do have vegetables for a couple of weeks in the fridge.
We missed... (4.00 / 1)
...the Highland Park Farmers' Market today.  Mom and I were gonna go down there, but I ended up sleeping for like 13 hours straight (first time I was able to lie down all week!) right after I got in last night and she didn't want to wake me.  I was pissed!  I would have woken up.  Well, anyway.  I'm looking for another farmers' market here next week.   The small local ones are all closed for the season by now, but there are still a few here and there in adjacent counties, including a couple new year-round ones.  Go New Jersey!

:-D

[ Parent ]
We're doing a lot better than I thought! (4.00 / 2)
The Kelseyville School District is on the other side of the lake from us. THey got featured on some morning show because of their good food. Note, that they saved a lot of money in the process of making good food. THey have a noce looking kitchen, too.


cute kids, (4.00 / 2)
great food, wonderful video. Thank you.

Love her teaching the kids to be at home in a kitchen and learning to cook.

[ Parent ]
Kate didn't believe at first (4.00 / 2)
that we actually had more than 300 family farms, but I looked it up and it's true. I think the only corporate farm here is a very large vineyard owned by one of Nestle's subsidiaries.
[ Parent ]
coffee and tea (4.00 / 1)
I have had an uncomfortable stomach for about six months. Difficult to describe - not nausea, not heartburn or acid reflux, just a feeling I don't like and didn't know what to do about. About two weeks ago, after a comment from Joanne, I switched from coffee to tea. My discomfort is much diminished, almost disappeared. Twice I have had coffee with dinner out, and I have made one 3-cup pot of coffee at home, so I think I'll be able to drink coffee occasionally.

Last week I bought a jug of fresh apple cider or apple juice, unfermented. I hadn't had any for a long time and had a yen, but this particular jug is too sweet for me to enjoy as is. I've been splashing a little into tea instead of lemon or half-and-half, and I enjoy that.

Hmm, think I'll make a small pot of coffee now!

That's interesting (4.00 / 2)
that's exactly my situation. I can have coffee occasionally, just not all the time like I used to. Coffee is something that I can take or leave. I like it, especially the specialty coffees, but it's nothing that I need to wake up or anything. As long as I don't drink too much coffee I'm fine. But more than occasionally, and I start getting heartburn.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.
[ Parent ]
gang of 12 (4.00 / 1)
I'd like the gang of 12 to report out a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan with a unanimous vote. News reports indicate that this result is tragically improbable. The only realistic chance of getting something before Thanksgiving seems to be for one Democrat to vote for a barely minimum Republican proposal or one Republican to vote for a barely minimum Democratic proposal.

My prediction: we don't see a plan before Thanksgiving but, if we do, brain-damaged Max Baucus votes for a Republican proposal.

Hey, count! (4.00 / 1)
I got to see Glacier National Park during the day this time, and all of Montana in daylight for that matter.  Just beautiful.  Light cover of snow was everywhere from Pasco, WA to just about before Fargo, ND... we saw some snow again in Minnesota briefly, but none after Minneapolis / St. Paul.  Not even in Buffalo!

Wisconsin is breathtaking.  Didn't get to see that during the day last time.

The Empire Builder was 6 hours late into Chicago on Wednesday, so I missed the DC connection, but they put me on the Lakeshore Limited (Chicago to NYC via South Bend / Toledo / Cleveland / Buffalo / Albany) that night instead.  Just barely caught that one in time; if not, they were going to put me up in Chicago for the night or on an express Amtrak Motorcoach to DC - definitely would have preferred the former!

I hated the delays while I was on the train, but I still don't regret it at all and I'm looking forward to the trip back as well.  "America By Rail" photo diary coming soon, after I get back home and am able to take pics of places like Minot, North Dakota that I missed due to darkness on the way in. ;)

The only thing that really sucked was that I missed out on lunch in DC on Thursday with a friend during the layover, due to the missed connection.  But I'm seeing her in NYC with a few other friends on Sunday, so at least that's cool!

Way cool Jay (4.00 / 2)
If I ever needed to take a trip and wanted to see the countryside at the same time, the train would be a definite must do.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.
[ Parent ]
RU, whoo! (4.00 / 1)
Rutgers beats Cincinnati, 20-3.  Moves into a first-place tie in the Big East with one week to go!  

We need to beat UConn next week, and have South Florida beat Louisville, and Rutgers wins the Big East for the first timeand goes to the Orange Bowl, BcS yeeaarrgghh!!!

Kermit the frog comments on Pizza as a vegetable (4.00 / 2)
He was on SNL last night

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-ni...

farmland prices (4.00 / 1)
Interesting four-part series about farmland prices from the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.

Extracts:

Sellers are investors and estates.

Buyers are investors and farmers.

Farmer buyers are in their 50s-60s, established, and have a lot of equity. They pay cash or have large down payments, often half the purchase price.

What's happening now drives consolidation. The big get bigger. Small farmers and young farmers who want to own their own farms are being priced out of the market.

Production costs have doubled in the last five years, partly because of increased land costs, and production costs will continue to increase as input suppliers catch up with markets.

Industry participants who have a vested interest in not having a bubble collapse (auctioneers, real estate agents, and ag finance companies) do not foresee a bubble collapse. Imagine!

It's interesting what farmland prices are and how the prices are influenced (4.00 / 2)
by different markets.

In some areas in Oregon, prime vinyard suitable land can go for as high as $45,000/acre. That's not for development, especially if you have land that's zoned EFU (exclusive farm use) it's almost impossible to build anything other than a pole barn on it even if you are actively farming. It's simply because wine grapes are the big thing.

Other farm acreage that's flat and good for working with equipment is going I think, for around $11,000/acre.  

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
New project I'm working on - (4.00 / 2)
The Little Homestead Provisioning Project

Say you wanted to start growing all or even a substantial portion of what you ate? How much would you need to supply yourself for a year? How much land would you need? What can you grow yourself and what will you need to outsource?

Those are some of the questions I hope to answer with this study. The first document you'll see if you take the link, is my initial estimates for foods with annual expected consumtion ammounts. These are for me only, although some of Chaz's consumption is included (for instance, I have 52 chickens down for me, and an additional 104 for Chaz (one per week for me and 2 per week for the big dog).

Anyway, I'll be keeping track of my consumption/use of raw ingredients on a weekly basis and updating the annual consumption estimates monthly. I'll also be brewing my own beer and shifting my cooking from wine to beer, which when I look at annual consumption levels, is going to make me look like a serious candidate for AA.

As I begin brewing my own beer, I'll be able to keep track of my grian and hops useage so I'll be able to estimate the grain use and therefore the ammount I'll need to plant in the spring (I'll be planting hard red spring wheat, 2 row barley and possibly some soft white spring wheat as well).

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

project (4.00 / 1)
Last year, Tim and Liz Young did a podcast about what people could do with 1 to 3 acres of land, Nature's Harmony Farmcast #10.
[ Parent ]
Congress (4.00 / 1)
RE: the discussion between Joanne and Lee

Congress is a failed institution. The very existence of the oh-so-unsuper supercommittee is proof positive. Abandoning the procedures by which Congress has solved even more difficult problems for nearly 250 years is proof of failure. I doubt that even one of the legislators who voted to establish the committee expected that anything good would come from it.

Although the Presidency is not itself a failed institution as such, I think Obama's is a failed Presidency. He shot his wad and sealed his fate, whatever it will be, when he brainlessly, spinelessly, agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts. The village idiots who criticize him for not taking more of a role in the joint committee negotiations miss the fundamental point that he was irrelevant to the negotiations. Golf parties be damned, when he agreed to extend the tax cuts (and when he signed the bill establishing the supercommittee), he lost all leverage with Congress and lost any probability of influencing its deliberations. Next year promises to be really dismal.

The failure of any Democrat to give Obama a primary challenge has saddened me. Although polls show about half the country wanting to elect Anybody But Obama, and although his campaign has abandoned Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy that put him in office, he still might be reelected. If so, I can't imagine what his second term would be like.

I agree (4.00 / 2)
It certainly is disheartening isn't it? While I'm not happy with Obama's performance, I absolutely don't like any of the republican candidates and I can't think of anyone of the democrats I like. The only person I would be enthusiastic about voting for is Berni Sanders, and he knows better than to run.

I have a suspicion that what happened to Obama is that he went into the job with a lot of idealism and then once he was in, he found out what kind of meat grinder he entered. I've been watching him. God he's aging fast.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Ha! (4.00 / 1)
In an ideal world, Bernie Sanders would be #1 on my list, followed by Russ Feingold...

No surprise on the "aging fast" thing, including Obama our last three presidents were all relatively young upon entering office and seemingly aged about four years for every year in office.

[ Parent ]
Feingold (4.00 / 1)
Interestingly, or maybe not, Feingold supports recalling Gov. Walker but has firmly said he won't run to replace Walker.
[ Parent ]
Yup (4.00 / 2)
Regan and Carter aged like crazy too.

I think that what happens is that once they get into office, or are elected, I think the briefings start before they actually take the oath, they realize exactly what they've gotten themselves into.

The old adge "Be careful what you wish for". I suspicion that it's stress that does it to them. And I agree with you on the 4 years for every year in office, that's about right.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
You know, they called us crazy cranks... (4.00 / 1)
...when we said it a few years ago, but yeah.  "Hate to say we told you so," as they say.

Many of us, as far back as 2007, and in some cases even earlier, knew things were much worse than we were led to believe.  Hell, we were living it on the ground.  No surprise the politicians 'out of the loop,' so to speak, didn't really know, although they learned soon enough.

It's generally accepted wisdom these days that Obama was completely unaware of the true depth of the problems we faced while he was running, and the reality must have shocked him.  That doesn't really speak to him so much as it does to how completely out of touch all of our politicans generally are these days.

Hell, how could they be after all?  Even if these guys lose their next election, they'll have their pick of high-paying white collar jobs.  If I twist my ankle next week, I may end up homeless within two months.  Therein lies our problem in America these days.

[ Parent ]
Well (0.00 / 0)
I refused to vote for Obama in the primary or the general (I forget who I voted for in the primary, it wasn't Hillary, and I voted for McCaine in the general) because Obama was too much of a greenhorn. He'd been in DC for how long? And half of that was spent running for president. So essentially what we elected was a state senator, not someone with experience on the national field of play.

What I was the most scared of was that we'd get Bill Clinton's old crew. That's why I refused to vote for Hillary. I talked several people out of voting for either Hillary or Obama. But we wound up electing Barak Obama.

And what did we get? TADA! Bill Clinton's old crew. And now where are we?

So essentially policy wise what we've done in this country is go from 8 years of Bill Clinton's economic and trade policy, to 8 years of George W. Bush's economic and trade policy (not really that different from Clinton's) to 4 more years of what is essentially Bill Clinton's economic and trade policy.

Got any idea why I want to pay cash for the property I'm farming? Any idea why I'm farming instead of installing tile? People gotta eat, they don't gotta have tile in their homes.

I saw the hard times coming too.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Pizza as a vegetable (4.00 / 2)
Just an essay here that was on the TeeVee set. I'm glad this caught on, but I wonder if angry people are enough about this to counter the money of the food lobby. Our government is corrupt.


poultry exemption (0.00 / 0)
One thing about regulations is the regs themselves, another thing is how regs are used or abused by bureaucrats.

Liz and Tim Young process poultry on the farm at Nature's Harmony Farm, and I think they do rabbits. To extend Joanne's comments about the regulatory wilderness facing on-farm processors, readers (and listeners) can refer to Nature's Harmony Farmcast #7 for an informative, enlightening discussion specifically about this topic. A 13-minute segment begins at about 31 minutes (28 minutes into Chapter 5), worth listening to. Related comments about selling fresh vs. frozen meat are made near the beginning of Farmcast #8, also worth a listen.

Farmcasts #7 and #8

Yeah and it's not just processing/food/food safety bureaurocracy (4.00 / 1)
that'll do it to you. Here in Oregon, we have extremely restrictive land use regulations. This is, on it's face, specifically to protect farmland from development. Can't be paving over those amber waves of grain now.

But one of the problems is that if you have a piece of property say, that's zoned EFU (exclusive farm use) it makes it difficult to do anything other than plow it without many, many permits, fees, system development fees, etc. And you may have to get a special exemption to carry out your farming practices. For instance, if you want to live on the property you are farming, if there is no house, you must show $80,000 in income (made exclusively from farming) for one or more years. This was done to keep people from coming in with a hobby farm, running it for a few years and then splitting a larger acreage into smaller ranchettes. What it's also done is add a lot of expense to those people wanting to start farming. Instead of living on the land you're farming, now you have to make payments on the farm land AND rent or buy some remote location to live in. Adds expense, adds commute time, and if you're not on the property you can't keep an eye on it 24/7. That's kind of handy when you have livestock.

For the animal slaughtering, that's not considered farming. It's considered manufacturing. EFU is for farming ONLY, no manufacturing allowed. Again, this was put in place to protect farmland from development, this time from commercial development. Warehouses and manufacturing plants like and need exactly the same terrain that farming likes and needs. That is, you want a nice big patch of ground that's relatively flat (flat as a pancake is ideal). Unfortunately, if that land has good quality soils, the land will be what we call in Oregon, Foundation Farmland, the best of the best.

The bureaucrats aren't using and abusing the regulations, they're just doing what the people of this state told them to do. Unfortunatly, even though they had the best intentions, most of the people in this state don't know crap about farming, and so we get these laws and regs passed that were written by people who don't know crap, promoted by people who don't know crap, and imposed on those of us who DO know crap.

On the outdoor butchering, ODA considers that outdoor slaughtering is unsanitary because there's no way to keep flies off the carcasses. I can understand their logic - you're in an area with livestock/poultry. Unless the animals are kept locked up in a building 24/7 (factory farm) you're going to have poultry manure, and manure from any other animals. What do flies like? What do they live for (and reproduce in)? So the fly lands on and wanders around on/in a pile of shit, then flies over and lands on the poultry you're processing and that you're going to sell to someone who's going to handle the bird and may or may not protect themselves from cross contamination. They may even be more lax than they normally are because local, small scale processing is advertised by many as being safer and/or more sanitary that the "big box, factory farmed, pathogen coated" poultry you find at the store.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Pot Luck | 71 comments
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