Agriculture
Chair: Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Max Baucus (D-MT)
- Michael Bennet (D-CO)
- Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
- Bob Casey (D-PA)
- Kent Conrad (D-ND)
- Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Pat Leahy (D-VT)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
- Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- John Cornyn (R-TX)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Mike Johanns (R-NE)
- Dick Lugar (R-IN)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Pat Roberts (R-KS)
- John R. Thune (R-SD)
Appropriations
Chair: Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: Herb Kohl (D-WI)
- Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
- Dick Durbin (D-IL)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Tim Johnson (D-SD)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Jack Reed (D-RI)
- Robert Bennett (R-UT)
- Christopher Bond (R-MO)
- Sam Brownback (R-KS)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Arlen Specter (R-PA)
Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions
- Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Agriculture
Chair: B Collin Peterson (D-MN)
V. Chair: B Tim Holden (D-PA)
B Joe Baca (D-CA)
- John Boccieri (D-OH)
B* Leonard Boswell (D-IA)
- Bobby Bright (D-AL)
B* Dennis Cardoza (D-CA)
- Travis Childers (D-MS)
B Jim Costa (D-CA)
- Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
- Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA)
B Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
- Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
B Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)
- Steve Kagen (D-WI)
- Larry Kissell (D-NC)
B Frank Kratovil (D-MD)
- Betsy Markey (D-CO)
B Jim Marshall (D-GA)
P Eric Massa (D-NY)
B Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
- Walt Minnick (D-ID)
B Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
- Mark Schauer (D-MI)
- Kurt Schrader (D-OR)
B David Scott (D-GA)
B Zachary Space (D-OH)
- Timothy Walz (D-MN)
- Frank Lucas (R-OK)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- K. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
- Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
- Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
- Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
- Sam Graves (R-MO)
- Timothy Johnson (R-IL)
- Steve King (R-IA)
- Robert Latta (R-OH)
- Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
- Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
- Jerry Moran (R-KS)
- Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Mike Rogers (R-AL)
- Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
- Adrian Smith (R-NE)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA) *=House Organic Caucus member B=Blue Dog Democrat
Appropriations
Chair: Dave Obey (D-WI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: P Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
- Sanford Bishop (D-GA)
* Allen Boyd (D-FL)
- Lincoln Davis (D-TN)
*P Sam Farr (D-CA)
*P Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
P Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
P Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
- Jack Kingston (R-GA)
- Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
- Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
* Tom Latham (R-IA) *=House Organic Caucus member
P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
Education and Labor
P Chair: George Miller (D-CA)
- Jason Altmire (D-PA)
- Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
- Timothy Bishop (D-NY)
P Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
- Joe Courtney (D-CT)
- Susan Davis (D-CA)
P Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
P Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
P Phil Hare (D-IL)
- Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
P Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
- Rush Holt (D-NJ)
- Dale Kildee (D-MI)
P Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
P Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
- Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)
P Donald Payne (D-NJ)
- Jared Polis (D-CO)
- Robert Scott (D-VA)
- Joe Sestak (D-PA)
- Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
P John Tierney (D-MA)
- Dina Titus (D-NV)
- Paul Tonko (D-NY)
P Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
- David Wu (D-OR)
- Buck McKeon (R-CA)
- Judy Biggert (R-IL)
- Rob Bishop (R-UT)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Michael Castle (R-DE)
- Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
- Luis F Fortuno (R-PR)
- Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
- Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)
- Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA)
- John Kline (R-MN)
- Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
- Tom McClintock (R-CA)
- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Thomas Petri (R-WI)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
- Tom Price (R-GA)
- Mark Souder (R-IN)
- GT Thompson (R-PA)
- Joe Wilson (R-SC) P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
Today I have a piece on Alternet about marketing to kids. This issue became VERY personal when I moved in with my boyfriend and his two young kids. In fact, the article opens with a paragraph or two about my boyfriend and his oldest daughter. I wrote about them not to criticize his parenting but to point out how tricky the marketers are, operating in ways that the parents just don't suspect. Even wonderful, loving, involved, intelligent parents like my boyfriend. Every so often, the kids come home with a new toy. When I ask where they got it, my boyfriend will say, "You won't like the answer." That means: It came from a Happy Meal. He does this rarely now, but the McDonald's trips were much more frequent before I came into the picture. At my suggestion, he's at least transitioned over to In N Out Burger when his kids really start begging for fast food.
Things have changed since I've been around. I assume that he let his ex-wife (and the kids themselves) take the lead on a lot of things, perhaps because as a guy, he figured that they knew best what girls wanted. When it comes down to it, my boyfriend is incredibly loving and that's the most important thing any parent can do. Many parents THINK they provide their kids with unconditional love but they don't. Many can't, often because they didn't receive unconditional love when they were kids. But my boyfriend truly does. And while that's the #1 most crucial thing any parent can do, but it doesn't give them a free pass on other things - like paying attention to marketing to their own kids.
When we've talked about marketing, my boyfriend noted that his generation was exposed to marketing too and he came out fine. Which is true. Except marketers are so much more sophisticated now that parents who assume that just have NO IDEA what their kids are being exposed to. It's not just the food, but toys too. And while the issues I write about are all food-related, as a step-parent, I can't ignore toys.
I was very grateful that this article forced me to reach out to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, because their work is excellent. I read through several pages of their site and they effectively state what I have observed but often haven't been able to put into words. All of the marketing these days can zap a kid's creativity. Our little one likes to play pretend, but very often that means just recreating scenes from Disney movies, word for word. She's got Cinderella's official dress AND glass slippers. I've been the wicked stepmother (ironic, huh?), the stepsisters, and the prince. She's ALWAYS Cinderella. It's so cute when she does this (although I HATE participating) but there's very little creativity involved because the story and the script are already written for her.
I noticed on my own that a lot of the marketing trains children as consumers from a young age. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the Webkinz toys, which our older daughter LOVES. She's got about $600 worth of these stupid stuffed animals, and she logs each one into the Webkinz website and gives it a gender and a name. Then she plays games on the site to win fake money, which she can use to buy stuff for her Webkinz virtual world. The entire goal of the game is the needless accumulation of stuff.
But Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood points out an even MORE disturbing point. Marketing teaches children that you need to always have newer, bigger, better, and more. What you have now is never enough. Buddhism teaches that pain comes from desire, and by ending desire, one can end pain. In other words, be happy with what you have. And certainly sometimes people have legitimate needs, and it's nice to get a new present or treat once in a while. But does one child need 40 stuffed animals or more? (And yes, she wants more.) This mentality creates unhappiness, as there is always something more to buy and what you have is never enough.
According to the authors, the findings strongly suggest that steering children away from commercial television may be effective in reducing childhood obesity, given that food is the most commonly advertised product on children's television and the fact that almost 90 percent of children begin watching television regularly before the age of 2.
By the time they are 5 years old, children have seen an average of more than 4,000 television commercials for food annually. During Saturday morning cartoons, children see an average of one food ad every five minutes. The vast majority of these ads -- up to 95 percent -- are for foods with poor nutritional value, the researchers say.
They say that as a parent you'll do things you swore you'd never do. Well, I'm not officially a parent, but I'm the unofficial parent to two little girls. Each one is a challenge in her own way. Here are a few things I've done that I would "never" do as a parent...
The FTC forum on food marketing to kids is just now finishing up and the last panel was actually wonderful and informative. It was several representatives of an interagency working group on food marketing to kids and they reported on the work they've done over the past several months. The ultimate goal of this group is to set guidelines (not regulations) for companies advertising to kids and to provide a report to Congress by July 15, 2010. Find out what they've been up to below...
The FTC forum on food advertising to kids is going on now. They are currently wrapping up a panel on corporate self-regulation of food advertising to kids. First they had several "good guys" speak, followed by a few corporate shills. I listened to corporate shill #1 and decided to skip out on the rest since I already know what they will say. Voila! Self-regulation is working. That's what they always say. So here's what the other speakers said on self-regulation.
I'll admit: I had heard of advergaming (advertising via online free games), but I was a skeptic. Kids are now online, and so are advertisers. I see ads online when I visit some of my favorite sites or surf the web. But who would be silly enough to GO to an advertiser's website on purpose and spend time there playing a game while being indoctrinated with their advertisements? I understand that advertisers are trying this, but do kids really go for it?
Well... let me share a scene from my home last night. I was in the living room, where my boyfriend's oldest daughter (age 7) was playing on the computer. I figured she was playing Webkinz until I saw the letters "Mc" flash across the screen.
"Hey," I called out. "Are you playing Webkinz?"
"Worse." Called a voice from the kitchen (my boyfriend). "McWorld."
Uh-oh. I wanted to jump up and tell her she wasn't allowed on that website and then explain to her very clearly why McDonald's is awful and so is advertising. Except I didn't. She isn't my child. Besides, that wouldn't be productive. When it comes to these things, it's almost better to just let it pass without making a thing about it, so the child doesn't have to rebel against you by eating MORE McDonalds or spending MORE time on their site. But - there you have it. Advergaming works. Shit.
Below you'll find some of the findings of the report, as well as details of the event on the 15th. The recommendations made in the report are entirely outrageous. They totally accept the fact that corporations are going to continue to spend billions marketing junk to kids. Furthermore, they ask the companies to do outreach to kids, teaching them healthy eating habits. I'm sorry but I really do not want Coca-Cola and McDonalds teaching kids about healthy eating!! If any readers of this blog can make it to the forum, I urge you to go - and then post a diary about it on this blog afterward.
UPDATE: The event will be available by webcast here.
A new report, Evaluating the Quality and Marketing of Children's Cereals (PDF) by The Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, took a look at breakfast cereal and cereal marketing. They picked on cereal because, for one thing, cereal accounts for 1/4 of all food and beverage advertising seen by kids. Also, two years ago, three out of four major cereal companies pledged to "self-regulate." Sooo... did it work? Of course not.
And while you can read the findings below, there is one thing I want to point out up here. Remember how that Smart Choices labeling program was made fun of for calling Froot Loops a "Smart Choice"? Well, as you'll see below, Froot Loops fell into the LOWEST category of nutritional rankings by this study. Lower than Cookie Crisp, Cocoa Puff Combos, and Cookie Crunch. In other words, they would have been hard pressed to pick a less healthy cereal if they TRIED.
While shopping for such goodies as corn tea at the Koreana Plaza in Oakland recently, I bought a bottle of aloe juice. I had tried it before and liked it, and I was probably feeling some subliminal effects of the magical aloe product that is advertised on the fringes of digital TV (11-3, the NBC sports channel, for example).
Reading the label — "No Added Sugar" — and then the ingredients — "...corn syrup, honey..." — I realized that I had run across a new nominee for the Misleading Labels Hall of Fame. Sure, there is no added sugar, but corn syrup and honey are nearly the same thing, and provide nearly half the calories in the drink (100 calories overall in 250 ml).
Prop 2 passed in California last November, but that wasn't the end of the fight for animal welfare laws. The animal ag industry got their butts kicked and they are trying to gain grown after the fact. Now the egg industry saysa literal interpretation of Prop 2 allows them to keep hens in cages. The Humane Society disagrees. And the California State Assembly is considering a bill (AB 1437) to require all eggs sold in the state (not just the eggs laid within the state) to comply with Prop 2. That's a great idea, actually, because it puts CA egg producers on a level playing field with egg producers outside the state.
Meanwhile, in Ohio, the animal ag industry has a brand new tactic to prevent Ohio from passing its own "Prop 2." They want to create a state board that determines animal welfare standards, a measure backed by the state's Democratic Governor. One thing I've learned is that industry doesn't support ANYTHING if it's not in their best interests. That makes me tend to believe the Humane Society's criticism of the creation of a state animal welfare board:
Big Agribusiness' attempt to amend Ohio's constitution by creating an industry-dominated council to oversee farm animal treatment is poor policy and an attempt to thwart meaningful reform. This proposed council is a blatant attempt to stall efforts to halt inhumane confinement practices for veal calves, pigs and other animals on factory farms - systems that are so restrictive that the animals are often prevented from engaging in basic movements such as turning around and extending their limbs.
We have been asking the Ohio Farm Bureau to engage in serious dialogue on these issues for months, but not only have they refused to respond to our initial proposal, but they now want to enshrine their favored oversight system into the state constitution...
It's a special interest power grab that is designed to circumvent the input of all Ohioans into the process and divert attention from serious reform.
This is a fight that will continue to play out around the country and in Washington, DC. Animal ag is spending a lot of money to lobby against animal welfare laws at the federal level, even though there is absolutely no momentum to do anything on the issue in Washington. New York, California, and Ohio seem to be the big battleground states for animal welfare at the moment, and Ohio is the next place we will probably see a ballot measure similar to Prop 2.
Well, I've made my first two deliveries so far, from the farm. I've sold kale, herbs, flowering plants, peas, greens, lettuces, and some vegetable plants. In an effort to keep customers happy by making it as convenient as possible to order their produce, I set up an online store where people can order what they'd like delivered the following weekend. If they like, they can come and pick up instead on Sundays. I deliver to my customers who live in the Mulino hamlet, the Molalla CPO or the city of Molalla. These areas are not more than 10 miles away from the farm, and it's pretty cool to deliver stuff to people.
I originally started out sending my order lists in an email to my customers. That just confused everyone, and one of my customers suggested the shopping cart. I looked into it, and my web host has several to choose from. I settled on a script called OS Cart. It's an open source php script that's pretty easy to work with, especially if you're like me, and have just enough knowledge about programing and scripts to be dangerous. My watch words when screwing around with code, is always save a copy of pristine code in case you do something to completely bollocks up everything, which I've been known to do now and then...
Farmers selling directly to consumers is on the rise all over the country - but all regions of the U.S. are not equal. For example, according to a new USDA report, the value of direct-to-consumer sales in 2007 was:
North Central (IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SD, WI): $300.8 million
Far West (AK, CA, HI, NV, OR, WA): $274.2 million
Northeast (CT, ME, MA, NH, NY, RI, VT): $212.9 million
Mid-Atlantic (DE, DC, MD, NJ, PA, VA, WV): $166.7 million
A friend sent me an article called "The Worst Packaged Food Lies." I wasn't that impressed over #!. Organic Kraft Mac 'n Cheese isn't actually healthy. Umm... duh. But then I got to #2 and that stopped me cold. You know the reduced fat peanut butter? I grew up eating that stuff! I ate it for years! According to the article Smucker's reduced fat peanut butter makes up for the missing fat with corn maltodextrin. End result: reduced fat peanut butter has 10 calories less than the full fat version. And yet, buying the reduced fat version was so important to my mother that once when Dad bought the full fat kind she sent him back to the store to return it.
Another good catch in the article? Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars. I used to eat those too. And this is just sick.
The claim: "Naturally and artificially flavored"
The truth: While the FDA requires manufacturers to disclose the use of artificial flavoring on the front of the box, the requirements for what is considered "natural" and "real" are not strict: Even trace amounts of the essence or extract of fruit counts as natural. So yes, there is fruit in this bar, but it falls third in the ingredients list, behind HFCS and corn syrup.
What the article should say but doesn't is that packaged foods in general aren't a good idea. Sure you can swap out a Larabar for that Nutrigrain bar, but why not eat an apple instead?
A very happy "tweet" went out on Twitter today thanking Wendy's for switching to cage free eggs. It led to a congratulatory press release from the Humane Society that talked about the evils of battery cages and praising Wendys for its bold, ethical move. Except for one detail... when you READ the press release, you find out that Wendy's is only making the switch for TWO PERCENT OF ITS EGGS!!!!!!!
Hens in a battery cage, making 98% of Wendy's eggs.
The other 98% still come from hens in battery cages, described by HSUS as follows:
Arguably the most abused animals in all agribusiness, nearly 280 million laying hens in the United States are confined in barren, wire battery cages so restrictive the birds can't even spread their wings. With no opportunity to engage in many of their natural behaviors, including nesting, dust bathing, perching, and foraging, these birds endure lives wrought with suffering.
Because of animal welfare concerns, countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and Austria have banned battery cages. The entire European Union is phasing out conventional cages by 2012.
Wendy's, this is really disingenuous. It's fantastic that with your large demand you are improving the lives of many chickens, no doubt, but if you truly believe in the cruelty of battery cages and the need to address the issue, why are you only going 2% of the way? Probably to garner press releases like the one that I stumbled upon, without the expense of actually making real change. That's my hunch.
McDonalds, perhaps the single biggest affront to biodiversity in the world (next to Monsanto), claims that it is "going green." And I would like to say: No, it isn't going green. It's going from being an enormous affront to any and all efforts for sustainability to a slightly less enormous affront to any and all efforts for sustainability. I am sorry, but when your entire business revolves around selling factory farmed beef, nothing you can do short of going out of business would be a substantial improvement. Not even using unbleached napkins that save energy, wood, and water (as McDonalds is doing in Canada).
As you can see from the GOOD magazine chart above, this is clearly a case of McGreenwashing. Would you like fries with that?
