This week we're still doing recipes that I have been carting down to the Occupy DC folks. Things have changed for the better in the camp's kitchen this week. They totally reorganized it, putting all of the food prep area in the back, segregating the storage areas for donated food and generally making it a more professional style operation.
All of this is good news for the folks who are feeding the occupiers and the occupiers themselves. They are also starting a news letter and you're donations will be highlighted. Just so you know here is what has been delivered to Occupy DC through your donations:
40 loaves French bread
200 Peanut butter cookies
200 Oatmeal Cookies
120 Chocolate Chip Scones
120 Oatmeal Raisin Scones
30 loaves Pumpkin bread
230 Peanut butter cookies
30 loaves Zucchini bread
We are down the 100 dollars in the fund, which should cover another three deliveries. If anyone would like to donate or donate again, you can do say at Paypal using the egnorbill@gmail.com address.
This weeks recipe is going to be the Zucchini bread that was delivered yesterday. Though this is still a quick bread is not as cakelike as many of the recipes you'll find out there. It comes to me via one of my Mom's friends and has been a staple of our holiday baking and giving for years. It also is more nutritional than a cookie but still has a good sugar hit which is the request that I got from the folks in the Occupy DC kitchen.
This has got to be the best political news I've read in a long time. A little before 1:00 a.m. last night, by a vote of 94-44, the New York State Assembly passed the moratorium on hydraulic fracture drilling.
Well it may only be state legislature and the governor still need to sign but apparently this moratorium to protect our drinking water is a first. It's not top down and the Working Families Party humbly takes some of the credit for more than 52,000 New Yorkers signing the petition urging the Assembly to act.
Go ahead: get up from your chair. Do a little dance, pump your fist, or do whatever you do to celebrate a victory of grassroots action over corporate power.
I just received a letter form the WFP and I was doing just that.
The legislation that provides $3.2 billion for long-term health care for rescue and construction workers at Ground Zero, plus another $4.2 billion in compensation for others who were exposed to the toxic dust that resulted from the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in 2001 will probably have no chance in the new Congress.
So there is a big push with Ground Zero Workers lobbying in D.C. Sen, Harry Reid working to get the bill out of a committee and bring it directly to the floor. New York Senators are drumming up support. Mayor Bloomberg met with three Republican Senators today. Even Republican House members from the area are working to pass this bill.
Today is "World Food Day," which makes it ripe for other groups to also claim it as a day to celebrate all kinds of other things. And I've got two for you today. First, above the fold, it's a day for "Ending Poverty by Rebuilding Local Food Economies" (brought to you by the newly founded US Food Sovereignty Alliance). Additionally, if you click to see below, I've posted a press release by La Via Campesina, who declares today an "International day of Action against Agribusiness and Monsanto."
October 16: Ending Poverty by Rebuilding Local Food Economies/World Food Day. La Via Campesina - a global movement fighting for food sovereignty and agrarian reform - calls for actions against transnational corporations responsible for privatizing seeds, promoting a chemical-dependent, industrial-scale form of agriculture and aquabusiness/industrial fisheries that bankrupt and displace fishers, farmers, and farmworkers. Local food economies are the solution. Some suggested actions:
Declare Who Fishes Matters by signing the petition and uploading your own short video about why the concentration, consolidation and industrial-scale takeover of our fisheries is a bad idea. For more action steps, see this link.
Host a Food Justice Workshop to share food and information about taking back our local food systems
Celebrate and organize Grub Parties with local chefs, gardeners, farmers, and eaters to build community and dismantle racism and sexism (See this link.)
Rural women make up more than a quarter of the world population. They hold a key role in food production and contribute to the wellbeing of their families, rural economies, and food security. Some suggested actions:
Write a letter to the editor of your local or regional paper about the importance of rural women in our states and around the world for food production and food security
Invite women farmers to discuss their lives and struggles
Create an award for exceptional local rural women or women's groups
Link up with sister organizations for a joint event like a community meal
Inform local media, the mayor, city council, and local business associations about what you're doing and why
You thought it was Columbus Day? Wrong. It's anti-Columbus Day. See below.
October 12: Day of Indigenous Resistance to Conquest (formerly Columbus Day) is celebrated across the Americas with actions toward recovering the land, water, and autonomy that belonged to indigenous peoples and their displaced urban allies. Currently, corporations are grabbing land in the U.S. and all over the world, depriving all people of their rights and their livelihoods. Some suggested actions:
Celebrate "liberated land" - community gardens, public parks, or protected indigenous lands
Circulate petitions denouncing genetically engineered food, fish, and trees
On that last item, the best thing you can do right now is submit your comments to the FDA about genetically engineered salmon. (If you want some help, check out Food and Water Watch and Consumers Union to see if they've got any action alerts going on right now.)
This week, the newly formed U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance (the successor of the US Working Group on the Food Crisis) has called for a week of action. Here are the details:
To celebrate its [the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance] launch, we encourage people fighting for food justice and sovereignty to take actions during the week of October 10-17.
In solidarity with people all over the world, we call on food justice groups to hold community events that educate, celebrate, and create affordable access to safe, healthy, culturally appropriate food while turning our food systems into engines for local economic development. We call for actions to build food sovereignty in the US.
October 10: Global Work Party to Tackle Climate Change
October 12: Day of Indigenous Resistance to Conquest
October 15: World Rural Women's Day
October 16: Ending Poverty by Rebuilding Local Food Economies/World Food Day
October 17: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
October 10: 350.org is calling for actions on 10/10/10.
Up to one-third of global greenhouse gases come from industrial agricultural, but small-scale farming can eliminate hunger and cool the planet. Climate change also disproportionately affects food insecure people and communities of color. Some suggested actions:
Throw a work party to support or create community gardens or farmers' markets
Hold "Farm to School Fresh Food Feasts" or a community meal of local food
Petition local governments to support local agriculture to end climate change and poverty
I'll post more details on each one of these days throughout the week.
Public comments on the National Organic Standards Board's Fall 2010 Recommendations are due by Tuesday, October 12 -- one issue is NOSB's failure to recommend a ban on nanotechnology in organics. Comments can be made here.
Hello all - hopefully I can make this into some kind of a short series or get someone to help me with this, but if not you'll probably see at least one more diary on the subject from me. Basically, here's a post where I'm trying to assemble all the information for protests that you need to know in order to take action against BP and for some kind of a clean energy future.
Go below the fold for a list of events/websites/facebook pages/etc.
(Just because of my own time constraints, I've only listed events in the US)
On Thursday afternoon the AFL-CIO held a rally to protest the banking bailout and demand a peoples' bailout. There was a call for not just regulating the banks that almost took this nation down but also doing an about face and forcing the bankers to bailout the people.
Do you think Wall Street should pay for the jobs they destroyed?
"People in New York and across the country who did nothing wrong and want to work have paid for the misdeeds of the big banks with their jobs, homes and retirement savings," said Richard Trumka, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. president.
Do the elected officials of this nation think Wall Street should pay for the jobs they destroyed?
See a few photos and read some people's stories below.
As a regular reader of The Health Care Blog occasionally I read about but have rarely gone to a weekly series called Grand Rounds. It is sort of like a participatory Sample Platter that seems to be frequented by health care professionals. As an old fan of the medical drama "ER" I recognize "Grand Rounds" as the teaching technique where seasoned veteran doctors make the rounds with young residents and interns in tow.
Grand Rounds was originally established by Emergency Medicine physician, Nicholas Genes in September, 2003. His concept was to highlight and capture the best medical blog posts in one place each week. The rotating nature of the hosts for Grand Rounds promotes community awareness of new bloggers, and encourages cross linkage to more content.
Grand Rounds is the oldest and most popular medical blog "carnival" on the Internet. Under the stewardship of Drs. Jones and Genes, we anticipate that Grand Rounds will remain a pillar of the health blogging community, enjoyed by healthcare professionals and patients alike.
This week's topic is "Can Food Be Health Care?" The reason I'm pointing this out is after looking at a preview of what will appear on Tuesday, very interesting stories about nutrition hosted by a fairly popular author and television personality Dr. John La Puma, something seems to be missing. Is this television audience aware of food issues beyond healthy recipes? Where are the food politics?
If you would like to be heard on this topic, submissions of your writings for Tuesday's Grand Rounds will be accepted until 3 p.m. PST today. Instructions for submissions can be found right below the Michael Pollan video in this link. It could attract some new readers of La Vida Locavore and change some hearts and minds. More impotently, since this blog really is a traveling medicine show, La Vida Locavore could host Grand Rounds on a future date.
This diary was meant to post for the repeat of The Thin Green Line but PBS won't show it again. So for today's GreenRoots Diary over at Dailykos, an updated look back at a devastating story.
Surprise! A plastics industry-funded study claims that reuseable cloth grocery bags are a threat to their bottom line your health. The gist of their study? You can get really sick if you don't occasionally clean them, or if you also use them to carry dirty diapers and gym clothes. (Note to self: keep soiled diapers separate from strawberries.) Also, it's dangerous to use them for unwrapped raw meat. (Btw - you can buy unwrapped raw meat at the grocery store? Never knew that...) They also point out that their brand new, single-use plastic bags are sterile and safe. Natch. In other news, the fossil fuel industry is going to soon claim that solar power is bad because if you sit in the sun and don't move for hours at a time, you could get a really bad burn. And wind is just terrible because it can knock things over, and steal children's balloons and stuff...
Action Alert: Let's ask Congress to put the "health" into health care reform, and increase funding for CDC's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity (DNPAO). This currently underfunded program provides funding to states for programs like building bike paths, starting up farmers' markets and initiating worksite wellness programs, in order to help prevent many of our diet-related diseases from ever becoming problems in the first place.
California and Massachusetts have already passed statewide menu labeling legislation, Oregon is just about there, and now New York may become the next state to require chain restaurants (and convenience stores) to post calorie counts on their menus.
Scientists and recreational divers are teaming up once again to conduct a fish census in the Puget Sound.
A researcher in the Skagit River Delta has just come across a rare find, tidal beavers. He also found that the beavers build prime habitat for threatened young salmon.
Curtis Abbey mentioned this the other day, and in case you missed it - video of The Simpsons' take on fast food greenwashing is up at Grist.
A tasty, healthy school meal designed by Chicago high school students will be featured in the Longworth Congressional cafeteria and at a nearby Congressional briefing on the future of school food, where the students will prepare the meal with White House chef Sam Kass. At the same time, more than 40,000 schoolchildren in cities across the U.S. will be served this same meal for lunch.
You can take action here to urge your elected representatives in DC to partake in the meal, and "support a strong, well-funded reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act". I've already sent my notes to Rep. Earl Blumenauer and Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden...
Sorry for the late notice, but I wanted to let you know that a legislative committee in Hawai`i is tomorrow considering resolutions to request that the Board of Education provide vegetarian and vegan meals to students.
