La Vida Locavore is the blog for anyone whose crazy life includes planting, growing, weeding, fertilizing, raising, picking, harvesting, processing, cooking, baking, making, serving, buying, selling, distributing, transporting, composting, organizing around, lobbying about, writing about, thinking about, talking about, playing with, and eating food!
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
I suppose a more honest but less comfortable way for me to put it would be "Supporting my work." I pour my soul into this site and I do so for free. The only exception is the little bit of revenue I get from the ads, some of which goes to pay for the site hosting and the blog software platform itself. I also get food from a farmer in exchange for his CSA ad on here.
My situation is explained below, and I've added a new "Subscribe" button in the ads column. It allows you to subscribe for $10/month.
Lately La Vida Locavore has been hit pretty severely with spam. Spammers come to this site and make user accounts so they can put links to their websites in their profiles. Occasionally they also put spam links in diaries and comments.
I've been taking quite a bit of action to get rid of these spammers - and unfortunately it distracts me from researching and writing about food - but I am trying very hard not to ban well-meaning people from commenting and writing on this site.
The main action I am taking is banning IP addresses of anyone who creates a spam account. I am also deleting the spam accounts. When I ban IPs, I can ban entire ranges of IPs, which I am doing any time several spammers have similar IP addresses - particularly when they are from non-English-speaking countries. If I make a mistake and ban your IP address, please shoot me an email. Additionally, if I delete your account, create a new account and then LET ME KNOW so I don't delete it.
Over the past several weeks, many people have noticed that our RSS feed (which also goes out to Twitter) was broken. It took me some time to track down what the problem was but I did, and I've fixed it. In other words, if you subscribe to LVL on Twitter or via RSS, you're good to go.
I just got the news: my book arrives tomorrow! Hooray! That is, it arrived at my publisher's today and it arrives at my place tomorrow. Then I'll immediately ship out all of the pre-orders (after signing them, of course).
I'm very happy for so many reasons. There's the obvious reason - I'm now a published author. But there's also the fact that much of what I wrote about is time-sensitive and the sooner the book gets here, the more relevant it will be. The issues themselves stay largely unchanged over time (sadly) but the political situation changes from week to week.
I wrote this book to fill a very specific gap in current literature about food. We know what the problems are. We know pretty well what the solutions need to be. We have a lot of political information from Marion Nestle in Food Politics and from Dan Imhoff in Food Fight. But neither of those books really answered the question I wondered about, which is: Which issues should we be asking our representatives to take action on, and what should we specifically ask for?
I saw a Food, Inc poster about a week ago that gave 10 tips on making our food system better. One was to tell your Congressperson you want safe food. OK, great. But what specifically are we supposed to ask for??? THAT is the question I set out to answer.
I'll be honest with you. When I read the finished version of my book a few months ago, I was disappointed. I read through all of the policies I called for and realized that those policies alone wouldn't fundamentally bring us the changes we need. And I thought: Did I screw up? Did I totally miss the boat? Would my friends and peers call me out on wasting my time with a book that calls for incremental change?
But I realized that I DID accomplish what I set out to do. I call for policies that are politically feasible NOW. And it is TOTALLY pathetic how little is politically feasible now. While the policies I call for clearly aren't the be all and end all of changes that we need, they are the first clearly laid out platform I've seen, particularly one that's explained in a way that's intended to be accessible to all readers. It's a needed start. And as we push the debate forward on the issues I tackle in my book, we'll create awareness among the public and we'll also move the bar of what's possible ahead a little bit.
For example, Prop 2 in California only outlawed 3 specific cruel practices to animals, but it sparked a national debate. It resulted in an Oprah show expose of factory farming. That show reached voters far beyond California, and the awareness generated among those who watched that show went beyond just the 3 practices included in Prop 2 itself. For some people, maybe it was the first they they really thought about the fact that their food comes from animals. And maybe, now that Prop 2 passed, the public will demand more changes in animal agriculture. Perhaps if we had started with a more comprehensive measure, it would have failed, but the debate and awareness created from Prop 2 will make people more open to a more comprehensive measure that comes next.
I wish the American people (and the people who make up our government) were ready now to accept a more progressive vision of our food system. I wish they were ready to call for the full extent of changes we need now. But they aren't. And I realize - that's not my own failing. It's just disappointing.
I tried in the book to equip the reader with facts that I find the most compelling for why we need sustainable agriculture. I tried to share things that are not included in other popular books like The Omnivore's Dilemma. I go over the history of how we came to have such widespread pesticide use because I think it shows that it wasn't a scientifically-based rational decision at all, but rather a decision made by chemical companies, eager to profit after World War II ended, and a government that caved to their wishes out of fear of slipping back into the Great Depression.
I also explain how and why sustainable agriculture actually works. To me, that was the the most important thing I learned while researching this book. Without an understanding of that, we can too easily be called knee-jerk anti-science Luddites, when in fact sustainable agriculture is highly scientific. Without understanding how plants interact with their ecosystems to get nutrients and protect themselves from pests and disease, it's too easy to fall victim to arguments that we need pesticides or fertilizer or else we will all go hungry. But once you do understand how sustainable agriculture works, then you can't be fooled by myths and lies perpetuated by those who profit from unsustainable agriculture (or the well-meaning people who believe them).
I hope you do like the book. I tried to make it informative yet enjoyable. Because of the time-sensitive nature of bills in Congress and news cycles, etc, the book is not enough on its own to give you an up-to-the-minute analysis of food politics. But the book does give you a very detailed and broad background on all of the various food policy issues out there, and then you can join me here on the blog to keep up with the latest news on everything and action alerts, etc.
La Vida Locavore just had a rather obnoxious way of celebrating its first birthday. The site went down. We've been online for a full year now, and as such, somebody was supposed to pay to renew the domain name. Whoops. When I realized what the problem was, my first thought was "It hasn't been a year yet! Has it?" So then I thought back to when we started - July 2008 - and thought "It can't be July yet!" Oh yes, it can. This is part of the problem of living in San Diego. Seasons lose their meaning. There's a holiday this week and my poor Southern Californian brain can't remember if it's Memorial Day or Labor Day or the Fourth of July, and I wouldn't be too shocked if somebody told me it was Christmas.
At any rate, if you are reading this, then you know that the site is back up again. And now we can celebrate our first birthday! Woohoo!
I'm joining the blog reader project survey to figure out what the demographics are of readers of this blog. Hopefully it will help us become a better site. The survey asks why you read blogs, which information sources you value, and which web tools you use. So, if you've got a few minutes, please take my Blog Reader Project survey. Thanks!
This site has grown quite a bit in the last few months, so I want to re-state something that I said a long time ago. Everybody is welcome to post on this site. The only rule is that you should write about food. Other than that - anything goes. You can post personal subjects like pictures of your garden or a favorite recipe, you can teach the community something you know about (or the converse, you can ask a question about something you WANT to know about), you can share a news story and your interpretation of it, or anything else you want. If you've posted something on your own blog, you can cross-post it here (along with a link to your own blog) so that your story will reach more people and so that those who like your writing will know to read your blog regularly.
My hope is that we will be a top source of news about food and agriculture, but I also want this to be a place to share information and inspiration. I love that wide eyed lib posts about foraging, Ellinorianne told us how she built her container garden, and Joanne Rigutto shares stories from her farm. Those are topics I know nothing about, and I couldn't post about them even if I wanted to. I'm grateful that they were willing to share their stories with us so that we can all learn from each other.
Also, on a different subject: If you disagree with me or if you think I say something wrong, it is OK to say so. In fact, I prefer that you say so, because I welcome the opportunity to learn. I got a bit of feedback this past week from people who read the site that they overall like it but they disagree with me every so often. Please, speak up when you disagree with something! Be nice about it, and if you are afraid you will embarrass me or whoever you disagree with, you can send an email so the mistake can be corrected. If you don't think your correction or disagreement will result in embarrassment, just leave a comment stating your point of view or sharing a link to more (correct) information. I believe this is the best way to make our site stronger, and I welcome your feedback.
I'm often asked that question, to which I have a ready answer: bread, cheese and wine. I'm a peasant at heart. Add a few slices of saucisson de Lyon and I'm in heaven.
Now you know mine, so what type of food (no more than three) would describe your personality? It's Sunday, I'm doing an experiment and this is a little Meta fun. No cheating please! And pour me a glass of red.
Tomorrow Debra Eschmeyer, Nicole de Beaufort, Destin Joy Layne, and I are going to do a panel at the CFSC conference about using the web to communicate about food systems. Since I'm bursting with excitement about all of the ways blogging has enriched my life and increased my effectiveness in making the world a better place, I'm going to write a rather long post here to save all of the lovely people who come to our panel from having to listen to an hour and a half straight of me blabbing on about blogging and not letting the others get a word in edgewise.
I've also got a few links to share which will be (potentially) used during the presentation:
I'm thrilled so many of my favorite bloggers have taken the time to visit this site (and even contribute) since its launch a few days ago. I'm even more tickled that a few folks who haven't dipped their toes into the blog world before now have shown up.
I feel very fortunate for the opportunities blogging has given me. I got into DailyKos because I was frustrated with the country and I wanted to change it. Bloggers had outed Jeff Gannon, a gay prostitute in the White House press corps who was lobbing softballs to Bush. I was impressed that average people could be so powerful when they came together on the blogs, and I wanted to be a part of it.
So far I haven't outed any more gay prostitutes but I've gotten a book deal, made hundreds of friends, and gained the ability to reach a few thousand people when I had something I thought was important to say. If you are new to blogging, I hope you find the same benefits I found. Below, you'll find advice on diary-writing based on my experience, and hopefully other bloggers will add their own two cents in the comments.
As a goal of this site is bringing together various groups who may not have connected before now so that we can teach one another and collaborate on our common goals, I'd like to take a moment to help out anyone who may be new to the blog world. (And those of you who ARE bloggers - please jump in with your own advice here!)
This diary will cover the basics of how to blog. I plan to post a future diary giving tips on the actual content of successful diaries and various popular formats (i.e. The Snark, The Rant, The Breaking News, etc). Join me below the flip (that means click on the link that says "There's more") for a lively discussion about blogging basics...
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