Kim and I at her wedding

It has been 15 years since we talked, and now this is the only way I can talk at you, not with you.

I also know how much you would hate not being able to argue back. See? You should have taken better care of yourself. (Imagine…

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 As I hunkered down in the basement with my dogs yet again, fearful that the latest wave of dangerous weather would blow us away, I could almost hear the planet screaming to warn us that we are rushing headlong off the environmental cliff.

Climate change is real. Glaciers are melting,… Read full post »

The new year dawns, and the mainstream media still find themselves in the tank.

Advertisers prove increasingly unwilling to board the Titanic, as evidenced by Pepsi pulling its ads from the Super Bowl in favor of spending $20 million on social media instead.

Local newspapers and TV stations w… Read full post »

The glib answer, of course, is that we do the same thing that we do for Hanukah and Eid. However, in my role as resident atheist, I think the question deserves a fuller answer. (I may not play an atheist on TV, but I do guest lecture as the area's… Read full post »

 If you ever wanted proof that corporations matter more than people in our society, you need not look further than the New York Times article on how 22-year-old Stephanie Smith was poisoned by the O157:H7 strain of coli that contaminated a "burger" from food giant Cargill. As we learn in the… Read full post »

In a recent article called GMO crops: Battlefield in "Nature" magazine, reporter Emily Waltz looks at the reaction - some would say overreaction - to research published by Loyola University crop scientist Emma Rosi-Marshall in 2007 in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." Rosi… Read full post »

Novella Carpenter's startling new book Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer is often unsettling but always inspiring. A second-generation serious-back-to-the-lander, Novella did not follow her mother's footsteps into the country but instead decided to grow her own food on an abandoned lot next… Read full post »

One of the bigger ongoing scandals in ag circles is the continuing failure of the federal government to force Aurora Dairy to comply with organic requirements. The Cornucopia Institute has now filed suit against Aurora' High Plains dairy near Kersey, Colorado. Part of the problem is Aurora's failure… Read full post »

Fresh Michigan peaches on the railing of my deck

Does anything taste better than fresh Michigan peaches? Here's a great way to enjoy them in a gluten-free dessert that everyone will love.

Serves 8

• 6 fresh Michigan peaches, sliced (you can peel them, if you like)
• Juice from 1 lemon
… Read full post »

Liz Emrich of Iron Pundit/Iron Skillet fame is taking the night off. Since I can't miss the fix, I am pinch-hitting for her tonight to liveblog Bravo's Top Chef Las Vegas. Please come back at 10 pm EST to add your $.02.

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11:06 - Upon reflection, I wonder whether… Read full post »

The Town Hall meetings that our senators and representatives often hold during the August recess have produced a bumper crop of crazies this summer. Fertilized by the manure spread around so freely by Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly, the conservative crazies have blossomed into the equival… Read full post »

As the former associate director of the National Center for Community
Policing at Michigan State University, I worked closely with police
for almost nine years in the late Eighties and early Nineties, showing
officers how to avoid escalating situations where mostly white
officers were often policing… Read full post »

I come to my current level of slovenliness honestly, the latest in a long line of women for whom housework is roughly as appealing as waterboarding. My mother, the master, raised me in our fine family tradition of intentional sloppiness. Given the choice between reading an engrossing novel or sweepin… Read full post »

Swine flu virus (CDC)

The Associated Press, as published in the LA Times, looks at the possible connection between swine flu and the corporate pig farm called La Gloria in Veracruz, Mexico. This thoughtful article does a good job of explaining how difficult it can be to trace the origin… Read full post »

Heirloom peach tomatoes - photo by Casey
Williamson

I grow food. I shop for food. I cook food for me and my family. And, like most of us, I want food that is safe, healthy and fresh. I want it at a price I can afford, but I am willing to pay more… Read full post »

A mother sow nurses her piglets in a confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

The British paper The Guardian suggests the origin of the new swine flu in Mexico may be traceable to a four-year-old boy in Veracruz as its first victim. A Mexican affiliate of the Smi… Read full post »

Tom Philpott, writing for Grist, reports that the outbreak of this dangerous new swine flu appears to have come from a factory farm in Vera Cruz, Mexico, run by Smithfield Foods, the "world's largest pork packer and hog producer." According to the article, the farm is run by a Smithfield Mexican… Read full post »

With Joe the Plumber and as many as 5,000 of his friends

 

 

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The Detroit Free Press reports that area businessman John Hantz wants to buy up hundreds, maybe thousands, of idle acres in Detroit to launch a major urban farming enterprise. He wants the city to use condemnation and foreclosure proceedings to put large large parcels together to give to him for… Read full post »

There is great danger and tremendous sadness when powerful words lose their meaning and intent. Please bear with me as I walk you through concerns that the words we use to describe healthful, sound and humane farming practices in the United States are being drained of their meaning, one by one,… Read full post »

Earthjustice is taking EPA to court to prevent the Bush administration from sneaking through a last-minute exemption that would allow factory farms to pollute our air without issuing a warning to the government.

One of the biggest changes in the rural landscape over the years has been the explosion i… Read full post »

Purchased six days ago - photo by Bonnie Bucqueroux

I admit to a weakness for those tiny, juicy Clementine oranges, the ones that peel like a dream. I try to eat locally and seasonally, but in the winter, I soothe myself that buying these imported delicacies will help me avoid scurvy.

I… Read full post »

Confusion clouds precisely what happened when sheriff's deputies arrived at the Manna Storehouse, a food cooperative in rural Lorain County, Ohio, on December 1. As you can see in the video, Jacqueline and John Stowers say that law enforcement officers with guns herded them and their 10 chi… Read full post »

ABC's Jake Tapper is reporting that President-Elect Barack Obama will name former Iowa Governor Tom (Mr. Monsanto) Vilsack as the new secretary of agriculture. As recently as the Monday before Thanksgiving, the Des Moines Register reported that Vilsack felt he was out of the running, but it appears… Read full post »

Years ago, when I was a lowly magazine staffer, I was invited to fill a seat at the corporate table for the first time. The first hour of the meeting was mostly back-patting. But then I listened with mounting concern as a smugly self-satisfied veep trotted out plans for the new… Read full post »