Digest - Blogs: Hogger blogger wild, rural buh-byes, trashing the Clintons
Wooly bully: Mangalitsa hog farmer/funder Heath in Washington State has quite the rant — inspired by this innocuous, sweetly boosterish NY Times article on small dairies — about why "local" doesn't always taste better, and how California chefs who buy in-state are almost certainly buying inferior pork than what he raises. Perhaps Heath needs to spend more time with animals who don't bite the hands that feed them. (Wooly Pigs)
"Just let them die": A new book says rural Americans would be far better off if the government just paid them to move to an urban area. Dan Owens disagrees...to put it mildly. (Blog for Rural America)
Voldemonsanto and the Clintons: Linn Cohen-Cole — a classmate of Hillary Clinton's at Wellesley and a self-described natural Hillary supporter — was inspired by a News Hour piece on farmer suicides in India to start researching Monsanto. In this long, angry post, she covers the biotech company's ties to the Clintons (some of them a little tenuous) and blames Bill and Hillary for most of the evils of our current food system. (Celsias; thanks, Batchild!)
Integri-Tea: Coca-Cola is buying a 40% share of Honest Tea, one of the few bottled teas that isn't mostly high-fructose corn syrup. Will they give up their principles and dump HFCS into the tea? Marc Gunther is optimistic the answer's no after talking with numerous Coke executives, and so (we think) is Sam Fromartz after a thought-provoking interview with company CEO Seth Goldman.
Can't buy you love: Monsanto grants a ton of money to ag-study programs (Iowa State even has a Monsanto Auditorium), but only those who research biotechnology are awarded cash — those who are working on organic methods are on their own. (Grist)
Sustainable activism: Getting too tired to fight? Kerry Trueman links to self-help info for those who help others. Love the metaphor of Michael Pollan trapped in a CAFO — a Confined Author Feeding Operation. (Eating Liberally)
Gitmo better food, please: Like other US military bases, Guantanamo Bay is home to a number of fast-food franchises, including a Starbucks, a McDonalds, and a Subway/Pizza Hut. (The NY Times Lede Blog via Boing Boing)
Comments
By Kei on February 26th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Re: Wooly Pigs rant
I'd chalk it up to the growing backlash against locavorism. It's definitely true that a lot of nonsense gets trumpeted in the rhetorical stampede to embrace the nearest farmer, but I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. He does make some valid points, even if he's ranting.
By Walter Jeffries on February 27th, 2008 at 10:13 am
"We hill billies would better off moving to the cities?" What ever for? Cities have little to offer, nothing for me. I avoid cities like the plague. Been there, tried it for three months, threw away the t-shirt...