The Local-Vore Movement

By ARIELLE REICH 

I became familiar with Democracy Now!, a daily, independent, progressive radio/television/podcast program when I interviewed producer/host Amy Goodman for a magazine that I write for periodically. Since I met Amy, I’ve been a devoted listener and recently came across a fascinating interview with Michael Pollan, a professor of science and environmental journalism at the University of California, and author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.

Pollan says that food is under attack from both the food industry, which takes whole foods and turns them into highly processed “edible food-like substances” and from nutritional science, which convinced Americans that it is the nutrients, and not the food that matters. Pollan also discussed his economic perspective of the food industry.

“You can’t really make money-selling things like oatmeal, plain rolled oats. You can buy a pound organic oats for seventy-nine cents. There’s no money in that, because it doesn’t have any brand identification. It’s a commodity, and the prices of commodity are constantly falling over time. You make money by processing it, adding value to it. You take those oats, and you turn them into Cheerios, and then you can charge four bucks for a few pennies of oats. And then after a few years, Cheerios become a commodity. So, you have to move to the next thing, which are like cereal bars. And now there are cereal straws that your kids are supposed to suck milk through, and then they eat the straw. So, you see, every level of further complication gives you some intellectual property, a product no one else has, and the ability to charge a whole lot more for these very cheap raw ingredients.”

Pollan suggested some changes in policy, such as a farm bill that prevents driving down the price of high-fructose corn syrup, so that real fruit juice can compete with it and carrots could compete with Wonder Bread. To combat the trend of globalizing food at the point where we are losing farmland everyday and the increase in rates of heart disease that can be attributed to consumption of trans-fats and other highly processed foods, Pollan suggested eating local foods and supporting local farms to stay healthy and to keep some autonomy in our food system.

People who make an effort to eat locally, dubbed local-vores, also believe they are helping the environment. The food system in the United States contributes about a fifth of greenhouse gases and is very energy intensive. The food industry has moved away from using photosynthesis to using a fossil fuel system and use pesticides made from petroleum. Then, think of all the energy it takes to move food all over the world. In fact, we now we take about ten calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of food energy. Definitely something to think about during your next visit to the grocery store!

Innovation + Time = Imitation

By MICHAEL NORRIS

I remember being fascinated when I learned that the light from faraway stars takes many years to reach our eyes. Today, I was equally facinated to learn that an innovative idea from Stamford took 12 years to reach Hartford. Today’s Stamford Advocate announced the Rell administration was going to create a state Web site to field “comments and complaints.” Undersecretary of the state budget office Jeff Beckham described how it would work: From today’s Stamford Advocate:

“It was thought of as sort of an electronic suggestion box-complaint window – an easy, highly visible way for folks to communicate with their state government,” Beckham said.    

The Advocate was kind enough to mention that Dan Malloy created a similar endeavor in 1996 for Stamford. That’s right: the year I was retiring my LCD screen Brother word processor, this city was moving ahead of its time and figuring out how to make government more accessible and accountable. I’m thrilled the Rell administration saw the potential too, though I wonder what intelligent things Stamford did in 1997 that will be realized statewide in 2009…

Quote of the Day

By ARIELLE REICH 

From today’s New York Times: When asked about the battle between Senators Clinton and Obama, Senator Lieberman says: 

“It’s less intense because I’m not involved in that family fight,” he said. “I went over to the other family.”     

At least he gave up trying to hide it. Tell us something we don’t know. 

Start Fighting Now

By BRIAN DURAND

ActBlue has begun raising money for the presumptive Democratic nominee for President:

The Republicans have their nominee. Time and time again, this is where Democrats are most vulnerable: we take months to select a nominee, and we fight divided against a unified Republican voice.

The hardest, the biggest, the most important fight right now is the fight for the White House.

Now more than ever, we don’t just need people to send checks. We need everyone to start working on building a war chest for the Democratic Nominee, by building pages and asking their friends for help and by starting to fight today for victory in November.

That’s why we’ve created a way for you to help our nominee even before he or she is chosen.

This is a great idea, and a cause definitely worthy of contribution. While it’s true that diversity amongst party members and loyalty to specific candidates are valuable Democratic traits, we often take too long to resolve ourselves around our nominee once a choice has been made (or never fully do so at all). Personally I have been very worried that the divide between the Clinton and Obama bases has been growing too large over recent weeks.

So, in the spirit of party unity, go make a contribution now to support the eventual Democratic nominee, whoever that turns out to be.

Third Times the Charm

By ARIELLE REICH

On Tuesday, Chris Shays and Jim Langevin of Rhode Island proposed legislation that would create a universal health insurance plan modeled after the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program.

According to the American Health Benefits Program, the uninsured would be required to enroll in one of the health plans that are currently offered to federal employees and be responsible for up to 28% of premiums, with the federal government picking up the rest. This plan would not touch Medicaid or the already insured and would be financed in part by requiring employers who do not offer health insurance to their employees to contribute a payroll assessment of up to $12,000 per employee.

Langevin acknowledged that this bill would likely be overshadowed by the upcoming presidential election and the plans put forth by the different candidates, but drafted the bill anyway in order to introduce a “viable concept” that “leaves room for further discussion”.

While this is the first time Shays has co-sponsored the bill, Langevin introduced similar bills twice before in 2004 and 2005 and Shays didn’t support either, much less co-sponsor.  Shays feels differently this time around, saying, “This is the right way to go. This is the plan I believe in,” I wonder if a looming election was perhaps responsible for the change of heart?

Senator Dodd Speaks On Telecom Amnesty

By BRIAN DURAND

Senator Dodd spoke on the Senate floor last night regarding the consequences of telecom amnesty, which looks to be a foregone conclusion at this point. The Senate will vote later today. You can watch part Dodd’s comments here:

Towards the end of the video Dodd quotes constitutional lawyer and blogger Glenn Greenwald from a post here. Greenwald’s comments are worth repeating:

The Bush administration will be gone in 11 months, but — in the absence of some meaningful accountability — all of this will remain. It remains to be seen whether, if there is a Democrat in the White House, any of these trends will be reversed (their two leading candidates are expressing opposition to most of these theories). Even if they are, eight years is a long time, and if we simply allow Bush to serve out the remainder of his term and have these theories remain undisturbed and unchallenged, and have all of these crimes go uninvestigated and unpunished, that will have an even more profound impact on changing our national character, in further transforming the type of country we are.

Rell Plans to Expand Middletown Juvenile Training School

By BRIAN DURAND

If at first you don’t succeed… throw some more money at it.

As part of her proposed budget Governor Rell is expanding the Juvenile Training School for boys in Middletown, more than doubling the number of inmates, er… children housed there. As most Connecticut residents will recall, the center is a Rowland-era holdover whose bloated construction contract was given to the Governor’s buddies:

The training school remains an icon of waste, corruption and poor planning associated with former Gov. John G. Rowland’s administration. The state’s decision to “fast-track” the $57 million project and award the construction bid to a politically connected contractor became the focus of a federal inquiry into questionable state contracts that led to Rowland’s resignation in June 2004.

The now infamous facility has been the subject of a number of investigations over the years relating to its operation and poor record on rehabilitating kids. That’s why the Governor has repeatedly said she plans to shut it down – until now.  Like so many other claims of undoing Rowland’s corruption, Rell’s actions tell a different story than her words.

Rell declared in August 2005 that she was shutting the school down. It was supposed to close by 2008 and at one point was considered as an alternate site for the state’s Department of Emergency and Homeland Security and other state agencies.

Rell isn’t just making the same mistake twice, she’s reinvesting in an obvious blunder. With more than half of the children who visit the school having to return at some point, there are clearly problems that will not be fixed by packing the facility to capacity.