video numero uno!

The Low Road by Marge Piercy

Each Day One More

by Marge Piercy

What can they do

to you? Whatever they want. 

They can set you up, they can bust you, they can break

your fingers, they can 

burn your brain with electricity, 

blur you with drugs till you 

can't walk, can't remember, they can

take your child, wall up

your lover. They can do anything

you can't blame them

from doing. How can you stop

them? Alone, you can fight,

you can refuse, you can

take what revenge you can

but they roll over you.

But two people fighting

back to back can cut through

a mob, a snake-dancing file

can break a cordon, an army

can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other

sane, can give support, conviction, 

love, massage, hope, sex.

Three people are a delegation,

a committee, a wedge. With four

you can play bridge and start

an organisation. With six 

you can rent a whole house,

eat pie for dinner with no

seconds, and hold a fund raising party.

A dozen make a demonstration.

A hundred fill a hall.

A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;

ten thousand, power and your own paper;

a hundred thousand, your own media;

ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,

it starts when you care

to act, it starts when you do

it again after they said no,

it starts when you say We

and know who you mean, and each

day you mean one more.

wow.

quarterlife

"Why does our generation have such incredibly high expectations for ourselves? Why do so many of us feel like as soon as we leave school, we have to rack up achievements quickly? That we have to be recognized? Why do we feel over-the-hill if we haven’t done something huge by the advanced age of 25? I think it’s attributable to a combination of things. The high-stakes testing education atmosphere. The seemingly plummeting age of celebrities. The sheer necessity of making a lot of money to pay back ridiculously high student loans. Helicopter parents."

This was posted in an article by Alexandra Robbins on the new website/community/show Quarterlife from Marshall Hershkovitz and Edward Zick, the creators of My So Called Life and Once and Again, two of the best dramas in the history of TV. Check out Quarterlife and post your thoughts.

Will Travel for Food

A friend's Facebook post called my attention to this amazing recent article in the NYTimes, talking about the role of markets in sight-seeing. Not the economist's "markets," but the fun traveler's kind of food and beverage, day and night markets. I have considered various kinds of markets and ethnic grocery stores to be one of the simpler pleasures in my life, enough to get me excited in my own neighborhood and while traveling. Mimi Sheraton writes:

Yet food markets deserve equally high billing on a must-see list. For as inspiring as the more standard sights can be, they do not rival the ebullience of modern-day markets and their colorful links to the economy, customs and even dialects of a city. In a world ever more homogenized, food markets afford visitors one of the few opportunities to glimpse locals going about one of their essential daily chores.

Unfortunately, my limited traveling experience has not taken me to any of the markets on her list, nor have I been to any markets, a highlight of the article. I must have been across the street from La Merced market in Mexico City without knowing it at the time. El Merced, in Mexico City, is compared to el Mercado (Central) de Abastos in Oaxaca City, which I did frequent, along with los mercados de Veinte de Noviembre and de Benito Juarez. I would also add the DeKalb Farmer's Market in Atlanta, which is actually a year-round indoor market, to Sheraton's list.

I also came across this meme inviting submissions to add to the list of Things to Eat Before You Die. Check it out and maybe add some of your own...

Ron Rifkin: Return of the Gay Jewish Trade Unionist?

Jon Robin Baitz, the creator of my favorite show currently on TV, Brothers and Sisters, has been spending his time penning mini-diatribes on Huffington Post, instead of scripts for the network drama.

He's been making a lot of good points about the need for unions in Hollywood and in the US as a whole, and defending the actions of the WGA against a number of harsh critics.

And Ron Rifkin, the actor playing the 60-yr-old-closeted-Jew Saul Holden, in one of B&S's best current storylines has been walking the picket line with him in solidarity with the writers saying things like "in perfect French, that he is here 'because without the word, what is there?...There is nothing...'"

It's been pointed out on Brothers and Sisters fan websites, that Rifkin has a history of paying closeted older men, and there is a clear old-skool, Ashkenazi, NY quality to his acting and dialogue as Saul Holden, despite that the family is born & bred California. Well, Rifkin was born in 1939 Brooklyn, near the end of the powerful Jewish trade unions in NY, but at the height of the Communist Party's power in the US and involvement by Jews in the CP. Not to suggest that Rifkin is, himself, gay, but if you blur the lines a bit, a picture starts to develop of the old stereotypical gay, Jewish trade-unionist, working in Hollyood. A picture which would not be entirely invaluable in this day and age when Jews seem to be tied to every Republican scandal that's uncovered.

A friend of mine spent the better part of 2007 working for the WGA-west, before moving on to a current job with the Teamsters. To be honest, at the time, I was incredibly skeptical of the value of her work in promoting any kind of vision of social justice, especially because she was working with reality TV show writers. Although I still don't understand the value of reality TV shows at all, I think the strike has made me understand her work a bit more.

Although I tend to believe that TV is for the most part contributing to the downfall of our society, seeing as how I have not yet sworn it off (and probably won't, although due in part to my love for CSPAN), it seems a bit hypocritical of me to not see the value of unionization in a sector that, rightfully or not, is at the center of the public eye. Maybe this strike will actually workers' rights to a larger audience than any awareness campaign, or even the NYC MTA strike could have. People seem more upset that their favorite shows might be off the air, then they did when they couldn't to (or home from) work 2 years ago during the MTA strike.

Anyway, I salute Baitz and Rifkin, for both their work on the screen, portraying the courageous struggle of Saul Holden, and off the screen sticking by the integrity of their craft and their fellow foot soldiers.

NY Groups Sue Pharmacies Over (Lack of) Translation

Make the Road by Walking and New York Immigration Coalition, two excellent organizations in NYC, last week announced their campaign against pharmacies in NY for discriminating against non-English speakers. The suit is specifically against 16 pharmacies Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island, some of which are operated by Rite Aid, CVS, Duane Reade, Walgreens and Wal-Mart.

According to the NYTimes article, the complaint argues that federal civil rights law and state health regulations require pharmacies to provide linguistic help to guarantee that people who speak little or no English receive equal access to health care. That assistance should include interpreters at pharmacies and written translations of medication instructions, the advocates say...

The complaints also cite the New York Education Law, which requires that medications be labeled in a way that ordinary people can understand. That is meaningless if they are in a language the patient does not comprehend, Mr. [Andrew] Friedman, [the director of MRNY] said.

As an intern for the NYUSOM's Center for Immigrant Health (CIH) 3 years ago, I learned first -hand some of the difficulties non-English speakers face in their attempt to get medical care, or in this case prescriptions.

For example, if prescription dosages are written only in English, there are often many problems with translations, even with numbers, which you would assume would make things simpler, not more complicated. The classic example is: "Take ONCE weekly" to a spanish-speaker looks like "ONCE" or Eleven-times.

MRNY, the NYC Immigration Coaltion, and CIH are among a number of groups researching and advocating for a variety of solutions to these problems, ranging from the kind of legal and legislative strategies in the NYTimes article, to remote simultaneous medical interpreting (RSMI), which CIH has done extensive research on, in conjunction with several city hospitals. I recently had a disagreement with a friend about the merits of simultaneous vs. non-simultaneous translation. While there may be disagreement about the best methods to solve some of these problems, there are still way too few resources devoted to researching and strategizing to fix the problem, especially when considered in comparison with the number of medical mistakes that happen every year as a result of language problems.

Obama in Boston

So, I haven't chosen a Democratic prez candidate since my last post, but Obama came to Boston and spoke at a huge rally with Governor Deval Patrick, and I went with some friends from school, because I wanted to hear him, give him the opportunity to win me over, and...it was just cool.

He didn't exactly win me over, but he was inspiring at times.

Here are some photos:

New Research on Newports

Anyone who has spent considerable amounts of time in urban areas with a high density of low-income African-Americans should not be surprised by a recent Johns Hopkins study that found extremely high rates of smoking amoung young, poor African-American adults.

The NYTimes article finds many researchers to be shocked by the findings, despite previously existing knowledge of high rates of smoking in low-income, minority and young adult communities.
The high prevalence of Newports and other menthol cigarrettes is also noted in the article, which is something I experienced every day while walking to and from work in Harlem two years ago, where there were always many people selling Newports in full packages and individually on the area's cultural and commercial hub of 125th st.

What was of greater interest to me was the information about the potential targeting of menthols, which may be easier to start and harder to quit smoking, to already vulnerable populations. This was denied by Lorillard Tobacco Company, the maker of Newports, but there may be reason to believe otherwise.

In recent years, the promotion budgets of major cigarette companies have been disproportionately devoted to menthols, said Gregory N. Connolly, director of tobacco control research at the Harvard School of Public Health. “It appears the industry is targeting the most vulnerable groups through advertising and manipulation of menthol levels,” Mr. Connolly said.

A professor of mine recently recounted her growing frustrating with the continuous research on "health disparities," when it is fairly common knowledge that being poor is connected to being unhealthy or sick, and has been for centuries. While I am interested in health disparities as an outcome to use as a goalpost for change, I agree that continued research into some of these phenomenon seems an almost unethical use of research dollars, when so much is already known about these disparities, but the real change is changing both the environmental and behavioral factors which contribute to them.

Revolution Against Whole Foods?

Although there are only 3 Whole Foods stores in Washington, DC, they've been the target of a lot of rage lately, both consumer rage and environmental rage.

The Slow Cook reports on its scuffle with Whole Foods over the store's continued practicing of sidewalk-washing even during the city's recent drought.

Then, what had to be an organized group of almost 2 dozen, tried to steal food from Whole Foods and get into cabs...and only two were arrested. It looks like it's the Whole Foods in between Shaw and Dupont, on M st is it?

Black Farmers in an Election Year

I've been struggling to find a single Democratic candidate with enough positive attributes and few enough negative attributes that I feel that I can support them above all others, even if, being a graduate student without a trust fund, this means only in conversations with friends, rather than any more substantial form of support. Yes, it is still early, but both inside and outside the Beltway, I'm constantly asked who I like, who I'm supporting.

For a while, I was a big fan of Gov. Bill Richardson, and I still think he has a number of great qualities. Unfortunately, as the days pass, one of them seems less and less likely to be an ability to actually receive the Democratic nomination, whether or not they do include an ability to be elected to an office not based in New Mexico. This is particularly unfortunate, because --as I see it-- he was handicapped from the start by the fact that he hadn't a) previously run for president, b) been First Lady or c) been his party's new young, fresh-faced celebrity. The fact that things got rolling so early, and that the media, and therefore the public, insisted on reporting on funding and polling so early in the game, has handicapped him further, and only created a snowball effect of supporting those already in the lead based on name recognition.

Nevertheless, when I start pairing candidates together in my head, the combinations all seem better than any one alone. I could change my mind tomorrow, but an Edwards/Obama ticket is starting to look great in my head.

Although Edwards already has an advantage in the South, here's another feather in the cap of that ticket. Ken Cook of EWG reports on a Hill story about the potential for Obama to win Southern black votes by campaigning on "his commitment to bring relief to black farmers" via Pigford.

While the Congressional Black Caucus was instrumental in requiring gains for minority farmers and food stamp increases in order for a Farm Bill to pass in the House, the picture does not look as rosy in the Senate, where there is a black caucus of 1. However, if Obama chooses to champion one or more of these issues in the Senate, it may accomplish multiple goals at the same time-- gaining him votes and pushing the issue to the forefront of Senate Farm Bill debate.

Senate Votes to End Global Gag Rule

As skeptical as I became this summer about Congress and our federal legislative process, I can recognize when Congress does something good.

In a reversal of the West Wing episode Privateers (Season 4- #83), the Senate passed its Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill with an amendment that would repeal the "Global Gag Rule,"--a provision which bans all money from going to foreign organizations that also provide women with abortions-- which was reinstated by Bush on his first day in office. Led by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), the Senate accepted the amendment and voted for the bill (81-12), which also included over $5 bill to combat HIV-AIDS in developing countries.

Although the House version of the bill did not include this amendment, it did weaken the GGR, by "exempting contraceptives from the Global Gag Rule and repealing the abstinence-only funding restrictions for HIV prevention programs." Although President Bush has threatened to veto the Bill if these changes are included, we'll have to see a) what happens in conference and b) if he's bluffing or not.

In the West Wing episode, the tables were turned, and President Bartlet had to decide if he would veto a Foreign Ops bill that his Republican Congress had attached the Global Gag Rule to...in the end, I think he didn't do it, much to Abby's dismay. Despite everything I saw this summer, my trust falls with the real-life Democratic congress, and their ability to make some small incremental change successfully.

Sicko Leads to Action

I just returned from Michael Moore's new film "Sicko," which I did like as I usually like his films, though it was not perfect. Obviously there are some issues which I think he oversimplifies- the quality of complex surgeries and experimental treatments, is of course not as strong in his "model" nations--Canada, U.K, France and Cuba-- as it is in the United States. And while the Cuban medical model is lauded by many around the world for being extremeley efficient in its focus on prevention and its strength in the face of lack of technological resources, there are definitely problems with the system owing to a lack of resources and to the lack of esteem and remuneration afforded to Cuban doctors-- such that taxi driver is a more coveted profession than doctor.

However, I am really proud that he has selected a concrete issue to target his energies over the past few years, creating a masterpiece of investigative journalism. Where his 2 previous films opened eyes, their value as organizing tools was overshadowed by the criticism they attracted. Sicko, however, I think goes further in helping a specific policy agenda, that is at least more winnable than the vague links between GWBush and the Saudis that I recall as prominent in Fahrenheit 911. There is no way anyone can spin any part of Sicko as a mere conspiracy theory. Can you think of any single fact or scene that could be?

I just visited Moore's website, and have been prompted to call my congressman's office this week and ask his healthcare staffer [**Important Fact #1 that I learned this summer: You can call the office and ask who works on a particular issue. Then call back and ask to speak with that person and it will be much more effective in getting the message across than just speaking to whoever answers the phone. You can also email that person directly, for the house it's first.last@mail.house.gov.] for him to co-sponsor HR 676, which is Rep. John Conyers' (D-MI) National Healthcare legislation.

So this blog has been extremely slow of late, in part because I've been blogging at The Jew and the Carrot and US Food Policy, and in part because I've been too busy living life to blog about it (such is the nature of summer).

The exciting news is that this week I got a new camera, a Canon Powershot SD1000 Digital Elph, so I now have a fully functioning camera with re-chargeable batteries (good for the environment!) and 7.1 Mpixels (good for the eye?)!! I'm momentarily posting lots of photos from the past several months in Cambridge, DC and elsewhere.

Yesterday, I spent several hours with D & E (and E's friends) at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which this year is celebrating the cultures of Northern Ireland, the Mekong River and historic Virgina.

Today, Sarah and I went canoeing on the Potomac, westbound for a short stretch from the Thompson Boat House. pictures are vaguely reminscent of 4 yrs ago Thursday with Grace and Nina...

I feel like Christina Yang right now. My supervisors just went to a meeting with a staffer- I was supposed to go, but am left in the office to deal with my supervisor's computer, which she accidentally spilled tea on this morning- I'm waiting for the building management staff person to arrive with a small alan wrench so I can open up the computer and try to air it out further.

I don't really mind staying back- I understand that there is no real need for me to be at this meeting with them except for my own edumakation, and I did go to a meeting with another staffer with them this morning. But still, I feel very Christina-like, missing out on all the "fun" action, which I'm actually quite nervous about in the first place. There is also the Horticulture and Organic Agriculture subcommittee mark-up session going on right now, which I am also not at.

I'm sure I will have enough of these meetings and mark-ups next week when the Nutrition sub-committee has its mark-up session, let alone before the end of the summer.

I'm working on a post to recap the past month of hiatus from the blog, but in the meantime, here is an interesting article on Grist by Tom Philpott about some of the hypocrisy behind the Slow Food movement and its leaders: Slow Food Fight.

Eastern Market Destroyed, DDR at School

How sad!
Fires Ravage Eastern Market, Georgetown Library in 12 Hours

-I was just getting all excited about working near Eastern Market this summer. I know it's not quite the same as a FM, but for those of us who live in cities that are only pursuing the idea of a year-round public market, we are jealous of such places. Let the rebuilding begin!

In other news, NYTimes reports that DDR is joining the fight against childhood obesity:

“I like that you get to listen to music and you don’t have to be on a team or go anywhere special to play,” Anna said after their song. “If you do baseball or basketball, people get really competitive about it.”

Mikayla chimed in, “And you don’t have to be good at it to get a good workout.”

By next year, Dance Dance Revolution will be installed in all of West Virginia's public schools.

Man, I would have loved DDR when I was in school, and PE was most certainly always the bane of my existence, from elementary through high school. When we talk about encouraging physical activity among kids, I always have to think extra hard, because it's unclear to me how to do so without persisting with the negative gym associations. I know how much I hated it, and I wasn't even overweight. We have to foster the culture of wanting to be physically active.

regrets, moving forward

well, the conference was quite something. when something's called a "Networking Conference," don't underestimate the meaning of that. I can't believe how many people I met, and how many more amazing people were there who I didn't meet. If you're interested in hearing more, let me know.

And yet, I'm left with more questions than answers, as I journey toward some kind of tangible goal and life's work/interest. I'm left with questions about the role of non-profit work in America, and the foundation/grant cycle. and the degree to which things are ever black and white.

And I return to my constant battle with radicalism vs incrementalism. I thought grad school was turning me into more of an incrementalist. But yet when I'm faced with a hotel full of incrementalists, I end up siding with the radicals....
who knows?
what to do?

I'm left with many questions, and possibly many regrets. I know regrets are useless and parasitic. But I wish I had spent time doing passionate things like traveling and farming before feeling the need to be responsible and jump into the seriousness of grad school. Now I'm left feeling like I've missed out on more than I ever could have imagined.

I met some amazing folks, of all ages, but the youth were the most inspiring. the dreamers and the livers. not the deciders.

I saw some beautiful film clips and publicity photos. I have an image in my head of urban gardening and painting murals with kids, the echo of reggae music providing a frame, which seems like the ideal life. I know I don't need much to live on, but with impending student loans, even this image seems like a utopian dream.

With each exam and paper, am I resigning myself to a life of memos, office work and vitamin D deficiency? of black slacks and neat hairstyles? of cabs and conferences? isn't this what I wanted? Isn't this the only life I've ever lived? Others talked of growing up on farms, of agricultural grandmothers. I have nothing of the sort to ground me, only toiling city-dwellers, penny-pinching neuroses. But does that matter? Reinventing yourself is pretty fuckin hard. But it's awfully depressing not to.

genocidal memories

On Erev Yom Hashoah last Saturday, I went to an amazing performance of Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird with Michael Winograd, an old friend, performing on Clarinet. As posted on Jewschool, they performed last night at Barbes, in Brooklyn. We'll have to see the reactions of folks to that show on Jewschool.

The show at the Workmen's Circle in Boston, provided a nearly perfect space for the unique ensemble, whose name is based on a graphic and haunting novel by Kosinski about the aftermath of WWII in Europe for a young boy. The music is really hard to classify, but my first reaction to Dan Kahn was the cabaret quality of his voice; throughout the performance, I didn't know if I wanted to pay more attention to the lyrics or to the music, which rarely happens to me- it's usually one or the other. I could have thought of no better way to observe Yom Hashoah, then sitting in the front-row, surrounded by a multi-generational group of friends and secular Jewish activists, listening to musical fables, one of which was called "6 Million Germans" about a plot by Aba Kovner and his crew. I highly advising checking out the Myspace and buying some tracks on itunes.

And Mike Winograd's got some other gigs coming up- he is also an unparalleled musical treat, though generally less depressing when without Dan Kahn.

Soupbunnie writes about the desensitization many of us Americans are feeling about Darfur and the need for us to actually do something, based on an incredible evening she had last night. In typical style, quality prose from the bunnie, provoking deep thought. On this day sandwiched between Holocaust Remembrance Day (last Sunday) and Earth Day (tomorrow), I propose takign the Bunnie's advice to follow the Genocide Intervention Network's action alert and write to Congress urging support for the Sudan Divestment Authorization Act. I trust bunnie's recommendations on this issue (and many others.) But read her post also!

recent adventures in cooking

recent adventures in cooking
Originally uploaded by dj za.

sesame noodles

ok, I take back most of my previous post. I've been reading/seeing
more about this true tragedy today, as more about the shooter's
history has unfolded, and now this unbelievably crazy business about
his mailing a tape to NBC News....I've left my bubble and watched a
bit of CNN today- they've been showing lots of photos of the folks who
were killed. turns out one of my colleagues did her undergrad at VT,
and as I watched her today, I tried to imagine what this would have
been like if I were an alum.

There was definitely some insensitivity in my post earlier, but still
think the perspective needs to be maintained, remembering that the
Americans dying in Iraq are the same age as these students.


In other news, I just made the "80's Take-Out Style Sesame Noodles"
from the NYTimes that I posted on Jcarrot last week. They were soooo
amazing:


sesame noodles
Originally uploaded by dj za.

i've seen a lot of emails, blog posts, facebook stuff, etc about the horror of the killing rampage at VA-Tech. Yes, I agree it was horrible. But I honestly can't really get myself to feel a tremendous amount of grief. or fear. Maybe I'm just an insensitive person too caught up in my own life. I'm being completely honest here. I can't relate to students in Blacksburg, a town I've never been to, and fortunately haven't added school shooting to the list of paranoid fears in my head. Honestly, memories of the LIRR shooting by Colin Ferguson still loom a lot heavier when I think about random acts of violence.

And that's just what this was- random. Unless they can find evidence of some widespread condition or problem that can explain a large percentage of the variance, of the reason why the shooter would do something like this, it will remain a random act of violence.

In general, I have been much more concerned about ongoing large scale problems, violent and otherwise, which have been documented to kill more people than the crises, the anomalies. It's hard to get over the shock value of the school shooting, the sexiness of the car accident. But if you think of the numbers of people being killed every day by diarrheal disease, the rising tide of death in Iraq (the 127 killed in bombs today), it tends to put things in perspective.

Not to say that I don't often awaken with a startle in the middle of the night for fear of violent night intruders (based on personal experience). So maybe I AM just insensitive. Who knows. But come on, if we're praying for these victimes, the least we can do is also pray for the families of folks sent over to Iraq. and for the folks themselves.

Update: So, there was obviously a lot in this post that was highly insensitive and reductive. Now that more information about the shooter's mental state have become clear, I am embarrassed by some of the earlier assumptions I made and hope that I will not be judged based on. Yet, I have decided not to remove this post, as it remains accurate to my feelings at the time.

In an effort to improve the academic/profesionally-related content of my blog, I've neglected to post about my life for a while.

Things have been quite busy, between schoolwork and assorted extra-curricular involvements, teaching hebrew school, cultivating friendships in Boston, great friday night Shabbats at the Kavod House, and assorted other events.

Two weeks ago was the Labor Seder that a bunch of Kavod House folks and others organized- it was great to see my new Jewish community come out so strong- about 135 people showed up with minimal PR effort. There are some really strong labor campaigns going on here in Boston that we highlighted - I think I'm finally getting involved in a community that I feel really proud of. (Until I move again...

I stayed here for spring break and did not much of anything, but had splendid little visits from Lucy and her 2 roommates and from Gracie, who was here for an impressive conference at BC.

The following weekend (last weekend), I went home pre-Pesach and returned for this past Thursday's wonderful FOOD Symposium, which I mentioned in my previous post.

Currently doing stats homework, listening to my default selection- Idan Raichel - and eating some very yummy quinoa tabouli-ish salad that I just made with stuff that was around:
quinoa, 1/3 tomato, 1/4 cucumber, 1 celery stalk, fresh cilantro, fresh dill, feta cheese, lime juice, salt, olive oil --> yum. my new fave pesach food. would be even better with scallion or red onion.

Bloomberg Gets It About Food Policy

As last Wednesday's NYTimes reports in Farewell, French Fries! Hello, Sliced Apples!:

But from a policy perspective, Mr. Bloomberg has taken on more food issues, and provoked more controversy, than any New York mayor before him. As a result, he has the potential to change the way more New Yorkers eat — whether in the haughtiest dining rooms or the poorest home kitchens — than all the city’s food activists and restaurant critics combined...

“The tools are now all in place to achieve significant progress, but it depends on whether the city decides to use the tools,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and former member of the Clinton administration.

The article states that "Last week, New York state agricultural officials announced that the state would soon have its first food-policy council," which was confimed by a Daily Intelligencer story last Monday. Unfortunately Tracie McMillan of the DI thinks that "minutiae involved in favorite sustainable-food efforts like getting New York State apples to the neighborhood deli and ensuring that community-supported agriculture-buying clubs are affordable to the poor" are mind-numbing...

Passover, Collective Action & Food Sovereignty

cross-posted on JCarrot

Passover used to be the only time that many of us focused so closely on the ingredients and labelling of products we purchase and consume. Growing consciousness of our culinary footprint has made this an almost daily occurence for many; as other posters have outlined, these choices can make shopping and eating very stressful, especially on Passover, when our choices are more limited.

I’ve failed at the ultimate food-labelling challenge, my attempts to find any Kosher for Passover certified Fair Trade items, for a Seder or the rest of the Chag. Equal Exchange suggests Fair Trade chocolate for the Seder Plate, but these items are not Passover-hechshered, a concern for some. At a Labor Seder I organized in college a couple years ago, held after Passover had ended, we substituted 4 cups of Fair Trade coffee for the 4 cups of wine (yes, I know this seems antithetical to the themes of “reclining” and freedom that are important to the Seder experience), and I’ve always thought that current struggles for Food Sovereignty should be at the forefront of our remembering our experience as slaves and our going forth from Egypt to freedom.

Which is why I was super-excited that the FOOD student group at my school pulled off our 2nd annual symposium yesterday: “Power in the Global Food System: Mapping Food Production and Food Sovereignty in the 21st Century.” One panel focused on “Food Sovereignty,” a term coined by the Via Campesina global farmers’ movement at the 1996 World Food Summit. Two activists recently returned from the World Forum for Food Sovereignty in Nyeleni, Mali presented a promising picture of global alliances formed at the forum to promote several goals including:

the RIGHT of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labor, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies.

While some of the speakers at the sympsium focused on the role that consumers have to reform the food system where legal and international trade venues are failing, the Keynote address by Marge Kilkelly, and other remarks, were a welcome reminder that it is important to set a balance between individual consumer responsibility and the power we have for collective political action through democratic government and other channels. While our power as individual consumers is great, it is easy to get caught up in worrying about every single purchase to the extent that it prevents us from devoting time to participation in some of the larger structures of social change, especially where food is involved.

Nigel Savage’s February letter outlining the need for collective action on sustainability issues within the Jewish community struck a chord in emphasizing the need to balance individual and collective action. Although Nachson took the first step of courage in crossing the Red Sea, we imagine that he was guided by the confidence that his people stood behind him collectively. This balance is important to prevent the burn-out that can come from bearing the full burden of the food system’s ills each time one makes a purchase or feeds oneself.

An exciting part of the Symposium was the amazingly 50% local snacks and reception cooked up by a CIA grad at my school. I spent the entire day grumbling about how I couldn’t eat any of the food, only to decide at the last minute to partake in the mesclun, beet and potato dishes at the reception, as it was a unique opportunity. Though I still feel guilty about violating my self-imposed “must be made in Passover-hechshered kitchen” rules, I resigned myself to practicing what I preach about the spirit of the law being sometimes more important than the letter. So, I’m actually quite glad that I stepped out of my comfort zone and struck a balance of engaging with others in the “collective action” of eating locally and making individual consumption decisions.

Film can be a great tool to spur collective action- we closed the symposium last night with a screening of brand-new documentary King Corn, about two twenty-somethings from Boston who road trip to Iowa to grown 1 acre of corn for 1 year. The film’s blend of comedy and catharsis is entertaining and informative. It will be traveling to colleges and with your help, potentially PBS and small theaters around the country- check out King Corn and purchase the film or organize a screening in your city. As folks in the audience suggested last night, King Corn may be the spark to galvanize the social movement to change our industrialized food system and promote food sovereignty.

Seder con Salsa

(cross-posted on the Jew and the Carrot)

This evening, as my roommates and I were finishing up an exhausting round of stripping the dirt and chametz from our kitchen, I found it unfortunate that I had to throw several jars of salsa and tupperware of chiles down the garbage disposal. I wondered if the disposal could handle this amount of “hotness,” as an American garbage disposal would presumably not be accustomed to such intensity. Probably spurred on by the choice of packaged foods available and promoted by the local supermarket’s “Passover Aisle,” American Ashkenazi Jews traditionally retreat into the deepest recesses of Jewish culinary tradition; to me, it seems completely unnecessary to eat cold fish jelly or kishke for 8 days straight.

One of my best Passover experiences ever was completely opposite of this and possibly my most profound. I was studying abroad in Oaxaca, Mexico in spring of 2004 and Pesach fell during the week my peers and I were “studying” on the Oaxaca coast (for real– we toured an eco-cosmetics factory and several other program-related excursions), on a beach called Zipolite. Given the fact that rural Oaxaca does not have any Jewish population, as someone who traditionally observes Kasher L’Pesach strictly, I didn’t know how I would survive on my own, so had a package sent to me in advance by my family containing all hechshered non-perishable items such as the ever-delectable canned boiled potatoes. Somehow, my program of15 college students from around the country had 6 Jews that semester, so we had spent a couple weeks planning a Seder held on the beach for all of the students, our teachers and van drivers who traveled with us around Southern Mexico. We had to improvise on the Seder Plate items– replacing the traditional maror with chiles, the parsley with nopal (cactus), the charoset with guacamole, the roasted egg with a round fruit (kiwi or maracuya perhaps?) , the shankbone with a can of Manischewitz beets I had with me; the ultimate substitution was tortillas for matza for those of us who were not actually keeping the holiday strictly (everyone except me). Since we were aseder-2.JPG bunch of idealists studying social movements and NGOs, we used sections of the Love & Justice in Times of War Haggadah, created by Micah Bazant and Dara Silverman and tried to translate most of it into Spanish for our drivers and one of our teachers.

Unfortunately, that attempt was a failure and they were so bored that they headed back to their rooms to sleep after our Seder’s highlight: dunking in the Pacific to re-enact the crossing of the Red Sea. My colleagues from that semester often refer to the Seder in vivid detail despite the volume of wine that we imbibed. I have to say that it was one of the proudest and scariest moments of my life- amazed at the incredible relevance retelling of the escape from slavery in Mitzrayim had for our studies of the Zapatistas and other indigenous movements, unsure of how my traditions would be perceived by my peers and my Mexican hosts.

Although the seder was definitely the highlight of Pesach that year, the entire week spent on the beach subsisting off of matza, avocados, coconut milk (drunk from a straw stuck in the coconut) and odd cold canned items from my survival package, was probably the closest I’ll ever come to understanding both the freedom from bondage [stress] and the hardships simultaneously experienced by the Israelites on their journey from Egypt.

I was in an utterly different world from my New York childhood, and while I loved it, the combination of fear and exhilaration I tasted still seems like such a visceral reminder of the themes of the Exodus story. While Chagim celebrated in comfort, creating family memories are certainly wonderful, I wish everyone the opportunity to celebrate human freedom and the blooming of the natural world in a unique, experiential way; it is humbling, awe-inspiring, challenging and fun. To another Seder con Salsa!

The Revolution Will Not be Televised, But it Will Present at a Conference

The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved is a new book by Sandor Ellix Katz, who I will hopefully hear speak at The Food Project's 2007 Urban Agriculture conference: Farming the City:
Changing the Way We Think about Food, Hunger and Health, in a couple weeks.

That is one of three conferences I plan to attend in April. On the preceding day, April 13th, the Radcliffe Institute is hosting a conference on Food and Gender with an AMAZING speakers' line-up, including my former professor Joan Jacobs Brumberg, economist Amartya Sen and activist Vandana Shiva. I am super-psyched for this one.

10 days later, I'll be flying out to Traverse City, MI to attend the Kellogg Foundation's 2007 Food and Society conference as part of the Food Project's BLAST Youth Initiative- also very excited, despite the many days of class I'll be missing.

I feel like this recent burst of energy and publicity around the food system is part of a revolution, but I also have to admit that going to conferences where talking heads, no matter how radical their talk is, sit around in climate-controlled rooms with catered lunches, is not what strikes me as a revolution. Of course, I am currently in academia, but one would think that in such a practical discipline as food policy there would be a little less banter and a little more action. Well, I hope to blog through the conferences and let you know what progress is being made. One sign of hope is that one of the keynote speakers at the Food & Society meeting will be the head of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida, who were the major force behind the "Boycott the Bell" campaign- they pick the tomatoes that go into most Taco Bell and Pizza Hut products.

For now I leave you with the ever-relevant lyrics to "The Revolution Will Not be Televised" by Gil-Scott Heron, on which the title of the book is based:

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

create your own visited states map. I've actually added 4 key states since in the past 2 years North Carolina on Spring Break 2005, California in March 2006, and Louisiana and Georgia this past December/January.

Free Tax Software

It's spring break, so that means, in addition to trying to get some work done, I'm doing things like playing around on slickdealz.net, where I found this free tax software from H&R Block, and watching House Oversight and Gov't Reform Committee Hearings on Political Interference in Climate Change Research. There are some crazy people on C-SPAN...

BOJAC

BOJAC: The Best of Jewish A Cappella has been released...and we're not on it! boo!

big surprise there...

biking

i really want to get a bike-- I haven't biked much ever and certainly not at all in years, but the distance to school is onl 3.5 miles and I think I could handle it if I worked up to it and worked on safety. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any bike storage in my building....but i really would love to get a bike. looking at craigslist, broadway bike school, my bike and bikes not bombs. any suggestions?

Workers approve a new Stop & Shop contract - Boston.com

the Stop and Shop UFCW workers approved a new contract. It's a good thing we didn't choose their campaign for the labor seder. Although we could still highlight their recent victory...

my recent post, Raise Your Voice for Darfur (part II),cross-posted on Jewschool, was picked up by USA Today's "Blog talk: other voices from the Web" site! but has not yielded many comments. i think it was rather boring and unprovocative. not sure why USA Today would like that.

Raise your Voice Against Darfur (Part II)

In the past few weeks, I heard words and music and saw visual footage from several wonderful folks promoting action on the genocide in Darfur, both sponsored by different segments of the Boston Jewish community. The first was a benefit for AJWS at the Kavod House, advertised in the first "Raise your Voice Against Darfur" post on jewschool ,where the wonderfully talented and inspiring Minna Bromberg sang a collection of her own works and mostly Pete Seeger- folk songs. The concert also included teaching about our responsibility to act on Darfur from Rabbi Or Rose of Hebrew College, and a brief column about supporting targeted divestment from Sudan by Nicholas Kristof of the NYTimes.

Then, a week ago Tuesday, Tufts Hillel sponsored a dinner with and lecture by Nicholas Kristof, who has been a lone passionate voice in the public sphere on Darfur.

Although I was at the May 2006 DC rally and have remained [very] marginally informed on the issue, these two events marked a more specific mental engagement with the issue on my part. Nick Kristof presented footage of some individuals he had met in recent trips to Darfur and neighboring Chad, which, coupled with his commentary about their situations, seemed difficult for the audience to take. My initial reaction to the lecture, was that it was overall pretty good but not stunning. Kristof alluded to the regret we would feel, as Americans, in the future, if we looked back and saw that we had done nothing. In the same vein, he seemed to list future reflection as a primary reason for which we should act and encourage action by others on Darfur. To me, this was initially pat at best, and disconcerting at worst-- I couldn't imagine that this was his primary reason for continuing to visit and write about Darfur, in a way to which nobody else has come close.

I remembered some things he had said at the dinner, when he was asked how he has the courage to return to such dangerous situations knowing he has a family and a life back home. He didn't really have an answer except to cite the bravery of the people in Darfur and the fact that they are always in much more danger than he, who goes in for brief visits and can always leave.

While I came away from both events with a sense of sadness that we are doing so little, that so few people care, and that I have expressed such minimal interest in the issue in the past, I didn't necessarily come away with specific plans for action, beyond suggestions Kristof had given, to continue the phone calls to legislators and awareness promotion that has been characteristic of the campaign to this point. This doesn't strike me as entirely enough of a solution for a public campaign, given the lack of government action on the issue.

But I must consider the level of bravery exhibited daily, weekly and monthly by Kristof, and by Awatif Ahmed Isshag, a 24 year old woman in Darfur, the subject of this amazing LATimes story, who has been tacking a monthly "newspaper" to a local tree for 10 years, reporting about the mundane events and atrocities in her community. I cannot imagine the courage and bravery it would take to do what Ms. Isshag does and her continued passion for journalism and hope for her future.

So since, I don't have the time to commit to a full knowledge and analysis of the situation, given other time commitments, I shoud stop sitting around and criticizing what I perceive as a lack of strategy and nuance on the part of Kristof and others, and be brave enough to fit one small action into each week so that maybe, Awatif Ahmed Isshag, and peers like her, will be able to live out her dream of completing a Masters in Economics at the University of Khartoum and leading a development company.

(cross-posted on Jewschool)

Regulating out Butter & the Secret Jewish Coke Stash

this is the problem with government regulation:

"This artificial trans fat is the kind that New York City health officials decided to ban from restaurants, citing health studies that show that even a couple of grams of it a day can significantly increase the chance of a heart attack. Whether natural trans fats have the same health effect is still being explored by scientists, and some researchers believe the natural ones may actually be beneficial.

But to the Food and Drug Administration, which is in charge of most packaged food labeling, there is no difference between the trans fat that occurs in cows and other ruminant animals and the kind that is artificially created and favored in large-scale food manufacturing."

It perverts science and creates irrelevant law while missing half the problem.

The article in today's NYTimes talks about why some bakers are being forced to switch from butter to processed fats in order to avoid the small amounts of natural trans-fat it contains. This totally proves Michael Pollan's "nutritionism sucks" argument.

It's also reminiscent of some of the seemingly bizarre and arcane aspects of Halachah, Jewish law, especially involving Kashrut. We have some written or oral code, whether it is the Torah, Talmud or Federal Register, and since someone once wrote it, even if some detail now (or even at the time as is the case with the FDA rule) makes no scientific or common sense, based on the spirit of the law, the status quo is to follow it to the letter, sometimes even erring on the side of stressing those details over others that are actually useful.

Of course with Pesach coming up, I'm thinking of the restrictions on kitniyot, which have all sorts of serious impacts on the way people who don't eat meat observe the holiday. I would say spending 8 days worrying about finding protein sources pretty much zaps most of the brainpower that could be spent on, you know, thinking about what it was like to be a slave in Egypt and how we can work towards liberation in our own lives and world. Some might argue that that's the point, but that doesn't seem to be the intention, correct me if I'm wrong.

In other Pesach-related minutiae of food ingredients, I found this thorough blog post about why non-Jews should be excited Passover is coming up. At least if they are looking for soda without corn syrup and don't feel like heading down to Mexico. I had a similar epiphany myself recently, while learning about the make-up and uses of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in a nutrition class. Suddenly the annoying task of looking for Ou-P soda each spring became somewhat ironic, when I realized that there might be a whole segment of the population unaware of this secret source of sugar-sweetened Coke that they could have access to, if only they lived in an area of high-density Jews and happened to know about the intricacies of Jewish dietary tradition for Passover. I doubt it actually affects that many people, but it brings up so many interesting questions about production--

How much non-HFCS soda is produced for the Kasher L'pesach crowd?
Is it actually profitable to Coca-Cola/PepsiCo/Cadbury Schweppes/etc. to do so?
Why do they do it?
Do they need separate production facilities?
Would other consumer segments be interested in purchasing a similar product for [clearly] different reasons?

cross-posted on the Jew and the Carrot

traveling the internet

Bill Bowles is traveling the world, and the internet. After receiving an email from a mutual friend about Bill's impending adventures around the world, I checked out his site, and found a very cute intro video using the NYC Subway system as a visual (and auditory) metaphor for his planned travels of the internet, or rather, his world travels which will be posted daily on the internet. Bill sails this week for London aboard a freighter.

Inspiration

It's amazing how much sun and warmth affect my ability to be inspired and interested in the outside. Or to see the glass as half full, how much the cold and winter make me dwell on my own problems and necessities. In the past 72 hours of temperatures above 40 F, I have cooked my 2nd pot of lentils ever, gone to the gym twice, and started most of my homework for next week. Oddly enough the latter two are the astounding feats to anyone who knows me. Hopetfully this kick will continue.

Other moments of inspiration include when I pass by Ben Shahn's work quoting Maimonides (pictured at left) each time I walk to the Tufts Hirsch Health Sciences Library.

And finally, I have sung Psalm 118 Verse 22:
אֶבֶן, מָאֲסוּ הַבּוֹנִים-- הָיְתָה, לְראשׁ פִּנָּה , a thousand times during Hallel but somehow never knew that it was the meaning behind the Bob Marley lyric, literally translated "The stone which the builders rejected is become the chief corner-stone." Special Blog Points to the first person who can name the Bob Marley song. cuz, you know, so many people read this blog.

Gastronomic Gatherings

Several food-related items I intended to post in the past few months:

• A 12.27.06 NY Times article, You Are What You Eat: 2006 and the Politics of Food - New York Times, capitalized on the meeting of the minds: Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser spoke in various forms around the NY metropolitan area last fall. The article catalogued some of the ways that food policy became mainstream news, including the e. coli outbreak, talk about obesity, Omnivore's Dilemma, The Nation food issue, Wal-Mart going organic and the trans-fat ban, that made 2006 as "the year everyone discovered that food is about politics and people can do something about it,” according to Nestle.

If there was a need for validation of career choice, I think it arrived.

Also, a shameless plug on the theme of 2006 food news: I don't think I ever mentioned my piece on the e. coli epidemic in Balance, the Tufts Daily's Nutrition and Health Supplement.

• Another 2006 morsel: Interview of Eric Schlosser in the Guardian. I still haven't seen Fast Food Nation, but also haven't met anyone who has.
  

shooting on st marks

So about an hour after my post yesterday, nicole informed me that there was a shooting of a cop (by another cop's husband) on our corner in Brooklyn.

This Daily News report of the shooting is particularly ironic because one of the reporter is Veronika Belenkaya, who wrote for the Cornell Daily Sun with me, and was the reporter who did the inside investigation of the bouncer at that club in the E. Village where the college student was killed last year.

p.s. this blog needs a f---ing facelift. specifically the sidebar on the right. oh well, one of these years...

I miss New York.

It comes in waves, but when I'm in the middle of a wave, I miss it a lot. I don't know if it's the actual city of New York that I miss [and the city thus includes the sprawl around it, including Long Island, but as such: sprawl, and not for its own sake, in and of itself], or just the fact that that's the metropolitan area I'm familiar with. That is to say, [that's my new favorite turn of phrase, which I don't use nearly enough] if I was from some other city but had spent some time in New York, would I sill miss New York or would I miss the other city. Clearly impossible to tease those out.

My neighborhood in Cambridge is not entirely quiet, and the quiet/semi-quaintness of it is somethign I very much enjoy, but at times a wave will wash over me and I'll have a visceral image of some random smog and traffic-choke street in an outer borough, with non-english music blasting from a silver minivan, and I feel pangs of loneliness. I definitely more and more think about living in Northern California (maybe Marin county if I can afford it. or Oakland) or western Massachusetts, or maybe even somewhere more adventurous, but it seems like I may end up back in New York just out of sheer practicality.

Things that I take for granted, like the fact that I'm able to switch from my normal speech/dialect in the context of stories or quotations to a New York accent- this amuses people from other parts of the country to no end, and I don't quite understand why. Isn't it just like a bilingual non-accented English speaker being able to insert accented words from the other language into non-accented English speech patterns?

--Speaking of which-- I've received numerous comments of late, upon meeting new folks, about how I don't "sound" like I'm from Long Island. Life goal number 1: Check! --

But yeah, the way I explained it to someone recently, is that, you can easily find lots of diversity--cultural, economic, gastronomic, etc.--here, but you have to seek it out a bit harder than you would in New York, (at least the parts of New York, I'd be able to afford and want to live in) where it's just in your face, all the time. Which can get overwhelming, especially when combined with all of the development, gentrification and clear efforts ot marginalize that diversity and push it farther away from the "civilized" parts of New York that attracts the
throngs of tourists.

But any other place seems like sort of a joke, in comparison.At least any place that claims to be diverse and doesn't immerse you wholeheartedly in one particular culture, which as a different option would be fine, but this half-way, half-assed situation is just always a little depressing when you know what it's like to go all the way.

Lehman raked in the big $$

According to the Boston Globe, former Cornell prez Jeffrey Lehman had the highest salary of any Ivy League president in 2004-2005: $1,004,034

As Harvard is on the eve of selecting its first female president, Drew Gilpin Faust, maybe we should revive the investigation into Lehman's axing. Or at least until we find out the salary numbers on his replacement, David Skorton.

I'm currently watching The View on week 3 of my winter vacation from school: They've been having quite a bit of heated debate, now that Rosie has returned from her week-long vacation, and I've been enjoying it for the most part.

However, there is a bit of hypocrisy- Rosie and Joy, and even sometimes Barbara, have been spouting off about the Iraq war, explaining clearly, many of the simple arguments used by the Left, but mentioned scarcely by the Democratic bigwigs: they go off about how Americans aren't seeing all of the gruesome details that were banned from the media by the Bush administration, etc.; they talked about how people don't care enough about it, perhaps, due in part to the restricting of bodies on TV, but then they spend the majority of the show focusing on the celebrities, winter make-up, and other things that Americans are obsessed with instead of caring about the trajectory their globe is taking to hell in a handbasket. and then they wonder why nobody cares enough about the war...

The other odd thing is that following each of the first two hot topic/discussion segments, there were strange pseudo-PSAs that counteracted the main point just made on the show. First, Rosie etc. were responding to the latest Donald Trump nonsense, with Rosie highlighting how ridiculous is that he actually uses "fat" as an insult--as if it's news to her that she's fat. After talking about whether and how the word fat is used in the Carpenter O'Donnell household, they talked about whether you should express concern to the child if your child is fat...They talked more about if you should tell your child to lose weight or not do anythign or try to make them more active, etc...Joy talked about how they can tell whether you value thinness even if you don't say it to them directly, by observing your own behavior about your own weight.

Then, as soon as they went to commercial break, there was a ridiculous ad from the Dairy Council, about how to get your child to lose weight via exercise and other things and of course, by drinking milk "instead of" sugary drinks. I have other comments about this commercial, of course- I couldn't believe it was from the Dairy Council, but then the milk part made perfect sense. But the fact that it came after this segment was pretty funny.

On the next segment, they were bashing Bush, in quite a good, drawn-out, consistent manner, with Joy referring to Sen. Jim Webb's experience standing up to Bush about his sons coming home from Iraq. Elizabeth jumped in with the oft-used semantic argument about how parents can't "send" their children to Iraq- the children must enlist themselves, which is totally not the actual point. Rosie made a good comeback, explaining to Elizabeth and the audience the relationship between wealth and likelihood of joining the army in order to get a college education- a clear, and concise point. As soon as they went to commercial break, not only was there an ad for the Army, but it was directed at parents- to convinve their children to join the armed forces!!!

I'm starting to wonder if they strucutre the ads to relate to the content in this specific way, something which I'd never thought about before. Isn't The View live, though?