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...