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Archive for July 2010

Friday July 23, 2010 The (it has been a while since the last) Day in Tubes

It has been a while since I last posted a Day in Tubes. Monday December 21, 2009 was my final post, if I am not mistaken. Shortly after that tube diary, my CPU shut down and would not get up. I also experience a similar meltdown, and became what I have come to call (not affectionately): a Narcoleptic Zombie. My Nurse Practitioner thought it would be a great idea for me to go on a new medication last December. However, I now realize it was a terrible decision, as I basically lost six months of my life.

A life that was saved by an underpaid, but supremely dedicated employee of a local non-profit mental health care center. It was her job to help me. It is the job of lot of people to help me, as I really am bat shit crazy (yeah, I know, I shouldn’t use that word. Too bad, ’cause I like it;~). But she actually believed me when I told her that something was terribly wrong. She understood that just because a person is crazy, it doesn’t mean they are incompetent, stupid, and/or liars. Together, we went to see my NP and helped us figure out that the meds were killing me. Thank you Jennifer. I also thank all of my workers (all 17,539 of them;~), and thank Ani and me for moving to a county where the Social Workers actually do their jobs. More on this in a future diary…

So after a full three months off the gnasty meds, I have a new CPU (finally, I know what to call the bloody thing), and (I think) the old Hollede is back. I guess we shall see… Oh and my computer is now a big, bad, beautiful monster that will kick your computer’s ass down the hall;~J

One thing that is now a bit disturbing to me is how much things have changed here in teh internets since my last real venture (not one on the horrid little phone!) into the virtual world. The Moose seems rather, uh…dead these days, and the funny is harder than ever to find at the YouTube (or anywhere else for that matter). For crying out soft, Headzup hasn’t done a new tube since December! Where oh where have they gone? Sob…please come back to me Headzup…moan, please?

Is everyone that disheartened by the politics these days? Well buck up dudes, and get your butts out there and DO SOMETHING!!!!! Quit yer bitchin’, get outta the kitchen, and start kickin’ some pugs in the head! I know, not nice, but whoever said that President Obama could do this alone? He needs our help folks, as the alternative is intolerable. So on with the tubes and we shall see if I have lost my touch…

Although this is not exactly new, Versusplus.com  made me smile with their release of “THE PARTY’S OVER-TURE – a sampler of versusplus.com econoparodies”:

God, I love VersusPlus. My only complaint has been and still is, they don’t produce often enough. Please take time to support them and encourage more activity on their part.

It would appear someone is making the republicans very nervous. And she is sending chills through all of the right (pun intended) Democratic spines. Check this out from Salon.com:

Elizabeth Warren has all the right enemies

Conservatives and bankers can’t stand the woman who is trying “to change everything.” Are you listening, Obama?

Now here’s an example of some real crackerjack investigative reporting. Wall Street Journal reporter Damien Palleta has a scoop that will send bank reform  Kremlinologists into a frenzy. On Tuesday night, Elizabeth Warren, the progressive choice to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, had dinner with Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. And on Wednesday, right after attending the signing ceremony for the Dodd-Frank bill, Warren had lunch with Obama’s trusted senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett.

What can it mean? Who wins in a Jarrett vs Geithner throw down? Is Elena Kagan offering tips on how to pass confirmation hearings with flying colors? Or is Warren operating a last-ditch lobbying effort to win over hearts and minds?

The chatter over Warren’s prospects has grown into a full-on uproar in recent days, and now that bank reform is law, the clock is ticking.

I don’t think Warren’s chances are all that great — too many Democratic senators have already expressed reservations. But I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, Warren has all the right enemies. Watch Alabama’s Richard Shelby blast her, just this morning:

Uh oh. It would appear that Elizabeth Warren is shaking a few trees and some rotten apples are falling out onto the ground:~D

Barney Frank spoke of the need to appoint Ms. Warren to the Consumer Board with TPMtv earlier today.

Has he lost weight? He is looking fit these days;~J Oh and right on target as usual…

Breaking news from the Onion News Network! Hide your children from…well, let the Onion explain…

An Onion a day helps keep the CNN away.

Huffpo Sherroded Me

I was asked by the Huffinton Post during the Primary Campaign to follow Hillary Clinton on the west coast–using my own dime–since this is when Huffpo was promoting ‘citizen journalism’– and write stories demonstrating she was a liar by writing that in different places she slanted her message to the audience.

Huffpo is screaming NoNoNo this morning at Jim VandeHai of Politico who yesterday asserted that the HuffingtonPost trained Andrew Bretibart, the guy  who recently slimed Shirley Sherrod and suckered the Obama Adminstration into firing her from her job.

So Politico’s VandeHai is asserting that the Huffington Post uses Breitbart methods of distorting and slanting the news.

Is there anyone who things otherwise? Fox is the conservative shoutfest, Huffpo the liberal fog machine. And both slant, distort and sensationalize the shortcomings of those they oppose

News? It is Gone With The Wind.

Take the facts and distort them to fit the agenda is what is passing for news today and the blogosphere is no exception.  During the primary campaign Huffpo offered me the job of covering Hillary Clinton on the west coast. I was to travel around, on my own dime–this was when Huffpo was promoting “citizen journalism”–and write up her campaign appearances. But there was an agenda: I was to catch her lying, i.e. giving different messages according to the different locations.

I supported Hillary, part of a  small band of liberal bloggers who did, and I refused the agenda. And Huffpo no longer cared for my services.

So I wrote for dKos until I was thrown off for being a “racist” which is to say that I talked about Obama’s shortcomings. During the primary campaign anyone who blogged for Hillary was ipso facto a racist on most of the liberal blogs.

It wasn’t a fair fight. And much like Journolist, the liberal blogging forces schemed to put their guy over. Part of this effort was to brand as racist anyone effective enough to make a dent in Obama’s pristine reputation.

Peter Daou may be the only prominent Hillary blogger who escaped unscathed, and I am not even sure that is true.

What the Shirley Sherrod “moment” offers is a peek into a shoddy and corrupt practice of smears and innuendo passed off as news by nearly everyone in today’s media. No one is exempt. Fox does it brilliantly. And the liberal organizations are playing catch up as fast as they can.

Hold onto your critical faculties. Take nothing at face value or should I say first read. And look for the agenda in Everything. It is always there.    

Fox Noose: We Distort; You Divide.®

When Clarence Thomas was seeking confirmation as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and questions were raised about his fitness based on the claims of his former subordinate, Anita Hill, Thomas launched a bitter counteroffensive, claiming that he was the victim of a high-tech lynching.  Many people recoiled at Thomas’s expropriation of the term, saying it was beyond the pale.  Thomas succeeded in quelling the opposition to his nomination, and we all have seen how that worked out.

Over the past few days, we have seen an attempted high-tech lynching of the good name of a public servant, Shirley Sherrod.  Ms. Sherrod has reacted with far more grace than Mr. Thomas did, and the outcome may, for our nation, be far more positive.

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This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

The lesson of the last 24 hours is…Fox News is nothing more than a right wing propaganda outfit that is willing to air lies and committ slander if it serves a purpose of helping conservatives, the rest of the media is too horny for scandal to realize it or do its own research and we, as a country, cannot exist with a government that has to preempt an impending media narrative every morning before breakfast.

Makutano Junction Soap Opera

Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

The last place most of us look to for useful information is television soap operas. But Makutano Junction, a Kenyan-produced soap opera set in the fictional town of the same name is not your average TV drama. Broadcast in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and throughout English-speaking Africa on Digital Satellite Television (DSTV), Makutano Junction doesn’t deal with the evil twins, amnesia, and dark family secrets typical of U.S. daytime dramas. Instead, the show’s plot lines revolve around more grounded (although not necessarily less dramatic) subjects like access to health care and education, sustainable income-generation, and citizens’ rights.

Funded by the U.K. Department for International Development, produced by the Mediae Trust, and broadcast by the Kenya Broadcast Corporation, the show was originally designed as a 13-part drama in 2004. But Makutano Junction was since developed into a six-season TV phenomenon, with over 7 million viewers in Kenya alone. Its website provides all the information one might expect from a television show site, including episode summaries and character profiles. It also features “extras” on themes from specific episodes and encourages viewers to text the producers for more information.

In Episode 8 of Season 6, which aired in 2008, the character Maspeedy gets into trouble for soaking seeds. Seed soaking works by essentially tricking the seed into thinking it has been planted, allowing it to soak up in one day as much water as it would in a week in the soil. This speeds up germination and significantly shortens the time between planting and growth, leading to a vegetable harvest in a quick amount of time.

But the other characters in the show are unfamiliar with this practice and, when they discover Maspeedy’s project, have him thrown in jail because they are convinced that he is brewing alcohol illegally. After some plot twists and a little slapstick humor involving two trouble-making characters who attempt to drink the water in order to get drunk, the truth comes to light and Maspeedy is released from jail. He then teaches the rest of the town the simple technique of soaking seeds to speed plant-growth time.

After the episode aired in May 2008, thousands of viewers sent texts to Mediae  requesting more information about seed-soaking techniques. These viewers were sent a pamphlet with detailed instructions on how to soak their own seeds. Follow-up calls- which were part of a study to test the effectiveness of the show’s messaging- revealed that 95 percent of those who had texted for more information had found the pamphlets helpful. And 57 percent had tried out seed soaking even before the pamphlet arrived, just based on the information provided on the show. Ninety-four percent said that they had shared the information with up to five other people.

By peppering the drama-infused lives of its characters with demonstrations of agricultural practices, trips to the doctor for tuberculosis tests, and Kenyan history, Makutano Junction serves to both entertain and provide reliable information for families throughout sub-Saharan Africa. This is soap opera drama that people can actually relate to-and learn from.

To read more about innovations that use entertainment and media to alleviate poverty and hunger see: Using Digital Technology to Empower and Connect Young Farmers, Acting it out for Advocacy and Messages from One Rice Farmer to Another.

Thank you for reading! As you may already know, Danielle Nierenberg is traveling across sub-Saharan Africa visiting organizations and projects that provide environmentally sustainable solutions to hunger and poverty.  She has already traveled to over 19 countries and visited 130 projects highlighting stories of hope and success in the region. She will be in Benin next, so stay tuned for more writing, photos and video from her travels.  

If you enjoy reading this diary, we blog daily on  Nourishing the Planet, where you can also sign up for our newsletter to receive weekly blog and travel updates.  Please don’t hesitate to comment on our posts, we check them daily and look forward to an ongoing discussion with you. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Fighting for Farmworkers’ Rights for More Than 40 Years

By Ronit Ridberg

This is the first of three parts of an interview with Baldemar Velasquez, President and Founder of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. In Part One, Mr. Velasquez describes the biggest challenges and abuses farm workers face in the U.S., and what it was like for his family to work in America’s agricultural sector. Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Name: Baldemar Velasquez

Affiliation: President and Founder, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, FLOC, AFL-CIO

Location: Toledo, Ohio

Bio: Incensed by the injustices suffered by his family and other farm workers, Baldemar Velasquez founded the union of migrant farm workers, Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in 1967. FLOC works tirelessly to give voice to migrant farm workers across the country and include them in decision-making processes on conditions that affect their lives. Mr. Velasquez is a highly respected national and international leader, not only in the farm labor movement, but also in the Latino and immigrant rights movements.

Dispatches from ‘The Promise’: Media Edition

I’ve been reading Jonathan Alter’s The Promise – President Obama, Year One, and have come across a number of striking passages that have led me to spend much time ruminating on the monumental challenges President Obama faces in his attempt to pilot the ‘ship of state’ in the tumultuous political seas of the 21st century.

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With your indulgence, I’d like to share a number of these passages in an on-going series. In particular, I’ll present snippets that have resonated with me. Some are shocking, some humorous, some awe-inspiring, some infuriating, but I hope you’ll find each of them as illuminating as I have.  

Anti-Americanism in Pakistan

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The New York Times recently posted a disturbing video on Pakistan. The report addresses the topic of anti-Americanism in the country, specifically with regards to its westernized, well-educated musicians:

While Pakistani journalists, playwrights and even moderate Islamic clerics have boldly condemned the Taliban, the nation’s pop music stars have yet to sing out against the group, which continues to claim responsibility for daily bombings.

This summary doesn’t do justice to the report. One really needs to watch the video – to hear the musicians themselves speak – to get a sense of their anti-Americanism.

More below.

A Conversation About Organic Agriculture with Chuck Benbrook

In this regular series we profile advisors of the Nourishing the Planet project. This week, we feature Chuck Benbrook, Chief Scientist at the Organic Center.

Name: Chuck Benbrook

Affiliation: The Organic Center

Location: Enterprise, Oregon

Bio: Dr. Charles Benbrook is Chief Scientist at the Organic Center. He worked in Washington, D.C. on agricultural policy, science and regulatory issues from 1979 through 1997. He served for 1.5 years as the agricultural staff expert on the Council for Environmental Quality at the end of the Carter Administration. Following the election of Ronald Reagan, he moved to Capitol Hill in early 1981 and was the Executive Director of the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Agriculture with jurisdiction over pesticide regulation, research, trade and foreign agricultural issues. In 1984 Benbrook was recruited to the job of Executive Director, Board on Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences, a position he held for seven years. In late 1990 he formed Benbrook Consulting Services.

On Nourishing the Planet: Promoting agricultural and economic development in Africa requires intimate understanding of the resources people have to work with, and the factors shaping the decisions farmers make about what to grow and how.  Such understanding is a prerequisite to cost-effectively relax multiple constraints in unison.  The “Nourishing the Planet” project excels at gathering and sharing this sort of key information and, for this reason, has much to contribute in shaping development assistant programs that produce meaningful, sustained results.

Can you describe the possible ways that organic agriculture methods can help improve farmers’ income, increase food security, and decrease world hunger?

If you dispassionately look at what is needed to promote productivity and food security in chronically food short regions, core organic farming principles and practices have much to contribute, and certainly far more than the GMO and chemical-intensive corn-soybean production system in the U.S. corn belt.   This is particularly true in restoring soil fertility and reversing the steady decline in soil organic matter.

Six core principles and objectives of organic farming must form the foundation of sustainable food systems, and hence food security in Africa –

   * Build the quality of the soil by increasing soil organic matter;

   * Promote above and below-ground biodiversity for its inherent, multiple benefits (biological control, more diverse diet, lessening risk of catastrophic crop loss, etc);

   * Integrate crop and livestock operations to exploit synergies between the two;

   * Use crop rotations, cover crops, multi-cropping systems, and agro-foresty to utilize available sunlight and moisture more fully, especially in the spring and fall months;

   * Avoid the use of toxic chemicals and hot fertilizers because of their potential to burn up organic matter, kill or reduce populations of non-target organisms that play valuable roles in food chains ultimately helping to feed people, and pose risks to people living in close proximity to treated areas; and

   * Produce high-quality, nutrient dense products that will hopefully command a premium price in the market place, reflecting their true value.

What are some specific innovations, policies and techniques that could be implemented to promote organic agriculture while also improving livelihoods?

Obviously, the combination of new practices, inputs, and technologies needed will vary tremendously based on local conditions.  Nearly everywhere, soil quality must be restored, a process that will require a number of years and a proper sequence of changes in management systems and inputs.  What a farmer does in the first three years of this journey will differ considerably from common practices ten years down the road.

Early steps will be dependent to a greater degree on fertilizer and organic soil amendments from outside the farm, and will often need to be shipped hundreds of miles into the region, while in later years, much more of the organic materials needed to sustain soil quality will be generated on the farm or locally.

Unfortunately, many projects and policy initiatives have delivered uneven, unsustainable results because they stopped at just subsidizing fertilizer, and failed to support the farmer’s evolution toward more biologically-based methods to sustain soil fertility.

It is critical to support this incremental evolution, because the real and sustainable economic benefits to farm families kick in only after the transition is well along toward systems that have a high level of internal self-sufficiency, stability, and resilience.

It would be helpful for researchers and development organizations to provide recommendations for cost-effective trajectories of change in soil quality, including recommendations for the most cost-effective steps, and investments that will promote sustainable progress during each stage of the process.

More efficient capture and use of water, especially through micro-irrigation schemes, will also deliver significant benefits in many areas.  Diversifying rotations to include small plots of several short season vegetable crops in various combinations will also deliver multiple benefits.  Diversifying livestock enterprises to include more small livestock like chickens and rabbits is also a promising addition to the development assistance tool kit.

The lack of safe storage and markets for new crops, or difficulties in storing and utilizing new foods, often emerges as a major constraint to positive changes on the farm, and in terms of the diversity and quality of diets.  It seems to me that this is an obvious area for development assistance programs to target resources.

Why should wealthy consumers care about hunger in other parts of the world?

For the same reason that everyone should – helping assure everyone has enough to eat is a universal moral imperative.  There is no chance for peace and stability in a world where chronic poverty and hunger afflicts one-sixth of mankind. Hungry people are desperate people, and the actions they sometimes take, or embrace, to feed themselves and their families erode the fabric of civilization, just as erosion saps soil quality.

In your chapter, “Biotechnology: Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem-or Both?” you make the point that developed nations should use biotechnology to better understand “the linkages between indigenous resources and knowledge and agricultural production and farm family well being.” Can you elaborate on this statement?

Some people are convinced that breakthroughs in plant breeding in Africa depend on access to, and use of a set of genes, markers and molecular technologies discovered and now used in the U.S. and Europe by plant biotech companies. I doubt it.  I just don’t see Roundup Ready or Bt GE crops making much of a difference on most of the African continent.

Instead, I think that the modern tools of molecular biology should be deployed to understand and better utilize the genetic diversity that exists on the African continent. These tools are also extremely valuable in rooting out the subtle interactions between soil microbes, plants, pests, and the environment that can make or break a crop, and turn a nutritionally deficient diet into one that is both rich in nutrients and robust across seasons and circumstances.

There are many ways to work toward this goal that fully exploit cutting-edge science and technology.  We need to find the pathways that will deliver tangible results more quickly and cost-effectively than creating a new food like Golden rice, which remains after many years and millions of dollars an intriguing technical challenge, but not a sound investment if the goal is to promote food security where it is currently lacking.

Can biotechnology be used to improve sustainable agriculture and farming in the developing world?

Sure, but the biotechnology applications will be very different than the GE crops now planted around the world.

In the publication, “The Impacts of Yield on Nutritional Quality: Lessons from Organic Farming,” you conclude that organic foods are more nutritious than conventionally produced fruits and vegetables. Can you give a few examples of why organic produce is more nutritious and how this knowledge can help farmers in the United States and Europe, as well as the developing world?

In the U.S. and Europe, there has been a steady decline over 40-plus years in the nutrient density of conventionally grown foods, driven largely by incrementally higher nitrogen fertilizer levels and crop yields.  Agronomists call this essentially unavoidable relationship between yields and nutrient density the “dilution effect.”  Organic farmers do not have access to the cheap sources of readily available nitrogen that serve as the fuel driving the dilution effect.

On average across most plant-based foods, organically managed crops mature a bit more slowly and produce fruit and vegetables that are somewhat smaller. But in terms of nutrient content per ounce or gram of apple, lettuce, carrot, or grapes, smaller is better.

There is also convincing evidence supporting the conclusion that in some years for some organic crops, a higher level of pest pressure, coupled with the lack of conventional pesticide applications, forces plants to divert energy from growth to defense mechanisms, which typically entail increased biosynthesis of plant secondary metabolites.  Many of these are potent antioxidants and account for a significant slice of the unique health-promoting benefits – and flavors – of fruits and vegetables.

Supporters of biotechnology often make the argument GE crops are necessary to fight food insecurity as climate change and population growth put increased pressure on the food system.  Can you give your thoughts on why or why not biotechnology can feed the world?

Today’s commercially significant GE crops are herbicide-tolerant corn, soybeans, and cotton, and Bt corn and cotton.  These crops are designed to simplify weed and insect pest management and are planted, for the most part, in specialized, chemical-intensive systems.  Alternative technology exists to produce the same amount of crops per acre, and likely a bit more at lower cost to the farmer.  Based on these realities, I conclude that today’s commercial GE crops are making no unique contribution to world food security needs.

An argument could be made, in addition, that today’s GE crop technology has actually undermined progress toward increasing production and meeting global food security needs.  The discovery and commercialization of today’s GE crops have totally dominated public and private plant breeding investments for nearly 30 years in three major crops, slowing the pace of progress in other areas of plant genetic improvement that would likely be of more direct benefit to a wider range of farmers around the world.

No one technology or farming system will emerge as universally optimal.  Progress toward global food security will be accelerated by systemic efforts to promote diversity in farming systems and technologies.  A healthy measure of experimentation is desirable in searching for optimal cropping patterns and production practices in a given region.

We must resist the enticing prospect that science and technology will deliver a magic bullet, or even a magic arsenal, that will miraculously optimize yields, stop pests in their tracks, always build soil quality, and thrive despite climate change.  A sober reading of history suggests strongly that this is a pipedream.

Those arguing that global food security will be assured if we just unleash the powers of biotechnology are doing the world’s poor a grave disservice.  I know that many biotech promoters feel the same way about people like me who feel just as strongly that the most rapid and sustained progress will come from agricultural development programs and investments grounded in the principles of organic farming and agroecology.

One would hope and expect that the World Bank, FAO, CGIAR, foundations, and development assistance programs will insist that fair and unbiased assessments are made of the net returns to alternative paths to development in the years to come, but thus far I see little evidence of this happening on the ground.  The “Nourishing the Planet” project should do all it can to encourage the major funders and development organizations to sponsor credible, independent assessments.  May the best approach emerge, and let’s hope that funders have the courage and political freedom to put the dollars behind the best system, in the hope of accelerating progress toward a goal shared by all.

Thank you for reading! As you may already know, Danielle Nierenberg is traveling across sub-Saharan Africa visiting organizations and projects that provide environmentally sustainable solutions to hunger and poverty. She has already traveled to over 18 countries and visited 130 projects highlighting stories of hope and success in the region. She will be in Togo next, so stay tuned for more writing, photos and video from her travels.

If you enjoy reading this diary, we blog daily on Nourishing the Planet, where you can also sign up for our newsletter to receive weekly blog and travel updates.  Please don’t hesitate to comment on our posts, we check them daily and look forward to an ongoing discussion with you. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Change

I like message songs.  The greatest song with lyrics ever, and you’ll never convince me otherwise, is Get Together by The Youngbloods.