Month: July 2009

 

The moon was about the town and the town was silent. The town was dreaming of its past. Old men were asleep with their mouths open. The moon was dreaming of nothing. A couple of writer’s ghosts played on the swings behind the Catholic school. The moon saw Flannery O’Connor there. She was wearing a madras skirt. The other ghost was Kilgore Trout. He was wearing a worn out business suit and pushing the swing. He had a straw boater on his noggin. The boater was exactly moon colored when you looked. We sailed past in our car. Late Sunday evening, Iowa City…

 

S.K.

 

By Andrea Scarpino

Los Angeles

My father was a microbiologist who worked on water disinfection among other things, and who was raised by a butcher father who owned a grocery store. Having watched his father at work, and knowing the intricacies of viruses and bacteria, my father was—shall we say—a bit hypochondriac where food safety was concerned. If something smelled even a little bit funny, it was thrown away immediately. When he brought home fruits and vegetables from the grocery store, he soaked it in the sink through multiple water changes.

Growing up, I watched my father at work and in his home, and developed related interests in the environment and our food. I try, in the words of Michael Pollan, to Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. That is, to eat whole foods, not food “products” with funny ingredients like “cheddar cheese flavoring.” I purchase as many organics as I can afford, and have read many more PETA brochures than I care to recall. I haven’t eaten meat knowingly in about fifteen years, in part because of the treatment animals receive in the American food system. So when I went to see the documentary Food, Inc. this weekend, I didn’t expect to learn much new about the American food industry. Mostly, I wanted the film to have a good turnout so that its release would spread to cities beyond Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.

But learn I did. About chickens that are forced to grow so quickly through hormones and a diet they would never eat in the wild that their leg bones can’t support their weight. About farmers who are being put out of business from lawsuits having to do with possible patent infringement on genetically modified seeds (yes, I wrote “patent infringement” and “seeds” in the same sentence. Seeds—once the purview of nature—are now patented by big industries). About meat industry workers (mostly People of Color) who suffer from terrible work environments, uncountable work-related illnesses, and low wages. About how food industry executives have basically written our food laws with their best interests at heart, not in the interest of food safety, quality or health.

And about the people who are doing what they can to buck the system, farmers who continue to reuse their seeds despite the best attempts of seed manufacturers to thwart them, farmers who are raising their cattle on grass (their natural food) instead of grain as a way to keep them healthy, prevent E. Coli, and treat them humanely. About mothers of children who have died from food poisoning who continue to battle through the American justice system to get better food safety laws passed.

Food, Inc. may raise more questions than it answers about American food safety and production, but the questions it raises are immeasurably important. Access to safe and healthy food is a basic human right, and therefore, should be at the top of every conversation about social justice, the ethical treatment of animals and the people who tend and butcher them, and the care and protection of our earth. Just in the time between seeing Food, Inc. and sitting down to write this review, Cnn.com reported a new E. Coli outbreak in Nestle cookie dough that has sickened 65 people. These food-borne illness outbreaks are the result of our broken food system, and this just shouldn’t be happening.

So please, go see Food, Inc. I promise you, it’s worth it.

 

Andrea Scarpino is the west coast Bureau Chief of POTB

You can visit her at: www.andreascarpino.com

 

Over this long holiday weekend TV Landers have been treated to the network’s coverage of tea party assemblies, gatherings which represent both whacko libertarianism as well as the last groan of the GOP’s digestive tract. There are various groups behind the tea party movement and I won’t link to them here but you can do a simple Google search and discover that they love to clothe themselves in patriotism and reactionary rhetoric about social programs and “big government” and yes, should you want to hold a tea party they will even outfit you with talking points so you too can be a “ditto head”.  

Mostly the tea party crowd hates the idea of medical insurance and they believe that existing programs like medicare are vast Federal fraud factories bilking the honest citizenry out of their honest dough. Ergo, without proof they argue passionately that Big Brother is at hand and that President Obama’s health care plans will rob the already exhausted tax payer of his or her right to live free and die without the help of his or her government. Buried in the sophistry is the idea that existing health care insurance is good and those who don’t have health care coverage are “those people” who can’t pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and to hell with them. I think the tea party movement would be more accurately represented if we called it the tea party at the gates of Hell movement. They could even have a logo with Cerberus the three headed dog  who would be depicted drinking from a little cup.

Their vision of America is driven by a terrible hostility both for taxation and for government programs that help people. They do not call for an end to military spending or entitlements for the wealthy and for corporations. You will find no outrage on their web sites about the wholesale disappearance of American manufacturing jobs to China. The tea parties are not about the middle classes at all.

Their plan such as it is would be to have the whole country look like California.

 

S.K.

Denis Diderot once famously said: “Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” Certainly these words ring true when we see the theocratic tyranny in Iran. But as we look to the 4th of July we in the U.S.A. would be well advised to demand more from our guarantees of freedom.

Lost in all the news of Michael Jackson’s demise Americans likely missed the fact that the Supreme Court ruled this past week in an important age discrimination case and handed down a 5-4 decision that will make it harder (if not impossible) for older workers to prove they were treated unfairly by their employers. 

The case involved Jack Gross, a 53-year-old man who claimed he was discriminated against and who in turn was demoted solely because of age and then was replaced by a younger female worker. The Supreme Court ruled that Iowa-based FBL Financial Services Inc., did not have to prove that they did not discriminate against Mr. Gross–a finding that sets a terrible precedent for civil rights plaintiffs. Essentially Clarence Thomas (who was the fifth vote and who wrote the decision) has erased the burden of defense for employers.

While we watch videos of Michael Jackson’s last rehearsal and hear over and over again about his troubled life and mysterious death it seems that the arbitrary and discriminatory hubris of the conservative majority on the nation’s highest court has once again been ignored by contemporary journalism–whatever that is?

The specter of a corporate defendant that does not have to defend itself against injustice is chilling and its hard to say who is the king and who is the priest but I’ll say that FBL Financial Services Inc. is wearing its crown and Clarence Thomas surely keeps in his office the proper towels and cruets.

 

S.K.    

You can visit my online NPR commentary about seeing colors after years at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106037590

 

SK

I am currently teaching a summer course at The University of Iowa on veterans with disabilities and their portrayal in film and literature. Because I grew up blind in the late 50’s and 60’s and because I attended college and graduate school in the years before the ADA, I have a fair understanding of what its like to feel like the only person with a disability in the room. I also remember the pain of having to be a self-advocate for the right to be in that room. Being a pwd is no picnic and let’s face it: coming home with a disability in mid-life is enormously difficult even after the ADA.

My own university has failed to install accessible restrooms in important academic buildings that it has frequently renovated since the ADA went into effect. The fight for access isn’t over by any means. If you’re a veteran with a disability who uses a wheelchair you will find the University of Iowa’s student union and its English-Philosophy Building–two major facilities on this campus–to be entirely inaccessible if you want to go to the bathroom. Not long ago I received a patronizing note from an administrator who told me that in the case of the student union there was an accessible restroom on the second floor of the building. But of course this isn’t true. People with motorized wheelchairs can’t get into the room.

I remain a blogger in large part because I believe in the power of the internet as a resource delivery system. I have received the following resource announcement and wish to pass it along. As the wounded service men and women of the U.S. transition back to civilian life they need all the resources they can get. They also need accessible facilities at the nation’s colleges and universities. 

 

National Resource Directory
The National Resource Directory (NRD) is an online resource for wounded, ill and injured Service Members, Veterans, their families and those who support them. The NRD provides information on, and access to, medical and non–medical services and resources across the country which will help them reach their personal and professional goals as they successfully transition from recovery to community living. The NRD is an online partnership of the Department of Defense, Department of Labor and Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as numerous Veteran service and benefit organizations; non–profit community–based and faith–based organizations; academic institutions, professional associations and philanthropic organizations.

 

S.K.