What The? Locavore Defends a CAFO?

That's not really the case, but it's a headline grabber. :-) What Walt Jeffries is really doing is defending rationality--mostly notably the fact that any animal operation has to deal with death so the simple fact a CAFO might have a few dead pigs is meaningless. My parents didn't do pigs, but my memory is we'd have a few dead hens in a year from a flock of about 1,000--but when predators got in or we got hit with infectious disease, the toll went up. And we lost some cows--broken hip, milk fever, ingested metal. It happens.

Marian Robinson

Since the President's mother-in-law is just a tad older than I, I can sympathize with her resistance to change as reported in this NYTimes article. (I particularly identified with the plotting her children did to persuade her to move.) Nice to know she's happy.

Words of Wisdom

From a piece in the NY Times on how Daisuke Matsuzaka's former baseball team used the $50+ million they got from the Boston Red Sox for his rights.

“If you are comfortable in the toilets, then everything is comfortable.”

Truer words were never uttered.

Some context:

Whereas the old facilities were dingy concrete latrines, state-of-the-art urinals line the men’s rooms along with high-tech hand dryers built into the bright blue and white tile — the team colors. But the main attractions are the new toilets with TotTo’s Warmlet seats in stalls with floor-to-ceiling doors.

Each stall in the women’s bathrooms holds a Toto Washlet, a toilet and bidet in one unit. These $1,500 fixtures provide a luxurious experience for fans, who may spend their time in the restrooms contemplating the full extent of Matsuzaka’s legacy with the Lions.

And if you're interested in the subject, read The Big Necessity. (The foodies pay lots of attention to the front end, but they're mostly whippersnappers and will find the back end more interesting as they age.)

A Criticism of National Black Farmer Association

Here's a press release criticizing John Boyd and his association

Best Sentence of May 2

Today the wife is away playing so I'm getting some spring cleaning done. But this is definitely the best sentence I've read today:

"Many of us get unique subsidies for keeping our body temperature close to 98 degrees"

From John Phipps re: cap and trade/environmentalism and farming.

Engber at Slate on High Fructose Sugar

See here for what seems to be a good summary of the corn-derived, high fructose sugar issue.

Limits of Gov. 2.0

GovLoop.com is billed as a Social network for Government. (Still don't understand it, but I've added its RSS feed.) There's an interesting post here pointing out the limits of the sort of suggestion system the Obama administration has used, first before inauguration, and now in connection with recovery.gov. The main point is, by exposing ideas for user evaluation as they are posted, you get a big first mover advantage. Once you have 3 digits worth of suggestions, only the oddball like me will scroll through and evaluate. The writer prefers this:

Imagine if the National Dialogue first enabled submission of ideas with examples on an equal basis. Then it enabled a simultaneous consideration with an ability of public comment. Then the ideas were vetted based on the public comment received. And finally, the final ideas were then submitted with an alternative analysis based on meritocracy. The final ideas could credibly be considered by the broader audience, based on merit.

Division in the Ranks

The Federation of Southern Cooperatives has an April 23 press release attacking the Black Farmer demo of April 28. Devotes some words to the idea that it's the lawyers who are gaining from the effort on Pigford.

National Black Farmers

Had their demonstration on April 28. It didn't get much coverage, and the accuracy of the coverage it got was a bit lacking. The conference scheduled for yesterday seems to have evaporated, or at least disappeared from the website.

White House Harvest

Obamafoororama says the White House had their first harvest yesterday--lettuce. The accompanying picture looks more as if the kids are planting than harvesting. (The girls predominate--is that a reflection of the feminine nurturing principle.) They might have gotten some lettuce, because the pictures back when showed they were using transplants, not seeds. So a couple weeks growth made them harvestable, and purely by accident it's 100 days into the administration.

My wife's lettuce is up and coming, but it will be a while yet before we have salad--probably May 15 or so.