Fragments, Part (whatever)…

January 21, 2010 | 1 Comment

And I thought about you as I sat to gather my thoughts.

Come here, little thoughts, we’ve got people coming to check on you from time to time.

But you’ve been a bad little collection of thoughts, so easily distracted and willing to venture down paths that lead to: Nowhere.

Again.

I’m on the side of the little man in the late-night talk show wars. Yeah, the one getting $42 million to walk away. Fight the man!

Yesterday we traded homeschooling for truckschooling, and off we went. To farms, mostly, to gather the material needed to continue the notion that we like farms.

At the dairy and beef farm, we gathered beef from a nice French Canadian man who’s family jumped the border a generation ago and they continue the dream in smaller parcels today (“if a kid wanted a farm, my dad and granddad gave ‘em the land they needed to farm”). And farm tidily, I might add. We got the whole tour – from the automated back-scratcher (for the cows, not us), to the milking parlor, and to the giant freezers marked “meat.”

And so, with a box of meat in tow, off we went to the horse farm.

The lady limped out of her house to greet us.

“Rule number one,” I explained to my daughter (because, as we’ve discussed before, every moment is a homeschool moment), “do not ask about riding lessons from someone in a cast.”

“Duh,” replied Bel, our sarcastically-astute daughter. It was, as I realized later, a chilling and mostly accurate retort I heard for much of the day (But, honey, you’re not officially a teen until August! Good luck with that.).

We were in pursuit of a children’s saddle that would fit Bel’s increasingly-chunky Quarter Horse. Mission accomplished. Because the lady in a cast was apparently learning her lesson about being around horses and willing to part with any and all of her horse equipment – and cheaply.

She reached for the saddle we were most interested in – a classic, circa 1970’s, full of real leather, Simco saddle – with flower pleats! But her hand was chewed up, an indent that was masquerading as a future scar quickly made itself known as she reached for the saddle.

“Ouch,” I said. “Horse bite?”

“Yes,” she returned. “And an infection and an abscess and weeks of antibiotics.”

Cool. Gotta love horses.

I made her an offer for the Simco. Not surprisingly, she accepted – cast, scar and all.

“Wear a helmet,” she said to Bel as we loaded the saddle into the truck.

“Ya think?” I thought, as I limped back to the truck.

P.S. We would like to thank the cow for its extensive contributions to our farm visits yesterday.

Fucking Democrats.

And that’s all I care to say about that right now.

Well, other than this: Why do the Democrats think a response from a series of election failures based on their wimpiness and ineffectiveness should be remedied by more wimpiness and ineffectiveness?

Just wondering.

I do believe they call that bright thing in the sky, “The Sun.” It has just poked me on my shoulder, apparently knowing that I need it.

Fetch me my horse. And you, yours.

Hello woods.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog, food & forest, war & peace

Testifying with a Chainsaw

June 16, 2009 | 20 Comments

Well, someone had to do it. And, of course, we did. We being: Boots, Bel and I.

I’m speaking about the public hearing held on Monday night about the Douglas Administration’s out-of-nowhere plan to allow all-terrain-vehicles (ATVs) access to public lands. And while Douglas’ cronies at the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) tried to make the whole thing look legitimate, the whole process stinks more than an ATV exhaust pipe.

First, ANR officials admit almost proudly that they talked exclusively with one and only one group during its planning process for this new regulation to allow these machines to “rip it up” on our state lands: VASA, the ATV association in Vermont. And then they sprung the new rule on the citizens of the state just a couple of weeks ago, planned a hastily-prepared “public hearing,” and gave the public all of ten days to comment on it.

Can you say: Political games? I knew you could. And Governor Jim Douglas plays them like nobody else plays them. In case you don’t have an imagination, let me spell it out for you: Douglas got his political ass kicked during the last legislative session, having two of his vetoes overridden (gay marriage and the budget) and he’s looking like little more than political road-kill of late. So what’s a right-winger to do in such a circumstance? Well, throw a political bone to the ATV crowd, of course.

And so he did, and the VASA crowd lunged for it like a Michael Vick dog. Grrr….give us our rights to do what we want, when we want, where we want, however we want, and to whomever we want. Whatever.

Logic, of course, was an endangered species at Monday’s public hearings. The hundreds of well-organized VASA members who showed up were clearly looking for a fight. But little did they know that Vermont’s mainstream environmental community is about as lame as lame can be when it comes to taking a firm stand – especially when faced with a throng of hydrocarbon-breathing machines-equal-a-sport crowd.

Take, for example, the opening words of the “communications director” of the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC), Jake Brown: “I’ve owned an ATV for eight years and I love to ride it as much as I can on weekends.” Huh? Remember, VNRC is the group that has been pegged by the fawning (read: lazy) Vermont media as “the opposition” to the proposed new ATV riding rule.

And so it went, the ATVers were all ready to rumble but their opponents were mostly looking like deer caught in the headlights and far too meek to mutter even the most benign opposition. Take, for example, the VNRC folks (Brown and his colleague, Jamey Fidel) who droned on about “process,” “fairness,” and Brown’s out-of-the-closet proclamations that he was “one of them.” Good luck with that.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to tip my hat to those who showed up and didn’t melt from the heat of being surrounded by two hundred angry men: Mollie Matteson of the Center for Biological Diversity, Anthony Iarrapino of the Conservation Law Foundation, Les Blomberg of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse and a few private individuals that, unfortunately, I failed to hear their names or affiliations.

This hearing was absurd. And, frankly, we knew it was going to be absurd given the quickened pace of the process and the all-too-predictable meekness of the eco-crowd. That’s why we planned something equally as absurd for our testimony.

Yep, as the headline would suggest: We brought a chainsaw. Partly because we represent Horse Loggers for Peace (and the executive committee – oops, I mean: the entire group – okay, okay, I mean: both of us – decided to add “and Quiet” to our name for the evening) and partly because we knew how the pro-ATV crowd would be testifying. As in: “It’s public land, we pay taxes, and we want to play with our machines on the public’s land.”

Fine. Let’s play.

The plan was simple enough: Boots was going to testify about the health affects of ATVs – ever seen a room full of ATVers? – and when he got to his concluding statement about noise and air pollution I was going to fire up my chainsaw for a little demonstration. But we’d be in tune with the ATVers’ argument: Being on public land and playing with our own toys and all. We wanted to be as absurd as the proposal at hand.

But, frankly, when I surveyed the room and began hearing the other testimony I thought it would be best to use my time speaking out rather than using my time to fire up a chainsaw and simply getting arrested. But then my daughter, Bel, put this note on top of the papers I was carting around: “I really think that you should do the chainsaw.”

Geez, nothing like pressure from an eleven-year old to not wimp out.

And when they called our names to get in line to ready ourselves for our testimony, my mind was all but made up to use the chainsaw when Bel accompanied us to the podium (the plan was for her to stay in the back and have previously assigned friends be ready to take her home if I was arrested). But there she was, at our side, and giving me the look that said: Don’t be a wimp.

And so it went: Boots got to his final line in his testimony about noise and smell and I yanked the chainsaw out of my bag – without the chain for obvious safety reasons – and fired it up.

I watched the cop across the room, waiting for him to get up and come my way. He didn’t move. I watched the ANR official running the meeting, thinking he’d jump to his feet and demand an end to the noise and smell. He didn’t budge. And I watched the crowd, waiting for them to stop me, but they didn’t move. And so I did what these folks wanted: I made noise. I made smells. And we had a blast.

“What?” I declared after turning it off. “We’re on public land. I own the chainsaw. And I pay my taxes. What’s the problem?”

It was, as I explained, an absurd demonstration at an absurd hearing about an absurd new rule to allow people who own smelly and loud toys to “play” on public land.

Mission accomplished.

Thanks, Bel and Boots.

(Stay tuned for more)

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under activism, blog, food & forest

Wild Matters: Ban ATVs on State Land

June 15, 2009 | 4 Comments

Big day. Well, if you care about all things wild in Vermont. Because the Agency of Natural Resources will be holding a public hearing tonight in Montpelier (Pavilion Auditorium, 7 p.m.-9 p.m.) to take testimony regarding its plans to allow all-terrain-vehicles (ATVs) access to state-owned land.

Proponents of the letting these gas-guzzling, carbon-emitting and otherwise just noisy and obnoxious machines onto Vermont’s public lands are trying to soft-pedal these new rules, claiming that the newly proposed ATV trails will just be “short connectors” to already existing off-road-vehicle trails on private lands.

Yeah right. If you’ve bothered to follow snowmobile or ATV issues in Vermont, you know that when you give these renegades an inch they take a mile – literally.

Make no mistake, the ANR’s proposed rule to allow ATV access to public lands – no matter how short the original connector trails are – is a huge change in public policy that will almost certainly lead to more and more ATV access to state lands, including our publicly-owned forests. The organized ATV groups – like VASA – don’t hide the fact that they want to ride practically anywhere they can put it in four-wheel drive and rip it up.

The irony in the ANR’s proposed new rule is that ATV proponents are admitting that these new trails are necessary partly due to the current illegal riding by ATVers. Just read these words by VASA’s Danny Hale, as told to John Dillon of Vermont Public Radio:

Unfortunately there’s a fair amount of illegal use already taking place on state land. And what we’re trying to accomplish with a managed trail system is give people a chance to recreate where it’s legal, so that’s going to take a large number of the illegal riders right out of the picture.

Got that? In case you don’t, let me explain: The ATV riders are riding illegally on the public’s land now so, instead of enforcing the laws banning it, the state should change the laws to make it legal.

I’m guessing you’ve got to be around a lot of burned hydrocarbons to come up with that argument.

Unfortunately (and predictably), mainstream environmental groups like the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC) aren’t showing a lot of teeth when it comes to fighting back against this proposed ATV land grab. The Vermont Press Bureau, for example, writes in this morning’s papers that, according to the VNRC’s Jamey Fidel, the group “isn’t necessarily opposed” to the first new connector trail being proposed in Island Pond.

Why – oh why – is it so hard from groups like VNRC to take a firm stand? But that’s another story for another time I suppose.

To the group’s credit, VNRC does document the very real and acknowledged problems with ATV riding: pollution, noise, flora and fauna damage, water run-off issues, interference with non-motorized forms of recreation and even rider safety. But with a laundry lists of problems like this, VNRC ought to be flying the “ban ATVs flag” as high as they can.

But, have no fear, the Horse Loggers for Peace (and quiet) will there – at tonight’s hearing that is. And you won’t have any trouble figuring out where we stand on this issue. It should be fun. Join us if you can.

Below are some great links to resources from groups who aren’t afraid to speak up and act out:

Leave it Wild
Bluewater Network
New Rules Project

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under activism, blog, food & forest

Living & Working

May 5, 2009 | 4 Comments

And around and around we go. Two-acres worth this morning. The horses and I, that is. Me, Buddy & Jerry, to be precise – the Belgians from Cedar Circle Farm. After a longer break than I had wanted in their conditioning program (hint: rain), I pushed them this morning to harrow two solid acres in about an hour. We probably could have done it in under an hour but the boss-man, Will Allen, interrupted our toil with a double-shot of espresso over a frighteningly-dark base of French roast and a hint of steamed milk. Ah, the perks of a fine place to work. Gitty-up boys.

Speaking of horses, I took the family to the Green Mountain Draft Horse Association’s annual auction last Saturday. It’s not a safe place to be if you like drafts, the tack needed to work them, and being around all the equipment you could dream of using with them. Not safe, as in: Not safe for your checkbook. Here’s my secret: Arrive with next-to-nothing in your checkbook and then “go wild” by making your only purchase be a $50 purchase. Mission accomplished: New water trough acquired.

The crowd was quite a bit bigger than in previous years. My guess is that it’s another sign of the growing interest in all-things-local. The push to simplify and local-fy our lives during a time of one global “catastrophe” after another (read: markets, banks, weather, flu, etc.) – real or imagined – is heartening.

The quality of life in the “slow” lane is priceless. It affords you a greater opportunity to see what it is you’re doing, passing and experiencing. Whether it’s slowing down to read a book or to harrow a field with a couple of horses, it’s what we seem to need most in times like this. In contrast, the mass-mediated lives are hot-wired for absorbing the next trauma or drama and dutifully passing it on: Did you hear? Did you see?

It reminds me of a man I knew in the Northeast Kingdom. He was known as one of the finest craftspeople in the field in which he endeavored. There was no shortage in the near-frantic demands for his time and attention. But each year he would decide exactly what he’d need to survive the coming year economically – minimally. And then he’d set out to work for nearly-exactly that amount before calling it quits and getting on with what he really wanted to do: tend to his garden, raise and work his animals and sit in the woods to contemplate it all.

He existed simply. He worked minimally. But he lived large.

I thought about him today as the intense focus of working the horses pushed me into the zone of being there, and now. The horses walked on, leaning into the weight on their collars and pulling me and the heavy harrows down near-perfect rows. Splendid, I thought: I’m living and working.

No complaints here, my friends.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog, food & forest

It’s Sugaring Time…

March 17, 2009 | 10 Comments

Now for something that really matters…sugaring, family, friends and the great outdoors (and not necessarily in that order).

Below are some photos of our sugaring adventures with my fellow “de minimis” activist, Boots. The first one is of me and my daughter at separate trees searching for the sugaring hole. The second one is of the entire motley crew hanging buckets (my wife’s on the left). And the third one features Bart the horse in all his sap-sled-pulling glory (along with Boots and Leslie).

It’s days like these that make everything worthwhile.

Oh, and by the way (and especially to avoid tonight’s wrathful phone call), all the photos were taken by Chris Esten, Boots’ partner for oh-so-many years. Poor woman.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog, food & forest

Victory! Cabot to Ban Bovine Growth Hormone!

January 28, 2009 | 17 Comments

Yes, the news is true. And, yes, my tongue is firmly in my cheek.

For those who don’t know and/or forgot (like I almost did), Food & Water – under the direction of yours truly – launched a campaign against Vermont’s own Cabot Creamery in 1995 when we learned that they were about to allow their farmers to use the Monsanto corporations synthetic bovine growth hormone (rBGH), Posilac. And, last week, Cabot announced that it was, indeed, going to be “listening to its customers” and banning the use of the cow drug by August of this year. Like I said: Victory! Yeah right.

There was one grammatical error in Cabot’s announcement however: They said they were listening to their “customers.” But what they should have said was “customer.” Because Cabot’s nearly-fifteen years of flinging their noses at their real customers who were demanding an end to its rBGH use was really stopped by one, single “customer”: Wal-Mart. Yep, it was the mega-retailer who let Cabot know that they were looking for hormone-free dairy products. And when Wal-Mart said, “jump,” Cabot said, “how high?” – especially when, according to dairy industry insiders, Wal-Mart is now responsible for nearly 25% of Cabot’s sales.

But, for the sheer fun of it, let’s step back and look at how Food & Water secured this “victory.” In the spring of 1995 as Food & Water was preparing to unveil a similar anti-rBGH campaign against Land 0’Lakes, an employee of Cabot Creamery approached me with the news that he had obtained an internal memo from Cabot’s headquarters that he was certain I would be interested in. The Cabot employee was right: The memo acknowledged that Cabot farmers were not only being allowed to use rBGH but that its use was well underway. And this was a time when Cabot was publicly declaring a “wait and see” attitude about Monsanto’s cow drug.

After confirming the authenticity of the memo and a few phone calls with Cabot’s executives, a campaign was born. As we said at the time, we weren’t about to go after the Minnesota-based Land O’Lakes for its use of rBGH and then ignore the same consumer and animal welfare transgressions by our neighbors, Cabot Creamery (at the time, Food & Water was headquartered in Walden, Vermont, a mere five miles up the road from Cabot).

The campaign generated enormous attention both here in Vermont and throughout the United States. While most anti-rBGH activists at the time were focused on lobbying the Food & Drug Administration or Congress, Food & Water saw the writing on the wall and, instead, directed our campaigns at the corporations seeking to use the product. I wrote an article at the time, in fact, that described the legislators and regulators as the mere “puppets” in the battle, while the Monsantos and the food corporations like Cabot were the “puppeteers.” And so we aimed directly at the folks holding the strings.

It got mighty heated, too. While our campaign generated thousands of letters, postcards and phone calls to Cabot’s offices demanding that they reverse their decision based on human health and animal welfare considerations, Cabot dug in their heels and called in their favors from Vermont’s political, media and economic elite to help them fight off the big, bad Food & Water.

The facts regarding rBGH’s link to cancer and its known contribution to animal disease and even death were mostly discarded by the rescue squad called in by Cabot to fend us off. Governor Howard Dean held a press conference to condemn us. Newspapers editorialized about our “tactics” being suspect (boycotts?). And even our peers in the consumer and environmental movement (yes, VPIRG and Rural Vermont) came to Cabot’s defense, urging us to take our campaign someplace else. Chickens. But, then again, they’re still operating at full-strength…

After hearing about Cabot’s fifteen-year change of rBGH policy, I wandered out to my barn to peruse my old Food & Water archives (stored in a horse stall, where the horses have dutifully defecated on them and found a real use for them: scratching posts). Oh boy, let the memories flow.

Here are some of my favorite moments while walking down the Cabot campaign memory lane this morning:

• After Food & Water unveiled a radio commercial targeting Cabot’s use of rBGH, Governor Howard Dean held a press conference condemning Food & Water, calling us a “terrorist group” and, while holding up a package of Cabot’s cheese, urged all Vermonters “to go home and eat two Cabot grilled cheese sandwiches.”

• Another “liberal” politician, Elizabeth Ready, a state senator at the time but later the state’s auditor, had this to say to Food & Water via the media: “Either pack your bags and hit the road or change your tactics.” And, remember, this was when we were simply asking people to “call Cabot” and ask them to stop using rBGH.

• Cabot’s spokesperson at the time, Roberta McDonald, was good for more than a few whacky comments about Food & Water, too. Following the Dean “terrorist” analogy, McDonald compared Food & Water to the Unabomber before declaring that, “locking up the leaders of Food & Water would be a better way to protect the people.” Yikes. I guess we were getting on her nerves, huh?

Funny, though, that we don’t hear the same kind of language now about Wal-Mart. I mean, they simply asked for the same thing Food & Water asked for fifteen years ago: Stop using rBGH. Oh well, I guess it’s all a matter of how you ask….

I’ll be sharing some more stories about the early years of Food & Water now that I’ve jumped down the rabbit hole of opening the old files and bringing the memories bubbling up from yesteryear. They were good times. We were fighting the good fight. We were just a decade and a half ahead of the curve of change.

Go figure.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under activism, blog, food & forest, vt media

Paybacks are a Bitch

December 18, 2008 | 6 Comments

As most of you know by now, I’ve got a little work-exchange program going with my friend, Boots. In fact, I think we’re in our fifth year of trading time during the winter months.

I agreed to call it a work exchange only because I’m a good friend. But it’s really more like a social service from my end. Because, truth be told, Boots is required to leave the home at least once a week so his partner, Chris, can attempt to find some sanity (read: Boots-free time) in order to focus on her artwork.

I like to think of it as my own little United Way project.

But today was a payback day for me: It was my turn to venture to Boots’ compound in the middle of friggin’ nowhere to offer my labor. It started just fine as we hooked his big Percheron, Bart, to his homemade snowplow for the first time. I had the easy job: Hooking the chain to the goliath of a v-shaped snowplow and then getting the hell out of the way. Boots, on the other hand, had to hang onto the horse and skip across the ice and snow while the adrenaline from all involved skyrocketed from the scraping sound of the plow on the icy undersurface.

But it worked. And with little more than a horse, a wooden v-plow and two batshit crazy horsemen, the driveway was cleared of snow. Piece of cake. And carbon free!

I glanced at my watch and realized after the snowplowing adventure that a mere 30 minutes had elapsed. Oh my, what will we do next?

Well, first we watched the dogs play (my dog is the lab):

And then, after lunch, Chris – a professional photographer – asked me to pose in order to document my very impressive display of facial hair:

Finally, Boots asked me to help carry the laundry inside so it could be hung to dry. It was truly a Brokeback Mountain laundry moment:

Oh boy, it was a busy, busy day. And almost as effective as voting for Ralph Nader.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog, food & forest, war & peace

A Little Something About Vilsack

December 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment

My old friend from my food/agriculture activism days, Ronnie Cummins, put out a little warning about former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack a few days ago, knowing that Obama was seriously considering appointing Vilsack as the head the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Cummins’ sources were correct, Vilsack was appointed to become the head of he USDA yesterday.
It’s a terrible choice. Reprinted below is the warning memo that Cummins circulated in an effort to warn us – and Obama — about Vilsack. While it obviously didn’t work, we’ve all now been warned.

Ah, feel the change….

Six Reasons Why Obama Appointing Monsanto’s Buddy, Former Iowa Governor Vilsack, for USDA Head Would be a Terrible Idea

* Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack’s support of genetically engineered pharmaceutical crops, especially pharmaceutical corn:
http://www.gene.ch/genet/2002/Oct/msg00057.html
http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/drugsincorn102302.cfm

* The biggest biotechnology industry group, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, named Vilsack Governor of the Year. He was also the founder and former chair of the Governor’s Biotechnology Partnership.
http://www.bio.org/news/pressreleases/newsitem.asp?id=200…

* When Vilsack created the Iowa Values Fund, his first poster child of economic development potential was Trans Ova and their pursuit of cloning dairy cows.

* Vilsack was the origin of the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, which many people here in Iowa fought because it took away local government’s possibility of ever having a regulation on seeds- where GE would be grown, having GE-free buffers, banning pharma corn locally, etc. Representative Sandy Greiner, the Republican sponsor of the bill, bragged on the House Floor that Vilsack put her up to it right after his state of the state address.

* Vilsack has a glowing reputation as being a schill for agribusiness biotech giants like Monsanto. Sustainable ag advocated across the country were spreading the word of Vilsack’s history as he was attempting to appeal to voters in his presidential bid. An activist from the west coast even made this youtube animation about Vilsack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmoc4Qgcm4s
The airplane in this animation is a referral to the controversy that Vilsack often traveled in Monsanto’s jet.

*Vilsack is an ardent support of corn and soy based biofuels, which use as much or more fossil energy to produce them as they generate, while driving up world food prices and literally starving the poor.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog, food & forest

Not Dead Yet

December 5, 2008 | 1 Comment

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ve been checking and I’ve been checking out. From blogging, that is. Because, when push comes to shove, a man’s gotta make a few bucks before the entire economy implodes from its own hubris. Or, even better, a man’s gotta hone a few skills that will most certainly come in handy when the economy implodes from its own hubris. In case you’re missing the important points above, let me repeat: When the economy implodes from its own hubris.

Yep, I’ve been pulling logs with the trusty fellows, Boots and Big Jim. Boots is the man. Big Jim is the horse. And I play the intermediary between the two. You see, the logging days usually go like this: Boots wields his mighty chainsaw, drops trees, limbs them, and then cuts them into – usually – 16-foot logs that Jim and I pull from the woods to the landing. And back and forth and back and forth and back and forth we go. All. Day. Long.

I’ve really got no complaints. It’s fine and honest work. And, better yet, it keeps my mind off the ninniness of being in today’s rather numbing world of false idols, ill-begotten notions (is that Jesus I hear coming?), and the near-complete lack of a coherent or inspiring response to the outrageous pillaging of our future.

Oh America, go back to sleep. We’ll wake you when we need you to fight another war.

But, speaking of politics (insert laugh track here), the ninnies are ruling the day. When they’re not greasing up their Obama dildos, they’re wagging their fingers of discontent at anyone and everyone who happens to find it objectionable that the so-called “anti-war” candidate has decided to keep the big, bad Bush’s Secretary of War in his cabinet. Oh ironies, is there no end to your delicious presence?

Don’t blame me. I voted for Nader. Imagine the craziness of lining up the issues with your political beliefs and then voting accordingly. But, then again, I’m the one following a horse around in the woods for a “living.” Ass, meet face. And then get back to work.

Speaking of ass-faces and politics, how about all the hand wringing in Vermont about trying to iron out the differences between the Vermont Democratic Party and the Progressive Party? The question of the week amongst the people who can’t seem to cleanse themselves of the sheer nothingness of mainstream electoral politics is this: “Why can’t they just get along?” To which, I say, quite simply: “Why?”

Silly me, I keep thinking that politics in a democracy is about articulating differences and then letting the voters decide. But that’s apparently soooo 1780s. You know, back when they used horses to get around. Oops, there I go again on the horse fixation.

But, seriously, while these electoral control freaks are at it, why don’t they just go all the way and begin a discussion of merging any and all political parties in Vermont so that we can just do away with the fucking elections all together. Viola! Democracy “messiness” solved.

The reality in Vermont is that we already pretty much do that anyway. Because our electoral elite (the elected few and the even fewer who bow to their feet while pretending to be a part of the “media”) just keep getting elected and re-elected until (or even before in the case of Jim Jeffords) they start to lose their minds from the boredom of the game.

Yep, we’ll just streamline the whole mess and call it Vermont’s Party of Incumbents. And, oh my, look how “tri-partisan” it already is: Douglas the Republican, Leahy and Welch the Dems, and Sanders the Independent. Cue the blissful music…

Now, please, will the rest of you issue-oriented pricks please stop muddying the electoral waters? Or, if you continue, we’ll have Seven Days and Green Mountain Daily continue to plunder you into somnambulism over their apparent obsessions with anything and everything to do with…hmm…themselves. Can’t they just get a blog? Oh wait, nevermind.

Paging Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine, come in. Oh please, can someone please find Thomas Paine and bring him to the Democracy Courtesy Desk IMMEDIATELY.

Whew. I did it. I gave you words. And now you’re all saying the same things to yourselves: I kept checking back for this shit?

Yes, you did.

And now I’ve got to get back to work. I brought my new loaner horse home yesterday, a fine looking Percheron named Lance (I’m pretending he’s named after Lance Armstrong but, given the fact that he came from Amish country, I doubt it). If all goes well, he’ll be teamed up with Big Jim for this winter’s installment of “Sleigh Rides with Mike.” Make your appointments soon.

Welcome back. Now stop your bitching.

[Disclaimer: Any and all snarkiness found within the previous (and following) meandering words are the result of "Jack the Carpenter" and his gift of music that accompanied this computer moment. The Stranglers, to be precise. Thanks, Jack.]

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog, food & forest, war & peace

Food Irradiation: Here We Go Again

August 22, 2008 | 6 Comments

Oh my. I was trying to mind my own business. Really. In fact, I was simply camping out with my daughter last night when I turned on my ever-present radio – much to her chagrin – and heard the news report: “The FDA will soon be allowing the irradiation of spinach and iceberg lettuce in order to combat E.coli….”

For those who don’t know, I was public enemy number one to the nuclear irradiation industry for more than a decade until I decided I needed to try and get a life. And while the jury is still out on the “getting a life” thing, I did manage to step away from the issue at a time when I thought we had thoroughly and completely kicked some butt. Besides, I was burnt out and I had this notion that in order to truly defeat the nonsense of irradiation, pesticides and genetically modified foods we – as a culture – needed to re-localize and re-ground our connection to the our food supply so as to make these corporate-driven gimmicks seem as silly and toxic as they are. And, if you’re gonna preach it, you better start practicing it, too. (Hmm, I guess that local food thing caught on, huh? But that’s another story…).

So when I finally got a moment or two to sit at my desk this afternoon and contemplate a few words about irradiation I quickly realized all of my old irradiation documents were no longer available to me in electronic form. All my irradiation records and archives – remember, this is pre-2000, my friends – are literally stored in eight four-drawer files cabinets in my horse barn. And I’m tickled to report that the cabinets are routinely used by my horses who find them irresistable to rub against so as to scratch that itch. Perfect.

Thus, I did what every modern fool does: I Googled my work. And up came loads of documents, including the cover article below that originally appeared in the Boston Phoenix. It’s author, Dan Kennedy, is trying way too hard in my opinion to be cute about it all but, by the end, I think he manages to capture the food irradiation battle of my past. Besides, he used the title “Meat Puppets,” one of my all-time favorite bands. Can’t beat that.

I’m reprinting it below for your reading pleasure. I imagine it will only be the first of what I’m imagining will be many updates on the new push for food irradiation.

A good life is full of many chapters. Here’s one from my past. And I’ve got no regrets. None.

Oh, and one more thing: This one’s for you, Wally.

Meat Puppets

Government regulators, the food industry, and most scientists agree that food irradiation is safe and effective. Michael Colby doesn’t care: he wants it stopped. Is he a hero or a menace?

By Dan Kennedy

FEBRUARY 16, 1998: The first thing you should understand about Michael Colby and his crusade against food irradiation is this: almost no one with any scientific credentials thinks he knows what he’s talking about.

Irradiating food by zapping it with gamma rays, according to its advocates, eliminates all or most of the bacteria that can make people sick. But Colby, irradiation’s most outspoken and arguably most effective opponent, charges that the process introduces cancer-causing toxins and strips food of its nutrients. It’s a stance that the overwhelming majority of scientists insist is both unscientific and wrong. And with something like 9000 Americans dying of food-borne illnesses every year, critics believe that Colby and the organization he heads, Food & Water, are dangerously irresponsible.

“They are seeking to deny choice in the marketplace,” says Christine Bruhn, director of the Center for Consumer Research, at the University of California’s Davis campus. “If any organization wishes to take credit for denying this choice, I think they should also bear the burden for the deaths of people who did not have that choice. I know that’s a strong statement, but I believe that very deeply.”

The second thing you should understand about Colby is that he does have his supporters in the scientific community — lonely dissidents who insist that, in the drive to put irradiated food onto American tables, important questions have gone unanswered. Questions about whether irradiation creates substances known as free radicals that are qualitatively and quantitatively different from the free radicals produced by normal cooking, freeze-drying, and other processing methods. About whether those free radicals can cause chromosomal damage that may be a precursor to cancer. About whether irradiation can change unsaturated fat — so-called good fat — into saturated fat, which can contribute to high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes.

At this point, virtually nothing other than Michael Colby — and his in-your-face advertisements and letter-writing campaigns and pickets and threats of boycotts — stands between irradiation and its widespread adoption by the nation’s agribusinesses and food processors. He deserves an enormous amount of credit, his supporters say, even if he’d rather exaggerate and propagandize than work within the system. The goal, after all, is to win, not score debating points.

“What you want to know is, Is Michael Colby a responsible guy? Very,” says Donald Louria, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at New Jersey Medical School, in Newark, and a member of Food & Water’s advisory board. “I think Michael Colby is doing the public a hell of a service, and I don’t care if he goes what I think is a bit too far. I think we owe him a big debt.”

The third thing you should understand is that Colby’s anti-irradiation campaign isn’t so much about science as it is about philosophy, even theology. Colby and his staff of seven are based in tiny Walden, Vermont; he lives with his wife and recently adopted baby daughter at an organic farm down the road. The location is apt. Like Henry David Thoreau in Walden, Colby — a thin, intense 34-year-old in jeans and work boots, with a shock of unruly brown hair and an air of jittery nervous energy — seeks nothing less than a thoroughgoing transformation of society.

As an activist organization, Food & Water needs clearly defined targets. So it has fought the use of recombinant bovine-growth hormone (rBGH), a genetically engineered substance that increases milk yield but that has been linked to possible health problems in both cows and humans. It has also fought the overuse of pesticides. But Colby has a larger agenda: he believes that urban communities must re-establish ties with rural America, that the geographic and psychological distance that separates people from the food they eat must be shrunk. No more McDonald’s, in other words. No more Lean Cuisine.

And like Thoreau, Colby has more than a touch of arrogance and self-righteousness. Not to mention contempt for his critics — both his avowed enemies in the pro-irradiation majority, and fellow activists who are less willing than he to fight the power. The high-profile Center for Science in the Public Interest, for instance, has announced it may withdraw its opposition to irradiation in exchange for a comprehensive cleanup program in slaughterhouses and processing centers. “When it comes to challenging controversial technologies, they’re not going to go head-to-head with corporate America,” says Colby. “They feel much more comfortable going after popcorn in movie theaters or Chinese takeout.” And consumer advocate Carol Tucker Foreman, despite having reservations about irradiation, isn’t even in the fight. In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, she ultimately came out in favor of the procedure: “Irradiation will help, but it’s no cure-all.”

Colby sneeringly dismisses the agenda of these mainstream activists as an ineffective combination of lobbying, legislating, and lunch. Michael Colby doesn’t do lunch. And that, he says, is why the food industry regards him as its most dangerous enemy.

“They hate Food & Water,” he says. “They hate us. I’m not going to lunch with them. I’m not having a conference call with them. That’s the difference.”

Indeed, irradiation advocate Michael Doyle, a microbiologist who heads the department of food science and technology at the University of Georgia, says Colby’s grassroots activism has made him the single biggest obstacle to a measure that could result in a safer food supply. Colby likes to posit himself as David doing battle with an uncaring corporate Goliath. But as Doyle points out, Goliath hasn’t shown much interest in fighting. After all, if you’re the head of a meat-packing plant considering irradiation, and your opponent claims that you want to poison kids, what are you going to do? Try to force irradiated products down your customers’ throats? Or sign Food & Water’s pledge sheet promising not to use irradiation? It’s not a difficult decision.

“There have been major companies that have indicated an interest in using food irradiation, and Food & Water would respond with threats, ads in the newspaper. And companies would typically back down and say, ‘Okay, we’re not interested,’ ” says Doyle. “It’s been effective. Food & Water has been the principal group that has stopped the use of food irradiation.”

An MIT professor named Samuel Prescott discovered at the turn of the century that exposing food to gamma rays destroyed dangerous bacteria. But not until the 1960s, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its use for wheat and wheat flour, did the notion of widespread food irradiation get serious consideration. Since then, there have been several wavelets of interest and hundreds of studies, most of which indicate that it’s safe and effective. Irradiation has also been endorsed by groups ranging from the World Health Organization to the American Medical Association, and has been approved in 40 countries. But the practice has never really caught on, mainly because of industry fears that the public won’t buy food that it associates with nuclear radiation — even though, as Colby himself concedes, irradiation does not leave food radioactive in any way.

In 1986 the FDA approved the use of irradiation for spices, fruits, and vegetables. In 1990, responding to an outbreak of salmonella in chicken, the agency added poultry to the list. To date, though, the poultry industry has treated irradiation like it’s — well, radioactive. Today, some spices are irradiated, as are baby-bottle nipples, those little plastic containers that hold cream, and many medical supplies. Because irradiation is so effective at eliminating all or most bacteria from food, hospitals sometimes serve irradiated food to AIDS patients and to others with compromised immune systems, such as people recovering from bone-marrow transplants. Until last year, though, it seemed unlikely that irradiation would spread beyond these limited uses anytime soon.

Then came the Burger King scare, which forced Hudson Foods to recall 25 million pounds of bacteria-tainted beef. The panic gathered force with horror stories of illness and death caused by the spread of E. coli bacteria — especially E. coli O157:H7, a new and potentially deadly strain that’s popped up in everything from apple juice to organic salad. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between six million and thirty-three million people in the US become sick from the food they eat every year. All of a sudden, food-safety horror stories were popping up everywhere from the TV magazine shows to the front page of the New York Times.

The crucial boost in this latest round of pro-irradiation interest came last year from Bill Clinton’s $43 million National Food Safety Initiative. Clinton endorsed irradiation, and the FDA responded in December by approving the process for red meat. Donald Thayer, a US Department of Agriculture scientist who is one of the government’s principal experts on the subject, told the Times that the FDA’s decision “would save lots of lives.” Irradiated beef could appear on store shelves by this summer — and if it catches on, some observers say, it could provide the impetus to bring irradiated poultry and other foods to market as well. And though proponents push the notion of “choice,” Colby believes the appearance of irradiated products on supermarket shelves is simply the first step toward the elimination of non-irradiated products.

To encourage consumer acceptance, the food industry is lobbying for a change in labeling requirements that would emphasize irradiation’s safety and play down the nuclear angle. The industry doesn’t like the word irradiation and is trying to promote the term cold pasteurization instead. (Taste problems must be solved as well; to date, the verdict on irradiated beef is mixed, with some saying it makes the meat more tender, and some saying it gives it an unappetizing color and texture.)

As irradiated food has moved closer to market, the opposition has focused its efforts. Perhaps the most prominent of irradiation’s opponents is Colby’s nemesis Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in Public Interest, who rejects Colby’s argument that irradiation renders food unsafe. The real problem, as Jacobson sees it, is that irradiation is being viewed by the meat industry as a quick and easy fix for long-term, systemic problems.

“We don’t like the idea of having dirty food on which bacteria have been killed,” Jacobson says. “We feel that food should be safe and clean. It would be very tempting for the food industry to have very sloppy practices, and then to cover that up with a blast of radiation at the end of the line.”

Unlike Colby, Jacobson would consider supporting irradiation “as a last resort” if it could be shown that government-mandated cleanup efforts would not be enough to eliminate bacterial hazards from the food supply. Colby charges that this is exactly the sort of “yellow light” industry has been seeking from the consumer movement. Jacobson, for his part, faults Food & Water for putting out information about irradiation that doesn’t square with the scientific facts.

“I’ve never seen Michael Colby show a risk assessment, that this is really a significant risk,” Jacobson says. “Eating contaminated poultry is not a speculative risk. It is a known risk. There is a real problem.”

Colby’s critics — Jacobson among them — charge that his opposition is unscientific, but that’s unfair. Though Colby himself has no scientific background, several highly credentialed researchers agree with him.

The scientific argument against irradiation is this: irradiating food destroys bacteria by breaking apart their molecular structure. These molecular bits and pieces, known as “free radicals” (or “radiolytic byproducts”), form new substances, including known carcinogens such as benzene and formaldehyde. Irradiation also drastically reduces the vitamin content of some foods.

Irradiation’s proponents actually concede both of these points. Yet they say the free radicals produced by irradiation are identical to the free radicals created by food-processing methods such as cooking or freeze-drying. (Colby responds that since irradiation is not a substitute for these processes, the final result — food that has been irradiated and cooked — contains more free radicals than it would have otherwise.) In cases where vitamin depletion is serious enough to pose a problem, proponents add, the food can be supplemented with vitamins after being irradiated — as is done now when traditional processing methods reduce vitamin levels.

Not all of the arguments against irradiation are based on science, strictly speaking. Some are speculative, such as Colby’s worry that irradiation could eventually create radiation-resistant bacteria. Some are common-sensical: a number of critics charge that irradiation facilities pose dangers to workers and to the environment.

A layperson has no hope of sorting out the truth. Proponents say that hundreds of studies show irradiation is safe and effective. Opponents charge that the FDA, for reasons that are unclear, found flaws in studies that revealed problems, and has instead focused on a handful of studies that produced the results it wanted.

New Jersey Medical School’s Donald Louria, for instance, says a study conducted in India showed poor children who ate irradiated wheat suffered from chromosome damage, which can lead to cancer. Louria is similarly concerned about irradiation’s tendency to strip vitamins from food. “I’m a current opponent until the proponents agree to do the proper tests, and so far they won’t do them,” says Louria, proposing a simple test on human volunteers that would take a matter of months. “I think the FDA is off-base on this, and they’ve never gone back to review it,” he adds.

George Tritsch, a cancer-research specialist for the New York State Department of Public Health, has testified before a congressional committee that there is “abundant and convincing evidence in the refereed scientific literature” that irradiated food produces cancer- and mutation-causing agents, and can induce dangerously high blood pressure by transforming benign fat into a more dangerous form.

Such arguments elicit exasperated sighs from irradiation’s proponents, who say the process has been shown to be safe in study after study, and that the evidence cited by Louria and Tritsch has been refuted by other, more valid studies.

“Free radicals are always present in a food,” says the University of California’s Christine Bruhn. “The mere presence of a free radical has no significance.”

In the end, though, Bruhn concedes the impossibility of converting irradiation’s foes. “They are correct in that you cannot prove irradiated foods are safe,” she says. “But in reality, you cannot prove anything is safe. You can only prove absence of harm.”

Michael Colby wages his war against irradiation from a converted one-room schoolhouse in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, a spectacularly beautiful place where affluence is juxtaposed with rural poverty of the meanest sort. His small staff ranges from an earnest-looking, L.L. Beanish young woman to a man with a flowing beard and formidable facial piercings.

Food & Water does not go in for subtlety. On the walls are examples of some of the ads Food & Water has taken out in trade journals and local newspapers: THERE’S ONLY ONE THING WORSE THAN SPAM . . . IRRADIATED SPAM, part of a successful campaign aimed at Hormel Foods. THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY HAS A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF IRRADIATED WASTE. YOU’RE GOING TO EAT IT. And a mock newspaper headline that reads NUCLEAR ACCIDENT AT MEAT PROCESSING PLANT, below which appears: AND YOU THOUGHT E. COLI WAS BAD.

Colby grew up in Ottumwa, Iowa, and spent his summers working on his grandfather’s farm. (Ironically, his father is an office manager for Hormel.) He attended the University of Iowa, but moved to New York City before he graduated in order to play drums with his band, Drunken Boat, named after a Rimbaud poem. He worked for Ralph Nader’s New York Public Interest Research Group. But his career as an activist really began in the late ’80s, when he met Wally Burnstein, an osteopath from New Jersey who founded Food & Water. Colby went to work in Burnstein’s basement, and eventually became executive director of the organization, as well as the husband of Burnstein’s niece Stacey Burnstein. Colby describes Burnstein as a profound influence; he’s written that Burnstein’s death, in 1996, was “the darkest day of my life.”

Colby moved to Vermont seven years ago, in part because his wife wanted to attend graduate school at the University of Vermont, and in part because he wanted to return to the country. Not that he’s been a particularly easy neighbor to get along with. He’s battled with the iconic Ben & Jerry’s over its use of milk from dairies that use pesticides. He’s fought with the giant Cabot dairy, one of the state’s major employers, as part of Food & Water’s ongoing campaign against the use of rBGH. That latter effort earned him the enmity of Bernie Sanders, the state’s popular socialist congressman. (A member of Sanders’s staff said he would not comment on his relationship with Colby.)

Food & Water, Colby claims, has grown into an organization of some 3500 dues-paying members, with a database of more than 100,000 supporters and potential supporters and a budget in excess of $600,000.

All that is prologue to the current battle over irradiation, which looms as the biggest test Colby has yet faced. In 1991, he got an early taste of what’s to come when ABC’s John Stossel, corporate America’s favorite TV journalist, attacked Food & Water’s scientific arguments as “outdated” and “discredited.” Stossel also hammered Burnstein’s credentials (”He’s not a research doctor but an osteopath!”), yet failed to put on camera allies such as Donald Louria and George Tritsch.

After the FDA approved irradiation for red meat last December, major newspapers such as the New York Times and the Boston Globe (beneath the headline GOODNESS FROM GAMMA RAYS) weighed in with ringing endorsements. The media in general, taking their cue from lengthy stories in the Times and the Washington Post, have depicted Colby’s objections to irradiation as unscientific. Amy Poe, who’s studying coverage of food irradiation for the left-leaning media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, says virtually all of the press has followed the Times’ lead. “There’s this mentality that believes the truth has to be in the middle, and if you’re taking some extreme position, then you have to be wrong somehow,” Poe says.

Be assured that Michael Colby takes an extreme position. And it can sometimes get a little exasperating. Ask him about his own diet, and he talks about the vegetables and turkeys and chickens his wife raises, and about bartering with neighbors for pigs. “We consume primarily what we grow and raise,” he says. Ask him how his vague but rather expensive-sounding vision of a culture reconnected with the land would appeal to, say, an urban working-class family trying to stretch its food budget, and he replies that he’s sure it wouldn’t hurt people economically, that what they’re eating now is making them sick, and that in any case there are other activists working on urban issues. But the inescapable conclusion is that he believes, as the chronicler of the earlier Walden did: “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts, of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” Appealing as that philosophy may be, it is shared by few of Colby’s fellow human beings.

“Somehow we’ve got to block the lurch toward globalization. It does not work for the food supply,” Colby says. “Urban centers like Boston are going to have to figure out ways to support rural areas around them and develop a symbiotic relationship. There are ways to do that. Cities used to consist of tight-knit communities, with small stores and small businesspeople. There was a real sense of community and cohesion, and a respect for things local. That’s been totally obliterated by Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and the rise of industrialized food. These are the things we have to challenge if we’re going to save ourselves.”

You don’t have to adopt Colby’s philosophy to see its value. In a very real sense, for instance, irradiated meat is the apotheosis of the “industrialized food” addiction he rails against. A CBS News poll taken last year showed that 77 percent of Americans don’t want to eat irradiated food. Their objections may be rooted in ignorance, but Colby’s aren’t. There are unanswered questions about the safety of irradiated food. And even if Colby’s theoretical objections seem like an environmentalist’s self-indulgence when compared to the horror of a child’s dying from an E. coli infection, it’s surely wrong for the regulatory-industrial complex to foist this new technology upon us when the full consequences of that decision are still unknown.

The food industry’s plan is to progress incrementally, by persuading the government to ease off on labeling requirements, by insisting to a skeptical public that irradia — er, cold pasteurization is a boon. Colby’s critics charge he wants to eliminate choice, but in fact he’s just trying to prevent one kind of choicelessness from being replaced by another, possibly scarier, one. Perhaps irradiated and non-irradiated products will coexist at the supermarket — at least for a while. But what happens if McDonald’s switches to irradiated meat? That’s a likely scenario, since the fast-food industry, worried about image and liability, has been especially eager to guarantee its products’ safety. Remove Colby from the equation, and pretty soon you wouldn’t be able to eat a Big Mac that hadn’t been doused in gamma rays.

True, Colby doesn’t want you to eat that Big Mac in the first place. But that’s an argument for another time.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog, food & forest