In my June 14, 2019 blog on Presidential Politics + Food & Farm Justice, I quoted journalist John Nichols extensively about how the appointment of a U.S. Secretary of Agriculture was, for Trump, “an afterthought” (see Nichols’s book on all Trump’s cabinet appointments, Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse). In fact Sonny Perdue was the last cabinet appointment that Trump […]
Climate crisis
For most of my adult life, my primary mode of transportation has been a bicycle + detachable cart. If we count Earth Day 1970 as the official start of climate concern, then all 35 years of my life with a bike + cart took place amidst growing consciousness and support for that kind of transportation. […]
This is my latest update on the 2020 U.S. elections for three food & farm listservs — COMFOOD (Tufts U.), Food Policy Networks (Johns Hopkins U.), Regeneration Midwest (a 12-state coalition). These networks are committed to food justice, farm justice, democracy through food policy councils, urban-rural coalitions, thriving local economies, good health for all, as […]
CHOOSING A NEW CITY MANAGER FOR A U.S. CITY IN 2020 I’d like to frame the search for a new City Manager in the crises of the moment. We are living in a time of growing and interlocking crises—the COVID pandemic, climate destruction, and all the inequalities caused by human cruelty, human stupidity, and human […]
If you are asking yourself, what is this blogpost really about and do I really want to read it, the answer is “censorship” and yes, if you care about truth. Specifically, this is about the attempted pre-emptive censorship of a documentary film (Planet of the Humans) by 1. investors whose plans for big bucks from renewable […]
The night before Earth Day 2020, filmmaker Michael Moore made a surprise announcement about the release of a new film. The film is Planet of the Humans, directed by Jeff Gibbs, with Moore as Executive Producer and author/scholar, Ozzie Zehner, as Producer. The U.S. climate movement hasn’t been the same since — a good thing, […]
Author/activist Naomi Klein made an interesting observation recently, during one of her many “stay at home” teach-ins and interviews during this 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Passover having just ended, she likened the last 40 years — 1980-2020 — to the Jews’ 40 years of wandering in the desert. A similar observation is posted on the homepage […]
On Sunday, March 15, 2020, the Governor of the State of Illinois imposed a moratorium on ON-SITE CONSUMPTION of food & drink for all Illinois food businesses—grocery stores, restaurants, cafes, bakeries, bars, etc. The moratorium is currently scheduled to continue through March 30. Of course, the situation around COVID 19 is completely fluid no matter what time […]