I’ve been reading Omnivor’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and this book is changing my whole perspective on US agriculture, most especially about the organic industry.  I am a little over half-way through the book and the author so far has done a great job at convincing me that the current agricultural policy in the United States is deplorable, uneconomical and unsustainable. The unsustainable part I could have guess, but when you find out how heavily subsidised the US industrial agriculture system is and that all of that doesn’t even factor in the countless health and environmental problems caused by this system that we end up paying for in one way or another, the whole system is quite uneconomical.

I have just finished reading through the chapters where Pollan visits a small farm in Virginia that practices “management intensive grazing,” a sophisticated grazing rotation system that exploits what grass, cows, chickens, pigs, and rabbits have genetically evolved to do best. The system depends on the farmer’s intimate knowledge of soil science and ecology and ends up being more than sustainable.  The farm is on a lot of 550 acres that when bought in the 1970’s was very degraded.  Over the years of “management intensive grazing” farming practices the condition of the land has greatly improved.  I could go on and on, but there is so much to it (probably why the book is so fat).  Anyone interested in food safety, their health, the environment, etc should definitely read this book.

After I post this I am going to start poking around the internet for a local CSA (community support agriculture) farm that we can purchase our meat from.

I was talking to my 14 year old cousin this weekend and found out that she is not taking English this year. This shocked me. “Don’t you have to take 4 years of English in highschool?” I asked. “No, you only have to take 2 years,” was her response. WHAT?!?!

This freakin’ blew my mind. Seriously? Only 2 years of English. I was in such disbelief that I actually had to look this up on the Tennessee State Education website to confirm it. Sadly, it is true. After reading through various parts of the website, it would seem that the state needed to increase various numbers, like the proportion of students that actually graduate, so there solution was to lower the standards. This is abombidable! No wonder I get freshmen students in college who cannot write a complete sentence, let alone a paragraph. I argued with my cousin about the requirements. She thought it was a good thing. Her reasonign was that she already knew how to speak English, so why take English classes. I argued that in reading the classics you develop critical thinking skills and you broaden the depth of your own knowledge. This argument, of course, held no merit in her eyes.

In reading through the Tennessee Education website, I also found out that you only need 14 units (1 semester of 1 class is a unit) to graduate from high school. You need the 4 English units, 3 units in Math, 3 units in Science, 3 units in Social studies, and 1 unit of Physical Education. Now, when I was in highschool, we took 6 classes a semester: 6 units x 2 semesters a year x 4 years = 48 units. So, I wondered where the other 34 units of time were going. Then I found out that they only take 4 classes a semester: 4 units x 2 semesters a year x 4 years  = 32 units. This still leaves 18 units unaccounted for. That is more units than are needed to graduate. Are those all electives! What is happening here?

All I have to say is that if the standards don’t change by the time my children (yet to be born) go to school, they will NOT be attending public school in Tennessee. Now, we may not be living in TN so it may no be an issue, but if we are, private school here they come. My children will take 4 years of English, 4 years of Math, at least 3 years of Science, a year of US History, a year of World History,  at least 2 years of Foreign Language, and at least 1 year of some sort of Art or Music class. This idea that children get the bare minimum in K-12 and that it is mostly baby sitting and everyone needs to go to college because they do not learn much of anything in K-12 is reprehensible. My children will be held to higher standards if my no one else than my husband and myself. You should be a well educated, well-rounded individual by the time you graduate from highschool. Even if you go into a trade and never attend college, you should be able to read and write intelligibly, talk about the government and politics with some knowledge of how the system works, have a idea of the basic principles of science, and an appreciation for music and the arts. I do not know what has caused our culture to shift away from valuing these types of knowledge, but alas …

Well, there is my rant for the day.

A couple weeks ago I heard Terry Gross interview a UC Berkeley Professor of Journalism, Michael Pollan. He wrote an open letter to the then next President Elect (I guess now the letter is directed to Obama). The letter was published in the New York Times Magazine. I just finished reading it and there is a lot of really good stuff in there. I sincerely hope that Obama and his staff take a look at the letter and consider at least some of the ideas that are put forth as a part of their overall agenda to reduce foriegn oil dependency, engergize the economy and create new green jobs. A lot of the big ideas proposed in Pollan’s letter seem to fall in line with Obama’s agenda, so I have high hopes.

If you have some time, I would recommending reading through the letter, “Farmer in Chief”, though it is rather long. If you don’t have time for that, you can listen to the Terry Gross Fresh Air interview with Michael Pollan which covers almost every topic covered in the letter.

So far I have steered away from making any political commentary on this blog. I don’t see myself as one of those types of bloggers. However, after watching last nights debate, I feel compelled to make a few comments. Prior to the debate there was all this speculation about whether Gov. Palin, after some serious interview blunders, could hold her own against Sen. Biden. During the first half of the debate, I thought she did a good job holding her own, commenting on a lot of the specifics of the McCain/Palin platform on the economy and on energy (though I may not have agreed with them) and the specifics of senatorial voting records. She also did a good job at illuminating the public to what she had been working on in Alaska as governor. However, about half way through the debate, around the time when she said, “It’s so obvious that I’m a Washington outsider…,” she started veering from talking about specifics and started hammering on these vague general talking points. It was very frustrating. There were several times that Gwen Ifill asked a direct question to Gov. Palin who would responding by taking the question in an entirely different direction and end up spending most of her 90 seconds of response talking about how we had a choice on election day between higher taxes from the Democrats or reform, energy independence via more drilling at home, and winning the Iraq War from the Replubicans. Of course, she was still all smiles and small town colloquialisms, but in my mind that it not enough when Sen. Biden is still answering each question directly and describing the details of the Obama/Biden ticket.

So, after the debate (which I watched on PBS in HD … you could practically see the weave of the fabic of their suits) I watched some of the pundit commentary hosted by Jim Leher. I was shocked to find that the pundits where giving Palin such high marks. Sure, she didn’t flop, but to say that she equaled Biden?!?! Out of the seven commentators Leher had, only one pointed out Palin’s avoidence in answering several questions. I switched over the NBC and saw much of the same. Most of the commentary was that Palin did a “great job” because she did not crumble. Really? Is that the measuring stick we hold up for the potential Vice President of the United States?

Anyhow, I know that overall the VP debate probably doesn’t make a huge difference in the race. I doubt it switched anyone’s political orientation who was already decided.

One stupid little side note I have to gripe about … for the first 10 minutes of so of the debate, whenever there was a head shot of Palin you could see her eyelashes flicking against her bangs. I cannot stand it when something, even my own hair, is so close to my eye that my eyelashes touch it. Just watching it, was driving me crazy. I wanted to reach through the screen and brush her bangs to the side and make it stop. After about 10 minutes, either I stopped noticing or she adjusted her bangs when the camera was on Biden. Either way, I am a glad I didn’t see it through the entire debate.