Last weekend, I traveled to Santa Fe to attend a workshop (with Kossack TheFatLadySings, who is now officially very high up on my Cool-People-More-Kossacks-Should-Know list) that was led by one of our panelists for this summer, Mark Winne.

I've already written one diary about Mark, reviewing and summarizing his book, Closing the Food Gap, because I want to give everyone information on our panelists ahead of time so you can decide if you'd like to attend the food panel to see them speak, and so you can prepare informed questions if you do.

I think his role in our panel will probably be closer to the topics discussed in his book (which focuses on his 30 years of experience trying to help the food insecure get access to healthy food), but he's a multi-faceted kind of guy and you might also want to know about his work organizing food policy councils and training people around the country to do the same in their cities, counties, and states. That's what the training was about.

Okay, so there's that word. Policy. Sounds dry, right? Stick with me. I promise, no dryness. We'll keep it interesting here, and supplement with pictures of adorable baby pandas to make sure of it.

Whoa, get this! Burger King's been SPYING on student activists. The reason? They don't want to pay workers an extra PENNY per pound of tomatoes. Lame. And not just a little bit sick.

This issue's been floating around for a while. Apparently the migrant workers in Florida pick tomatoes in horrible poverty and the extra penny per pound would make a difference in their well-being. The campaign also involves securing less abusive working conditions for these workers, in addition to the penny raise. (Note: You can sign a petition here).

McDonald's and Taco Bell/Pizza Hut/KFC (Yum! brands) already agreed to the requests of the activists - a student group and a related nonprofit, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Burger King's been holding out - and apparently spying.

McCain is proposing a "gas tax holiday." I see a few flaws with this.

• There are 300,000 jobs at stake, paid for by the money collected with the tax.
• It will encourage MORE oil use and MORE pollution
• It will just give MORE money to the oil companies, who are presumably making a killing by jacking up the prices at the moment.

Meanwhile, I'm to expect a check for $600 that I'm supposed to spend at Wal-Mart on cheap crap from China. Money borrowed from China, spent on crap from China, that I'll have to pay back some day. Or my kids (should I have any) will have to pay back. Some economic stimulus.

Hillary's proposing a less-flawed version of the same. I've got a better idea. Dems, listen up.

Months and months ago, I asked for ideas for a 2008 Netroots Nation food panel and someone responded that we should address hunger. Someone else seconded it. Then Kerry Trueman of Eating Liberally suggested we invite Mark Winne to speak.

That seems like forever ago. Hunger wasn't the topic of quite so many newspaper headlines at the time. Which isn't to say it wasn't in the news. This year hasn't been a good one for anyone economically, and when our pocketbooks get hit, so do many people's tummies.

Since then - as the news about world food shortages grows louder and more desperate - Mark Winne agreed to speak at Netroots Nation and Netroots Nation accepted our food panel proposal! Also, I read Mark Winne's new book, Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty.

Hopefully this diary provides enough info so you'll get an idea of what we'll be talking about at the food panel (although, keep in mind, Mark's one of four absolutely phenomenal panelists so this isn't the only topic). If you find this interesting, I HIGHLY recommend reading his book before NN08!!!

Why? Because Mr. Straight Talk is actually Mr. Double Talk. Just watch, wait, and listen. You'll hear a policy position you agree with on every issue. Just ignore what he's saying out of the other side of his mouth. (This advice actually goes for ALL Americans, conservative OR liberal.)

Need an example? Well, how about this?

Giuliani later defended Mukasey's formulation, suggesting that the liberal media was "misreporting" how waterboarding was done. McCain then laid into the former New York mayor today, saying, "They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture."

But meanwhile, McCain's evil Bush-clone twin was busy voting against the Dem's 2008 anti-torture bill.

I've had enough primaries. My head's fast forwarding to the general. I am proudly wearing my anti-McCain shirt all over San Diego, hoping that some visiting tourist from a swing state will see it and get the point. But in the meantime, while Hillary continues her pointless, vicious nonsense, instead of thinking about how she's killing Obama's chances, I figured I'd introduce you to my four (soon to be three) ultra-liberal kitties.

Raiden hates McCain too

(Off-topic - T-shirts are available here.)

With the Olympics coming up, I've got extra special interest in China. I spent 4 years of college studying Chinese language, history, and culture and although it's sadly fading into the distant past, I look back fondly on those times and on the two months I spent in China 8 years ago. In 2000, the Chinese were already talking about the 2008 Olympics. Chinese students studying English were assigned persuasive essays on what Beijing should host the 2008 Olympics, for example.

Many oppose the Olympics and call for boycotts. I don't quite agree with them but in a way I am not sorry they are doing it. My reason for supporting the Chinese Olympics is because it will make it harder for the Chinese government to isolate the Chinese people from the rest of the world. Are these protests not exactly what I wanted?

Last week, my Dad went to China on business. I spoke with him yesterday. He told me what he saw while he was there. I figured I might as well share it, so that we can understand how the Chinese are seeing the world's reactions to them.

I was already cranky when I stumbled out of my hotel room this morning and glanced at the cover of USA Today. The hotel's fire alarm went off at 4am (then stopped, and then went off again - prompting me to make TWO trips down the six flights of stairs to the lobby). But if that wasn't enough, there was the headline on the front page: Hillary calls Obama "elitist."

In my view, she's looking more desperate every day. She's inferred that McSame is more fit for the Oval Office than Obama, she's continually got a new idea for how to work the math so she wins (seat MI and FL, it's the popular vote, pledged delegates don't necessarily have to vote for who they are pledged to, etc), but this goes beyond that.

Calling a fellow Democrat an elitist erodes the party image as a whole.

Last week I attended a Food Summit put on by California WIC (Women, Infants, and Children - the government nutrition program for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, infants, and kids 5 and under). I had no clue what it would be about when I signed up.

Turns out, the day long "summit" was worthwhile in terms of learning about the WIC program itself, and because it gave me (and therefore all of you as soon as I tell you how) a chance to help shape its future. As I left, I realized that the recent changes in the WIC program are perhaps the only good thing to come out of the Bush administration's entire eight years in office!

WIC is exactly the sort of program you'd imagine that Bush and their buddies would decide to defund, put under a Heckuva-Job Brownie style cronie, or privatize. I can't imagine why they didn't do that. Maybe they forgot. Instead, they slipped up and allowed the program to actually get better. Oops.

(BTW - there is an action item at the bottom of the diary.)

Note: The meeting was very California-centric but the program is national and so is the action item.

I just read a book that turned my understanding of the world on its head. I thought I was a good tree-hugger before. I thought I was an effective proponent of organics too. The truth is, I had NO idea what I was talking about in any sort of concrete way beyond a general idea that it's bad to dump poison on the earth and kill living things.

Then bara told me to read a book called Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web. For a solid week, I had my nose buried in this book and all I could talk about to anyone were bacteria, fungi, and nematodes. The contents of that book expose the DIRTIEST, FILTHIEST scandal of all in our society.

Why dirtiest? Well, for one thing, it's all about dirt. Or - to use a better word - soil. But bad puns aside, we would have a VERY different and MUCH healthier environment if the knowledge in this one little book were widely known. You'd see no dead zone the size of New Jersey in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, and that's just the start...

Senators and Congressmen, if you're lurking, please read this. James Inhofe, I mean you too!

I've had it. Absolutely had it. I've had it with McCain, and I've had it with the Democrats' fighting among themselves. I've had it with Kossacks fighting among ourselves. Last night I went on DailyKos and the Rec List was way too full of diaries either promoting Obama or bashing Hillary. That needs to stop.

While we're busy telling ourselves that Obama totally rocked Texas and Hillary's poll numbers are down, the media's got its tongue stuffed all the way down John McCain's throat. It is going to take a LOT of work to get this media to stop French kissing McSame and start reporting on how unfit the man is to serve in any sort of political office at all, let alone President.

OK, I'm totally having a cow about a few issues. Yes, it's a bad pun in this case... the topic at hand is milk. It's a dairy diary. Go ahead and TR me for obnoxious use of puns if you must :)

In some ways this is the same old stuff I've been blogging about forever (and I hate sounding like a broken record and repeating topics but these darn UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS who are spreading lies to our politicians and newspapers are making me) and then there are also a few new things here.

One new thing in this diary? I interviewed a dairy farmer. Enough of me trying to figure this out on my own based on Wikipedia articles and such. I went straight to the source.

Another new thing going on? In addition to the rBGH issue that - I'll say it again - UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS are lying about, there's a rather pressing issue about "ultrafiltered" milk. That is, milk with all of the nutrients filtered out. They want to call that shit milk and sell it.

There are action steps to take for each topic, so please follow me below the flip.

Holy you-know-what. 10% of Ohio is on food stamps (almost double from 2001), and even more people are eligible for them but not receiving them. 1.1 million Ohioans receive food stamps, and 500,000 more are eligible.

This is BAD. Look at the requirements for food stamp eligibility. Over 14% of Ohioans live with these conditions or WORSE:

Those in households that make up to 130 percent of the federal poverty level – $22,880 for a family of three – and with assets no greater than $2,000, in most cases, are eligible for food stamps.

Would Bush call that uniquely American? I know what John McCain says: "The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should."

I'm on the winning side of an issue! What happened? Am I dreaming? <pinches self> No. Am I becoming a Republican? OK, absolutely not. And yet... an issue I care deeply about, the freedom to label rBGH-free milk, seems to be going my way. How could that be?

I should be upfront about a few things here. First of all, you don't have to wait for the stars and the moon to all line up before progressives win on issues among regular Americans. How many people out there want affordable health care for all Americans? And how many of them want mercury in their tuna fish? On the issues, we win.

But then, why is albacore tuna so full of mercury you can take your temperature with it? The public sides with us - but we do not get the government on our side nearly enough. And that's what's different now. In state after state, it appears that governments (even conservative ones!) are siding with the people! And with me! WOW!

When I lived in Wisconsin, a big issue was Wisconsin's low "tipping fees." A tipping fee is the cost paid to dump a truck full of trash into a landfill. WI's tipping fees were low, which meant we were the lucky recipients of the entire region's trash. It's kind of like the off-shoring of jobs, except domestically, and with garbage.

The issue I'm pissed about now is similar - but this time it's not merely a domestic issue. You know how they call free trade a "race to the bottom" because whichever country has the lowest minimum wage, environmental standards, and labor regulations gets the manufacturing jobs? America loses on that one (thank goodness!) because the Republicans have not (yet) lowered our minimum wage to equal China's.

Well, here's one where we win: loose GMO regulation. Can't do your GMO experiment in your own country? Come to the USA! Pollute our crops' gene pools and kill our ecosystems! Everyone's welcome here!

If you could identify a father of America's organic standards, Harry MacCormack would be it. He's been farming organically since before the term existed. Of course, during his childhood in upstate New York, there was no need for the term. No one used chemicals yet, so there was no alternative to what we now refer to as "organic farming." Back then, they just called it "farming."

Like many consumers of organics, I am interested in how organic my organic food actually is. Can it contain chemical residues? Is it truly good for the environment? Or are the American organic standards merely a sellout to Big Business like so much else in our country is? Few people are better equipped to answer my questions than Harry.

Yesterday I listened to the Rachel Maddow show, and Rachel made a point we should ALL keep in mind: If Clinton and Obama compete on who can hit McCain the most, they can win. If not, in all previous years where the Dems had a divided convention ('68, '72, '80), the Dems lost in November.

You hearing that Hillary? Barack? If you guys spend the next several weeks and months calling one another "weak on national security," you are digging your own political graves.

My personal preference is for Hillary to pack it in and call it a day, but she won't. So if that's how it's gonna be, why not take Rachel's advice and compete on who can hit "Bomb-Bomb" McCain (as Rachel calls him) the hardest.
(The nickname comes from singing 'Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran' to the tune of The Beach Boys "Barbara Ann")

During the WI primary, I heard John Nichols comment about Republicans voting in the Dem primary. He said something like "If the Packers aren't playing, we'll turn on the TV and find another match that's exciting." Turns out Texans are the same way.

McCain's basically got the Republican nomination wrapped up, and I came into the office this morning to hear a Texan conservative proclaim he was voting Obama and caucusing for Obama today. Not in November, he said, but he doesn't like Hillary. Just in case McCain loses overall, he'd rather have Obama win over Hillary.

That's one of the observations I've made here in Dallas. Read on for the other things I've seen...