I just finished reading Food, Inc.: How Industrial Food is Making us Sicker, Fatter and Poorer — And What You Can Do About it, edited by Karl Weber and compiled as a companion piece to the movie, which I also just watched. I actually watched the movie (by Robert Kenner) first, not realizing that was the correct order of things.
I’ve read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, watched King Corn: You Are What You Eat, a documentary by Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, and read quite a bit on food, the food industry in the United States and food safety (or lack of it). Food, Inc., gathers much of the information out there and puts it all in one place.
In any case, if you eat, you might be interested in this book and film. The film was done first. The book contains information from people who weren’t in the film. Schlosser says the film and the book are not just about food. They’re also about threats to the First Amendment and the corrupting influence of centralized power.
Contributors include (listed in order they appear in the book)
Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal from 2001 and the movie in 2006
Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer organization that works to ensure clean water and safe food
Robert Kenner, director of this and other documentaries
Gary Hirshberg, president and CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farm, producer of organic yogurt
Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers; Alexa Delwiche, who worked as a researcher for UFW; and Sheheryar Kaoosji, a research analyst for Change to Win
I think the information provided by this book and film is very important, though not half as fun as reading Barbara Kingsolver’s take on food issues in her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which I’m reading now. In fact, her book was written before Food, Inc., and I wondered, hey, did they read Kingsolver? Because if they didn’t, they should. But sure enough. She was listed in the “to learn more” section at the end of the book.
Obama “praised the organization for its research,” though it’s unclear if she read any of the research or looked beyond a press release. If she had, she would have found layers upon layers of conflict of interest and even direct opposition to her husband’s policies.
Obama also said that “some 22 million working women don’t have one paid sick day.”
Many of the CVWF members would keep it that way through lobbying efforts on their behalf by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with which they are affiliated through local chambers. The Chamber opposes any efforts to expand Family and Medical Leave Act leave or mandate paid sick leave. It opposed a bill that would give employees seven paid sick days a year. It opposed SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) and the Employee Free Choice Act.
Headline: ”Capitol Hill goes gaga over Brad Pitt.” Read the breathless AP copy and you might think the press went a little gaga too. I mean, dig the photos. One mug shot isn’t enough. Here’s an entire montage, showing Pitt looking left, then looking right, then raising his eyebrows … you know, in case you want to rip it out of the pages of Tiger Beat and tape it to your bedroom wall.
What was Pitt doing in Washington, D.C., other than getting Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to congratulate him publicly for being in Washington, D.C.?
Pelosi mentioned Pitt’s work in New Orleans and how he “serves as a model for the rest of the country.” Model … how? What exactly has he done? What does he plan to do? How does it all work? What does this have to do with what’s happening in Washington, D.C., today?
Pelosi didn’t explain any of those things. Neither did anyone else.
A person close to Kennedy denied her “personal reasons” were concerns about the health of her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, who is suffering from a cancerous brain tumor discovered last summer. The person wasn’t authorized to disclose the conversation between Kennedy and the governor and spoke on condition of anonymity.
So, umm, a person close to Becky at Deep Muck Big Rake wonders why the heck this got published. Someone at AP afraid of a little Gawker?
Have you heard about the “miracle on the Hudson” yet? It’s the plane that went down in the Hudson River yesterday. Everyone on board survived.
It’s nice to have good news, right? Sure, but our media seem somewhat uncomfortable with the whole idea.
I heard about the crash on Facebook, and I didn’t see anything about it on television until later.
I watched Larry King interview two doctors who treated people from the flight. One was in the studio. The other stood outside, probably getting dangerously close to this hypothermia he kept talking about. His nose was red, and his words got more slurred each time they went back to him.
Anyway, at some point, someone told King that everyone survived.
“Hunh,” King said, followed by a weird little silence.
This morning, I watched part of the news conference with the mayor and the rescuers. Some of the questions couldn’t quite get the whole “good news” idea.
“How cold was the water and how long would it take for someone to DIE in it?”
“How does this mission compare with others you have been on?” (You know, others where people DIED?)
The news conference was so relaxed that it even made time for a Spanish-speaking rescuer to take a question from a Spanish-speaking reporter … in Spanish … which CNN, of course, immediately started chattering over, recapping the unbelievable story in which nobody DIED.
I’ve seen Campbell Brown on television for years. I watched her (on and off) do election coverage during the campaign, and I saw her “free Sarah Palin” opinion piece.
Then I caught one of her first No Bias. No Bull. shows, where she said she planned to hold President-elect Barack Obama accountable for all the promises he made during the campaign. I thought, yeah, OK, we’ll see. Then I never watched again. Oh, I planned to watch and even programmed the show into my DVR. But I never got around to watching.
Then I caught about three minutes of tonight’s show, where she takes on Gov. Edward G. Rendell, D-Pa., for perpetuating stereotypes about women. He said that Gov. Janet Napolitano, D-Ariz., would be perfect for the job of Secretary of Homeland Security (she’s Obama’s nominee for the job) because she “has no life” and “has no family.”
Hmm. I might have to check out the ones left on my machine.
Fifty members of Congress submitted applications for this inaugural award. Applicants were judged on their voting record, sponsored/co-sponsored legislation, and efforts to promote legislation that supports working families. In addition, applicants were asked to submit policies and practices within their own offices that support working families and flexible workplace options.
Q: What will they get when they win?
A: Winning Members of Congress will be:
• Profiled in the September 2008 issue of Working Mother magazine;
• Honored at a gala dinner in September 2008.
• Highlighted in an advertisement to run on the day of the gala in the Washington Post or Roll Call and their hometown newspaper.
• Profiled in Corporate Voices’ blog on the Working Mother website;
• Profiled in a press release announcing the winners;
• Highlighted on the websites of Corporate Voices’ 65 strategic partner organizations including the Society for Human Resource Management and the Conference Board.
In addition, CVWF staff will work with the Members office to highlight the award in local state media.
Q: How will this award impact a Members career or campaign?
A: Members of Congress awarded the “Best of Congress” Award will be highlighted when they win, and then again every two years as a past-winner.
Members can highlight their achievements that in Congressional updates to constituents, earned, and paid media.
Also in the FAQs: “Members will also be judged on employment practices or policies in their office that are designed to help working families.”
Listen to CEO Carol Evans speak on NPR about employees “in the trenches” of Congress working “extreme jobs” so of course things aren’t terribly flexible with those jobs. (Also on NPR with Evans were Jolene Ivey and Asra Nomani of Mocha Moms.) But, hey, not every job is made for everyone (working mothers in Congress, perhaps?), but members of Congress offer some “fun flexibility” to help their employees. Even so, they all agreed that “we need more women in Congress.” Hmm. How will that work? When Nomani criticized the lack of “family friendly” efforts in this country, Evans said, but women are excited about their jobs! Umm. OK.
Everyone else’s press releases
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio (”hometown coverage“)
Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr., D-Pa
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn.
Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas
Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis. (Here’s his “hometown coverage,” written — with a byline — from a press release generated from his office.)
Sen. Gordon H. Smith, R-Ore.
Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine
Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo.
Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-Conn.
Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa.
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y. (”hometown coverage“)
Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio
Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash.
Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, D-Md.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.
Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz, D-Pa.
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. (announced on his Facebook page)
Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, D-Calif.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif.
Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky.
This headline was on the front page of my newspaper this morning: “‘Clean Enough’ Is New Housekeeping Standard.” My newspaper didn’t archive it online, but it’s a McClatchy article written by Federica Narancio.
In my own little upside-down world, I imagine that instead of this …
Many women who work outside the home, including those with helpful kids and husbands, have come up with a new housekeeping standard, according to sociologists and family relations experts. It’s called “clean enough.”
the first paragraph would read like this …
Many men who work outside the home, including those with helpful kids and wives, have come up with a new housekeeping standard, according to sociologists and family relations experts. It’s called “clean enough.”
And y’all’d be going, “And this is news?”
Right.
*I totall ripped off the headline for this post from a book I just started reading: Rumors of our Progress have been Greatly Exaggerated by Carolyn B. Maloney.
One of the first things I highlighted came after she talked about $54 million damages Morgan Stanley paid in a sex-discrimination case, and she pointed out that the cost might have made the company work especially hard to do away with discrimination. Yet, in 2007, Morgan Stanley settled another sex-discrimination case for $46 million.
Despite these incidents, Morgan Stanley has been cited numerous times by Working mother magazine as one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers. That makes me wonder how bad things are at other companies.
Leslie Bennetts should activate the Photon Accelerator Annihilation Beam on the Continuum Transfunctioner, save the universe and deliver Breast Enhancement Necklaces to the world.
When she writes about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Katie Couric, for whom things — according to Bennetts — have gone wrong, they’re victims. Well-paid, well-heeled victims of the patriarchy that calls for Couric to display her “denuded gams” for her $15 million annual paycheck.
Bennetts says male pundits gleefully deconstruct the “twin debacles” of Clinton and Couric’s “front-page flame-outs,” and she knows exactly who’s at fault.
But there’s plenty of blame to go around, much of which belongs to the male advisors whose catastrophic advice helped steer both women to defeat.
Dude. Because prominent women are, like, totally incapable of making their own decisions.
Bennetts says Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid is a failure.
She will kick your ass. Or, as the Post would have you believe, she will shoot off your face, à la Susan Sarandon’s Louise Sawyer. Yeah, the Post bobble-headed (yeah, that’s a verb … shut up) Clinton and Katie Couric on a Thelma & Louise publicity photo.
But who knows? Maybe Clinton will step down tomorrow, and I’ll eat my words.
Bennetts says Couric is “one of the toughest interviewers in television.”
At CBS, Couric was the $60 million talent, but the suits who run the network were the geniuses who decided that one of the toughest interviewers in television should be reduced to a nauseating female caricature whose main contribution to her new role was girlish fatuousness, despite the excruciatingly obvious fact that the primary job requirement was gravitas.
Dude. Did you see this interview with Clinton — the one where she asked, “Someone told me your nickname in school was Miss Frigidaire. Is that true?” Yeah. Whew! Tough as nails.
Bennetts says Couric was girly and leggy at the behest of the CBS guys writing her paycheck.
Dude. Because she was never, ever girly or leggy before joining CBS.
Bennetts talks about Manolo Blahnik shoes, an essential element of the Victim Uniform of American Female Failure.
Dude. Does a celebrity writer get a pair of Manolo Blahniks in the mail every time she mentions them?
When the ousted Dan Rather complained that his former broadcast had been “dumbed down and tarted up,” he wasn’t wrong, but nobody ever instructed him to insert cutesy comments about his kids between devastating news segments on the Iraq War, let alone to flash his shapely legs and a titillating glimpse of thigh for the cameras. America remains blessedly unfamiliar with the sight of Rather’s hairy pins — one shudders to think what they’d look like in Manolo Blahniks – but Couric’s denuded gams were accorded such prominence that the male honchos masterminding her show seemed to believe that sexy legs in stilettoes were all that viewers cared about.
Dude. Victims. Or … maybe they have better male advisers, eh?
And if blaming the patriarchy doesn’t work, Bennetts pulls out the “who’s the worst victim” card.
Lest anyone forget the proper role of women, there were helpful reminders from morons like the heckler shouting “Iron my shirts!” during a Clinton campaign appearance. No white males have yet been recorded yelling “Shine my shoes!” at an Obama event, but of course racism is offensive, whereas we’re supposed to laugh off even the most virulent sexism.
Dude. Because that’s how to eradicate sexism — by saying it’s worse than the racism a black presidential candidate (and an entire population of Americans) deals with every day. Because, you know, sexism can’t stand as an issue on its own. It has to climb on the back of racism to be seen and heard.
With friends like these, famous women scarcely need enemies. But there are more than enough of both to get the job done. And so the glass ceiling cracks a couple more well-coiffed heads, as effortlessly as if they were eggs.
Dude. With “journalists” like Bennetts, putting “prominent” women like Clinton and Couric in the “victim” sandbox, who needs a reason to get out of bed up in the morning? Quick. Someone get me a cosmopolitan and some pills. It’s women’s own fault. Because, as Bennetts said in her book, American women today have the most choices of women at any time in the history of the world. According to this article? Here are those choices.
1) Be stupid.
2) Be a victim.
So, Dude. Click your ruby-red high heels together and make a choice. If you pick the wrong one? Blame your male adviser.
Posted by Becky @ 6:00 am | 3 Comments 
