The 2008 Farm Bill: Food & Fuel

I'm no policy analyst, but I do eat and I try to give my child as many organic foods as we can afford, starting with organic milk (at $3.19 $3.49 $3.99!! a half gallon). For a lot of moms, organic milk is the "gateway drug", so to speak, that leads to more organic food in the overall family diet.

And I try to keep up with all the movements that have made me more politically aware about food, and eating: slow food, the organic food movement, locavores/eating locally (aka the 100-mile diet). It's our family's way of trying to eat more nutritiously, support local farmers, reward the use of fertilizers and insect control by means other than dangerous pesticides, and reduce the carbon footprint (miles traveled, for one) of the way our food gets produced.

Where individual consumer habits intersect with policy is the government's USDA Farm Bill (final version of the bill posted here, a summary of commentary here).

Dreams of a Mother: Have Something to Eat

What I dream for the world is that we all eat a good meal, three times a day, with two small snacks. By good I mean nutritious and tasty. By all, I mean ALL. Every last person.

Being hungry is a primal worry. If anxiety had a sound, it would be the gurgle of stomach juices rumbling in an empty stomach. Every new mama has "Failure to Thrive" engraved on her heart as Fear About Your Infant #1. When a baby loses weight instead of gaining it. When you can see the ribs on a toddler. When a kid is peckish. Refuses to eat or has problems eating or gaining weight. When your mama looks at you and clucks, "You're looking thin. Are you eating well?", no matter how old you are. Invariably you'll hear or perhaps you've said, "Here, have another helping."

Cindy Sheehan, You Are Not Alone

When you brought him home for the first time, wreathed in magic as all newborns are, tender as spring growth, his spirit like a just-opened flower; when you were still his whole world; when he said his first words; when you watched him take his first steps; when the cuffs of his pants were in a losing race to cover ankles sprinting south from fast-growing legs; when he developed a sudden interest in the stars, or dinosaurs, or venus flytraps; when he suddenly became too big to hug and kiss; when he became a Boy Scout and slowly and methodically began collecting badges 'til he became Eagle Scout; when he served at the altar of your church; when he planted 1,100 trees; when he did things you didn't like and heartily disapproved of; when he did things that made you near explode with pride; when he one day developed facial hair; when one day he caught you looking at him to see if you could still see the baby he once was in the outlines of the adolescent he became; when one day he reached manhood, a new land of his own making, one you recognized from pictures but had never visited yourself; when he enlisted; when you hoped he would have a chance to email every few days to keep in touch; when you held your breath before you heard from him; when late at night you used every ounce of will to keep your all-too vivid imagination at bay; when on April 4, 2004, your world did crash into stillness and quiet and disbelief, because the imaginings were no talisman against reality; when searing, heart-rending wails overtook the silence; when tears that seemingly had no end kept coming up from the bucket you threw down into grief like the longest, deepest, darkest well; Cindy Sheehan, did you ever? Did you ever believe such unbearable sorrow would be yours?