Telegraph:

Here's something rather rotten from the State of Denmark. Its government yesterday unveiled official research showing that two-year-old children are at risk from a bewildering array of gender-bending chemicals in such everyday items as waterproof clothes, rubber boots, bed linen, food, nappies, sunscreen lotion and moisturising cream.

SF Chronicle:

Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say.

The greatest country on earth!

So it's true: I'm a troll. The worst kind, too: condescending, pedantic, annoying, concerned. I guess we all have our failings, and these are mine. But so long as I'm going to be a purist, I have to rant like one. I like eating and I bet most people do too, that's my "motivation" here.

Hoss asks why urban (commercial) [not/for profit] {large scale/vertical} non-residential gardening is worthwhile. I was a good grrl, I didn't lose my cookies, immediately. But it's Saturday and I'm relaxed and silly, so this comment made me have a Sad:

Bohemian.com in Northern CA:

With healthcare reform chopped up and slashed so many times that it hardly resembles the change we were promised, and with millions of people in the country staggering around, diseased, with no safety net of a single-payer system, it was only a matter of time before two cultural phenomena combined like viral strains of the undead. That's right: zombies and healthcare reform. This weekend, Santa Rosa's Courthouse Square will teem with the pale-faced and bloodied in a protest / dance party / concert called "Zombie Action for Healthcare Reform," and it may be the most unique and, let's face it, pretty dang funny way to make one's primordial grunt heard.

"I will admit that the connection is somewhat tenuous," says Michael Houghton, organizer of the zombie-healthcare gathering. "The joke that I've been making is that we're people who were denied healthcare and are coming back for revenge."

Never let it be said that the scientists who publish in dry, staid medical journals lack a sense of humor. That resurrecting dead patients line is the title of an article that appeared in JAMA [Journal of the American Medical Association] a few years ago, and beyond the fact that it provided me with a snappy headline, gives me the chance to post one of my favorite lolcats [again], and is cited in another article in another journal, it has no further bearing on this post.

The another article in another journal, Looking Forward, Looking Back: Assessing Variations in Hospital Resource Use and Outcomes for Elderly Patients With Heart Failure, is monumentally less gripping than, oh, the last installment of Harry Potter, or even the labels on cat food cans, but it's nonetheless an important data point in the present health care deform reform debate.

To back up for just a moment, the Dartmouth Atlas Project is a massive gathering of data gleaned from Medicare spending records over many years. Mapping the data has produced the realization that Medicare spending varies widely throughout the country. Peter Orszag, President Obama, and Tom Harkin, to name just a few personages, are all quite taken with it, and with the Dartmouth researchers' assertions that the patients in higher-spending regions fare no better than those in lower-spending regions.

If only those spendthrifts in Miami and McAllen could be made to behave more like those prudent paragons living in Minnesota, we could save hundreds of billions of $$$$$ in health care spending every year.

Not so fast, corpus breath. The Dartmouth Atlas only catalogs dead people. The researchers looked back over the patients' lives for the 6 months [and for some purposes, 2 years] before they died. Concluding that since they all died anyway [duh!], the ones who got more care [and therefore cost more money], didn't really need all that extra care [and therefore we don't need to be spending that extra money on them].

It's an attractive notion, but one of the things the Dartmouth researchers didn't do so much of was looking forward.

Sorry I haven't had the time to gardenblog. I've been, well, in the garden too much, and too wiped out after canning and harvesting to do pics. But I have some. I missed a period for good pics but I'll show some results instead. First up: Fleurs. Hecate has some going still, and I do too:
Mums did well, if a tad slow, this year. Nice and bright.

Baby pumpkins. So cute there's no need to carve them.

Thanks to the wonderful posts by CD and the thoughtful contributors in the comments, we've been talking about food a lot the past couple of days. And to tie those posts in with CD's post about the need to take action, I thought I'd pass along these 10 things you can do to help start a citizen revolution aimed at taking back our food. The list comes from Sustainable Food, which I've added to the Blogroll and highly recommend.

So I guess I hit a nerve with my food fight post, or rather, several of them. I think it's worth breaking down some of the comments and sub-discussions into a longer series. One topic that seemed to bring out the very Correntian best in folks: how we define "obese."

Reader Jeff W points us to this helpful link from the CDC, in which they have determined that there have been "noticeable increases" in the number of overweight or obese people in this country. Reader Aeryl questions the methodology with this link. Other comments in that thread had other definitions and methods to measure the size and number of "healthy" bodies.

I'm a long way from my scientific research days, but I'll say that generally, I think obesity is both a "nature" and a "nurture" issue. On the Nature side: I fully recognize that the FSM has been kind to people in my family; we're generally tall and thin with only a modicum of exercise effort and don't tend to "overweight"-edness until quite late in life, if at all. I doubt I could find the link for it now, but I recall reading a fascinating report about a group of indigenous people from South America, recently relocated from their ancestral lands to a reservation. Apparently, in a single generation they went from thin and fit to outrageously overweight. The report's conclusion was that they had evolved to live on a fat-poor diet for thousands of years before being relocated and fed "government cheese" instead of their previous natural, "jungle food" diet, and as a result their bodies were incredibly efficient in terms of fat storage. "Too" efficient when fed a more modern diet, and thus their current obesity.

I'm tossing out those two examples and asking for your thoughts, because before we can make policy progress on the "nurture" argument, it's important to correctly frame the "nature" part.

How do you define "fat" and "obese?" How should government, for the purposes of health and food policy? How important is identifying obesity as a public health "problem?" Then there are questions about how Big Industry (Fashion, Food, the Exercise-Industrial Complex, etc) define "fat." Definitions generated by the discourse of the Patriarchy play a role as well.

And once again, consider this an open thread for recipes, especially those good for people who want to reduce or change their body's shape. Warning: I will delete comments that are inappropriately insensitive to people who don't conform to mainstream body shape standards. Consider this is a safe space for people of all body shapes to contribute.

Cutting Hood out of the food chain. I hope it works out; I'll certainly buy it!

Denver Post:

Alex Lange is a chubby, dimpled, healthy and happy 4-month-old.

Bernie and Kelli Lange tried to get insurance for their growing family with Rocky Mountain Health Plans when their current insurer raised their rates 40 percent after Alex was born. They filled out the paperwork and awaited approval, figuring their family is young and healthy. But the broker who was helping them find new insurance called Thursday with news that shocked them.

" 'Your baby is too fat,' she told me," Bernie said.

Alex's pre-existing condition — "obesity" — makes him a financial risk. Health insurance reform measures are trying to do away with such denials that come from a process called "underwriting."

"If health care reform occurs, underwriting will go away. We do it because everybody else in the industry does it," said Dr. Doug Speedie, medical director at Rocky Mountain Health Plans, the company that turned down Alex.

Not if the insurance companies are able to game the system, it won't. But that will never happen.

Because the banksters looted their pension funds, too. Quelle surprise. I'll just quote one or two "tells" from David Cho in Pravda to point out some features of the discourse. This is good:

Before the crisis, many public pension funds had experimented with risky trading techniques or committed more of their money to hedge funds and other nontraditional firms, which in turn invested some of it in complex mortgage securities. When these melted down, pension funds got burned.

Note lack of agency.

[A]lready, some funds are seeking to trim benefits to conserve money. Some governments have also proposed increasing the amount of public money paid each year into the funds. In practice, however, some political leaders have begun doing the opposite -- cutting annual contributions to pension funds -- as a way of balancing state and local budgets buffeted in the recession by falling tax revenue and rising costs.

And note the toxic leader meme. These are not "leaders" but officials. They are not leading us, but responsible to us (see, e.g.)

Of course, in the toxic and degraded atmosphere of Versailles:

Tristero recently caused a bona fide flame war at the normally staid and Serious Hullaballoo comment community, in those two posts about food. I didn't really find too much of what he said outrageous or stupid, and I respect the fact that he came right out and admits that he eats what he likes because it tastes good. I confess I didn't think the Hullaballoo community had it in them, way to sling that pizza across the lunchroom, kids!

I just wanted to make a couple remarks and see what others think, because I believe that food is a critically important topic in many political debates, from those on the environment, health care, racism and more.

From my perspective, it's beyond obvious that far too many Americans aren't eating well. I was shocked, moving to this Heartland community where I now live, by the contrast of people's shapes here, vs places like DC and Chicago. That is, people in flyoverland really run to fat, in my eyes. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but the 'beautiful body' culture of my previous environment is almost nowhere to be found here, except among the Greek set of the local big state university. And I suspect those young women are not unfamiliar with some unhealthy food habits like binging and the dangerous, speedy drugs that make crash dieting an easy task.

Anyway, I bet I could get most of you to agree that the problem isn't just a regional one, and that there are many areas in which the quality of our food and the habits people have consuming it could be improved. But as the comments at those two posts remind me, a lot of people seem to have the attitude of "You can take my daily Twinkie when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands." What can be done to change that?

Further, I guess I don't understand the idea that people like me are overly righteous food snobs. Do people really want to have diabetes and be obese? I can't believe that. I understand that not all people have good food choices, but I would hope that if they did, they'd make them, at least most of the time. I'd also think people would enjoy the benefits that come with "progressively produced" food, organics and locally grown, food free of synthetics and chemicals and suchlike. That kind of food really does taste better. And if food is about satisfaction, well...I guess I just don't get the resistance to that.

A friend of mine recently introduced me to a terrific restaurant in this area, after long months of my despairing of ever finding a place that compares to the upscale, "progressive" dining option I had when I lived in big cities. It's in a town that defines "podunk backwater." It serves locally produced, organically grown, reasonably priced, fucking outstanding tasty food. And it's doing really well as a business, apparently, even in this Depression we're having in this state. So I know there's 'a market' for better food. My question is: why are so many people resistant to good food and healthy eating habits, in favor of unfood horror found at fast food restaurants or the junk food aisle? Marketing? Ignorance? Addiction to unhealthy but "good" tasting things like corn syrup and trans fats?

Also: consider this a Saturday Morning open recipe thread, if you've got any. I'm always looking for new cooking ideas, especially now that "chef" is practically my 4th job.

Via Old-Fashioned Patriot:

1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.
2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.
3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.
4. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.
5. The right of every family to a decent home.
6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

Anglachel points out what should be obvious:

You spend the money you have to secure the goods you can. You don't buy soy milk because it is expensive compared to powdered milk. Fatty hamburger is cheaper per pound than tofu and tempeh and fills up a teenage stomach much faster. Canned vegetables - you know, the off brands made with the non-organic vegggies and bathed in salty, preservative laced liquid - are cheaper than frozen which are cheaper than fresh. They don't go bad, either. Am I going to buy the store brand squishy white bread for .99 (a day or two old, but, hey, toast it and who knows the diff...) or the artisan baked French White loaf with the extra chewy (i.e., inedible) crust made from the organic, stone-ground flour fo $3.89 per paper-wrapped loaf?

The obsession of the well-off upper middle class with the eating habits of the barely scraping by poor is both domineering and obscene, a deep desire to force their food choices (too little for too much) onto others who have little choice, and to closely observe, weigh, measure, and manipulate the bodies of subjects unable to avoid this invasion.

Who in this exchange better knows the cost of a pound of flesh?

Whaddaya know. It's all about controlling other people's bodies....

Via the great Field Negro, this from Naomi Klein:

In the late 50s and early 60s, angry white mobs were reacting to life-changing victories won by the civil rights movement. Today's mobs, on the other hand, are reacting to the symbolic victory of an African American winning the presidency. Yet they are rising up at a time when non-elite blacks and Latinos are losing significant ground, with their homes and jobs slipping away from them at a much higher rate than from whites. So far, Obama has been unwilling to adopt policies specifically geared towards closing this ever-widening divide. The result may well leave minorities with the worst of all worlds: the pain of a full-scale racist backlash without the benefits of policies that alleviate daily hardships. Meanwhile, with Obama constantly painted by the radical right as a cross between Malcolm X and Karl Marx, most progressives feel it is their job to defend him – not to point out that, when it comes to tackling the economic crisis ravaging minority communities, the president is not doing nearly enough.

That's how the Overton Window works, kidz!*

Now, Klein being Klein, she ties together (a) the reparations movement, (b) the "crisis in African-American wealth, (c) the bailouts (in which Obama played such a prominent role), and (d) the transfer of wealth to banksters:

Since I've been working for two days on a post and it still sucks and doesn't say what I want and doesn't say it the way I want, I went looking for diversions and found the above headline which amused my inner 12-year-old. And then the article interested the more mature side of me. Because it is about a species changing its ways in order to survive:

"Behavioural flexibility coupled with altered environmental conditions, e.g. food scarcity, can trigger astonishing innovations in animal behaviour," concludes Siemers. This innovative behaviour is not an isolated case and is probably passed on from generation to generation.

[Just cross-posted to Kos. How about a recommendation? And welcome, Eschatonians, Paul Krugman, Digby, Andrew Tobias, and Sadly, No readers. And Avedon, you know I do.]

[And readers, if you want others to read this post, you can use the Digg or Reddit buttons below to recommend it.]

ONE CURRENT PERMATHREAD on Big Orange is that Krugman and Obama are feuding or having a vendetta. Which, when you take a step back, is bizarre. That movement conservatives and Villagers like stone Bush enabler William Kristol, like David Brooks, Broderella, and Andrew Sullivan are all good with Obama isn't even mentioned in passing by Obama's fan base. And yet those same enthusiasts spend inordinate amounts of time vilifying Paul Krugman, a true progressive who was there for us from the earliest dark days of the Bush regime.

Curious. What's really happening?  Read more…

PROOF OF ALIEN BUGS, THE THING TRUCK STOP, NEW MEXICO

We left Monday with our cargo van full of stuff for humans and pets: food and towels and linens and water and toilettries. Also dog and cat crates, leashes, collars, ID tags, doggie milk bones, chew toys, bleach, kibble and so forth.