Wendell Berry - The Agrarian Standard

Wendell Berry's book The Unsettling of America was published over thirty years ago; it is still in print and is still being read. As its author, Berry says he is tempted to be glad of this, and yet, if what is said in the book is to be believed - and many do believe it - then we perhaps should be anything but glad.

The book, says Mr. Berry, would have had "a far happier fate if it could have been disproved or made obsolete years ago." This essay is a reflection by Mr. Berry written for Orion Magazine in 2002.

Internship Opportunity!

LSC 100 students:

Please take a minute to read the following note from JR Ross, Editor of Madison's own Wispolitics blog (you may recall that JR will be speaking to our class later in the semester, While the internship is entirely outside the scope of the class (i.e no course credit or extra credit), it may be a great opportunity for:

1. those of you who are interested in blogging, web-based journalism, or local politics and current events
2. those of you who need to find a very flexible, part-time internship (e.g. for another class), or
   
3. those of you who would like to pad your resume while watching sports and cable news (one of which is always on at the Wispolitics office)
   

I personally interned for Wispolitics, and enjoyed my time there. Let me know if you have any questions.

WisPolitics, the state’s premier political news service, is looking for fall interns to help maintain the Web site and assist in reporting for daily products sent to subscribers. WisPolitics focuses primarily on state politics as well as the work of the state’s congressional delegation and some local politics. Interns start out helping to maintain the Web site and graduate to more complex tasks as they prove their proficiency and opportunities develop. The internships are unpaid, and the hours are flexible. The time commitment can range from one morning or afternoon a week to a daily commitment. Those interested should contact WisPolitics Editor JR Ross via e-mail at ross@wispolitics.com or at 441-8418.

For Your Health, Froot Loops

Michael Pollan: I'll Still Shop at Whole Foods

by Michael Pollan


John Mackey’s views on health care, much as I disagree with them, will not prevent me from shopping at Whole Foods. I can understand why people would want to boycott, but it’s important to play out the hypothetical consequences of a successful boycott. Whole Foods is not perfect, however if they were to disappear, the cause of improving Americans’ health by building an alternative food system, based on more fresh food, pastured and humanely raised meats and sustainable agriculture, would suffer. 

Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food

By Brian Walsh

Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won't bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics. The waste produced by the pig and his thousands of pen mates on the factory farm where they live goes into manure lagoons that blanket neighboring communities with air pollution and a stomach-churning stench. He's fed on American corn that was grown with the help of government subsidies and millions of tons of chemical fertilizer. When the pig is slaughtered, at about 5 months of age, he'll become sausage or bacon that will sell cheap, feeding an American addiction to meat that has contributed to an obesity epidemic currently afflicting more than two-thirds of the population. And when the rains come, the excess fertilizer that coaxed so much corn from the ground will be washed into the Mississippi River and down into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will help kill fish for miles and miles around. That's the state of your bacon — circa 2009.

Controversial book focus of UW-Madison project

by Jim Massey

Wisconsin agriculture groups say they're concerned about a new UW-Madison program that encourages students to read a book critical of mainstream agriculture and the U.S. food system.

The program, known as "Go Big Read," invites students, faculty, staff, alumni and the community to read a selected book and participate in campus discussions and community events. New chancellor Carolyn "Biddy" Martin initiated the program.

The university is providing the book free to students and faculty members. A UW-Madison Web site says professors in 48 different courses will be incorporating discussion about the book in their curriculum. The program is targeted at freshmen, but other students also will participate.

The book is Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto." In the book, Pollan examines the modern American food landscape, where he says the deceptively simple question of what to eat has been muddled by the numerous and often conflicting claims of food producers, marketers and nutrition experts.