At the Food Policy Conference: Neighborhood to Nation in Portland

I'm in Portland, Oregon, attending the Neighborhood to Nation Food Policy Conference, sponsored by the Community Food Security Coalition. A few Alaskans are here: Bob Mikol (TA for Craig Gerlach's Comparative Farming and Sustainable Food Systems class, among other things), Danny Consenstein (Alaska Farm Service Agency), Alli Harvey (with the Alaska Center for the Environment's Local Food project), Diane Peck (Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, Obesity Prevention and Chronic Disease Prevention), Rachel Garcia (intern with the Alaska Community Agriculture Association), Eleanor Wirts (UAF RAP grad student and musher), Johanna Herron (Alaska Farm to School), Mark Carper (UAA and the Alaska Food Policy Council), Kelsey Bearden (fellow student from Comparative Farming), Lisa Sadler-Hart (Sitka Local Foods Network), and myself (UAF School of Natural Resources & Agricultural Sciences, Ester Republic reporter and publisher, librarian, gardener, AK Food Policy Council member, Ester Community Association member, et cetera). I'm down here in large measure because of Gerlach, SNRAS dean Carol Lewis, and Diane Peck. There were others from Alaska, too (Danielle Giles, Nikos Pastos, and Ryan Zinn, but I didn't meet them--Zinn was a presenter, from the Fair World Project).

And I'm having a blast. This is a great group of people, a good 640 strong, from 46 states and DC, plus Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec. I attended a short course (Food Policy Advocacy 101) this morning and the plenary gathering this afternoon. The plenary speakers were great, talking about poverty, food deserts, exploited food service and other food industry workers (did you know that the federal minimum wage is only $2.13 an hour? ridiculous!), community gardens, community organizing. Talk about inspiring people.

After the plenary session, we broke out into networking groups, and Eleanor and I went with the Canadians while the rest of the Alaskans networked with the Northwest region. THAT was interesting. We told them we were crashing their party, and they accepted us with good grace and not a few jokes ("I can see Alaska from my house!"). The stereotype of the polite Canadian was not actually blown, despite a not-very-serious attempt to dispel it ("Fuck off!" from one speaker and apparently frequent Facebook poster (not sure if this was a joke, actually) at an opportune and humorous moment of self-teasing about being all polite--I guess you had to be there, but the whole group laughed). There was much emphasis on relationships between people, talking about developing mutual trust and respect between food producers and others in the food system. I was struck by the quiet, polite, and respectful discourse, along with the deep level of political savvy and pronounced opinon concerning the recent majority government positioning of Steven Harper and his party in the Canadian federal government. Very different in approach and delivery than US types, but lots of zing and pow (quite politely phrased, though)!

I've met a lot of fascinating people with great projects and amazing accomplishments. One man, Raymond Figueroa, from New York City, is working with a community gardening project (Friends of Brook Park) taking on abandoned spaces and turning them into a way to give locals control over their food and a way to make a difference in their own lives, to bring dignity back.

Yes Men muzzled by my old ISP

Hurricane Electric used to provide hosting for my website. I've since been on another host, and it's a good thing. Hurricane Electric doesn't know that parody is protected speech. From the Yes Men:

US Chamber Shuts off TheYesMen.org and Websites of Hundreds of Other Activist Groups

Free Speech, Free Commerce Threatened by "Free Trade" Champion

Hundreds of activist organizations had their internet service turned off last night after the US Chamber of Commerce strong-armed an upstream provider, Hurricane Electric, to pull the plug on The Yes Men and May First / People Link, a 400-member-strong organization with a strong commitment to protecting free speech.

"This is a blow against free speech, and it demostrates in gory detail the full hypocrisy of the Chamber," said Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes Men. "The only freedom they care about is the economic freedom of large corporations to operate free of the hassles of science, reality, and democracy."

After suffering embarrassment at the hands of the Yes Men on Monday, the Chamber immediately threatened legal action, then followed through Thursday by sending a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice to Hurricane Electric Internet Services. In the DMCA notice, the Chamber claimed that the parody Chamber website operated by The Yes Men constituted copyright infringement, and demanded that the site be shut down immediately and that the creator's service be canceled.

But the Yes Men are not served directly by Hurricane Electric, but by May First / People Link. And when Hurricane Electric shut down the fake Chamber of Commerce site (now relocated), they also took down the websites of 400 other organizations.

May First / People Link fought back. They immediately "mirrored" the site, and then quickly negotiated with Hurricane Electric to restore service to their other members.

"The DMCA attacks the critically important right we have to effectively comment and criticize institutions and companies," said May First/People Link Co-Director Alfredo Lopez. "It's an undemocratic, backwards law, a perfect example of how the government shouldn't intrude on our lives. But the Chamber was perfectly happy to use it to stomp on the Yes Men's rights to free spech, and the rights of hundreds of other organizations to operate on the web."

The 400 May First / People Link members weren't the only victims of the Chamber's action on Thursday. Today is the start of the national release of the Yes Men's new film, The Yes Men Fix the World. The film is being released in a number of independent theaters - who, not being part of a chain, are heavily dependent on the Yes Men website for selling tickets to the film. The Chamber's actions thus impinge on the ability of these small businesses to turn a profit.

"The Chamber claims to represent 3 million businesses of every size, yet their actions undermined a fair number of small businesses," said Mike Bonanno of the Yes Men. "The Chamber is clearly much less interested in actual freedom, economic or otherwise, than in the license of their largest members to operate free from the scientific consensus." (The Chamber has opposed or refused to endorse a climate bill, the absurdity of which the Yes Men's Monday action was designed to highlight.)

This isn't the first time a Yes Men site has found itself targeted by a DMCA complaint brought by a large corporation. The Yes Men have in the past received DMCA notices from Exxon, Dow Chemical, DeBeers, and the New York Times. In each case, the the Yes Men (represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation) refused to comply, and prevailed. Even the George W. Bush campaign sent a complaint to try to interrupt service to GWBush.com, in 2000, resulting in extensive ridicule that culminated in Bush's mind-boggling gaffe that "There ought to be limits to freedom."

Given that I regularly run parody, satire, and even the occasional press release by the Yes Men, I have to say that I'm glad I am not hosted by Hurricane anymore, and after this, I recommend that anyone looking for an ISP avoid them like the plague.

Bar blogging, books, and music

Well, the below two posts were a little rough; I'm not used to this live blogging thing. Missed parts of the conversation between Don and Mike (where Mike explained that yes he had heard of the bag ordinance and no, he'd voted against it).

I spoke with Pete Bowers during Mike's musical event about the possibility of bringing the Into the Woods cabin to the library land; that would be nifty to get that historic building back in action again. From Everything2.com:

An excellent coffeeshop/alternative bookstore located in Fairbanks, Alaska very near UAF and next to the Oaken Keg. Yours truly slaved there one summer cleaning books and pulling espresso for darkness starved poets, celtic musicians, drunken carnies and your average itinerant Alaskan workers.

Into the Woods paid $7/hr. in books and a portion of the evening tips. The other portion of the tips went to the mandatory 11:55pm run to the Oaken Keg for Into the Woods Afterhours, a key reason to work there indeed. There's nothing like drinking beer with your employer at 2 in the morning and wishing it was dark so you could actually get some sleep.

And an entry on the end of its existence as a bookshop and indeed, a cabin in the woods where it was built:

A small town bookstore/coffee shop died too quietly January 1, 2001. Into the Woods was the renegade bastion of human evolution; set neatly off from the road it was hidden from everyone by old and cool Alaskan forest.

I worked there off and on for a few years and in that time we had weekly Celtic jams, French classes and films, a G'wichin table, Green party meetings, song writing workshops, poetry readings and several surprisingly well-received concerts. Open noon to midnight every day we could find a willing worker the bookstore was one of scant few businesses in this mostly frozen (frozen in so many more ways than literal) town that didn't encourage the sterilely generic Seattle-Starbucks look that is growing so hip up here.

Our last year was too much of a struggle though. The owner had to take a job up North to keep the shop open and summer light-all-the-time mania burned out our over-worked employees at a monthly turnover. Finally an unfortunate and overly principialed brawl with the land owner (the University of Fairbanks) left us owing back rent, no access to the bank roll and a letter of eviction.

So, we rallied the troops and wrote a petition, spoke with the President of the University, raised money to cover back rent, cleaned up the land and worked on the shop itself. Then we asked for another chance. In retrospect I think we were too idealistic to think that the University would take our bid over the possibility of renting the land to some commercial business that would bring in far more money than our beautiful no-profit.

We moved 8 years of books and life out of the cabin then decided to take the shop with us. In an endeavor unlike any other people filed diligently out of the proverbial woodwork to help move out and move the building. The actual structure of Into the Woods is now 3 miles out of Fairbanks waiting empty in different woods.

Last month the University evicted the neighbors on the old land and razed their house, taking quite a few old trees out with it. We resorted to civil disobedience and took 5 dead stumps back to the University in time for Earth Day. We left them at the Commons, the cafeteria, the dorms and at the office of the President. Nailed to each stump was a signed letter stating our disbelief of their total disrespect for the originality and heritage of the land and a high class glossy photo of an amanita from the land. A couple days later we spoke with the President to gauge his reaction... he smiled blankly on a said he had absolutely no idea of what we were talking about.

The university didn't end up leasing the land to anybody. The trees are still standing, the property remains an empty lot. But the cabin was rescued, along with the manuscript that describes its history. Pete Bowers and John Goodhand have had it, still ready to move, on property near Cripple Creek Tire & Auto (now known as Everything Auto, I think, but nobody calls it that). Pete wants to use it as a place for music and poetry slams, which I think is just fine. We could move the library books associated with both, open it up as a place to practice or jam, put out a donation jar to pay for electricity and fuel, and keep it going in the spirit it developed as a bookstore and coffeehouse back when Connie Huffman was running it.

Into the Woods revived!

Panel o' bloggers

Yours truly has been invited to participate in an Alaska Press Club J-Week panel titled "Yoda Sez: Always in Motion is the Future." The panelists include bloggers Andrew Halcro, Shannyn Moore, Tony Hopfinger, Amanda Coyne, me, Kyle Hopkins, and Dan Fagan. The moderator is Jay Barrett, the news director at KMXT Radio in Kodiak. What I'm doing in with this bunch I can't figure out, but hey, it appealed to my ego and I had the money, so (assuming Mt. Redoubt doesn't belch again) tomorrow morning I will be flying down to Anchorage to bluff my way with the best of them.

Guess I'd better renew my membership.

Do your bit for R&R Day

If there's one thing that sharply demarcates the essential difference between Barack Obama's presidency—already—and George W's disastrous eight-year folly, it's this: personal responsibility. Obama has already demonstrated this in the preparedness of his pre-election readiness with his transition team, then with the work he and his transition team did so he could get started right away, then with the symbolic work at charities on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and now with his first- and second-day schedules.

I don't think we're going see an excessive amount of vacation time from the 44th president.

(Still, all work and no play…apparently Americans work harder than is good for them. George W., in my estimation, was freakin' lazy and didn't work enough! But that's another issue. George, in contrast to Obama, has real problems with being responsible for his own actions, or lack thereof. He demanded complete loyalty, rather like a feudal lord, but he didn't fulfil the other end of the bargain: responsibility to those who'd placed their trust in him, responsibility to the Constitution he'd sworn to uphold and protect. Nope. I don't think W. ever quite understood the value of that oath.)

Personal responsibility is also what Obama's asking of us, all of us, as individuals, as a nation. Government in this country is not about "Gummint vs. the People": government is the people. Unless, of course, we slack off and don't do our job. Our job is to be engaged, to be the government, to take responsibility for our own actions, for our neighborhoods, for our communities, for our state and our country. And the way to do that is elbow grease. Git out there and do your bit!

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. What is it that I do to contribute to the wellbeing of my community? How can I fulfill my duty as a citizen? as a responsible human being? Voting and jury duty are the two basic duties, but what Obama is asking us to do is go far beyond that:

We are in the midst of a season of trial. Our Nation is being tested, and our people know great uncertainty. Yet the story of America is one of renewal in the face of adversity, reconciliation in a time of discord, and we know that there is a purpose for everything under heaven.

On this Inauguration Day, we are reminded that we are heirs to over two centuries of American democracy, and that this legacy is not simply a birthright -- it is a glorious burden. Now it falls to us to come together as a people to carry it forward once more.

So in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, let us remember that: "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 20, 2009, a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, and call upon all of our citizens to serve one another and the common purpose of remaking this Nation for our new century.

It's R&R day, Rest & Relaxation through Renewal & Reconciliation. The gods know we need it.

I'm also liking what I'm reading here:

Communication -- Americans are eager for information about the state of the economy, national security and a host of other issues. [WhiteHouse.gov} will feature timely and in-depth content meant to keep everyone up-to-date and educated. Check out the briefing room, keep tabs on the blog (RSS feed) and take a moment to sign up for e-mail updates from the President and his administration so you can be sure to know about major announcements and decisions.

Transparency -- President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history, and WhiteHouse.gov will play a major role in delivering on that promise. The President's executive orders and proclamations will be published for everyone to review, and that’s just the beginning of our efforts to provide a window for all Americans into the business of the government. You can also learn about some of the senior leadership in the new administration and about the President’s policy priorities.

Participation -- President Obama started his career as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where he saw firsthand what people can do when they come together for a common cause. Citizen participation will be a priority for the Administration, and the internet will play an important role in that. One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.

In other words, one basic responsibility is to inform ourselves, and another is to participate in what our government does.

Sloth is not rest. That's important to remember.

I put the paper, this blog, and the Ester library stuff I do in the category of citizen participation. These are things that, I believe, make the world a better place. Newspapers and blogs are there to inform people, not only of the actual news, but of the feelings of people and the meaning of events. Libraries—well, man, that's a whole additional blog post. And the fact that they are local is also a big deal to me: grassroots, folks, home-grown.

More on the St. Paul arrests and detentions

Several people detained or arrested in the protests have been subjected to abuse by the police there. The local courts have been handing down some strange punishments, too. From a September 2nd press release by the Coldsnap Legal Collective:

In an unusual court decision, Ramsey County Judge Paulette K. Flynn today convicted two minors of criminal contempt for refusing to provide their identity. The two minors were then sentenced to 30 days in an adult jail facility. “This decision undermines one of the most fundamental human rights concepts in the justice system, to protect the rights and safety of children,” said Jordan Kushner, Mass Defense Committee Chair of the National Lawyers Guild’s Minnesota chapter, and an attorney for one of the minors. “This shows the willingness of the courts to go to any length, including sacrificing the most important due process rights, to answer to the political pressure to persecute activists.”

Many arrestees are also being denied medical attention. One arrestee with hemophilia and another with asthma are being denied their prescription medication. An arrestee with a broken finger is being refused medical care, as is a person who has been coughing up blood. An anemic woman reported to Coldsnap today that she passed out for 20 to 30 minutes due to iron deficiency and was told that she could not receive iron because it was a prescription medication, and because she refused to identify herself. Iron is in fact an over-the-counter supplement. The same anemic woman reported seeing a Sheriff knock another woman to the ground and drag her out of the room by her hair. “Just because people have been jailed does not mean their health should be put in jeopardy,” said [Rick] Kelley [of Coldsnap Legal Collective]. “This is a matter of compassion and basic human rights.” An unknown number of arrestees are also engaging in a hunger strike to put pressure on the jail to provide needed medical attention for other prisoners.

According to Kirk James Murphy, MD and other sources, medics were targeted by the police during the protests. Reports from the North Star Health Collective and the Portland Street Medics, two groups providing on-scene first aid, describe verbal and physical abuse as well as flagrant disregard for civil rights or legal niceties on the part of the police, who prevented them in several cases from providing medical help to individuals in or around the area of the protests. Firedoglake has more on these horrific abuses, plus more on the torture of others.

Around 800 people total have been arrested before, during, and after the Republican National Convention. Two members of the Minneapolis City Council are calling for an independent investigation into the actions of the police.

Amy Goodman arrested!

So what the hell is it with these cops arresting peaceful protesters? and journalists? and lawyers? This is freaking CRAZY! Here's the press release and video from Democracy Now! And where the hell is NPR on this? Why aren't they covering these arrests on All Things Considered? They've been going on for three days! Bozos. But that might interfere with the policies set up by the Republican stooge at the head of NPR these days...can't have any negative publicity about the Republican National Convention, can we? just lots and lots of coverage of Ms. Beauty Queen Palin.

And guess what, folks: the FBI is involved. The Federales, the Minnesota state police, the locals. This is criminal. They should be going after real criminals and not intimidating people simply exercizing their first amendment rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and press!

The Jamestown Press reports that a small group of protestors (idiots!) attacked the Connecticut delegation on "Monday afternoon", and then the cops got involved, and all hell broke loose. This doesn't, however, explain the horrendous behavior by the cops on the 30th and the 31st.

However, this also puts in me in mind of the plants put in protest crowds in Seattle during the World Trade Organization talks and in other places around the world.

Writing from the Insurgent49 bunker in a new undisclosed location

Yep, I'm visiting with the old Insurgent49 rabblerousers, Aaron Selbig and Nova Stubbs, here in Anchorage. While spending my days as a mild-mannered publisher hawking cool aviation books, I am spending wild nights on the town with my volunteer marketer, Melinda, or eating red meat and playing Scrabble with my fellow insurgents here in their new digs in Anchortown's outpost by the sea. They just moved to this house from their loft on 5th, and they've got a wonderful big back yard--rare for Anchorage itself.

Aaron, of course, is still getting into loud and noisy trouble (or causing it), as any good insurgent does. He's been the programming director for KUDO and the host of their top-rated talk show (called, naturally, the Aaron Selbig Show), which has featured some movers and shakers not only in the Anchorage area, but statewide, too. But alas, he finally poked one too many oxen, and got gored: KUDO just fired him last week, ostensibly to "cut costs", but later they decided it was because ratings were low. No, wait, it was for both reasons. Aaron points out that the advertising budget for the station to promote itself was close to zilch, so that might have had something to do with the low ratings, too.

An interesting aspect of this is that KUDO is a union-owned station. Yet, their one full-time employee at the station had no health insurance. Tsk. A bit ironic, don't you think? So when he blew out his Achilles tendon and had to have surgery, and then got a staph infection at the hospital and had to have a second surgery and the infection taken care of, there was no health insurance to take care of it. So now he's facing what will probably end up being around $20,000 worth of medical bills.

Lovely. So I brought him a copy of Neil Davis' book, Mired in the Health Care Morass. I'm hoping it will help him trim the bills down to a reasonable size. He's been hobbling around the house here this weekend. He's got a gaping hole in the back of his leg, but it does appear to be healing. (He keeps it under wraps most of the time, but showed it off to Nova and me yesterday to demonstrate that yes, it finally was healing, look! Nova and I pretty much both went, "Ick.")

Aaron is now looking for a job. He's applied to several places, one of them Outside. I dread the thought of Alaska losing such a champion. Aaron won a Liberty Award from the ACLU last year, and well-deserved it was, too.