Food Anarchy II

More fun with food at the Barnhart house. Here is this week's CSA share. I don't know why Eve looks so bugged out.

Grilled Salmon with basil pesto, beans and rice and collard greens fried with garlic and onion. CSA/backyard content: collard greens, onion, garlic, basil

Stuffed Eggplant, pasta and broccoli with basil pesto.

CSA/backyard content: basil, eggplant, oregano, onion, garlic, tomato

Black eye peas with bacon over rice and fried zucchini.

CSA/backyard: zucchini, tomato, garlic

BTW, I am not taking any credit for this food. I am only the humble eater/photographer. Marilyn gets all the planning and execution credits.

Food Anarchy

There are many uses and abuses of the term "anarchy" floating around so I'm adding to the mix. In general an anarchist is one who wishes for the control of society to be placed as "low", or close to the people it governs, as possible. This stands in opposition to Tyranny where decisions are made at the top. I'm not inclined to firebomb any federal buildings but the Barnharts have begun re-taking control of our food supply. Messieurs Kraft, Kellog, General Mills, Monsanto, ADM, ect... may not be quaking in fear, but it's a start.

We joined a CSA. Community Supported Agriculture. It's buying directly from the farmer by paying in advance for a year's harvest. For $235 USD in the spring we get weekly shares of produce. Each CSA has many participating farmers so each week there are different items to choose from. The city is kind enough to block a street Saturday mornings for a green market.

Here is part of a one week share. I didn't get the picture taken until some was already eaten. That lonely, roasted in the husk, ear of corn on the right had seven companions, a tomato is missing and several bundles of garlic cloves.

Thursday's food: roast beef and rice with fried zucchini from the backyard. No CSA content.

Wednesday's food: soul soup, many leftovers and many CSA veggies: carrots, celery, onions, corn,and a green pepper. From last week's CSA and the back yard: potatoes, collard greens, thyme, oregano, and chinese herb.

Tuesday's food:Sausage Alfredo with peppers and basil with salad. CSA and backyard content: green pepper, basil, tomato, cucumber, mesclun salad greens, romaine lettuce, and mint.

Power and Privilege

At work, the radio is usually tuned to NPR. Actually always tuned to NPR. As the news broke concerning the leader of the International Monetary Fund, Mr. Strauss-Kahn, my employer turned to and said, "Can you believe that?"

Yes I can believe it. Powerful people have always felt entitled to the lives, labors, minds and bodies of the working classes. Nothing new here. It's possible the only new development is the victim felt empowered enough to speak out. How many undocumented housekeepers in Manhattan have suffered similar treatment but chose silence rather than attract the attention of the law and face possible deportment?

If I understand the mission of the IMF correctly, their goal is to go about saddling the poorest people of the world with debt by loaning them money raised from investors. Anyone who feels they deserve to benefit from the future earning of the poorest might possible feel entitled to take advantage of the poor in other ways as well.

Jon Ronson, journalist and author was a recent guest on WNYC's "Brian Lehrer show" to discuss his latest book, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry." During parts of the interview I was operating a sander but several points stuck in my mind. First, nearly one percent of the US population qualifies as clinically psychopathic. Most of these people lead relatively normal lives free from violence and many anti-social behaviors but if they were involuntarily committed to a mental health institution, they would not merit release. Now the detail that caught my attention, the rate of clinical psychopathology among CEO's of large corporations is over four percent. I suppose the inability to empathize with others or to see from their point of view is a competitive advantage in the business world.

In the News...

I thought it a little ironic that these two news bulletins should be posted together. From www.democracynow.org.

• Wall Street Bankers Take in Record $135 Billion in Compensation
• 43 Million Americans Now Receiving Food Stamps, a 14% Increase

Necessary Funds

Our friends over in the EU are in real trouble it seems. With the latest Ireland bailout, they have sunk to such a level that private investment may no longer be insured by public funds. In the event of further economic collapses among member states, actual investors may loose their capital. Well, things may be bad here but at least we can all sleep better at night knowing that the largest capital investments still have the golden "too big to fail" stamp on them.

I suspect part of the rationale, used to justify the administration's response to the current economic situation, is that many funds necessary for pension plans and individual retirement are threatened. "Re-inflating the housing bubble, " a direct quote from President Obama, to shore up banking collateral is viewed as a lesser liability than millions of unfunded pensioners. This begs the question "Why are necessary funds in risk based investments"? Who was responsible for their care? Why were they not in bonds or Treasury bill? I have noticed that the Chinese have been avoiding the stock market in favor of treasury bills for years. Its not as if these conditions were unforeseeable, rather we were too greedy to accept the lower rate of return in exchange for increased security.

In my opinion Greenspanism creates a disincentive to save responsibly by increasing the money supply past productivity, creating artificially low interest rates. When the money supply more closely tracks productivity, the demand for capital results in higher returns through higher interest rates. It may not be as fun as Reaganitis, (remember the late '70's) but I imagine it is a better foundation for a sustainable economy.

Freemarket Healthcare

This week several provisions of the new healthcare bill come into effect. All that I have heard about are limitations on the deniability of various costs to health insurance providers. I guess that is as progressive as a muslim socialist radical gets these days.

I had health insurance once. Twice actually. Once as a generous benefit from my wife’s government job and once on my own tab. My productivity contributed over $1,000 pre-bailout dilution USD to a well known health insurance provider who shall remain nameless because I don’t room in my head to store such meaningless things. My wife became pregnant and around that time my employer switched providers to cut costs. The pregnancy was then considered a pre-existing condition and therefore not covered.

The doctor was not pleased and wrote a letter to the insurance company detailing her grievances. Within a month we received a short letter to inform us that we had been dropped. Eden was over two years old before we were able to finish paying the hospital, doctor, anesthesiologist, lab ect… For a long time we got bills nearly everyday.

The whole thing reminded me of a little saying I once heard from my Father, “when a mouse and an elephant sleep in the same bed, the mouse gets hurt no matter how nice the elephant is.” The balance of power in the customer/insurance provider relationship is out of balance. They have all the power and you have none. While I was dutifully paying my monthly “premiums” as they are called, they were using the money to hire lobbyists to write favorable legislation into law in Albany and Washington, build tall building in downtown areas and fill those buildings with lawyers to find ways to deny claims. I was paying them to undermine my standing. I could have paid the healthcare costs if I had not given them over $14,000 over the previous year. I can either pay insurance companies or hospitals but paying both is hard work. So I decided to just pay the hospital when the need arises.

If the American people want a more rational healthcare bill, they can certainly have one. Here is one way I think would work. Everyone stop paying health insurance premiums for a month or two. Write a nice letter saying that you are uncomfortable with the influence the health insurance industry had in writing the latest healthcare bill and you don’t want your money being used to make the lives of others difficult but once a new bill is through the senate, you will gladly resume payment. I believe in this so much that I have started already.

Lately I have heard the president speak proudly of all the good his healthcare bill has done. I haven’t read all the provisions of that bill but it seems to me that meat of it is forcing me to back into purchasing health insurance products I have already tried and rejected. With a little luck, I should be able to get the same provider who dumped me three years ago.

Lest the Terrorist Win

A day or so after the attacks on the World Trade Center President Bush suggested that we “go shopping” lest “the Terrorists win.” I was taken by the strange logic and the phrase has echoed in the back of my mind ever since. I’m beginning to understand it.

The Barnharts recently spent sixty hours or so strapped in a confined space exactly the shape of a minivan. To keep my mind from spinning out of control and self destructing, I listened to several books on cassette tape, including “Sitting Bull and his world” by Albert Marrin. It is a full account of the last days of the “Plains Indians”, including the Sioux. I learned the demise of the American Buffalo was purposefully engineered by Washington to starve the Sioux out of Canada and confine them in concentration camps, called reserves. The US army supplied weapons to marksmen and thrill seekers to maximize buffalo casualties. Cavalrymen rode organized patrols to turn back or shoot any herds that might wander north and become food for 19th century terrorists. When Sitting Bull and the last of the starving Sioux moved off the Canadian Prairie to become wards of the state, they numbered less than 200, men, women and children.

One event caught my attention especially. In 1873, the economy of the US was jeopardized by collapse of over-leveraged investment banks. President Grant was advised that salvaging the investments would require an increase in gold production. Coincidentally, the undeveloped gold fields lay in the Black Hills of Dakota, the crown jewel of the Sioux reserve. Without the game rich Black Hills, the Sioux were left with Buffalo free Prairie and no hope of sustaining a hunter-gatherer society. As you can imagine, the Sioux ended up mostly dead and the Black Hills became a commodity. This time around there are no Indians to expend in the interest of “recovering” the economy, so it has been decided to steal from the future. Capital and its economic machinery must be protected.

A co-worker periodically attempts, in Spanish, to convert me to various conspiracy theories. I told him the conspiracies I am afraid of are not hidden, they are written in business plans, mission statements and quarterly reports, they are in the President’s speeches. Allow me to interpret that cryptic Presidential message of 2001: “Our enemies will try to convince you their war is with the economic system of the West. Do not believe this. They are just bad people who hate freedom. They fight for no reason. Go buy something or the industrialists will lose.”