All Jazzed Up

since four this morning about my research paper class on food politics. I am so proud of my list of possible topics, including the following:

1. Feedlots-n-You: Can we talk about methane, the contamination of our great waterways, and loads o fecal matter?

2. E.Coli Outbreaks: aka There's Sh*t in the Meat (w apologies to Schlosser) and over 70,000 people a year are sickened from it (CDC). 

3. Chickens Eating Dead Cows, Cows Eating Dead Chickens: What Exactly was Banned back in 1997? (less than we thought, it turns out)

4. Why are the People in McDonald's Ads Always Either (1) Smiling or (2) People of Color, (3) Both? Why do they have to spend $1.6 billion a year marketing to our dear, sweet chillens?

5. The French Paradox or Pass Me the Cab/Merlot

6. The "Eat Real Food" Movement: How to have your corn and skip the corn syrup.

Okay, just a taste (ha!) of what's to come, you lucky 25 in my Eng 201 class. The rest of you I'll keep posted as the quarter goes on (as I know my students will do wonderful things w these topics and others).

Okay, so . . . 

Palin. I read her speech this morning b/c I didn't want to expose harmful toxins to my children during the post-dinner hour last night (we eat late around here, esp. when hubby comes home w foraged chanterelles post 7 pm; luckily, the kids wanted Tuna Surprise, so they were all long-ago fed when the man of the house starting pouring gallons of heavy cream into the skillet for our adult dinner). 

But not to digress. I dunno--I like her spunk, and everyone keeps saying she's been shaking up the ol boy network, appealing to grassroots, making big changes, but all I keep seeing/hearing are the words pro-life, creationism in the schools, no abortions even in the case of rape, big oil, and drill, drill, drill. I know she has to appeal to a certain ilk of folk in the wilds of Alaska, but is the answer really to make 14-year old rape victims have the babies of their rapists? To, instead of solving our oil dependency, prolong it? I mean, I'm all for shaking up the status quo, but some of this stuff sounds like the same old Republican crappola. They keep saying us Dems are nebulous about our HOPE and our CHANGE, but I know exactly what Obama's talking about, and so would they if they really knew what poverty is, what racism is.If they would only stop lying about how they'll stop spending our money (um, the WARS? the wars they started are not expensive?) Come on!

Through all this convention hoopla, plus getting the kids off to their first day of school, plus trying to get ready for fall quarter, I also managed to plant the fall garden. Hubby kept asking me, w a big smile on his face, if I knew what I was doing. (Of course I know what I'm doing. I mean, my dad used to call me his little farmer-ette. I mean, I was planting freaking corn before you were even BORN!) But seriously, I will be genuinely relieved if and when I see the rocquet (which I always thought was ROCKET, duh!) and spinach seedlings rearing their pretty little heads.