Organic Farming

The New York Times has been running a series of in-depth stories on organic agiculture lately, and what they clearly see as big changes coming. One story focused on Wal-Mart's announcement that they will be carrying organic produce in all their stores, and setting an arbitary 10% price premium over coventional produce. Another focused on the market for natural and organic meat, and how its growth is going to affect smaller producers.

The fact that America's most influential newspaper is focusing so much attention on what is still the just 2% of our nation's food - although it is the fastest growing segment - is significant. They are merely responding to all the attention that Wall Street and U.S. corporations are giving organic. For several years now, the big food conglomerates and investment banks have been snapping up recognized organic brands and pouring money into them. Their efficiency experts and legal teams have been hunkering down to figure out how to "get the most mileage" out of the USDA organic standards without breaking any laws. So it is that "free range" chickens now enjoy the same confined facilities as their conventionally farmed cousins, but with a small door to the outside (that they hardly ever use).

When the efficiency experts decide that some part of the USDA Organic Standards just simply won't work - i.e., it will be too expensive - the legal team meetsd with the lobbying firm. Tehy come up with a few choice, seemingly innocuous phrases, and start working on the right politiicians to get them inserted into the rider on some appropriations bill or another.

Hmmmm - time to write your congressman and let him/her know how you feel about exactly what organic means. We have to educate ourselves about where our food comes from - making sure that it comes from a local organic farmer vs somewhere in Mexico, Peru, China, and other places with lower costs that the U.S. And we need to insure that what we actually purchase is truthly organic.

Never Buy Dell

My mom's kids got together and purchased her a new computer this holiday. Since I wanted a decent computer, I chose a Dell. Wrong choice. Dell's customer service has gone down down down. Dell wanted me to purchase a software service since I didn't purchase a software warrenty. Now - the computer is 7 days since it arrived. The software tech tells me that he will help me get my computer working like new. New! New! When is technology old after 7 days!! When I finally got the supervisor, I decided that it was time to end the conversation because it was going nowhere. "It's time to end this conversation since we're at a standstill. I'm not paying anything else from you since I have a system that does not work and you're refusing to do anything about it. Either I or my sister-in-law will phone you regarding where we will be going from here." He wouldn't shut up. Plus he still pushed me to purchase the software service.

Today I found an article about Dell in the New York Times.

"In 1997, shortly after Mr. Jobs returned to Apple, the company he helped start in 1976, Dell's founder and chairman, Michael S. Dell, was asked at a technology conference what might be done to fix Apple, then deeply troubled financially.

"What would I do?" Mr. Dell said to an audience of several thousand information technology managers. "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

On Friday, apparently savoring the moment, Mr. Jobs sent a brief e-mail message to Apple employees, which read: "Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve."

In venting to a friend, it turns out that Dell has an operating system that isn't working correctly. Microsoft has spoken to them about it. However, they do not want to fix the problem - they rather put it on the customer. I was the third person that week who had a complaint against the company. I will never ever purchase anything from Dell.

Politics

What do you do if your friend has different political views? Do you not talk about politics? Do you agree to disagree? It certainly would be easier to ignore the differences, or attempt to laugh them off but you will realize that liberal and conservative sterotypes - no matter how easily they come out of your mouth - don't apply so easily to people you love. But if anything could motivate people to find common groupd, it's love. It is difficult to talk about what is most important to you with family members and loved ones of different polictical bent. An ability to see things from the other perspective is crucial to confronting the volatile realities of the world and our country's troubling role in it. If politics is about how to best live together within the nation, and with other peoples around the globe, perhaps citizens and politicians alike could take inspiration from the most basic rules of engagement in our most intimate relationsihps: Listen closely, show respect, participate willingly in difficult conversations, remember that neither attacks nor defensiveness do much good when you're aiming for real communication, disagree lovingly, and celebrate each other's strengths and humanity.