Subject: Steven McFadden/CSA book (fwd)

From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 23:44:40 -0500 (EST)

This should be interesting to some folks in this list.
BTW if any subscribers are tired of seeing my forwarded
posts about borderline permaculture topics just let me know 
and I'll stop.  Keeping the list on the PC track & subscribers
happy is more important than bring in important but not directly
related topics for discussion. If _anyone else_ wants to do this
thouigh, I, for one, enjoy reading a diversity of opinion and
information.  LL

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 20:30:32 -0500
From: "Michele Gale-Sinex/CIAS, UW-Madison" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Steven McFadden/CSA book

Howdy, all--

Does a vast and potentially instructive irony lie in the fact that
Steve McFadden is doing a CSA book-signing at Barnes & Noble, the
MegaCorp That Devoured A Zillion Independent Bookstores? Or is this
my foolish-consistency-hobgoblin hog-tying my tiny mind?  :^)

Barnes & Noble is to the book trade what Starbuck's is to coffee
houses:  devouring local businesses and gorging themselves on
impulse shoppers.  (As a WebHead friend said the other day as we
perused a wall of brick-thick "How to use Windows" volumes in a
Silicon Valley computer bookstore, "Buy a book, kill a tree!" But I
digress.)  

...oughtn't we sustaggies use sustainable ag to teach a
progressive/local ethic of communication and business as well as a
progressive/local ethic of land use and community?  And to challenge
things like the lifestyle of the shopping mall and the mega-store?

Picture it: people come to the local shopping mall's Barnes & Noble
to talk about sustainability and local economy and a self-sustaining
food system?  Tell me, please, that the authors are going to raise
this as an issue at their reading!  And will ask those who attend the
reading to shop henceforth at local independent bookstores. 

[Regional Food Systems axiom 3.578:  Biting the hand that feeds one
can be a good first step toward feeding oneself.]

Then there's this:

> "The movement is continuing to grow," McFadden says. "People who
> care about their food, the environment, and their children, ought
> to take a close look at CSA and what it can do for them and the
> community where they live. It would work great on Long Island." 

Are the authors and the publisher promoting this book and CSA in the
Bronx too?  Lots of open space there for gardens.  Last I was thru
they'd torn down a whole buncha buildings.  Big empty lots. Hungry
people.  Not much by way of stores.  And need for community axis. 
And for green.  

Barnes & Noble got a store there?  You bet your boopkey they don't. 

Disclaimer:  there's nothing personal in my comments. Ya see, I saw
one too many upscale suburban Madisonians drinking coffee in shiny
new Sport Utility Vehicles with environmentalist bumperstickers
parked outside the whole foods (small letters) store this a.m. I'm
not saying that's what Steven and Trauger are doing...I've got my
red flags up, is all. Sure, you can sell the Obvious to the Affluent
and call it social change.  But they'll buy something else when they
get tired of arugula and root vegetables.

In my not so humble opinion, any CSA member who has a household
income of over $X per year--or who owns one of those bleeping SUVs or
has more than 500 square feet of lawn--should be required by the
CSA's formers/farmers to provide a half-share for people with low
incomes. $100-300?--that's not many tanks of gas to run around
suburbia at 13 mpg or whatever the riding lawn mower gets these days.
Seems a small tithe in return for the privilege of choosing
excellent food and the wisdom to know the difference.  

Of course, that may well be akin to selling sustainable ag as
indulgences for environmental and other sins (SUVs excluded), but
somebody's gotta lure the next Martin Luther up to the door, demmit.

:^)

peace
michele

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Michele Gale-Sinex, communications manager
Center for Integrated Ag Systems
UW-Madison College of Ag and Life Sciences
Voice: (608) 262-8018   FAX: (608) 265-3020
http://www.wisc.edu/cias/
It is necessary for me to establish a winner image.
Therefore, I have to beat somebody. --Richard Nixon
:
:
:
http://sunSITE.unc.edu/london/permaculture.html
[email-masked]   [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 11:50:20 -0500

> Barnes & Noble 
[snip]
> things like the lifestyle of the shopping mall and the mega-store?
Well, here we are on the Net, not exactly a sustainable technology and
not exactly local either!

One must not cut off one's nose to spite one's face. We are in an
imbalanced, toxic mode of living, and to get it back to balance and
health will take lots more than resenting the situation with which we
are faced.

Sure it sucks that the mega-corps are sucking out local biz. I watched
my favorite health food store die under the shadow of Fresh Fields,
however, what also killed them was mismanagement. But anyway, my point
is better to have a talk on CSA at Barnes and Noble than none at all.
Moreover, perhaps, just maybe, one person who never heard of CSA and who
wouldn't be in the local bookstore but goes to B&N, will get turned on.

We must always see how we can direct our energies into the positive. I
mean that's what permaculture is all about. It's Aikido of the land
(among other things). Don't grumble about B&N; find out how to use it
while it's there, perhaps w/ a vision of how not to need it anymore,
like PC.

As we heal and balance and reshape our society it is VITAL that we be
flexible with the circumstances in which we are living.

Two lines from singer Ani DiFranco:
"What doesn't bend breaks."
"Every tool is a weapon if you use it right."

Keep the Good energy flowing!
-- 
Happy gardening!
Beanman
cotyledons are my wings

http://www.MusiCentral.com

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 11:50:20 -0500

[snip]