Thinking about sexual assault

I am reading the Beloit College Alumni magazine and in it the President of the College, Scott Bierman writes about a topic that is on his mind – sexual assault. He notes that according to national reports, one in five women is sexually assaulted during college and he says, “Some of them have been Beloit students.”

Flashback for me, to 1973.  The women students at Beloit College started actively organizing ourselves to prevent rape on campus.  I was in my second year at Beloit, and there had been a series of sexual attacks at this small Midwestern liberal arts college.  We decided to start a Rape prevention hotline and a transport service, so no women would walk alone on campus at night.  

We turned one of the defunct sorority houses into a Women’s Center, and from there, a core group of smart, capable, creative young women became committed feminists.  A bunch of us came out as lesbians.  We brought women’s studies/theology professor, Mary Daly to campus, and when she demanded that men not attend one of her lectures, all hell broke loose. 

We produced a literary magazine, we did theatre productions, we were audacious and vocal and engaged in the blossoming women’s movement.  And we never stopped that transport service.

My 16 year old daughter is starting to look at colleges and I admit, I worry about what college campuses look like today.  National statistics show 70% of sexual assault victims are under 25 and one in four sexual assaults occurs on college campuses.  The U.S. Student Association reports that 13% of college women report being stalked during an academic year.

Obama named a White House Task Force to develop proposals to prevent sexual assault, and Congress is considering legislation. Dozens of colleges and universities are under federal investigation for possible violations of anti-discrimination law in their handling of sexual violence reports. 

As Sophie researches colleges, and before I write that tuition check, I will make sure that we understand the sexual assault policy of the college she attends, and what that college is doing to protect, educate, and support its students.

Here’s what Scott Bierman says Beloit is doing:

“The college has had a “non-intoxicated, verbal, mutually understood Yes policy for several years; we train staff to serve as confidential reporters and counselors for students; we coordinate meetings among male students to discuss their role in prevention and support; and we ask our resident assistants to educate and encourage communication among students. Our student policy committee reviews the sexual assault policy each year and reports finds and suggested changes to student government and the college staff.” 

But Bierman says, that while Beloit has been among those institutions that have adopted and applied best practices to prevent sexual assault,  “like so many institutions we are also confronted with the fact that it isn’t enough.”

What is enough? I shake my head at the culture.  Sure there were drugs and alcohol when I was in college, but I don’t think it was the same.   At parties, girls were not being served drinks with 5 times the amount of alcohol as boys.  Date rape drugs were not around. We looked out for our intoxicated friends, took them home, and didn’t leave them wasted and vulnerable. I didn’t know any guys who thought it was fun to have sex with a girl who is unconscious.  

I shudder when I hear people second guessing victims, and applaud all efforts to address systemic issues of assault and alcohol abuse on our campuses. Most of all, I want my daughter to be in a safe and healthy environment when she goes to college. 

Consciousness must be raised, behaviors and policies must change, Young men and young women must be responsible, and institutions must be accountable.  We can and must do better.

My Yiddishe Papa and Mama

At the dinner table my parents often resorted to Yiddish speak when they didn’t want my sister and I to understand what they were talking about.

After awhile, we finely tuned our 97% Ashkenazi ears to the onomatopoetic funny words that came out of their mouths, and figured out what they were saying.  I was the klayner (the youngest); I keyed right into that word whenever they discussed me.   The other word that raised a red flag was shtup (fuck).  They discussed who was shtupping who, or who was being shtupped,  and we weren’t supposed to have a clue what any of that was about.

They had multiple words for speaking badly about someone, a virtual litany of

insults, many referring to male body parts.   Schmuck, putz, yutz, mamzer, nebbish, nar, schmendrick chmegeggy, goniff (penis, dick, incompetent boob, fool, bastard, ineffective person, idiot, someone full of hot air, thief).  When my dad got really angry with someone, he might tell them, “Ge kakken offen yam.” (Go take a shit in the ocean.)

Whenever we started kvetching, (complaining) that we were bored, my parents told us, “Klup kup on vant.”  (Go hit your head against the wall.)  If we kept noodging (bugging) them, we were threatened with a potch en tuckes, (light smack on the butt) though they rarely followed through.

We were encouraged to have chutzpah (nerve, bravery, moxie), except when standing up to them.  “You pishers,” (insignificant person) my dad would admonish us.

On Sunday mornings when my dad took me to his drugstore to work the cash register, he would roll down the window, and intone, “Goyim…..goyim….goyim,”(non-Jews) like a church bell ringing. “Goyim come out and spend your money.” His inventory was in not your tstandard fare.  The more dreck (shit) and shlock (inferior goods) we sold, the better. 

Later in his career, my dad left the pharmacy business.  He had tsuris (troubles) with the anti-Semitic pharmacy board, and they suspended his license for a year.  He then sold tchotchkes (small cheap souvenirs) schlepping (taking a long arduous journey) to yenavelt (Timbuktu) to call on accounts.  He was a master at schmoozing (chatting), part yenta (busybody), part tummler (an entertainer/comedian). He was full of shtick (jokes) and everyone loved him. He’d make you laugh until you plotzed (fell down from extreme excitement). I get verklempt (choked up) thinking about what a special guy he was. 

He would go into restaurants, and when he had to leave his name with the host he would tell them, “Meshuggenah”  (crazy person).  In the next twenty minutes we’d hear, “Meshuggenah, Mr. Meshuggenah, your table is ready.”

My dad was fundamentally a mensch (a kindhearted and righteous person), and he taught us kids to do good in the world.  He kvelled (to be overcome with pride) when I got my first newspaper feature article published.  He kvelled when I got my first play produced in San Francisco.   He kvelled watching his granddaughter play her violin. He would shep naches, (derive pleasure) whenever any of us accomplished our goals. He was my biggest supporter.  My daughter would say the same.

My dad generated mishegoss (craziness).  Mostly good crazy. This isn’t to say that he wasn’t a little fercockt (all fucked up).  His best buddy, a divorce lawyer named Fred and he would line up the six girls in both families.  They’d go down the line saying, “Miskeit, miskeit, miskeit, miskeit, miskeit, miskeit.” (Ugly).  Occasionally one of us would break down and start pishing from de oygen (peeing from the eyes), victims of their relentless teasing.   

While we’re on the subject of eyes, my dad called my mom “dirt eyes.”  She was always cleaning up after his schmutz (debris). My dad had terrible eyesight, without his glasses he could see bupkis (nothing). Unlike my dad, my mother has always been concerned about appearances. She is vain and fashion conscious.  She worried that her daughters, left to our own devices, would leave the house wearing schmattas (rags).  What a shanda (a shame) we were in our jeans and work boots and flannel shirts (which to this day are still my standard attire).

Oy, oy vey, oy vey ist mir, oy yoy yoy (variations of woe is to me) oy gevalt (enough already).  Like breathing, we naturally incorporated into our being these progressive expressions of surprise, shock, worry, and doom.

I learned all these Yiddish words from my parents and now sprinkle them into my language like spices into my favorite dishes.  Since I was little I loved decoding this mishmash of Hebrew, German, and Russian languages, evoking the humor, hubris, and neuroses of my personal and collective mishpocah (family). 

I'll Take Some Sushi on that Bagel

“Oh my god, you’re Asian!” Patricia declared, when the first result from 23andme, my Haplogroup, N9a3, arrived in my email “Your ancestral grandmother was Korean, Uzbek, or Mongolian. You’re Asian! I always thought you looked a bit exotic."

Asian? How could a Russian and Polish Ashkenazi Jew like me (my ancestry composition is 96.7% Ashkenazi with a little Southern and Eastern Europe thrown in), belong to a very rare family of mitochondrial DNA types that all traces back about 23,000 years to a single mutation found mainly among North and Northeastern Asian peoples, and some Slavic populations?  I thought my ancient people would have migrated from Africa, into the Middle East, then onto Europe.

Had someone at 23andme, a company that provides ancestry-related genetic reports and uninterpreted raw genetic data, switched my DNA-rich spit sample? Last year, the FDA made 23andme stop providing Health related reports indicating one’s risk of getting or carrying the gene mutation for various diseases and possible responses to drug therapies (the potentially important medical stuff), so I was suspicious.   

So off I went researching on the Internet, only to discover that my ancient ancestors were part of the Ainu tribe, one of a “vanishingly rare” female line that developed 17,000 years ago in the area around Sakhalin, 
Japan’s most northern island.  Russia invaded the island, and took Ainu women as slaves.  Throughout the 18^th, 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Japan and Russia fought over Sakhalin, and most of the Ainu people were killed off.

Patricia immediately did an image search on women who are in the Haplogroup N9a3, and it returned a bunch of Korean and Japanese women and one blond Jewish woman, who it turns out, is a fairly serious genealogist who wrote an article about belonging to this group.

I even found a Facebook page called N9a3 that offered this hypothesis:

“Ashkenazi Jews, Central Asians (such as Uzbeks) and East Asians (such as Koreans) all share a common N9a3 origin linking back to a single woman who lived in Siberia at least 300 years ago - likely much earlier. Through this woman's children, her lines likely entered into the Ashkenazi gene pool either via a Lithuanian Tatar woman and an Ashkenazi man, or through the offspring of an Ashkenazi traveling merchant and a Siberian/Mongolian woman. Conversely, both Central Asian and East Asian peoples also have historical linkages to the vast regions of Siberia, which could explain why N9a3 is sometimes present in populations such as Koreans and Uzbeks.”

Patricia’s and Sophie’s results came in, and interestingly, they are both of similar ancestral composition (English, Irish, Scandinavian, and other European, in different percentages with Pat being a much higher percent Irish).  Patricia’s Haplogroup, a variation of my N group, also shows Eastern Asian ancestry along her mother’s line, and she’s still trying to figure out how her ancient people migrated to Ireland.  My dad often claimed that Patricia was his “love child.”  Who knows?

While all this ancestry stuff is pretty trippy, I have been more entertained by our reaction to the information.  I was doubtful at first, then very excited to claim my Asian roots. Pat has been compulsively searching the Internet, tracing back her family tree, as well as attempting to interpret her raw genetic data. She would like to have a second career as an epigeneticist.  Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression caused by certain base pairs in DNA or RNA being switched on or off through chemical reactions.  It’s complicated and most likely the way we will be fighting cancer in the future, as is using genetic data to predict increased risk of disease.    

23andme is now working with FDA, and I expect that they will eventually offer the over 200 health reports that they initially provided consumers of their service, once they make it through all the red tape.  Accumulating all this genetic information (Medical Big Data) will undoubtedly produce more advances and increased understanding of the causes and treatment of disease.   So the next time 23andme pings me and asks me to take yet another online survey, I am going to do it, in the name of science, and in memory of my Mongolian grandmas!

Don't Touch That Candy Dish

“I knew they were going to sell the place when I saw a posse of black suited men walking around,” my mom tells me.   “Then someone painted the outside of the building, and I knew for sure someone was buying it.”

A new corporation, Atria, recently purchased the Senior Living community in Scottsdale where my mom has lived for the past year. They immediately changed the name of the place, from Sierra Pointe, to Atria Sierra Pointe, and in the month they have assumed management, the new owners have made several other changes.

Right away, they sent a letter to residents stating that they would honor everyone’s lease, and they would not be raising prices.  But no one seems to trust this.

The new company changed the tablecloths in the dining room from white to black. “Stupid decision,” my mom opines, “The black tablecloths show all the schmootz.”

They fired several of the service staff, and hired replacements. They rearranged the coffee and pastry set up in the front lobby. They moved a clock in the dining room and my mom’s tablemate no longer can figure out what time it is.  She doesn’t like where they moved the clock, and can’t easily see it from her table.

“The inmates are a buzz,” my mom reports. “It is all anyone talks about.”

The chef has left (was let go?), and the food staff has all turned over.  Complaining about the food is a full-time activity at Sierra Pointe.  My mom’s dinner companions can’t seem to find anything on the menu that they like.  They ask to be served half-orders, but they get too much food. The food is overcooked, undercooked, too spicy, not spicy enough. “I’m the only one who likes the food,” my mom says. “I can always find something to eat.  If I don’t like the specials, I can order a piece of salmon or a filet.  No one is starving here.”

They took away the candy dish at the lobby reception desk, but after my mom’s friend complained bitterly (she liked to take a handful of the candies and hand them out to her friends at dinner), they put the candy dish back.

They have notified the residents that they are going to monitor the air-conditioning usage in the units, and in common areas turn the air-conditioning down a few degrees. My mom’s bridge buddies are so angry they are going to draft a petition to the management demanding no temperature changes. “Has anyone actually noticed that the rooms are too warm?” I ask my mom, who brings a sweater with her when she ventures out and about the building because she often is too cold.  “Not yet,” she reports.

Change is not easy for most people. We do not like being surprised by changes.  We want to know about an impending change in advance and understand the rationale behind why a change is going to be made. Change can represent a loss of control.  We need a comfort level with the change makers and and ideally would like to be involved in the change process.  Change can threaten our self-esteem.  We may have to step out of our comfort zone and do something new and different. Most of us are creatures of habit.

There is tons written about how to manage change.  Yet so few organizations get it right.  I am pleased that my mom is responding to her situation with a calm skepticism.  She has adopted a wait and see attitude.  “Some changes will be good; others not so good,” she says. “If I don’t like things here, I can always come to California and live,” she says.  And that would be another big change for her.  One that I look forward to.

Progress not Results

“You have to do a reset,” I told my wonderful 65 year-old cousin, Brook, who is recovering from Pancreatic cancer surgery. 

Brook was lucky that his cancer was operable.  He (like Steve Jobs, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg) had a Pancreaticoduodenectomy (Whipple procedure). The surgery is a tough one, taking place deep in the gut.  His surgeon removed a neuroendocrine tumor, as well as part of the pancreas, and parts of nearby structures including the small intestine, bile duct, gallbladder, and the stomach.  Then everything had to be attached and reattached.

There were complications after the initial surgery including leaking from the various connections among organs that the surgeon made, bleeding and an infection. His doctor did a second surgery to address these issues.

So now, Brook, a very active and fit guy, is knocked on his ass big time. He says he has no energy, and he’s having a hard time eating (he’s lost 15 pounds of weight that he didn’t really have on his body in the first place). He is struggling to readjust to his day-to-day reality. He gets depressed and impatient with himself.  He just wants to be back to his 100%.

I reminded him that he can’t view and measure where he is at in the same way.  He needs to give himself at least 9 months to come back; and during this time, he needs to be assessing the delta between where he is today, and where he is tomorrow (or where he was last week and where he is today). He must embrace the progress, not the result (his idea of 100%).  There may be setbacks and breakthroughs along the way.  And he’s going to have to adjust his expectations around these as well.

I gave him the analogy of how teachers and schools are evaluated by the test results of the students.  This is completely the wrong model for assessment.  Rather than measuring the results of test scores, what should be measured is the progress each student has made during the year.   Brook recently retired from being a Community College Administrator and prior to that was a Guidance Counselor for many years. So he knows what I’m talking about and agrees.

The healing intent of the body is real. It needs to be accepted and worked with, not against.  It takes a whole lot of energy to heal. 

Brook told me that he had walked 1.6 miles on the treadmill the day I spoke with him about all this. He was arguing with his wife Nina, the consummate hiker (she can do 20 miles a day without batting a eye), about not wanting to take a nap, even though he needed one.

“Brook,” I said. “Celebrate that 1.6 miles. And as a reward, give yourself that nap.”

Oh No, Not the Bow!

Yesterday when I took Sophie’s violin bow to be re-haired at Ifshin Violins in El Cerrito, on the counter, I noticed a one-page article with the headline, “Budapest Orchestra Has Bows Seized Over Ivory Concerns.”

Early this summer, U.S Fish and Wildlife Service inspectors at Kennedy airport confiscated seven of the musicians' bows even though the Budapest Orchestra believed that the bows did not contain the forbidden ivory. 

In the past ten years, alarming numbers of savannah and forest elephants (up to 30,000 per year) are being slaughtered to supply the global ivory trade. In an attempt to protect African elephants, the Obama administration has enacted regulations that place a near-total ban on anything made with ivory moving in and out of the U.S.

The executive director of the Budapest Orchestra said that they had gotten documentation for each bow from bow makers, stating that the bows did not contain banned ivory; however, the inspectors disagreed, and since the Orchestra did not have a special ivory import permit, the government officials refused entry for the bows and issued a $525 fine.

 “Does this bow have ivory on it?” I asked the Ifshin Violins guy.  He looked at the small fingernail size white piece that protects the head of the violin and supports the plug that holds the horsehair into the stick. “I don’t think so, “ he told me.  “It’s probably a synthetic material, not elephant ivory, but the problem is it’s very hard to tell for sure.”

Following an international ban on ivory in the early 70’s, instrument makers started using plastic, mammoth ivory, fossil ivory, or even bone. However older, antique bows do contain elephant ivory, as do piano keys, and inlays on old guitars and mandolins.

If you can prove that ivory in your instrument was legally acquired before 1976, for $75 you can obtain a travel permit in about 45 days through the USFWS.

The League of American Orchestras and the American Federation of Musicians are lobbying for more flexible rules to address traveling musicians entering the U.S. with instruments containing small amounts of African elephant ivory, or not, since determining what’s really elephant ivory is not a slam dunk. The permit process and complicated enforcement procedures need to be revamped.

Who would have imagined that addressing wildlife conservation goals and protecting international musical activity would be discordant? Every time I hear about another elephant being poached for ivory, I shudder.  While it makes sense to completely STOP buying any products that contain ivory of any kind, I’m not convinced that harassing musicians is a good solution.

How about having these professional musicians who own instruments with ivory in them, perform at concerts benefitting an organization like Roots&Shoots, founded by Jane Goodall and students in Tanzania “to make positive change.”  There are a number of other good organizations out there that would welcome donations including:

International Elephant Foundation 

Elephant Care International

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

African Wildlife Foundation

Amboseli Elephant Research Project

When I pick up Sophie’s bow, and pay for it, I plan to donate the same amount to one of these groups. 

Penguins and Prejudice

The two male penguins, who care for an errant egg in the Central Park Zoo, are officially ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE.  And the children ‘s book, “And Tango Makes Three,” documenting this abhorrent situation, according to the National Library Board in Singapore, must immediately be “pulped. “

Explaining that “prevailing norms support teaching children about conventional families, but not alternative, non-traditional families,” the Minister of Communications and Information, Yaacob Ibrahim ordered two other books destroyed, including “The White Swan Express: A Story About Adoption,” and “Who’s in My Family: All About Our Families.”

In the “twisted” plot in Tango, based on a true story, Roy and Silo, male penguins build a nest together like other mating penguins, but alas, they can’t lay an egg.  A Central Park Zookeeper (probably a deviant himself) brings them an egg to sit on; when the egg hatches, the penguin couple have the audacity to parent the chick, who they name Tango.   “The White Swan Express “ follows several families to an orphanage in China, where they adopt girls, who under the “one child per family” policy, have been abandoned primarily because of their gender.  One of the adopting families is oh no, a lesbian couple.

Ornithophobic, homophobic, or just plain idiotic?

When our adopted daughter was itty bitty, I read her all three of these books.  Over and over and over.  We checked them out of our public library and I often talked to the librarian, Miss Kitty, about making sure they had plenty of the available titles that positively portrayed non-traditional families.  She agreed wholeheartedly.

On the first day of kindergarten, in the circle when all the kids introduced themselves and described their families, when they got to our daughter, she said,“I’m Sophie, and I have 2 moms.”  “Two moms, you can’t have two moms,” some of her classmates protested. “Actually, I have three moms,” Sophie insisted.   She has always been comfortable with who she is and with her family constellation.  Instrumental to this was having stories and books that reflected her reality.

I am galled that sixteen years later, reading material that normalizes gay and adoptive families is being banned in a multi-cultural, modern city of 5.4 million people. This ban is driven by surprise, surprise, religious conservatives.  But these forces aren’t limited to Singapore.  In the U.S., the library books most often petitioned for removal are about “homosexuality." 

The American Civil Liberties Union explains that "the urge to censor is hardly the monopoly of any political group. But the greatest threat today comes from the fundamentalist right, with its ideological hostility to other religious or philosophical systems, to homosexuality, to sex education, and indeed to the basic idea of secular education."

This year I plan to make it a point to celebrate Banned Books week on September 21-27.  They have a great website at:  http://www.bannedbooksweek.org., that includes a reading list of must read “banned” books.

Outrage over Central American crisis

Are they cattle or kids?  And who cares, anyway?

It took the publication of photos showing children huddled together like frightened livestock in a Texas holding facility while they wait processing, to get us to pay attention to the humanitarian crisis that is happening at our southern border.

Since October, 52,000 children have entered the U.S., primarily from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.  They flee for their lives, in the face of violence from drug gangs, domestic abuse, and extreme poverty.

In the Bay Area, there are an estimated 350 children from Central America showing up alone each month, overwhelming the non-profit organizations that provide them and their families with assistance.

U.S. foreign and economic policy has contributed to the destabilization of these countries over the past decade; yet, our politicians for the most part, do nothing to meaningfully address immigration reform.  There is a stalemate with no end in sight.

Where is our compassion? We are talking about children ranging in age from 5 to 21 years old. Their journey is perilous.  In the hands of smugglers who make between $2000 and $9000 per child, these kids put garlic on their shoes to repel rattlesnakes, collide with cactus in the night, and ride precariously on tops of moving trains.  Once they arrive, we detain them in overcrowded, unsanitary, dismal detention centers. 

This week the UN high commission for refugees called for Central American migrants to be treated as refugees displaced by armed conflict. “The US and Mexico should recognize that this is a refugee situation, which implies that they shouldn’t be automatically sent to their home countries but rather, receive international protection,” the agency said.

ref·u·gee,

refyo͝oˈjē,ˈrefyo͝oˌjē/

noun: refugee; plural noun: refugees1.a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster."tens of thousands of refugees fled their homes"
Synonyms:  émigré, fugitive, exile, displaced person, asylum seeker, boat people.

But Americans are not talking about officially changing the status of these children.  Instead, Congressional Republicans, as well as the Obama administration have proposed ending a 2008 law mandating that child migrants must appear before an immigration judge. Border Patrol agents could decide whether to deport them or allow them an additional hearing. Wrong.

Obama requested $3.7 billion in emergency funds that would be used to strengthen border security, provide more overtime pay for border patrol agents, hire additional immigration judges to expedite processing, provide funds to pursue smugglers, create more detention centers, and help Central American countries repatriate people sent back.  Wrong again.

Why are we spending all this money to send innocent children back into intolerable conditions? We must find humanitarian answers, create new immigration laws and apply funds to efforts that actually help these people. 

I am reminded of the Kindertransport that took place in WWII, where about 10,000 Jewish children were sent to England and adopted by foster families, or placed in schools and hostels.  This effort was spurred by British public opinion, and organized by refugee aid committees. Private citizens or organizations had to guarantee to pay for each child's care, education, and eventual emigration from Britain. In return for this guarantee, the British government agreed to allow unaccompanied refugee children to enter the country on temporary travel visas. Call me simplistic, but this seems like a much better way to go.

Notes from the Heartland

“You’re raising that stalk from a seed to maturity in 120 days. The time you get the stalk up there and you get the ear on, you’re done. You usually around here, you can start growing if everything’s right around the first of April.  Usually, it’s best to wait till the 15^th, and the 20^th is better. The earlier you get it in the better off you are. You want to get it in as the spring is advancing to summer, as the days get longer.”

“If I could plant all my corn on the 20^th of April, I’d be tickled to death.   But you can’t always do that because of the rain.  You can plant corn up until June and some people plant as late as July. But you have to have so many degree units, so many heat degree units to mature a crop, and the sun and the moon have a lot to do with how the crop grows, how it germinates and grows and pollinates, and all that. “ 

 “As the season goes on, the dominant ear will suck all the energy out of the less dominant ear, and make a big one.  If you have the one ear standing all by itself, if he’s only got 16 rows on it, and the second one has 16 rows, you’ll have two nice ears.  Rarely can you have three ears since we plant it so thick anymore. There is always an even number of rows on an ear of corn. 12 to 24 rows.  Normally, 14 to 16 rows.  It’s all dependent on the weather.”

My daughter’s grandfather, Richard, is a 75-year-old farmer from Blandinsville, a town in western Illinois. A college graduate with a degree in agriculture, he has been farming 138 acres of land since he was a boy, growing primarily corn, soy, and alfalfa.  He has raised hogs, sheep, and cattle, but he no longer raises animals, as they require too much physical labor.  He rents most of his land from the same family his father struck an initial deal with in the depression.  The terms are the same; they profit share 50-50, a pretty sweet deal for the landowner.  He owns about 50 acres outright and rents them to another farmer.

This is the second visit we’ve made to see this family, and as we tool around in large pick-up truck, Dick tells us all about farming the land, the history of both the area and his family. He can trace his genealogy back seven or eight generations.

My wife and daughter think I’m a bit crazy, as I listen intently, and ask all kinds of questions about farming.  I’m not sure why it interests me so much.  At home I dutifully water a few plants and try to eat local organically produced food as much as possible. The level of specificity about growing crops that Dick goes into captivates me.  That and the fact that farmers like him are both an American tradition and sadly, a dying breed. 

According to Department of Agriculture statistics, there are about 2 million farms today, down from 6.8 million in 1935.  39% of the U.S population in 1900 lived on farms; today, only 2% of Americans live on farms. There isn’t less farming actually taking place; rather, farming is dominated by big agribusiness, food processing conglomerates, and big seed companies like Monsanto.

Dick explains that there are no jobs in the area. Young people just leave, and young families no longer farm in the area. Most of the schools have consolidated, and several have been closed and torn down.  “That used to be a school,” Dick tells us pointing to a field of mowed green grass.  He shows us similar former school sites in about 3 or 4 small towns we drive through. The population of Blandinsville is only 800 people, mostly older adults. The downtown area is about 2 blocks long; there are 2 cafes, a bar, a law office, a few churches, and several empty storefronts, a few of which are filled with rural debris covered in dust.

My recent trip to the Corn Belt has made me think more deeply about agricultural sustainability, and what is happening to people in rural communities.  I don’t talk farm politics with Dick, but as I listen to him, I read between the rows, so to speak.

There are fields of green for miles around; but we see no people. We pass Star Wars like pieces of huge farm equipment that have very specialized functions.  GPS is now used to plant the fields, eliminating the need for markers and human operators to distribute seeds. 

Monsanto produces about 90% of all GMO seeds, genetically modified to produce their own pesticides. These GMOs are designed to increase profits, not yields; Monsanto contractually locks in farmers who must buy their high-priced, patented seeds.  They sell more toxic chemicals to farmers, whose crops become increasingly herbicide-resistant; the topsoil, full of these chemicals, is eroding, and the water quality is dangerously declining. It is a vicious cycle.  Add to this, a litany of social problems including low pay, unsafe working conditions, and immigration concerns. The summer program for migrant school children that my daughter’s aunt teaches at in Mendota, Illinois, was cut back this year.  She is helping fewer kids for a shorter amount of time. 

My head is spinning, as Dick keeps driving and talking.

John Eckard, in his article “Small Farms: The Foundation for Long-Run Food Security, writes:

“We don’t need a lot of data, facts, or figures to understand what is happening to American agriculture; it’s just plain common sense.  In making agriculture more efficient, we have chosen industrial technologies and methods, which have resulted in fewer, larger farming operations, and now, in corporate control of agriculture.  In the process, we have lost both the security of our farms and the food security of our nation.“

Wendell Berry, farmer/writer/activist observed, “Eating is an agricultural act.” Writer/activist Michael Pollan, in his numerous books and speeches, notes that we must make the connection between eating and the way we grow our food.  Says Pollan, “When people are more conscious about their food choices, they can change the food chain. They can change what happens on the farm.”

As I return from the heartland, I take these words to heart. I hope for a revival of “real” farming, the kind that Dick and his family used to do. In the meantime, I am going to engage in a political act, and go eat some lunch.

Stepping in It

There is only one thing worse than stepping in dog shit.  Stepping in dog shit and not realizing it until you’ve smeared it all over your car carpet or on your living room rug.  If you’ve done this you know what I’m talking about.  Your nose twitches, and you wonder, hum what could that awful smell be?  Then you look down, and damn.

I thought I had a grasp on humanity.  But I don’t understand people. Why oh why can’t they pick up after their dogs?   How much time and energy does it take to carry a small blue/ brown/ green baggie, bend over for just a minute, scoop it up, and then toss it in the trash? 

One of my political heroes, Harvey Milk, famously proposed legislation when he first got elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, fining people for not picking up after their dogs.  In a television news clip, Harvey walks on a lawn carrying a “pooper scooper,” talking about getting his first law passed.  And then, being the consummate showman that he was, he takes a few steps backwards, into, yes, a pile of shit.

I want to make a citizens arrest almost on a daily basis.

On the cull de sac where I live, there are some people who let their dogs roam free range like happy chickens, without giving a second thought to the fact that the dog is going to most likely poop right there on the street. When they gotta go, they go. 

A study in the journal “Frontiers in Zoology,” found that dogs use the planet’s magnetic field to choose the direction in which they poop.  It’s always on a north-south axis, never east to west.  The scientists don’t understand why.

“It is still enigmatic why the dogs do align at all, whether they do it “consciously” (i.e., whether the magnetic field is sensorial perceived (the dogs “see”, “hear” or “smell” the compass direction or perceive it as a haptic stimulus) or whether its reception is controlled on the vegetative level (they “feel better/more comfortable or worse/less comfortable” in a certain direction).”

My frustration, however, is not misaligned. I do not feel better, as I try to dig poop out of the intricate ridges on the bottoms of my favorite running shoes.  I am never without a baggie. They line my jacket pockets.  When I walk my beloved Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Picasso, on the street, I end up picking up other dog’s shit, because well, I just can’t stand it.

Online there is a company called Poop911.com that provides dog poop scooping services in San Francisco and the East Bay for just $9.95 a week.  They haven’t expanded to Marin yet.  I mean really?  People have to hire someone to pick up their dog’s poop? Are you shitting me?