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This evening, my pastor, Jacqueline Baker Hammett implored us to return to God. Citing scripture from Joel and Isaiah, she spoke of the meaning in Lent, stating that this season is as much about forming habits of good as relinquishing the bad. It was not until today that I confronted a negative habit that has caused me a lot of pain and suffering: putting other people on pedestals and expecting them to live up to it.

On Sunday, a friend I have idolized and admired with abandon made me feel very small and insignificant. You might be of the Eleanor Roosevelt school of “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” and I thought I was too, until that moment. I was confronted with a side of my friend I had never seen and was accosted with a rant so vitriolic I still haven’t fully recovered. Was I deserving of the treatment? No; it was a sad misunderstanding that unfortunately continues, but I stood by what I believe to be the truth in the matter, and for this I’m in grief that the friendship is lost.

I have recently completed my second year of Commissioned Ministry study and will be interviewing in early March to have my license renewed. The anger I felt at this confrontation with my friend caused me to question whether I still have what it takes; the humility, the grace, the love and forgiveness a pastor must have.

What I realized tonight, in hearing the words of Isaiah on people who professed to worship God but still clung to other gods, is that in putting a human being on a pedestal, regardless of how much I love him or her, I am serving another god. I trusted this friend in the deepest, darkest trenches of my 2011. In my mind I referred to the friend by the word, “savior.” This was wrong.

Last month I addressed the local chapter of the Optimist Club. They were meeting at a food establishment whose threshold I had never before crossed, and as I began setting up to make my presentation my eyes lit on their Creed. I would encourage anyone suffering from self-doubt or cynicism to read it, and in fact, to commit it to memory.

I wish this very much for the friend whose words have wounded me, for a deeply held cynicism has taken root in that soul, and I pray it can be shed like a dead, unnecessary old skin. If you are reading this, I love you.

“Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning.” Joel 2:10      And so, I return.

Let me preface this entry by saying that John Besh is my favorite chef. He’s actually one of my favorite human beings. Not only has he served our country, but he is the model of locally and regionally-based cooking and cultural food preservation in the Gulf states. I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting him, but my colleagues and I have done everything within our power–and nonprofit salaries–to dine at nearly all of his restaurants over the past few years. In short, I adore John Besh. There is no place I would prefer to spend my money than in his restaurants.

This week we received in the mail an invitation to participate in the Food Dialogues, a “town hall” meeting of sorts produced by the newly formed U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance. I wrote about this organization in April here and they are a puppet regime.

Organized at the behest of AgriBiz, the U.S. FRA has nothing to do with actual farmers. Less than 1% of farmers still live on the land they farm in the U.S. and as you likely know, if you are reading this, you are aware that those represented by Ketchum, Zocalo and the multinational conglomerates they represent, have absolutely nothing to do with local and regionally based food economies. And everything to do with the bottom line, despite co-opting the terms “sustainable” and “environmentally responsible.”

Over the past week I have considered reaching out to John Besh directly. Given my work with chefs I am well aware of the limitations on their time. And so I am positing that Besh, most likely through no fault of his own, has, through someone close to him, become a party to those who would undermine all that we collectively stand for.

It is quite plain, even if one had no background knowledge of the issues at hand, that U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance, is at minimum a trade group bankrolled by the entities stated quite plainly in their “Meet Our Affiliates and Industry Partners” page.

The USFRA “Premier Partner Advisory Group” includes Monsanto and DuPont.

“American consumers are interested in learning how their food is grown and raised,” said John Raines, vice president of customer advocacy for Monsanto. “Billions of people depend upon what farmers and ranchers do on a daily basis. Monsanto is proud to support USFRA’s efforts to lead a dialogue – bringing together the voices of farmers, ranchers and agricultural partners – to address questions consumers are asking.”

On September 22nd, this puppet entity will hold a Town Hall-style meeting in which our beloved chef, John Besh, is involved. The purpose is ostensibly to unite all scales of producers in dialogue about how America’s food is produced. It is, in fact, a propaganda mechanism by AgriBiz. Won’t you join me in saying “no” to this thinly-veiled attempt to sway Americans’ hearts and minds toward an agriculture that pollutes, kills and holds false arguments that misframe the issues before us all?

cc: @michaelpollan @tomphilpott @FARFA_org

Over the weekend I had a life-changing experience. I met a man who had recently retired. From Monsanto. There was nothing in his handshake, in his gaze, in his countenance, to suggest anything evil. And yet, there he was.

In my struggle to sleep Saturday night, I turned to T.S. Eliot. The Hollow Men seemed best to illustrate the feeling in the pit of my stomach.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

The final stanza of the poem is haunting, and captures precisely what I felt:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Saturday night, as I sobbed and struggled against the fact of having had someone in our home who had lived and breathed and worked at this unconscionable institution, I was reminded that they are only men. Individual men, who as a collective realize their power on the world stage. Their time is coming. This is the way the world ends.

Since SXSWi 2011 I’ve become aware of counterinsurgencies of varying levels on the Big Ag PR front. A couple of days ago Michael Pollan tweeted:

michaelpollan Michael Pollan

“Big Ag hires Ketchum and Zocalo to “strengthen” its image and combat critics. Here comes the campaign http://p2.to/1aGG“

…Before examining their marketing goals, let’s take a moment to acknowledge this cutely named newly-formed org: “U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA)“. Sounds farmy doesn’t it? Kind of like, “we’re for the farmers? and if you aren’t with us, you aren’t for the farmers.” That is exactly the line of logic their shills will lead with. I’m calling it now. Then they’ll descend into misframing the issues at hand with fearmongering and questions parried with much hype, the most reliable being:

“HOW CAN WE FEED THE WORLD WITH SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE!?”

The swill-selling shills love this one, because it covers all bases. Whether the debate which ensues includes reasonable, sane-person responses such as, “with local and regionally based food systems appropriate to their geographic place,” the hacks and flacks will howl, “wrong! you cannot ‘feed the world’ with local ag!” They have recently begun referring to it as “peasant ag,” in fact. Charming.

And should the debate enjoy more favorable dialogue from fellow Biggies, the tweeting heads will go right ahead and co-opt the word “sustainable”, citing Monsanto, ADM, DuPont, ConAgra and a host of others who since 2007 have been running wild with bastardizations of the term. I canceled my years-long subscription to The Atlantic Monthly over insipid ads such as the one below, which does nothing more than play upon the public’s fears and encourage the lemming-like masses to trust that the big guys have got this food thing covered. Nothing to see here!

 It’s with great anticipation I await the Ketchum/Zocalo campaign executions. I hope you’ll follow along with me.

 Right out of the starting gate we have this gem of a quotation from the Ketchum head:

“We are honored to have been asked to serve America’s agricultural community for this incredibly important and    unprecedented assignment,” said Linda Eatherton, Ketchum Partner and Director of its Global Food & Nutrition  Practice. “With over 50 years of service to food and agricultural organizations, our firm was literally built for this  assignment. Working side by side with USFRA members, stakeholders and allies, we know we can help people re-  think  the role of American agriculture in feeding hundreds of millions of Americans every day.”

Note in particular, “RE-THINK” and “the role of AMERICAN AGRICULTURE”…”in feeding HUNDREDS OF  MILLIONS” (of Americans) every day. I’m truly surprised they didn’t go for “the world”. Even the world is not enough.

My favorite morning routine includes hopping on the treadmill and watching a half hour or so of Ted talks or interviews between smart people. Today I watched this gem, Alex Bogusky talking Truth with Robyn O’Brien, whom I met a year ago when she was at SFC Farmers’ Market Downtown signing copies of her best seller, The Unhealthy Truth. Alex Bogusky I knew of from my NYC ad agency days; he of hotshot agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky “Subservient Chicken” fame. This man has had a long journey from creating Burger King ads to finding the Truth, and I’m grateful to my friend Marty Butler for bringing Alex’s story to my attention as a fellow agency defector. The credo for his blog, posterous, reads:

Fear is the mortal enemy of creativity, innovation and happiness

His interview with Robyn goes through dark, frightening territory. Both of their young children had life-threatening food allergies and conditions they are now certain were caused by synthetic proteins in our food system. Robyn cites 1994 as the year Pandora’s box was opened and biologically engineered food was launched into the US food supply. Europe, having noted the ill effects to animals – and I’m not talking about lab rats; these were large scale studies on cows and pigs – banned GMOs until harm could be ruled out. Whereas, America’s decision makers decided, we’ll release this exciting new technology into the food system until proven harmful. The Obama Administration has just reprised this logic in its decision to allow farmers to plant GMO alfalfa. Those who continue to question the USDA ruling are repeatedly marginalized and treated as a fringe cell. Hippies out of our minds.

“In our country you have this choice between Orthorexia and Obesity.” Adds Alex, “If you’re obese, they say you have great mental health. But if you’ve opted out [of the conventional food system], you’re orthorexic. That’s a GREAT term, well done. Whomever the folks were who came up with orthorexia, this compulsion to eat better as a medical condition – SO GOOD. BRAVO.”

If you read this blog regularly, you know I’m a fan of people who aren’t afraid of popping the hood on Big Ag – and in particular, those who go after its marketers. Alex and Robyn are certainly in the hall of fame for me.

Best quotation of the interview is from Alex, in closing, with regard to traits being engineered into our food supply: “God had some great ideas, but he just wasn’t a good capitalist…You don’t have to pay Him anything. You just take stuff.”

Settle a debate for us, gentle readers: what is the proper Twetiquette for sending a Tweet at the dinner table? Does one need to say, “excuse me for a moment while I post the witty remark you just made on Twitter,” OR is one justified in looking down as briefly as possible to compose and send the 140 characters without making an announcement? A loved one insists it is the former, while I have been adhering to the latter. Said loved one calls this behavior no different from taking a call in the middle of dinner, but I disagree. What may be one of the most marked differences between Gen Y and our elders – comfort with seamlessly integrating technology into our lives – is certainly not worth offending or embarrassing a friend over. Because that, I’m afraid, is precisely what I’ve been doing, it seems! Methinks I’ll ask my friend Proper Paige to weigh in. She recently posted on the topic of sending invitations via text message, and I do agree with her logic. Paige, what say you about Tweeting-at-the-Table?