I wached "Troubled Waters" on TPT Tuesday.

I was cynical before watching it tonight on TPT. Before viewing I posted this at my http://fifthestate.net

http://fifthestatenet.blogspot.com/2010/10/comments-before-viewing-troubled-waters.html

I was pleasantly surprised when I viewed the film. Overall I would rate it "B+". The negatives might be a few omissions that could have allowed for "fast ones". (As an example did that organic dairy farm have a steady livestock population? Probably but they didn't say).

It was thankfully post "global warming/climate change". With the two adjacent gulleys, one with a tile drain, the other without, the quip that it is hard to blame global warming was appropriate. The other one I caught was the Shakopee tribe representative saying that the grasslands were a "carbon sink". True but it didn't go past there.

Judging from pre-screening comments the film may have undergone some final editing. Specifically the Walker Art Center clip was in the middle and very short.

Back when I went to the U there were tenured professors in their secure jobs proclaiming "money is irrelevant". I sometimes think that many "greens" believed this. (IE: The photo-voltaic projects with a sixty to one-hundred year payback.) Fortunately "Troubled Waters" took the stance that nothing is more relevant than money to this situation. I especially liked the high-tech solutions and the cheap ones like valve plates on the tile drains.

I'll watch it again in a day or two but overall "B+"

I'm cross-posting at my http://fifthestate.net

Comments before viewing "Troubled Waters" today.

I've followed the controversy online for the last few weeks. I anticipate this will be somewhat better than some of the "PC propaganda" on the more educational cable channels. My all time favorite worst was "life after oil" on the National Geographic Channel.

That said I still think that "Troubled Waters" could backfire in the long run. More after I watch it and tape it tonight but points to consider in advance.

1. The timing of the film. It "just happens" to be a month before elections. What a coincidence!

2. The funding for the film. A lot came from the lottery proceeds. The lottery helped fund the big windmills near Northfield and study of the aquifer in the Karst geological formation. A cursory view of the MN lottery webpage winners shows them to be the "hunting and fishing" types. I'll bet 90% of lottery users believe the money is used for DIRECT wildlife habitat preservation and restoration projects.

3. The opening of the film with the organic farm "plug". Best organics might top worst regular farming but organic typically gets half the yield with output selling at twice the price. The New York Times recently had an article on the Amish being a major polluter of the Chesapeake Bay. The Amish are extremely organic but they tend to have too much livestock for the land and poor basic runoff remediation.

4. As for the big (IE: corporate) farms versus "family farms". We have had almost 40 years of the EPA which tends to go after the largest first. Also, large and corporate can afford the latest technology. Basically, with GPS harvest yields can be mapped down to the square yard or less. When it comes to fertilizer, pesticides and such these can be customized to the same square yard areas. Beyond environmental pressure these chemicals cost money just as gas for your car costs money.

5. Watch for "global warming", "climate change" or anything "carbon" mention. This has turned into a "code word" for a political divide on environmental issues. Heck, Osama Bin Laden just came out against "global warming".

6. The "academic freedom" arguments seem awfully lame to the "public" I have bounced it off of. Most people think that the academic environment is "hyper-political" versus office politics and they don't like office politics. This has been a fourth rate public relations disaster and the academic world claims to be a repository of the best and brightest. Nuff said.

More after I watch the show tonight.

Posted at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, first posting deleted.

Source:

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/editorials/94778999.html

I worked for Hennepin County in the

1980's when the first MN gay rights

ordinance was passed.

It specifically EXCLUDED domestic

partner benefits as part of the

negotiations to get the bill passed.

As soon it was passed the

Minneapolis Civil Right department

"decreed" that the law included gay

domestic partnership benefits. My

AFSME Council 5 2822 union was

negotiating a new contract. The

wanted to include a very loosely

defined domestic partners benefit in

the contract if it passed legal

muster. ......... Everyone in the

office wanted to know if this is

included financial co-dependence.

Our co-worker union rep was a stand

-up guy (woman) who demanded an

answer. We were told that we would

be subject to "sexual harassment

complaints" if we persisted. It

turned out that it did have this

"suicide by pen" provision. Seems

the City of Minneapolis had eight-

hundred people interested in

domestic partner benefits. When

informed that financial co-

dependence was included 9o0% lost

interest. .......... There was a

group that wanted to legally

challenge the Minneapolis ruling but

they needed a Minneapolis property

owner to file a legal challenge. I

contacted the group. They told me

that they were looking for a retired

homeowner and warned me that I could

encounter substantial workplace

problems if I was the face of the

lawsuit. They got several retiree

Minneapolis homeowners and one was

fronted for the legal challenge.

...... The legal challenge went

first to the MN Court of Appeals and

then by the MN Supreme Court which

basically rejected the domestic

partners interpretation and told the

defendants to "learn how to read".

..... I'm now retired so they can't

hurt me but some of these "gay

advocates" are willing to use "the

ends justify the means" tactics. I

followed the case and cannot recall

any gay group coming forward saying

"this is not what we agree to when

the MN gay rights law was passed".

........ Since then no significant

gay rights legislation has passed in

Minnesota. Go figure! I'll cross

post at my http://fifthestate.net in

case the Star Tribune censors

consider this an "inconvenient

truth".

The Thursday May 6, 2010 record start market drop.

Anyone else think that George Soros is behind this?

http://comments.startribune.com/comments.php?d=asset_comments&asset_id=93024874&sort=E&section=/business&start=30

The Day of the Blogger: the Fifth Estate Comes into its Own

http://web.me.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Entries/2010/2/4_The_Day_of_the_Blogger:_the_Fifth_Estate_Comes_into_its_Own.html

Looks like Tim Nicholson has won his lawsuit in which he argues that belief in climate change is philosophically akin to a religion.

An interesting outcome from a court case in the UK which I first mentioned a while back:

In a landmark ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton said that "a belief in man-made climate change ... is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations".

The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.

I wonder if this will open the door to other "science-based beliefs" such as having to do with GMOs, illegal drugs and so on receiving legal protection. This will be discussed in depth I am sure.

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-environmentalism-religion.html

Shades of Marie Antoinette "Let them eat cake?"

Redrant: Last week I purchased ten pounds of new crop Russet potatoes for US $1.50. Some are small. I steam them along with cheap seasonal vegetables like local twenty-five cent corn on the cob and forty cents per pound local cabbage. The larger russets are bakers.

The point is that this fine locally grown in-season produce is available at a tiny fraction of the cost that the First Lady is paying. You might recall the First Lady planting a White House garden but we don't of the First Family actually eating the produce from this garden. It was fertilized with sewage sludge and contains "heavy metals".

Apparently President Obama still smokes cigarettes. The Marie Antoinette hypocrisy is blatant here. We have $20 per pound kale when we have an official unemployment rate nearing 10%. Link and source article below. Greg Lang

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091703679_pf.html

Hi-Ho, the Derry-O

By Dana Milbank
Friday, September 18, 2009

Let's say you're preparing dinner and you realize with dismay that you don't have any certified organic Tuscan kale. What to do?

Here's how Michelle Obama handled this very predicament Thursday afternoon:

The Secret Service and the D.C. police brought in three dozen vehicles and shut down H Street, Vermont Avenue, two lanes of I Street and an entrance to the McPherson Square Metro station. They swept the area, in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs, with bomb-sniffing dogs and installed magnetometers in the middle of the street, put up barricades to keep pedestrians out, and took positions with binoculars atop trucks. Though the produce stand was only a block or so from the White House, the first lady hopped into her armored limousine and pulled into the market amid the wail of sirens.

Then, and only then, could Obama purchase her leafy greens. "Now it's time to buy some food," she told several hundred people who came to watch. "Let's shop!"

Cowbells were rung. Somebody put a lei of marigolds around Obama's neck. The first lady picked up a straw basket and headed for the "Farm at Sunnyside" tent, where she loaded up with organic Asian pears, cherry tomatoes, multicolored potatoes, free-range eggs and, yes, two bunches of Tuscan kale. She left the produce with an aide, who paid the cashier as Obama made her way back to the limousine.

There's nothing like the simple pleasures of a farm stand to return us to our agrarian roots.

The first lady had encouraged Freshfarm Markets, the group that runs popular farmers markets in Dupont Circle and elsewhere, to set up near the White House, and she helped get the approvals to shut down Vermont Avenue during rush hour on Thursdays. But the result was quite the opposite of a quaint farmers market. Considering all the logistics, each tomato she purchased had a carbon footprint of several tons.

The promotion of organic and locally grown food, though an admirable cause, is a risky one for the Obamas, because there's a fine line between promoting healthful eating and sounding like a snob. The president, when he was a candidate in 2007, got in trouble in Iowa when he asked a crowd, "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?" Iowans didn't have a Whole Foods.

For that reason, it's probably just as well that the first lady didn't stop by the Endless Summer Harvest tent yesterday. The Virginia farm had a sign offering "tender baby arugula" -- hydroponically grown, pesticide free -- and $5 for four ounces, which is $20 a pound.

Obama, in her brief speech to the vendors and patrons, handled the affordability issue by pointing out that people who pay with food stamps would get double the coupon value at the market. Even then, though, it's hard to imagine somebody using food stamps to buy what the market offered: $19 bison steak from Gunpowder Bison, organic dandelion greens for $12 per pound from Blueberry Hill Vegetables, the Piedmont Reserve cheese from Everson Dairy at $29 a pound. Rounding out the potential shopping cart: $4 for a piece of "walnut dacquoise" from the Praline Bakery, $9 for a jumbo crab cake at Chris's Marketplace, $8 for a loaf of cranberry-walnut bread and $32 for a bolt of yarn.

The first lady said the market would particularly appeal to federal employees in nearby buildings to "pick up some good stuff for dinner." Yet even they might think twice about spending $3 for a pint of potatoes when potatoes are on sale for 40 cents a pound at Giant. They could get nearly five dozen eggs at Giant for the $5 Obama spent for her dozen.

But whatever the socioeconomics, there can be no doubt that Obama brought some serious attention to her cause. Hundreds of people crowded the market entrance on I Street as police directed pedestrians to alternative subway entrances. Hundreds braved a light rain and gave a hearty cheer when Obama and her entourage took the stage. "I can't imagine there's been a day in the history of our country when people have been more excited about farmers markets," Mayor Adrian Fenty, Obama's warm-up act, told the crowd.

The first lady, in gray slacks and blue sweater, marveled that the people were "so pumped up" despite the rain. "I have never seen so many people so excited about fruits and vegetables!" she said. (Must be the tender baby arugula.)

She spoke of the global reach of her cause: "The first thing world leaders, prime ministers, kings, queens ask me about is the White House garden. And then they ask about Bo."

She spoke of the fuel fed to the world's most powerful man: "I've learned that when my family eats fresh food, healthy food, that it really affects how we feel, how we get through the day . . . whether there's a Cabinet meeting or whether we're just walking the dog."

And she spoke of her own culinary efforts: "There are times when putting together a healthy meal is harder than you might imagine."

Particularly when it involves a soundstage, an interpreter for the deaf, three TV satellite trucks and the closing of part of downtown Washington.