[review] Food, Inc.

If you have never slaughtered your own food, you should be required to see this.

"bigger, faster, fatter, cheaper" : a farmer's description about how MegaCorp demands your food be produced. I would put a name in, but I don't recall which one it was. There are, after all, only 5 or 6 companies in the entire United States of America which produced your dinner last night.

Yes, there are some disturbing scenes in the movie. Was it the outdoor one-at-a-time chicken slaughtering? No, it was the mechanized efforts to get sick and lame cattle into the chute for slaughter.

And, yes, as with any documentary film, there is the issue of:
>> selective editing of film
>> getting highly articulate people who really don't represent the norm to talk favorably about your point of view

As Mr. Gopher observed, it provided a refreshingly unusual view of the "good guys" not being angels. The Nice Farmer was still filmed slaughtering his chickens and beef. It's not like the director only showed the Bad Corporate Farmers being gross. And, it was a very sympathetic view of the poor guys stuck in the middle. They've got a farm, they need to use it, but they really can't do it without bankrupting their soul as well as their pocket book.

Farm for MegaCorp? It makes you a feudal serf. It's no different than 100 years ago living in a Company Town. Want seed? Buy from MegaCorp. Want to be paid? Do it Our Way.

One of the most pleasant few minutes of the movie was the section about Stoneyfield. The organic yogurt people. That would be the big corporate organic people. The CEO was interviewed about Wal-Mart becoming their new client. The other organic people despise him for 'selling out'. He thinks it's wonderful that The Enemy wants to sell organic. Why do they? As the Wal-Mart manager said, "because our customers want it".

The film crew accompanied some Wal-Mart sales-employees to a small family dairy farm in New England. The wife of the couple shakes hands and laughs as she says, "You know, I've never actually been in a Wal-Mart. We won't buy your stuff, we sort of boycot it." You know the WalMart guys must hear this a lot, because they managed to keep a straight face.

Yup ... pretty damn depressing. While underscoring the mantra: It's not inherently bad, it's the way they go about it that is evil. Well, keeping animals in feed lots was pretty much condemned outright.

Mr. Gopher & I went to see this after having dinner at Zeno's. No, neither Greek philosophy nor Greek food. Sort of the haute couture, "Look, ma, I'm spending a lot of money on dinner!" Well, in this case the $30 dinner for 2 which included a bottle of wine and movie tickets for 2 was a pretty good deal. We realized we don't normally consume a whole bottle of wine as we floated around the corner to the theater. Pleasantly it's near one of my favorite theaters (the Lagoon).

Gopher Recommendation:
2 - Definitely go see it on the big screen (at matinee prices). Like good special effects, it is more powerful on the big screen.

and ...
The $30 Cheap Date Night Special @ Zeno's is worthwhile. Yes, that's what it's called.

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You can go home

[written a week ago ...]

"you can never go home" is a rather overly-sentimental statement. You can. Just don't expect it to still be there.

I'm in Lansing for the weekend to try to get some house-related stuff taken care of. Want to do property management for me? Taking bids until 10 p.m. Sunday night.

The house is not exactly left in idea condition. Ignoring the fact the yard crew didn't remove the clipping from 2 months' growth, there's stuff that I'm annoyed the last tenants didn't ask me to fix. Or rather, that they didn't fix themselves. Like some serious pruning on the shrubs. I stood looking at the back of the side yard and wondering where the forest came from. That is the result of four years of unfettered growth? Mankind's traces will disappear from the Earth pretty damn quick, apparently.

Most of my closest friends aren't here any more. The Speths moved to MO, Diane is in MA, the Denommes are somewhere else in MI, the Bradys are just out of town. And, apparently no one bothered to return my email that I was coming into town. I'll probably stop by St. Johns and find the choir on vacation.

I've never tried to hire a professional firm for a long-term contracted relationship before. Other than the yard service fellow who conveniently lived down the street. Mowing my lawn just doesn't seem quite as important as handing someone the keys to my house and telling her to find tennants and rent it for me. Apparently these firms either
a) refuse to modify their standard contract because they are lazy
b) refuse to modify their standard contract because they're really out to screw you
c) have never had anyone suggest modifying their standard contract
or
d) have no idea that you could do it and don't want to anyway


There's even more sprawl on the north side of Lake Lansing Road. What in the world for? Even four years ago, it wasn't like Lansing's economy was rosy. Firms were already threatening to pack up. The state bent over to keep GM from moving some of its operations elsewhere.

The GM plant at the intersection of MLK and 496 is a total wasteland. I practically expected to see dust dervishes and tumbleweeds coming across the empty acres of parking lots. And, yes, I really do mean acres, probably 2.

Construction hasn't changed - it's just moved.

It was 10 hr 6 min of driving time (not total, just behind-the-wheel) to get to Lansing. Apparently everyone in Indiana saw the sign I-80 and thought it was the speed limit. It made the trip much shorter to be able to set the cruise control at 80 and not be the fastest car on the highway. And, afterall, doing 80 in a 70 zone in Michigan is not a remarkable event.

People here [in Michigan] really don't use their turn signals. Maybe American models don't have them? I've only ever owned one American car, and it was a '53 model. In the first 50 miles into Michigan, only one car used its signals ... and it had Indiana plates.

Don't even vaguely get me going about the Right-Wing Retards in Indiana, whose response to the Loony Leftists objecting to public display on public property of the 10 Commandments-We-Selectively-Obey: putting In God We Trust on their friggin' license plates.