ReallyGoodWriter | Food • Writing • Poetry Iambic Cafe

food & poetry, but mostly the poetry of food

Food • Writing • Poetry

Pity the pigs who will die in vain over the misunderstandings that are propagating even faster than swine flu itself. If we had any doubt about human arrogance in putting ourselves above the interests of other species, we certainly confirm it whenever our species is at any risk. Consider the millions of turkeys, chickens, sheep, cattle, even water buffalo who have died over the past decade or so in the name of disease prevention. It was known then as it is known now that many of these animals were not diseased, but it was cheaper to kill them all, these unfortunate sentient beings in our dubious human custody.

The whole H1N1/”swine” flu business has at least, I hope, raised some flags about factory farming of animals, including but not only pigs. If we could all agree to skip a few meals of meat each week we could change the situation; but we don’t. Why don’t we? Instead, we are treated to messages telling us not to stop eating pork. And Egypt says it wants to improve pig farming by moving the animals away from the sources of urban garbage they’re fed and onto “proper farms”. Maybe the pigs being culled are better off…

While we wait for the UN to test the pigs at the centre of the outbreak, here’s some reading on the virus:

(But first, some pig poetry: Margaret Atwood’s Pig Song; Roald Dahl’s The Pig; Donald Hall’s Eating the Pig.)

April 29
Swine Flu: Don’t Blame the Pig (Time)
Swine flu: The predictable pandemic? (New Scientist)

April 30
Swine flu source spawns wild theories (Reuters)
Virus’s Tangled Genes Straddle Continents, Raising a Mystery About Its Origins (New York Times)
Did factory farming cause the swine flu outbreak? (Macleans)

May 2
The pig’s revenge (Guardian – Felicity Lawrence)

May 5
H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) and You (CDC-Centers for Disease Control & Prevention)
Swine Flu Shows Need for Better Animal Testing (Time)

So does food matter? If so, to whom? Why not to everyone? How do you make people care, or what should you expect them to do to prove they care? I’ve been asking myself many such questions in recent weeks.

I’ve been to two less-than-crowded gatherings lately, organised with the purpose of showing politicians in the provincial election that the voting public cares deeply about its food and about agricultural issues affecting food production. Apparently the current government correctly deduces that the public is not concerned enough to show up en masse, and so neither must they. No Liberal politicians bothered to accept the invitation to come and defend the government’s record at the legislature rally or the all-candidates forum on food security last week.

It’s odd, because if you ask around, you do find a lot of people out there who do seem to care, and who are acting on their concerns by buying local foods, supporting local farmers, growing their own food; vegetable seeds and starts are selling in record numbers; restaurants and shops that specialise in local foods are springing up like weeds. But then again, when I peek in the carts of my fellow shoppers in grocery stores, I see convenience foods; imported out-of-season fruits and vegetables; highly processed foods laden with hfcs, preservatives and fats; cases of pop, and generally a totally unsustainable lifestyle carrying on around me. And a miniscule percentage of the public turning up at food and agriculture rallies.

Farming Today, the straight-on BBC Radio 4 program on farming issues, talked honeybees last week. You can catch the full week’s worth – which includes an interesting exchange about the part that pesticide group neonicitinoids may play in unexplained bee deaths – for another six days. This week it’s on to chickens…

It’s definitely turned into spring here. My new mason bee house filled up a week after I mounted it on the fence

so I’ve added some high-density housing

along the lines of what Haliburton uses; I think I need to cut the tubes down in mine so they’re better protected from the elements.

Haliburton has also brought in some wireworm specialists to help with integrated pest management in the fields. They’re young but willing.

And finally, a walk through the woods proves the arrival of spring: Trillium in bloom

and food on the hoof: salmonberry

and oregon grape both in flower.

Arrrrr…

Had a nice weekend in Vancouver, starting with a place in the Rocksalt reading which was part of the Main Street Literary Tour, in celebration of BC Book & Magazine week. We hung out in the Cafe Montmartre,

being hosted by Trevor Carolan

till Mona Fertig got there from another event she was doing in West Vancouver.

Had a little beer tasting on Saturday. My trio was porter, raspberry wheat beer and Rickard’s White wheat beer (my favourite)

Sunday’s treat was a walk through North Vancouver. Here’s how the allotment gardens look:

One question. Why?

Str(eat) art, Vancouver style.

How they tell it in Deep Cove:

Back home, and this lovely afternoon I took stock of the Blue Orchard (Mason) Bee (Osmia lignaria) house I’d put up on Thursday:

— a couple of dwellings already dwelt in, with lots of action in others. Holy pollen, mama’s home!

Hanging out on the fence.

The rally at the legislature on Saturday was warmly attended by groups including COG:

The cavalry rode round and round the grounds:

There was a pleasing diversity of age and slogan:

with some rabble-rousing by Brent Warner

NDP candidate Lana Popham

farmer, beekeeper and food activist Linda Geggie

organic farmer Heather Stretch

and farmer-writer-editor Tom Henry

There’s another opportunity for Islanders make their food interests visible to politicians, at a gathering on Thursday April 30.

More information at the BC Food Systems Network website; including the Food Security Election Primer which is a terrific tool to use on any visiting electioneers, and a handy fact sheet on the issues for educating yourself, your friends and neighbours.

I spent yesterday morning following a spring bee inspection with some of my bee-owning classmates from last year’s bee-keeping class, led by Larry & Marilyn, who kindly lent me a bee suit for the occasion. I had a few curious customers stop by to admire my gloves.

Some of the girls hang out on their mom’s shoulder.

Saw lots of crazy comb, including one with a donut hole in the middle:

Here are a couple of queens (the long orangy ones; one of them is marked in red; colours are agreed on each year so you can tell how old the queens are):

I brought along some of the honey I’d bought in Italy for people to sample; one of the varieties evoked some discussion about rhododendron honey, which is said to produce Mad Honey Disease. And here’s a poem featuring death, rhodos and bees (but not mad honey disease).

It’s certainly not food and not quite poetry, but there is a useful new word in the English vocabulary: ploddledygook. It may look unpronounceable but it is certainly recognisable to anyone who’s heard a police officer of any stripe or nationality interviewed within the last couple of decades.

We’ve had lots of examples in the emotionally bankrupt testimony given by the RCMP officers at the Dziesanski inquiry, where their version of events has been visibly contradicted by the amateur video available on Youtube. The tone of the testimony has given appalled listeners some important lessons in how to alienate your public and rob your profession of dignity. Some of the statements reported by the press include:

Cpl. Robinson’s testimony: “I didn’t articulate it well,” said Robinson… “I’m blending the whole interaction.”

or Const. Rundel: “Mr. Dziekanski went from non-compliant behaviour at the luggage to what training has taught us is a resistant behaviour where he has directly disregarded a command and fled from us … and took up a combative stance” and “I don’t believe that the language barrier was a problem in that instant, due to the fact that he responded to the direction of the hand signal and the verbal ‘No'”

or Const. Millington: “The person that it’s applied against is supposed to fall immediately and it’s supposed to immobilize them…It did not have that effect so I felt it was necessary to fire it again…He was in a combative stance, as we call it, and was approaching the officers I believe with the intent to attack…After the first one, when he fell to the ground, I interpreted that to be he didn’t feel the full effects” and “We acted in accordance to our training…Of course I never intended this result. I never intended for Mr. Dziekanski to pass away.”

It’s sad and galling to see Mounties use language like this, to distance themselves from the events they’re describing. I know in these libellous times it’s the norm for representatives of any profession to excise the humanity from any public speech, but I don’t have to like it. I can still long for plain-spoken testimony, a simple apology, some expression of regret for what happened.