Week of 06/27/2009 - 16:00 to 07/04/2009 - 15:59

"USDA Organic" labeled food can cost twice as much, but under the loose system set up by the Bush Administration, the label may have become meaningless, threatening a lead industry in Oregon and Lane County.

"Purity of Federal 'Organic' Label Is Questioned," a Washington Post article reported today. The lengthy lead story found lax, corporate controlled regulation under the USDA. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who pushed the law to create the federal label, told the Post, "If we don't protect the brand, the organic label, the program is finished. It could disappear overnight."

Here's some of the revelations from the Post article:

• "Organic" beer has non-organic hops.

• "Organic" mock duck has synthetic additives to make it stringy.

• "Organic" baby food has synthetic fatty acids.

• The law required annual testing for pesticides, but USDA hasn't enforced the requirement.

• Corporations Kellogg, Kraft, Coca-Cola, and Dole are big players in "organic" food.

• "Organic" milk can come from factory-like feed lots without grass.

• The National Organic Standards Board has approved 245 non-organic substances for inclusion in "organic" labeled food.

Regulators appear to see their mission as more to grow the supposedly "organic" industry than to actually assure consumers are getting the organic food they paid for.

"People are really hung up on regulations, Joe Smillie a federal organic standards board member and an executive at a corporation that supposedly certifies "65 percent of organic products found on supermarket shelves" told the Post. "Are we selling health food? No," the Post quoted the federal "organic" regulator. "Consumers, they expect organic food to be growing in a greenhouse on Pluto. Hello? We live in a polluted world. It isn't pure."

Internet miscellany: for when it's stupid hot out and thus you I, stupidly, walked to the bank and now have the brain capacity of a dazed manatee. No disrespect meant to manatees, of course.

• Have you heard the news? Apparently it's Author Internet Freakout Week! It kicked off when Alice Hoffman used her now deleted Twitter feed to insult the critic who reviewed her latest novel in The Boston Globe. She also posted the reviewer's phone number and email. Classy. Hoffman later "apologized." But just as that kerfuffle started to fade from memory, Alain de Botton (never lend On Love to a neurotic friend, by the way) got a bit cranky at the critic who reviewed his latest in The New York Times. Unlike Hoffman, de Botton later handled things very gracefully. Good for him. But it's not over yet! On Twitter, I mean. Next, Ayelet Waldman suggested that New Yorker critic Jill Lepore "rot in hell." (I'd like to point out the delightful headline on that last link, just in case you missed it.)

At least no one got punched in the face this time.

• And now for something completely different: RoboGeisha. Via BoingBoing, where it was described it thusly:

There is no part of this trailer that is not made of awesome. A robot geisha transforms into a tank. Two robot geishas (I guess) spew poison milk (don't ask) out of their titties at an opponent. A girl gets stabbed to death in the butt with a giant sword. Robot girls make giant swords pop out of their butts, presumably with which to stab other people in their butts. "Bust Machine Gun." And a dude is blinded with tempura shrimp.

Deadly. Shrimp. And bleeding buildings. And ... yeah, it's really pretty weird, but someone out there will love it.

• Three things make a post, so: two articles I've started reading but not yet finished because it's moments before a three day weekend and my attention span is shrinking:
- Chris Ruen's "The Myth of DIY," a treatise on artists and downloading which includes the succint and smart pullquote, "I don’t see anything artful or transcendent in our favorite record stores closing." I got several paragraphs in and was inspired to stop in at House of Records on my way back from the bank (for the Weakerthans and Dresden Dolls, should you want to track my spending habits).
- And lastly, Graeme McMillan interviews comics genius Grant Morrison, whose Invisibles series is one of the main reasons I start to see red any time someone uses the "Well, it's based on a comic, what did you expect?" line about another shitty comic-book movie adaptation. Morrison's latest is Batman and Robin.

It's been a minute since I've posted anything to the ol' bloggo so I felt compelled to add SOMEthing. And since our summer concert season seems to be at a grinding halt for the moment, I thought I'd hit our readers with what I've had stuck in my headphones lately (for what it's worth). They're all fairly new releases or newly re-issued. So without further adieu, let get into it ...

Local sustainable research and education center Aprovecho has won an international award for their work in developing countries. Aprovecho was the international winner for the Ashden International Energy Champion Award on June 10. The award was presented to Aprovecho's executive director, Dean Still, by Prince Charles.

The Ashden Awards out of the United Kingdom honor work to inspire sustainable energy solutions in the UK and developing world.

The award was presented to Aprovecho Research Center from the US and Shenghou Stove Manufacturers from China for their work to "produce a cheap, robust and efficient stove for mass production to developing countries."

"The stoves replace dirty and polluting kerosene and open fires saving up to 50 percent of fuel wood and reducing 70 percent of dangerous emissions," says the awards web page, and according to Aprovecho only cost $4-$12. They are distributed around the world.

This is the second time that Aprovecho has been part of the Ashden Awards, the first was in 2006 when they worked with Programme for Biomass Energy Conservation in Southern Africa (ProBEC) on their rocket stoves.

This just in from the folks at the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC): SB 528 the field burning bill has passed in the Oregon legislature.

This is the biggest phase-down in field burning in Oregon since 1998. WELC expects the bill to be signed into law in the near future, Gov. Ted Kulongoski has expressed support for the bill in the past.

The bill will allow 20,000 acres of field burning on the valley floor in 2009—a reduction from the current 40,000 acres—with none allowed from 2010 onwards. Up to 15,000 acres of “identified species and steep terrain” grass fields may still be burned in the Silverton Hills region where farmers argue alternative methods to the smoky practice don't work.

Charlie Tebbutt of WELC said in this afternoon's press release: “People have been trying for over 40 years to protect the health of Oregonians by ending field burning. Passage of SB 528 represents a momentous victory for public health. We take this victory with the expectation that in the very near future the state will extend these same protections to Oregonians who live in the Silverton Hills area as well.”

See EW's last two feature stories on field burning for more information: Killing Fields and Blowing Smoke.