Photo via computix.

Where does our food really come from — where is the stuff we are stuffing in our mouths truly originating? And how is it produced?

Don’t you wonder sometimes how safe any of it is? I know I do.

After reading her exceptional book and our chat with Marion Nestle, I wonder even more. I’d read other works by Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan and any number of others through the years back to the Laurel’s Kitchen cookbook in my vegetarian days.

I grew up eating a lot of food from our family garden. What we didn’t eat ourselves over the summer or pass along to family and neighbors got canned or frozen to be eaten over the winter. My dad always hunted, so we had venison and other game as well in the freezer pretty much constantly. We knew where a lot of our food came from because we either raised it or butchered it ourselves in large measure.

That isn’t to say we didn’t buy food at the store or local farmer’s markets, but it was usually whole, unprocessed foods with only the occasional processed crap thrown in here and there.

All of this to say, I’m growing a garden this summer for a lot of reasons. The Peanut needs to eat more veggies and I thought growing them might be a convincing way to get her to try them. A sort of "if she grows them, she will eat" experiment, if you will.

Beyond that, though? I want to get back to a place where I’m controlling what goes on, in or around my food. I know a lot of you are planning to grow a few edibles as well this year — whether out of budgetary, environmental or "it just plain tastes better to pick a fresh tomato" motivations, it doesn’t really matter. But I thought folks might like to talk about the hows and whys and wherefores this morning.

Also, I wanted to ask if anyone has seen Food, Inc. — because, as you’ll see from the clip below, it looks really intriguing. (more…)

Camel ride at sunset in Australia via marj k.

This evening’s quotes come from Thomas Paine.

First, from his The American Crisis published in 1777:

There is a kind of bastard generosity, which, by being extended to all men, is as fatal to society, on one hand, as the want of true generosity is on the other. A lax manner of administering justice, falsely termed moderation, has a tendency both to dispirit public virtue and promote the growth of public evils.

Then from Paine’s Address and Declaration to the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty in 1791:

We hold that the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy and poverty, is far superior to that of supplying the invented wants of courtly extravagance, ambition and intrigue.

What say you?

No substance over here, either.

Nope…no GOP budget numbers over here.

But there is a hefty helping of GOP finger-pointing, ducking of responsibility and disarray:

…now we learn that Reps. Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan objected to unveiling yesterday’s ‘blueprint,’ but were overruled by Reps. John Boehner and Mike Pence. But bigger than any internal disagreements or any criticism about a lack of details is the fact that yesterday’s GOP non-announcement moved the attention away from the Obama-vs.-congressional Democrat storyline to the GOP’s lack of a budget.

What’s more, now Rep. Ryan’s little group of GOP Budgeteers now has to produce something so stunningly awesome that the Boehner press conference becomes a mere whiff of a memory of a disaster.

And rumor has it that the Senate Republicans are either "laughing at their House GOP colleagues, furious at them, or both."

The folks at The Swamp have more. As Hilzoy says:

Maybe next week they’ll present their budget using interpretive dance or little animated jelly beans."

Oh please, please let that happen. 

From the DNC:

*This ongoing laughfest saga brought to you by the fail that keeps on giving.

Beverly Sills. Opera….and pigs. What could possibly go wrong?

In the words of an SEC civil filing against Bernie Madoff’s accountant, David Frehling: “In addition, the S.E.C. filed a civil enforcement action alleging that Mr. Friehling “did not perform anything remotely resembling an audit” of Mr. Madoff’s operation.” Ouch. But I think that could be tweaked a bit for the current “no numbers needed” GOP super-awesome alternative budget proposal

Clouded leopard cubs at the National Zoo.The National Zoo has some new babies.

Their only compatible clouded leopard pair had cubs, and they are insanely cute. Just look at the entire series of photos from National Zoo staff and try not to “awwwww.”

Had to share.

Momma Jao Chu had her very first litter of cubs early Tuesday morning, and is a beauty herself in this photo by Mehgan Murphy/ Smithsonian’s National

Ray Suarez is one of my favorite working journalists. His pieces hit not just the factually meaty and difficult questions that need to be asked, but the heart and gut level issues that need to be exposed to the community as a whole. He did a piece yesterday on HIV/AIDS orphans in South Africa that nearly ripped out my heart.

Huge kudos for Sen. Byron Dorgan.  Because he has more than earned them with this interview with Rachel Maddow: “There’s a culture, and the culture is that ‘Wall Street knows best.’ You know, there were only eight of us in the United States Senate that voted no. This was a huge deal to repeal the protections that were put in place after the Great Depression — a huge deal. Eight of us voted no.”