Buying local produce benefits everyone
When consumers buy directly from farmers, the entire community benefits. Buying local produce develops connections between consumers and farmers, and both become more aware of each other”s desires and concerns. Supporting local farmers also maintains the rural character of our community and contributes to our economy seven times for each dollar spent.
Freshness is a key ingredient in the most nutritious and best tasting produce. Getting children to eat their quota of fruits and vegetable is much easier if the food is full of flavor and tastes good. Another way to encourage children to eat fresh fruits and vegetables is to include them in the process of picking out the produce and experimenting with different varieties. When I see kids at the Farmers Market with raspberry juice on their chin, I know they will be lifelong raspberry eaters. It becomes an adventure instead of drudgery. Insisting on the best possible produce will only enforce in children”s minds the importance of a nutritious diet.
Food safety is an increasing concern. The over-use of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones in commercial food production is leaving toxic residues in our food and soils. The liberal use of chemicals in processing food is another motivation to know who produced the food you eat and how it was produced. Even though we see the happy farm picture on the package we buy at the store, do we really know the conditions and path that food took to arrive on our dinner plate? Knowing the growers by their first names and understanding their food production practices is possible when you buy local food.
Transportation and packaging adds costs. Cheap food can cost us more than we realize when food miles are translated into environmental impact. The highest greenhouse emissions, pollution, and fuel costs are for foods that travel long distances by air or in refrigerated trucks.
Weight and distance is a huge factor in the financial and environmental costs of transporting food. The price of food shipped from another part of the country or world is far more than the dollars you pay at the checkout counter.
Would you like to reduce air pollution, recycle your money into your community, support family farmers and enjoy food that tastes better and is more nutritious? Easy! Eat more locally produced food.
The Friday Night Farmer”s Market features great local produce. This week look for sweet onions, beans, peppers, peaches, and cherries.
Market hours are from 4 to 8 p.m. every Friday through Oct. 17. The location is on the shore of Austin Park, at the corner or Lakeshore and Olympic in Clearlake.
For more information, please contact Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce at 994-3600 or visit http://lakecountycommunityco-op.wikispaces.com.
Lori Peters
executive director
Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce
Send your gasoline bill to Congress
I”m sending my maddening gasoline bill to Washington and inviting you to do the same. Elected representatives don”t pull into the corner gas station and pay from their own pockets. They need to know what it”s doing to you.
I had my own harsh moment this week at the gas station, pumping $4.60 gasoline: My 50-mpg Prius now costs more to run than my old 15-mpg sedan did in 2002, when gasoline sold around here for as little as $1.13 a gallon. My salary sure hasn”t kept up.
Tell the president, your Senator and your Representative in Congress what gasoline is costing you and what it”s doing to your budget. Just fill in the short form at www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/energyact2/ (cost of your last fill-up, where you bought it and what gasoline is costing you each month) and send it. Then forward this message to your friends.
Judy Dugan
Consumer Watchdog
Are any American flags made in USA?
As I stood and watched our annual Middletown Days Parade on Saturday, June 21, I noticed Uncle Sam walking in the parade along with some women passing out small American flags to everyone. Very patriotic indeed. But, much to my shocking surpirse, on the flag handle was a little sticker with easy to read black letters ? “MADE IN CHINA.” What a joke. I wonder how many Chinese flags are made in America. Just wondering.
Lynne Norton
Middletown
America”s strength is rule by the people
The strength of our constitution is rule by the people. Non-accountable judges decide what that means. The weakness in our constitution is that non-accountable judges decide what that means. The founding fathers recognized and stated that this was a risk.
In a recent decision written by “swing judge” Anthony Kennedy, the United States Supreme Court granted prisoners in Guantanamo rights to plead their cases in U.S. courts. A lawyer said that decisions like this monstrosity happen when swing judges happen to be clowns.
Try to imagine our soldiers on Normandy Beach on D Day trying to gather evidence to present in court. Try to imagine thousands of captured Germans in WWII POW camps assigned lawyers to plead their cases in U.S. Courts. Justice Kennedy is more than a clown; he and the other four justices who voted for this are guilty of idiocy.
In another decision the California Supreme Court ruled for same-sex marriages despite a decision by the people against it. I encountered a 24-old-man who said that, under that decision, his equal rights were violated. He was earlier arrested and jailed as a peeping tom for peering into gymnasium windows to ogle naked girls. But, said he, the recent California Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriage, in effect, declared that24-year-old lesbians are exactly equal to 24-year-old men.
So, his reasoning went, since the law allows 24- year-old lesbians to marry girls, we must assume lesbians lust after naked girls just as much as 24-year-old men. Yet lesbians are hired as girls” high school gym teachers and are paid to ogle as much as they please. He intends to get a lawyer and pursue the matter in court. If he wins he will apply for a job as a girls” gym teacher and ogle naked girls all he pleases. He believes the ACLU will support him
Randy Ridgel
Kelseyville
Your old cell phone can aid our troops
Well, the time has come (July 1, 2008) that you must use hands-free devices to talk on your cellular phone in a vehicle. That means that many folks will be upgrading to a Blue Tooth capable phone. Don”t throw that old phone in a drawer! It will just collect dust and take up space.
Please donate your old cell phones (working or not), along with chargers, cases, etc. These will be “recycled” into calling cards for our deployed troops. Check around, you and your family and friends may have old phones now. If you belong to a club, group, etc., please consider asking your fellow members to do the same. Just toss ”em in a box ? it”s that easy.
You may put your phone(s) in any Operation Tango Mike donation bin, bring them to a packing party or hook up with me. I will get everything to Crystal Esberg, who is graciously handling this.
I hope this finds everyone doing well.
Thanks Much! Tango Mike!
Ginny Craven
Operation Tango Mike
Don”t forget to write!
The Clear Lake Observer*American welcomes letters responding to articles and opinions that have appeared in this newspaper, as well as on topics of general interest. Letters can be sent to letters@clearlakeobserver.com or mailed to PO Box 6200, Clearlake, CA 95422. Please include complete name, address and telephone number. Anonymous submissions will be discarded.
