jordan bell is speaking

I recently tweeted the following facts, but the limits of a tweet were not enough to really spell out the situation. So here is the blog form of my recent regurgitation, all inspired by the movie Food Inc, which is one of the most important movies you can watch in your life:

So, I am not a big issue man. I usually see both sides to every story and, for the most part, am rather diplomatic. I think protests and such campaigns are useless because they send a short-lived message. However, this issue, which the vast majority of us should find ourselves on ONE side of, is nothing we need to protest over, or march. We just need to change they way we spend. Simple economics, the power of the consumer, can change big corporations… hey! that’s pretty bipartisan! Free markets and taking down The Man. Okay, so here we go.

I’ll put the solution first: Buy local grown products. It is a simple rule that will allow you to protest through the Power of the Consumer the following objections to the way these corporations run. Buy free-range meat. Buy organic veggies only when they are in season. Read labels. Dairy products organic too: no growth hormones. Buying the other stuff is 1) bad for you and 2) supports the way these corporations control their workers and their animals.

• Monsanto is a seed company that controls about 90% of the market. They manipulate farmers, have patents on seeds (because they genetically modified them in a lab. oh, and patenting life used to be illegal, until their lobbying efforts kicked in), and are basically ruining the way food has been for thousands of years.

• They sue farmers if their patented seeds are found in that farmers crop (something the farmer has NO control of because short of building a dome over your field, you can’t shield your crop from the wind).

• They sue the bigger farmers just to send a signal to the others: Don’t fuck with us. The farmers most always have to settle because court fees are too much.

• Monsanto is trying to STOP dairies that DO NOT inject their cows with growth hormone from advertising that on the bottle. Read that again. This company is trying to stop other companies from labeling their products with truthful information. This is the “but but what they do is bad for what i do!” kind of bullshit that should get you kicked out of law school.

• Monsanto genetically modifies their seeds. The health effects are unknown, but birth defects can occur (Gerber has stopped using GM products in their food as a result). Genetically modified products must be labeled in Europe, but because of Monsanto’s influence in the FDA and Congress, such labels are not required in the USA.

And here’s the skinny on the meat packing industry.

• These companies bus immigrants into the U.S., and use the “you’re here illegally” style blackmail to treat them horribly and get near-free labor. Then, when the cops come, these companies have an “agreement” where the immigrants get shipped back home, and the company doesn’t get tied up in litigation.
• These companies feed their cattle corn. This fattens the cows quicker and makes them less healthy. I’m not getting all PETA on you, regardless of animal treatment, why would you want to eat an unhealthy animal? do you eat bruised veggies? nope..

Virtually everything you find in your local supermarket is from one of these companies. There are 4 meat-packing companies controlling 70% of the market. Monsanto controls most of the farms in America. You can’t avoid it. Corn is in EVERYTHING. The only way to get these companies to change their practices is by pressuring them with competition. Protesting is useless, congress is already in their corner. Pressuring these companies by buying local, organic foods is the only way.

Often health-advice falls on deaf ears. That is why I chose the “do this because its politically and morally the right thing to do”. It should go without mention that buying organic is the natural way to eat. Its the way food was intended to be. Its not special, or different. Its more expensive, but it is the way your body is built to eat. The other crap is from a lab, but mass-marketing has made it cheaper. So, do your body right.

Check out the movie. www.foodincmovie.com

I just watched The Future of Food last night, and, well, if you thought Supersize Me was an eye opener, consider this:

Agriculture is more of an oligopoly than you’d think: America’s agriculture is dominated by only a couple companies. Those companies heavily lobby Congress to keep labels warning of genetically engineered foods off the shelves. The implications? No liability for health effects. Luckily, Congress has regulations on organic labels, meaning if it says organic, it is free of genetic altered substances, and is generally “pure”.

Big Agriculture (stated with intention on drawing a parallel to Big Tobacco) persecutes small farmers. They own patents on seeds, something our founding fathers tried to prevent (essentially, patenting life), and use those patents to sue farmers who unintentionally inherit these patented seeds (often simply from the wind blowing the seeds into their farm). Plus, their manufactured seeds ruin the diversity of crops. A genetically altered seed can wipe out entire feels of natural crops. There used to thousands of types of potatoes in the US. How many are in your grocery store? 4 maybe?

Preaching the unhealthy nature of food often lands on deaf ears. So, hear this instead: A lot of the food you buy, regardless of the health effects, is supporting the take-over of crops world wide. These corporations increase poverty and starvation in third world nations by forcing that nation’s farmers to pay off loans by exporting their crops to 1st world nations like America. So, even though Big Agriculture claims they are “helping” impoverished nations by developing seeds that can grow anywhere, they are raping their economy through greed. They have created a tool that could be good, and are instead using it for evil.

I urge you to watch this movie, find a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program near you at http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ even with meat: local, free range.

Give the movie a try. It is definitely on netflix… so that’s like, pretty much free! Nothing to lose!

Weezer’s new album, Raditude came out today, ranking here amongst weezer albums:

1. Blue Album (94)
2. Pinkerton (96)
3. Maladroit (02)
4. Red Album (08)
5. Raditude (09)
6. Green Album (01)
7. Make Believe (05)

Given that Weezer will never be back to their pre-millenium awesomeness of Blue Album and Pinkerton (the Matt Sharp days), Raditude is a solid middle-of-the-road “modern” Weezer album. The album is full of growing pains from front man Rivers Cuomo trying to hold on to a crowd he has not been a part of for 20 years… teenagers. The album has songs of bashful romance and being at the mall that seem to be force-written, and then songs like I’m Your Daddy and The Girl Got Hot that remind me of the just-having-fun Weezer that hit the ground running last year with the Red Album.

Then there are songs like ‘Love Is the Answer’ that literally make me want to stab myself in the ear-drum. This album seems to take the worst traits of Make Believe (emotional bullshit) and mask them with the good traits of Red Album (the exact opposite: catchy fun-ness).

Being all over the radar, though, is not a new thing for Weezer. They came back from hiatus in 2001 with an over-produced Green Album. The band followed up with the cult-hit Maladroit, which brought the band back to simple garage rock, and then almost ended their careers with the sappy felt Make Believe.  The band found redemption last year with the ultra-catchy Red Album, and I find Raditude to be right in the middle: A few cringes, a lot of catchy riffs and you can’t hate it because you know the band had fun making it.

Check out the band here on a recent Late Show with David Letterman to see for yourself.

As this is my first album review in many years, I do not have a catchy-grading system, just the tried and true one: Raditude, C+

So, I’ve always wanted to do a lip-dub music video one-take video. I’ve posted two of my favorites. The first i posted is one from Connected Ventures in NYC, who started the whole movement, and the one directly below this is one from Quebec that is much more extravagant. They are just fun to watch. Now that i’ve seen fellow french-canadians do it, i’m sure i could do one of my own. I really wanted to this summer with the orientation advisors, and should have when i was working ohio sports zone / fridays live. Enjoy!

thought i’d share this anecdote from the pirates game emily and i went to the other week:

So we went to a Pirates game, and at $5 a pop and a beautiful stadium, it was a great deal. We witnessed a very, very boring game against the cardinals that ended up in the 10th inning with a 1-1 tie. Albert Pujols did not play the entire game until La Russa put him in to pinch hit in the 10th. When he stepped up, everyone felt it. Home run. Straight from the bench. No one in my section seemed surprised, in fact a lot of people concurred with my very thoughts as i overheard “i KNEW it was going to be a homerun.” That is a feeling I get with very few others at the plate. Jeter is another. It felt nice to see something that will be so insignificant once his career is done, but nonetheless amazing because he is one of so few players that give you ‘that feeling’. And it is funny how from the upperdecks he looks just like everyone else, except he carriers his clutchness on his shoulders and everyone  in the stadium gets a sense of it.

New movie idea: At the execution of his father’s will, William finds out he is about to lose everything… including his life. Through a legal loop hole, William’s father (Dennis Hopper) has willed his son to be executed by the state. Fearing for his life, William desperately tries to flee the country to Mexico, where the jurisdiction of his father’s will cannot harm him.

Plot twists: William’s father (Dennis Hopper) faked his death to get to his son.

Catch phrases: “I am here to execute the will”

This movie idea was the product of bobcat student orientation advisors bored at lunch.