From David E. Gumpert on the Complete Patient blog:
“There was an interesting article in the Chicago Sun-Times over the weekend about the growing popularity of locally produced food. While there have been any number of such articles in recent months, this one made some important additional points that tend to be ignored by the mainstream media: namely, that people are seeking good food for the sake of good health, and that our government is aggressively fighting that notion.
The article concluded: “As the momentum builds among those looking for ways to grow closer to their families and their communities, and as more of the population turns its attention to prevention of disease and other chronic health woes, Weaver believes eating locally will grow ever more mainstream.
” ‘We don’t want to have to search out that food in extraordinary ways. We just want it to be available,’ she said. ‘We just want to be normal.'”
Yes, “normal” is a nice way to be, especially when it comes to availability of nutrient-dense foods. Convenience is the American way, after all.
In all the discussion about Rawesome, which has morphed into various tangential issues, such as outsourcing and even food safety, one fundamental reality is being overlooked: The shutdown of Rawesome involved dumping and stealing huge amounts of good food (in both the June 30, 2010, and August 3, 2011, raids) and is depriving people of real food they have come to value very highly. Food safety has not been an issue for Rawesome. There are no allegations by the authorities that anyone has become ill in at least six years Rawesome has operated from its current location. …”
The Bovine 
In case some readers might have forgotten, the historical justification for government has been that it would serve the public interest.
Increasingly, however, we seem to have a situation developing in which governments too often become co-opted into serving private interests instead of the public interest.
And the challenge, of course, is how do we correct that situation.
I don’t much go to the Complete Patient website. I look at D, Gumpert as sort of one those timid ‘facilitator types’ who believes in just letting ‘bygones be bygones’ so to speak and I’ve seen way too many of those kind in my life already. The timidity and desire to appease on the part of so many ‘good and peaceloving citizens’ is a big reason why government has become the monster it has become. (That and the bad karma we all have from wiping out {genociding} the original Native American tribes, if they had any shamans or medicine men worth their salt, those medicine men/shamans put a HEAP BIG curse on the USA and Canada) Nonetheless, every once in awhile, Gumpert says something valuable.
Good comments by the Bovine -uhhh- facilitator too. 🙂
I greatly appreciate David Gumpert’s ongoing editorializing on the raw milk scene. He connects the dots in an observant and intelligent fashion. I think it’s only fair to say that he goes beyond what we usually do on The Bovine, where we typically limit ourselves to aggregating the relevant news and updating on raw milk developments here in Ontario, which has so far been mostly around Michael Schmidt’s groundbreaking work in starting to meet the insistent demand for raw milk products.
Yeah, well, by constantly defining and re-defining nomenclature for us, stupid laymen idiots that we are, is how lawyers make their big bonus baby bucks.
Nolo contendere, baby.
wow.. too many rules