London Calling — Goodbye Jeff Lucas

Jeff and Jill Lucas — at the party Sept. 6th

Last Saturday Sept 6th, friends gathered to say goodbye to Jeff Lucas and his wife Jill.

And while most of those present knew Jeff primarily though his work as a friend of the Toronto Waldorf School and co-founder of the Carrville Community Garden, it’s only right that we should as well honour him for his work towards raw milk food freedom, as a staunch supporter of Michael Schmidt and the raw milk  farmshare community.

Jeff helped provide citizen escorts for the blue bus during its weekly journey from Durham down to Thornhill during a time when there was concern over possible regulatory interference with the ongoing delivery of raw milk to cow share members.

Alternative Markets, Barter Systems, and Local Co-ops are the Lifeboats That Will Save Us [from Societal Collapse]

From Eric Blair at the Activist Post

More and more people are becoming aware of the complete system failure we’re experiencing in the United States and around the globe. As the true nature of the control system is revealed, people tend to feel as Howard Beale did in [the movie]”Network” when he said, “first, you’ve got to get mad…and scream, I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

But once that anger at being lied to for so long subsides, then we must get on with the business of taking action to make the world more just and hopeful for our children.  Many people will take to the streets to protest certain aspects of the current system. Others will do everything in their power to inform or warn their peers of the coming iceberg. Those are good and necessary functions, but they won’t stop the Titanic from sinking.

Another great review of the “Milk War” movie’s Vancouver debut last weekend

This one is from Hella Delicious:

Ex Home-on-the-Range agister Alice Jongerden takes questions after the screening.

“After looking forward to seeing Milk War for several weeks it was really exciting to have such a great turnout! The Rio Theatre was a really perfect place to have the event with a stage for the music as well as popcorn for the hungry.

St. John’s day festival yesterday, held at Michael Schmidt’s Glencolton Farms

Special events began yesterday at about 3 pm with a farm tour for Cow Share Canada members. This was followed by an open house St. John’s day (midsummer) festival with a potluck supper, entertainment, and a massive St. John’s day fire. See pictures below (pictures courtesy of Glencolton Farms).

Still burning embers of the massive St. John's day fire at Glencolton Farms yesterday, and full moon

Resilient communities as an answer to the “hollowing out” of the nation state?

The following is excerpted from a recent interview with author and futurist John Robb:

Author and futurist John Robb, photo from his blog

“….Do you see a diminishing role for the state in large-scale governance? Does this compel communities to do it for themselves?

Yes, large scale governance is on the way out. Not only are nearly all governments financially insolvent, they can’t protect citizens from a global system that is running amok. As services and security begin to fade, local sources of order will emerge to fill the void. Hopefully, most people will opt to take control of this process by joining together with others to build resilient communities that can offer the independence, security, and prosperity that isn’t offered by the nation-state anymore. However, this is something you will have to build for yourself. Nobody is going to help you build it.

Glencolton Farms work bee April 24, ’10

Thanks to Michael Schmidt for these fine photos of the event:

Preparing boards for the wall of the new hay barn

Reminder for Ontario raw milk supporters to sign online petition to legalize raw milk distribution in Ontario

James McLaren has created an online raw milk petition at  http://www.petitiononline.com/rawmilk2/petition.html He says:

Harvest tableau at Glencolton Farms Fall Fest. Andrea Lemieux photo

Please distribute this widely but please note that it is only for Ontario residents to sign, since we are working with a lawyer to ensure that if the petition is ignored by the Ontario authorities, legal proceedings can be started to compel them to perform their statutory duty. Thank you, James.

Raw milk runs on community support

Here’s the slightly edited text of a comment I made on David E. Gumpert’s The Complete Patient blog, in response to his story about the showing of the raw milk movie in California (excerpted in the Bovine post below this one):

What’s our metaphor; what’s our narrative?

From folks like George Lakoff – author of “Don’t Think of an Elephant” — we learn how people think in metaphors, how “framing” developed in right-wing think tanks slants public policy debates almost imperceptibly — as in the phrase “tax relief”; we learn how communications work best when we can fit our message into one of the archetypal “narratives” of our culture, narratives that have already worn tracks, as it were, in the public mind. That’s why we have cultural theorists like Camille Paglia talking about how, in the public mind, Sarah Palin was playing the role of  “frontier girl”.

So what’s all this have to do with raw milk?

What I thought was most interesting about David Gumpert’s review of the Michael Schmidt raw milk movie was his view of the raw milk farmer as a solitary figure, fighting a lone and lonely battle. I’ve heard that before, but I’ve heard it as a criticism of this otherwise great movie – that it places undue emphasis on the heroism of Michael and fails to adequetely include the supporting community of cow share holders and others who’ve been instrumental and important in getting the story as far as it’s so far gone.