What Our Gov’t REALLY Thinks of Farmers, I May Do a “Casting Video”, and More on Today’s Monday Morning Mix-Up 9/23/2013

Good morning readers, it'll be LATE morning by the time you get this.  I've got a ton of stuff to share with you, though, and a lot of it is personal stuff, so hopefully you're not bored to death…

• I had a crazy email and phone conversation last week.  Apparently the developers of a certain TV program (one you'd definitely recognize), are working on a new food-related show and they asked me to send them a ‘casting video'.  I'm not sure I'll even be able to pull it off (they want something unique and they want it tomorrow…), but if so, I thought it might be interesting to at least see where it goes.  I'll keep you posted IF it turns into anything.  They probably also contacted 100 other people for all I know.
• Yesterday was my birthday, and I can't say it was the best ever.  Wow, what a frustrating technology day it was!  You'd think I'd be used to that by now, wouldn't you?  First, I was working on revising my book again to get it ready for print, because some good friends offered to help me get it up onto the online bookseller sites and had been waiting patiently for me to finish.  (God bless them!  Gregg & Hallee are good at this stuff as Hallee is a very successful inspirational author, and her books are my favorites – you can't put them down, plus there are no trashy parts at all.)  Anyway, NEVER use Word for editing and formatting, it was an exercise in frustration like no other.  Every edit I made would revert back on its own and I thought I was losing my mind.  As this was going on, I thought I'd download the new operating system on my iPhone.  BAD IDEA.  There was an error, it crashed, and I couldn't even turn my phone ON.  So I had to run to the Apple store genius bar, since the guy I called on the phone certainly was not a genius.  I'd like to say I handled all of this with grace and calm, but my family can attest that this was not the case.  I was a pathetic whiny puddle, and that's putting it nicely.
• However, I woke up this morning, made myself this amazing dreamy concoction, and told myself, “How dare you complain about a poopy birthday when everyone is healthy, you get to keep the kids home with you and work at home everyday, in your slippers?”  So I'm done whining now and moving on.
• I've got a homeschool update post coming, but one thing that's been tough so far is this:  I've been MUCH better about getting to bed and getting more sleep, I've got a great habit going of putting my morning quiet time first (this book is my FAV), and school is going good (much better than the first two weeks!), but one thing I just can't seem to fit in as much as I'd like with all of that and with working here on the blog is exercise!  (Something always has to give…)  So oh how I'd love love looooooooove one of these baby's that everyone is talking about:  a treadmill desk!!!  Anyone know which one is good?  I wonder about that cheap one that just goes onto your own treadmill; since you get what you pay for, I doubt it's any good, though.  If I could just work a couple hours of day while walking on there, how awesome would that be?  I'm ALL about multi-tasking so I think I'd love it.
• Want to know what our government REALLY thinks of farmers?  Read this from Joel Salatin:  It was a who’s who of Virginia agriculture: Farm Bureau, Va. Agribusiness Council, Va. Forestry Association, Va. Poultry Federation, Va. Cattlemen’s Ass., deans from Virginia Tech and Virginia State—you get the picture.  It was the first meeting of this kind I’ve ever attended that offered no water. The only thing to drink were soft drinks. Lunch was served in styrofoam clam shells—Lay’s potato chips, sandwiches, potato salad and chocolate chip cookie. It didn’t look very safe to me, so I didn’t partake. But I’d have liked a drink of water. In another circumstance, I might eat this stuff, but with these folks, felt it important to make a point. Why do they all assume nobody wants water, nobody cares about styrofoam, everybody wants potato chips and we all want industrial meat-like slabs on white bread?  But I digress. The big surprise occurred a few minutes into the meeting: US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack walked in. He was in ‘Terry McCauliffe love-in’ mode. And here is what he told us: for the first time, in 2012, rural America lost population in real numbers—not as a percentage but in real numbers. It’s down to 16 percent of the total US population.  I’m sitting there thinking he’s going to say that number needs to go up so we have more people to love and steward the landscape. More people to care for earthworms. More people to grow food and fiber.  Are you ready for the shoe to drop? The epiphany?   (Read the rest here and hold your chin because your mouth will drop.)
• Speaking of craziness from our government, check out this post from one of my new favorite bloggers:  Military members trusted to fight wars not trusted to carry weapons at work.
• Anybody read this book yet?  I heard that it was a good one and may have to throw it onto my book pile:  Rich Food Poor Food.
• Another frightening vaccine report to be aware of:  Gardasil Vaccine Destroys Ovaries of 16-yr. Old Girl, Causes Infertility.  Gardasil is the vaccine created by Merck & Co. to stop human papillomavirus (HPV) in young women and men. Unfortunately, to say the vaccine is controversial would be a gross understatement – even a lead developer of the vaccine points out its undeniable dangers and how even how the vaccine is of little use.
• Can you believe all the mass shootings lately?!  So heartbreaking…  🙁  Did you read this?  Media Buries Psychiatric Drug Connection to Navy Shooter.  Networks don’t want to risk losing $2.4 billion in ad revenue from pharmaceutical giants.  Despite every indication that Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis was on SSRI drugs that have been linked to dozens of previous mass shootings, the mainstream media has once again avoided all discussion of the issue, preferring instead to blame the tragedy on a non-existent AR-15 that the gunman didn’t even use.  Have you seen this post:  Weaning off Paxil – a reader shares her story?  And here are two more about anti-depressants:  My all-natural chill pill and 20 tips on fighting anxiety, depression and fatigue naturally.
• To lighten things up a bit, does anyone else like Michael Bublé's music?  Here's a cute video, it's probably old, but I'm not up on current music or up on anything ya know…

• Hot on Facebook last week was this post about conventional milk.  Many conventional dairy farmers said I was misinformed.  See what you think…
• I posted a little update in the comments at this post from last week if you want to check it out:  Consumers wants to poison our woods.
• My sister and I are taking the kids to Art Prize soon.  I'm going to try to vote this year if I can get the app to work.  See some of my 2010 Art Prize favorites – you have to check out the face, that was my favorite.  Or read more about the unexpected public response in the first year of Art Prize, and see the famous “table and chairs” from Art Prize 2009.   Here’s the post I was inspired to write after seeing an exhibit that year that had me all in a tizzy, Meet Your Meat.  This still gets me riled up when I think about it.  Never did get a response from him, by the way.

That's it for today, have a great week everybody!