Thank Family Farmers Michelle and Barack for Vegetarian State Dinner

As the Thank a Farmer® marketing campaign gets play on the usual industrial ag propaganda sites, I notice no grateful mention of the efforts of new urban farmers Michelle and Barack Obama, who've been returning land to productivity in a tough Washington DC neighborhood. The Obamas' microfarm has been feeding schoolkids and sparking a surge in interest in gardening and the kind of do-it-yourself spirit that would make our forebears proud.

And now, the Obamas' arugula is helping promote world peace. Michelle's garden greens were on the menu at the first White House vegetarian state dinner in honor of Indian Prime Minister and respecter of cows Manmohan Singh. The menu included arugula and herbs from the South Lawn, as well as pears poached in honey from the White House beehive. (But no whirled peas... just chick peas. More glittering state dinner details at Obama Foodorama.) As the New York Times reports, the dinner was a lovely outdoor affair emphasizing some of the Obamas' "favorite themes, including bipartisanship, diversity and a focus on healthy meals."

Healthy meals. Vegetarian menu. Somewhere the Farm Bureau propaganda machine is revving up to belch some more smoke.

Thank you, small farmers and gardeners, for working for health and local self-sufficiency.

Obamas Start White House Victory Garden

Forget the Rose Garden: First Lady Michelle Obama is starting a vegetable garden at the White House. It sounds like Mrs. Obama plans to use the garden as a demonstration garden (my lovely wife will love this!) to teach local kids about the benefits of growing your own food. Kids from Bancroft Elementary School will help with the garden from planting time to chow time, and Mrs. Obama says the President himself will help pull weeds.

This garden is just what sustainability activists were hoping for. There is no downside to knowing the leader of the free world will get to eat some homegrown food. Plus, there is important symbolism (as the Obama Foodorama notes) in seeing at least a small part of the President's 16-acre yard turned from decoration to practical use. It's even right next to the kids' new South Dakota swingset, where it can remind the kids that if we want to eat, we have to take care of the earth.

Eleanor Roosevelt planted the last Victory Garden on the White House grounds during World War II, over the objections of the USDA, which feared the garden might hurt the food industry. Yeah, sure wouldn't want people growing their own food and better nutrition and more self-reliance. Think of Mrs. Obama's gardening initiative as a new Victory Garden to promote healthy food, sustainable agriculture, and good old American do-it-yourself spirit.

Hail to the Chief (and His Beautiful Wife)

President Barack Hussein Obama and his wife Michelle Obama dance at the Commander-in-Chief Ball at the National Building Museum, January 20, 2009.
[Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP]

Fred and Ginger—oops! sorry: that's our President and his lovely wife again, at the Biden Home State Ball
[Photo: Carlos Barria, Reuters]

Continuing the Double Standards: McCain Didn't Love His Country, and That's O.K.

"I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's."

—Senator John McCain, address to the Republican National Convention, 2008.09.04

Say what? So Republicans will cheer for someone who suggests he hasn't loved his country for his entire life? Did he not love his country when he enrolled at Annapolis? Did he not love his country when it was led by great men like Eisenhower and Kennedy? Did he not love his country when it stood up to the Soviet threat in Cuba? Did he not love his country when blacks marched with Martin Luther King to desegregate the schools and lunch counters and win full voting rights?

You're right: I'm a hyperpartisan jerk to take one line from Senator McCain's speech and blow it out of context into an indictment of his otherwise clear commitment to his country.

So how about the Republicans who raised a hyperpartisan stink over Michelle Obama's comment back in February about finding a new pride in her country?