Sarah Palin Book Signing

Okay, so how many of you out there have seen this footage by New Left Media at a Sarah Palin book signing?

This was filmed November 20th, 2009 at a Borders down the street from me. For the record, I don’t recall seeing this long line of people. Perhaps I just wasn’t out and about in that area that day. It is likely.

Anywho, I want to talk about this video, specifically, because this kind of representation makes me nervous. Or uncomfortable. I see the humor in it. I see the idea that these particular interviewees don’t appear to give insightful answers about the questions they are asked when they are supposed to be very strong supporters of this person and these issues. Yes, irony. Wonderful. If it were on Jon Stewart, I’d laugh. But, it’s not.

My issue is that it comes from New Left Media, which is not about comedy. They are about supporting issues that are traditionally liberal and my uncomfortableness is not with the organization specifically; it’s that this video uses techniques that are so polarizing. The anti-Palins will point, laugh, and say that was their point all along. Pro-Palins will say that the video is edited to cater to the anti-Palins and doesn’t reflect a true Palin audience, even though New Left Media adamantly denies “cherry picking.” They went on to say:

As for accusations of cherry picking, which are commonly thrown at interview-based videos, it simply isn’t what we did.  We interviewed only a few more people than ended up in the video, not hundreds, and what was cut was done for time purposes.  The people were selected at random–some offered to be interviewed–and we were only there for 90 mins (it gets dark early and fast in Ohio right now).  What didn’t make it into the video was just more footage of people talking about taxes/spending, drilling, and abortion, and we constructed blocks in the piece to represent those issues.  Of course the piece was edited to be entertaining (this is YouTube, after all, where the currency is cat videos) but we don’t believe we misrepresented the attitudes of the people at that signing in any way.

I question the positive impact that this video has. Yes, it has had an effect of some kind–it has more than a million views and more than twenty-one thousand comments, but reading those comments is painful. It’s a major flame war. This kind of framing doesn’t foster dialogue or conversation where opposing groups can speak thoughtfully about a subject. It degrades and mocks one group, which automatically puts them on the defense.

I will say this, the video is clever. It is, but I wonder how the video might have changed if the interviewer asked specific questions about specific policies. I wonder if there might have been more detailed answers or at least made the interviewee start thinking about her specific policies. Of course, don’t me wrong, there are some just plain atrocious answers in there (seriously, Russia across the street?), but by marking the interviewees as idiotic without responding to their actual concerns, then no real progress is made. No one feels heard or understood, which does not make them more willing to concede to the other person’s point.

Perhaps, I’m just an idealist. Or maybe I’m a bit too tender-hearted, but I believe that real, intelligent, thoughtful conversations are possible and that we all can disagree with compassion. That’s part of what Harlot’s about. That’s part of what I want to support.

My ideas on this aren’t solidified yet (because I also understand that witty commentary–no matter how offensive–also has its place) and I doubt that I’ll ever have an absolutely concrete stance, but I do wish that I’d have the opportunity to see whether a more compassionate and empathetic conversation would have a positive impact. At the moment, there just aren’t many of those types conversations happening.

Year of the Apology (part one)

My Thanksgiving weekend several weeks ago took an interesting turn when I read in the newspaper that one of America’s oldest Protestant church apologized to Native Americans–for massacring and displacing them:

We consumed your resources, dehumanized your people and disregarded your culture, along with your dreams, hopes, and great love for this land…With pain, we the Collegiate Church, remember our part in these events.

At first I was simply intrigued by the skillful circumvention of that devilishly accurate term: genocide.  But then I found myself enthralled by the questions this curious genre raises: Under what circumstances can one apologize for actions done by others?  Especially those done several hundred years ago?  What are the differences between an apology from a collective and one from an individual?  What are the consequences of an apology that deals with crimes against humanity?  And among all the atrocious acts that have been committed/commissioned by governments, how do you choose which ones get an official apology?

While this particular instance hit me hard (perhaps because Thanksgiving is such a perversely appropriate time to contemplate apologies), I must confess that I had already been thinking about the genre because of all the large-scale, national apologies we saw in 2009:

• Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, apologized on behalf of the Parliament to the thousands of orphans that had been sent to Australia from Britain under the pretenses of a better life, only to be forced into a life of exploitative labor and systematic degradation.

• In summer the US Senate passed a “concurrent resolution apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African Americans,” which “acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws [and] Apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws.”

• The Senate also heard another proposal calling for an official, national apology to Native Americans (there have been several before).  Joint Resolution 14 “acknowledge[s] a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes and offer[s] an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.

That last bill will probably die, however, because its language has managed to sneak in elsewhere.  Just last week the Wall Street Journal reported that, “Buried in the billions of dollars of spending on new weapons and other items in the 2010 defense appropriations bill is a little-noticed expression of regret over how the U.S. had in the past used its power.  The bill contains an ‘apology to Native Peoples of the United States.’”  How apropos.  In our defense budget documentation is the sentence, “the United States, acting through Congress…recognizes that there have been years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies, and the breaking of covenants by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes.” **

(Now, I don’t think anyone with a shred of integrity can suggest that the “policies” of the government were simply “ill-conceived,” but that rant is for another day.)

So what’s being communicated here? What is the government trying to persuade us of?  What’s being accomplished with this quickly developing genre?  And what’s the best way to leverage these apologies for more (significant, noble) change?  For fear of a long tirade I’ll hold my breath on this until I hear some of you chime in, but these are important questions to ask, I think, especially because the “official apology” is only going to increase, and because it is a conspicuous shift in US policy.

I remember, for example, being 11 years old and hearing Bush Sr. repeatedly claim that he will never apologize for America.

This stance was actually a key component in how Bush constructed a staunchly American ethos when running for President:

• “I don’t care what the facts are…I’m not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.”

• “If I am elected president, I will never apologize for the United States.  I will strengthen her and maker her a beacon of freedom and liberty.”

• “We must never apologize for the United States of America.”  (see Bush’s WikiQuote page for original contexts)

This post is getting a tad big, so I’m going to continue it later this week; it’s simply too intriguing of a topic to stop here.

My apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

————————————————————————————————-

** If you’re like me, you’re probably stewing on whether or not an apology like this could be used in the legal system against the United States.  After all, if the government acknowledges broken treaties (33% of the landmass is still held illegally, actually, because many broken treaties never had their legal-standing fully dissolved post-population removal) and apologizes for this, it could have massive legal consequences.  But don’t worry–they thought about that ahead of time.  Included in the document is some fine print: “[This apology] isn’t intended to support any lawsuit claims against the government.”

Hmm, looks like the US learned something from their official apology to Hawaiians for invading the country and exploiting its people and resources.  Hawaii’s Supreme Court is using the apology as evidence for ceding 1.2 million acres of land away from US control.

This is the first time, from what I can gather, that an apology is being used as legal evidence.  The consequences of this case could be huge–and the US knows that.  Here’s a snippet from the Wall Street Journal article that’s linked above:

Upholding the Hawaii Supreme Court’s ruling could discourage Congress from making similar apologies for other historic wrongs, the Justice Department warned, adding that the Apology Resolution was only symbolic.

A year after the Apology Resolution, the [Office of Hawaiian Affairs] filed suit..leading to the high-court case. “The Western concept of land ownership was very foreign to Hawaiians,” says Hawaiian Affairs Administrator Clyde Namuo. In traditional culture, “property is not a commodity that is bought and sold but it is used to benefit people who live and reside on the land.”

Transparency in photography

There’s a fascinating piece in the NY Times today — “Point, Shoot, Retouch and Label?” by Steven Erlanger –about French politician Valerie Boyer’s draft of a law requiring advertisements to carry a label if they contain images that have been digitally retouched. This is not a new discussion; publishing associations in the UK and elsewhere have talked about voluntary reform. Check out the consistently smart coverage in Jezebel. But it may be the first to push a law.

The article focuses on the issue of women’s body images and the dangers of falsified ideals, documenting various approaches to this debate, from hopes that “such a label might sensitize people to the fakery involved in most of the advertising images with which they’re bludgeoned” to the threat that “such a law would destroy photographic art.”

In this vein, a fashion photographer is quoted pointing out that all photography is a representation of reality through a lens that excludes as well as captures. Very smart and valid… but is this the generally accepted view that fashion magazine readers share? Based on a sample of my self, friends, students, sister, cousins…. No. However naively, most women still “buy” these false images.

An editor at Marie Claire declares the labels unnecessary because “Our readers are not idiots … Of course they’re all retouched.” You’ve got to almost admire her bravado, and the move to convince her readers with a magazine that so clearly respects their intelligence… I guess I’m an idiot, then, since despite my rhetorical training, I’d still love to be informed.

Check out Marie Claire’s edited editors:

Photoshop Disasters: Marie Claire

At least, in the meantime, we have such wonderful sources as Jezebel and Photoshop Disasters and Photoshop of Horrors, and of course fun on YouTube:

Ralph’s Rants & Rhetoric

I’m still not used to seeing Ralph Nader’s name in my inbox.  Sure, I signed up for his listserv, but that has yet to stop me from thinking that Ralph has searched me out personally because he knows how much I enjoy a rant, especially those that mercilessly attack greed and corruption.  Of course, Ralph and I don’t agree on everything, but his essays are eminently reasonable and meticulously researched.

Last week, however, I almost wrote Ralph back, letting him know how much one of his emails hurt my head and heart.  He succumbed to cliché and alliteration (a poisonous combo, for sure) by titling an essay, “Between the Rhetoric and the Reality.”  He didn’t explicitly extrapolate on the shaky binary, thankfully, but such a juxtaposition is sure to raise hairs on most rhetoricians.  Wayne Booth started collecting headlines like this years ago (perhaps to mollify his irritation) and shares a few in the preface to The Rhetoric of Rhetoric:

“Impoverished students deserve solutions, not rhetoric.”

“[What I've just said] is not rhetoric or metaphor.  It’s only truth.”

“President Bush’s speech was long on rhetoric and short on substance.”

We’ve all seen the likes of these lines, so I’ll not needlessly deride them with a long response on how rhetoric is most productively viewed as epistemic (it simultaneously describes, discovers, and creates knowledge) or how language fundamentally shapes our perceptions of reality.  Instead, I’m here to let you know that Ralph redeemed himself yesterday (for the most part*) with an email titled, “Words Matter.”

He begins by ridiculing the journalists who uncritically adopt words that are finely calibrated to affect the way we think about an issue or concept.  His examples are rather thought-provoking, so I thought I would share:

Day in and day out we read about “detainees” imprisoned for months or years by the federal government in the U.S., Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan. Doesn’t the media know that the correct word is “prisoners,” regardless of what Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld disseminated?

The raging debate and controversy over health insurance and the $2.5 trillion spent this year on health care involves consumers and “providers.” I always thought “providers” were persons taking care of their families or engaging in charitable service. Somehow, the dictionary definition does not fit the frequently avaricious profiles of Aetna, United Healthcare, Pfizer and Merck.

“Privatization” and the “private sector” are widespread euphemisms that the press falls for daily. Moving government owned assets or functions into corporate hands, as with Blackwater, Halliburton, and the conglomerates now controlling public highways, prisons, and drinking water systems is “corporatization,” not the soft imagery of going “private” or into the “private sector.” It is the corporate sector!

“Free trade” is a widely used euphemism. It is corporate managed trade as evidenced in hundreds of pages of rules favoring corporations in NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. “Free trade” lowers barriers between countries so that cartels, unjustified patent monopolies, counterfeiting, contraband, and other harmful practices and products can move around the world unhindered.

* This redemption is only partial, I’m afraid.  Despite the correct articulation that “words matter,” Ralph’s proposed solution is to use “words that are accurate and [can be taken at] face value.”  He calls for “straight talk” and “semantic discipline.”  Such an appeal reflects his earlier rhetoric/reality split by suggesting that we “cut the rhetoric” and get down to the “real” stuff.  His framing suggests that there are right words and wrong words, with the right words being more ideologically or politically neutral.  Demanding that we return to the dictionary as a source of authority and clarity is about as persuasive as Dukakis in a tank.  So here’s the deal, Ralph: I promise to vote for you when you run in 2012 (or 2016, since you’ll probably be there, too) if you read the following works and give this troubled binary some serious reconsideration:

-) The Rhetoric of Rhetoric

-) Image Politics

-) “Rhetorical Perspectivism” in Contemporary Rhetorical Theory

Rhetoric Quote of the Week

From the Governator:

We in California have made a big move forward in that area because the people of California have approved $42 billion of infrastructure … I think that was a really big, big step forward and I think that the federal government has to do obviously the same thing.

The important thing is that we look at how do we get the people enthusiastic about the subject? Because the word infrastructure means nothing to the majority of people of America. We have to come up with a sexier word than infrastructure. So the key thing is that you have to go out and promote and market this the right way like with everything in policy.

[In California] we went out and didn’t talk about infrastructure but we talked about are you angry about getting stuck in traffic every day, and you cannot spend enough time with your family and with your children? That really aroused anger in most of the people and we said vote yes on those propositions.

“Sexier,” of course, is synonymous here with “persuasive.”  (And you wondered why we named the journal Harlot of the Arts.)  To be persuasive is to be sexually appealing and alluring on a visceral level.  A successful rhetor will no doubt get pleasure out of, um, skillful application.  But also look at how quickly he switches frames: “you have to go out and promote and market this the right way.”  The economic rhetoric here fits easily with, “sex sells.”

Perhaps we’ll get Arnold to write a piece for Harlot . . .

Days of Rage (part deux)

A few days ago I posted some off the cuff, rather glib remarks about President Bush’s response to having a shoe thrown at him, at the very end of which I note Bush’s acknowledgment of protest as distinctly different than, say, Nixon’s.  Well, today I’m revisiting a really stellar article by Jodi Dean, Queen of I Cite, a blog that covers political theory the likes of Agamben, Foucault, Zizek, and so on, which brings up the topic in a more serious light; so I’d like to follow up on my post with a quote from her article, “Communicative Capitalism: Circulation and the Foreclosure of Politics,” from Digital Media and Democracy:

Even when the White House acknowledged the massive worldwide demonstrations of February 15, 2003, Bush simply reiterated the fact that a message was out there, circulating–the protestors had the right to express their opinions.  He didn’t actually respond to their message.  He didn’t treat the words and actions of the protestors as sending a message to him to which he was in some sense obligated to respond.  Rather, he acknowledged that there existed views different from his own.  There were his views and there were other views; all had the right to exist, to be expressed–but that in now way meant, or so Bush made it seem, that these views were involved with each other.  So, despite the terabytes of commentary and information, there wasn’t exactly a debate over the war.

Dean goes on to make a persuasive case for the separation of a politics that is the simple circulation of content (websites, TV pundits, blogs, RSS feeds, listservs, and so on) and the politics of the institution (activities of lawmakers and bureaucrats).  Today, she argues, these two politics operate almost entirely independent of each other.  Sure, we’d like to think the circulation of content impacts the actual decision making . . . but it doesn’t.  However, it does keep us busy.

I’ll end with one of her juicier claims:

The proliferation, distribution, acceleration, and intensification of communicative access and opportunity, far from enhancing democratic governance or resistance, results in precisely the opposite, the postpolitical formation of communicative capitalism.

There’s a distinct chance I’ll be posting on this over at Candid Candidacy if any of you are enticed by these ideas.

How Times Change….

My, my. Nothing like economic turmoil to wreak havoc on what a society thought it knew.

A Times article, “Can Marijuana Help Rescue California’s Economy” by Alison Statemen, reports that California is revisiting its strict rules on medicinal marijuana to consider whether the cash crop could help straighten out a bad economic situation. Apparently there’s enough money in the economy — it’s just a matter of what people are (not) spending it on.

According to Statemen, marijuana is California’s “biggest cash crop, responsible for $14 billion in annual sales, dwarfing the state’s second largest agricultural commodity — milk and cream — which brings in $7.3 billion annually.” Further, she writes, “[c]urrently, $200 million in medical marijuana sales are subject to sales tax. If passed, the Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act (AB 390) would give California control of pot in a manner similar to alcohol, while prohibiting its purchase to citizens under age 21.”

Another reason lawmakers are reevaluating legalizing marijuana is that it would result in the decrease of arrests, prosecution, and imprisonment, saving the state as much as $1 billion a year, Statement writes.

And, finally, adopting the law could make California “a model for other states” because as “[Democratic State Assembly member] Ammiano put it: ‘How California goes, the country goes.’” (Hmm. Perhaps this observation explains why the nation is so confused about gay marriage as well.)

Wow.

I’m really quite surprised, but I don’t know that I should be. Quite a bit would change and for the same reasons that some things have not. Smoking bans won’t result in a move toward outlawing cigarettes any time soon because the government makes a killing on taxing the item. Further, I’m sure a lot has been learned from the U.S era of alcohol prohibition. The country decided that profiting off alcohol consumption was better — economically — for the country than policing it’s illegal trafficking. If history repeats itself here, gone would be a black market and in would come flood of income in proper capitalist fashion.

In a rhetorical sense, one of the most interesting results would be a partial collapse of the War on Drugs. It could change quite a bit of what the nation stands for and how it continues to portray its surpriority in global terms. I don’t want to run too far ahead with this idea, but the change could be huge. In a time when the country has just finished a two-term presidency that resulted in a substantial rise in unfavorable feelings toward the country, I wonder how the doxa of the nation and the globe would change as a result of a change like this one.

Difficult times can change just about anything, it seems. Let’s wait and see what happens.

Gwen Ifill on The Daily Show

I’ve never believed in trickle-down economics. People are people and people are greedy. More times than not people are going to look out for themselves rather than anybody else, so they’re going to hang onto as much money as they can.  Plus, if history tells you anything, it just doesn’t seem to work.

So, when Jon mentions his idea of trickle up economics, I’m tempted to believe that it would actually work. That people would take money and pay back their loans, which goes back into the banks. I mean, if we’re going to give the financial industry money, it might as well pay off some of our debt too.

But, people are still people and people are still greedy. Even when they’re the less wealthy people. Hopefully, debt would get paid off, but what happens after that? Do they take anything of monetary value and stuff into a mattress? The best thing for the economy would be to buy things, right? I for one have never been much of a shopper. Granted, I might buy quite a few CDs, but beyond that I’ve always been the “save your money for a rainy day” sort.

It does make me wonder, though. With the current way that we do things ending up in such a dissarray, maybe we should try something new. Who knows, it could work.

George W. Bush’s Farewell

I can’t help but feel it’s embarrassing the U.S. media has slighted its outgoing president.

Sure, his approval ratings are quite low, and sure a pilot crash landing on the Hudson River was riveting news, but I’m still surprised the major media outlets largely cut directly to and then directly away from President Bush’s farewell speech without giving much build up or much conversation afterward.

Even this Time’s piece from November 2008 says it’s “the nature of mainstream journalism to attempt to be kind to Presidents when they are coming and going but to be fiercely skeptical in between,” and yet this article is anything but kind and celebratory. Googling “Bush” and “farewell address” shows an odd listing: The second hit is Ariana Huffington’s piece, “Bush’s Farewell Address: Still Delusional After All These Years,” which is anything but a charming look at Bush’s legacy. Even knowing the current atmosphere is not in Bush’s favor, I’m surprised the article ranks so high.

The eyes of the country are certainly looking forward, but it’s worth taking a look at how President Bush has been packaging the remaining days of his presidency. I can’t seem to remember where I read an article about the Bush administration working hard since the election to paint a flattering picture of the president, but it seems true. Bush gave a record number of interviews, and I recall reading a behind-the-scenes look at a day in the life of Bush, and the picture was flattering.

But then there’s Bush’s final press conference:

(The complete 47-minute press conference is hosted on C-SPAN)

I was watching CNN when I heard one commentator call Bush’s performance “pathetic.” They are really giving him no love.

And then there’s President Bush’s farewell address:

(Click here to see Part 2 of the farewell address.)

The speech contains some of the usual (see the transcript here) — gratitude for having served, a positive look toward the past, an optimisitic look toward the future, and honor expressed over remaining an American citizen (though I am surprised how close  line echos President Clinton’s farewell speech: Bush said, “It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve as your President. [. . .] I have been blessed to represent this nation we love. And I will always be honored to carry a title that means more to me than any other – citizen of the United States of America,” while Clinton said, “In the years ahead, I will never hold a position higher or a covenant more sacred than that of President of the United States. But there is no title I will wear more proudly than that of citizen”). The speech also held some unusual moments, like the inclusion of American citizens and their individual stories, a touch that is reminiscent more of state of the union addresses than farewell speeches.

The line that struck me as the most poignant came after mention of the September 11th attacks:

As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before 9/11. But I never did.

Sadly, what followed didn’t build up on the emotion of the statement. The job of the president can be a lonely, harrowing experience. Some more humanity and  humility in the president’s words and demeanor would probably have the media — and the public — respond more sympathetically and respectfully to a departing United States President.

Cheese

I was shopping at a health food store last week, and I stopped at the dairy section to pick up some cream cheese. Lo and behold, there was a new (well, new to me anyway) alternative to cream cheese with 1/3 less saturated fat. Now, who can possibly resist such an appeal to logic? (Not to mention the emotional appeal of a slim waistline). It’s called Neufchatel (see “Nuefchatel” on Wikipedia) — and, as we all know beyond any rational doubt, food items with foreign names have to be good. I imagined what the consistency and flavor of the cheese must be, and although I wasn’t super impressed with my imagined cheese (I guess I don’t buy into the purchase-worthiness of foreign names after all), I decided to give it a try.

I opened it today, but I began looking over the packaging while my toaster did its toasting. I always wonder at how different cheeses are made, and yet the ingredients list rarely helps when “milk and cheese cultures” tops and often ends the list. It’s interesting how much is and is not told with an ingredients list. I quickly scanned the item’s nutrition facts, and right next to it, in a relatively prominent location, was this:

MADE WITH MILK FROM COWS NOT
TREATED WITH rGBH.
The FDA has said there is no
significant difference between milk
from cows treated with rGBH and
untreated cows. No test can
distinguish between milk from
treated and untreated cows.

Hmm, I thought. How interesting that valuable packaging real estate went into making a claim (that the milk came from cows not treated with a growth hormone) only to usurp all power from that claim (the milk from treated or untreated cows is not significantly different). But, then, I was in a health food store, and FDA findings and rulings are met with a critical eye from these shoppers. In this context, the statement in all-caps would get a nod of approval and the disclaimer would be ignored or scoffed at.

I began researching the topic on the Web to see how the labeling of rGBH (also known as rBST) (see Bovine Somatotropin on Wikipedia) is restricted, and I discovered the conversation regarding its approval and use is quite involved. It turns out that a movement toward banning statements about rBGH-free cows began in Pennsylvania in fall 2007 with Dennis Wolff, the state’s agriculture secretary, who claimed that “consumers were confused” about the quality of milk from these cows (“Fighting on a Battlefield the Size of a Milk Label,” The New York Times). If the law passed, consumers would have no way of knowing whether milk had come from cows treated with rBGH or not.

But after pressure from consumer groups and the governor of Pennsylvania – along with Wolff acknowledging he had no consumer reports to support his cause – the case was dropped and turned, instead, into a push toward restricting the language on labels, and this time similar cases began in New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Utah, Missouri and Vermont as well. Farmers and resellers, meanwhile, argue that their first amendment rights are being hampered. It appears these battles are still ongoing.

The layers to this story continue to be interesting, however. I’m always interested in what factors are ignored or overlooked and whether the lapses can be seen as intentional or unintentional. Here are some instances that are interesting to me, but there are certainly more to be found.

American consumption levels

The FDA approved the growth hormone in 1993, and The American Council on Health and Science gave this reason for acknowledging the need for what they are calling a “technology”:

As the world’s population grows, the National Research Council estimates that the supply of food required to adequately meet human nutritional needs over the next 40 years will be equal to the amount of food previously produced throughout the entire history of humankind. To meet this demand, animal scientists must develop new technologies to increase productive efficiency (that is, the yield of milk or meat per unit of feed), produce leaner animals and provide increased economic return on investment to producers. During the past decade, scientists have developed many new agricultural biotechnologies that meet these goals. Their adoption will have many positive effects on food production, processing and availability. (“The Efficacy, Safety and Benefits of Bovine Somatotropin and Porcine Somatotropin,” The American Council on Health)

What it doesn’t discuss is the overproduction of milk. Various web sites discuss this problem, but more reputable sites on dairy markets offer statistics spread over various dairy products. If anyone wants to crunch the numbers for us, feel free to post a comment with your analysis.

Human Health

Another issue that has arisen is the presence of IGF-1, a protein hormone, in milk from treated cows. Some groups claim the protein “is an important factor in the growth of cancers of the breast, prostate and colon” (“rBGH / rBST,” Center for Food Safety), but the FDA gave this response to a citizen petition to take the hormone off the market:

The FDA has previously maintained and continues to maintain that levels of IGF-I in milk whether or not from rbGH supplemented cows are not significant when evaluated against the levels of IGF-I endogenously produced and present in humans.” (Response to Robert Cohen, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Note: This link will open a Microsoft document file.)

I guess time will answer this one for us.

Animal Health

Most of the debate surrounding this issue seem to deal solely with the quality of the milk, but it’s context, so to speak, seems to be disregarded to a large extent in the scientific studies we see. Some groups claim that the hormone causes various deformities and diseases in the animals that farmers must then treat with antibiotics and other drugs, which find their way into milk.

Nonetheless, the FDA’s update on the safety of milk doesn’t address the alleged problem but only discusses the safety of milk in terms of humans:

FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) has reexamined the human food safety of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) in response to recent inquiries about the safety of this product. FDA’s CVM approved Monsanto Company’s rbST product, PosilacÒ in November 1993 after a comprehensive review of the product’s safety and efficacy, including human food safety. CVM has issued a detailed report based on a careful audit of the human food safety sections of this approval. CVM’s finding upholds the Agency’s original conclusion that milk from cows treated with rbST is safe for human consumption. (“Update on Human Food safety of BST,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration)

So is milk from cows treated with rBGH (or rBST) safe and humane? I don’t know. I’m just interested in how it’s marketed and how the studies and subtopics are fed to the public.

As for Nuefchatel, it’s pretty good. I couldn’t tell a difference between it and regular cream cheese, but I’m also suffering from a cold today, and supposedly our sense of taste mostly derives from our sense of smell, which I’m missing for the moment. My scientific research has suffered another disabling factor too: a second variable called “pumpkin butter with port.” You gotta try it.