Not Going Well

All indications are that it is not going well with the farm bill.

But first, this was too beautiful not to put on display:

That’s a 6-lb beauty from nearby Misera’s Organic Farm, prepared yesterday by my wife. It’s a Mario Batali recipe, a balsamic and red-wine glazed roasted chicken, with some rosemary and garlic rubbed under and over the skin, and some thickly sliced red onions thrown into the bottom of the roasting pan.

Those red onions make an excellent complement to the bitter grilled radicchio served with the chicken – all of which we enjoyed with a glass of Privada, an Argentinean wine from the Malbec region.

NOW, back to more important matters. As I have said in earlier posts, I am no expert on the farm bill and I am more than certain that there are some seriously different opinions on the most important reforms.

However, I am of the mind that, if the farmers and farm groups aren’t happy, then it must not be good. Mark “Mental Masala” also has an excellent rundown of farm-focused groups’s many cricitisms of this alleged reform bill.

While directing readers to let Speaker of the House Pelosi (D-CA) know how they feel about this bill, Mental cites one example that demonstrates just how out of whack this bill is:

Tell the Speaker that we need a farm bill for all Americans, not just the commodity growers and absentee landowners (like the mysterious Constance Bowles, who collected $1,210,865 in farm payments between 2003 and 2005 while living in a posh neighborhood in San Francisco…