Blog Watch: WB cited in open letter to warden

What Do People Need? – An Open Letter to the Warden of the Nebraska State Penitentiary « Notes from a Small Place.

One of my favorite authors is a Kentucky-based farmer named Wendell Berry. In his book Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community, he opens by noting that in modern American society if something cannot be quantified, measured, weighed, or ascribed some sort of hard numeric value, it may as well not exist for all the attention we pay it. Of course, that’s simply an abstract way of stating a principal every parent should know: If you give your child a house, a bedroom, nice clothes, fun toys, and good food but withhold your physical presence from them, you really haven’t given them much. Physical things are important, to be sure. They sustain our bodies and enable us to experience (and enjoy) the good world God has made. But human beings are more than a loose collection of matter comprised of cells. READ MORE ...

2012 Farm Bill underway

Paula Crossfield: A New Vision for the 2012 Farm Bill?.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN), who last year called those who spend money on organic produce "dumb," may become the unlikely champion of a Farm Bill in 2012 that could create opportunities for more sustainable farmers.

This week, the House Agriculture Committee held the first hearing on the 2012 Farm Bill, the main piece of legislation that every five years establishes our nations food and agriculture policy. READ MORE ...

Considering Wendell Berry's way

The Way of Wendell Berry « Public Discourse.

Wendell Berry has not been blessed in his admirers. They tend to be less acute and measured than their hero, whose prophetic authority they use to underwrite expressions of mere hysteria or fogeyish irritability. Thinking they have found the whole truth in their hero, they read him like an oracle and quote him like scripture. Indeed, Berry’s clinical clarity sometimes suggests divine arrogance. Still, arrogant geniuses are not unheard of, and it is in any case worth knowing why this man’s thought has resonated with many people who do not seem foolish. READ MORE ...

Logsdon on Xavier U event

Organic Recipes, Organic Food, Local Food, Small Farms, Edible Landscapes, Shop Local – OrganicToBe.org » Blog Archive » Farming Is Cultural As Well As Agricultural.

Last week, in company with Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson, I spent a delightful evening at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, discussing the importance of good food and good farming. [Podcast 42 minutes Wendell Berry/Wes Jackson/Gene Logsdon.mp3 or here.] At one point, someone in the audience asked what we thought of the practice of urban farming. As often happens at panel discussions, we got sidetracked a little, and I did not have an opportunity to say as much as I would have like on that subject. So I will try to answer the question more fully here. READ MORE ...

Blog Watch: More on WB & Friends at Xavier U

Town Hall Meeting: Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson and Gene Logsdon «.

Last night I went down to Xavier University for a Town Hall Meeting with Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson and Gene Logsdon. The over riding theme of the evening was our food supply, what we are doing that is unsustainable and ideas for the future. These are three men that know the land, they know farming, and they have all been visionaries in their own way about the land as our inheritance and our future. READ MORE ...

WB's "What Matters?" is now available

Amazon.com: What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth (9781582436067): Wendell Berry, Herman Daly: Books.

What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth (Paperback) ~ Wendell Berry (Author), Herman Daly (Foreword)
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Mr. Berry's latest re-gathering (with a few previously uncollected essays) is coming out a bit earlier than announced ... at least, Amazon lists it in stock. Powell's still offers "pre-orders."

Advance notice: WB at Festival of Faiths in November

89.3 WFPL | Festival of Faiths to Hold Kickoff; Announce Speakers.

Even though the festival doesn’t take place until November, Argo says organizers have already begun to reach out to involve a wide range of people throughout the community.

“This is not limited by the silos of religion,” she says. “It’s really thinking about how we as humans have a spiritual and environmental responsibility to the earth and the soil and all the things that intertwine with that — food, nutrition.”

Argo says author Wendell Berry is already scheduled to appear at the November festival. READ MORE ...

Deneen discusses WB's "Old Jack"

Library News: Prof. Deneen discusses "The Memory of Old Jack".

Here's a little bit of last night's Community Book Discussion of Wendell Berry's "The Memory of Old Jack," moderated by Georgetown Professor Patrick Deneen ... SEE THE VIDEO HERE ...

WB and the poets of San Quentin T.R.U.S.T.

Wendell Berry Responds to the Fellows’ Poems | San Quentin T.R.U.S.T..

Wendell Berry, author of several novels, essays, and poetry, and of the poem “The Peace of Wild Things”, recently sent a letter to TRUST Fellows who wrote responses to Mr. Berry’s poem and poems of their own in reflection of what brings peace, freedom to them. READ MORE ...

A tangent concerning "Farmville"

Cultivated Play: Farmville | MediaCommons.

Farmville is not a good game. While Caillois tells us that games offer a break from responsibility and routine, Farmville is defined by responsibility and routine. Users advance through the game by harvesting crops at scheduled intervals; if you plant a field of pumpkins at noon, for example, you must return to harvest at eight o’clock that evening or risk losing the crop. Each pumpkin costs thirty coins and occupies one square of your farm, so if you own a fourteen by fourteen farm a field of pumpkins costs nearly six thousand coins to plant. Planting requires the user to click on each square three times: once to harvest the previous crop, once to re-plow the square of land, and once to plant the new seeds. This means that a fourteen by fourteen plot of land—which is relatively small for Farmville—takes almost six hundred mouse-clicks to farm, and obligates you to return in a few hours to do it again. This doesn’t sound like much fun, Mr. Caillois. Why would anyone do this? READ MORE ...