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market-farming - RE: [Market-farming] [Market-farming]Avery, Jill and Jay in Denial, Salatin, Transmutation, Marc gets Sloppy

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  • From: "Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] [Market-farming]Avery, Jill and Jay in Denial, Salatin, Transmutation, Marc gets Sloppy
  • Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 21:15:58 -0600

Marc Nameth wrote:
> Yep I remember. Stoessel and Dennis blew the Organic types out of
> the water.
> They screamed and yelled but were unable to convert the public good will
> into science and prove the superiority of the organic way so lost ground.
> Even Barbara Wah-Wah was bummed.

I had seen John Stoessel on 20/20 but do not recall Avery. I only remember
Avery because of reading the transcript with his debate with Joel Salatin.
But I went back and reviewed the transcript of the broadcast of Friday, Feb
4, 2000, with Avery, Stoessel, Catherine DiMateo of the Organic Trade
Association, and some other scientists, one of whom ran the tests. EWG has
this on their website at:
http://www.ewg.org/pub/home/reports/givemeafake/transcript.html

Stoessel eventually did apologize for the error in that apparently Dr.
Doyle, who was on the show, had not done the tests which they said they had
in the original program. Which makes me wonder about Dr. Doyle a lot more
than Stoessel since he was on the program and could have said that they did
or did not do the test.

Let's put it this way, if Stoessel and his people thought that they would
somehow malign organics because they actually knew it was OK but wanted it
to look bad, they certainly would not do what he did. You are going to get
caught lying about something like this.

It is no different than the dishonest show that Mike Wallace did to
disparage the American Farm Bureau. I don't think that Wallace intentionally
did it, he just followed the script as he was told to do. And got suckered
into maligning most of the farmers in the U.S. I think it was a case of
ignorance in his part. Same thing with Stoessel.

These personalities or as they are called in the trade "talent," are often
acting as a mouthpiece for a prepared script. They may sometimes not deal
with the fine details and can broadcast incorrect or distorted information.
Sometimes it could be intentional and sometimes due to ignorance.

The person that came across extremely poor was DiMateo with her very evasive
comments on organic. It was very telling. And I think at that moment, so
called organic agriculture did get hurt really bad from what she admitted
to. Most all of what Avery and Stoessel and the scientists on the program
were scientifically correct but a bit overstated.

If anyone disagrees with that, let us know where you think they were
incorrect in their statements?

> The Salatin thing is no surprise. We discussed him on the Pastured Poultry
> list and even I was surprised to find I had elevated him to
> Demi-god status.
> Like Duh!

I have only seen pictures of him and read several of his books but not seen
his stage presence. Others in my area here have been to his place and say he
is an excellent presenter and excels in salesmanship. There have been many
extensive articles about him in various publications so he does have the
"cult of the personality." Which can be very helpful indeed.

> My take is that Joel simply was a rather friendly farmer with some great
> entrepreneurial outlooks on farming and marketing that worked. Joel seemed
> to me to be one of those lucky common folks who was in the right place at
> the right time and made a good thing out of it. His stuff worked
> pretty well
> even though certain claims were never tested. I don't believe he meant to
> mislead.

I totally agree. He is very religious, near the born again Christian type of
person and reads the Bible daily.

> Joel's still perking right along and doing fine last I read. Last I read
> some of his stuff was in the Stockman Grass Farmer or Acres USA I think.

I do subscribe to SGF as Allan Nation, while misguided on some things that
he knows almost nothing about (dairying in the Midwest), has some good ideas
for stockers and cow/calf. But he holds the cards close to his vest many
times and entices you to part with many hundreds of dollars for his seminars
that always include his coterie of a few people he believes in and share the
same religion. He is the guy telling others to "think outside the box."

Acres, USA, I have been familiar with for many decades and consider them to
be, quite franky, living a lie with a swaydo *** religion rather than
science.

> The transmutation is not as strange as you would think. Plants seem to do
> amazing things with simple water and fertilizer then some fairly strange
> elements seem to magically appear that one would expect the plant to need.
> Darndest thing. Adrianna knows more about this than I do and it was
> intensely debated by some good people. I'll see if I can come up with the
> stuff on it.

This falls into the realm of alchemy and I think that by now we would have
been able to measure such activities with rational science. Cells and their
organelles are not, as Joel believes, minature cyclotrons that actual
transmute the elements. That would be easily detectable even years ago with
mass spectrography. But it doesn't show up.

Now I have gotten into huge debates with people like Dr. Bargyla Rateaver,
who insist that plants use endocytosis for most if not all of their nutrient
gain. But it is not possible to discuss such subjects with folks whose minds
are totally closed to even basic science. ... Not matter how many degrees
they might have:)

Sincerely,

Rick Williams
Always sifting and winnowing

*** swaydo = the way that J. Edgar Hoover used to pronounce psuedo, as in
psuedo intellectual:)





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