Awesome … I now have 16 backers and I am near 10% of my goal!
We can do this!
Please, if you can back it please back it and spread the word … so I can stop these posts!!!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1176629437/muckville-a-memoir-of-the-public-policy-life-of-a-0
Just watch the Trololo guy and know that we can all do this together!
Here are a couple of other Muckville Kickstarter links to take note of.
First, this is a podcast interview with Dr. Wright on blog talk radio about my project:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wrightplacepodcast/2013/11/18/muckville
This is a link to a Crowdfunding Discussion Forum thread about my project. Feel free topmost any comments or questions you may have:
And finally, once again, here is a link to my campaign!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1176629437/muckville-a-memoir-of-the-public-policy-life-of-a-0
I humbly request your generous support and spreading the word about my project.
To those that have already backed me and spread the word you again receive my incredible gratitude and my sincere apologies for having to read this over and over and over again.
The rest of you have the power to make me stop … by helping me reach my goal.
Now, watch this and get inspired and go chase a chicken in honor of my Muckville Kickstarter campaign:
A brief update on my Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to pay for an editor for my farming memoir “Muckville: Farm Policy, Media and the Strange Oddities of Semi-Rural Life.”
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1176629437/muckville-a-memoir-of-the-public-policy-life-of-a-0
Okay, we are at 15 backers, $492, which is close to 10% of goal! A good start but I need a great deal more help. Please consider backing my project and spreading the word about it. My memoir is all about what is involved in being a small family farmer. It also details my wife and I’s years of experiences working on public policy issues connection with farming. What I detail you can use as a roadmap for your own situation and cause!
And to those that have already backed it, thank you!
Remember, Kickstarter is all or nothing! And the best way to get me to stop posting this crap is to back my project and help me reach my funding goal!
Dad put up a sign today, thanking the battery charger pilferer for the return of it.
The following is another brief excerpt from my yet unpublished memoir, “Muckville: Farm Policy, Media and the Strange Oddities of Semi-Rural Life.” It deals with the backstory involving Eve and I’s first two CNN appearances.
As the 1999 growing season progressed a devastating drought began to slowly affect the eastern seaboard. By mid-August the effects and toll taken on all sorts of crops began to become evident. In late August Eve and I were contacted by CNN. I got a call from producer Frances Causey. She had come across some of my materials regarding crop insurance and asked if we would mind being interviewed for a story about the drought and the problems with crop insurance. We happily agreed. I sent Frances a ton of information, and then we spoke a bit about Ken Ackerman. I related all that had happened in our meetings with Glickman, how Glickman and his operatives knew how poor the onion policy was, and how the buy-up policy in particular was essentially a rip-off. And how USDA officials, and Ackerman in particular, would continue to state untrue things like “CAT was free” and the onion farmers of Orange County were in a situation that was their own fault, because the failed purchase the buy-up. This was despite Glickman saying this sort of thing would stop. I also told her what happened with American Vegetable Grower and how USDA put pressure on the magazine to pull the USDA official’s offending quote.
(Note: Frances Causey is the Producer and Co-Director of the fantastic documentary “Heist: Who Stole The American Dream.” http://www.heist-themovie.com/theTeam.html)
She told me that CNN planned on interviewing Ackerman as they interviewed Eve and I for the story. I told Causey that Ackerman and the USDA would certainly try to pull the same sort of stunt that they did with American Vegetable Grower a year before.
On August 17th, 1999, veteran CNN correspondent Gary Tuchman and crew came to our farm to interview us. Like Randall Pinkston of CBS Tuchman was very friendly and kind. They spent much of the day interviewing Maire Ullrich, the vegetable crop agent at the time for Cornell cooperative Extension, Eve and me. The piece was outstanding (it had one small error, it stated I had CAT coverage at the time but in 1999 we actually had the buy-up, despite how bad it was.) It was a pretty devastating indictment of the current crop insurance program. Ackerman was interviewed separately in Washington by a stringer crew. And Ackerman, predictably, placed the blame everywhere but himself and the Agency. The piece reported:
“’Our program is often very bureaucratic,’ said Ken Ackerman of the department. We have a number of legal restraints that make it difficult for us to respond to situations.” Tuchman then states. ‘But Ken Ackerman says that the current system of taxpayer-supported crop insurance, for which farmers pay just a small fee, often should be supplemented with so-called ‘buy up’ policies for extra coverage.”
So, once again Ackerman attempted to mislead the press and public regarding the true cost or value of CAT and wrongly blame the farmers for their current predicament. Though very pleased with the piece, which ran the evening of August 17,1999 and also multiple times on CNN’s Headline News channel, I was very angry about Ackerman’s quotes and implied blame. After the piece aired I spoke with Butch May at USDA and told him to tell Ackerman that “I thought his mommy dressed him very nice for his TV interview.”
You may wonder, even though it held such little value, why on earth did we buy the buy-up policy for the 1999 growing season? Because of Eve and my view that we did have a responsibility to assist in managing our risk. So, though a waste of money, we felt that the position of having bought it strengthened our ability to work within
the framework of the system to fix the policy. We figured, it would be kind of hard to argue for a “No Stages” program if we didn’t actively participate within the system. So, we bit the bullet and bought it. And to this day we believe it was a factor in motivating Grau to put so much pressure on RMA/FCIC and the various bureaucrats to get us that pilot and listen to our concerns. Of course Congressman Gilman putting incessant pressure on them helped.
As the summer progressed into autumn it quickly began to sink in how bad the losses from the drought were and how little even our buy-up policies were going to help. In early October, CNN producer Frances Causey called us and asked how things were going. We told her the drought was worse than even we thought it would be and the year was going to be a real body blow. She asked if they could interview us for a rare follow-up story and we happily agreed. She also said that this time she would be coming out with reporter Gary Tuchman and crew.
Causey, Tuchman and crew arrived on October 14th to shoot the 2nd story. Once again Tuchman was very kind, matched only by the warmth expressed by Causey. As we re-capped what had developed since their first story Frances, while laughing, detailed what happened with the Ken Ackerman interview. She was simply amazed that Ackerman and USDA did exactly what I predicted they would do, how he would imply CAT was free and the farmers were at fault for not buying the virtually worthless buy-up (we told Frances the one small error in the piece was that we did in fact have the buy-up insurance for the 1999 crop year but inexplicably they reported again that we only had CAT) and she confirmed that Ackerman and USDA were very displeased with the portions involving him in the August piece. “Ackerman and the USDA implied we took him out of context but look at this,” she then pulled out a document from her bag and continued, “this is the word for word transcript of his interview. He didn’t say what he said just once, he kept repeating it over and over again.” What a surprise … not.
The 2nd piece aired all day on October 15th and it too packed an incredible punch.
It was at this point that Eve and I kicked it into high gear in regards to not only fighting for changes to the crop insurance program but also for a special disaster aid program for the onion growers of Orange County. This was now the third devastating year out of four and we needed some sort of special assistance to continue to survive as an industry in our region. When we first started raising the possibility of such aid in 1998 we were told by Representative Gilman’s press secretary that it was an “unrealistic request.”
But when you are wiped out three out of four years you don’t accept such a rejection. In 1999 President Clinton signed a $1.4 billion ad-hoc disaster aid package passed by Congress. The structure and formulation of that ad- hoc disaster aid program was based on the very same federal crop insurance program which made necessary that aid package to begin with. Well, we knew we would need more targeted help. In the October 1999 CNN piece Tuchman reported our assessment that the aid package would only provide us with pennies on the dollar on our losses. And when it was eventually appropriated we learned that we were correct.
Previous blog post here: https://muckville.com/2013/11/15/my-dad-and-another-thief-thats-rude/
As we were leaving the house late this morning the family and I turned and looked with amazement and saw … the stolen batter charger was returned!
For the second time my dad’s “Shame on You” campaign worked (for the previous incident see this blog post: https://muckville.com/2013/10/30/my-dad-the-fred-g-sanford-of-the-neighborhood-and-his-onetime-csi-investigation/
I ran into my father a short time later and excitedly told him.
Dad: “Really? I didn’t see it between 8-9 am this morning when I came back from deer hunting. Someone must have brought it back.”
Me: “I’m sort of surprised.”
Dad: “Me too, I didn’t think it would work again.”
Later, when I took the photos I noticed that the people who took and returned it were even thoughtful enough to bracket the tires with small stones to prevent it from falling.
I just called my dad and told him about the stones.
Dad: “I saw that … that was nice … you know what, if they identify themselves I will give the battery charger to them for free now.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if my dad throws in a 50 lb bag of onions on top of it … on second thought, I highly doubt that.
Muckville: a memoir of the public policy life of a farmer!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1176629437/muckville-a-memoir-of-the-public-policy-life-of-a-0
We’ll at the start of DAY 4 of my Project I now have 10 backers and have reached 5% of my goal. A great start!
I found out yesterday on the Kickstarter website, under the section for staff picks for the publishing section my project is 9at least at the time of this posting) their top pick!
http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/publishing?ref=sidebar
Now I need your help to keep things moving! It won’t remain a top pick for long if it doesn’t continue the momentum. Eight of my backers are friends while two are strangers.
The added bonus to this project becoming successful is that I will stop haunting everyone!
Just a reminder, Kickstarter is “all or nothing” so if I don’t reach my funding goal I get none of the pledged support.
Help a 4th generation small family onion farmer who has lobbied on Capitol Hill get his memoir published via Kickstarter!
THANK YOU!
Readers of my blog recall a post of mine back on October 30, 2013 that was entitled “My dad, the ‘Fred G. Sanford’ of the neighborhood and his onetime CSI investigation.” It was an excerpt from my unpublished memoir, “Muckville: Farm Policy, Media and the Strange Oddities of Semi-Rural Life” and it dealt in part with an apparent theft of an entertainment center he was selling along side the road near my house.
Folks … it has happened again!
Yesterday my dad put up for sale in the same spot an old battery charger that somewhat works. His target price, $50. Now for a couple of weeks he had a pile of crap there of mostly stuff my brother-in-law unloaded before he moved tot he state of Florida. It wasn’t for sale, there was a big sign that said “free” next to it.
But that wasn’t the case with the battery charger. Dad: “I had the “For Sale” sign with my number.
Sometime between 3-5pm, in broad daylight, someone took the battery charger. My Dad: “That’s rude, that’s just rude.”
So my dad in response once again, just like last time, put up a sign pronouncing shame upon the thieves and offering a reward for info on the theft. Me: “What’s your reward?” Dad: “Half of the money if we get the charger back.” The problem, you really couldn’t read the sign.
Of course the first thing I had to do about this was to Tweet about it:
https://twitter.com/ChrisPawelski/status/401324276403273728
My Tweets get automatically posted to Facebook and in response my intrepid and faithful FB friend and neighbor Claire posted the following information and clues:
Claire: “damn thieves!… if it happened btwn 3 & 4; there was a white, double cab, maybe duel wheelie, blocking 1/2 your barn drive; figured he was on the phone…. from now on I’m going to listen to my gut; now where the heck is my tire iron…….”
Me: “That had to be who took it! What sort of plate? Did you see how many people in the truck?”
Claire: “NY…dark windows…. think it had one of those silly narrow beds with the outrigger fenders…..”
Me: “Hmm … I don’t recall seeing that around too often … do you?”
Claire: “no…. but I’ll start paying closer attention, gonna start keepin my ol’ 3 iron in the car….”
Two facts must be mentioned at this point:
1. You don’t mess with Claire
2. You are very thankful that she is on your side.
All day my dad has been muttering about the theft … “it’s rude … I don’t believe it … it’s rude ….”
I told him that no one could read his sign so he enlisted me to fix it, which I did.
He then proceeded to walk to the road so as to drill it to the last piece of free furniture that no one wants sitting now for weeks on the side of the road.
I asked him why he was ruining the piece of furniture by drilling the sign into it and he said “no one wants it, I’m gonna burn it.”
As he stepped away from his sign he pointed to it and said “look, there is the ‘For Sale’ sign on the back. How can you miss that? You can’t. That’s rude.”
Now the question remains … will he “catch a thief?”
My friends, this is what I experience virtually every day on the farm.
The following is another excerpt from my yet unpublished memoir, “Muckville: Farm Policy, Media and the Strange Oddities of Semi-Rural Life.” It deals with our brief meeting with Vice President Al Gore.
In late 1999 our good friend Pat O’Dwyer arraigned for Eve, my brother and I to meet with Vice President (and presidential candidate) Gore at LaGuardia Airport. Now, I thought we had a friend in Gore because a few months earlier I had done him a solid favor. You see, Paul Harvey, in an October broadcast, reported that the Vice President at a White House ceremony, while presenting a national award to a Colorado FFA member, was told by this FFA member he one day planned a career in production agriculture. The Vice President, according to Harvey, then told this FFA member that there was no future for them in that career path, for production agriculture is being shifted out of the U.S. to the third world, thanks in no small part to a Vice President-assisted U.N. initiative known as Agenda 2000.
When I first heard this story my initial reaction was “urban legend.”
So, I started researching it and kept calling various publications and organizations that were supposed to be the source of this story. Bottom line, no one could verify it. It turned out to be an unsubstantiated and unverified tall tale.
I called the Vice President’s office in the afternoon of October 22, 1999 to ask about this story and if the Vice President had any comment about it. After 5:30 p.m. a woman from the Vice President’s staff called me back. She said Gore denied the story to the Iowa media on Wednesday and then faxed me a little press release concerning his denial of this really weird tale.
On October 27, 1999 I called Paul Harvey’s staff. I told them why I was calling, concerning that Gore story. Right away his staffer put the blame on Agri-News, identifying them as the source. I told her that yes, I contacted Agri-News, and then their source, the Wyoming Wool Growers, and bottom line, neither could provide any credible evidence or substantiation for that story. I pointed out that not even a date for the event can be provided. I asked her if she realized that the story prompted a denial on the part of the Vice President. She said that the Vice President’s office in fact did call them (SURPRISE SURPRISE) to deny the story and was supposed to send them something but never got back to them. I told her they got back to me and asked her if she would like a copy of what they sent me. She said she would. I told her how this story circulated like wildfire, thanks in no small part to Mr. Harvey, and I know some people that actually called their Congressional representatives and Senators in outrage over it, who now look a bit like idiots. She kept saying what a shame it was.
When I sent the fax I wrote, in part, the following: “To Paul Harvey’s staff person, Here is what I received from the VP’s office on Friday. I’m sure if you call Ms. Ratcliff she could provide further details. I look forward to hearing Mr. Harvey’s retraction and apology to the VP for reading that story.”
Surprisingly, during his October 29, 1999 broadcast Paul Harvey commented that the Gore comments to the FFA students that was reported in AgriNews was denied by the Vice President. The Vice President thinks there is bright future for people in agriculture. Harvey took no responsibility for broadcasting misinformation. He only reported that Gore denies the comments as was reported. This still leaves folks with the opinion that Harvey’s report may have been factual and the Vice President was merely changing his story. But, it was the closest that Harvey would come and I later heard the Vice President’s team was very pleased with the work I had done with regard to this. I also published all of the details regarding this incident on a number of farmer related websites and discussion groups.
So, I thought we had a friend in Gore. When we met him at LaGuardia I actually got some press to cover it, including RNN news
The Vice President’s advance team were floored that the press was there. We had a whole bunch of information for Gore, including ways in which to fix the crop insurance program and legislative language for our disaster aid. We also gave him information how the Administration could give us our aid directly via discretionary money available in the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). We had maybe 2 or 3 minutes with him. I still remember how soft his hands were, like butter. And Eve and I both noticed how “fresh” he smelled. Quite fresh. My brother Brian used a joke I gave him when he reached to shake his hand. My brother said:
“It’s an honor and privilege to finally meet the man … that was once Tommy Lee Jones’ roommate (actor Jones and Gore were roommates at the University of Tennessee).
It caught Gore off guard for a second, then he burst out laughing and said it was his “claim to fame.” I wanted to say how the years have been far kinder to him than they have to Jones, but thought better of it and bit my tongue. When I started to go into our problems and what help we specifically needed he put his hand up to cut me off and said something to the effect that we would discuss it another time and implied he would get back to us.
We never heard from Gore again. But, we did get some awesome pictures out of the meeting.
The following is another excerpt from my yet unpublished memoir, “Muckville: Farm Policy, Media and the Strange Oddities of Semi-Rural Life.”
The McTrip from Hell
In late February of 2010 I had a 3 day trip down to Washington, D.C. and Capitol Hill. Because of an approaching blizzard I canceled my meetings for the final day and I switched from a 4 p.m. train to the 9 a.m. Acela, so as to maybe beat the snow and get home ahead of the blizzard. So far so good. About halfway home, just outside of Philadelphia we came to an abrupt stop. Yes, we stopped. This was a first for me, after taking the Amtrak train back and forth over the last three years or so.
After 10 minutes we started moving … backwards. The conductor then announced that someone was hit, a “trespasser” was the term she used, on the tracks. Not by us but by a southbound train. So we had to go back to a junction and switch tracks. And then eventually we would go forward again. But first we sat a half hour or so … and it started to snow heavily … tick tock, tick tock.
The conductors on our train were not exactly forthcoming with information so I called Eve on my cell and asked her to find out what the hell was going on. Eve called Amtrak and found out not one but two dummies were hit by the southbound train. Two young girls, 10th graders or so, who decided to skip out of school and walk on the train tracks to get to wherever they were skipping to. He said to Eve “we can’t travel anywhere near the speed we’d like to because of stuff like this that happens.”
Hmm … one wonders how often “stuff like this” does happen? He told Eve there are now five or six trains, not sure if he meant all were northbounds, were sitting and waiting until the tracks are cleared by law enforcement. Because now it was a crime scene, thanks to the two young “Darwin Award” winners, though I wasn’t sure at that point if they had died or not. I know that sounds cruel, but why would anyone walk on train tracks for a very active, commuter train line?
After close to an hour we were finally on the move forward. We were on restricted speed for 3 miles then we finally made it to the Philadelphia station. I asked Eve if the two girls had died and she said “what do you think?”
Finally, a couple of hours late, I made it to Penn Station in NYC. I then hopped on a connecting train to the new facility at Secaucus Junction. But, thanks to the delays, I missed all of the early Metro North trains from Secaucus Junction to my stop in Harriman, New York. So I called my parents and told them I would be getting there late, probably close to 6:00pm. My parents agreed earlier to pick me up, because Eve had to stay home and watch the boys. My dad said to me when I called him to tell him when I thought I would get to Harriman, “it’s a blizzard, you know.” I replied, “I know, take my Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer, it’s got 4 wheel drive.”
When my train finally arrived in Harriman it was a full blown blizzard. The roads were heavily covered with snow. I had gotten on a 9:00 a.m. train and now it was 5:30 p.m. and snowing like crazy.
In normal conditions, at least a 30 minute drive from home. But, this wasn’t normal driving conditions. I’m not talking about the snow, I’m talking about my ride with my parents.
My parents were all set on eating at Wendy’s on the way home. White out conditions, a foot and a half of snow with more falling but we must stop. Well, when we pulled into the Wendy’s in Chester, it was closed. My mom said “how strange.” I replied, “what are you, Nanook of the North? It’s insane to expect them to be open.” My mom said in reply, “I suppose.” But then she stretches her neck and exclaims, “Hey McDonald’s down the road looks open.” And off to McDonald’s we went.
Did I mention it was a blizzard?
Yes, we must stop and eat at the McDonald’s in Chester. We are the only lunatics there and they are closing once we leave. As we stop at the napkin and condiment island my dad says, in his best conspiratorial voice, “you know these cups for ketchup are smaller here than at Wendy’s” “I did not know that” I replied We sit and eat as quickly as possible, though my dad isn’t eating quick enough for my mom’s liking. “Look at him” she snarls, “eating one French fry at a time. HURRY UP!” she demands. I thought she was going to throw one of her French fries at him. Then she said to me “wait till he starts picking his teeth with his straw.” My dad got the hint from mom and quickened the pace and soon we were crawling on the back roads to home. If I died on the way home at least I would have had one last dining McExperience.
This entire fiasco was chronicled, live, on Facebook. As I posted after we left McDonald’s:
“UPDATE: we are sitting stuck on the Florida-Chester road. I’m stuck with two lunatics. We have no idea why traffic isn’t moving but at least we ate our f*#+ing Happy Meal at McDonalds. You cannot make this sh#t up.”
I then looked at the dash and I saw we had less than a quarter tank of gas. The possibility now loomed we could run out of gas on the way home. I posted on Facebook: “I will be impaling myself with my straw if we don’t start moving soon.”
After about 20 minutes we were finally on the move. But the bad news, my parents started fighting. Or, my mom was fighting and my dad was taking a verbal walloping. I wish I could share it all but it was far too much material for me to chronicle. I literally couldn’t keep up. And it must have been 150 degrees in the truck. I wanted to bail out or be put out of my misery.
Once we were about two to three miles from home I texted Eve to have the bourbon ready.
At about 9:00 p.m. I finally arrived home, 12 hours after I had left Washington, DC. Truly a trip from Hell.
Mucking it up in Muckville 
