Value food?

One of the things I really value about the Bay Area is the incredible range of small, organic farms. Those farms, and thus our local food security, such as it is, is threatened by the chemical corporations that push their genetically engineered crops on all farmers.
One farmer who has stood up against the chemical corporations is in the North Bay for the next few days. Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian canola farmer whose crop was contaminated with Monsanto's Roundup Ready GE variety, will speak along with GE expert UC Berkeley Professor Ignacio Chapela and Professor Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemna" and "The Botany of Desire."
I heard them speak at Berkeley last night. Even if you have to blow your carbon budget to go to Sonoma or Ukiah to see them, don't miss it.
Both Chapela and Schmeiser have come under concerted attack by agro-chem corporate interests, disguised as consumer choice advocates, intellectual property activists and such. Ever since I worked on Sonoma County's Measure M campaign, I have come to greatly respect Chapela, who discovered the GE contamination of the native teocinte in Oaxaca, and Schmeiser, who, with his wife, Louise, has battled Monsanto since 1997.
As Chapela has said, the release of GE organisms into our ecosystems is not an experiment. It's just a release, without any way of controlling or ending the contamination. Find out what these men have to say and you'll never look at a bottle of salad dressing (they're pretty much all made with canola oil) the same way again.

Whose values?

It's fascinating that the Right has chosen to attack the progressive movement with the pejorative phrase, San Francisco values. It's a wonderfully coined phrase, designed to strike terror into the heart of the Midwestern bloc with gaudy, breathlessly fantasized images of homosexual carousing in the streets, needles in unmentionable places and sidewalks running with the blood of publicly subsidized abortions — a sort of Satanic Disneyland.
The San Francisco Chronicle has already responded to this assault in an extraordinarly moderate way. Right-wing mouthpieces will, of course, continue to deploy this charge to rally their troops against the progressive left. Desperation will make them dangerous, but desperation can also lead them to error. Their error is giving us on the progressive left a name to call our own, to call the things dear to our bleeding hearts.
As a transplant to the SF Bay Area, I see with clear eyes the things San Francisco values: clean and safe parks, helping those who cannot help themselves, saving resources from hideous waste, strength in diversity and the right of people to be left to their own devices.
Indeed, on Election Day, San Franciscans proved their values, voting for more money for schools, voting for housing for the vulnerable, voting to protect our watersheds and water supplies, voting for alternative energy and voting against the stupid and short-sighted plot against environmental protection.
I think that all Bay Area residents should be proud to take up the banner of San Francisco values. We should be proud to live in a city whose citizens can come together to work on common problems without being divided by our superficial differences. I don't want to be blinded by those who would tear us apart for their own ends. I'm proud to be a Bay Area citizen and to work with my fellow citizens for a future of which we can all be proud.