We Are Hearing Voices...and you should too!

By my standards, it has been a while since I have written anything to this blog.  That is good thing.  I have been working on the cookbook and we are just at the picture taking stage and it comes out right around Christmas time, so that is not to say that I have not been writing.  I have completed my move to Southern California and my fiance and I are looking at farmland while I have been worrying over the baby that is on the way.  We did not want to give up on the Food and Farm tour, so others have been bouncing all over the country, meeting people, and getting their perspectives on the state of our food systems and more.  To that end, we have been working very hard on the podcast that will be coming out soon, The Corner Booth.  So, though we have been busy and not very conversant, that is not to say that we have not been listening there really is just so much being said.

I think that it goes without saying that there has been a lot of talking but very little of it is by the people whose voices we want to hear.  One of the things that has kept me from posting for so long is the personal aspect of it.  When I am done typing these up, I tend to post them in several places, send them out on e-mail and Twitter.  Very often, I post them on Facebook with the primary goal of seeing the feedback.

I do not consider myself a journalist in the least.  Journalists report and if their report helps someone else  to solve a problem then great.  I want to be part of the solution, though and that is what a lot of this blog and other things I say are about.  I not only want to suss out the true nature of the problem but figure out a solution as well.  The irritation came when someone suggested that I read the comments after my posts and I made the mistake of listening to that person.

I did so cautiously and knowing that I would not be happy but the goal was to begin a conversation and that goes two ways.  Good or bad, I began to read and much like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, I got sucked into something that I did not completely understand.

Two weeks ago, we posted a blog post about the rise in the minimum wage in Seattle and the battle over it that was going to come from other states.  I tried to do so in a way that brought attention to the issue and not whether it was right or wrong but more about the fact that this is going to be an issue for many moons to come.  Oh, how I wished that I had do what so many actual journalists do and not wade into it, but I did.  First because I believe in justice and second because I wanted to teach my unborn child the value of a good argument if eventually a problem is solved.

I believe in the raising on the minimum wage.  I think that the middle class is disappearing slowly but surely and we need to do things that bolster the middle class to bring it back.  Being able to afford a gallon of milk should be the top of that list.  I understand that others may not see it that way and I always invite interaction and intelligent debate.  I got neither.

What did come from that was a two day screed in which I was called poor for having worked at Denny's (which I did not really get nor have I seen that being called "poor" is an insult.) to being rich and letting my parents buy me restaurants.   I found myself calling this person a moron and a drunk but in the name of whatever professionalism I had left, I left it at that.

At one point my mother even told me that I should just let it go, but having fashioned myself as some sort of modern day Joan of Arc, I thought that this was the time to draw a line in the sand and say, "This far and no further!"

My hope was that this was going to be the time when all of this was put to an end.  That this would be a time when two great oratorical kings would lock in spirited debate peppered with some small amount of witty banter but none came.

Artist rendering of the post responder

I heroically threw numbers and research at this person, and this person said that I didn't know because I did not own a business.  I told her I do.  She said that my parents bought it for me and that (even though raw numbers and data were splayed before her) minimum wage doesn't work.  To which I responded that it has been at work for nearly 80 years.  She went on to say that my parents pay for everything,  that I had no clue what I was talking about and that I was likely going to get knocked up (to her credit, I am nearly six months pregnant), and again that my parents pay for everything.

All in all the whole thing was very disappointing. I felt I could not be as insulting as I wanted to be because in my defense, I really did think she was drunk and if not that then seriously just a very unintelligent person and had the thought it would have been a bit like kicking a puppy or arguing with a toddler.

Secondly but most importantly, I was unnerved at the idea that this was the best that I could hope for as far as discourse.  This is what passes for debate in these days.  The one thing that I acknowledge is that I do not know enough to speak for each of millions of people in this country who are seeking to say something and I certainly know that this other person was not the voice of the opposition.  So why were we the only people who are being heard?

In truth, when we started the Food and Farm tour idea, we thought it was going to be a lot of trekking across the country, eating in some restaurants, going to a farmers market or two and everything would be grand.  There are 7 billion people on this planet and each and every single one of them has their own story.  Who should be speaking for you?

Carol tweets at @9t9knives and you can write to complain at 9of9productions@gmail.com