Welcome to the new Talking Leaves. With this issue, we introduce several major changes:
About This Issue
"Food, Sustenance, and Spirit," our primary pre-announced focus area for this issue, is obviously so broad a subject that no collection of articles about it could ever be comprehensive. In recent months, a number of excellent food-related pieces have been written and published--particularly addressing the issues of hunger, globalization, genetic modification, and similar big-picture themes. We've decided to offer writing and perspectives here that cannot be found as easily elsewhere--stories that focus, for the most part, on the personal, while still reflecting the "big picture."
It was not easy to decide to exclude a long article we received about the new Farm Bill, or to resist the urge to ask reprint permission for David Borglum's "Hunger and the Environment" article (from the December 2001 issue of his EcoChurch Resources newsletter-email him at [email protected] for a copy), or to not follow up on this provocative passage from the article "Global Terrorists Threaten American Food Supply" by JJ Haapala: "Imagine headlines reading, 'Terrorists spray 46 billion tons of agricultural chemicals on our nation's farmland'; 'Terrorists contaminate 98 percent of US groundwater'; 'Terrorists destroy three billion tons of agricultural topsoil'; 'Terrorists eliminate 90 percent of the mineral nutrition in meat, fruit, and vegetables'; or "Terrorists introduce genetically engineered fragments into 30,000 food products.' Now replace the word 'terrorists' with 'our modern agricultural system' and the headlines are accurate." (This appeared on p. 7 of the December 1, 2001 issue of In Good Tilth, available from 470 Lancaster Dr. NE, Salem, OR 97301.)
However, the material we have been able to include here brings food "close to home" in ways that seem unique, and that correspond to Talking Leaves' natural niche (see pages 7-17, and also 18-19, 22). In future issues, we'll have plenty of opportunity to explore this subject further.
Our other section, "Grief and Hope," continues a theme from our Winter issue. In it, a couple close friends of Lost Valley share experiences that, in a troubled world, are inspiring testaments to the potential for healing and the power of love (see pages 26-35). We hope we are only the first of many publications to share, in depth, the remarkable story of The Superheroes told here by Ethan Hughes.
As always, thank you for reading TL, and we appreciate your support in whatever form you can give it.
Happy Spring.
©2002 Talking Leaves
Spring 2002
Volume 12, Number 1
Food and Spirit, Grief and Hope