5 Ways to Save Billions and Boost the Nation’s Health

While Congress debates how to cure America’s massive debt problem, let me offer a doctor’s prescription: five smart cuts could save taxpayers $383 billion and make Americans healthier at the same time.

Right now, the U.S. government spends billions subsidizing the least healthful foods, fueling America’s obesity epidemic and escalating healthcare costs. In contrast to federal nutrition guidelines that emphasize healthful vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, federal subsidies go in the opposite direction, supporting meat, dairy products, and sugar, and all the cholesterol, fat, and calories that are packed into them. This, despite abundant scientific evidence showing that increasing consumption of animal products is associated with obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and certain forms of cancer, among other health problems.

So here’s where to put the scalpel:

1. Cut Junk Food from SNAP

The government provides food for economically disadvantaged people through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (formerly the Food Stamp Program). One in seven Americans now draws SNAP benefits.

The enormous size of the program — $65 billion a year — is not a testament to the political clout of SNAP recipients. Rather, it’s the food manufacturers who are profiting, as SNAP supports a growing market for candy, soda, fatty cheese, and specialty meats as much as it does for healthier foods.

SNAP perpetuates food deserts — geographic areas with inadequate availability of healthful foods. Because shelf-stable junk food is covered on the same basis as perishable fruits and vegetables, grocers have little incentive to stock healthful foods, and providers of fresh fruits and vegetables operate at a disadvantage.

A vanishingly small number of Americans currently suffer from hunger, defined as an inadequate caloric intake. Instead, a great many suffer from poor nutrition — too much fat, cholesterol, and overall calories, and not enough of the fiber, vitamins, and minerals provided by vegetables and fruits.

SNAP also has an unintended demeaning feature in that it tacitly suggests that economically disadvantaged people view unhealthful foods as necessities. I don’t believe that for a minute. Everyone, regardless of their income, recognizes that unhealthful foods are not to be parts of our daily routine and that a continued supply of these foods is to our detriment.

Here’s a better SNAP structure: SNAP should be limited to truly healthful staples: oats, rice, and other grains, dry beans, fruits, and vegetables, which could be fresh, frozen, or canned. Participating grocers could be required to stock certain items, such as no-salt-added canned beans and vegetables.

With these nourishing foods, an adult’s monthly food costs would total approximately $134, which is one-third less than the $200 benefit provided by the most complete current program coverage. Were SNAP to be reorganized in this way, we could cut costs by $24 billion annually. For once, we could wipe out both hunger and malnutrition at the same time.

2. Prioritize Health in Commodity Purchases

American children today are in the worst physical shape of any generation in the nation’s history. One in three is overweight. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in three children born since the year 2000 will develop diabetes at some point in his or her life. As the years go by, the drain on America’s health care resources will only escalate.

Contributing to this problem is the fact that the U.S. Department of Agriculture routinely uses school meal programs and other food assistance programs as a dumping ground for agricultural commodities. When cheese prices fall, the USDA buys up millions of pounds of cheese. When beef prices fall, it buys up beef. School menus then feature cheeseburgers, cheese pizza, and Salisbury steak. These purchases are designed to boost agribusiness income, but they do children no favors.

In fiscal year 2009, USDA spent more than $1.4 billion on commodity purchases of meat, dairy products, and eggs — twice what it spent on all fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and oils combined. If USDA were to base commodity purchases solely on health value, we could reduce expenditures by about $14 billion over the next decade, save on medical care costs, and improve children’s health.

3. Eliminate Direct Payments to Agribusiness

Food producers currently receive yearly checks in a direct-payment program set up as part of the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act. These payments are based on the historic use of land. That is, if you used to grow feed corn for livestock, you’ll still be paid today. The direct payment program makes it profitable to keep land dedicated to the production of feed grains for livestock, and program restrictions block the growing of vegetables and fruits. Eliminating direct payments would save approximately $50 billion over the next decade.

4. Let Producers Buy Their Own Crop Insurance

Weather happens. When rain fails or floods arrive, food producers need to be insured against losses. All industries protect themselves against shifting profits and costs, and agribusiness is no different.

The cost of crop insurance programs was approximately $7.3 billion in 2009, and approximately 80% of crop-insurance costs are borne by the U.S. government. Unfortunately, these programs favor feed grains for livestock (especially corn and soybeans), providing a de-facto subsidy for meat production. It is difficult to argue that taxpayers should shoulder these costs. Privatizing crop insurance would save an estimated $70 billion over the next decade.

5. Make Polluters Pay

Feed-grain production and concentrated animal feeding operations create wastes that pollute rivers and streams. Government programs cover much of the clean-up costs, becoming yet another de-facto subsidy. In 2010, the Environmental Quality Incentive Program cost $839 million.

Producers raising crops for animal feed or raising livestock under intensive conditions should pay for their own waste clean-up. At the same time, governmental agencies that oversee environmental protection must have authority to enforce appropriate regulations to ensure a healthful, clean environment. Privatizing farm clean-up operations would save $9 billion over the next ten years.

Do the Math

Adding up our savings, we reach $383 billion over the next decade. But wait, there’s more. As we stop promoting unhealthful foods, our healthier population will need less medical care. Today, the medical costs attributable to meat consumption are approximately $60 billion to $130 billion every year. If we can trim even a little of that, we’re talking real money.

For more information on how to optimize your health, visit NealBarnard.org

Originally published on HuffingtonPost.com

Photo credit: KAZ Vorpal

Empower Women, Save the Planet

While we’re all busy counting food miles and building better windmills, we seldom take a step back and look at the elephant in the green room: our staggering population problem. Quite simply, we humans are too successful and we’ve got a sick planet getting sicker. Something’s got to give, but what? How? Population issues are a cultural, political, and moral hornet’s nest. But there is one factor that can influence population above any other: Women’s Rights. Empower women, save the planet. Of course, empowerment is a natural right of its own that needs no outer cause, but the fact that we might restore Terra Mama to boot sure sweetens the deal.

Whether to have children, and how many, is of course a very touchy subject.  In underdeveloped countries the factors in these decisions tend to be immediate, whereas in developed countries we have the luxury of debating the long view.  Eco-consciousness has made the womb a battleground, with each side claiming moral superiority and accusing the other of selfishness. Adoption is an ever-important conversation that brings out the passions. Those who have children are derisively called “breeders,” and there is serious talk of forced sterilization.  There is even something called The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, which hopes that humanity will stop baby-making altogether and die out none too soon.  As Orwellian or silly as these solutions may seem, they do remind us of the magnitude of our population problem. Even if we don’t adopt a China-style one-child approach, it’s clear that the days of big families need to be over. No one can argue that each new life – now with longer and longer life spans – creates a new carbon footprint.

It took tens of thousands of years for human population to reach 1 billion, around the year 1800AD. But in just 200 years since, we’ve seen the graph shoot sharply upward. It took only 130 more years to double. Then 47 years to double again. We are now adding a billion every 12 years and today our population stands at 6.6 billion. By some estimates we’re already beyond what the earth can handle. And yet population seems to be a taboo subject in the environmental debate. This is because we instinctively believe that population solutions will infringe on our most basic human rights. But a new way of looking at it sees the opposite as true: the solution will actually come from the expansion of rights, most especially for women.

Developed, industrial countries have a lower birth rate; developing countries have a high birth rate. This is known as the Demographic Economic Paradox. It’s a paradox because it contradicts what we see in nature – the more successful a population, the more offspring they have. But with humans there are many cultural factors that flop the equation. Foremost among them: women’s lifestyles. Developed societies tend to have higher gender equality. This means more job opportunities, education, economic freedom, access to family planning. Population expert Robert Engelman of The Worldwatch Institute spent decades interviewing women around the globe. He found that the average woman would prefer to have only about 2 kids. When women are free to control their own destinies, birthrates go down. In the US, where gender equality is relatively high, the birthrate is now 2.1 children per woman. In 1950, prior to the equality movement, the rate was 3.8. The US currently ranks #126 on the list. Hong Kong is rated the most economically free, and it also happens to have the world’s lowest birthrate.

In contrast, the #1 country is Niger, whose women pop out a whopping 7.75 babies each. Africa is home to 18 of the 20 countries with the highest birth rates. It’s no coincidence, then, that Africa also has 17 of the 20 poorest countries. Women there have little opportunity to pursue their dreams. As Karan Singh, a former minister of population in India, said, “Development is the best contraceptive.”

The world’s poorest women are dragging a lot of cultural baggage on the road to self-actualization. Religion plays a huge role in keeping them producing children they may not want. In one global poll of Christians, the frequency of church-going was directly proportional to the number of children a woman had.  Those who never attended had 1.67 kids, while those who went several times a week had 2.5. The Catholic Church, for all it’s recent green talk, still deems contraception a sin and advocates tax cuts for large families. Islam of course has some major gender inequality to work through. In the west, we’re horrified at the stories of female subjugation, symbolized most clearly by the burka. Indeed, in Afghanistan, where just this past week three girl’s schools were attacked with poison gas by Taliban, the female literacy rate is just 12%, the lowest in the world. Their literacy equality also ranks dead last, where less than 1 woman for every 3 men can read or write. (In some developed countries, the women have a higher literacy rate than men). Not surprisingly, of course, the birthrate in Afghanistan is 6.53, fourth highest in the world. Here again, education is fundamental to women’s empowerment.  None of this is possible so long as men continue to misinterpret scripture to perpetuate their dominance.

Politics is important. Family planning programs have played a crucial role in reducing unwanted pregnancies in developing countries. And yet, for the past four decades, US politicians have been playing ping-pong with aid policy. Under Republicans, aid organizations receiving government money are not permitted to mention abortion and are curtailed in the distribution of contraceptives or advice. After only a few days in office President Obama reversed many of those rules, and comprehensive family planning information can once again flow to the people who need it most. And when they don’t get it, women will find a way to regulate pregnancy – sometimes dangerously. Folk-remedy abortions kill tens of thousands per year and infanticide rises where women’s choices are few. There is a long history of women regulating fertility, often on the sly. Contraception is mentioned in Egyptian hieroglyphics several thousand years BC.

But as we gloat over our low western birth rates, we must remember that not every child is created equal. One American child creates as much CO2 as 106 Haitian kids. Over the next four decades, Africa will add 10 times as many kids to the world as the US, but the CO2 output will be the same. So, while development and industrialization are obviously at the root of our environmental problems, they are also paradoxically the key to our solutions.  The challenge is to empower women while working to reduce the consumption footprint that comes with empowerment. Engelman says, “Government population control doesn’t work. We need to give control to women. Women naturally end the world’s population growth. They don’t want more children, they want what’s best for their children.”

Further Reading: Robert Engelman’s More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want

35 Years on a Small Organic Farm

A slice of Edible Heaven

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Nowhere is this truer than on a small organic farm deep in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. On Earth Day last week I craved a reality check, so I called my friends Rusty and Sue Nuffer, who have spent most of the past four decades with their hands deep in the dirt. When I called, Sue picked up the phone out in the packing shed. She was laughing watching Rusty across the field hefting irrigation pipes high against a tree to scare out any sleeping rodents about to be drowned. Sue had been planting rows of tomatoes in a new soil cocktail they’ve cooked up.  Each year they grow an ever-changing and wide variety of exotic gourmet vegetables.  It’s been over ten years since my last visit to their little slice of edible heaven, yet the picture they painted is just as I remembered it. Meanwhile the business of organic farming has changed dramatically over the years, with many of those changes – good and bad – coming recently and rapidly on the wings of technology. Sue and Rusty took some time out from under the spring sun to talk to me about the life of a small organic farmer in 2009.

“When we first started out, our goal was just self-sufficiency,” Rusty said. “We wanted to get out of the cities, live close to the earth.” Like so many others, they were burned-out on the 60’s and wanted to get off the grid, disengage from the system. “We were disgusted trying to do social change.” The back-to-land movement was happening all over the country and Rusty and Sue, from Michigan and Ohio, were part of a group that found cheap land in the remote Ozarks. “I paid ten grand for an old 80-acre hill farm that had been unused for years.” Rusty said.  The beautiful spot is surrounded by State Forest and to this day is still 20 miles from the nearest blacktop. Sue and her family were on another farm a few miles away. “We all became expert in gardening because we were growing our own food. It was instinctual,” said Sue, “we didn’t think to grow to sell. Everything was barter.”

Over the next decade, some of the homesteaders drifted back to the ‘burbs, leaving devoted earthies like Rusty and Sue to hang in for the long haul. Famous back-to-land pioneers Helen and Scott Nearing once told them the two simple rules to succeed: Find good land and find a good partner. You can’t do it alone. Each previously married with kids, Rusty and Sue were a perfect match. “We’re so fortunate we work together so well.” And work they do: for much of the year, it’s sun up to sundown, 6 or 7 days a week. “Bug infestation on the potatoes. No rain. Broken machine. It’s always something and you never get ahead of it.” Sue adds: “It’s like having 10,000 children and they all want attention.”

Making a Living

Their first taste of wide distribution came with Sue’s blueberries. “At that time, if you had an organic product, you could sell it – as long as you could get it shipped,” she said.  It was the early 80’s and organic distribution was still a quaint affair. “We organized 20 farms to sell together so we could get a truck to stop through Arkansas from one of the big national buyers.”

Then sometime in the late 80’s things began to change. The big boys saw mega green in their futures and started moving into organics. These corporate growers pushed for weak certification laws.  In California, for example, a farmer at the time only needed to stop spraying chemicals for a single year in order to be certified organic. “One year we’re getting $18 for a box of green peppers. The next year they’re coming out of California at $6.” Said Rusty. “The box alone cost us a dollar! All the big growers were selling below cost to knock out all us small producers.” The little fish continued to struggle under the price-war tsunami throughout the nineties. Many went belly up. “That’s when we started going to the farmers market.”

By the late nineties, organics had tipped into the mainstream. A feedback loop escalated between public interest and business, with Whole Foods leading the way. The company was on a Pac-Man roll, gobbling up Mom&Pop stores across the country. But many of the most devoted customers missed the intimacy and transparency of the old ways. Farmers Markets sprang up across the country so people could shake their farmer’s hand.  And for growers like Rusty and Sue, Farmers Markets became popular just in time.  Most Saturdays for about ten years they got up at 3am and drove two hours to the River Market in Little Rock. “It was like a rock and roll tour. Except our curtain went up at sunrise,” says Rusty. “We kicked butt down there.”  They hired extra help to deal with the crowds three and four deep at their long tables. “We had colors of things no one had ever seen. Five colors of carrots. People would take pictures” The duo became famous as ‘the potato people’ because of their exotic spuds – one year they grew 28 varieties. Some of the top restaurants in the area became devoted customers. They both speak fondly of their years at the market, and it’s about much more than money. “The people were just fantastic. We met so many good friends there. It was so satisfying to get the personal reaction when people love your food.”

But eventually the brutal schedule took a toll and Rusty and Sue had to fold up the tables and tent for good. “We weren’t much good on sundays, and we can’t afford to be dragging. We started burning out.”

Virtual Farmers Markets

In the handful of years since giving up the Farmer’s Markets, Rusty and Sue have had to innovate once again to reach customers. “We’re at a real disadvantage being so remote,” says Sue, “we’ve never been able to ship directly to customer and we can’t do the CSA thing.” Community Supported Agriculture is a big trend now. Customers are like shareholders. Paying a flat annual fee entitles them to drop by their farm each week and pick up a box of whatever happens to be harvesting. Despite their popularity, they aren’t ideal for consumer choice.

Enter the internet. Until last month, Armstead Mountain Farm was tethered to the brave new world by a raggedy dial-up connection that worked sporadically at best. They used it mostly to email their grown kids scattered across the globe. The Nuffers are not exactly techies anyway. Until a few years ago, Rusty loved plowing with his prized draft horses, even as a tractor sat nearby. They’d rather have the glow of sun on their faces than a flickering screen. But even this down-to-earth duo has found salvation in the web. They splurged on a satellite dish last month and it’s opened up a new world for their business.

Several years ago, a farmer and techno geek in Athens, Georgia put up a community site called locallygrown.net to help farmers and customers connect. In a short time it has grown to over serve 800 growers in 50 networks nationwide, with many more coming online this season. Last year Rusty and Sue gave it a try and helped create their local network. They also joined two other smaller online networks.  “We love it. It’s perfect for us,” says Sue. “On Sunday night we post what we’ll have for the week.  Buyers log on Monday through Wednesday and place orders.” Late in the week, they drive their orders to drop-off points manned by volunteers. “We pay a 10% fee to help maintain the network, but compared to the cost of gas and renting the booth at the real Farmer’s Market, it’s a bargain.” One familiar casualty of this virtual market, however, is the personal touch. “We really do miss the one-on-one connection. We get feedback through the volunteers, but it’s not the same as seeing the smile on their face.” Rusty and Sue feel better knowing that their carbon footprint has been drastically reduced now that they’re not driving all the way to Little Rock.

Staying Alive

I asked if it’s easier or harder to get into this game now compared to when they started.  Rusty said, “It was actually much more possible in the early days because things were cheap. Nowadays about the only way for young people to get started is to inherit some land.” While Rusty and Sue are too busy to follow every detail of the politics and policy of food, they do stay well-informed and activist.  They use the internet more and more to stay up to date. “The upcoming regulations are a little scary. It depends how it’s enforced,” says Rusty, “the most important thing to keep in mind is scalability.”  Indeed, what works for the little guy is not the same as what works for the big guy, and small farmers are carefully watching the legislation for signs of big-business power.

After the USDA took over the organic certification process, many small farmers, including Rusty and Sue, just couldn’t afford to use the label. “You have to keep so many records for every crop. That’s fine for the guy with one crop on two hundred acres. It’s a killer for us with fifty crops on four acres.” Of the dozen or so farmers in their locallygrown.net network, only one carries the USDA Organic seal – even though Rusty and Sue have actually always far surpassed the standards. “It didn’t make a bit of difference at the Farmer’s Market because everyone knew us. Now, with the online thing, it would probably help to get certified again.”

There are other roadblocks. The Whole Foods in Little Rock won’t buy from local farmers unless they have a one million dollar liability insurance policy. “I guess that’s in case somebody chokes on our carrot,” said Sue.  And so, not surprisingly, big trucks with California license plates dominate the store’s loading docks.

But despite the challenges, Rusty and Sue remain optimistic. “It depends which pages of the newspaper you read. There’s plenty of good news in between plenty of bad news.” They’re very encouraged to see so many people interested in their way of life and the role of food in caring about the planet. The Obama’s vegetable garden was something they never thought they’d see, and Sue was delighted that the White House involved local school kids. “Right now the average age for a farmer is 51.” But she’s seeing a whole new wave of enthusiastic, idealistic young people that reminds her of their early days all over again. Rusty’s daughter Rose is following in his footsteps, working on farms across England for an organization called WWOOF, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.

Rusty and Sue have been living sustainably since long before terms like carbon footprint, localvore, and slow food became bandwagon buzzwords. But they’re not the least bit tempted to gloat now that the rest of the world has caught up on the path they’ve blazed by gut intuition for years.  In an era when green-washing threatens to consumerize and water down the movement, the simplicity and beauty of the Nuffer’s daily lives are a rich reality check. “This year we’re excited about a new potato we’re trying. It’s called ‘purple majesty’ and it tests higher than any other food ever for one important anti-oxidant,” says Sue. Their world centers around the soil. They’re forever experimenting with new methods to enrich and re-mineralize mother earth. Lately Rusty’s been exploring an ancient Amazonian technique known as Terra Preta, where high-potency charcoal is carefully introduced over many years.

“We’re just pretty dang lucky, that’s all,” says Rusty. It’s their favorite thing to say when you praise them too much. “The perks are that you work in the freshest restaurant in the world!” Sue said, “and just being close to nature all the time – taking care of the planet is spiritual.”

So before I went back to my keyboard and they to their dirt, I asked what they did for Earth Day. They nearly forgot the date. “Every day is Earth Day,” said Rusty, “Earth Month. Earth Year…. It’s an Earth Life, I guess. That’s what it needs to be. Keep that awareness all the time.”

Further Reading:
Locally Grown.net
WWOOF
Helen and Scott Nearing
Terra Preta
Sue’s recommended gardening book:
John Jeavons’ How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine

Behind the Scenes with Bo

Now that Bo Obama has been officially introduced to the public, I’m free to tell a little of my story… For the past several months, I’ve been working for the Secret Service on Bo’s security detail. I saw it all: the covert potty training up at Camp Kennedy, the top secret trysts to visit the first family, and finally, I oversaw the security nightmare that was last Tuesday’s official sniff-and-greet with the press corps on the White House lawn. I’m not at liberty to discuss details, but I can show you some declassified pictures…

On edge when the entire chain of command is present.

My proudest moment was last Tuesday as POTUS and DOGUS were romping for the cameras. Suddenly, out of the corner of my nose, I identified a foreign object on the otherwise pristine lawn. I immediately lunged to neutralize the threat, tackling Bo and tripping the President out of harm’s way. My vigilance paid off: the object was later determined to be a stick! For my bravery, I received a medallion of liver jerky.

But it’s not all glamor. You’re on hyper-alert 24-7. Here’s some behind the scenes stuff of the day-in-the-life of a Secret Service dog:

Riding Shotgun takes on a whole new meaning

Keeping a close eye on weirdos and Fox News reporters

There’s actually a long, distinguished history with the Secret Service in my family:

My great-great uncle protecting Amy Carter and her cat Misty Malarkey Ying Yang.

My great-great-great grandfather was on duty the day LBJ picked his beagle up by the ears.

Malia and the gang asked me to stay on for a permanent gig. It was a tremendous honor to serve my country and this nice family, and I would have loved to continue, but in the end it would have been too hard on my family to pick up and move to D.C.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to dig some dirt for you. What’s Bo like? Well, I can say he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, being a pure bred and all. But he’s a nice kid. He’s determined to use his position to raise awareness of important issues, like dander allergies. He’s handled the breeder vs adoption controversy with class. Imagine the pressure he’s under. I know I wouldn’t be able to deal always worrying about cameras every time I take a squat. And if I tear up a vegetable garden, inner city school kids don’t go hungry. No, I don’t envy him. But he’s got character, just like his family, and I think he’ll adjust to life inside the bubble just fine.

UPDATE: check out the exclusive behind-the-scenes pics from my photo shoot for this blog HERE!

News World Order

When I was a kid I had a paper route. It was a pretty good gig: after school my dog Tyrone and I would cruise the neighborhood stuffing the Pittsburgh Press into mailboxes or screen doors. On Sundays I’d pull my brother’s old go-cart then bomb it empty down the steep hill home. I’d read the papers as I went, learning about my town and the world beyond. This little Norman-Rockwell-in-bell-bottoms-scene didn’t last long, however. Within a few years of my passing the baton to the next punk, paperboys were gone – killed off by a greasy old creep from somewhere else driving my route – and many others – in his rusty Cordoba. The mercenaries had wiped us out. My first lesson that news is business.

There’s a lot of news about the news these days. The internet has caught the old guard off guard. Newspapers, in particular, have had a hard time adapting and are in a dire free-fall. Major city papers across the country, having bled money for years, are finally going belly up. Seattle, Denver, San Francisco. Small local papers are dropping like flies. This week monoliths like The New York Times and The Washington Post announced major layoffs as their stock prices keep falling. Politicians are talking about media bailouts. Are we witnessing the death of the newspaper?

Then again, so what? Polls show a majority of Americans don’t really care if their local paper folds. After all, long before the internet, they began leaving newspapers in favor of the sirens-and-fires coverage on the local TV news. Each era must ride changes in technology – the town crier once lost his job to the printing press. But that’s assuming news is news. It is not. Newspapers are very good at in-depth investigative journalism. Whether it’s blockbuster stuff like Watergate and whistleblowers or small time stuff like your town council jerk taking grease for a building permit, journalism matters in our lives. There’s no substitute for a snooping reporter to keep it all real and honest. Can our new modes of information carry the torch? After years of doom and gloom, we’re starting to see the News World Order take shape in a positive way, led by President Obama.

What’s the News World Order look like? On Thursday, the President held the first-ever internet town hall meeting. 100,000 people submitted questions – some of them video – and more than 3,000,000 people voted on their favorites. Obama answered the winning questions, streaming live on the White House website. His campaign for the presidency is legendary for bringing politics into the 21st century by harnessing the power of the internet. One of the founders of Facebook ran his online community campaign, which created a foot soldier army never before seen. It’s been fascinating and encouraging to watch him, now that he’s President, transform the White House website into an interactive hub that includes hipster stuff like blogs and videos. In his press conferences, too, he’s shaken things up by calling on reporters from websites – Huffington Post and Politico – which is hugely symbolic of the shift towards the power of new media. Now, I view all this democratic flash and sparkle with a healthy dose of Orwellian skepticism. But if delivered even partially as promised, it’s a brave new era of populist power.

By the way, I’m a big fan of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert and I don’t view them, as many do, as the death of civilization. I think that in between the jokes, they often have very important things to say that the corporate media is too afraid to tackle. I’m not really worried that the youngins are keeping up with the world through these guys.

But while comedy news and sites like the Huffington Post have been heralded as the model of the future, people seem to forget that they mostly gather and mash other people’s news. It’s symbiotic. Somebody’s still got to pay the original reporters. Huff’s staff and budget are a tiny fraction of the New York Times. This is beginning to change. Huffington is doing a great job expanding into original reporting. Bloggers are beginning to gain the clout and access necessary to serve an important role in the post-newspaper world. And this means less power to the corporate giants, which is always a good thing. We just have to keep our eye on the ball. We have to demand real reporting and reward those who perform it. And here is where, to my wife Kris’ amusement, I insert a few quotes from my main man Thomas Jefferson: “The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being”, “No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”

The paperboy days are gone. How will our kids learn about the world? How do you get your news?