How to tank an economy:

This week's lesson brought to you by the Department of Homeland Security and our beloved POTUS.

Is he trying to make his poll numbers worse, or just create chaos for millions of people? You be the judge. Thank God for the AFL-CIO.

Meanwhile, back in Zimbabwe, President Mugabe accepts the challenge from our own Mr. Bush and seeks to regain the title of "worst leader ever" for himself. It's a race to the bottom.

Devastating.

From the Tucson Citizen:

"Thursday, Border Patrol agents were told by an immigrant that he and his group of 12 wanted to surrender and that a woman in the group had died in the desert near Rio Rico. A 6-year-old girl flagged down an agent sent on the call and told him it was her mother who had died. The agent drove on, and the immigrant who had called 911 with the surrender request guided the agent to the woman's body.

The 6-year-old and a 17-year-old girl in the group were turned over to the Mexican Consulate in Nogales to be returned to relatives, and the adults were taken into custody, pending their return to Mexico."

Six years old.

Did you know that the EPA has 18,000 employees?

What is it that they do? And more importantly, why do we still have pollution? That's 360 people per state.

At any rate, the Gray Lady has once again shown why she is an invaluable national treasure.

The article drags a bit in places, but the subject matter is so important I just couldn't stop reading.

A taste:

"Only 1 percent of [China's] 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union."

As always, there's a silver lining: "Much of the particulate pollution over Los Angeles originates in China."

Huh. And I thought it was the parking lot that they call the 405.

Meet Your Neighbors 2: Understanding in a Car Crash

A friend of mine asked that I follow-up my last "Meet Your Neighbors" post with a little bit of information on what happened with "Alberto" and his Mixtopek speaking friend.

Sadly, I have no idea what happened. Which is pretty common. Actually, it's the norm. Which is hard.

To avoid talking more about that, I'm going to change the subject. Stay with me.

Sometimes when I am speaking with someone in Spanish I get this sense that I must be understanding the story wrong, that my language skills just aren't cutting it and I need to ask more questions to figure out what is going on.

When I was talking to Alberto the other day I kept coming back to one thing that I thought just HAD to be a misunderstanding. Alberto had told me that his friend, a man in his late thirties or early forties, spoke some Spanish, but his son did not. "That can't be right," I thought. "If he can speak both Spanish and Mixtopek, his son should be able to as well."

And so I asked him about the situation again, trying to clear up what was, to me, a glaring inconsistency.

"No," he said. "That's right. He can speak Spanish but his son never learned how."
"Why not?" I asked.
"When my friend and I were kids, our parents had enough money to send us to school. By the time we had our own kids, everyone was worse off."

Oh God.

A third man sitting in a chair and listening to the conversation, a migrant himself, spoke up.

"The whole country is going backwards."

What do you say exactly?

Wow.

Art.

Meet Your Neighbors: I'm So Frustrated Edition

I'm annoyed.

So Mexico is a big country. A diverse country. This can be a problem as we tend to think of everyone who isn't American as pretty much being exactly the same.

Canadians? They say "eh" and have milk in a bag. I don't know, whatever Five Iron Frenzy said.

Australians? Pick from one of three funny stereotypes: The surfer guy, the outback guy, or...no, that's about it. The cute accent guy? I'm beat.

Iranians? Either ruthlessly oppressing people, or being ruthlessly oppressed. Pick your poison.

Obviously we don't all think this way, or at least not all of the time. But for the most part we do generalize people into categories and then we make assumptions about people, countries, ourselves, etc., all based on those categories.

Back to today.

Today I was at the Migrant Resource Center (something that I haven't gotten to do a lot of in the past two months or so...desk jockey/tour guide woot!). But I was there today, and I met a man who we'll call Alberto. Alberto was traveling with some friends and family from Mexico when they were arrested by the Border Patrol. Pretty typical.

But that's where the problems start. The reality (which became a problem) is that not everyone in Mexico speaks Spanish. There are, literally, hundreds of indigenous languages. And unfortunately for a guy from a small village, he's on his way back to...wait for it...El Salvador.

So what happened? Well, being that the Border Patrol agents couldn't speak his language, and he couldn't speak either Spanish or English, they assumed that he was from Central America. So they started asking him questions about that. And, being confused, he just sort of made some responses that they took to be agreement. When his dad figured out what was going on (his dad speaks a limited amount of Spanish), he tried to convince them that his son was in fact from Mexico. But that didn't work out so well because he was not carrying any identification with him.

So as of right now he's on his way to Tucson where he will be kept until they send him to El Salvador...for the first time ever...where they won't be able to understand him either.

I'm not saying that the Border Patrol is responsible for speaking every language in the known world. But this is the type of stuff that happens when you try to combine a major humanitarian crisis with a bureaucratic system.

I called the Mexican consulate but haven't heard back. I hope for his sake that they can prove he's a Mexican.

"We got older, but we're still young"

So I'm back from Portland. Which was...well, I'll just say it was. Fun. Difficult. Interesting. And now I'm back.

I have had much less time this summer to blog, to reflect about my work/life/community here, and to read what other people are saying. I really miss all of that. I'm going to try and make it a part of my weekly life again in the coming months, but we'll see how that goes.

For today, I just wanted to say hello, say that I'm doing just fine in this new job of mine, and say that I think you're all swell people. More on that one later.

Perhaps one anecdote before I go. (This one's for Bryce)

When I was in the Sacramento airport (for many hours) I saw a man wearing a shirt that said "estar guars." In English that means nothing. In Spanish that means "to be guars," which is also nothing.

BUT

If you take a stereotypically Spanish accent and apply it to the words "Star Wars", then "estar guars" would be exactly what you would get. I don't know if anyone else in the airport thought it was funny, but I'm still laughing two weeks later.

You make me want to be a better man.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WESLEY BENGT WICKLUND


Here are some thoughts I wanted to share with you on this momentous occasion:

1. You've been around through a lot of stuff. I remember being in elementary school with you, hanging out, moving on to middle school, and then being really excited when you finally got there two years later. Mission trips. Praise band. Leadership teams. Mexican champagne. I love that our history goes deep. I love that our future is going to be even deeper.

2. Because I can look back for years and years, far past a decade of friendship, I have no problem saying that you have always been a really, really good guy. More than uncommonly legit. And you've become a really, really good man. One of the best I've ever met. You've always tried to do the right thing, and when you've failed, as we all do, you've tried even harder. The title says it all.

3. You are damn passionate. I've seen you get in fist fights, yelling fights, and soccer fights (the dirtiest fights of all). I can't say I've always thought it was a good idea for you to be fighting, but I've always loved and admired that spirit. You have convictions, and a belief that there are things in life worth fighting for. And there are.

4. You don't love the law for the law's sake. You want all the freedom that Jesus can give you. Let's get after it.

5. JBBP baby.

You are my brother. I love you.

Let Me Light Up the Sky

A little update about what's happening down in these parts:

I was gone last week in Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, with Tucson's very own Northminster Presbyterian Church. It was the classic high school summer mission trip: construction, vacation Bible school, and pranks. I was a little bit worried about this trip as I have more than a few reservations about teaching high school students that a week of pouring cement is what the Gospel is supposed to look like. Not surprisingly, I was wrong and God is good. The kids were great. The church that we are helping to start in Hermosillo is great. The leaders were great. And I just loved it.

The rains have come and I am unbelievably excited. Everything is green. Monsoons are beautiful to watch.

This week I am saying goodbye to our summer intern and new friend Caroline, my roommate and partner in crime Meghan, and my "boss" (he hates that word) Mark and his family. Tomorrow Mark will be gone and I'll enter a new time of service here. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't anxious. But I'm excited as well.


Next week I'll be in Portland with my sister, my brother, my mom, my dad, and my Steve. I'm looking forward to that. Oregon here I come.

It doesn't get any better than Colorado in the summer.

It really doesn't. A few of my favorite things:


The mountains. Oh the glory that the Lord has made.



Backpacking. And stupid pictures.


Horsehawks (it's gone now, but it was glorious while it lasted).

Puppies

Chris. So classic.

Big B and Baby. So proud.

Family.

The dart game. A new favorite.

Mountain lakes and no shoes.

The foam party. It's the place to see and be seen in AP.

Disc golf.

Summer. YEAH!

Manfection. I suppose this blog was never G Rated. Now it's definitely not. But Travis in a bra was too good not to share.

That's a lot of man. Carried by some great men. I love you guys.

We Walk For Life

The first thing I have to say about the migrant trail is this: I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Every day that I was out in the desert a body was recovered somewhere in Arizona. Every hour, whether laughing, or sleeping, or eating Thai food (yes, Thai food) was spent in the physical and spiritual presence of people crossing, something that has come to mean so many different things to me throughout the past year. In many ways it means suffering. But it also means hope.

The view from the end. Looking back towards Mexico you can see mountain ranges on either side of the valley floor. When we started our journey those ridges were at least two days beyond our first camp. 80 miles really is a long way to walk in only a few days.

Alejandro Rangel Luna. My companion for the week. I started out in Sasabe with him strapped to the outside of my bag, but as time went on I found myself needing him closer at hand. It was very difficult to part with him. At times his presence felt like a burden. On several occasions asking for his forgiveness gave me peace.

The beauty of the natural world continues to capture me. Midway through the week I realized that death was out of place in the desert. The loss of life that was occurring all around me became a tangible symbol that, as much as we love the garden, we are living in the time after the fall. I spent many hours thinking about what it means to have grace in the desert.

I have talked fairly openly about militarization and the border this year, but it wasn't until the migrant trail that I would finally feel able to call southern Arizona a police state. Military convoys passed us every day. In the picture above there are four young men wearing flack jackets and battle helmets. Yes, helmets. We were chased by a helicopter in the dark and at one point circled by ATV's at night while we tried to sleep. We passed by the new camera towers erected by the Boeing Corp. They are inland from the border by many miles. The high powered cameras can swivel 360 degrees. The price of freedom indeed.

Standing on the side of the road as the Border Patrol arrested a family. I had very mixed feelings about our role there. I believe that observing the Border Patrol is a good way to ensure that the rights of the people being arrested are not being violated. But what about when it turns the people themselves into a spectacle?

A road spike that we found while walking down the highway. Border Patrol will get into high speed pursuits with vehicles. As a way to lessen injury to bystanders they will lay spike strips down on the highway. Sometimes the vehicle fleeing is packed with drugs. On many other occasions it is packed with people. I don't need to tell you what happens when an SUV filled beyond capacity hits a spike strip and rolls over at 80 mph.

Everything about this picture amazes me. The clouds opening up. E's beard. That weird glint on his glasses. By far the best thing about the trail was all of the unbelievable people that I met.

On the road again.

"I let you down, forgive me. I'm a puppy for your love. Forgive me, yeah."*

Well, that just about says it. I'm sorry. I'm writing this several weeks (one month even?) after I promised a post on my migrant trail experience. I think we all know how that turned out.

So once again, I'm sorry. And I think I owe you an explanation as well.

Since I last saw all of you on the internets I have been waging a massive campaign to enjoy life in the summer. The score so far is Aaron: 1 Boredom: 0.

I spent a solid two weeks in Colorado, marrying Bryce off to the lovely Mrs. Kate Perica, climbing mountains, eating Mexican food (not sick of it yet!), and staying up until all hours of the morning (the main culprits for that being Guitar Hero:II and Erik Haagenson).

And now I'm back in the saddle at F de Cristo in good old DouglaPrieta, Sonorizona.

For the record, blogger has a great deal of explaining to do as well. I tried to post about a) the migrant trail, b) why I hadn't posted about the migrant trail, or c) my mohawk (pictures coming soon) several times, but each time it was freaking out and wouldn't let me. Don't worry we've reconciled.

One final thought before I go. Today is the first day that I have sat down to read my blog roll in about a month. In the physical presence of one another, our little bloggermunity has done almost no posting. I think that's great.

*The title comes from the one and only Dave Matthews. Dave Matthews+Colorado+Summer= Love

Feminism: Helping me to procrastinate talking about my 80 miles in the desert.

Thanks feminism!

This is yet one more fantastic present brought to you by the one and only Andrew Sullivan. I love him more and more all the time. Except for when I disagree with him completely.

It's not the shortest article ever written, but I highly recommend it if you have a few minutes to spare. Come on, you know you do. The article is a reflection piece written by Megan Stack, a writer and bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, looking back on her time spent in Saudi Arabia and her place there as a woman.

What first caught my attention to the piece was the combination of feminism and Andrew's criticism of Starbucks:

"The multinational company acquiesces in and enforces the oppression and segregation of women."

And it is more than a valid point. Would you still shop at a company that served African Americans in the back? What about a company that wouldn't let Jews in the front door? Of course not. The greatest argument for the existence of feminism is the fact that my friends who work at Starbucks will not immediately quit their jobs, and many of you reading will still go and buy a latte there. Of course the issue is not that simple, but stop and let this sink in: we will still go to Starbucks, a company that won't serve half of the population in the same way as the other half. They still do business, and make a profit, in Saudi Arabia. The parallels to Jim Crow, apartheid, and Nazi Germany are more than uncomfortably close. It is both tremendously sad and unbelievably revolting.

And clearly my pleasure at seeing a little Starbucks bashing was anything but secret.

There is a question I must ask myself in this as well. I don't shop at Starbucks or drink their coffee, but am I blameless? If I have chided Starbucks as a company who will gladly look the other way in the face of sexism, is Just Coffee, my coffee company of choice, able to withstand the same scrutiny? Sadly, I believe that the answer is a very complicated "sort of."

Just Coffee, in all honesty, is a company of men. It is not a company of all male employees, but it is a company of all male owners. Why is that? Well, it really boils down to gender roles in Chiapas. Men are the coffee farmers, simple as that. This is not true in all parts of the world (where women farmers greatly outnumber men), but it is true in Chiapas. Women help at times, but are more likely to be found preparing food, caring for children, or working around the house. So even though these women benefit from the higher price and health benefits that come from Just Coffee, they don't really have a voice at the table in terms of voting. They don't really come to the meetings of the directors. That's not to say that they don't have a "presence" (any married person will tell you that's simply not possible), but that's sort of the same argument that is used in the article to say that women don't need to be able to vote in state elections. Not very comforting, I know.

Does this mean that I don't support Just Coffee? Well, no, not at all. I still love the people, the company, the coffee, and the model. Reality, as always, is more complicated than theory. The business of living in Chiapas requires more intentional effort than it does here. More time cooking and cleaning and all of that good stuff. Life is a partnership, and the contributions of women are tremendously important. And in the face of migration, gender lines become more than a little bit blurred. Once again, this is clearly not a simple issue. Ask any feminist about the tension between cultural sensitivity and women's rights and you'll see the blood start to quicken in their veins.

Culture, history, and economics, all embedded with some degree of sexism, have come together to make men the coffee farmers in Chiapas. Is that wrong? Not necessarily. The goal must never be to tell all people what to do, but to increase their ability to make good choices freely. But it would be better if women had more choices, and especially if they had more say. What is my repsonsibility to try and make that more of a reality? I'm not sure about that either. But I think it is important to ask these questions, and to be honest when things make us uncomfortable. I think this issue pales in comparison to Starbucks in Saudi Arabia, but it is by no means a non-issue. It is important, however, to call a good thing a good thing. Starbucks health benefits in the U.S. are a good thing. And Just Coffee is a good thing. But so is honest self-reflection.

Feminism is a great thing.

The desert post and pictures are coming. I promise.

Here I am again, back where I began.

Try as I may I can't get away from you.
And all of these roads lead me to roam, bring me back home.
Here I am again, right where I began.

-Caedmon's Call


I won't be posting here for more than a week. I had hoped to get a big post up about Michael Pollan before I left but I don't think it's going to happen.

Tomorrow I will be participating in a Christian Peacemaker Team action at the U.S./Mexican border. We are going to pray, paint the fence with crosses for people who have died, and be "present" with God. I'm looking forward to it.

After that I am heading up to Tucson for a house warming party, to pick up supplies for the Migrant Resource Center, and to prepare for next week. On Monday I start a seven day, seventy-five mile trip from the Mexican town of Sasabe back up to Tucson. Walking. About 50 people are coming together to participate in the Migrant Trail. We'll walk between ten and twenty miles every day, mostly in the early morning, and hide from the sun all afternoon long.

The point is not to actually experience the life of a migrant, but to remind people that this is a trip that thousands of people start every single day.

I'm excited for everything but the blisters.

I hope to have pictures of it to post when I get back.

What say you, and all your friends, meet all of my friends in the alley tonight?

A week ago today a team of hit men and enforcers from a drug cartel here in Mexico attacked a police armory in Cananea, a city in Sonora about 50 miles from Agua Prieta. After overwhelming (and killing) some of the officers on duty, the group left the armory with an unspecified amount of stolen weaponry and fled the city. On the way out of town they encountered and murdered four more police officers. They were chased, and eventually cornered, at a ranch in Sonora by members of the Mexican police and the Mexican military. All told, 22 people died.

There are many things that I could say about this event. It is clearly a tragic loss of human life. It is quite shocking that it took place in the state of Sonora. Violence like this is, unfortunately, not unheard of and in some cases quite common. States like Sinaloa and cities like Tijuana might as well be in Iraq. But Sonora has never really seen all out war between the drug cartels and the police. It is just one more sign that the long history of drug violence in Mexico is spiraling out of control.

On Friday a rumor was circulating the borderlands that another team of cartel members was headed to the town of Naco, Sonora. Naco is the next town over from Agua Prieta, a little pueblo that doesn't even have a gas station but does have an incredible amount of drug smuggling. The response to that rumor in Agua Prieta was, understandably, widespread panic. Schools were closed, the border was shut down temporarily, and people stayed off the streets well into the night.

All of this has left me feeling deeply unsettled.

In the midst of this violence my thoughts have been primarily selfish. I have thought little of the families that lost loved ones, or of the places in Mexico (and around the world) where violence like this is so common. Instead I have spent a great deal of time dwelling on a feeling that I have been unable to shake, a voice in the back of my head that refuses to go away. Even in Tucson, away from the border and doing more "normal things," I could not take my mind off the killings. And all of this navel gazing has left me chasing tangents through my mind, searching for the thought that might pull all of these strands together. I remembered my pothead high school friends and our ignorance about the true cost of getting stoned. I thought about the war on drugs and the morality of allowing legal drug use. I thought about the violence that profitable smuggling has unleashed. I thought about friends who are addicts, and all of my time spent in Skid Row. And I thought about the cost of securing our borders from drugs, in money and in human life.

I spent almost a week wandering in the cloudiness of my thoughts before dawn finally broke. The thing that has made me so deeply unsettled by these killings is not the loss of human life, although that is clearly tragic. What was so unsettling, and what continues to trouble me, was how quickly and easily my relationship to violence changed when I was confronted with the possibility that I might not be safe. Let me explain.

Since I have been in Agua Prieta, many people have been killed. The police chief, a reporter, a migrant, and an untold number of lesser "thugs," have all fallen victim to the violence that is laced into the fabric of the borderlands. In spite of these murders, I have never felt truly afraid. A man was beaten to death in a remote place that I visit every single week, but I do not hesitate to continue my trips there. I have almost no fear that I might meet the same fate.

This sense of security is a luxury afforded to me by my secret love of violence. I know in my heart of hearts that it will keep me safe. In the past I have justified my sense of security by saying that I am safe because I stay away from trouble. And it's true, I do stay away from trouble. I don't smuggle drugs, or spend time with people who do. But there is another, greater truth that I have protectecd myself from. I am convinced that I will be safe because I believe that violence has the power to protect me. I believe that, as a U.S. citizen, I can cross the border and be protected. I can depend upon the literally thousands of U.S. government employees running around in the desert to keep the "bad people" from me. I can trust their guns.

When I am in the desert, or in Agua Prieta for that matter, I can trust my whiteness to keep violence at bay. I know that killing me is bad for business. Kill a Mexican? Happens all the time. Kill a white kid doing humanitarian work? Doesn't look good for you. Whether it is the Mexicans or the Americans, I know that the threat of violence from the government keeps me safe.

So I complain about all of the Border Patrol agents here, not because I want just anyone to be able to walk into the U.S. anytime they want to, but because I hate the migrant deaths. I complain about all the guns on the border, not because I love the drug smuggling, but because sometimes those guns are used to kill innocent people. But when it comes down to it, I love my own safety, and the violence that protects it, more than I love the lives of other people.

And I trust violence more than I trust God. When it came down to my own safety, I gave up my belief that God is powerful, and I worshipped violence instead. "Thank God," I thought, "for all of those men with guns."

Violence is my golden calf. Is it yours?

Double-Double (Animal Style), Fries, and A Chocolate Shake

I'm in Tucson right now to drop off one of our volunteers at the airport. I'm staying for the weekend because:

A) Saves the Day is playing a show here tomorrow, my first show since last summer's The Format/Anathallo tour. Saves is one of my top ten favorite bands ever. Here's a classic from Through Being Cool, "Shoulder to the Wheel."



and

B) In-N-Out Burger opened a restaurant in Tucson. Apparently the line is over an hour long. I'm going right now, and bringing a book.

Mmmm. It's been far too long.

PG-13 Blogging: Some Mild Sexual Content

"Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol plays on MTV Mexico in the background of the restaurant.

Friend: Ugh. Why do people like this song?

Me: Sabe. (Spanish for "who knows?")

Friend: It's on all of the time.

Me: Yeah, I just don't get it. It's not even catchy. Just...long and boring.

Friend: I have a theory about this actually, but it's very Freudian.

Me: Freudian?

Friend: Yeah, I developed it after Death Cab's "Transatlanticism" became really popular.

Me: I like that album. And I really like that song.

Friend: Me too, but it's very Freudian.

Me: Ok, explain.

Friend: People like things that are very repetitive and then climax.

Me: Hahahahahahaha

"It sounds prettier in Spanish"

Spanish is really the only language that I've ever tried to learn. I suppose that I learned a little bit of German over the years, and a passable amount of Lugandan considering how many people around me could speak English, but Spanish is the language that has been with me for more than a decade. And I'm finally becoming pretty decent at it.

I am still far from fluent, but I have gotten to the point that I can understand, more or less, more than 90% of what is said to me. More importantly, I can joke around with people and figure out what's supposed to be funny when people are joking around with me.

And I can finally appreciate what a fun and beautiful language that it is. I find myself so intrigued and entertained by the way different words translate, the phrases that I have learned, and the rhythm of speaking in a tongue that flows much more smoothly than the one I grew up with.

Here's a little Spanish lesson for you.

Try this one: "taco de ojo," (ta-ko deh o-ho)which, translated literally, means "eye taco." In the U.S. we would use the expression "eye candy." An "eye taco." I love it.

ex: Who him? Nah, no brains, he's just an eye taco.

Or how about my new favorite verb, "enchilarse?" Enchilarse means, literally, "to chile one's self."

ex: Waiter, please bring me some hot sauce, I'd like to chili myself.

It's a very intimate language as well. For example, if you want to say "my son" in Spanish the exact translation is "mi hijo," (me e-ho) but the version that everyone uses in Agua Prieta is the shortened "mijo" (me-ho). My favorite part is that it can be used for people who are not your children. Lots of people call me mijo, and I call lots of little kids mijo/mija.

ex: Did you hurt yourself mijo?

My favorite linguistic moments in Spanish usually have to do with God, though. Take the word pastor for example. In Spanish, "pastor" (paz-stor) is exactly the same as it is in English(albeit with a different pronunciation), but unlike in English its literal meaning is "shepard." So Pastor Glenn is literally Shepard Glenn. I think that's so cool.

Another really great one is the verb "amor." In English, love gets used for everything (my car, my sister, my vacation), but in Spanish "amor" is only possible between people or with God.

And then there is the concept of Grace. In Spanish, asking God to forgive you means saying "perdoname," literally, pardon me. Think about what we use pardon for in English. And the word for mercy, "misericordia," literally has the root of the word misery in it. Perfect.

High Fructose Corn Syrup Will Never Taste As Sweet to Me Again

So this is a little hat tip to something that I've been obsessing over lately and even discussing with some of my friends (hello Evangelical Environmental Network!). While working down here on the border I have become (even more) fascinated by the interconnectedness of our world. I have spent so much time this year thinking about the ways in which migration, economics, agriculture, the environment, etc. are all linked to one another. And this great article, written by Michael Pollan, talks about just that.

To try and cut down on the length of this post (and therefore increase your likelihood of reading it) I'm going to do this in two parts. I'm pasting the article below for your reading pleasure (it can also be found right here in a more legal setting). A few days from now (give or take) I'm going to be writing a little follow-up piece with some further thoughts and a few more links to make this conversation more interesting.

By MICHAEL POLLAN
Published: April 22, 2007
The New York Times Magazine

A few years ago, an obesity researcher at the University of Washington named Adam Drewnowski ventured into the supermarket to solve a mystery. He wanted to figure out why it is that the most reliable predictor of obesity in America today is a person's wealth. For most of history, after all, the poor have typically suffered from a shortage of calories, not a surfeit. So how is it that today the people with the least amount of money to spend on food are the ones most likely to be overweight?

Drewnowski gave himself a hypothetical dollar to spend, using it to purchase as many calories as he possibly could. He discovered that he could buy the most calories per dollar in the middle aisles of the supermarket, among the towering canyons of processed food and soft drink. (In the typical American supermarket, the fresh foods — dairy, meat, fish and produce — line the perimeter walls, while the imperishable packaged goods dominate the center.) Drewnowski found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice.

As a rule, processed foods are more "energy dense" than fresh foods: they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening. These particular calories also happen to be the least healthful ones in the marketplace, which is why we call the foods that contain them "junk." Drewnowski concluded that the rules of the food game in America are organized in such a way that if you are eating on a budget, the most rational economic strategy is to eat badly — and get fat.

This perverse state of affairs is not, as you might think, the inevitable result of the free market. Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies, to take one iconic processed foodlike substance as an example, is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget. So how can the supermarket possibly sell a pair of these synthetic cream-filled pseudocakes for less than a bunch of roots?

For the answer, you need look no farther than the farm bill. This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system — indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world's food system. Among other things, it determines which crops will be subsidized and which will not, and in the case of the carrot and the Twinkie, the farm bill as currently written offers a lot more support to the cake than to the root. Like most processed foods, the Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat — three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year. (Rice and cotton are the others.) For the last several decades — indeed, for about as long as the American waistline has been ballooning — U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy.

That's because the current farm bill helps commodity farmers by cutting them a check based on how many bushels they can grow, rather than, say, by supporting prices and limiting production, as farm bills once did. The result? A food system awash in added sugars (derived from corn) and added fats (derived mainly from soy), as well as dirt-cheap meat and milk (derived from both). By comparison, the farm bill does almost nothing to support farmers growing fresh produce. A result of these policy choices is on stark display in your supermarket, where the real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent while the real price of soft drinks (a k a liquid corn) declined by 23 percent. The reason the least healthful calories in the supermarket are the cheapest is that those are the ones the farm bill encourages farmers to grow.

A public-health researcher from Mars might legitimately wonder why a nation faced with what its surgeon general has called "an epidemic" of obesity would at the same time be in the business of subsidizing the production of high-fructose corn syrup. But such is the perversity of the farm bill: the nation's agricultural policies operate at cross-purposes with its public-health objectives. And the subsidies are only part of the problem. The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America's children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce.

To speak of the farm bill's influence on the American food system does not begin to describe its full impact — on the environment, on global poverty, even on immigration. By making it possible for American farmers to sell their crops abroad for considerably less than it costs to grow them, the farm bill helps determine the price of corn in Mexico and the price of cotton in Nigeria and therefore whether farmers in those places will survive or be forced off the land, to migrate to the cities — or to the United States. The flow of immigrants north from Mexico since Nafta is inextricably linked to the flow of American corn in the opposite direction, a flood of subsidized grain that the Mexican government estimates has thrown two million Mexican farmers and other agricultural workers off the land since the mid-90s. (More recently, the ethanol boom has led to a spike in corn prices that has left that country reeling from soaring tortilla prices; linking its corn economy to ours has been an unalloyed disaster for Mexico's eaters as well as its farmers.) You can't fully comprehend the pressures driving immigration without comprehending what U.S. agricultural policy is doing to rural agriculture in Mexico.

And though we don't ordinarily think of the farm bill in these terms, few pieces of legislation have as profound an impact on the American landscape and environment. Americans may tell themselves they don't have a national land-use policy, that the market by and large decides what happens on private property in America, but that's not exactly true. The smorgasbord of incentives and disincentives built into the farm bill helps decide what happens on nearly half of the private land in America: whether it will be farmed or left wild, whether it will be managed to maximize productivity (and therefore doused with chemicals) or to promote environmental stewardship. The health of the American soil, the purity of its water, the biodiversity and the very look of its landscape owe in no small part to impenetrable titles, programs and formulae buried deep in the farm bill.

Given all this, you would think the farm-bill debate would engage the nation's political passions every five years, but that hasn't been the case. If the quintennial antidrama of the "farm bill debate" holds true to form this year, a handful of farm-state legislators will thrash out the mind-numbing details behind closed doors, with virtually nobody else, either in Congress or in the media, paying much attention. Why? Because most of us assume that, true to its name, the farm bill is about "farming," an increasingly quaint activity that involves no one we know and in which few of us think we have a stake. This leaves our own representatives free to ignore the farm bill, to treat it as a parochial piece of legislation affecting a handful of their Midwestern colleagues. Since we aren't paying attention, they pay no political price for trading, or even selling, their farm-bill votes. The fact that the bill is deeply encrusted with incomprehensible jargon and prehensile programs dating back to the 1930s makes it almost impossible for the average legislator to understand the bill should he or she try to, much less the average citizen. It's doubtful this is an accident.

But there are signs this year will be different. The public-health community has come to recognize it can't hope to address obesity and diabetes without addressing the farm bill. The environmental community recognizes that as long as we have a farm bill that promotes chemical and feedlot agriculture, clean water will remain a pipe dream. The development community has woken up to the fact that global poverty can't be fought without confronting the ways the farm bill depresses world crop prices. They got a boost from a 2004 ruling by the World Trade Organization that U.S. cotton subsidies are illegal; most observers think that challenges to similar subsidies for corn, soy, wheat or rice would also prevail.

And then there are the eaters, people like you and me, increasingly concerned, if not restive, about the quality of the food on offer in America. A grass-roots social movement is gathering around food issues today, and while it is still somewhat inchoate, the manifestations are everywhere: in local efforts to get vending machines out of the schools and to improve school lunch; in local campaigns to fight feedlots and to force food companies to better the lives of animals in agriculture; in the spectacular growth of the market for organic food and the revival of local food systems. In great and growing numbers, people are voting with their forks for a different sort of food system. But as powerful as the food consumer is — it was that consumer, after all, who built a $15 billion organic-food industry and more than doubled the number of farmer's markets in the last few years — voting with our forks can advance reform only so far. It can't, for example, change the fact that the system is rigged to make the most unhealthful calories in the marketplace the only ones the poor can afford. To change that, people will have to vote with their votes as well — which is to say, they will have to wade into the muddy political waters of agricultural policy.

Doing so starts with the recognition that the "farm bill" is a misnomer; in truth, it is a food bill and so needs to be rewritten with the interests of eaters placed first. Yes, there are eaters who think it in their interest that food just be as cheap as possible, no matter how poor the quality. But there are many more who recognize the real cost of artificially cheap food — to their health, to the land, to the animals, to the public purse. At a minimum, these eaters want a bill that aligns agricultural policy with our public-health and environmental values, one with incentives to produce food cleanly, sustainably and humanely. Eaters want a bill that makes the most healthful calories in the supermarket competitive with the least healthful ones. Eaters want a bill that feeds schoolchildren fresh food from local farms rather than processed surplus commodities from far away. Enlightened eaters also recognize their dependence on farmers, which is why they would support a bill that guarantees the people who raise our food not subsidies but fair prices. Why? Because they prefer to live in a country that can still produce its own food and doesn't hurt the world's farmers by dumping its surplus crops on their markets.

The devil is in the details, no doubt. Simply eliminating support for farmers won't solve these problems; overproduction has afflicted agriculture since long before modern subsidies. It will take some imaginative policy making to figure out how to encourage farmers to focus on taking care of the land rather than all-out production, on growing real food for eaters rather than industrial raw materials for food processors and on rebuilding local food economies, which the current farm bill hobbles. But the guiding principle behind an eater's farm bill could not be more straightforward: it's one that changes the rules of the game so as to promote the quality of our food (and farming) over and above its quantity.

Such changes are radical only by the standards of past farm bills, which have faithfully reflected the priorities of the agribusiness interests that wrote them. One of these years, the eaters of America are going to demand a place at the table, and we will have the political debate over food policy we need and deserve. This could prove to be that year: the year when the farm bill became a food bill, and the eaters at last had their say.


Michael Pollan, a contributing writer, is the Knight professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book is "The Omnivore's Dilemma."

(In the photo: Michael Pollan in all his glory)

Despierta Mama, Despierta

It's Mother's Day here in Mexico. Quite a celebration, let me tell you. Last night the jovenes group from the church (jovenes being high school to twentysomethings) set out to do a little late night serenading in the streets of Agua Prieta. Armed with two busted up guitars, some hand written lyrics sheets, a list of Mexican Mamas, and a few flashlights, three cars set out to wake up all the women of the church with off key singing and the promise of group hugs. 3:30 in the morning later I finally made it to bed, surprised by how quickly I have adjusted to a post college life (well before 2:00 a.m., my former bedtime, I was way past still wanting to be awake). I managed to confuse some of my Mexican (and American) friends yet again last night by being both very detached socially and also willing to sing quite loudly. A sure sign that it's time for a nap.

I have been really fortunate this year to take part in a whole mess of Mexican customs that I didn't understand or know anything about prior to arriving at the border. A lot of people have been very gracious by opening up their homes to me and letting me share a small part of their lives with them. This was one of those times.

I thought about calling my own mother to wake her up for some singing, but in the end decided that muffled and incomprehensible noises at two in the morning might not be the most compelling way to tell her how much I appreciate her. But there's always next year.