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The eyes of Texas are upon cloudless skies

02 Aug 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Lord promises to "rain down bread from heaven," says the reading from the Book of Exodus this Sunday. As water levels drop precipitously in Texas, the nation's most drought-stricken state, people are just praying it will rain. Texas is sizzling under relentless 100-degree days, and waterways are drying up, especially in the hardest-hit area covering about 350 miles of south-central Texas. Residents are worried about the water supply--and how long it might last. There are 230 Texas public water systems under mandatory water restrictions, including those in and near San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, and Austin. Another 60 or so have asked for voluntary cutbacks. Water levels are down significantly in lakes, rivers, and wells around Texas. "The water table's fallin' and fallin' and fallin,'" said Wendell McLeod, general manager of Liberty Hill Water Supply Corp. and a 60-year resident of the town northwest of Austin. "This is the worst I can recall seeing it. I tell you, it's just pretty bleak." According to drought statistics released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 77 of Texas' 254 counties are in extreme or exceptional drought, the most severe categories. No other state in the continental U.S. has even one area in those categories. John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist at Texas A&M University, said he expects harsh drought conditions to last at least another month. In the bone-dry San Antonio-Austin area, the conditions that started in 2007 are being compared to the devastating drought of the 1950s. There have been 36 days of 100 degrees or more this year in an area where it's usually closer to 12. Smatterings of light rain have occurred in the area this week, but not enough to make much difference. But hopefully the end is in sight. Victor Murphy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said an El Nino system is developing in the Pacific Ocean. That phenomenon is usually followed by increased rainfall in Texas in autumn. Source: An article by John McFarland for Associated Press

texas water supply drought wendell mcleod department of agriculture john nielsen-gammon victor murphy el nino
A world hungers for solution to food shortage

22 Nov 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The reading from the Book of Daniel this Sunday describes a vision of "one like a Son of man." United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened a worldwide "Hunger Summit" on Monday in Rome by calling for a "single global vision" to address the plight of the world's estimated 1 billion hungry people. Aid groups, however, are looking for actions, not words. The absence of many world leaders undermined the summit from the start, and its final declaration showed little progress was made in the fight against hunger, said critics. U.N. officials put on a brave face throughout the three-day meeting, saying it had won broad support for the need to focus on longer-term agricultural development--rather than emergency aid--to help poor countries feed themselves. "It's a half-full, half-empty glass," said Jacques Diouf, director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), who had called the summit to keep attention high on the plight of the more than 1 billion people going hungry. "We made some progress to reverse the decline in agricultural investments . . . but it did not go as far as FAO would have wished to see," he told the final news conference. "It's a big disappointment that the leaders from the biggest and richest countries did not come," said Gawain Kripke of the aid agency Oxfam. "Without them it's hard to imagine how the world will attack these challenges of hunger and increasing agricultural productivity," he said, adding that the summit had thrown only "crumbs" to those who do not have enough to eat. The FAO had hoped the meeting would yield firm promises to boost farm aid to $44 billion a year, reversing nearly 30 years of neglect. Diouf also wanted leaders to commit to eradicating malnutrition by 2025. But the summit declaration merely pledged to eliminate hunger "at the earliest possible date" and set no targets nor a timeframe for more investments in agricultural development. Hunger is local as well as global. A hard-hitting report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) this week said that more than one in seven American households struggled to put enough food on the table in 2008, the highest rate since the USDA began tracking food security levels in 1995. That's about 49 million people, or 14.6 percent of U.S. households. The numbers are a significant increase from 2007 when 11.1 percent of U.S. households suffered from what USDA classifies as "food insecurity"--not having enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle. The report also showed an increasing number of children in the U.S. are suffering. In 2008 16.7 million children were classified as not having enough food, 4.3 million more than in 2007. "What should really shock us is that almost one in four children in our country lives on the brink of hunger," said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. Source: Articles by Silvia Aloisi and Svetlana Kovalyova for Reuters, Joe Kapua for Voice of America News, Gina Doggett for Agence France Press, and Henry C. Jackson for the Associated Press

Children hunger summit rome development un food and agriculture organization agriculture gawain kripke us department of agriculture usda food insecurity david beckmann jacques diouf fao united states united nations ban ki-moon Hunger world summit on food security
“Where’s the beef?” critics ask about “pink slime”

18 Mar 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Commenting on Israel’s dramatic fall from grace in this Sundays’ first reading, Alice Camile writes in PrepareTheWord's Exploring the Word that “human nature hasn’t changed much in thousands of years.” Now as then we tend to “pollute what is sacred, mock prophets, disdain good advice, and ignore all timely warnings.” Perhaps the power of social media can get people to start paying attention. At least that is the case when it comes to a meat product critics refer to as “pink slime.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Thursday that starting this fall schools will be able to choose whether or not to buy hamburger that contains the meat product under attack. The manufacturer calls it “lean finely textured beef" but the term “pink slime” has been used to describe it for years—celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has railed against it and McDonald's discontinued its use of the meat last year. “Pink slime” outrage reached new heights last week amid reports by several news outlets highlighting the U.S. Department of Agriculture's purchase of meat that included the ingredient for school lunches. The story touched a nerve with Houston resident Bettina Siegel, whose blog “The Lunch Tray” focuses on kids’ food. She started an online petition asking Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to put an immediate end to the use of “pink slime” in school food. “When I put it up, I had this moment of embarrassment,” she said. “What if only 10 people sign this?” But within a week the electronic petition had more than 220,000 signatures. The USDA--which did not directly address Siegel's petition in its announcement Thursday--buys about a fifth of the food served in schools nationwide. The agency this year is contracted to buy 111.5 million pounds of ground beef for the National School Lunch Program. “It kind of looks like play dough,” said Kit Foshee, who until 2001 was a corporate quality assurance manager at Beef Products Inc. (BPI), the company that makes the textured beef. “It's pink and frozen, it's not what the typical person would consider meat.” Foshee said he was fired by BPI after complaining about the process used to make the filler as well as the company's claims about it. Since then he has spoken out against the product. The National Meat Association defends the meat and denies that it is unsafe or is made from scraps otherwise destined for pet food. But food policy expert Marion Nestle said the focus on safety misses the larger point. “I'm not arguing that that stuff is unsafe,” she said. “I'm arguing that it's the lowest common denominator.” Sources: Articles by Jim Avila for ABC News, the Associated Press, and The Huffington Post

us department of agriculture beef products inc kit foshee lean finely textured beef bettina siegel the lunch tray pink slime beef school lunches marion nestle