Post Script

That's one less nasty toxin to worry about ... and one more to worry about

Grist reports that a decade-long fight by consumer advocates has finally resulted in an EPA ban on the pesticide endosulfan. Similar to DDT, but perhaps more toxic, endosulfan has been banned in the European Union since 2007 but was commonly used in the United States on tomatoes in Florida and cotton in California and Nevada. Other items treated with the substance include melons, cucumbers, squashes, potatoes, apples, blueberries, eggplant, lettuce, pears, peppers and stone fruit.

Of course, this victory is offset by the worrying development in California; the pending and possible approval of methyl iodide as a pesticide to be used by strawberry growers. Methyl iodide is more toxic than the now-banned methyl bromide that it may replace.

Message in a bottle

An interesting read about the goods and the ills of bottled water can be found here at Fast Company. The author looks at many versions of the refillable water bottle, and considers why we don't always use them. Honestly, we've never seen an article about bottled water put together quite so well. We learned about systems we didn't know about before... like a grocery store "return-your-bottle" system that etches a message onto the bottle before it spits it out, refilled and inspiring. 

Here's an excerpt: "Consumers have proven that they will pay top dollar merely for the convenience of portable clean drinking water - even when it doesn't come from the springs of a remote Pacific island or the peak of some European mountain. Within the purchase price for premium water, there's plenty of room to pay for the refilling of the bottle with cheap, filtered local water while at the same time creating an economic incentive for stray bottles to find their way back into the system."

Via @greenbiztweets on Twitter.

Social change in a gumball machine!

Seedbombs are back and coming to a gumball machine near you. Well, that's if they get the seed money, no pun intended. We love this idea - simple, effective, fun and inspiring. Watch a video here and lend your support if you can!

Via @NancyQuinn and @kickstarter on Twitter.

What happens when organic goes BIG?

OrganicNation wanted to know the pros and cons of organic brands being snapped up by big corporations. They interviewed Ken cook, president of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and asked him for his thoughts. The video is posted here and is worth a few minutes of our time.

Has industrial farming slowed global warming?

The New Scientist addresses a complex issue, with arguments for and against.

Where is your milk from?

So... your milk says organic on the label, that's good! But what if it came from a massive dairy operation out of state where the animals aren't given much space or time to graze? Or maybe it came from a local dairy where the cows are few and pampered. Sometimes it's hard to know. Good thing we have the internet to save us! Go to this cool website: Where Is My Milk From?, enter your milk carton's code and get the dairy details. We tested it on a carton of Organic Valley half-and-half, which came from Smith Dairy in Richmond, Indiana.

Thanks to Nancy Quinn at Third Sector Creative.

From Racine ... to the cover of Food & Wine Magazine

This is a tale of a local boy done good if ever we saw one. Racine native and former chef for Louise's Trattoria, Alex Seidel now finds himself on the cover of Food & Wine magazine, hailed as one of the country's 10 best new chefs.

Currently at the helm of Fruition Restaurant in Denver, Seidel has come a long way since he left UW-Milwaukee to go to culinary school. Seidel tells the Journal Sentinel that he and his wife, Melissa, a Cedarburg native, love to come home to Milwaukee, and when they do, they head to Kopps for burgers and Wells Brothers in Racine for pizza.

The full story here, spotted first on Wisconsin Foodie's Twitter stream.

Shop local, eat local ... and play local, too

One of the things we love about Milwaukee is its diverse and rich arts scene. From Ko-Thi to the Florentine Opera, from the symphony and the Rep to Danceworks, we have big-budget and small-budget productions to choose from. Many of those organizations receive up to 20% of the their funding through UPAF, however, and UPAF is having a hard time.

That's according to Milwaukee Magazine. At the Outpost, we believe in supporting local businesses. Sometimes, it helps to receive a reminder that local arts groups and non-profits need that support, too. If you want to donate to the United Performing Arts Fund (UPAF), go here.

(Can the recession go away now?)

In wake of oil spill, more Americans want clean energy

"In the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, 71 percent of Americans say president Obama and Congress should make developing clean sources of energy a high priority, an 11 percent increase since January, according to a new poll. The poll, conducted by Yale University and George Mason University, also revealed that 77 percent of Americans support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant."

The full story at Yale Environment 360.

Big Ag responds to superweeds with more chemicals

We blogged about Monsanto's super weeds back in early May, and now Grist.org addresses how the agricultural giants are handling the problem. Weeds are growing resistant to the chemicals in Roundup? Then the answer must be more chemicals!

An excerpt: "As application rates have ramped up, the superweed menace has become so obvious the mainstream press has taken notice. 'Superweeds Hit Farm Belt, Triggering New Arms Race,' declares a Wall Street Journal headline from last week. (...) Rather than spark a reassessment of the wisdom of relying on toxic chemicals, the failure of Roundup Ready has the U.S. agricultural establishment scrambling to intensify chemical use.

The Journal reports that Dow Chemical, DuPont, Bayer, BASF and Sygenta are 'together spending hundreds of millions of dollars to develop genetically modified soybean, corn, and cotton seeds that can survive a dousing by their herbicides,' most of which are 'many decades old' and highly toxic.' "

Sigh.