Book Review of Raising Less Corn, More Hell: The Case for the Independent Farm and Against Industrial Food by George Pyle

Raising Less Corn, More Hell may sound like a rallying cry for the nation's heartland farmers, but this well-written series of essays by George Pyle is meant for those who eat corn. Or rather, for those of us who eat the livestock fed on corn in confined animal feeding operations, then wash down those meals with drinks high in high-fructose corn syrups. Pyle, an editorial writer from Kansas now living in Utah, brings his journalist's skills to bear on what our industrial food system has brought us. It's not appetizing as he makes his case against a corporate-controlled system that doesn't have to be this way.

Review of The Elemental Prairie: Sixty Tallgrass Plants (Watercolors and introduction) by George Olson

The Elemental Prairie provides a general discussion of the Great Plains and the tallgrass prairie for the general reader. Its botanically accurate plant drawings render a beautiful and artistic view into prairie plants. George Olson writes a compelling introduction about "Prairie Elements," painting a graphic verbal description about his trip into the prairie with noted prairie author John Madson. The introduction draws readers into the book and prepares them for John Madson's essay "The Running Country," an eloquent portrayal of the history of the tallgrass prairie. We are led into the hearts and minds of the pioneers who crossed the immense expanse of the Great Plains. Madson's descriptions of prairie plants help us visualize how the Great Plains looked prior to settlement, stirring us to see not only the allure of the prairies, but also the solitude and sometimes the loneliness. Madson mixes his personal experiences with current scientific theory of the formation of the prairies across the region, offering a way of seeing how the present fits into the past.

Evidence for Millennial-Scale Climate Change During Marine Isotope Stages 2 and 3 at Little Lake, Western Oregon, U.S.A.

Pollen and geochemical data from Little Lake, western Oregon, suggest several patterns of millennial-scale environmental change during marine isotope stage (MIS) 2 (14,100–27,600 cal yr B.P.) and the latter part of MIS 3 (27,600–42,500 cal yr B.P.). During MIS 3, a series of transitions between warm- and cold-adapted taxa indicate that temperatures oscillated by ca. 2±–4±C every 1000–3000 yr. Highs and lows in summer insolation during MIS 3 are generally associated with the warmest and coldest intervals. Warm periods at Little Lake correlate with warm sea-surface temperatures in the Santa Barbara Basin. Changes in the strength of the subtropical high and the jet stream may account for synchronous changes at the two sites. During MIS 2, shifts between mesic and xeric subalpine forests suggest changes in precipitation every 1000–3000 yr. Increases in Tsuga heterophylla pollen at 25,000 and 22,000 cal yr B.P. imply brief warmings. Minimum summer insolation and maximum global ice-volumes during MIS 2 correspond to cold and dry conditions. Fluctuations in precipitation at Little Lake do not correlate with changes in the Santa Barbara Basin and may be explained by variations in the strength of the glacial anticyclone and the position of the jet stream.

The People's Hour and the Social Gospel: George Howard Gibson's Gilded Age Search for an Organization of the Kingdom of God

Previous studies of the Social Gospel movement have acknowledged the fact that Social Gospelers were involved in multiple social reform movements during the Gilded Age and into the Progressive Era. However, most of these studies have failed to explain how the reform experiences of the Social Gospelers contributed to the development of the Social Gospel. The Social Gospelers’ ideas regarding the need to transform society and their strategies for doing so were largely a result of their personal experiences as reformers and their collaboration with other reformers. The knowledge and insight gained from interaction with a variety of reform methods played a vital role in the development of the ideology and theology of the Social Gospel. George Howard Gibson is exemplary of the connections between the Social Gospel movement and several other social reform movements of the time. He was involved in the Temperance movement, was a member of both the Prohibition Party and the People’s Party, and co-founded a Christian socialist cooperative colony. His writings illustrate the formation of his identity as a Social Gospeler as well as his attempts to find an organization through which to realize the kingdom of God on earth. Failure to achieve the changes he desired via prohibition encouraged him to broaden his reform goals. Like many Midwestern Social Gospelers Gibson believed he had found “God’s Party” in the People’s Party, but he rejected reform via the political system once the Populists restricted their attention to the silver issue and fused with the Democratic Party. Yet his involvement with the People’s Party demonstrates the attraction many Social Gospelers had to the reforms proposed in the Omaha Platform of 1892 as well as to the party’s use of revivalistic language and emphasis on producerism and brotherhood. Gibson’s experimentation with a variety of ways to achieve the kingdom of God on earth provides new insight into the experiences and contributions of lay Social Gospelers. Adviser: Kenneth J. Winkle

SIDE EFFECTS OF PERSISTENT TOXICANTS

As you can see from the general tenor of the printed program for this seminar, I am in the unenviable position of trying to discourage you from certain types of chemical control; but my assigned topic "Side Effects of Persistent Toxicants," implies that mission. However, my remarks may be somewhat anticlimax at this time, because it is now generally conceded that we need to reevaluate certain chemicals in control work and to restrict or severely curtail use of those that per¬sist for long periods in the environment. So let me detail my reasons for a somewhat negative attitude toward the use of the persistent hydrocarbons from my experience with the effects of these materials on birds. But first a few words of caution about control work in general, which so often disrupts natural processes and leads to new and unforseen difficulties. As an example, I think of the irruption of mice in the Klamath valley in northern California and southern Oregon in the late '50's. Intensive predator control, particularly of coyotes, but also of hawks and owls, was followed by a severe outbreak of mice in the spring of 1958. To combat the plague of mice, poisoned bait (1080 and zinc phosphide) was widely distributed in an area used by 500,000 waterfowl each spring. More than 3,000 geese were poisoned, so driv¬ing parties were organized to keep the geese off the treated fields. Here it seems conceivable that the whole chain of costly events--cost of the original and probably unnecessary predator control, economic loss to crops from the mouse outbreak, another poisoning campaign to combat the mice, loss of valuable waterfowl resources, and man-hours involved in flushing geese from the fields--might have been averted by a policy of not interfering with the original predator-prey relationship. This points to a dilemma we always face. (We create deplorable situations by clumsy interference with natural processes, then seek artificial cures to correct our mistakes.) For example, we spend millions of dollars in seeking cures for cancer, but do little or nothing about restricting the use of known or suspected carcinogens such as nicotine and DDT.