ICCI Convention: Lewis Lapham, Local Food and Progressive Thinking

By Sam Garchik

Lewis Lapham spoke to a crowd of about 550 people last Friday night in Des Moines at the ICCI state convention. The speach and convention was covered by Gordon Mayer at his blog, NPCommunicator. Gordon works for the Communnity Media Center as their senior media trainer, and he was at the ICCI event to work with them on how to get media coverage. I will soon add a link to his organization on the main blog page.

Also, I was told at the event to check out this story about local food in Mother Jones. It mention's ICCI member and head of the National Family Farm Coalition George Naylor, who was interviewd in depth by Mother Jones. Both are very good reads, and emphasize the point ICCI was making when they produced menus for convention meals made from local food. As Hugh Espey, director of ICCI said, their focus is on family farms, and "it's important to practice what you preach."

I also had the chance to talk to Gary Klicker, who reminded me of the Meatrix movies. These are very funny, and kind of scary. It's nice to see folks like Gary avoiding some of the scary agricultural practices that are out there, and using internet resources to make that food available. ICCI has done a good job of making this page, which allows consumers to learn about meat producers around the state and purchase quality meat directly from them.

One more thing: Hugh gave me a list of questions ICCI is giving members so that the members can ask candidates how they stand on certain issues. I'll post the list as soon as I get it from ICCI.