Today, I’m opinionated
I’m popping up in stories at a variety of places and for a variety of different reasons today.
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John Sutter interviewed me about the Boy Scouts of America’s possible decision to allow gay scouts, but ban gay scout leaders in his well thought out essay on CNN. He quotes me:
The group’s attitudes on gay rights are “more out of style than the scout socks,” said Kelsey Timmerman, a former Eagle Scout who mailed his badge back to the organization because of its discriminatory policies.
“I never wore those damn socks,” he said, laughing.
If you want to know my thoughts on this whole issue, read John’s, that’s pretty much where I stand.
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Sam Dean’s intro to the interview:
As more and more of the food we eat gets imported from all over the world, it’s getting harder to get concrete answers to those questions. But that didn’t stop Kelsey Timmerman from trying. His new book, Where Am I Eating?, took him to the apple juice capital of China, the banana fields of Costa Rica, Ivory Coast’s cocoa plantations, Colombia’s coffee-growing mountains, and Nicaragua’s lobster fisheries. What Timmerman found in each country, and each farm, was all over the map–while China’s apple farmers are living through a boom, slavery is thriving in the Ivory Coast–but it all ends up in our local grocery stores, scrubbed clean of any story.
We highly recommend checking out the book, but thought we’d ask Timmerman a few questions about why he got himself into this undertaking, what he found on the farms, and how that’s changed the way he eats.
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On Local Media, on Earth Day
My buddy and League of Extraordinary Writer, Sam Hoyt, covered our Earth Day party / book launch at the Downtown Farm Stand in the Daily News. I so enjoyed the event. Thanks to everyone who came out, and a HUGE thanks to the Farm Stand. I can’t think of a better way for Muncians to learn about their food than to step into the Farm Stand are start talking with one of the folks who work there. I’m always learning something new, like Chicago style hotdogs with jalapenos are amazing.
The Star Press did a story on the event and featured a local beef farmer and a girl who agreed with me about the hotdogs — she said they tasted like “heaven.”
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On What’s Cooking on exploding Chinese watermelon. (I’m the Kelsey/Kelly Zimmerman guy they’re talking to.)
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It’s great being heard. The more my voice gets out, the more I can share the stories of the farmers I met, and that’s what I’ve been put on this Earth to do.
Let your voice be heard!