Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front (utgåvan 2007)

Okay, ignore the racism, misogyny, xenophobia, etc, and this is a really good book. The ideas pertaining strictly to agriculture are wonderful. If I could rewrite it to get rid of the former list of issues, it would be my bible. As such, the notes I took will have to do. ( )

Preachy, poorly written. ( )

i am surprised how much i liked this book. i don't know why i never got tired of his rants. maybe because i agreed with 90% of them. but usually books that are written in such a confrontational style end up making me annoyed at the author and finding ways to disagree with every point they make, no matter how much i really agree with it. i guess i was more impressed by the honesty of his style than i was annoyed by self-righteousness or one-sidedness. it didn't even annoy me too much when he went off on his rants about abortion, civil rights, labor laws, etc. even though i didn't agree with his stances on these issues, somehow i understood where he was coming from and i really appreciated his honesty, even though a lot of his audience probably disagrees with him on these issues.

and of course i'm totally into all of his ideas of local food and trusting and knowing the people that grow your food. and relying on neighbors. its really sad how much of what he wants to do is illegal. i mean every chapter was just another situation where he was trying to provide his customers with healthy food, and for some reason, it was illegal. he kind of convinced me of this libertarian stuff. but only in regards to food. i mean i guess a lot of his libertarian thoughts would work in a perfect world. i actually really liked his parts about child labor and letting kids work. but only becuase i've seen kids work on a farm, and i know they can do it, and i think its good for them. well now i'm just going on an on about not much at all.

this was a really good book, but i would recommend it if you are into local food systems and don't get easily annoyed by a lot of rants about the evils of bureacracy and government involvement. ( )

This book makes me want to be a farmer! Or, then again, maybe not... I am convinced more than ever that we have passed a point of no return in this country; we have gotten so big and bloated with bureaucracy and regulation that we are stifling innovation, initiative, and freedom. Joel makes a good case for returning to the roots of our country, our original values and principles, but also strikes a pessimistic, but realistic, note when he states that he is not optimistic about our future or about winning.

What can I do? Shop at the Farmer’s Market, buy locally, get to know neighborhood farmers; perhaps learn to collect firewood, even keep chickens? ( )

Salatin is the owner of Polyface Farms, "the farm of many faces," in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. He was featured in Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and stole the show as the big-hatted farmer in Farmageddon.

He is quite a character. He describes himself as a "Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist" and pulls no punches when explaining his views on how farming should be done and people fed. Chapter by chapter, he explains how one-size-fits-all government regulations designed for large-scale, industrial, monoculture agriculture unfairly limit small farmers trying to serve local communities by providing a variety of healthy food, humanely produced.

Full review posted on Rose City Reader. ( )