by Nicole Powers

The people of Venice, CA slept soundly last night after authorities broke up a major criminal cartel that had been operating in their midst. Raw milk and cheese lord, James “Rawesome” Stewart, and his accomplices, Sharon Ann Palmer and Eugenie Bloch of Healthy Family Farms LCC, were arrested yesterday following a raid on premises in the predominantly metro-hippy, hipster-hippy, genuinely hippy, and wannabe hippy beach district.

The multi-agency action –– a collaboration between the FDA, the FBI and the LAPD –– is part of a major government crackdown on healthy food. Agents had successfully scored illicit cheese and dairy products on several occasions during a year-long undercover sting operation centered around Rawesome, a members-only organic produce speakeasy operated by Stewart out of a location at 665 Rose Ave. After consuming the goods they obtained, the reduction in allergy and asthma symptoms in the operatives involved provided probable cause for the warrant required for Wednesday’s armed raid.

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by Aaron Colter

Last week’s post about Anonymous and the government’s overreaction to their movement was pretty depressing, so this week’s post is just a list of some cool things.

1. Natalie Phillips

I first found out about Phillips’ art through a free press publication called Eleven PDX. Her work is unique, colorful, and beautiful. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if she becomes a very well known artist very soon.

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By Nicole Powers

America devotes an inordinate amount of resources to its wars on controlled substances; namely its wars on drugs – and raw milk. Yep, you read that right. The prohibition of alcohol may have ended in the US in 1933 with the passage of the Twenty-First Amendment, but it’s still alive and kicking when it comes to unpasteurized milk.

The retail sale of raw milk for human consumption is illegal in the vast majority of states, and though some states do permit direct farm sales and/or herd shares, federal laws prohibit the sale and transport of raw milk across state lines. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers unpasteurized milk or cream –– and any uncooked products made from it, such as cheese, yogurt, and ice cream –– to be categorically unsafe. Their official line is that “raw milk can harbor dangerous microorganisms that can pose serious health risks to you and your family.”

However, by their own figures, a mere “800 people in the United States have gotten sick from drinking raw milk or eating cheese made from raw milk since 1998.” When you compare those numbers to the statistics on alcohol and cigarettes – which can be bought legally in all 50 states – the government’s position on the sale of raw milk appears to be inconsistent to say the very least. And the discrimination against raw dairy is even more profound when the health benefits are taken into consideration. But while the fight to decriminalize other controlled substances grabs headlines and galvanizes support, few are even aware of the prohibition against real milk. Kristin Canty, a small farm advocate from Massachusetts, hopes to change that with her compelling new documentary, Farmageddon: The Unseen War on American Family Farms.

Canty didn’t set out to make a film, merely to heal her son, who suffered from asthma and severe allergies. When traditional medicine failed to help, she embarked on a voyage of discovery that led her to raw milk. While fighting to heal her sick child, she also had to fight the seemingly unreasonable and intransigent attitude our government has towards healthy-minded boutique farmers who produce this hard to come by commodity in the face of much adversity. Frustrated and angered by reports of raids, and shocked at the increasing ferocity of the persecution of those who were doing nothing more than producing fresh food, Canty was compelled to expose the truth. For her, it wasn’t just about the disparity in treatment between big agriculture (whose factory methods have actually been responsible for the majority of serious food scares in recent years) and the mom & pop organic and sustainable operations, but an issue of a mother’s right to choose healthy food.

Read our exclusive interview with Kristin Canty on SuicideGirls.com.

**UPDATE**
Following the multi-agency armed raid on Venice Beach, CA fresh food collective Rawesome, which resulted in 3 arrests (see story), there will be a series of special screenings of Farmageddon at the Electric Lodge cinema on Saturday, August 20 (see details). Proceeds will go to the Rawesome Community Fund.

by Aaron Colter

Goddamn people are dumb. It’s getting old.

I was reading a news article about Anonymous in which some supposed expert, Gabriella Coleman, made sweeping generalizations about the motives of the loose collective. While discussing the skill sets of those involved, she talked about how some are programmers or security researchers, while others “are skilled at video editing and design.”

My fucking eyes rolled so hard I thought the right one was going to pop clean-out of the damn socket. O RLY? Like fucking iMovie and Photoshop? Like that shit is super hard to figure out?

Embarrassing. The government is arresting kids for playing what is the equivalent of a high school prank on a mass scale (if you’re phishing for a Mr. Big in the hacker world – I hear Rupert Murdoch’s a pretty soft target these days). And it remains to be seen if they’re even arresting the correct people. (In response to the FBI’s arrests, hackers have released loads of data that was obtained from ManTech – a security firm paid over $100 million by our government for clearly failing to protect NATO information.)

But regardless of whether they’ve got the right Guy (pun intended), they’re doing it wrong.

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by Greg Palast


Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist gave debtors’ prison a bad rap. Too bad. I’d say that locking away GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a penitentiary for deadbeats seems like a darn good idea.

Let’s talk about how we ended up in this pickle, bucking up against the “debt ceiling.” From 2001 to 2008, a Republican President took an annual surplus of $86 billion left for him by Bill Clinton and ran up the budget deficit to over half a trillion a year ($642 billion in 2008). Altogether, George W. Bush blew up the national debt by over $3 TRILLION — then left the bills to Barack Obama.

For eight years, Bush spent like a drunk monkey. The world was the GOP’s Bergdorf’s and they had our credit card. If there was a shiny new war on the shelf, they just had to have it: Iraq, Afghanistan, and let’s not forget the Fantasy Wars, the half a trillion dollars a year on fancy-ass weapons for a war that won’t happen. (Example: the Virginia Class submarine. The V-class was designed to attack Soviet subs. There are no more Soviet subs, but Bush ordered three dozen anyway — at $1.8 billion each.)

And tax cuts? Don’t get me started!

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by Aaron Colter

The bulk of this blog post isn’t about San Diego Comic-Con, I’m just using it as an excuse to get you to click on the title. And it worked. Fooled you, motherfuckers! You might as well stick around though, I mean, you did already click on the title, and you are already reading this sentence. The next one’s pretty good, you should read it too.

Comic-Con can actually be a lot of fun, but it’s expensive as hell and crowded as five pounds of shit in a four pound bag. If conventions are your type of party, there are smaller conventions around the country that are legitimately well-attended, where you’ll have the opportunity to meet with other fans and actually speak to creators about their work. If, however, you’re looking to blow a few thousand dollars, and can get a decent group of your friends to do the same, plan a year in advance, and set aside hundreds in cash for stuff on the show floor, then yes, San Diego Comic-Con is fucking awesome. If attending, my top three picks for things to get at SDCC are Mr. Hipp Strikes!, Any Empire by Nate Powell, and the 2011 Color Ink Book.

But, if you’re like me, and don’t really want to deal with all of that noise this year, next, or ever, unless absolutely necessary, then here’s some cool stuff that you can do this weekend that will still be pretty fun.

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by Aaron Colter

Last week I said this week’s post would be about beer. It’s not. Moving on . . .

With so much good new music from bands that incorporate a variety of styles into their sounds, sometimes I forget about a tried and true genre that for too long has been saturated with bands that seem to put style over substance – punk. Thankfully, The Taxpayers still embody the important D.I.Y. and iconoclastic spirit from which punk originated.

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