Hardly a week goes by, it seems, without a big food company making promises to deliver products from green, sustainable farms. Turning those promises into reality, though, can be complicated.
Take Gunsmoke Farms, a vast property that covers 53 square miles just northwest of Pierre, S.D. The food company General Mills, maker of Cheerios, announced in 2018 that it would convert the farm to organic production. The company planned to turn it into an educational hub to teach other farmers "how to implement organic and regenerative agriculture practices."
Now, some of Gunsmoke Farms' neighbors say that the farm is doing more environmental harm than good.
Unknown Speaker: "A group of young people, mostly boys, we can determine the university student, were milling around the downtown area in Kent, where there is a collection of bars and night clubs, where most of the younger crowd frequent. At first they were simply milling around; not really unruly or disorderly. The crowd got larger, and then the violence broke out at about midnight."
Announcer: The place, Kent State University in Ohio. If you were there on May 4th, you would have seen a campus filled with Ohio National Guard units, called into quell student rioting, which began as a protest against the use of U.S. forces in Cambodia.
The guardsmen had been ordered onto the campus after the University's ROTC building had been burned to the ground in the second night of disruption by antiwar students.
So there you are, if a student, you're one of about 600 in a large grassy plain in the middle of campus. If you are a national guardsman, you are a part of the 100 on that same grassy plain. You would just disperse some students with teargas. Your rifle is loaded with real bullets. You stand side by side, walking up a hill. Suddenly a student throws a rock, then another. They are shouting. Then just as suddenly you turn to face the crowd, a skirmish line is formed. You lift your rifle and for about 30 seconds only, the sounds of shooting and screaming fill the air.
Dan Nosowitz was scrolling through Instagram when he saw it: an ad for a cooking device whose sole function was to heat up raclette cheese.
“I had to click through because I had no idea what it actually was,” he explains. “Finding out that an algorithm believed I would be interested in a discount ‘traditional Swiss-style electric cheese melter’ is sort of comfortably bumbling. It’s like watching a Roomba bonk into a wall.”
Whether the humor inherent in the ad comes from the fact that the gadget is so oddly specific, or because raclette is an incredibly high-maintenance cheese and therefore hardly a common grocery item for most people, is difficult to say. What we do know, however, is that the complicated set of algorithms that serve targeted ads on social media are the most brutal, most incisive owns of our time.
Good morning! May 4th, 2021. 51 years after the Kent State murders by the National Guard. 🌸🔫🪖 When you turn on the news, you realize how little has changed. Today is the first 8:30 PM Dusk 🌆. If it wasn’t so cold and damp, might be a good day to go to the park. With May well under way now, Four weeks to June 😀 . Cloudy and 51 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a north-northwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 51 degrees. We got a pretty good soaking rain overnight but it cleared up by morning although all day is expected to be cloudy and damp.
Yesterday, was a pretty busy day at work. 💼 Just a lot of little projects and things to review. I like being busier at work, makes the time go by faster. I worked from home, I did both my morning and evening walks. Watched some Youtube and silly videos on Tiktok. 📼 Did some reading, went to sleep fairly early on, slept well, work up in the morning relatively early but didn’t get out of bed until 7 AM. 🍪 Made some bisquick biscuits with cheese, corn, sausage and onions. I like them, with some butter and coffee especially on a cold and damp morning like today. 🚶🏻 Not a real nice morning for the walk.
Today will have showers likely, mainly before noon. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 62 degrees at 5pm. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 24th. Maximum dew point of 53 at 4pm. North wind around 6 mph becoming light and variable in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 61 degrees. The record high of 91 was set in 1944. There was a dusting of snow in 1986.❄
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:53 pm with sun having an altitude of 63.5° from the due south horizon (-7.4° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 3 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:20 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (287°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (293°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:59 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 9 seconds with dusk around 8:30 pm, which is one minute and 7 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:09 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 59 degrees. The dew point will be 53 degrees. There will be a east-southeast breeze at 6 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 13 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 25 seconds over yesterday.
Tonight will rain and possibly a thunderstorm, mainly before 5am, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 5am. Some of the storms could produce heavy rainfall. 🌧 Low of 53 degrees at 4am. Eight degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around May 30th. Maximum dew point of 53 at 6pm. 🏖️ Southeast wind around 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. In 2020, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 38 degrees. The record low of 29 occurred back in 1974.
Cool with times of sun and a chance of showers for the weekend. 🌥 Saturday, a chance of showers before 2pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 58. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Sunday, a chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 59. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Typical average high for the weekend is 67 degrees. Now that things are greening up, I’d like to get out of town, but I don’t see it happening. 🏕 Maybe next weekend – especially if I can work my schedule to work from camp somewhere I have cell service. 📱 Next weekend, I won’t have my counseling appointment, 🗣 so I could leave on Thursday night if I can make my schedule work so I’m doing remote work that day and not in the office. 💼
Looking ahead, there are 4 weeks until June 🍹 when the sun will be setting at 8:26 pm with dusk at 9:00 pm. On that day in 2020, we had partly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 68 and 41 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 74 degrees. We hit a record high of 94 back in 1918.
