Raw Milk Farmer's Religous Beliefs Dismissed By Judge

            Vernon Hershberger's attempt to use his religious beliefs to escape prosecution for his sale of raw milk and organic food sales in a co-op situation in Wisconsin has failed and he will proceed to trial.

            A judged ruled Monday that the Loganville dairy farmer’s religious beliefs do not absolve him of certain legal responsibilities. His attempt to use Christianity as a way to circumvent legal action has failed and he will proceed to a jury trial May 20.

            Hershberger, a Mennonite farmer who has run his co-op for many years, was charged with five counts, including unlicensed food and raw milk sales stemming from a raid on his farm in 2010.

            “None of (the religious tenants cited by Hershberger) prohibit, on their face, the exercise of any secular rights,” said Sauk County Circuit Court Judge Guy Reynolds.

            In June 2010, state inspectors with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection raided Hershberger’s farm and sealed coolers of food. They ordered him to discontinue sales. He did not heed that order and said it would be against his beliefs to waste food. One of the charges alleges that he violated that hold order.

            Hershberger’s attorneys claimed his religious tenants would have constituted an act of aggression and therefore contradicted his religious beliefs. Reynolds ruled Hershberger and his attorneys had not provided sufficient evidence for their argument and that even if such tenants do exist, it does not appear that Hershberger has relied on them in the past.

            "The Judge ruled against us in everything that he ruled on," Hershberger said Tuesday. "This is all the more reason for everyone who wants this food to drop everything and come out during the week of the trial. This will get us to rely more on God for strength as we face the trial. He alone can bring out the truth which He has done so many times in the past. We do not know if it will be revealed to us at the trial or not but we know what the Truth is and no matter how long it takes, it always has and it always will come out on top!!"

            The state discovered that Hershberger was listed as a defendant in a 2007 civil case that involved an automobile crash with a horse-drawn planter. Hershberger used a legal defense in that case and filed a motion to have the case dismissed.

            “There’s no evidence in that motion that deals with any such religious tenant,” Reynolds said. “I think this really goes to the sincerity of the religious beliefs asserted here.”

            The state is out to show who's boss and intends to prosecute to the fullest possible extent of existing law that is meant to shut down raw milk sales and organic co-ops.

 

Quit Poisoning Your Children

Why do we pour cancer-causing chemicals on ourselves and our children every summer?

            When growing up in a small town outside Chicago, trucks would spread Deet fog to combat mosquitoes during the summer. Residents were told not to go out for an hour after spraying. This was in the 1950s and early '60s, before West Nile. The annihilation of the mosquito was a must then. They were pests. They had to die.

            Instead, the streets, the trees, the grass, the cars, all had residue from the spraying. We ate it, we drank it and we wonder why we got cancer.

            Then came major brands of bug sprays. Got to have it in a can.  Our skin absorbed it and we wonder why we got cancer.

            There is an alternative, keep reading.  

            With a depleting ozone layer, we find the need to protect ourselves from UVA/UVB rays. While there is a need for sunshine and Vitamin D, there is a limit, whether your time is more than 15 minutes or an hour. You need sunscreen after that. Long periods in the sun cause us to look older and develop skin cancer. Why have alligator skin when you can protect it and nourish it.

            Prevention is the most underused word in America and is hard to find in our culture these days. Putting American-sold sunscreen on your skin is poisonous. It contains a chemical SPF rather than a natural SPF. The FDA has cracked down on claims made by SPF sunscreen makers. There is no need for an SPF more than 50 and sunscreen won't last in water very long.

            In Mexico, there are laws that state only biodegradable sunscreens can be used in waterways, ocean swimming, water theme parks and cenotes.

            The only company to sell a biodegradable SPF of zinc oxide in the U.S. is Maya Solar from Batab through Enfuego Productions. No need to pour chemicals on our children to keep them from burning. They also have a burn lotion in case you do get burned.

            As for the insects, Batab also makes a Deet-free lotion to keep the bugs away. If it will work in the jungles in the Yucatan, the woods in Wisconsin and the hills of southern Kentucky, it will work for you. Without the poison.

            We don't have to poison children any more.

            The sole importer in the U.S. for Batab is Enfuego Productions. For more info see www.enfuegoproductions.net.

 

           

The Death Knell of Print Journalism Rekindles Fond Memories

            I predicted the end of print journalism in the early '90s and the reality of that is coming to fruition. The latest chain nearing bankruptcy is Gatehouse Media with move than $1 billion in debt.

            I made my bones, as they say, in the newspaper business. When looking at all the stops I made along the way to fulfillment of a journalism career, I always have fond memories of my first real newspaper job in Morton, Ill. In those days, holding a college degree bought you a journalism job under $200 a week in the 1980s for a small-town paper.

            My first hire came from Gary Blackburn, who is retiring as Publisher/President of Tri-State Media in Princeton, Ind. He's been with the parent company, Brehm Communications, for 30 years.

            I prepared this for his retirement party to show how one person can greatly influence someone's life. Here it is:

 

            A good career would be terrible to waste.

            If it weren't for Gary Blackburn, I probably would have died in the ghetto. To the man facing retirement, many thanks again for giving me a shot when others were reluctant.

            You see, I wanted to become a newspaper man even though I was born legally blind. Went to college, got a degree and was one of 20 paid staffers on the Daily Egyptian at Southern Illinois University in 1977. Good grades, good references, but without a car, there were no offers after graduation. I took a job in the inner city, teaching high school kids how to write and how to run a printing press until the Feds cut our funding in late 1979. No job, no car, no career and I was living in a bad part of town.

            I interviewed in January 1980 with Gary at Tazewell Publishing but didn't get the job. Then I had to spend two weeks' time caring for my dying father in Florida. After Gary hired some schmuck with a car who alienated himself quickly, he called me the day I got back from my father's funeral. Fate, perhaps.

            Maybe all he had left to choose from was a raw, half-blind sportswriter. But in a matter of minutes, he turned me into an award-winning reporter, feature writer, editor, photographer and community activist. The pay was lousy so you knew we were only there to launch a career. Gary, however, made the newsroom a family and helped us realize we could make a difference in a small town full of rich people.

            We became proponents of change, positive change. We halted what would have been a big mistake in a small town when some short-sighted administrators thought joining a big-city high school conference was the way to go. We stopped the insanity with a barrage of editorials from Gary the Editor and the blond-haired sports editor who rode a bike to work and hitched rides to out-of-town sporting events. We recommended forming a new conference where academic and sports equality could be found. That alliance is thriving today.

            After three-and-a-half years of making a difference and winning awards in Morton, it was time to leave the nest. After stops as a copy editor in Carbondale, Peoria and then for Gannett in Green Bay, I heard Vegas calling in 1987. Bolting from the Gannet chain unexpectedly, I went to the desert to seek fame and fortune. I got half of that. I served as the features editor, magazine editor and feature writer for the famous Las Vegas Sun for the Greenspun Empire. Then I was hired as the lead writer and public relations coordinator for Caesars Palace. After serving as a event and PR specialist for Las Vegas Events, I took a job for Las Vegas Magazine and held the titles of associate editor, editor, editor-in-chief and editor emeritus over six years. I later moved on to own a public relations business handling celebs and freelancing around the world. A small-town journalist made it big in Vegas.

            I've also been an event promoter, grant writer, ghost writer, book editor, business owner, gaming consultant and a high school and college teacher. I started a journalism program at the junior college in Las Vegas and was whisked off to far-away places as a travel writer.

            Last year, I won two more Illinois Press Association awards that included a first in Newswriting Series and second in Investigative Reporting for a series I wrote uncovering pollution in the neighborhood where I once lived. Had I not gotten out, I would have lived where many died of cancer from the pollution by a local factory where I used to work as a kid.

            The one opportunity I needed to escape a bleak existence to accomplish all that came from you. That chance led to more and more and more in my life.

             Currently, I'm back in Illinois. I teach holistic health and energy healing classes for a couple junior colleges and trade schools. I have been a Reiki Master for 26 years, give speeches, teach seminars in hospitals and write a health blog. I have a fantastic family of a wife and two kids. Married for 15 years, my family is my life now. The glorious memories of a storied career are treasured. 

            None of that would have been possible without my first real journalism gig given to my by one of the nicest people I have ever met. Congratulations, Gary, on your retirement.