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AMERICAN NOTES: WHEN URBAN DEVELOPERS MEET FARMERS

National Harbor is a large new development near Washington DC

Jenna Johnson, Washington Post - There are no pickups at National Harbor's American Market. No dirt-caked potatoes or grotesquely misshapen heirloom tomatoes. Everything is clean, colorful and tastefully displayed under matching white tents.

Yes, National Harbor has managed to make even a farmers market an upscale experience. No fewer than 21 rules, along with a host of contractual requirements, ensure that the seasonal Saturday market is just so.

But in its first year, the market has had difficulty attracting Maryland farmers. Some say they were put off by the elaborate system of rules, the lengthy application process, the requirement that they open their farms to inspection and the weekly fee for participation.

"We just want to sell produce," said Whitney Dawkins, who operates a booth with goods from her boyfriend's farm in St. Mary's County. "We don't want to sign our lives away."

Dawkins said other farmers she has tried to persuade to join her at the market in Prince George's County have been discouraged by the paperwork and other requirements.

American Market is made up of about three dozen booths on a grassy patch sandwiched between two large parking garages and the towering Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center. Each vendor is given a tent but is responsible for creating professional, colorful displays.

The market, which opened in May and ends this coming weekend, showcases produce from three farms, fewer than organizers had hoped, and also features artwork, crafts, homemade soaps, pastries and gourmet pickles.

The rules and policies governing the market are necessary to maintain high quality, said Rocell Viniard, National Harbor's vice president in charge of marketing. Vendors are required to open by 9 a.m., and the inspections ensure that the produce is grown as it is being advertised.

Tourists staying at the Gaylord wander over to the market from time to time, but they are more likely to buy crafts, artwork or jams than fresh produce. "They might buy one or two pieces of fruit, but if they are flying back the next day, they can't really buy five or 10 pounds of a product," said Dan Donahue of El Vista Orchards, which gathers produce from seven Pennsylvania farms.

Dawkins said that, although she thinks the market will flourish once the condominiums are occupied, most of the customers she now encounters are budget-minded shoppers from nearby Fort Washington. "Those ladies nickel-and-dime you," she said. "They rip you apart. They rip on the produce you brought."

BREVITAS

OUTLYING PRECINCTS

McCain is only leading by 8 points in his home state according to a poll by Arizona State University. . . And an initiative that would only recognize hetero marriages leads by just 7.

NY Times - After favoring Republicans by a ratio of more than two to one for most of the last decade, pharmaceutical companies and others in the health care industry are now splitting their contributions evenly between the two major parties, campaign finance reports show. Lobbyists and executives in the industry say the swing reflects the fact that Democrats control both houses of Congress, are expected to increase their majorities and may win the White House, giving them a dominant voice on health policy

WATCHING THE COUNT

Progress Report - In early October, ACORN announced that it had registered 1.3 million new voters for the November election. Seizing on reports of apparently fraudulent voter registrations in some states, conservatives began claiming that the purpose of ACORN is to commit "voter fraud." However, all that was found during a raid of ACORN's office in Nevada was apparently fraudulent voter registration forms, which do not constitute voter fraud. "It's not voter fraud unless someone shows up at the voting booth on election day and tries to pass himself off as 'Tony Romo.'" And who would try to do that?" wrote Rep. Jesse Jackson (D-IL). As New York University's Brennan Center for Justice noted, "There are no reports that we have discovered of votes actually cast in the names of [false] registrants." Under most state laws, in fact, voter registration organizations like ACORN are required to turn in all the forms they receive, even the suspicious ones. Furthermore, as Brad Friedman pointed out in the Guardian, "If [ACORN] can't authenticate the registration, or it's incomplete or questionable in other ways, they flag that form as problematic. . . In almost every case where you've heard about fraud by Acorn, it's because Acorn itself notified officials about the fraud that's been perpetrated on them by rogue canvassers."

Cleveland Plain Dealer - Teenager Freddie Johnson said he was offered smokes and dollar bills to fill out voter registration cards. And now the Cuyahoga County Elections Board has 73 cards with Johnson's name on them. Johnson and another prolific registrant were subpoenaed to testify at a meeting as the Elections Board continued its look at possible fraud by ACORN. . . Johnson, 19, said he mostly was trying to help ACORN workers who begged him to sign up because they needed to keep their jobs. "They'd come up with a sob story why they needed the signature," said Johnson, of Garfield Heights. ACORN leaders have acknowledged that workers paid by the hour were given quotas to fill. . . A second person to testify, Christopher Barkley, 33, said ACORN workers pestered him while they tried to gather signatures. Barkley, of Cleveland, said he was homeless and reading a book on Public Square when he signed some of the 13 cards that contain his name. He filled out cards - with his mother's house or workplace as the address - to help workers stay employed. "Me being a kind-hearted person, I said 'Yeah,' " Barkley recalled.

ECO CLIPS

Cornucopia Institute - Groups representing organic farmers and their customers are calling on consumers to help save the organic industry by exclusively patronizing dairies, and other brands, that uphold the spirit and letter of the federal organic law. They claim the acquisition of major brands by corporate agribusiness, and their dependence on factory farms, threatens to force families off the land and deprive consumers of the superior nutritional food they think they are paying for. . . The Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute announced that it has filed formal legal complaints, seeking USDA enforcement, against two more operators of giant industrial dairies. The farm policy research group claims they are "masquerading as organic. . . For eight years, participants in the organic community - farmers, consumers, retailers, and other stakeholders - have fought the industrialization of organic milk by giant corporations and factory farms milking as many as 10,000 animals. Although the National Organic Standards Board, the expert panel set up by Congress to advise the Secretary of Agriculture, has voted to crack down on industry scofflaws five times since 2000, Bush administration officials have refused to act.

DRUG BUSTS

Stateline - Ballot questions next month will give voters in California, Massachusetts and Michigan a chance to revisit their states' policies on marijuana. . . In California and Massachusetts, voters will decide Nov. 4 whether to join 10 other states that have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, . . . Instead of facing arrest and time behind bars, those caught with up to an ounce of marijuana would be subject to civil fines of $100 or less - similar to those paid for traffic violations. In Michigan, voters could make the state the first in the Great Lakes region to authorize medical marijuana.

ARTS & CULTURE

Bookstacks Fitz - Last year, the Chicago Tribune kicked its stand-alone book review tabloid section -- which was anorexic but still alive -- out of the Sunday paper to the little-read Saturday edition, in a city where the first Sunday editions hit the streets before high noon. This weekend, the Trib killed the books tab altogether, replacing it with a broadsheet section that's called "books & media," but really is five pages -- for now, anyway -- in the Saturday entertainment section that includes comics, movie theater ads, and the weather page. Once upon a time metro newspapers of even medium ambition all had thriving book review sections. But with the downsizing in Chicago, the only weekly stand-alone book review supplements remaining, so far as I know, are The Washington Post's "Book World" and the granddaddy of them all, The New York Times Book Review.

CORPORADOS

In a further degradation of the American government, George Bush has signed a bill approved by the Democratic Congress that essentially gives the RIAA and MPAA a role at the White House similar to that of the Defense Secretary and the Department of Housing & Urban Development. Reports CNET: "The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act establishes within the executive branch the position of Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, who will be appointed by the president. The law also steepens penalties for intellectual property infringement and increases resources for the Justice Department to coordinate for federal and state efforts against counterfeiting and piracy. The PRO-IP Act passed unanimously in the Senate last month and received strong bipartisan support in the House."

FURTHERMORE . . .

Fark headline of the day - 15 newspapers endorse Obama, none for McCain. Sarah Palin cancels her subscriptions, still has 800 papers to read every day.

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