Can you struggle through the rest of this year and 2008 before the collective citizenry labeled U.S.A. can realize the possibility of limitless potential and opportunity? Will enough have been lost to bring focus to how much is to be gained?

George Bush, facilitator for the upcoming 18-month gauntlet of struggle and loss, is looking to guarantee you will answer those questions in the affirmative.

And since this is a column about food and politics, confirming the ensuing pain with a glance to Iraq would be an injustice to what's going on here around the kitchen table.

The Food and Drug Administration has extended until May 29 the opportunity to comment on a draft document called a "guidance" that spells out anew the agency's thoughts on regulating alternative medicine products and practices. Yes, they are back!

Stand-up groups like the American Association for Health Freedom and the National Health Federation, in addition to successfully asking for the 30-day extension, agree enactment wouldn't change the letter of the law as spelled out in two important provisions that influence the practice of alternative medicine - the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act (DSHEA) and the Public Health Service Act.

But the two groups are urging alternative medicine and dietary supplement businesses to recognize the red flag and comment anyway.

A new report linking chemicals like those escaping from three toxic dumps in and around Bloomington to abnormalities in newborn lab animals has led scientists to call for advancing research on PCBs and how they affect the human brain.

Couple that announcement from the University of California with a scathing report on a national slowdown of toxic site cleanups since the Bush administration took office and concerns over PCB releases were only heightened for the 100,000-plus citizens living within 10 miles or less of one of the three local sites: Bennett Stone Quarry, Lemon Lane Landfill and Neal's Landfill.

Bloomington attorney Mick Harrison said a recent public meeting left concerned citizens feeling city and county officials may be ready to take on more responsibility for pressuring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to increase cleanup efforts.

"We feel that no doors were closed and that some doors were opened," he said. "And we believe we've initiated a discussion with the city."

Evidence is building that Bloomington’s four decades of toxic chemical woes are far from over.

Scientists, lawyers and activists are presenting the evidence to the public and calling on local officials to join in demands that big government and big business step up monitoring for and removal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at three Monroe County Superfund sites.

“These releases of toxic PCBs to local surface waters have continued unabated since Westinghouse began their dumping in area sites more than 40 years ago,” said Mick Harrison, a Bloomington attorney representing residents Sarah Elizabeth Frey and Kevin Enright and the environmental justice group Protect Our Woods.

“Human exposure to PCBs and related toxic compounds has already reached alarming levels because they, like the now-banned pesticide DDT, are persistent and bioaccumulate to higher concentrations via the food chain.”

It should come as no surprise to find that annual toxic chemical releases from manufacturing in Indiana have dropped, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Pollution from manufacturing can apparently be correlated to employment from manufacturing: When Indiana manufactures it pollutes.

Is there a bright side to fewer paychecks and poisons as Indiana’s workers continue to be blighted in one of the nation’s worst employment markets? Take not a moment’s solace in the corresponding drop in toxic chemicals, as whatever cleaner air was found from closing factories was quickly tainted by another primary source of Indiana pollution: coal-burning electricity plants.

EPA says 45 percent of the state’s environmental poisons are generated from coal-burning power plants, which are owned mostly by Duke Energy. Indiana power plants increased toxic emissions in one year by a record 7.4 million pounds, accounting for the state’s overall 5 percent increase in toxic emissions in 2005, while nullifying any benefits from the decrease of 1.6 million pounds of toxics produced by manufacturers in the same year.

The busiest farmers market in Indiana swings its gates open in Bloomington for the 33rd straight year April 7, turning at least one parking lot in this town into a paradise every Saturday until December.

Yes, fresh produce lovers will be crushed by the thousands who attend this market if they shop within that premium window of 9:30 to 11 a.m. and fail to pay attention to the actual hours of 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Regulars will note the times are an hour later on both ends from last year.

“The time (zone) change is what necessitated the change in the times the market opens and closes,” said Bloomington Parks and Recreation Public Relations Manager Julie Ramey. “It’s open the same number of hours.”

Ah, the winter thaw has again revealed a telling reminder of who we really are. We’re talking, of course, about that early-season cousin of the mysterious phenomena known as crop circles, which in Bloomington and other pulsing college towns come in manifestations best described as crap circles.

Some have called it Baby Lotus, others have labeled it crazy. But most learn of the Caldwell Eco-Center's first major benefit — called Insomniathon — and think the April Fool's Day weekend event is going to be like nothing Bloomington has ever seen.

Modeled after similarly named performance festivals called Insomniacathons held in Louisville, New York City and New Orleans, the Eco-Center benefit will push more than 60 hours of continuous performance over the senses of environmental justice supporters willing to buy a weekend pass.

The event will begin Friday, March 30, when volunteers adjourn their weekly meeting at the center on South Walnut and take an afternoon musician's-led stroll two doors down into Rhino's All-Ages Club, the primary venue for Insomniathon.

The Alternative Table

February has turned out to be a wonderful case study in how we, in our own deluded way, carry food up the ladder of appreciation from sustenance to celebration, only to topple off at the final rung into objectification.

Sustenance alone, for most on the planet, is more than enough cause for celebration. But in the land of ever-flowing GMO milk and cheap Chinese honey, enablers like a looming religious landmark (Lent) or a confusing semi-pagan exercise (Valentine's Day) are as ever required for some to fully appreciate the bounty before them.

Even Groundhog Day made the list in Bloomington this month after volunteers at the Caldwell Eco-Center tweaked that calendar note into a Groundhog Appreciation Day dinner that was made most memorable by Roots Restaurant's savory winter white bean soup and a buffet of donated homemade cakes and pies.

It's on those notes that the proposition is put forth to proceed on and declare all the rest of the duly recognized holiday's of this month, that incestual triumvirate of President's Day and Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays, as objectifiable food events.

Monroe Circuit Court Judge Steve Galvin has declared the shell game over for the state of Indiana and its defense of how it logs public lands.

Indiana Forest Alliance sued the Department of Natural Resources in 2002 alleging the agency was allowing logging and other actions in state forests without the proper environmental reviews and protections provided under the Indiana Environmental Policy Act.

Five years later, the lawsuit has lingered, logging has continued and three circuit judges have come and gone from the case. That left Galvin, the fourth and latest judge, wondering aloud at a Feb. 15 pre-trial conference.

"Why has this case been going on since 2002?" he asked attorneys for IFA and the state.