SSC's free film for today is the environmental film, The Future of Food, a highly regarded documentary showing research-based cause for concern about the genetically modified foods (GMOs) most of us eat today. Do you eat tortillas or corn chips? Use soy or cotton seed oil for frying? Did anyone ask you if you wanted to be an unpaid guinea pig? And what of GMOs' effect on the environment?

There is a quiet struggle going on over GMO farming right here in Lake County. Some growers want to bring in genetically modified corn, soy, sugar beets and alfalfa, believing these GMO crops to be harmless to consumers and to the environment. They also believe that the crops will save them money on herbicides and pesticides and that they will increase their yields.

Many among the burgeoning numbers of successful organic farmers here at home believe these crops are not safe for either us or the environment – and this film provides strong evidence in support of their position.

This film also demonstrates that all too frequently, the use of herbicides and pesticides is not reduced, and that yields are not increased. In fact, some states where herbicide-resistant commercial crops are grown, are now facing mutated “super-weeds” 5-foot tall pig weed that slurps up herbicides and breaks farm equipment, it's so strong!

Thurston Williams of Clover Creek Farm is one of our local organic farmers who does not want his crops polluted by drifting pollen from someone else's GMO crop. Williams will be attending this screening, and will participate in a question and answer and discussion following the film. He heads a new effort to keep GMOs out of Lake County.

Our venue is the Clearlake United Methodist Church at 14521 Pearl Ave. near Mullen in Clearlake. Regular times prevail: Doors open at 5:30 p.m. with the film starting at 6 p.m.

On Oct. 9, Second Saturday Cinema kicks off its first season with the lovely documentary, “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.” The venue is the Middletown Community United Methodist Church on Armstrong Street in Middletown. Doors at 2:30 p.m. with the film at 3 p.m. The event is free.

For more information call 707-279-2957.

The show takes place Nov. 12-14.

The group is looking for fine art, fine crafts and folk art.

The deadline for jurying work is Oct. 18.

If you are interested in jurying for this show, or need more information please contact Alana Clearlake, 707-928-8565 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Photo by UNL Publications and Photography.

I’ve spent my 70 years on The Great Plains and have lived all that time amidst vivid and touching stories about the settlement of our area, lots of them much like this one, about a long ago courtship and marriage, offered to us in a poem by James Doyle, who lives in Colorado.

Love Story

The kitchen door opens onto dirt

and the second half of the country

all the way to the Pacific. Rusted

prairie trains out of the tall weeds

elbow the last century aside, rumble

from every direction towards Chicago.

My great-grandfather, who would be

150 years old today, put on his one

tall hat and took the big trip

to Omaha for my great-grandma

with the family ring on his vest

and winter wheat lying wait in seed.

He gave her all the miles he had

and she gave him the future I walk

around in every day. The mountains

were too far west to count so they

doubled back over the land and century

and the real weather kept coming from them.

Ted Kooser was US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. He is a professor in the English Department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife Kathleen Rutledge, the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),

publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of

Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Donal Heffernan, whose most recent book of poetry is

“Duets of Motion,” Lone Oak Press, 2001. Poem reprinted by permission of Donal Heffernan.

Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

American Life in Poetry ©2006 The Poetry Foundation

Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

The event will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Clearlake Oaks Moose Lodge, located at the corner of Highway 20 and Highway 53.

Join them for an event featuring music, food and fun to help support substance abuse treatment in Lake County.

Headliners will include Bill Noteman and the Rockets, Blues Farm, Blue Collar Band and Captive Bold, with other bands to follow.

There also will be a bouncy house for kids, dunk tank, barbecue and a raffle for items including a night at Featherbed Railroad Bed & Breakfast.

Tickets cost $12 per person.

For ticket information call 707-987-9972.

Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Photo by UNL Publications and Photography.

I love to sit outside and be very still until some little creature appears and begins to go about its business, and here is another poet, Robert Gibb, of Pennsylvania, doing just the same thing.

For the Chipmunk in My Yard

I think he knows I’m alive, having come down

The three steps of the back porch

And given me a good once over. All afternoon

He’s been moving back and forth,

Gathering odd bits of walnut shells and twigs,

While all about him the great fields tumble

To the blades of the thresher. He’s lucky

To be where he is, wild with all that happens.

He’s lucky he’s not one of the shadows

Living in the blond heart of the wheat.

This autumn when trees bolt, dark with the fires

Of starlight, he’ll curl among their roots,

Wanting nothing but the slow burn of matter

On which he fastens like a small, brown flame.

Ted Kooser was US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. He is a professor in the English Department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife Kathleen Rutledge, the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),

publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of

Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Donal Heffernan, whose most recent book of poetry is

“Duets of Motion,” Lone Oak Press, 2001. Poem reprinted by permission of Donal Heffernan.

Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

American Life in Poetry ©2006 The Poetry Foundation

Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.