I wrote a few days ago about lawyer/author/thought leader Lawrence Lessig's conversation with David Gergen at Harvard Law School last week, and thought I'd just clean out my notebook a bit, 'cause this stuff is interesting and also 'cause I love the traffic that #lessig brings.

My predominant attitude toward paid corporate mouthpieces: Shut the hell up. Of course they have the right to speak, but if they're just spouting a line, I don't want to hear it. But sometimes, I do appreciate the chuckles I get when they do start talking.

Here's a bunch of crap from Elaine Kolish, vice president of the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, an industry-run front erected to forestall binding curbs on advertising of junk food to kids:

While I was waiting for the colloquy between Lawrence Lessig and David Gergen to begin at Harvard Law School Tuesday, I heard a woman a row behind me practically squeal with delight about the hospitality-provided cookies

So it turns out that when I wrote yesterday about the Jane Brody squib in the Times yesterday, referred there by my friend Ron-the-voracious-reader, I had actually been referred slightly elsewhere, to the mainbar of what Brody wrote. She was reporting the release of a series of reports in the British medical periodical The Lancet that address the growing obesity epidemic.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) is seeking a grassroots advocacy director to work with staff and member organizations to help galvanize support for and advance 2012 farm-bill and other federal policy priorities.

The coalition is alliance of over 80 grassroots organizations that advocates for federal policy reform to advance the sustainability of agriculture, food systems, natural resources, and rural communities.

The city Monday officially asked for proposals from non- and for-profit entities that would farm three city-owned parcels in the Dorchester section to produce "fresh, healthy food for sale in the community."

The land will be leased at $500 an acre — roughly $125 to $200 per year for a term of five years," according to the press release.

Thanks to Andrea Atkinson for pointing it out to me.

A reaction to the USDA's "MyPlate" concept, which replaces the failed "food pyramid" for communicating what we should eat in a simple way, that I've seen several times is that the next chore of food and nutrition advocates is to get federal agriculture subsidies to mirror federal advice for what we should eat.

Sometimes, I just share stuff because it oughta be shared. This is from my friend and former Boston Globe colleague, Alex Beam:

Happily, there are plenty of loons left in the lake that Trump flew in from. Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Screwloose) — the distinguished legislator who thinks the American Revolution began somewhere near Nashua — is worrying out loud that America will be biblically “cursed’’ if Obama “rejects’’ Israel, whatever that means. Fellow policy wonk Sarah Palin likewise dumped on Obama’s Israel policy in an op-ed column graciously accepted for publication by her Facebook page.

This post, of course, was graciously accepted by michaelprager.com.

I saved a portion of the survey I wrote about previously because it touches on a subject I've been slow in approaching: Is government intervention the best way to reduce the alarming level of obesity in America?

In this dispatch from foodnavigator-usa.com, the soda industry is reported to complain that New York City's effort to bar food stamps' use for sugary beverages is discriminatory.

To which I say, "Of course it is! But what's your point?"