hossua34
New Member
I am just finishing with my most recent summer read, "Burning Rainbow Farm" by Dean Kuipers. AMAZING BOOK. It's about a gay couple in Cass County, Michigan, who owned a farm/campground (Rainbow Farm) that would host pro-marijuana festivals pretty much every season, and eventually came to be some of the most well-known pot advocates in the Midwest. Then, one day in 2001, state police raided the Farm on "allegations of tax fraud"... with a fully armed and armored tactical team kicking down the front door on the way in. Surprise, surprise: in the basement they find almost 200 seedlings growing in a hidden growroom, and these two guys are arrested. Shitty, yes, but it happens every day. Anyhow, a county prosecuter named SCOTT TETER decided to make an example out of Rainbow Farm, and started proceedings to take the farm as "drug assets" and to remove the couple's young son from their custody. Basically these guys snapped - they skipped a court date and set fire to the farm to keep it from becoming property of the state. After a standoff, both guys were killed in an assault-style raid by police.
From the way it must have read in the papers, it seemed like these guys got what they deserved. But after you know all the background, all the unethical if not illegal tactics the cops used to set up the Farm's owner, and the way one asshole prosecuter used his power to execute a personal vendetta and ruin the lives of two peaceful pot activists... it is enough to make you scream. But few if anyone has heard the Farm's story, because a week after these guys were shot, the World Trade Center went down.
Kuipers does a great job in capturing the easy-going spirit of the place, and the tragedy that was its demise (even if the book does get a little boring in the middle). I didn't even start smoking until after Rainbow Farm was gone, yet I feel like I've been there. Maybe if some of you are from the Midwest you HAVE been.
It's like, as good as this book is, MORE people need to hear this story... one thing I thought while reading it is that it would make a incredible movie. Somebody should write a screenplay, because fiction just doesn't get more ass-backwards or unjust than reality.
From the way it must have read in the papers, it seemed like these guys got what they deserved. But after you know all the background, all the unethical if not illegal tactics the cops used to set up the Farm's owner, and the way one asshole prosecuter used his power to execute a personal vendetta and ruin the lives of two peaceful pot activists... it is enough to make you scream. But few if anyone has heard the Farm's story, because a week after these guys were shot, the World Trade Center went down.
Kuipers does a great job in capturing the easy-going spirit of the place, and the tragedy that was its demise (even if the book does get a little boring in the middle). I didn't even start smoking until after Rainbow Farm was gone, yet I feel like I've been there. Maybe if some of you are from the Midwest you HAVE been.
It's like, as good as this book is, MORE people need to hear this story... one thing I thought while reading it is that it would make a incredible movie. Somebody should write a screenplay, because fiction just doesn't get more ass-backwards or unjust than reality.
