As the candidates for president pluck each other’s words
out of context and ignore the issues this country needs to face, I pick gobs of
green beans and wonder how to squeeze more than 1% out of an investment. I know
I should forget about the investment and focus on things that matter, such as
relationships at home and in the nearby community, and green beans.
Hidden inside those little green things are tiny
communities we ignore as we munch, as if it’s possible to be a vegan or
vegetarian. We tend to overlook the things we’d rather not face, such as
hugging our pets while eating animals bred and raised in hideous conditions -- or vegetables gathered by machines that squish baby deer and rabbits -- distributed and cooked as if they were industrial parts. Few of us take the
time to nurture them, “harvest” them as humanely as we know how (as if we have
any idea what it means to be raised for consumption and what it feels like to
be terminated), and cook them with the tenderness they deserve, choosing
instead industrial food from grocery freezers that can be zapped and eaten in
less than 5 minutes, without taste and without tasting.
Meanwhile, the “bugs” that have resided in human stomachs
for thousands of generations wonder what’s coming, something that doesn’t look
at all like the food our ancestors ate and contains molecules, nay poisons, developed
by firms that had to figure out what to make when the government no longer
needed the bombs their founders designed (fertilizers and
pesticides, bombs, same basic ingredients). Serfs to agricultural conglomerates
buy expensive tractors that drive themselves with GPS systems so no one has to
come close to the food parts that will be mixed without regard for nutrition and the tastes
our grandparents enjoyed, no touchy, feely behavior, only meaningless platitudes, about caring
for the land, water, air and future generations. We marched in the 1960s; that
was then, this is now we give a few bucks to the Nature Conservancy and say
we’ve done our share, let’s drive our grand-kids to McDonalds instead of cook
them a fine dinner at home and nibble around a table while discussing matters of moment
before playing a game of Scrabble.
“Hold on,” says Virginia. “I think you may have managed to
alienate almost every reader.”
At least I stayed away from religion, didn’t I (for the most part)?
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