All I wanted to say was, ‘here’s some really great copy!’ and then:
‘Know what? Great farmers wouldn’t exist without great eaters. No kidding. When you choose organic food you’re helping the earth’s best farmers, and in so doing, creating a better world for tomorrow. Your tomorrow. Hello, hero.’
If you’re anything like me then you’ll read whatever’s placed in front of you, and read it again, and read it twenty or thirty times in one sitting if there’s nothing else to do while you’re eating alone. So finding something written well is almost exciting.
Religion is the things we do. Theology is how we try to excuse the things we do. No doubt Christmas traditions began ages before Jesus, and not in anticipation of him, but in celebration of more obvious things.
Religion: carrying a gun all the time out of paranoia or because it makes us feel powerful or because it’s fun to break shit.
Theology: 2nd amendment rights; in case the US government commits genocide against the bourgeoisie this afternoon, beginning with this Wal-Mart in Kentucky; if everyone would carry a gun then there’d never be a violent crime again, (like in Mexico, where the members of rival drug cartels don’t mess with each other or the police, or in the Swat Valley where recruiting well-trained warriors means recruiting teenagers)–because Americans are different from people of other cultures, because Americans understand restraint and the importance of peace, which is why they wouldn’t use violence against each other so long as they all carried guns.
Religion: eating shitty food and not giving a fuck.
Theology: why do you think that people are bigger and taller than ever before in history? It’s because of the chemicals and hormones since before we’re even born! If it wasn’t for processed foods, and for chemicals sprayed on our produce, and hormones injected into our livestock, we wouldn’t be nearly so healthy as we are now. Nobody in history has lived so long as we do now, and what’s the big change? That for the first time in history people aren’t eating organic food.
Marilyn Manson has a pretty wonderful autobiography that’s definitely worth reading. In it he tells about how when he was a child his father would go to VFW sorts of meetings with other ex-military sorts who’d fought in Vietnam. They’d often bring their kids along. But all their kids were physically deformed as a result of exposure to Agent Orange. Except young Brian Warner (Marilyn Manson), because his father’s job in Vietnam was spraying the Agent Orange.
I’m still dealing with how I should view Kurt Vonnegut. He’s either a nice bridge for disaffected youth to carry them between comics and sci-fi to “literature” or an end in himself. For those who see him as an end in himself, which generally means turning around and heading back towards the sci-fi comic book genres, one is left just plain cynical. Life is a scary and dangerous place that can only be dealt with through cynicism, listlessness, and arrogance (and comic books). But I’m a firm believer in balance–which doesn’t always imply moderation–and am certain that exposure to the things we find hateful gives us the capacity to appreciate their opposites in intensity. More or less, I think all things are pretty much how we find them, that it’s our experiences that make the difference.
So, why pay more for organic food?
Because oftener than not it looks and tastes like food should. I know how food is supposed to look because I’ve seen paintings of Adam and Eve, I’ve seen storybooks that take place on farms, and I’ve tasted fresh foods that are more delicious than I can even imagine. An important question to ask is ‘do I want this to become part of my body?’ because really…isn’t that what happens when you eat something? or breathe? or witness anything?
arts & fetters 