Specifically, how will we feed the hungy people?

A friend from my childhood graciously reads my Face Book rants about food and food politics and food injustice and GMO and antibiotic and toxins and so forth. He also provides me a different point of view as well as jabbing me with questions like the one titled above.

This particular question is usually slammed down on the table when I pounce on Monsanto and the evil empire of Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs – which I find to be gross. Totally gross. Please stop putting fish genes in tomatoes – it’s not natural and these guys (DuPont, Monsanto Cargill et al) are playing with things that may not be able to be controlled once released. My antagonists say that without the GMO brand of seed/plant/livestock our population, expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, will starve.

What I say is this:

It’s a smoke screen people. It’s bullshit. It’s bullying and it’s taking land and water resources by force, many times by military force, and usually some corporate entity is doing the taking. There are enough resources all over the world so that people do NOT need to be malnourished.

Really – how do I figure?

Specifically speaking, the first step is to stop the behaviour by big conglomerate corporate “Non-Persons” as reported here – Lacandon Jungle.

This article describes the heinous destruction of a rain forest and it’s inhabitants. These people were not on government assistance, they didn’t need universal health care or a bailout for that matter. This was a centuries old, stable culture – not underdeveloped or developing as defined by “Third World”. On the contrary, guess what they were doing? Yep – they were feeding themselves. One farmer reports that he and his family survive on less than an acre of land, planting corn, beans and squash. Feeding themselves without big ag or GMOs or any of the other issues we as a nation face today.

The label “Third World” suggests that the people, their cultures, religions and economies are still developing. Hhhm, who gets to decide THAT one? I think that is not the case with these Mayan peoples. Before the Lacandon were overtaken by the Plan Puebla Panama they considered themselves rich as the “guardians” of the jungle, knowing that if the jungle died they would too. They did not see themselves as an impoverished third world nation.

However, as “Non-Person” corporations move to make more profit, the people are “re-located” resulting in impoverished refugees whose land is decimated and water polluted. The Rain forest is gone along with the global maintenance it provided. And the Lacandon no longer have the resources that fed them. They have become (by design) a part of the hunger problem in Mexico. Ripe for the picking by statisticmongers for Monsantoites, reporting to us that the global population is growing, countries and their people are so poor they cannot feed themselves, so we (see Monsanto, DuPont and Carglill et al above) must step in with our superior technology and do the job.

How, specifically, will “Non-Person” corporations feed the hungry people? By planting GM seeds (which will work to ensure dependence and poverty) on the Lacandon lands that were just stolen from the people who had lived there and fed themselves for centuries. Way before the arrival of the “Non-Person” corporations.

I realize what I’m about to say is a repeat of the above – but it really does bear repeating.

The “Non-Person” corporation forcibly took local resources for profit and left devastation in the wake. The local people didn’t need help until the corporation – who ironically claims now to be their saviour – stripped them of all their resources.

Okay Nalis – here’s the summary.

People have been and will continue to feed themselves. But they cannot fight the power and money behind the likes of Monsanto. The above situation is not just happening in some jungle somewhere, it’s happening right here in the USA.

We have to stop corporations from impoverishing people and then acting like they didn’t do anything. We have to make personal choices like, do we really need a huge SUV? Why must we eat cows period? Should I really buy Pepsi when Pepsico lies about the hazards of it’s product on our health? Personal choices like this will begin the ending of this insidious and vicious pattern. Make your stand by using your fork. Less meat, no GMOs and certainly organic and local – just like the Lacandon did for centuries. Stand up for sustainable everything you can. Any corporate activity that completely trashes anything is not sustainable (example – oil).

Take a stand against corporate rule and realize that the fight isn’t between conservatives and liberals – no no – that’s just a distractor from the real fight. The real fight is between “Persons” and “Non-Persons”.

So, where did I leave off?

I dropped blogging like it was hot because where I started was not where I ended up. I took a couple of unexpectedly hard blows over political debates and got de-friended by a high school chum because I didn’t share her grandiose memories of Ronald Reagan. So, I just quit. My skin was too thin. I thought I was da shit, then I got slammed, I tucked my tail, went into hiding and pretended I didn’t have anything to say anymore. Instead of blogging, I took to the public safety net that we know as Face Book. I started loading my wall with links and posts, forcing all my friends to scroll through article after article from the Huffington Post. All accompanied by Stoner’s typical irreverent commentary (dare I launch in on Jim Bunning again…????)

Still do it.

So. Here I am, right at a year later. I won’t say that I’ve recovered from the De-Friending. I am still stunned because I was naive and believed that friends with high school hometown history could handle a debate hearty enough to land us somewhere in the middle. I was wrong and the penalty was De-Friend. Hhmm. Maybe we should try that with some – no wait – ALL of our elected officials. It’s a crushingly lonely feeling to be excluded by the De-Friend Penalty. And fyi, exclusion is the subject of my longest blog “What Are We Thinking” in case you haven’t read it, please do.

During the past year I was lucky to find a whole bunch of like-minded folks on FB supporting me. I realized there are at least 8 people (gee, that sounds like a lot – now I’m feeling pressure ;)) who regularly read what I post and my opinion about those posts. Although that doesn’t mean success, it does give me some personal satisfaction and encouragement to start this whole deal again. I still have a lot to say. And no I don’t need any comments from you guys about THAT statement – let’s just stick to the really controversial ones okay?

I was also anxious about the chosen name for my passion, “Stoner’s Kitchen.” Happily I report to you today that I am completely over THAT anxiety. I watched the documentary “Sweet Misery” about the bad bad nuerological side effects from Aspartame. Aspartame is shamelessly included in a lot of our US foodstuffs. I am here to say that I think Aspartame is as dangerous a toxin as there is in our food market. We talk a lot about anti-biotics and growth hormones and GMO foodstuffs, but this shit is scary. Take a look for yourself and please let me know what you think.

All that to say, “And Marijuana is illegal?” Over it – completely over it.

The Stoner’s Kitchen name was born from a girls night in my newly remodeled kitchen. Go to “In The Beginning” under About Stoner’s Kitchen for details.

Okay then, that’s it. It’s closing in on garden time in Watsonville. This year I’m helping up the street with the elementary school’s garden and I hope to have my gardening team back in place full swing by April. Take some time to browse through Stoner’s Gardens photos (I’ll try to get 2009 loaded up within the week). We have so much fun and at the end of a cold February day – my home grown home canned tomatoes in spaghetti sauce are sssooooo good.

Nothing compares.

Got Tomatoes??

What are we thinking?

Three seemingly unrelated events in my life have me ponderning the idea of freedom and the myriad of ways in which this idea has been determined, defined and yeah – demeaned.   As I reflect on these events I am scratching my head wondering What Are We Thinking?

It is so weird to me that we are just flat out mean to each other. I’m thinking of a selfish 4th grader on the playground. We all encountered one. He commandiers the prime playground real estate, prances around all smug and smart-ass and he has all the toys. He has enough for everybody but he does not share. Webster has the following definition for mean:  suggests a loss or lack of some essential high quality of mind or spirit.

As a Government – What Are We Thinking?

That my government would suggest it’s okay to demean a human being is really painful to me and flat out mean. I have been to the demeaning station. Not on nearly the same scale as Guantanamo Bay, but in a bad situation with a co-worker at the beginning of my accounting career. In my twenties, at the bottom of the ladder, the idea that I had to pay dues was acceptable. It’s what everybody, especially a girl,  had to do to gain entrance to the game.  My experience is not unique. On my first ever audit engagement I got treated like total shit. Call me up some day – I’ll bet we have similar war stories.

Not only are the sub human hits I took to my confidence demeaning, having to endure this sort of bullying and depravement  as a prequisite to becoming a CPA is mean, demeaning and sick.  A really horrible thing to do to another human being. No matter how much self-esteem you have you are going to be crushed. I think of it now and I see my little girl self. It  hurts me alot knowing that I doled out my fair share of pain following this model. I think of a really good 10 year old friend of mine and realize the pain I would cause her if I treated her the way my superior treated me. Equally as bad as the bullying from my superior was the lack of action to stop her tyranny by ANY OTHER senior level personnel on the engagement.

She tore down my freedom of being able to believe in myself. This dynamic handicapped me throughout my career. Years later I came to understand that accounting office was a hive of infidelity.  And on some level I got a bit of justice at the office Christmas party. Every body got all dressed up in their ‘new for the occassion’ duds. I smoked cigarettes then. At the bar – the above discussed supervisor’s price tag slipped out of hiding. “Oh My God, your tag is showing”, I noted demurely using my lit cigarette as a blow torch to melt that plastic umbilical cord to “I’d like to return this please.” It was a beautiful feeling.

Can you imagine what not being able to get food would do to you? Or if you had been tortured?

 As A Neighbor – What Are We Thinking?

We’ve had a real bad run of next door neighbor bad luck for the past three years and we finally had a conversation with the owner and her daughter. It was surreal. The owner and her daughter rented out the house next door like a boarding house. Multiple tennants, loud cars in the drive idling for 20 minutes or more, honking horns, loud boom boom bass and can smashing. I am particularly irritated by that boom boom, it’s like the chalk board and fingernails to me.  And then there was the lighthouse beacon turned on every morning at 5 am, aimed like a laser at my sleeping eyes. Every single day for three years. An impressive police log accumulation and several attmepts to reason with the property owner later, no action to reduce these unwanted and offensive practices was ever taken.

Doh. Why isn’t this just basic built-ins, hardwired as part of being human? The above stuff is just flat out mean and inconsiderate. Period.

To our relief, the house was vacated by the tennants, worked on by the owner and looked like the owners were moving in. Good. That is a good solution for us. So we thought until the owner cut our fence climbing vines down.

 

 

 

It was so heartbreaking to see our beautiful potatoe and passion fruit vines laying on the lawn and in plastic trash bags.

Darrell wrote a letter to the neighbors which pissed them off. They both promptly puffed up with indignation saying that our vines were dirty and unsightly and then proceeded with pontifications about a good neighbor’s fiduciary responsibility to keep propery clean and they had a right to their opinions and privacy and our tree caused them to clean out their gutters and our tree roots are breaking through their pvc sewer pipes and their front yard was just filled with our tree roots ………….

When Darrell could finally get a word in he asked what about our loss of freedoms for the past three years. They just shrugged and said, “Oh well it’s too late now and besides, that problem is gone.” No “I’m Sorry” or “Kiss My Ass”, only a bending of the conversation back to our tree and their gutters and our roots, capping off with “You are not being good neighbors.”

Okay. I guess I really am the dorkfish here. 

How am I the bad neighbor? Apparently neighbor rules only apply to some neighbors. Well, that’s not my definition of freedom,  no no no. My definition of freedom includes a heavy dose of all players taking responsibility for their actions while the rules apply to everyone equally. Yeah, I know, I’m pretty out there with my thinking!

Hmmmm ….. as a nation, are we good global neighbors?

As A Family – What Are We Thinking?

No Gay Marriage. No, homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt. Why no, you are a man, you cannot have more liberal visitation. Why yes, if you follow the path of “Marriage” you can have a tax deduction, get dependent care coverage, apply for joint loans, receive your spouse’s death benefits and see your kids whenever you want.

Everybody else, tough shit.

Oh but wait, before all that up there, we need to start playing semantics with “Marriage” the same way Bill Clinton did with blow jobs. Give us a break – we know what it means – marriage that is. And we know that you are trying to be exclusive of certain people. For us in the US, Marraige = Family. Holy crap, we are excluded from having a family.

Exclusion. Wow – what a flat out mean thing to do to somebody. But to be told you are excluded from being in or having a family is super mean. In a job where you feel excluded, eventually you will look elsewhere and move out of the situation. With family, you stay and you keep on going to make a happy life work out. Until so many external forces take over that you cannot keep going…….

Darrell has not had parental visitation with his son since August 3, 2007. He and his son have been vicitms of parental alientation since his son’s birth. The legal process through family court is biased. The mental health professionals are not objective toward the father nor do they seem to be inclined to believe that a mother could really do the cruel things done to Darrell and his son. For all the money to all the professionals involved, Darrell lost his relationship with his son.

Super Mean.

Friends involved in social work with children have assured me that no matter how fucked up a homelife is, a kid will still want to be with both parents. A child has a legal right to both parents and to not allow that right is considered abuse. Darrell’s son wanted both parents and was denied that right. But nobody seemed to care except Darrell. We tried as hard as we could to make a go of the good life. But the pissed off mom, the courts and the psychologists ended up stronger than the father son relationship, for now.

My idea of freedom does not allow pissed off women, government definitions and legal professionals to strip away family relationships. People can freely determine their own families.

Are our ideas and actions today really representative of the warm, loving, caring environment we associate with family life?

As I revisit these life events I have hope that in another bad co-worker situation I will get the opportunity to burn tags off dresses,  hope that we will accept differences as neighbors, even with or teeth grinding and hope that an 18 year old will have grown mature eyes.

Mainly, I hope my idea of freedom catches on:

The idea of freedom to live a happy life and not be depressed every day because you can’t play or go for a walk or get food or have a warm place to rest. The idea of freedom that has all humankind keeping each other’s welfare and dignity as top priority every day.

My idea of freedom rejects the idea that others have to give up their stakes of happiness and freedom  to ensure mine. There is enough for everybody and we all share.

I realize that my neighbor situation, a previous co-worker and Darrell’s son are small freedom impairments compared to war, terrorism and poverty. But isn’t this where freedom starts? At the family and neighbor level?

What if we ALL take the First Lady’s challenge (April issue of O Magazine)….  “I think we should ALL have to get to know one another around kitchen tables. It changed me.”

Stoner’s Kitchen table is open for those interested in the First Lady’s suggestion!