Evolution of food

Before there were civilizations, we were tribes of nomadic hunter gatherers. Life was good. We, as a race, had spent the last 14 million years learning to live on land and evolving into creative, sentient little bipeds. Back then a man could go on a hunt and take a shot at being the tribe hero for a week, month, day, whatever the prey would allow. If he got hungry he could just reach down, reach up, reach and grab some foliage to chew on to hold him over. Aside from a few poisonous plants, the risk was minimal. The ground rule if it wasn't a poisonous species, it was all good.

A few years back I went to the grocery store looking for mung bean sprouts. The produce guy there told me they didn't carry them because they had a breakout of e coli virus. How does a plant get e coli? Flash back to early days of gene splicing and college biology 101. Here's how you hybridize a plant. E coli has a very basic genetic structure. It has a big welcome mat for genetic code. So you take a grapefruit plant, strip in some e coli, add some watermelon DNA and bam! You can feed the whole weight watchers meeting. The only problem is, It also welcomes nefarious DNA. Like viruses.

Earlier this year, some people got sick from an e coli virus in romaine lettuce. If there's any vegetable in the world that should be eaten raw, straight off the ground, it's lettuce. Seriously, how can you fuck that up?

Now let's talk about Monsonto. How does a company who has a history of inventing and producing chemicals, just to sell of those divisions a couple years before those chemicals were banned, get carte blanche over the worlds food? Typically money. Monsonto, before genetic modifications, produced bovine growth homone (banned) DDT (banned) Agent Orange (banned) PCBs (banned). Now they're allowed to fuck with our vegetation. It didn't need fucking with! Not only that, If you're not a part of Monsonto's farmer's guild, and, through the natural process of cross pollination, your crop produces strains of Monsonto's GMOs, the courts will order a cease and desist, put the farmer out of business and quite possibly fine them as well. Americans, contributing to what's wrong with America.

This! Is why you buy locally, support locally.

Earlier this year Monsonto chemicals was bought out by Bayer. While Bayer required their Frankenveggie division was sold to other company(s) it will be interesting to watch how big ag will shape the health of millions of people.

Drugs, medicine, money and life expectancy

I was watching a 28 year old version of Scrubs the other day. In it, one of the new interns was remarking about how he didn't expect that working in a hospital would be "like this" meaning mostly old people, often in and out of demetia, treating old people problems. The attending physician tells him the advances in medicine are allowing people to live much longer than they should have. 

When I was younger I used to smoke cigarettes. Everyone would tell me all their matter of factly statistics like "you know it shortens your life expectancy by an average of 12 years?" Which my response would be "you mean 12 years off the end of my life. That old age you spend popping pills (not the good kind either) and hoping today's the day your shit comes out solid? I'm okay with that." 

Why do we need to put band aids on our own mortality? Are we afraid of dying or are we doing it because some marketing genius at every pharmaceutical company has convinced us that senior citizens today are living active healthy lives today. Some are sure. But then why do we corral them into retirement communities and pidgeon hole them in the category or "senior citizens" instead of just "citizens" or "family?" The there are the others who are living miserably and in pain. Some bodies give out before their minds and some minds give out long before their bodies. 

I have soul searched this a lot. I don't want to live any longer than my body, mind, or poor lifestyle choices allow. Especially when it only serves to line the pockets of some pharmaceutical company or terminal care facility. Although quitting smoking and drugs and alcohol (mostly by comparison to my younger years anyway) has made my mid-life easier and more prolific, I wonder where I'd be if I hadn't caved in to my momentary need for immortality. It seems life was much more fun when I got to choose the drugs I took based on want, not need. 

Are you sure the asshole you're mad at is the only asshole in the room?

Read a post on Facebook. This guy goes in to a convenient store and starts ranting at the cashier, calling her "cat killer" and demanding she get her manager while continuing to berate her. When the manager comes out, he starts bullying her and verbally assaulting her, not giving her a chance to speak, not listening to what she has to say. Just yelling about his own issues. Eventually the video ends.

Here's the situation. The cashier was a cat killer. Her and her son drive around running over cats. They post their activities on Facebook. Yes, they are both pieces of shit. Yes they deserve to be called out on it. They deserve to be publicly shamed. They deserve to go to jail and be judged by a jury of their  peers. If I had my way, it would be handled in ways that the public doesn't have to foot the bill for. Unceremoniously.

Here's the poop. This guy is understandably pissed off. So he walks in to a place of business where the woman works as a cashier. Makes a scene. All but drags the manager out. Talks to her like a second class citizen, bullying her, not giving her a chance to speak or be heard. Assuming that she is aware of what he saw on Facebook. And video recording the whole thing like he thinks he's some benevolent badass. He isn't. He's just another type of asshole just like the cat killer. You don't just walk in to someone's house and start treating them like shit. The manager just works there. She may not have even hired the cat killer. She doesn't have Facebook so she hasn't seen cat killer's posts. And she isn't required to either. She's not even under any obligation to take action once she is made aware of it. However, the guy had no right to walk in to someone's place of business, causing a scene, yelling at someone he doesn't even know or has nothing to do with his personal issues.

People like him who force themselves on others like they own the world because they wear their heart on their sleeve are just contributing to the problem. Those of us who are trying to advocate for rights of animals against mistreatment, abuse or neglect don't need to be lumped in with people like him who may not be abusive to animals, but are abusive to other people. The store manager didn't deserve his shit. Half the people who watch his video will think he's a hero, and half will think that he's just like all animal rights activists and we are all like him. When you present your argument with the same lack of respect for others that you are trying to prevent, you are only  hurting your cause and have effectively made an argument for the other side.