What, you think I’m proud of that? It usually shows a couple of times at 6PM, a couple of times at 10PM and a hoped for new episode on Sunday. It matters not a bit if I’ve seen the episodes before.
So, what does it say about me that I love a show that has virtually no boundaries when looking for material. They are most certainly an equal opportunity insulter and disrespecter.
GMO’s really scare me. I’m even more scared by the mentality of the producer companies, particularly Monsanto, who have an attitude that they have a right to own the food supply by patenting genes, suing farmers that accidentally grow GMO crops when the seeds are blown onto their fields by the wind (sit down: Monsanto won and Supreme Courts have upheld decisions), and creating a ‘terminator’ seed so that once you grow their corn, the seed from that corn is effectively sterile, meaning you can’t plant it to grow again but have to buy seed from them every year. This is contrary to the way food production has always existed and is very dangerous not only because it leaves the whole food system vulnerable (we’ll end up growing very few varieties of each GMO vegetable, not many varieties as are available now) but also long term health and nutrition effects have not been studied. These GMO crops are mostly “Roundup Ready” which means they won’t die when sprayed with Roundup and all else around them will. [edited out: Makes weeding easy, but I wonder why the people doing the spraying all wear masks?] This type of farming produces a cycle that requires more and more chemical (oil!) additives to keep the process going. The soil is dead and the crops aren’t nearly as nutritious and flavorful as when grown organically and free of GMOs. And, on top of that, Monsanto has worked to set the system up so foods don’t have to be labeled if they contain GMOs. For a real awakening, one of many great films on this subject is “The Future of Food”. I hope we all do everything in our power to keep this a ‘free county’ as in ‘free country’, and I just mean free to make a choice rather than have something forced down our throats that there is no going back on once these products get into the marketplace and, literally, into the wind.
