This morning, one of my former students posted on Facebook about House bill 2692, dubbed the "Save America's Pollinators Act." The link she posted sent me to the Center for Food Safety, whereupon I filled out a little form that sent a letter to Representative Paul Broun asking that he support this act. I'm not sure why Paul Broun was sent the letter; I'm assuming it's because he was first alphabetically for our state. However, I have a few issues with this:
A: The safety and security of our food supply is important to me. I understand that honey bees are not native pollinators and so if we wanted to go back to native foods for our country, we MIGHT be okay if we were down with eating beans, corn, squash, and assorted berries, fruits, and nuts. However, the chemicals that this bill targets are most likely responsible for the death of other pollinators, including bumble bees, which are native and...y'all...we can't have FOOD without pollinators. Ask yourself how many honeybees you've seen this year. Yeah. Might want to consider supporting this bill.
B. Paul Broun is not technically my representative in the House of Representatives. He is, technically, about as far away from me politically and ideologically as possible. Honestly, I can't think of many politicians who are farther away from me politically and ideologically. Sarah Palin? Vladimir Putin? This guy is on the House Committee of Science, Space, and Technology and believes that some fairly widely accepted scientific principals are, and I'm quoting here, "...straight from the Pit of Hell." Ahem.
C. My representative is Austin Scott, and it would seem that contacting him would be the smart thing to do.
The Center for Food Safety has a place where you can add emails to which you send the info about HR 2692, so I betoodled over to Rep. Scott's website to get the info. First, I had to google the info about where to find his site. Then I had to actually go to his site, where I hoped I would find the info. But...no. Instead, I found a little sign up thingy where I could get alerts from Rep. Scott. Now, I'm not trying to be ugly, but I've already gotten snail mail alerts from Rep. Scott, most which are...um...fairly anti-my president and the Democrats in Congress (and, thus, fairly anti-me.) So I wasn't really down with getting alerts from him in my email box which would just be more of the same. BUT, Rep. Scott is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Horticulture, Research, Biotechnology, and Foreign Agriculture ("foreign" being misspelled on his website...sigh) AND he's my technical representative in the House, so I decided that if it meant I could get his email address this way, that I would go ahead and sign up for email alerts. So I did.
At that point in time, I figured I'd get an email saying, "Thanks for contacting me, here's the stuff the president's doing that's awful, blah blah blah." No. So then I searched around on his site for some info about how to contact him via email (to be fair, his phone number and snail mail address are posted on the site, but I just needed his email, thanks) and found ANOTHER little thingy where I entered my name and zip code to make sure I was in his district. But because I'm in such a HUMONGOUS district, I needed the four-digit code that designated which part of the district I was in. BUT, I didn't know that code. BUT, it was okay because there was a link to a place where I could find the code. Yay! BUT...the file was not found, y'all.
Argh. So then I went over to Rep. Austin Scott's Facebook page, because maybe there was some info there. No. There WAS, however, a big "Anti-Obamacare/anti big business" meme. Which, you know, awesome. But I liked the page, anyway, hoping that it would allow me, somehow to see an email address or be able to sent Rep. Scott a message, but no dice. Bleah.
Feeling a twee twitchy, I decided to find out what kind of "big business" Rep. Scott is against, because that's the kind of thing, apparently, that Tea Party Republicans are pushing--that the president is snuggled up with big business and is awful because of it. It's obvious that Americans are sick of big businesses controlling so much of our country, so the TPRs are exploiting this. I don't blame them.
There's only one problem with this for Rep. Scott, as far as I can see. In April, he was part of a bipartisan group of representatives who cosponsored the Pest Free Food Supply Act, which would force the EPA to withdraw a two-year-old order regarding sulphuryl flouride as a fumigant. (This is how slowly your giant, lumbering government works, y'all.) The PFFS Act is in committee right now (of course), but it might interest you to know that it is supported by Dow AgroSciences, which is the maker of, you guessed it, Imiden, which is a neonicotinoid insecticide, which is the type of insecticide targeted by the Save America's Pollinators Act. Dow, which owns Dow AgroSciences, made 57 billion dollars in 2012 and employs about 53,000 people. Tangled web, much?
To be fair, very few of the representatives from Georgia share their email addresses with the general public. And all of them have the enter your zip code and four number extension link which DOESN'T work, including a message that says that they won't be able to contact you and you won't be able to contact them unless you are from their district and/or know the four digit code.
Y'all, seriously, are you fricking kidding me? I hire somebody (or, you know, somebody is hired against my wishes) to represent me in Congress and I can't get in touch with this person because I don't know a few numbers? I have to go to nine million websites in order to find out the basic contact information, only to find that I don't have the basic info or the info is wrong or unfindable and that the folks that represent a district no more than fifty miles away from me just can't be in contact with me, because they apparently are too busy dealing with their own constituents, but honestly I don't believe that because it's nearly impossible to find the information in the first place.
Pant! Pant! Gasp! Wheeze!
Anyway, I'll be calling Rep. Scott's offices right quick, and sending a real letter because this important to me. I encourage you to figure out how in the world you can contact whoever it is that represents you in the federal government and do the same. If you need any moral support in what I am pretty sure will be a frustrating venture.
Here's the link to the Center for Food Safety's site about the Save America's Pollinators Act: http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/1881/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11547 and here's the link where you're supposed to be able to find your representative: https://house.gov/representatives/
Go save the world, sweetie.
EDITED TO ADD:
I found the number to Rep. Scott's Warner Robins' office and spoke to a very nice man named Earl who put me through to Rep. Scott's DC office. I told the young man who answered there that I'd like Rep. Scott to support the Save America's Pollinators Act and also reported the issue with the district zip code number thingy. He, in turn, gave me an email address through which I could contact Rep. Scott about the act. However, when I requested that I share the address on Facebook so any of y'all who want to contact Rep. Scott about this can do so, I was told that the best way for you to do this was, instead, to go to the website and fill in the information so you can get his email. When I pointed out that this function was broken, the poor guy laughed and said, "Yeah, but that's the best way..." and then he mumbled something about getting the problem fixed. TRANSPARENCY IN TEH GOVERNMENT, Y'ALL.
Showing posts with label Gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gardening. Show all posts
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Monday, September 12, 2011
Gardening in the Post 9/11 World
Yesterday, we spent most of the day outside, removing the old box beds and tilling up the garden and planting broccoli and cauliflower and lettuce and spinach and soybeans and cabbage for the Fall and Winter. (Yes, I know I'm not supposed to capitalize those words. Bite me, Grammar Police. Fall and Winter NEED to be capitalized after this summer. See what I did there?)
Occasionally, during breaks, I would check on Facebook, where I read (over and over again) about tears and prayers and mourning. I also read a few posts about how religion caused the attacks on September 11, 2001, and one, inexplicably, about how if you didn't like that America was "one nation under God," you should leave. Sigh.
Let me go ahead and say that you should follow your bliss (or sadness, as it were) and mourn or reflect or remember any way you want to and that these next few paragraphs are not in any way telling you that you are wrong for feeling or expressing your feelings any way you want to. Unless you do something crazy and, like, make a bonfire with a pile of Girl Scout Thin Mints. I mean, that's just wrong.
That said, it seems to me that if the best that Americans can do is think of 9/11 as a day when it all went wrong, or focus on all of the dead people, or even focus only on the actions of the heroic men and women who died that day being heroes...well...that sort of seems wrong, to me. (ONLY TO ME. IF YOU DO ANY OF THE ABOVE, ROCK ON.) Here's why:
America didn't end that day. It didn't really even change that much. I got up the next day and went to work. Millions of other Americans did, too. The markets rebounded, the crops came in, the language stayed the same. We have religious freedom. We have Facebook and iPods and clean water. The one thing that did change, maybe, was that for a week or two, we were a united nation. We understood, for a ridiculously short time, that we were all Americans and--on a global scale--all humans and for Pete's sake, life is damn precious, no matter what nationality or religion you claim.
NOW we've changed drastically. We are such a changed country right now that I'll admit I'm much more fearful than I ever was on September 11. But I'm afraid not of foreign men in hijacked airplanes. I'm afraid of men in snazzy suits who hold gigantic prayer fests while fire fighters in his state buy their own fuel and gear. I'm afraid of women who want to lower minimum wage to that of our "competition" in third world countries. I'm afraid of my fellow citizens who go on and on about how repressed they are by our president even as they want to remove anybody who isn't Christian from public office--or, you know, from the country. Those folks scare the shit out of me, y'all.
So, yesterday, I wasn't watching any memorials or changing my FB picture to an American flag, or scanning in the pictures I took of the Manhattan skyline from the Statue of Liberty while on a show choir trip in high school. I wasn't finding quotes about freedom or heroism or liberty or justice. I wasn't crying and/or reminiscing. I was planting.
Crouched over the dirt, tugging River away from the delicate seedlings or whatever roly poly she was stalking, I made preparations for the winter. I pulled weeds and tucked seeds into the dry soil, adding a little prayer to every wish. That's what seeds are, you know. Wishes for the future. And as I sweated under the late afternoon sun, I started thinking about the seeds I scattered and the young plants I stuffed into rows.
Autumn crops are all the same here in the south: strong smelling greens and vibrant roots. Their seeds are similar: tiny little spears or earth-colored balls, impossible to find if you lose track over the rows. They grow in adverse conditions, fighting through the last gasping days of summer to flourish in the cool, wind-tossed Autumn. They'll keep going, some of them, even in the frigid days of late January and early February, before giving way to sweet peas and potatoes.
It wasn't a difficult metaphor to find, really. And on a cosmic scale, I'm not sure it IS a metaphor. We're all little seeds. We contain within our bodies the capability to grow and change and produce. We are planted where we are planted for a purpose. Each of us has a place and responsibility. We are Something's hope for the future.
But we're more than that. We aren't just mindless collards squatting in the garden. We have hearts and minds and souls that we all too often use for hurting our fellowcollards people instead of helping the others around us grow to their full potential.
This morning, two woman pretty much attacked my mother on FB for having the audacity to point out that the president read a Bible verse at a memorial service and that perhaps we ought to come together as Americans. One woman pointed out that Satan quoted Bible verses, too. ("Satan's in Washington." Give yourself a high five if you remember Marlena writhing around in her silky pajamas and panty hose.) The other called my mother "repressive," and unloaded a wad of nastiness on her that brought out the North Georgia hill girl in me. I was HET UP, y'all.
Because my mama, she is a planter of seeds. She is Little Mary Sunshine. She is a laugher and dancer and smiler. In the face of a year that would CRUSH most folks, she still smiles and encourages and tries, every day, to believe that things are going to be okay. To be honest, it drives me nuts sometimes. But in a garden full of pricklies and bitter herbs, she just keeps flourishing and providing sustenance.
And it occurred to me, with dirt under my fingernails and anger in my heart at that stupid woman who was mean to my mama, that we need more folks like my mother. We need more hope and less bitterness. More strength and less despair. More sunshine and less tears.
I'm working in my garden again today: carrots and beets and turnips and radishes. I'll be planting things that are less showy, that hide their goodness until it's most needed. They have their place in the garden, too.
What will YOU plant today? And, maybe more importantly, how will you grow?
Occasionally, during breaks, I would check on Facebook, where I read (over and over again) about tears and prayers and mourning. I also read a few posts about how religion caused the attacks on September 11, 2001, and one, inexplicably, about how if you didn't like that America was "one nation under God," you should leave. Sigh.
Let me go ahead and say that you should follow your bliss (or sadness, as it were) and mourn or reflect or remember any way you want to and that these next few paragraphs are not in any way telling you that you are wrong for feeling or expressing your feelings any way you want to. Unless you do something crazy and, like, make a bonfire with a pile of Girl Scout Thin Mints. I mean, that's just wrong.
That said, it seems to me that if the best that Americans can do is think of 9/11 as a day when it all went wrong, or focus on all of the dead people, or even focus only on the actions of the heroic men and women who died that day being heroes...well...that sort of seems wrong, to me. (ONLY TO ME. IF YOU DO ANY OF THE ABOVE, ROCK ON.) Here's why:
America didn't end that day. It didn't really even change that much. I got up the next day and went to work. Millions of other Americans did, too. The markets rebounded, the crops came in, the language stayed the same. We have religious freedom. We have Facebook and iPods and clean water. The one thing that did change, maybe, was that for a week or two, we were a united nation. We understood, for a ridiculously short time, that we were all Americans and--on a global scale--all humans and for Pete's sake, life is damn precious, no matter what nationality or religion you claim.
NOW we've changed drastically. We are such a changed country right now that I'll admit I'm much more fearful than I ever was on September 11. But I'm afraid not of foreign men in hijacked airplanes. I'm afraid of men in snazzy suits who hold gigantic prayer fests while fire fighters in his state buy their own fuel and gear. I'm afraid of women who want to lower minimum wage to that of our "competition" in third world countries. I'm afraid of my fellow citizens who go on and on about how repressed they are by our president even as they want to remove anybody who isn't Christian from public office--or, you know, from the country. Those folks scare the shit out of me, y'all.
So, yesterday, I wasn't watching any memorials or changing my FB picture to an American flag, or scanning in the pictures I took of the Manhattan skyline from the Statue of Liberty while on a show choir trip in high school. I wasn't finding quotes about freedom or heroism or liberty or justice. I wasn't crying and/or reminiscing. I was planting.
Crouched over the dirt, tugging River away from the delicate seedlings or whatever roly poly she was stalking, I made preparations for the winter. I pulled weeds and tucked seeds into the dry soil, adding a little prayer to every wish. That's what seeds are, you know. Wishes for the future. And as I sweated under the late afternoon sun, I started thinking about the seeds I scattered and the young plants I stuffed into rows.
Autumn crops are all the same here in the south: strong smelling greens and vibrant roots. Their seeds are similar: tiny little spears or earth-colored balls, impossible to find if you lose track over the rows. They grow in adverse conditions, fighting through the last gasping days of summer to flourish in the cool, wind-tossed Autumn. They'll keep going, some of them, even in the frigid days of late January and early February, before giving way to sweet peas and potatoes.
It wasn't a difficult metaphor to find, really. And on a cosmic scale, I'm not sure it IS a metaphor. We're all little seeds. We contain within our bodies the capability to grow and change and produce. We are planted where we are planted for a purpose. Each of us has a place and responsibility. We are Something's hope for the future.
But we're more than that. We aren't just mindless collards squatting in the garden. We have hearts and minds and souls that we all too often use for hurting our fellow
This morning, two woman pretty much attacked my mother on FB for having the audacity to point out that the president read a Bible verse at a memorial service and that perhaps we ought to come together as Americans. One woman pointed out that Satan quoted Bible verses, too. ("Satan's in Washington." Give yourself a high five if you remember Marlena writhing around in her silky pajamas and panty hose.) The other called my mother "repressive," and unloaded a wad of nastiness on her that brought out the North Georgia hill girl in me. I was HET UP, y'all.
Because my mama, she is a planter of seeds. She is Little Mary Sunshine. She is a laugher and dancer and smiler. In the face of a year that would CRUSH most folks, she still smiles and encourages and tries, every day, to believe that things are going to be okay. To be honest, it drives me nuts sometimes. But in a garden full of pricklies and bitter herbs, she just keeps flourishing and providing sustenance.
And it occurred to me, with dirt under my fingernails and anger in my heart at that stupid woman who was mean to my mama, that we need more folks like my mother. We need more hope and less bitterness. More strength and less despair. More sunshine and less tears.
I'm working in my garden again today: carrots and beets and turnips and radishes. I'll be planting things that are less showy, that hide their goodness until it's most needed. They have their place in the garden, too.
What will YOU plant today? And, maybe more importantly, how will you grow?
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