A Remembered New Year's Resolution

 Aha! I recall my New Year's Resolution, mostly in time for the so-called Chinese New Year (*1). So it's to absolutely ban all GMO foods from our house! We have done a generally good job in avoiding this biologically engineered plague from entering our mouths, but I have slipped up a few times. Yes, thanks to Vermont, they are required to label GMO or suggest that there may be a bio-engineered ingredient (typically corn or soy products) but I had been under the mistaken idea that Vermont BANNED all GMO products. Nope- they just have to be labelled.

Which is no doubt why suddenly everything seems happy to proclaim they're GMO free:

I love seeing that little insignia. Surprising things claim to be non  GMO... like Domino's sugar. Hard to believe but I'll go with it.

Sneaky companies print the inclusion of bio-engineered foods in tiny hard to read lettering; this is why it's easy to slip up occasionally. I am such a crank at the supermarket. I read everything. We've been avoiding high-fructose corn syrup and their treacly friends for years. But it seems suddenly, the GMO crowd is pretty rampant. I know there are many who insist that there's "no difference" or that some genetically modified foods are better (in that they may keep fresh for longer or they may be more packed with vitamins etc) but I want to avoid Frankenfood that is Monsanto inspired and full of harmful forever chemicals. Look at Round-Up ready crops! Corn! Yuck! People are winning law suits and getting seriously sick and yet these dandy bio-hazards are winding up under you slice of cheese or in your breakfast bowl.

So I say: eat what you want! If downing a chemical-laden breaded coating or drinking milk that comes from cows treated with BST makes you happy... go for it! But our household is not buying! Happy Lunar New Year!

(*1) I believe it occurs this Sunday and it's the year of the Rabbit. Supposedly a kinder, gentler year as befits a bunny. Last year was the year of the Tiger and obviously it was a ferocious tiger!

Don't Tread On Me

I see the weirdest things on my morning walk. Once in a great while, I remember to bring my camera along to record the more memorable moments. Like the above coiled, and apparently ready to strike, snake. (Which is actually a bank, as there is a slot in its head). Somebody carefully placed it on the lid of a sewer line at the juncture of the dirt road and the end of our road. It's been there since this summer. Only now do I get around to documenting it...
Anyway, I am deep in the throes of that jittery, quasi-anxious stage at the end of one art project and the beginning of another. I finally finished my "Hold Menu" collages and am very happy with the seven pieces that I made. They look great as a suite or series, but work on their own. And who isn't plagued by those bland, computer generated voices that encourage us to, "Hold the line; your call is very important to us". The project that I have just begun, have been conceptualizing for a couple of weeks, is taking me in some pretty uncomfortable directions. I typically do a bit of "research" and this piece (which will be an artist's book) has got me looking into an unpleasant subculture. I hate to be so vague, but when I'm initially involved in a new project, I often can't/don't want to divulge too much. I am not sure if it's superstition that I might jinx my plans, or whether it's just that I quite simply am very foggy myself about where I'm going and can't take others along on such an unplanned ride. Or something. I frequently go through a prolonged gestation period; it sort of feels like you have on someone else's damp socks and they're a size too small. Something to think about! But ideas keep coming.
Update on that accursed sweet potato. You will recall that Bob stuck one in a glass of water, fully eight days ago, now. Still no sprouting, so we suspect "Bud Nip". Heaven help us! Clorpropham is here! In or home!

It takes on a wholly new sinister look, sort of like the Dick Cheney of sweet potatoes. Already things to look out for in the New Year. 

(What We All Need is a) Pre-Christmas Rant

Hey! Remember him? That's right; the half- burned Santa from Hell. Actually, Bob and I retrieved this Santa (with the help of our beloved friend and artist extraordinare Wasil) from a still smoldering slag heap in Shamokin, Pennslyvania several years back. It was early summer and he had apparently been sacrificed by some coal country crazies. But at least he's found a new home among us North Country heathens and was featured on our Christmas card when we were in between housing... let's just not go there.
Anyway, it's the eve of Christmas eve and as good a time as any to promote unhealthy habits and a healthy dose of nihilism. Good ahead! have more eggnog and bacon or eat another gross of cookies! Why not? I think I've started in on food because this is the season to over eat and the repent, isn't it? Well, we may not even have to repent as the world as we know it may end very soon indeed. So much for my being thrilled about ObamaCare! We'll all need it in a big way before much longer...
What am I referring to, obliquely? How about Fukufuckingshima and the fact that that "incident" is still happening. There is so much radioactive water pouring out of that derelict plant every day and true "containment" is years away. Have you heard that they want to try and put walls of ice around it? That'll take ages! And in the mean time, they're attempting to extract the rods, very slowly, very carefully as there's a really big bang waiting in there somewhere if one touches another- and there are hundreds of them! There are these hastily bolted together vessels, stacked on one another in endless rows; what are they- or we- going to do with all those containers? Any one got a bright idea?
The radioactivity has already reached California, according to maps and models. West coast fish is no doubt contaminated and I do so like my salmon. I guess we'll be eating canned food from some other decade down in our fall out shelters.

And food in these fine United States? Has everyone (I hope) seen the little video about a ten year old school kid who was assigned the typical science experiment of sticking toothpicks into a sweet potato and watching it sprout? She waited and waited and waited and started doing a little research. Turns out they treat sweet potatoes  (and so many other foods) with a chemical cheerily called "Bud Nip" that chemically prevents foods from sprouting and weeds from growing. But we're eating this stuff! In the meantime, she got an organic sweet potato from a farmers market and stuck toothpicks into it and mounted it in water and it sprouted right away! Bob took a sweet potato from the box we'd purchased; he's hoping that it sprouts.
Scary, no? Bob and I aren't quite sure what to eat for the holidays...
That's why I'm sort of nihilist this Xmas season; have another cookie! Have a good time!