OMG GMO.

The dream of two nights ago had an obvious source in earlier waking hours.  All the same, it was a strange thing to dream that oats as we know them no longer exist.  The staple of Scottish and Equine diets alike was no longer available in markets the world over.  The country of Scotland was in a greater uproar than it was in the year 1745.  Could this have been the work of a porridge-hating super-villain?  Or maybe there was a plot afoot to horde the common grain, drive up its price, and make billions?

The day before the emaciated nightmare ran its course on hooves of flame, our Proto had been reading about the truth and lies concerning genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.  Homo sapiens sapiens never cease to amaze.  The lengths to which they will go to make a mockery of their name-sake --wisdom-- is staggering.  Once again, as with the missionaries preaching their notion of "god" and "right" to the indigenous peoples of North America and reeking havoc on these cultures, the privileged priests of science are playing god with the building blocks of life.  They don't know what will happen, only what they want to see happen.  Giant corporations like Monsanto are changing the genetic make-up of our food by inserting DNA from one species into another to which the first is unrelated.  They say that this is just selective breeding, but this does not happen in nature.  It is dangerous manipulation.  They can breed a crop that, due to their imposed and carefully selected mutations, will die out after one growing season.  Farmers who would otherwise be able to harvest from their crop the seed required for the next season, are now beholden to the corporation in a new form of planned obsolescence.  These modified crops do not provide more yield than natural ones, but they are invasive and threaten to spread their mutated genes.  When this happens, a natural or organic crop-growing farmer faces the threat of legal action for growing the GMO crop without having first purchased it, or "stealing" it.  Another one bites the dust, and the corporation scoops up the land for more industrial GMO farming.

There is no solid science supporting the benefits of GMO crops.  Scientific method -- hypotheses and complicated procedures -- are at work, but there remains a huge burden of proof.  That burden lies on the corporation doing the research and creating the GMO crops in the first place, and may be the spur that drives the nag onward.  However, they plant this burden in our soils, and in our minds with half-truths, fear-mongering, and bullying.  They reap profit.  In the end, that is their main interest. But there can be no profit on a dead planet.  Utopia is "not-place": no-where.  Trying to achieve utopia gets you just that.  An old Jewish fellow once said, or so it is written, "for ye have the poor with ye always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good".  It is misguided to believe that manipulating them for your own cause and personal gain is doing them "good".  Taking something apart just to see how it works is only wise if that thing can once again be put back together as it was.  The GMO experiment is foolhardy in the extreme.  Perhaps a better name for humans these days is homo sapiens peurilis (feel free to correct my terrible Latin).  The beautiful thing is, we always have much to learn, and, for now at least, there is still porridge in the morning.

Mental illness or just bad manners?

Hello, how is your day going?  This is your morning transit bus speaking.  I believe when I stopped to pick you up today I was a little bit early.  Or was I a little bit late?  I really couldn't say for certain which.  Hopefully you planned for just such an inevitability with a flexible itinerary.  I should really start writing my own transit poems.  Maybe I could retire early and live off the royalties.  There must be some hippies left out there in need of affordable accommodation.  I burn "bio-fuel".  I'm green.  I'm hip.  I can get those organic mushrooms to market on time.  My third cousin Otto was almost chosen to read for the part of the VW bus in the movie Cars, which was filmed in California don't you know.  Anyway.

Back to this morning.  I saw you hesitate before climbing on board.  There was a dour, thin, pale-faced young woman standing right at the door.  You gave her time and space to exit before boarding, but when you caught her gaze enquiringly a blank and icy stare was the only thing forthcoming.  So, you squeezed past (excusing yourself, how polite), paid your fare, marvelled at my commodious interior, and took a comfortable (dare I say luxurious?) seat.  Off we went.

You probably don't think I'm watching.  I'd bet tickets to a seniors' passes you have no idea I'm sentient, but I am.  I saw you scoff at the icy lady as she continued to block the way of people entering and exiting at my front door at the next few stops.  Did you know I can read your thoughts?  I know that you almost got into a huff over her behaviour.  However, you looked out my panoramic windows at the early morning sun pouring in, and laughed it off.  What did it matter to you what she chose to do?

Now, I know that you asked that question of yourself rhetorically.  It helped you to get things into a balanced perspective, and move on.  Unfortunately, the dour and icy lady forced you to ask it of yourself again.  She had been standing up at my front, almost directly beside my driver, listening to her headphones and playing with her mobile device.  Driver was beginning to feel crowded.  She invited the lady to take a seat, and was told to get on with her job of driving.

Driver is no slouch.  She's been doing the job of directing me through the busy streets for twenty years.  She has seen it all.  Her response was to tell me to apply the brakes. I pulled over and stopped.  We gave that lady a polite talking-to and again asked her to move back or sit down.  She refused.  Driver called for back-up and told her to sit down or get off the bus.  At this point you exclaimed your displeasure at the inconvenience.  I believe you said the lady was "foolish" and "selfish".  You kept it simple: she was inconveniencing everyone and should either sit or get off.  Others weren't so kind.  It is odd and a bit disheartening how quickly the words "crazy" and "psycho" get bandied about.  She may have mental issues, but mostly her behaviour was a sign of a massively inflated ego, a desire to draw attention to herself, and a disregard for the concerns of others.  These ingredients appear in the very rich and "successful" who cut me off in their Beamers and Audis every other day.

You know what?  I'm tired of talking about her.  Before she finally exited by my hydraulic front doors she did have a nose-to-nose shouting match with a tough little lady from the Philippines, which I'd say she lost.  There was some mild applause after she left in which I noticed you saw fit to participate.  Really though, it's been a long day that started out kind of strangely, so it's time to park it.  Why give the dour and icy lady any more attention than she has already gained?  It would be nice to think that she learned something about herself from the situation.  Maybe it was a performance-art piece.  Oh well, whatever. I'm glad it's over.  See you tomorrow.

Ichthyo-sapiens.

The human sole (often written soul) is a fish that resides in the mind of homo sapiens sapiens and can sometimes not be spotted --as it is invisible-- floating just above the ground at roughly sandal-height.  It has been classified as a member of the Soleidae family, and, on the North American continent specifically, as belonging to Pleuronectidae because of its tendency to flounder there.  Though invisible, the human sole can be any colour in the spectrum between microwave (ensure it is fully defrosted first, then cook on high for about 2 aeons) to X-ray (very boney, though wonderful ground-up into fishcakes).  My own Grannie's recipe called for pan-frying with a grain of ethically mined Himalayan salt rock, but there are quite likely as many recipes for human sole as there are people to devise and prepare them.  Regardless, this elusive fish can be very difficult to catch, and even harder to kill since it is said to be immortal.

Interestingly, a pictorial representation of the creature has come to be associated with a sub-sect of the Judaic religion whose leader, one J. Christ --who may or may not have claimed to be the son of YHWH-- implored his friends and followers to become "fishers of men".  If this all sounds a little bit like cannibalism, the rest of J's story is most compelling, and may just turn out to be a plea against any such behaviour.  In any case, the crude drawing of the human sole can most often be seen plastered to the rear-end of Oldsmobiles being driven at half the posted speed limit and using the left turn-indicator when turning right on a Sunday morning.   Depictions of the creature with two feet are also extant, but harder to pin down.  The inclusion of feet may be a reference to the human sole's Prehistoric antecedent, or artistic whim:  we may never be able fully to know the whole truth.

Remember, human soles are all around us, floating about, nuzzling newborn kittens, knocking over Jenga towers.  Please watch your step.  These marvellous creatures may be so flat that they only have one side, but they can still feel pain and suffer from abuse.  Consider adopting one as your own.  For pennies a day (an invalid form of currency in most countries) you can enjoy the mind-enhancing, emotion-stabilizing effects of the human sole on your life.

So much for so much more.

It is difficult to write anything useful or interesting presently, so please stop reading at once.  It is agony writing from a position so low.  If he wore a beret he would say that it must be done 'for the love of the craft' or something, but he isn't here any longer: he's dead, and I never even met him anyway.  She looks over my shoulder sometimes and can't quite contain her surprise when something halfway decent comes of all the struggling.  I can smell the antiseptic corridors of her mind.  Somewhere beyond the bright pastel halls where the white-coats strut, there is a room.  The scent of cleaning solution fails to mask entirely the whiff of dirt, grease, and blood slithering out from the crack beneath a door marked 246-A.  Behind that door sits a large sum of money.  The door is locked.

She loses interest.  Whether this is feigned or not, I cannot tell.  Grandpa walks in stiffly.  It is difficult to recall having seen him walking about because he was usually seated and talking, often with a glass of Scotch in hand, and also because he too is dead.  His appearance is a statement that echoes in the empty vaults above: "Study your idea of another's mind as carefully as you like, but you can never know their true mind itself".

Factory farming in two easy steps.

There is a special group of human beings I know.  At one time all of us worked together on a factory-farm.  We did not raise kine, or pigs, or sheep.  Nor did we sow acres of land with one genetically modified crop.  Instead, with the aid of telephones and computers that were well out-of-date, we farmed sorrow.  We were hired by this sorrow-farm to provide the customers of large, bloated, un-feeling, and miserly corporations with answers that they did not wish to hear to questions they did not want to be asking.  Times were tough, but we found a way to stick together and laugh about things.

One of the young farm-hands who had been there longer than most of us went by the name of Fenake.  It occurred to me at some point that this was quite an odd name, so I looked it up at the urging of Jams, one of the best farmers in our clique. We found that "the internet" has an Urban Dictionary that defines it a couple of ways:

1. fenake: a male cross dresser that is too manly looking for the attempt.

    That fenake looks like a Viking warlord. That fenake reminded me of Silence of the Lambs.

2. fenake: a word that i made up when i accidentally typed the wrong word in the search bar [sic].

    I accidentally typed fenake instead of female.

Both seem to capture what is essential about Fenake, especially the first, since his hair is long, blonde, and beautiful.  However, there is a sister Fenake as well, who greatly enjoys slurpees.  It seems only fair that one of the definitions apply to she for whom Jams lusts endlessly.  The latter definition seems to fit her best, so Fenake (masculine) has been allotted the former.

It is many moons since our last harvest, and we have gone our separate ways, but the legend of the Fenake and his sister lives on in our hearts.  Rbrty yimr I svvifrnyslly, um…. Every time I accidentally start typing with my fingers in the wrong spot, she haunts me.  Every time I see an Icelandic man from behind and mistake him for her, I think of him.  That's about it really.  That's all I wanted to say.  Bye for now, and stay warm.  The city I inhabit recently experienced colder temperatures than Mars.  It feels like home.

Zmz