This is one of the most horrific news items that blipped across the radar in recent memory. To think that there are people (I hesitate to use the word, it seems almost inapplicable, as if I should be using a word that can't apply to human beings)are actually, intentionally putting toxic substances in fertilizers, knowing that the toxicity will be directed into food, will poison children (not to mention the rest of us, the animals, the planet...) I would have said it was unthinkable; I know friends of mine, when I told them about this, who reacted as if it was unthinkable, could not be true.

That a story like this could be a 30-second spot on the evening news, and then silence instead of immediate outraged uproar -- another blow to my pathetic fantasies of a sane world.

Add to that the story about the 13 states that have passed laws that will effectively prohibit anyone from protesting the dangers of any agricultural techniques (see the "veggie-libel laws" story in August 4, 1997 Time magazine), and I feel a serious fugue state coming on.

What a world.

To Storm Center

To Art Only