From the Publisher
Food for thought
by Carolyn Chase
ovember. Politics. Thanksgiving. And in our culture,
Thanksgiving has been married with food and feasting. This issue of the
Earth Times has a special focus on food and our relationship with food.
But I feel a need to comment here on politics as well.
This year's political climate seems particularly nasty
and fearful. The environment has faded into the background as an issue for
public decision (where it continues to support us - or not).
The candidates and the media, along with select, sound-bited
citizens, are taking center stage with their fears of crime and immigrants.
It's too bad that politicians can't do anything about people's fears. However,
if that's what people want attention for and will vote about - then that's
what we get.
Lest I get caught up in my own fears, I decided to turn
to history for some inspiration on politics and food, with the help of the
Harper Book of Quotations.
On the political side I found:
"The most important office is that of private citizen."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been
the systematic organization of hatreds." -- Henry Adams
"Vote the one who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing."
-- Bernard Baruch
"One fifth of the people are against everything, all the time."
-- Robert F. Kennedy
"Politicians are the same all over, they promise to build a bridge
even where there is no river." -- Nikita Khrushchev
"An honest politicain is one who when he is bought, will stay bought."
-- Simon Cameron
"In academic life you seek to state absolute truths; in politics you
seek to accomodate truth to the facts around you." -- Pierre Elliott
Trudeau.
"If you ever injected truth into politics you would have no politics,"
and "Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even
get beat with." -- Will Rogers (and this was before television!)
"The voters had rather you lied to them than refused them." --
Campaign manager for Cicero in 64BC.
About food:
"To get the best results, you must talk to your vegetables."
-- Charles, Prince of Wales
"A smiling face is half the meal." -- Latvian proverb
"The one way to get thin is to re-establish a purpose in life."
-- Cyril Connolly
"More die in the United States of too much food than of too little."
-- J.K. Galbraith
"A hungry man is not a free man." -- Adlai Stevenson
"There is no love sincerer than the love of food." George Bernard
Shaw
"Never eat more than you can lift." -- Miss Piggy.
On the face of it, I'd say that food is more fun than
politics and that many more people are intimately involved with food on
a day-to-day basis than with politics. Probably, much to our mutual detriment.
But finally, I discovered and offer the following to
express the powerful connection between Thanksgiving food and the environment:
"We give away our thanks to the earth which gives us our
home.
We give away our thanks to the rivers and lakes which give away their water.
We give away our thanks to the trees which give away fruit and nuts...
All beings on earth: the trees, the animals, the wind and the rivers give
away to one another." -- Dolores La Chapelle.
