I tried to keep what I loved about the flow of this great poem, and paint on some of what I hate about the flow of “nutrient” toxic waste. I think the addition of color effectively sets the mood for this reprint of the black and white version in Family Farm Fun.
This is the ninth song for “Bigotry: The Musical” so far. There are probably 6 or 7 more to complete the book. I’ve divided the songs into 3 acts and the plot line has become clearer: a rural couple are forced off their land by bureaucrats and are resettled into an urban world of subsidized poverty – jobless, powerless, and surrounded by criminals; they must try to survive the establishment of a secular theocracy.
As a kid; I looked through a book of sketches made by an army soldier in the South Pacific during WWII. Many of the drawings featured dead bodies; and the air around them was always filled with flies.
In rural Cornithaca County; flies, factory farms and death are certainties, but factory farms and death are never linked together. The high rural cancer rate is counted as a “lifestyle” issue.
A respirator that would once have been worn in a joke about barn odors; is now a life-saving protection from liquid manure off-gassing.
I remember an incident where a home exploded due to a natural gas leak. The leak was in a neighboring house; but the heavier-than-air gas flowed down into a lower level where it collected and ignited.
Factory Farms occupy a high ground of money, influence, and legal cronyism — so you know what flows downhill to their rural neighbors.
While I’m writing this; I keep hearing in the back of my mind: Jumping Jack Crack it’s a gas, gas, gas . . .
Knowing how to navigate your way through a maze of shadow-government regulatory shortcuts is sometimes just a matter of knowing the right people. Often, public oversight is seen as a stumbling block to the smooth functioning of established business-bureaucrat partnerships, and their special understandings.
This difficulty has been overcome in Cornithaca County, where the people have no meaningful representation in government, and the investigation of regulatory misconduct is handed over to the parties involved; for their sole adjudication.
They’re “so important” and they “define the county” are phrases that are frequently used by county government to elevate powerful interests above the everyday requirements of ethical and responsible action.
There is no ethical voice raised in opposition . . . they’ve taken care of that as well.
Farm-cheesi – The “Game of Flies” is adapted from the Indian cross and circle game Pachisi, and its many variations. The goal of the game is to move the maggots from the player’s carcass home to the center space where they become flies.
The 17” x 17” game board [pictured] is in four parts to be copied or scanned and printed – or cut out by utilizing two books.
You can also cut out maggots and attach them to the “Cornithacan” tokens from the book; achieving a sort of “African Queen” leach effect.
Living around a factory farm; you have to do something with them — if only we could train them to synchronize in their swarming and blow back the toxic fumes.
Simple and graphic: this game shows how easily years of work and hope can just go “pop” when the big players decide you need to be sat on.
In Cornithaca County; the corporations, institutions, and politicians are so tight together; there’s no room left for the people.
A corporate plan for a large facility, powered by fossil fuel, was recently pushed through vocal public opposition with only a “Thanks for keeping us on our toes” response from politicians.
How dismissive is that?
Form Based Code planning is a great idea . . . for those in authority. It allows for an autocratic control of planning to exclude or mandate any type of community development those in power desire. The “college town” is a city that preserves its downtown wood frame houses and tree lined streets as a “historical” necessity, and will use Form based planning to add green spaces, parks, and upscale shopping and restaurants to “one of the twenty most expensive cities in the country to live in.”
The same planning shows that “Affordable Housing” Nodes should be placed in rural towns; where “historical” has no cachet, and the woods and fields are bulldozed for tract homes, condos and apartments. It’s the “form based” place to dump their poor and homeless in affordable housing complexes, and place a drug treatment and outpatient facility at a safe distance.
The county’s mass transit buses, which are so thick around the college that people have difficulty driving cars, don’t enter the Ag ghetto; but if I walk 2 ½ miles to its border, and stand by pole at the side of a ditch, they pass by several times a day.
After all; an open air cesspit of fermenting cow manure, urine, antibiotics, hormones, and anything else they sluice off of the floors of their sheds is a perfect breeding ground for super pathogens. A concoction that is then sprayed, or even injected, all over the rural landscape.
The World Health Organization and the CDC have both expressed concerns about a pandemic caused by modern industrial farming methods; but have always been ignored.
The best part about passing ineffectual regulations is that you can always hide behind the legality of your actions.
With the short life-spans of their antibiotic and hormone-filled cows; industrial dairies have a problem with unsalable carcasses. Disposal of dead cows and hogs in compost piles is now recommended over dragging them out in a field to rot.
It’s just a step to using the same method of disposal for their workers. Who’s to know — it may already be happening.
