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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Wednesday, September 05, 2018

The monsanto mantra

I'm hiding from the heat again, this time in Morgantown West Virginia at the library. I have to pay for parking - 2 hour ONLY Strictly enforced - so I'm writing quickly.

Morgantown is a treasured memory of my early adulthood when I had the dubious honor of attending college, for the first time, in southern West Virginia. Morgantown was the place all the northerners at Wesleyan drooled over (after Pittsburgh) and fantasized about escaping to - the biggest city around.

The streets are so small and narrow, the buildings old and in many places lacking sidewalks, but even more, windy and hilly. The beautiful river is concreted off from public access, altho there's a lush green grass park running paralleling the river with an asphalt trail snaking down the middle. Trees appear as oases (that's the real plural of oasis...) along a river bank that I'm sure was blanketed with trees and vegetation.

I feel the familiar pang of loss and deepest sadness when the picture of long ago (50 years now) superimposes itself on this 'new' Morgantown.

Parking costs 25cents for 20 minutes and so many cars drive through or around this maybe 6 street 'downtown' that it takes a good 10 minutes to go 3 blocks.

I've only gotten fuck you's thus far from white male drivers - that hasn't changed over the decades.

I am pleased to find a food co-op on the edge of downtown. No parking close by but it is my habit to stop at co-ops if I can. In the old days, food co-ops were guarantee lesbian places, as were libraries. I have to walk the length of downtown to get from my parking space to the co-op - and this time I have to pay 25cents for 15 minutes!

The co-op is in a beautiful old building, with two sections or storefronts: one includes a little vegan cafe and the herbs and environmentally products from makeup to shampoo to dish soap, as well as every vitamin and supplement known to man.

The other side is the produce and food products part. I'm looking for greens, even though it is too fuckin hot to cook - they'll probably just cook themselves! Much of the produce is labeled "local" and some is labeled "organic" but not all.

You know the answer I got when I asked the sweet young white girl, pierced and tattooed, if the greens were organic. Oh no, much too expensive to get certified mantra of Monsanto...

She did not appreciate my challenging her holding onto and passing on that mantra. But maybe she'll do the research, she is after all, in a university town!