Jazz and cubism! Jazz and cubism! That’s where the rot started!
Another bete noir: almost ALL food is genetically altered, except maybe fish, and that’s just because the bastards keep swimming away. It’s called selective breeding - you think apples the size of your fist occur in nature, Sally Dewdrop? You think ears of corn aren’t the size of your thumbnail for a reason, Jeremy Starshine? Gah - we’ve been genetically altering food since the Paleolithic era: that’s why I have the time to sit here and type this instead of foraging in the marshes for particularly slow-moving frogs to eat. Agriculture = food surplus, = leisure time, = civilisation, = The Pit.
Jesus god, the one reality show I would watch would be a bunch of hard-core greenie vegans set loose naked in the bush to forage for food, shelter and survival itself. Voted off? Sorry, Gaia Rainbow, you’ve been starved off. Oh, and Tarquin Morningstar has just been frozen off. Don’t forget to tune in next week, when our castaways set aside their principles and resort to cannibalism…
As to getting back to nature, this quote:
“Properly speaking, of course, there is no such thing as a return to nature, because there is no such thing as a departure from it. The phrase reminds one of the slightly intoxicated gentleman who gets up in his own dining room and declares firmly that he must be getting home.”
GK Chesterson
I found it rather funny when a militant vegetarian told me in college ‘You wouldn’t eat meat if you had to kill it yourself.’
Especially since I had deer jerkey in my backpack. Deer jerkey that came from a deer I shot. I told her that. She was stunned. She extolled the virtues of yogurt that comes from ‘free range’ and ‘organic’ cows. I said ‘It doesn’t get more free range than a deer that lived all its life as a wild animal in the forest.’ She left in a huff.
As someone who’s 10 miles south of Asheville, I’m sitting here, scratching my head…
Well, granted, we do like natural stuff, but that’s countryfolk belief… we’re not walking around in tie-dyed t-shirts or anything. For the most part, we trust our farms and natural remedies more than we trust either corporations or government.
And, you don’t need a scientific reason to like organic food. It simply tastes better, especially the meat. Yum. (Eaten a mass-farmed Red Delicious apple lately? Might as well as be eating cotton balls.)
Also, it’s true that synthetic chemicals may do a much better job of whatever they’re designed for–but they’re also a lot harsher. I’m serious about growing my hair out, for example, and there’s near-unanimous agreement on long hair sites that sodium/ammonia laurel/laureth sulfate shampoos are way too harsh, especially for curly hair. Many of those people wash their hair no more than once a week with a natural, weaker shampoo and rinse out the build-up with a homemade vinegar rinse. It’s much safer on the hair.
Regarding hormones–you can’t ignore the fact that many girls are now undergoing puberty at age 5 or even earlier. Hormones are a valid concern.
How much of menarche is dependent upon the necessary body weight to sustain a pregnancy?
Without a high enough percentage of body fat, a woman or girl will not menstruate. So does puberty start ramping up as the body fat percentage increases?
Shhh!
aeropl is right. Asheville is full. Go away.
Daniel
With vegan- and vegetarianism now being commonly associated with ‘hippies’, whatever that word means anymore, it’s amusing to recall that one of the most well known communes near SF back in the day was called…
the Hog Farm Commune!!
As per the OP, once we refine out digoxin and atropine, THEN we can use that in a controlled dosage to save our sorry asses.
However I must also join in with pointing out that the OP does indeed to be aimed at specifically “Idiot Hippies”, as opposed to the more mainstream just-plain-mellow type that I can get along with. I must also question the way it was phrased as if there’s a blanket opposition to ALL farming – what they obviously oppose is corporate- or commercial-type farming, not farming per se. Sure, a lousy policy proposition, but hardly an opposition to “farming”, period.
A subject near and dear to my heart.
We raise pastured poultry-layers and broilers and while we don’t invite the chickens in for tea-we are, I like to think, extremely “nice” to our birds.
It only makes sense.
By rejecting the mass production model, we eliminate the need to sublimate their diet with antibiotics or growth hormones.
By using the chicken ‘tractor’ model, we can maintain healthy, weed free pastures without the use of expensive herbicides and synthetic fertilizers.
By slaughtering the chickens ourselves, we control the cost and cleanliness of the butchering process.
Mass poultry farmers have to spend a minimum of $150,000.00 to erect a confinement house.
The big name chicken companies supply both the feed and the chicks.
If the chicks die, and you lose money on a production run, too bad.
The profit is marginal, the work is labor intensive and many mass poultry farmers
go out of business in a few years.
Many of these houses are subsidized by small business loans that are defaulted on when the farmer has a bad few years.
The chickens are raised in abominably unhealthy conditions, laborers in factory farms are coming down with equivalent of black lung from the fecal dust and the environment suffers from the impact of massive quantities of chicken shit.
Rhode Island had a problem two years ago with its’ ground water being contaminated by arsenic from the chicken farmers.
Of course, pastured poultry is more expensive and requires a commitment from the consumer as well.
You actually have to cook our chicken-it doesn’t come in a nifty box, ready to be heated up and eaten in 10 minutes.
That said, a 5.5 lb chicken is $11.00 but will supply a family of four with 2 meals and the means of making an excellent chicken soup or stock…
And our chicken is much richer in Omega-3s and vitamins.
Eggs from pastured hens can contain as much as 10 times more omega-3s than eggs from factory hens as well as much higher amounts of vitamin E.
If you are what you eat, it follows that you are also what the animal eats.
And it’s easier to prevent health problems by incorporating a healthy diet into your life, rather than to cure them.
And I’m sure that combination of a week of head grease coupled with vinegar smells delightful. Ick. What’s the point of having long hair if it’s greasy and reeks of vinegar?
The hair isn’t “greasy”. There’s a reason for the old 100 brush-strokes adage… it spreads the natural oils from scalp to ends, resulting in healthy, shiny, non-greasy hair. Americans bathing everything, everyday, is the abberation, not the norm…
As for the vinegar, you might as well as ask why wear hairspray if it smells so nasty. The smell evaporates pretty quickly when the hair dries.
Hairspray and shampoo smell good because they are scented with lovely aromas.
All I know is that neither I nor most of the women I know could go a week without washing their hair without it becoming greasy and smelling like dirty grease. Something about that hair oil smell is disgusting to me, but then I don’t care for patchouli or burning sage either, so different strokes.
Lovely FAKE aromas. (Sorry - my inner hippie snuck out for a moment.)
Talking about genetic modifications, I believe sheep are one of human society’s earliest genetic experiments. As for the danger of eating genetically modified food, I believe Pullet was right in his OP about that - when you digest foods, you get amino acids, glucose, and fatty acids. Your gastrointestinal tract doesn’t care if there are fish proteins in with your tomatoes - if it can digest it and use it, it digests it and uses it.
Dang it, I forgot about a lovely response to idiot hippies regarding genetically modified foods. Saskatchewan is leading the world (I believe - no time to research it right now) in genetically modifying wheat crops (drought resistant strains, high salt tolerant strains, etc.), which are contributing to feeding third world countries in a big way.
Fine by me. Most of those essential oils smell like ass. I’ll take my perfumes any day. “Real” is highly overrated. 
Well, to be fair, the people who’re washing their hair once a week or less are for the most part the ones who have unbelievably long hair: well below rearend-length. Their hair can accomodate a week-plus’s worth of natural grease spread from end to scalp… if the grease gets too much for the hair, then of course you’re going to have to shower it. Eh… I’m rambling on a topic I brought up only to point out that there are cases where natural products are superior to synthetic ones.
For more examples of how natural shampoos can work better for people, go to http://www.naturallycurly.com --lots of people, including African Americans, have tamed their curly hair into gorgeous ringlets-to-be-envied with a natural, even “no poo” (no shampooing at all) routine. Chemicals are harsh, so many people with sensitivities find a better solution in natural products. Toothpaste, soap, detergent, you name it.
In any case, your sentiment’s right… different (hairbrush) strokes for different people. 
For the hippies, I’ll make some in my basement.
Heh. I’m bookmarking this for the next time someone talks about how Christians are the only fair-game group for attacks on the Straight Dope. At least the ignorant attacks on Christians don’t usually include ha-has about murdering them.
Daniel
Hippy.