I was reminded of the pleasures of running the world, and of the sloe-eyed women who gravitate toward the plantation owners, especially in the warmer climes where slinky silks frame the female form. We uplifted those unlettered indians and mestizos in Honduras, so they could taste the joys of working on our team.
But the banana story is just too sad for words, and Hari's spin on it works for me. I think the beginning of my political consciousness began even before my teens, upon hearing of marines in Central America.
That the peons who slaved for United Fruit came from cultures who had learned from their disastrous earlier versions of monoculture in the jungle, and would have honored banana (potato, chocolate...) crop diversity, makes it even more sad.
Maybe i should be commenting in anger, at the imbecility that rules our societies, because they have no relationship to the planetary ecosystem which supports their very existence.
(Though i'd like to know what bananas make up the organic banana crop that is being sold in every box store in Germany.) "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
Bananas and Germany: Germany has consistently argued that, as a real big banana importer, it wanted the right to bring down the EU tariff wall that protects the so-called ACP countries, and get Latin American bananas that offer the world's lowest prices. At the same time, German consumers want organic. Well, that's OK. I hope that's what they get. As long as it doeesn't mean vast "organic" plantations...
Colonel Crazy-Horse
Had the Lakota only embraced the hierarchical structure of their opponents, it should be General Crazy-Horse, as he united the Cheyenne and various bands of Lakota to wipe out Custer. But many of the Lakota gave credit to Sitting Bull, who was on a nearby peak, deep in trance, "making medicine." Hence the title of the 70s movie with Paul Newman playing a supremely preening, narcissistic Colonel Custer in "Sitting Bull's History Lesson." I agree about the elegant prose. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
national potassium deficiency in the soil?
i'm thinking demanding organic would mean better plants' immune systems, and more micorrhyzae, meaning more sustainable soil health.
i remember red-skinned bananas, with pinky-orange flesh, growing in hawaii. they were called 'cuban', locally.
very good too, as are the little ladyfinger yellow ones, with just a bite in each one,
dried bananas are brilliant, dark and chewy as beef jerky. i used to buy organic ones from ecuador, imported into hawaii. (!)
dried papaya is great too.
i imagine in the future we'll go back more to dried fruits, so much easier to transport, without all that water, yet retaining much of the taste and goodness. ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
