Are you what you eat?

Hmmm. Good existential question to flag off the 251st post of Pop Goes the Slop, eh? Time out, if you please, to let me chew the cud a bit before answering. Having ruminated to my heart's content if such a thing is possible, let me confess I don't know. But then when I was a pampered kid growing up at 233 Khetwadi Main Road http://tinyurl.com/48tnw4 in the late forties and early fifties, I used to be a very fussy and whiny eater. I hated almost all vegetables and loved mutton and fish. I guess in that respect I had taken after my mother. She too used to hate Mondays when we used to be vegetarians by her choice. By contrast, my father was not too bothered about what he ate. In fact, the ultimate imbecile who then was officiating as our family physician made him give up meat and fish and even advised him to have all his teeth pulled out in order to cure his urticaria. The net result? My father was left with his urticaria, a denture and a bland vegetarian diet for the rest of his life. Coming back to my own dietary eccentricities, there was an oft-told family tale about how I fell ill for no other reason except that my body could not tolerate the vegetarian-only meals at the hotel in Mahabaleshwar where we were staying one summer. Our usual hotel had no vacancy. Anyway, the upshot was that the family had to cut short the vacation and motor down to Pune. There, so goes the story, I had a hearty non-vegetarian lunch in the station's dining room run by Brandon & Company, if memory serves, and my health as well as my disposition were miraculously restored to normal. It was only in later life that I learned to eat vegetables with equanimity. Now while I enjoy mutton and fish immensely as before, the occasional vegetarian meal does not faze me. Given the food shortage that is staring Planet Earth in the mouth http://tinyurl.com/6mg2ln & http://tinyurl.com/69ca6f, I reckon we should all learn to eat frugally whatever we get and be grateful for our good fortune in getting it. Also, we must put an end to all the gourmet razzmatazz forthwith. Water to grow rice is surely more important than water to grow grapes for wine.

Inside job?

In most cases, I’m wary of conspiracy theories. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/06/whats-your-favourite-conspiracy-theory.html. But when a well-known and well respected professor of nuclear physics who ought to know his implosions from his explosions offers a ‘controlled demolition’ hypothesis, I don’t know. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones. [Want a quick summary of the top 10 conspiracy theories, go here: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=735. Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories.] Urban Indians, Mumbaikars in particular, who take a very sentimental view of all things American staunchly object to the conspiracy theory for the following reason. Would they do it to their own people? Would they make their own folks miserable? Would they attack Truth, Justice and the American Way (what Superman now calls “all that stuff”)? http://trueaspect.blogspot.com/2004/10/truth-justice-and-american-way.html. Of course, they would. If they had a strong enough motive. If they could conjure a neo Pearl Harbour in order to justify a take-over of the Middle East oilfields, for instance. Or, if they could whip up enough popular support for their dream of restoring the US of A to the greatness and world leadership that, in their estimation, it is destined for. To hell with who gets hurt in the process, boys and girls. See how General Motors – which used to be a power unto itself at that point of time – systematically destroyed the California Transit Systems in the forties. http://www.trainweb.org/mts/ctc/ctc06.html. The Prophet of Progress had the best of motives at heart. You guessed it: the profit motive. “Kerosene was poured on the streetcars and electric trains and they were burned, except a few placed in museums. Nothing was left of the transit system which had comprised 1479 streetcars and train cars and 771 trolley buses. Even the subway was made unusable by a future subway line.” Also: “…what was once a private company, making profit and paying taxes, eventually became both government owned and government subsidized, after GM destroyed both its efficiency and its customer base. This process was repeated in other of GM's transit operations in California. The transit companies also had owned much of the property under their tracks, and paid property taxes which roads never paid.” And: “Taxpayers to this day are burdened with subsidizing bus systems. To a much greater extent, they are burdened with subsidizing automobiles whose numbers are far greater than if the electric systems – with streetcars, trains and trolley buses – had remained intact.” Want another example? Read what happened to “the hapless and desperate victims of the Dust Bowl seeking work in California (much like the Joad family in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath attracted to California, portrayed as ‘the land of milk and honey’ in the bogus ads for fruit pickers placed in Oklahoma newspapers in order to drive down the minimum wages)”. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/06/us-and-them.html.

Okay, everybody. Let's belt it with gusto:

“I like to be in America!
O.K. by me in America!
Ev'rything free in America
For a small fee in America!”

And:

“Automobile in America,
Chromium steel in America,
Wire-spoke wheel in America,
Very big deal in America!”

Moreover:

“Immigrant goes to America,
Many hellos in America;
Nobody knows in America
Puerto Rico's in America!”

Once more with feeling, boys and girls:

“I like the shores of America!
Comfort is yours in America!
Knobs on the doors in America,
Wall-to-wall floors in America!”
http://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/w/westsidestorylyrics/americalyrics.html.

Us and them.

Every time the talk turns to keeping people out of Mumbai and driving the ‘aliens’ back to where they belong (and it has been happening more and more frequently of late), I’m reminded of the notorious international precedent for such a course of action. Where do you think it occurred? In the magnificent bastion of freedom and democracy, no less. The hapless and desperate victims of the Dust Bowl seeking work in California (much like the Joad family in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath attracted to California, portrayed as ‘the land of milk and honey’ in the bogus ads for fruit pickers placed in Oklahoma newspapers in order to drive down the minimum wages) were deported from Los Angeles by the police. The Los Angeles Examiner, 8 February 1936, featured this event under the photo caption “And Don’t Come Back!” The report said inter alia: “Facing an influx of thousands of undesirables, Los Angeles police are taking drastic action. Here the ‘unwanted’ are being deported by train. Courts are questioning the rights of police to bar them.” Now that we’re taking a cue from The Empire in everything from lifestyle to morals to junk foods, maybe the day is not far when the Los Angeles high drama is re-enacted right here in our railway and bus terminals. http://www.losangelesalmanac.com/topics/history/hi01g.htm (Read the entry under ‘1936’.)