Island Guardian

Wednesday, November 23rd

You Are What You Eat (Turkey)

That's my girl. I saw her video on the Internet. Wow! Can she ever shake her fine tail feather! She's beautiful with big breasts. She's a farm girl from good stock and she enjoys spending her free-range time outdoors. She eats only organic hormone free foods. She's never been on drugs and she is disease-free. She showed up at my door naked. Not a feather on her. She is my Thanksgiving Day hen turkey.

That's right. You can order this kind of bird for about $10 dollars per pound delivered to your door. They even send you a copy of her family history and document her life up until the final day. But is this too much information for some people's appetites? I'm going with a "yes" on this one.

Thanksgiving food traditions are changing with the times. The variety of turkey options available is astounding. You can even opt for a turkey-shaped chunk of tofu (whatever melts your butter).

In this information age food trends are heading in a new direction. People are demanding to know more about the food they eat. Today you can have as much information as you want about your meal. No more guessing about the "mystery meat" in the hot dog. Whatever happened to the blind taste test?

Gone are the days when Dad said, "let's pull on that thing hanging under the cow and drink what comes out". Or the kid who said, "let's break open and fry-up that thing that just rolled out of that chicken's butt!"

If we didn't take some risks life would be boring, right? At least we would not have milk and eggs for example (and possibly oysters). But sadly, the days of experimenting seem to be over.

Consumers nowadays are not taking any chances with their food. Many restaurants have narrowed their menu choices to feature only organic, free-range, grass-fed, hormone free, beef, pork, and poultry. This may be good for us but I find that the flavor is conspicuously missing and my jaw cramps-up from chewing after awhile.

I also have a difficult time enjoying food that I have intimate knowledge of. For instance I really don't want to know my turkey's name, breast size, or where she spent her final days. I don't want to make a pet out of my prime rib either. I really don't care what my dinner did before it was served. I find it is more appetizing and enjoyable to eat things that I know less about. So if I am what I eat then I am a big stuffed juicy anonymous Butterball turkey (with all the trimmings).
Happy Thanksgiving!

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Thursday, November 10th

The Sticky Label Nuisance

I really don't like those sticky labels on fruit. Have you ever been making a big bowl of guacamole or a fruit salad and look at yourself only to find one of these stickers stuck in your hair, one on your sweater, several stuck to your face? They are on every avocado, and lime, and every piece of fruit and most vegetables you buy. Sometimes there are clumps of these little rascals stuck to one piece of fruit.

I like to peel them off because I compost the leftover organic stuff. Even though I'm careful to pull them off and stick them to the refrigerator or to the counter for my wife to pick off and throw away, I still miss a few and find them years later in the garden when I spade it up. They refuse to decompose.

The labels are not easy to remove. Sometimes only a portion of the label will tear away leaving a nasty piece that resists any further effort to pull it off unless you bruise the fruit or peel off some of the skin. Some labels will tear off but leave glue on the fruit that won't wash off. They are a nuisance.
It is especially annoying to find these sticky labels boasting that my produce is organic. You can tell you made a responsible choice by that tiny label made from petroleum or an old growth tree dyed with toxic ink using sticky adhesive made from ground-up old horses.
I tried to get to the bottom of the sticky label conspiracy. As a humor columnist it is my job to find the answers to troubling questions such as:

Who sticks these labels on? Is this some ones' actual job? I wanted to understand how come sometimes a piece of fruit would have a big clump of labels stuck to it while others are virtually naked. I pictured Lucy and Ethel standing by a conveyor belt sticking on labels as the fruit goes by. I was incorrect. According to the experts automated systems are used to stick the labels on, not Lucy and Ethel.
Why do we need the labels? Here is what the Produce Marketing association says, "As much as we may dislike them, the stickers or labels attached to fruit speed up the scanning process at checkout. Cashiers no longer need to distinguish a Fuji apple from a Gala apple, a prickly pear from a horned melon, or a grapefruit from an ugli fruit." This is so lame!

Why can't today's checkers identify fruit? They did it for the last several hundred years before sticky labels were invented. The print on these sticky labels is so small checkers can't read them without a microscope anyway. And can anyone remember when checkout has actually been speedy? The best way I have found to speed up a checker is to pass gas then look at the person in front of me in line with disgust and fan my face. That is the only way I have found to get the checkout line moving faster.
Why are labels so hard to remove? Sometimes the challenge of taking off labels is similar to removing the plastic wrap from a new CD or breaking into a bottle of Tylenol. You practically need the "jaws of life" to do it. Retailers insist that the labels should be next to impossible to remove making it harder for potential theives to re-label a high-priced fruit with the label from a cheaper variety. However if the clerks were trained in produce identification we would not have a security problem and the entire sticky label industry would go away.

Can we stop this sticky label nuisance? No. Unlike me, I think some people actually like the labels. They are collectable. You can buy fruit sticker collections on EBay. And as long as manufacturers and retailers are fond of them and checkers are only required to have a pulse to get hired we are literally stuck with them for now.
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Wednesday, November 2nd

Pesky Wabbits!

They came to establish a colony. "They had persuaded a whole lot of rabbits-bucks as well as does-to leave their warren and come to the sandy place where they meant to start a new one of their own. Somewhere out there on the sunset side . . . . It mustn't be anywhere near men's houses or gardens: that's very important. And we need a dry place, where digging's going to be easy. What would be perfect would be a bank on the edge of a copse where men don't come much and there are few bushes to conceal the holes." (Tales From Watership Down, Richard Adams)

Thus the rabbits came to the San Juan Island prairie in 1880. Over time the stock grew and new and improved rabbits were introduced to strengthen the gene pool. The population flourished. Rabbits were hunted and exported from the island. Some years saw the slaughter and export of 50-80 thousand rabbits to nearby markets. Fox were imported to try and control the herds. Birds of prey such as owls, hawks, falcon, osprey and eagles ate their fill of rabbits. But they have stubbornly hung on and continued to blissfully breed and multiply.

Now rabbits have the attention of a much more dangerous predator, the U.S. Government. I want to talk about the proposed mass annihilation of the local breed of white-tailed European rabbits by our National Park Service. I'm talking about the introduction of lethal gases into the underground burrows of our beloved bunnies to snuff out their lives for the crime of colonizing the wild prairies at the southern tip of San Juan Island. We must destroy that Shangri-La on the sunset-side where digging is easy because we just can't let nature go wild now, can we?

Here are the facts according to the Park Superintendent:
The rabbits are non-native. They are considered pests. Currently their numbers in the park are estimated at 3,000. They were introduced in the 1880's. They are causing damage to the archeological and cultural resources of the National Park at American Camp.

A rare and unusual prairie exists in the Park. The rabbits are destroying it. The National Park Service would like to restore and protect this habitat by re-establishing rare plants and allowing the natural processes to take over. This exceptional grass and dune habitat is important for the Island Marble Butterfly. This species is threatened and is being considered for placement on the endangered species list. Rabbits are not endangered. These are just the facts.

So, American Camp is the battlefield once again in another war over animals. First it was the Pig War. Now war has been declared on bunnies in order to save the habitat for an endangered butterfly (remember it is an ugly worm-looking caterpillar for half it's life). This confluence of events sets the stage for a battle royale between environmentalists and themselves. The Ecology Now! crowd vs. P.E.T.A. Can the environmental movement survive?

It will be a schizophrenic war. Some will have their feet in both camps at the same time. There is a tiny green angel on each shoulder whispering, "We mustn't kill bunnies." Psst? Over here, "We must save the butterflies and the prairie habitat!" What a dilemma!

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1972 defines the public process. The Park Service will present a list of alternatives to the public. Doing nothing will not be on the list. Importing more predators has been tried and as a result we have more predators. Cross that one off the list.

I have seen this "alternative" process play out before. The Park officials will hide the preferred solution among several silly options to make you think you are choosing the only one that makes sense. I predict the alternatives will look something like this:

1) Stage a pig war reenactment where hunters dress up in 1870's war uniforms and hunt rabbits with muzzle-loaders until they are extinct (good for tourism).
2) The Navy will shell the area from battleships in Haro Straight for target practice thus eliminating the rabbits (great for tourism).
3) Bring in Trappiste Monks to trap and re-locate the rabbits to Afghanistan (their name implies they are good trappers plus they make outstanding beer). And finally,
4) Gas them.
Please pick from the above list.

Stay with me while I look into the future and make a few more predictions. Concentrating now, I see chaos at the public hearings. There are P.E.T.A. people wearing gas masks. They are singing songs and carrying signs. Someone is dressed up as the grim reaper with a scythe and everything (me). Someone will let loose hundreds of butterflies. People will blame Bush and compare him to Hitler. And my final prediction, drum roll please, the bunnies will survive!

But seriously, what are the chances of successfully killing off all the bunnies in gas chambers? If a rabbit can burrow 20 meters a year and some warrens are at least 30 years old then some bunnies could be near China by now. That could put them way out of lethal gas range. If they were introduced once before what is to stop someone from tossing a pair of bunny newlyweds over the park fence to start over in the sandy place where digging is easy?

Has anyone ever successfully fenced out rabbits? I have a garden and I admit I have failed at this. Believe me, I have tried. I think it has to do with the gate. How will the park staff keep their gate closed when there are hundreds of visitors every day (half of them rabbits)? How will the birds and foxes that depend on rabbits for food survive? I look forward to the future chaos. You can buy tickets to the public hearings in advance on my website www.gobunnyhumpers.com.

(Gordy graduated with honors from Seattle Pacific University with a useless degree in Philosophy. He attended Theological Seminary but dropped out just before graduating. He was a big disappointment to his friends and family because of this. Instead he has spent most of his life sequestered in the remote San Juan Islands where he has survived by fishing, hunting rabbits, gathering wild fruits, and growing vegetables. He once owned a small chain of grocery stores in the islands. He has served on many committees and held elected office but few ever take his writing seriously.
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