If this quote makes no sense to you PLEASE go watch the documentary "King Corn".
It's not a new film but one that, for whatever reason, I hadn't gotten around to seeing until a few days ago. Towards the end of Shedfest (Salida, CO's local harvest fest - see previous post), there was a free screening in the lovely theatre inside of The Steamplant. I was literally moved to tears.
Along the same lines as Food Inc., but maybe not quite as graphic, King Corn teaches us about America's #1 crop.....and how it is ruining our lives. The movie begins with two recently graduated college students looking for a project. Somehow they find out that by testing a piece of your hair you can find out what your diet consists of. Sounds stupid right? You know what you eat. Well.....these guys were shocked to learn that a VERY large percentage of their diet was corn-based. How could that be? And a year long video project begins.....
The boys (who in an odd twist of fate have great-grandfather's from the same small Iowa town) move to that small Iowa town and rent one acre of farm-land so that they can follow a corn crop from seed to showing up in your hair. What they encounter along the way is heart-warming, heart-breaking, disgusting, disturbing, funny and sad - all at the same time.
Old Mr. Pyatt is a highlight of the film. He is the farmer who rents the boys an acre and subsequently becomes a corn and farm life mentor. His family had been on that same land for 6 generations. He was born in that house. By the end of the movie - he'd been forced out. That's when I cried.
But it's not all sad. And it's definitely eye-opening! Check it out!
A Zen Thought for today -
"Religions always talk about love. But to a Buddhist, love is second-rate - if that. Compassion is far more important. Compassion is the ability to see what needs doing right now and the willingness to do it right now." - Brad Warner
Isn't it incredible the lengths this culture has gone to chasing after absurd amounts of quantity over quality.
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