Day 9
The hotel desk lady informed us upon our departure this morning that the local Police Department had come out last night because of our car.
To have their pictures made with it!!!
That was a good way to start our day.
Today was a driving day all the way through West Virginia to Richmond VA. We were passing through coal country and by huge processing facilities and mountain top removal ranges. (MTR sites extend only to the top edge of an area where it cannot be seen by people driving down the high-way, but often you can see suspiciously bald ridge-lines; these are often at the edge of an MTR mining site.)
It was a bleak and dreary type day, leaving us with a lot to think about. We can pretend that food issues and dirty energy aren’t related, but that fact is, a broken system powered by he who has the most money is an entangled web. Our food system, where its cheaper to buy fruit from South America than from your local farmer, is tied up in agricultural and fuel subsidies alike. Our current agricultural system is powered by dirty energy and contributing to climate change. Period.
At one point, we were running out of fuel, and we nervously pulled off the highway onto a country side road to fill up. With lots of eyes on us we pulled up to the little county store gas station. To our surprise everyone loved us! Roughneck county roads-workers pulled up in their giant truck to chat and take pictures. The knew about GMOs and boasted, “We grow REAL corn here!”. Although the chances of that are pretty slim, we appreciated their support and enthusiasm. One woman pulled off the road, to take Fishy Corn’s picture and shake our hands. It was great to talk to the folks there before driving on.
We arrived in Richmond in the afternoon. Its a much larger city than we were expecting, but much cooler too. We met up with our host at One Tribe art space, a local store front, art studio and gathering space in an old coffee building near the river. We had dinner at an Urban Farm cafe and then headed over to set up for the event. We planned a seed-bomb creation workshop and film screening of Jeffery Smith’s Genetic Roulette (watch it HERE). Seed bombs are balls of clay and soil with seeds inside. You can just toss them out as your walk, bike or drive to plant edible food everywhere you go! We had a great turn out and we all sat in the floor laughing and making seed-bombs and watching the movie. It was some of the most fun I’ve had on our trip, and it felt especially good because people had come out specifically to gather around the issue.
It was a great night and we’ll be staying with a dear friend in Richmond before driving the final 2 hours to DC in the morning to rally at the White House. Here we go!!!
P.S.
Ben and I have been practicing this in the car. Written by and rights owned by the creative genius, Jonathan Youtt:
There’s a new freak in town, but you may not have yet heard
Because they don’t need to tell us or give us their word
They are GMOs from a freaky science vision
They are Genetically Modified Organisms
Combining plants, chemicals, and viruses together
To create something new but I have to ask whether
Or not these new things are put through a test
All we hear from their scientists is that they are the best
If they are so safe then why don’t they label
the products in stores that wind up on our table
and why are they not allowed in some other countries
they are testing on us without scrutiny
Some GMOs are sterile and won’t produce new seed, They can’t
They force the farmers to purchase next years to plant
But nature has provided seeds to give life
To create next years crop without any such strife
GMOs are no Good, they are just FrankenFOOD
No good for anything from crops, plants or wood
They should stop messing with nature, just keep things organic
Stop tampering with Earth and creating such a panic
Cause Nature knows all for thousands of years
we dont want our future to be full of tears
or what was created – a Freakshow of Greed
These are things that NObody Needs
We can start with a label cause, we need to know
so we can make choices to avoid GMOs
then people will learn the truth about Monsanto
Our dollars will say NO to this GMO Freakshow.
WE got a right to know – we got a right to know
we got a right to label these GMOs
You got a right to know - you got a right to know
you got a right to label these GMOs
