F.A. Farm

Recently I posted an intentional slogan/soundbite on the Transition Whatcom site. It started with "Diversity, diversity, diversity" and went on to list a few new crops we might want to try up here in the Fourth Corner - okra, figs, etc. The post ended with the same slogan/soundbite/catch phrase, "Diversity, diversity, diversity. [The Transition Whatcom site is proving to be a valuable tool. If you are interested, the link to the main page is: http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/.]

Back in the 60's and early 70's, slogans and cliches were important - Make Love Not War, Free Angela, End the War Now, Every Soldier is a Prisoner of War, etc. Coupled with a can of spray paint, it was a way to let other "heads" know there were more of us around and to remind everyone else that antiauthoritarianism was still alive and well, even though it had been driven underground by Nixon's thugs and his supporters in local police departments. Today the constant battle for "hearts and minds" (Remember that one?) still goes on but many people are so numbed by the soundbite culture of TV that everything washes over them. The sloganeering of the 60's itself contributed to the soundbite culture, simply because it was effective. Now soundbites are a main component of what passes for news and even common discourse. Those of us outside the mainstream still use them, although we use different media nowadays to get our message across. The principle remains the same.

I use soundbites myself. Trying to limit myself to easily digestible sentences helps tighten up my writing. It is similar to Hemingway's dictum, "First, write a simple true sentence; then write another one." [Disclaimer: The actual quote is, "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know. So finally, I would write a true sentence and go on from there. It was a wonderful feeling when I had worked well."] So, since we are stuck in the soundbite culture, let's try and make it interesting. Perhaps a "diversity" of soundbites.

To crib an idea from the realtors (location, location, location), we need "diversity, diversity, diversity" to counter the climate volatility that is part and parcel of global warming/climate change. It is unlikely the Obama administration will actually show leadership on climate change at Copenhagen in December, and many people are starting to see this summit as a watershed event. By January, it should be clear the responsibility is up to all of us. We will just have to mitigate the effects as well as we can. In the field, diversity in crops helps mitigate climate swings and local weather blips. If my green beans are no good this year, perhaps my tomatoes will have a bumper crop and take up the slack. If I cannot grow wheat this year, perhaps my triticale will give me enough grain to get by on flatbread and quasi-vollkorn loaves until next year.

Back in my undergraduate years, I heard a good comment from one of my instructors about eugenics; "If you try to improve the species by getting rid of the unfit individuals, you lose the inherent diversity they bring to the gene pool." Concise, compact, coherent. The analogy to our monocropping mania should be apparent. If you try to grow miles and miles of corn by getting rid of all the weeds and insects, you lose the inherent diversity that keeps natural predators and symbiots onsite and doing their job. I try to crush the GMO arguments with a similar argument, "Genetically-modified organisms have not been put under phenotypic pressure. They are dangerous because they have not been subjected to natural selection."

Of course, using soundbites always runs the risk of being misunderstood. However, consider their lesser ability to be taken out of context. The essence of soundbite is that it is largely self-contained. We can use this to our advantage.