Blaming Bush for “The Bank Troubles”

I was growing up in rural Ireland when the Russians first put their Sputnik spacecraft into space, and, my aunt started blaming everything bad that happened on the Russians. If we had bad weather, small potatoes in our yard, a cranky cow, or chickens who laid few eggs-she used to blame it all on the Sputnik. This was very amusing to me of course because I had endless fun imagining little Russian astronauts sending morse code radio signals to our chickens who dutifully decoded them in our barnyard and stopped laying eggs as instructed by the (Source) Russians!

Now that we are in the middle of “The Troubles/Unusual Times”, it seems you would not be a human if you were not looking for someone to blame. So, as expected, we have millions of people looking around for a “blamee”. Some say its “the Prez”, others,”The Fedz”, and the End Timers blame, “The Force“.

Now I ask you, what effect are these blame thought waves having on the eco system? In 1968 researchers at Temple Buell College, Colorado, measured the effects of music on plants. They exposed them to different tones and frequencies. Their findings were amazing! Exposure to heavy metal music made the plants tilt in the opposite direction or die, whereas classical music lulled the plants to lean toward the speakers. Are we not thinking heavy metal right now? (more).

But how can we stop ourselves? On Black Monday, October 19, 1987. the Stock Market crashed. Nobody knows why it happened. My aunt, in a characteristically euphemistic way called it a Stock Market Bump, and as usual, blamed it on the Sputniks. Although I do not believe in challenging my elders about their theories of the universe, blaming it on the Russians 35 years after the Sputnik was launched into space was too much and I said so. She smiled at me and said “better to send the blame into space than keep it on the ground”. Good point!

A couple of months ago we planted Passion Fruit vines. I love the way they grow-the flowers look like tiny replicas of radio telescopes and in full bloom the flowers on vines become array antennae like those at SETI in New Mexico. They are so adaptable to their environment and have such lovely leaves. And perhaps beam out the blame and receive back energy and optimism to rise to new challenges? Brenda created a beautiful sign using one of the flowers as a template. As you can see, the sign says “We Grow Passion Fruit, We Grow Passion, We Grow.”

Home Grown Food Network is based on the belief that we can grow together, even while “under siege by Sputniks”.

Peter Naughton, Manager, Home-Grown Food Network