The sanctity of Food.

As an organism we require a thick slurry of nutrients to sustain our active lifestyle. A regular infusion of proteins, carbohydrates, sugars, salts and water to satisfy our hungers. In this age of tight schedules and taut abs such sustanance is a bother and a nuisance.

Good food takes so much time shopping and preparing and cooking and presenting. Fastfood goes right to tummies, toochies, thighs and hips.

As a culture we have turned the most elementa, intimate, sacred practice of eating into some behavior to be shunned and spurned. When we have vilified food (the preparation and eating) we have fractured the very foundation of human values. Almost every human or social process, with the possible exception of procreation or religion, originates in the hunting, gathering, cooking and consumption of food.

Why then are pantries and refrigerators barren?

Why are kitchens often the smallest room in a living space? Often smaller than the bathroom.

Why do people ritualistically partake of food in much the same way they attend church, only once a week?

Americans are afraid of the dark...

The local utility company installed new electrical service in our rural neighborhood. When all the utility poles were placed the last one ended up in the middle of our next door neighbor's front yard. High up on this last pole is an extra electrical instrument, a street light.

The utility company convinced our neighbor of the value and economy of a street light in the middle of their front yard. Accepting the promise of personal security our neighbor will push back the darkness. Employing a sodium-vapor torch our neighbor will seek to defeat the night.

The light that combats their feared darkness will spill into our yard. It will contaminate the night shade of our yard. It will pollute our night sky. It will obscure our view of the night time heavens.
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Fly anywhere in the continental United States and be impressed (and frightened) by the number of street lights illuminating HUGE expanses of our nightscape.

We are a nation of such riches that we can afford to buy off our fears and paranoia.

How much energy could we save as a nation if we were not afraid of the dark?