The wrong grass

In about twenty-four hours, I will be standing—and likely sweating—in a cardboard box, marking my ballot. I’ll fold the ballot, and drop it in a cardboard box. My finger will have been checked to assure that it hasn’t been dipped in ink. The polls will close, and members of all political parties will count by hand the ballots. They will all sign off on the vote.

Here’s the good news—we have elections as clean as mountain spring water.

Here’s the bad news. My cousin in Norway voted for president by absentee ballot.

I cannot.

Nor can some one million American citizens who reside in Puerto Rico.

Nothing to do with being Puerto Rican—Raf could vote in Florida and Wisconsin when he lived there. But—so goes the rationale—since Puerto Rico doesn’t pay federal taxes, we don’t get to vote in federal elections.

Goes a little beyond that. It seems that we are not protected by the entire constitution.

Seems a bit Orwellian, doesn’t it? Some of us are more equal than others….

What we can do, however, is shed blood for our country. And we have consistently, since the First World War. It was startling to me, when I first realized the nature of the scheme.

Our political and ruling classes trade the blood of poor Puerto Ricans for American greenbacks, many of which go into their pockets.

This is a level of cynicism I didn’t expect.

Nor is it a trivial question.

Remember W.?

You wouldn’t, if we had voted in 2000.

And now we got a guy running for president who doesn’t believe in global warming, despite the fact that it’s not just been studied but is now being lived. Try getting to the bottom of Manhattan by subway.

Oh, and it’s been a week since the storm.

We got a guy and a party that would turn back time about half a century on women’s rights and gay rights. We got a guy whose grandfather was a polygamist and who pretty much thinks the same way gramps did.

Nancy votes, Marc doesn’t.

Well, well—no one reads a blog to hear a rant. So here’s the good news.

Bamboo!

It turns out that bamboo creates the same degree of fanaticism as the UFO guys and the JFK conspiracy freaks. 

Friends, we’ve been growing the wrong kind of grass!

Our lawns are ecological disasters. We turn the lakes green due to the fertilizers we have to put on the lawns. They require enormous amounts of water. You can’t eat it.

Bamboo, on the other hand, consumes pollution. It can grow anywhere except in deserts. You can eat it. It can grow, in optimal conditions, three feet a day! And it can be used in construction, as a food for chickens (the leaves) and most importantly, for fuel.

Africa is losing a lot of forest—people are cutting trees for fuel. Bamboo, on the other hand, makes a decent charcoal, and grows back quickly. Trees, once cut, are gone.

I think it’s a tremendous idea.

Now—why can’t I vote?