Let’s revisit cow poop.
In an earlier post (“Soil vs. Sadness” http://storiesofsoil.blogspot.com/2014/08/soil-vs-sadness.html
) I mused on Mycrobaccterium vaccae—bacterium found in soil, originating in cow
dung and that may be helpful in fighting depression. That was back in the
beginnings of Ferguson. After the latest non-indictment, I want some
Mycrobaccterium vaccae more than ever.
On the other hand, I want to make sure that cow crap doesn’t
steal the spotlight. Dung of all kinds has had an important historical presence
in American life. It would be myopic to tip a hat to only the bullshit in America.
Particularly in politics and policies, poop has had an
important role. There’s lots of crap for us to consider. I shit you not. For
serious. Hear me out.
Take, for example, the Guano Islands Act of 1856. In the
1850’s America was all about the magic of bird and bat crap. ‘Merica passed an
Act allowing us to take any guano from any unpopulated (unaffiliated with a
government) island.
This happened on over 100 islands. We could also kinda sorta
take the island along with the guano. Kevin Underhill argues that this
particular piece of history is important in that it helped set precedents for appropriation
or seizure of “unincorporated areas” or “insular areas.”
That’s not all. This history of “bring on the poop! We need
more poop!” led to our chemical fertilizer mindset. Years later we call
chemical farming “conventional farming,” and nonchemical farming “organic.”
These words don’t make sense. That’s a smaller, yet significant, ripple from
the Guano Islands Act.
Furthermore, the science behind Interstellar that scares me
is about the desertification of soil. Whether or not the 5th
dimension is a load of crap isn’t really the point. WHY DOESN’T SOME BLOGGER
WRITE ABOUT THE HISTORY OF COLONIALISM, POOP, RACISM and CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS
IN THAT MOVIE? IS THAT NOT A RELATIVE DIMENSION TO THE FILM?
So why not pay attention to the shape of the dung shaped
laws. The dung shaped stuff shapes other things, too. Let’s think about their
histories, and where we’ve spread them. Sometimes the things at the heart of it
are a load of crap. Literally.
More on the Guano Islands Act:
My puppy with bird guano on his head. Unstaged, untouched,
and uncensored:
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