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Pravda-on-the-Hudson Gets Spoofed
Every once in a while, some clever charlatan takes Pravda-on-the-Hudson to the cleaners. And what better day for a bit of mischief along these lines than Mother’s Day!
This is what Jennifer Grayson — who passes herself off as “environmental journalist” and claims to be writing a book called Unlatched “about the breastfeeding controversy” — did today. Here is how she begins:
How’s this as a gesture of love for the woman who bore you? Chop off the reproductive organ of a plant and send it to her in a box tied up with a pretty bow.
No, it’s not a weird botanical twist on the van Gogh woo-a-girl-with-a-severed-ear legend. It is what millions of us (67 percent of those celebrating the holiday) will compulsorily do to mark Mother’s Day.
Ms. Grayson clearly knows the folks at Pravda. You can be a Jew. You can be a Catholic. But if you come to America and join the establishment, you will end up as a Puritan — appalled at the thought that somewhere somebody is having a good time.
You see, the horror that millions of us engage in on Mother’s Day is that we present the old dame with, you guessed it, flowers! In fact, Ms. Grayson tells us, we spend $2.4 billion on this endeavor. And, oh, the damage that we do!
The truth is that most flowers are organic only in the truest sense of that word: highly perishable and thus susceptible to decay, as well as vermin and disease. Up to 80 percent of the 5.6 billion stems of flowers sold in the United States each year are imported. Of those, 93 percent are grown thousands of miles away in production greenhouses in Colombia or Ecuador. And it takes an awful lot of energy and artificial tinkering to keep those flowers fresh.
First, they are saturated with a toxic cocktail of chemicals, many of which have been restricted or banned outright in the United States and Europe — including aldicarb, an insecticide responsible for the largest pesticide poisoning in U.S. history, in 1985, and methyl parathion, designated “one of the most toxic organophosphate pesticides” by the Environmental Protection Agency. The women who work under these conditions sometimes see their children suffer as a result of prenatal exposure. One study found that the children of Ecuadoran flower workers were at greater risk for neurological impairment and hypertension.
To preserve the blooms once they’re cut, they’re stored in an energy-guzzling refrigerated warehouse, flown via cargo plane to the United States, brought to yet another refrigerated warehouse to await distribution, and — just to tack on a bit more to the carbon footprint — shipped via refrigerated truck to your mom or to the refrigerated display case at the supermarket or florist. There, the flowers lie in wait for a harried son or daughter to grab en route to Mother’s Day brunch, where still another bouquet of imported flowers makes up the table’s centerpiece.
Add in the cellophane wrap, those annoying little plastic stem tubes and the bouquet’s fate a week later, emitting methane in a landfill, and you may have gotten a gift with a bigger carbon footprint than if you’d driven four hours in a Hummer to visit Mom in person. While it’s difficult to calculate the carbon footprint of a single bouquet, experts estimate that sending 100 million roses (the number believed to be given in the United States on Valentine’s Day, another big flower holiday) produces some 9,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from field to florist. The average American household has a carbon footprint of 48 tons a year.
I will say this for Ms. Grayson. It was a real feat to smuggle this send-up of liberal guilt past the censors at Pravda. If she really is writing a book on the breastfeeding controversy, it is likely to be a hoot.
Next year, perhaps, she can slip a piece in on the environmental damage done by the sacrifice of entire forests for the purpose of printing . . . Pravda-on-the-Hudson.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa: After posting this piece, I discovered that it had appeared in Pravda-on-the-Potomac, not in Pravda-on-the-Hudson, which suggests that one cannot tell one rag from the other.
Published in General
Where do people like this come from? This woman actually spent time coming up with this first world problem-esque, “there’s really nothing wrong in my bubble so I have to make something up and choke on it” garbage. I truly wish that people this narcissistic and perpetually aggrieved would seclude themselves and spare the rest of us their stupidity.
I’ve been known to make this observation myself, though generally around Valentine’s Day. Mmmm….. plant gonads….
I think you could sell a lot of flowers in certain markets just by marketing them like that…
So there’s something wrong with cutting off reproductive organs? Islamophobia is never acceptable, but especially not in our Newspaper of Record.
(smiling)
As a single father who has raised three and a half wonderful kids, Mother’s Day is always somewhat bitter-sweet.
I love and appreciate flowers. They are a symbol. In this world where people have so much trouble expressing themselves, flowers are a way to say something without using words; at weddings, anniversaries, funerals or even just when you want to say “thanks” or ‘i love you”.
There are too many words in the world. We need more flowers .
Chop off the reproductive organ . . .
Oh great, another Bruce Jenner story.
Wow! Transphobia on top of Islamophobia. This may require an irate letter to the editor.
I await an irate email from Ms. Grayson. If I get one, I will share it with you.
Little Shop of Horrors, the original 1960 Roger Corman version. There’s the guy who eats flowers.
Well done. But “Puritan” They were rather anti-establishment, particularly the American Puritans. It was the Anglican mainstream that wished to force everyone into a single, giant, unified confession, with all directives, and all hiring from a central office.
And their teaching was that God created the world for us to live and enjoy, even if they set the bar of virtuous living rather higher than others.
It might not be a coincidence that the Tafts and Coolidge have Congregational roots, and Woodrow Wilson was, as I recall, the son of a Southern Presbyterian minister.
For my own special narcissistic coming-out party, I’m going to change my name to Methyl Parathion. Or write his biography: Born in ancient Athens, he was first of the great talkshow hosts. Or spray it on the lawn outside the Diner. Feel…so…woozy…
I’m off the point, you say? She had a point? So, Scrooge had a point?
Anyone else reminded of Morticia cutting off roses and putting the stems in a vase in an the Addams family movie?
They have rendered themselves immune to satire by being too silly to mock.
Makes me wish I had driven 4 hours in a Hummer to pick up the flowers.
Oh my. I buy flowers every year, a dozen roses, plus the wife buys all kinds for the garden. We should be lined up against a wall and shot. I’ll keep an eye out for the Stasi.
And they’ll keep an eye out for you.
I beg your pardon. You promised there would be no rose garden . . .
Three and a half kids or is the 4th only half as wonderful?
To my shame, I have learned that this article was published in Pravda-on-the-Potomac, not in Pravda-on-the-Hudson. It just goes to show that you cannot tell the difference.
Wonder what she gave her mother today. Probably a Fitbit.
You may not be able to tell the diference, but I can. I get free shipping from Bezos for $99/year. I get nothing from Sulzberger.
Not that much. I’ve always liked Morticia, for one thing. Morticia had charm.
Morticia knew how to put a room together.
Do you speak French?
No.
I sometimes manage to fake it, though.
I’ve heard of people doing that.
The Department of Children’s (dis) Service gave me the fourth. it’s been a blessing.
Why don’t these people get shipped to Zimbabwe where they can experience the true organic life, free of any man made items? Really. This is just too stupid for words.
I’m sure that there are places much closer.
I just want to know what her book is about. A ginned-up “controversy” just like the rest of the Mommy Wars, no doubt.