SPIN THE BOTTLE

hard work and long days, not to mention getting dirty? In my worst, clearest moments I am
afraid the necessity of agriculture will not be
widely recognized without the sterner necessity
of actual hunger. For half a century or so, our
informal but most effective agricultural policy
has been to eat as much, as effortlessly,
as thoughtlessly, and as cheaply as we can,
to hell with whatever else may be involved.
Such a policy can of course lead to
actual hunger.
I
n Goethe’s Faust, the devil Mephistopheles
is fulfilling some of the learned doctor’s wishes
by means of witchcraft, which the doctor is
finding unpleasant. The witches cook up a
brew that promises to make him young, but
Faust is nauseated by it. He asks (this is Randall Jarrell’s translation):
not to love farming, have escaped it, for a
while at least, by turning it into an “agriindustry.” But agri-industry is a package containing far more than its label confesses. In
addition to an array of labor-saving or peoplereplacing devices and potions, it has given us
massive soil erosion and degradation, water
pollution, maritime hypoxic zones; destroyed
rural communities and cultures; reduced our
farming population almost to disappearance;
yielded toxic food; and instilled an absolute
dependence on a despised and exploited force
of migrant workers.
This is not, by any accounting, a bargain.
Maybe we have begun to see that it is not, but
we have only begun. We have ahead of us a lot
of hard work that we are not going to be able
to do with clean hands. We had better try to
love it.
Has neither Nature nor some noble mind
Discovered some remedy, some balsam?
Mephistopheles, who is a truth-telling devil,
replies:
[Strategy]
There is a natural way to make you young. . . .
Go out in a field
And start right in to work: dig, hoe,
Keep your thoughts and yourself in that field,
Eat the food you raise . . .
Be willing to manure the field you harvest.
And that’s the best way—take it from me!—
To go on being young at eighty.
Faust, a true intellectual, unsurprisingly objects:
Oh, but to live spade in hand—
I’m not used to it, I couldn’t stand it.
So narrow a life would not suit me.
And Mephistopheles replies:
Well then, we still must have the witch.
Lately I’ve been returning to that passage
again and again, and every time I read it I
laugh. I laugh because it is a piece of superb wit,
and because it is true. Faust’s idea that farm life
is necessarily “narrow” remains perfectly up to
date. And it is still true that to escape that alleged narrowness requires the agency of a supernatural or extrahuman power—though now,
for Goethe’s witchcraft, we would properly substitute industrial agriculture.
This process from witchcraft to industrial
agriculture does not seem to be especially
happy. We could be forgiven, I think, if we
find it horrifying. Farming does involve working hard and getting dirty. Faust, perhaps understandably, does not love it. To escape it, for
a while at least, he has only to drink a nauseating beverage concocted by witches. But we,
who have decided as a nation and by policy
16
SPIN THE BOTTLE
From minutes of a May 28 meeting of the BPA
Joint Trade Association. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a
compound commonly used in plastic bottles and
the linings of cans. Numerous studies have found
that even at low levels the chemical poses significant developmental risks to infants and fetuses;
high levels of BPA in adults are associated with
heart disease, diabetes, and breast and testicular
cancer. Last year, Canada banned the use of BPA
in baby bottles and Walmart announced that it
would cease selling baby products made with the
chemical in the United States. Although the Food
and Drug Administration has not imposed new
restrictions on the chemical, several states have
banned its use in certain products. The minutes,
taken by the North American Metal Packaging
Alliance, Inc., were obtained by the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel.
meeting goal: Develop potential communication/media strategies around BPA.
attending companies: Coca-Cola, Alcoa,
Crown, North American Metal Packaging Alliance, Inc., Grocery Manufacturers Association,
American Chemistry Council, Del Monte.
summary: Attendees discussed the need to be
more proactive in communications to media,
legislators, and the general public to protect
industries that use BPA, prolong the life of
BPA, put risks from chemicals in proper per-
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COURTESY THE ARTIST AND CAREN GOLDEN FINE ART, NEW YORK CITY
Pharaonic Camp, a mixed-media painting by Bradley Castellanos, whose work will be on exhibit in February at Marx & Zavattero Gallery,
in San Francisco.
spective, and transcend the media and the
blogosphere. Attendees believe a balance of
legislative and grassroots outreach (to young
mothers and students) is imperative to the stability of their industry; however, the association members continue to struggle to initiate
research and develop a clear-cut plan to defend their industry. Overall, the committee
seemed disorganized, and its members frustrated. Lack of direction from the committee and
these associations could continue to allow
other associations and environmental groups
to push BPA out.
other points: Attendees suggested using fear
tactics (e.g., “Do you want to have access to
baby food anymore?”) as well as giving control
back to consumers (e.g., “You have a choice:
the more expensive product that is frozen or
fresh, or foods packaged in cans”) as ways to
dissuade people from choosing BPA-free pack-
aging. Attendees noted, in the past, that the
different associations have had a reactive strategy with the media, with very limited proactive outreach to journalists. The committee
agrees they need to promote new, relevant content to get the BPA perspective into the media
mix. The committee believes industry studies
are tainted from the public perspective.
The committee doubts social-media outlets,
such as Facebook or Twitter, will work for positive BPA outreach. The committee wants to
focus on quality instead of quantity in disseminating messages (e.g., a young kid or pregnant
mother providing a positive quote about BPA,
a testimonial from an outside expert). Members noted that traditional media outreach has
become too expensive (they have already
spent hundreds of thousands of dollars) and
that the media is starting to ignore their side.
The committee doubts obtaining a scientific
spokesperson is attainable. Their “holy grail”
READINGS
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17
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[Denial]
THE SPLENDID
SPLINTERED
From an October 7 press release by the Alcor Life
Extension Foundation, a nonprofit organization in
Scottsdale, Arizona, that cryonically preserves members’ heads or bodies “with the intent of restoring good
health when technology becomes available to do so.”
On October 6, ABC’s Nightline investigated claims
by former Alcor employee Larry Johnson about the
company’s mishandling of the remains of baseball
player Ted Williams. The claims appeared in Johnson’s
book Frozen: My Journey into Cryonics, Deception
and Death, which was published that month.
spokesperson would be a “pregnant young
mother who would be willing to speak around
the country about the benefits of BPA.”
Members noted that the industry needs research on how perceptions of BPA are translating into consumer behavior. Are they translating into most moms not buying canned
products or just a minority of moms? Attendees hope to form messages relevant to how
people live their lives: What does not having
BPA mean to your daily lifestyle? Focusing on
the impact of BPA bans on minorities (Hispanics and African Americans) and the poor
is also important.
Attendees noted that it does not matter what
the next material is—there will be issues with
it, and the committee wants to work to make
people feel more comfortable with BPA and
“BPA2,” or whatever chemical comes next.
M
r. Johnson claims he witnessed Alcor staff
striking Ted Williams’s head with a wrench. Multiple documented witnesses state without hesitation
that Mr. Johnson’s claims are pure fabrication.
Johnson’s statements about tissue debris, tuna,
and cats are fictionalized accounts crafted for
maximum tabloid shock value, as is nearly the
entirety of his book.
Johnson alleged that Williams’s head was
stored in an unsafe, malfunctioning freezer. In
some instances, Alcor neuropatients have been
stored for as long as one year in a Cryostar freezer
at temperatures near –130° C. This is done for
purposes of relaxing thermal stress prior to final
descent to –196° C. The process is very expensive, so it has been done only in cases where patients requested and paid for it or on the recommendation of scientific advisers. Any statements
that the Cryostar was unsafe are either misinformed or assume the freezer was not equipped
with thermal-buffering or backup systems.
As to references to “cracking,” Johnson knows
full well that fracturing is expected in every cryopreservation and is an unavoidable result of cooling large volumes of tissue toward liquid-nitrogen
temperature. Mr. Johnson’s representations of
fracturing as the result of mishandling is deliberately misleading.
The sensationalized reference to the use of a
“hammer and chisel” in a cryopreservation demonstrates either Mr. Johnson’s ignorance or an effort to hoodwink the public. In a surgical context,
those instruments are called a “mallet and osteotome” and are commonly used by orthopedists.
Nightline asked in the lead-in to the segment,
“Is this self-styled whistle-blower just out to make
money?” The answer is a resounding yes.
18
[Preview]
MUTATIONS OF
IMMORTALITY
From an interview with Christian Bök, by Jonathan Ball, in the June issue of The Believer.
“Within Rigid Limits,” an excerpt from Bök’s book
Eunoia, appeared in the June 2006 issue of Harper’s Magazine.
Could you describe your next project?
The Xenotext Experiment is responding to the
millennial science of genetics. I’m trying to
write a book of poetry in which I translate a
single poem, through a process of encipherment, into a sequence of genetic nucleotides,
and then, with the assistance of scientists, I
plan to build this genetic sequence in a laboratory so that I can implant the gene into a
bacterium, replacing a portion of its genome
with my text. The bacterium would, in effect,
be the poem. I’ve selected an organism that is
widely regarded to be the most unkillable bacterium on the planet, an organism called
Deinococcus radiodurans. Its name means
“strange berry that withstands radiation.” The
organism was discovered, I believe, in the
1950s, when scientists were conducting experiments with radiation on foodstuff, primarily
meat, in order to see whether or not they
could prolong the shelf life of tinned food.
The irradiated meat, however, still rotted, despite having received a dosage sufficient to kill
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